Inside the Mind of Suz

I have a very addictive relationship with DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse). I have yet to go into that store and leave with less than 3 pairs of shoes. They’re of such great quality and the price is just too good to pass up.

I always stayed safe from the store, during hard times, because the location I always go to is over by my beloved Easton Mall and I’m a lazy ass bitch. DSW didn’t have an online store, either, so I was safe. Online shopping is one of my weaknesses.

I just checked my email and saw that DSW now has an online store!! I’m sooooo in trouble y’all!

Give me strength!

The sudden cold weather has kept me in the house longer than I thought it would. If it had been gradual, I think I would still be running without interruption. But since Mother Nature likes to mess with me, it was another one of those practically overnight 20+ degree drops.

Well, I still haven’t signed up for that Halloween 5k I mentioned last month. Having my training interrupted didn’t help either. So, I’m about to go running now, no matter what! I have to see how I feel when running for 30 minutes.

It’s going to be much warmer on Friday, the day of this 5k, so if I feel good tonight, then I may just show up and enter the race in person. We’ll see!

ETA: So I got my run in about half an hour after I published this post. I guess it felt ok. I was a little “winded” during the last 8-10 minutes, but not to the point where I was considering stopping and walking. It was more a feeling that the run wasn’t as smooth as before. I don’t know if that’s because I went a week without getting in a run or because it was a little cold out.

I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to do that 5k Friday or not. I’m considering driving up to Ann Arbor to see the U-M swim team face Indiana and Texas Fri. & Sat., but I’m not certain on that either. I have some decisions to make tomorrow!

I heart her.

Windows continues to be my 1 and only enemy these days.

After the debacle with my external hard drive — which ended up being far more complicated & expensive than just uninstalling Service Pack 3 — I now can’t use Internet Explorer 7.

I’ve explained before why I lean on IE more than Firefox. It’s the CTRL+O shortcut. Nothing more and nothing less. In both browsers, the shortcut opens a window to “open” something, but only in IE does that window allow you to open a url and not just a file. I give some of my “Favorites” very short names. For instance, to access the CuteNews admin section for SwimStars.org, I used the name “swim”. I can CTRL+O, type in swim and voila! I don’t always want to scroll down my infinite list of Bookmarks to find these things. My CTRL+O shortcut is so fast and so clean and I refuse to live without it, damnit!

So after I uninstalled Service Pack 3, my “menu bar” for IE completely disappeared. The Menu bar is the top bar that has the “File Edit View Favorites Tools Help” options at the top. I depend on a lot of those items as well.

After scouring the internet for possible solutions (lots of others had this particular problem as well), and uninstalling and reinstalling both IE7 and IE8 nothing changed. So I am now back to IE6, which is incredibly “buggy”. Sometimes right-clicking commands don’t work like they should and there are no tabs. Man, I miss tabs!

So Bill Gates and Microsoft are really on my shit list now…as if they weren’t already. It’s all so frustrating!

What’s done, you ask?

Just me moving my summer wardrobe to the basement and bringing back up my winter gear. It was really depressing saying goodbye to all my cute tanks, skirts, and dresses.

I really don’t know why people like cold weather clothing so much. Not only do you have to pay more and get fewer items, but they just don’t make you look as sexy. I guess the grass is always greener…

Warm weather clothes FTW.

I’m going to buy myself some turtle necks (for layering), solid sweaters, and a pair of gray cords and that’ll be about it. It’s sad, but I have to get my cords from Delia’s because I can’t find affordable ones that actually fit my body anywhere else. It’s also funny because I have to go up like 2-3 sizes for their stuff. I actually have some curves that their main demo (teenagers) really don’t nowadays. I mean, have you been to a mall lately? These girls have no hips, asses, or anything! WHAT HAPPENED?!?!

If I had more $$, I would be looking at getting a Mac right about now. I am so frustrated with Windows and Microsoft.

They recently released their Service Pack 3 update for Windows XP and it’s wreaking havoc on my computer set-up. My entire livelihood is on my Maxtor external hard drive. Ever since I installed SP3, Windows won’t recognize my external drive.

When I start-up, XP stalls on a black screen and requires an immediate reboot before it will fully load. That immediate reboot isn’t needed when my external drive isn’t connected to my computer.

I’ve googled my issue, and it seems many other people are having the same problems. I tried some of the “fixes” that are out there on the message boards. It worked for 1 day, then XP went right back to not recognizing my drive.

I did 4 reboots today an never got XP to see my external drive. Even when I booted up without a connected external drive, it didn’t load after Windows had completely started.

I had no choice but to uninstall Service Pack 3. If you haven’t installed SP3 yet — and rely heavily on an external hard drive — I’d take a pass on this “upgrade”. It’s not worth it.

Also, if any of you reading this have had this problem and have fixed it, please leave me a comment and I’ll try it!

Sorry about that! You’d think I didn’t have anything to say by the recent lack of posts.

That’s sooooo not the case! I don’t know why I haven’t been posting. I have plenty to say! I’ll get back to normal as soon as I gather my thoughts!

But for now, all I gotta say is RIP Summer. It’s about that time where I pack up my cute and sexy summer wardrobe, move it to the basement, and bring back up my cold weather clothing. *sigh*

Is it April yet?

No, I mean it. She is totally smokin’ in her new video for “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”, is she not?

I was literally like “DAYUM!” watching it. When I first heard this single, I was kinda “meh” about it. However, I like her “If I Were A Boy” a lot. “Single Ladies” is one of those songs where the video makes me like it. It’s simple, low budget, and wonderfully choreographed. And Bee’s body is ON POINT! Work it, Sasha!

Having said all that, it’s not a video I really want to see more than a couple of times. When I saw it on MTV2 today, during what I thought was a commercial break, I was like “Wait…what??” I thought it was a promo thing. I guess when you release two singles at once, you can afford to have one video be a cheap-o. Still, she looks great!

Oh, and peep her video for “If I Were A Boy”. The video is very well done and goes along with the song perfectly. I can see this song doing as well as “Irreplaceable”. It’s that good.

I loved it when it was a miniseries last summer (2007), and I love it as a regular series this fall on USA Network.

I think it goes back to the fact that I adore Debra Messing. She will always have a special place in my heart because of her great work on “Will & Grace”.

And now, I am obsessed with the “Starter Wife”. If you’re not watching it, you totally should be. It’s well written and casted wonderfully, well except the new “Kenny Kagan” (David Alan Basche) they tapped for the full series. I liked Peter Jacobson much, much better in this role. I also miss Cricket. Doesn’t look like she’ll be included in this version of the show.

Anyway, check it out! You can watch episodes online at the USA Network website.

Just when I thought I was trending away from Express and their clothing, do I start to see things that I absolutely adore!

I made a long overdue trip to my beloved Easton Mall, where the flagship Express resides. I fell in love with several holiday dresses. What sucks is, that if I bought them, I’d have nowhere to where them! Doesn’t that suck?!

Of course, some of the dresses I saw in-store aren’t even on their website yet. I forgot that this Express location always, always, always gets new lines in before the rest of the stores. That’s the beauty of living in the city that houses the store’s international HQ!