blacKandi Fitness

As you know (I hope you know me by now) that my favorite place to shop for everyday clothing is New York and Company. So this weekend I decided to go ahead and buy a large amount of clothing to satisy for workplace wardrobe. Ha! I am in a size 8 (but you already know that) and I believe that even if I lose 10 more pounds, the same 10 pounds I’ve been trying to lose since January 2009, that I will still fit an 8 so no sweat. I buckled down, went all out and purchased several pairs of pants (size and several cute shirts (size medium). I spent a good amount of money, but used a coupon so I came out on top with the savings. Use your COUPONS ladies!

I’m wearing one of my new outfits today and it feels great. Nothing is hanging off of me, everything fits well and I don’t look like a hippie slob. Nice! I still wear a size 10 in NY&C jeans though…odd, but maybe the fit is tighter because it’s jean.

Watch out! Major gripe on the way!
What NY&C doesn’t have that I wish they had were “skinny jeans”. I want a pair so bad and I know that if they carried those types of jeans that the fit would be perfect for me – all NY&C jeans fit me well. I think I’m going to go with a pair of Calvin Klein skinny jeans because I can no longer wait for NY&C to get their act together. How dissappointing. I’m going to shoot them an email today about it.

Not a gripe, but I want to talk about it. :p
I had a problem that I never thought I’d have being small and it’s that there were large amounts of size Large and X-Large all over the place. Sizes Small and Medium were very scarce. When I was a big person it was the opposite. Seriously, I cannot win. Thankfully, this problem didn’t affect me too bad. There was a dress I really wanted and they only had a Small and a bunch of X-Large.

Last major gripe of the day!
I had to send Baker’s Shoes an email asking why they don’t carry the desiger shoes in their stores, but carry on their website. I wanted to try on that black pair of Jessica Simpson 4″ pumps because I don’t buy shoes online because I need to know how they feel and how they look on me first. I get into the store and I’m looking around and I see all Baker’s made shoes and a couple pair of Ed Hardy flip flops. I was not happy! So out went the email and of course the response was that “they” have forwarded my concerns to their “management” and “they” thanked me for my correspondence. Bleh! We’ll see what happens with this one.

This reminds me of the time I went to an in-store event, or supposed in-store event at the Sephora in Willowbrook Mall (Wayne, NJ) where you get a free lip gloss case and none of the sales reps knew nothing about it. LOL! Too funny!

Sephora’s Employees Have No Knowledge About Their In-Store Events!

I won’t say that all of them don’t know, but I know that some do not in my experience. This is long so continue reading. The advertisment, on their website, said that there will be an in-store event at ALL Sephora stores and that I needed to stop into the store to get my free lip gloss case.

So I’m annoyed in the Sephora store because all employees are busy and the consultants are ignoring me as I stand next to them trying to get their attention. I get tired of the rudeness so I get on my cell to call the 800 number – 1800Sephora – yeah that one. I get a rep on the phone after being transferred TWICE (omg) and finally I get a rep, who is willing to talk to me, on the phone and she said that I should have called the store to make an appointment with a consultant and that’s how I would have gotten my lip gloss case. Baloney. The ad said nothing like that and the ad was still up, plain as day, on their website.

Did I mention I had gone to the mall that day just to get the free lip gloss case?? No? I did. My other half was like just forget it, but get the names of the people you spoke to in the store. Nobody was wearing a name tag…NO ONE! There was no manager around and the place was verby busy because the consultants were in. I ended up just leaving after about 30 minutes because I had gotten mad. I didn’t need anything so I didn’t buy anything at that point. I said to myself that I would go home and send an email to corporate to tell them about this. I did just that also adding that I should have gone to the Sephora store in Manhattan where they got it together (I didn’t mean it…I was upset).

About a week later, I get an email from the Manager of the store asking me for my address and she gave me an apology. That next week I received two lip gloss cases in the mail along with some freebies (samples – I love when Sephora sends me samples with my orders) and a 20% off coupon to be used between certain dates. There was also a note expressing sincerest apologies and what not. Now that is customer service! I wish I had gotten that customer service on the day I went to the event, but hey, you can’t have it all.

The End!

Side note!
Hey, it’s not a bad thing to send emails to corporations telling them where they are slacking off. I send lots of emails to fast food places and franchise type restaurants all the time asking for their nutrition facts and I think that if more people took the time report such undesirable things their corporations is doing to their customers then maybe they’d take customer complaints more seriously and start meeting customer demands. I have yet to get nutrition facts from IHOP and Applebees…still waiting! If they don’t know then how can they fix it??? (yes it was a long run-on sentence sorry!)
Moving on…

For All of You Veggies Out There!

I joined up the Vegetarian and Vegans team over at SparkPeople and I came across a GREAT resource that someone graciously posted. The resource is called, “How to Survive as a Low-Budget Vegetarian” by Charles Obert, LBV. The link takes you straight to the .PDF file so you can save a copy for your records. There are a lot of great tips inside so check it out.

I am not a Vegetarian or a Vegan and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be either one, but I can and do learn from them. I’ve learned that I don’t have to eat meat all of the time and that I can pic and choose different foods that have protein in them to fulfill my daily protein intake. I’m all for changing up what I eat sometimes so I’m taking some of the things that Vegetarians and Vegans implement into their diets and putting into mine.

Lastly…

Shaun T

Isn’t he hot? Oh yes he is. I am about to order Hip Hop Abs and I’m not about to because Shaun T is hot, but because I want to get some fun cardio workouts into my life. Sometimes I get bored with the kickboxing (my favorite) and I’m learning step so I’m not getting in a hard workout with that right now because I’m still learning it. Hip Hop Abs is more affordable than Turbo Jam and the workouts look like it really kicks butt in a VERY fun way so what the hay.

If you want to order, please order it from my friend Kaisha over at Beach Body…she’s awesome!

I’m done with today’s post. Have a good one!