i can not be trusted.

remember that time when i told you about how lousy i am at transitions? well, behold! what you are looking at here in this picture is 9 pairs of shoes. 9 pairs of brand new shoes bought over the course of the last 24 hours. 5 were purchased online because they’re my favorite shoe ever, and they were on sale for $22 each at 6pm. 1 was purchased for the upcoming burlesque nutcracker (i might also need to purchase a related naughty santa costume). 1 was a practical office shoe choice. and, 2 were just sky high wedges that will look very pretty collecting dust in my closet but i felt very very compelled to buy- so i did.

9 pairs of shoes, all but 3 of which i don’t actually “need” (and we’re defining “need” here as “would be nice to have but definitely don’t actually need”). 9 pairs of shoes, all of which were purchased because the tectonic plates of my life are shifting yet again, and sparkly new feet somehow seem like the most productive way to deal with that discomfort.

it isn’t.

IKEA busted.

well, IKEA bus (the squeakquel) has come and gone, and i’m finally recovered enough to write about it (a mere 18 days later) (i know) (i’m sorry).

well, recovered enough to half ass my way through a recap where i’ll omit a lot of details and probably not tell you what you want to know.  i’ll pretend that it’s because i want to preserve the mystique for future riders. yeah. that.

but be kind, i’m lazy because i’m exhausted.

there were actually a number of passengers who asked me how often i  run the IKEA bus, and recommended that i do it more often. which is totally a nice compliment, if woefully uninformed.

IKEA bus is actually a lot of work. not that i’m complaining (i’m totally complaining), but the snack research, and the phone calls, and the paperwork, and deposits, and movie selections, and ticket hawking/guilt trips… twice a year (or monthly, as recommended) would probably kill me a little.

but enough of my whining. for all the work, of course it was AMAZING. some highlights:

weekenDD pickthrough- two Ds for a double dose of posting.

yeah, i was supposed to post that magnificent dr. scholl’s review like 3 days ago, but i just haven’t had a second to get my shit together. as a result, i decided to double post today, so that the weekend pickthrough doesn’t come out on thursday (or not at all- causing my hard farmed links to get stale and sad).

it’s 2:30 in the morning, and i drank a bunch of coke with my silly’s dinner and i can’t sleep… i’m up hanging out on the couch with my dog watching “father of the bride”, so why not post again while i wait for the fried pickles to digest?

broke207- now broker than ever!

this past thursday at the socialmediaFTW conference, i learned that 94.5% of all blogs end up being abandoned. and as friday was my 2 year bloggy-versary (though i’m not blogging with quite the gusto that i once did), i wanted to take a minute to celebrate the accomplishment of actually lasting this long. even if i stopped today, i’d still have been blogging longer than i managed to stay married, or longer than i have ever gone to the gym consistently.

in addition to celebrating my unlikely survival in the blog universe, i also have something else kind of exciting to celebrate. on october 12th, i’ll be starting a new job!

it’s pretty exciting stuff actually. it’s a position where i will have a chance to learn something new, better benefits, and a whole bunch of vacation (even snow days!), and an actual ladder to move up (you know, if they like me). unfortunately, with all this awesomeness, comes one minor downside: SUBSTANTIAL PAY CUT.

worth the trip- makeup project resurrection edition.

or free lipgloss, whatever you’re into.

it’s been a while since i mentioned the makeup project. and well, it’s an xmas season kind of thing, so it didn’t seem necessary to bother y’all too much about it this summer. but all the sudden, it’s cold.  halloween shit is on sale EVERYWHERE (free candy corn @ CVS this week, but vegetarians beware, there will be gelatin!), and i have friends organizing apple picking dates on facebook. the truth has become evident: WINTER IS COMING.

and with this onset of the transition into corn maze and mitten weather, it only seems appropriate that i start to refocus my efforts on my winter projects like the fall SWAPmaine clothing swap, and of course, getting the ole cosmetic hoard for the year together to see how much further i have to go before december rolls around.

i’ve actually been really good so far this year. apparently, CVS changes its cosmetics wall twice a year (which means 75% discount fiesta), but also randomly marks things down throughout the year (just keep your coupon folder handy, and scan for these little round stickers whenever you go in). needless to say, i’ve got a pretty great stash going. here’s the count as of today:

weekend pickthrough- parking lot commerce edition.

i once knew this guy who had saved up $2,000 for a new computer. as luck would have it, he stopped to get gas, and 2 guys in an van asked him if he wanted to buy a really nice set of speakers that they happened to have in their van. as chance would have it, the low low price was exactly $2,000. SO HE BOUGHT THEM. i wish i could remember the brand, but according to him, they were $10,000. the deal of the century! and probably only slightly stolen.

it worked out pretty great for him i guess, but not so well for this lady who tried to buy an ipad from a mcdonald’s parking lot. oops. maybe she can use it as a doorstop, or burn it for warmth? although seriously, who buys a parking lot ipad (ok, who buys a parking lot ipad at all…) and DOESN’T OPEN THE BOX? as much as i hate to see people get taken advantage of, this chick kind of deserved it. at least the article didn’t use her real name!

once a guy tried to sell me weed in monument square, but i can honestly stay that i have never been approached to buy suspect goods out of a van in a fast food parking lot.  what’s the shiftiest thing you ever bought?

oh, and here’s some links:

out of office.

apologies for the interruption in service! i am taking a brief jaunt to boston this weekend (so that i won’t be so sad about chorus line being over), and my hotel CHARGES FOR WIRELESS.

i’m outraged. so outraged in fact that instead of writing a real post yesterday as planned, i am now tapping this apology out on my iphone. $9.95 my ass.

although i did commit one financial infraction (so far). i stupidly wore inappropriate she’s and had to buy flats about 4 hours into my adventure. they were on sale for $15.99, but i should really have preplanned a little better. i burn with shame.

also on the shame tip, i learned that i am completely incapable of reading a map. we easily spent 1/3 of our “out and about” time horribly horribly lost. today, it has be demanded that i relinquish the iphone and navigation duties.

well, it’s checkout time. and i need to go prepare my mangled feet for yet another adventure. more tonight (there is free wifi on the amtrak).

 

weekend pickthrough- mail call showdown edition.

this has been a good couple of weeks for free stuff in the mail. between the soy milk and the cleaning stuff, i also applied for some samples online, which showed up this week. i realized after i wrote that post last week about product testing sites, i had completely left out free sample sites! you may not get full sized products, but i am a sucker for tiny scale models of real products, and they almost always come with a pretty decent value coupon.

this week, i got two sample deliveries- one from target, and one from proctor & gamble (evil i know, but FREE STUFF!). when i originally saw the post for the target beauty bag on my favorite freebie website, i thought it might be a phishing scam. so much awesome stuff for free! my bag arrived a mere one week later.

though not packed with the same goods pictured (where’s my full sized sally hansen nail enamel?), still had some pretty hot shit inside (full sized neutrogena lip balm!). also, it came packaged in the most adorable tiny makeup bag known to man, and had $25 worth of target beauty coupons. and you know what that means… STACKING!! i was blown away.

then, i got my p&g brandsaver… and there was blowing alright, just not the good kind. one tiny sample and two tiny coupons? i hear these stories about people getting all sorts of crazy awesome shit from p&g, but i have never gotten anything good. this was better than the time they sent me a single metamucil packet in a huge box, but not much.

sadly, the target beauty bag is already sold out, but i would recommend finding yourself a freebie listing service so that you have a chance of getting in on the action next time around. i also follow deal seeking pros like hip2save on twitter, who usually have first knowledge of the good shit.

but since you’re probably still really jealous about not getting the beauty bag, here are some links to ease your pain:

the plastic files.

first and foremost, i would like to apologize for not posting yesterday. i am still getting the hang of the daily posting gig, and also drank one too many bourbons after a particularly rough day and ended up face down on the couch at 8:30 instead of  writing my post. i repent. also, i am hungover as hell today- so my body is repenting too. but on to the promised content!

so i am very proud to say that a year has come and gone, and i have not used my credit cards even once. i did have to borrow money from the boyfriend on a couple of occasions, and i did certainly have more than a few months of barely scraping by (including and especially this one), but it still feels like progress to me. am i delusional? is learning to control my finances a gradual evolution, or should i have figured my shit out by now? i worry that it’s like being an alcoholic, where i either need to quit cold turkey or never get better…

as usual, i still have dreams and hopes of getting a tighter grip on my money and finally making a bigger dent in my debt this year. i’m still way behind from xmas and more other random unexpected shit (burst pipe!), but i’ve started a new habit to help defray at least a little of any future emergency money madness: i have become a gift card hoarder.

usually after xmas, i take any gift cards i might have and rush my little ass to the mall and spend spend spend…  but this year i promised myself that i would hold on to them for a bit and see what happened.  i have also amassed a few more from rebates and online surveys (i’ve had great luck with these guys), and my cache is looking quite tidy (see above). here’s my master plan:

parental advisory: explicit lyrics.

right now, i’m exactly like a slowly rolling katamari of blogs. every few months or so, i pick up yet another so-and-so and the ball just keeps getting bigger and bigger. this is awesome in the way that i get to write about a variety of crazy shit (this week i get to make granola bars and test drive a puffy skirt), although less awesome in the way that nobody actually pays me. well, last month, i rolled up yet another opportunity. this time, posting my prime content on the wcsh6 portland blog.

now, reposting content should require very little work on my part. SHOULD, of course being the operative word. however, ease is an experience reserved for people who use proper capitalization and aren’t quite so liberal with the f-bombs. wcsh6 might want my content, but understandably, they want it a little less colorful and a little more family friendly. pg-13 at best.

anyway, if you ever wanted to recommend my blog to your gramma, grade school english teacher, or friends from church camp, but didn’t think they could hack the racy themes and rampant overuse of commas… this is your chance! i’ve been filing the corners off all my material so that it’s safe for children, and no longer a choking hazard for the elderly.  you can see the distilled result of my most recent effort right here. or if you think that’s balls, if nothing else you can look at both posts side by side and try to spot the differences.