day 1: alone vacation is boring.

for the next 8 days, i am on summer vacation. “stay-cation” if you want to used a stupid made up word to describe the fact that i can’t afford to actually go anywhere. but regardless of my being tethered to this zip code for the next week, i’m actually quite optimistic about the prospect of a week of paid down time to do nothing but take naps and catch up on several year’s worth of to-do lists gathering dust in the back of my brain.

seriously, i’ve had the same bag of dry cleaning for at least 3 years. possibly 5. so long that i got too fat for the clothes in the bag, and then eventually lost the weight so that i can probably fit into them again. likely, they are no longer in style. i should really put “reevaluate contents of dry cleaning bag” on my to-do list before i spend $60 having disastrously dated frocks professionally cleaned. 

broke & hungry.

there is absolutely no question that portland has incredible food. on munjoy hill alone live three of the best restaurants in town (bar lola, blue spoon, & front room), and the most perfect neighborhood market that ever lived.  possibly secondary only to family and friends, it is the thing that holds me here and reminds me that portland is home.

yesterday, i took a jaunt to the new five guys with a very bummed out boyfriend who was just informed that he needed to purchase a new transmission. place was PACKED! i really love how they only have like 5 things on their menu. simplicity to me is one of the earmarks of a restaurant that knows what they’re doing. you don’t have to have 200+ menu items if the 5 things that you make are super delicious.

that said, i wasn’t expecting much from my grilled cheese. and i was right to set the standards low. the cheese to bread ratio was way off (like an inch of american cheese- TOO MUCH!), and it was super small and dense. edible, but not amazing. french fries were undercooked and mouth searingly hot. although, my friend @torreyham said that he saw the face of god in his hamburger, and the boyfriend seemed overall quite pleased- even if they forgot the BBQ sauce.

but that’s not entirely my point today.  the point is that there are all these new restaurants opening up in portland all the time, but there is one large gap being left in the market that i would like to see filled: affordable food with sit-down atmosphere (mall restaurants need not apply).

on the cheap is easy when you’ve got diners and pizza and burger places up the yaz. upscale is easy if you can afford it. there also appear to be an inexplicable amount of asian restaurants cropping up on every corner… but when my mom refuses to eat indian food, and i only have $20, where do we go?

i don’t know exactly how to make it work. and i certainly have no idea how to run a restaurant… but i would love to see people opening restaurants with a greater awareness of A) how many similar restaurants already exist in the area, and B) the fact that we’re pretty much all fucking broke.

yeah, i’m sure that grass fed beef with walnut fennel chutney is great and all, but we don’t need to be so fancy. but we also need to be able to afford things that aren’t just pizza and french fries. oh, and we want the food to taste good.

ok, so maybe i’m asking a lot. but if anyone out there wants to open a restaurant, this town could use some unpretentious budget fare that doesn’t have to get cooked in a fryolator.

who’s with me?

(or we could scrap this idea entirely and just open an automat)

bits and pieces.

i’ve started to get into a pattern where i save up all my buying lust for sundays where i plan one big binge. the boyfriend was away all week camping with with his dad, and he promised me that upon his return, he would take me to not one but 2 targets. we also decided to cram in a couple of flea markets, and i would take a covert jaunt to the old navy while somebody was asleep in the car.

it was certainly not the day that i planned in my head, a day bursting full of target endcap bargains. actually, there were none. the cupboard was pretty much dry on the retail end except for one accidental old spice money maker, but the thrifting was hard core.  i’m still struggling with my deep desires to buy things that i don’t need- even if i have scaled down dramatically on the amount that i spend… but shopping is one of my greatest joys in life and i’m not sure i can live happily ever after without it. in the meantime, i am embracing the summer flea market season and trying to find my joy for under $30 a week:

montsweag flea market: threatening rain made the whole thing kind of lame today. place was pretty much cleaned out, but i did manage to score a big pile of stunning vintage fabrics for $4, and the above pictured parker brothers palm reading game (complete and pristine) for $5. hot hot hot!

after the disappointing and brief turn @ montsweag, we decided to hit the waterfront flea market in brunswick to see if we could make up the difference. better, but still not amazing. i did however grab a very beautiful half finished painting (40s?) for $10. the woman who sold her to me had tears in her eyes, even though i assured her that the painting was going to a loving household. it crushes me a bit to see people sell things that they love, especially for so little.

in an attempt to shake off the bummer from our last stop, the boyfriend deposited me at the topsham target while he went off to scoot around the neighborhood on his new motorcycle (don’t get me started). i knew i had a nearly unlimited amount of time, and combed that shit from top to bottom. NOTHING! moderately depressed, i decided to use some leftover P&G bogo coupons for old spice body wash and get myself a $5 target gift card in return. it was supposed to work like this: 2 old spice bodywash @ $3.54 with bogo coupon, 1 old spice bodywash & 1 old spice deodorant @3.54 with bogo coupon. $5 gift card in return makes the whole mess $2.08. good deal! things started to unravel at the register when my total came out to $4.39, and my giftcard didn’t pop out. i was shuffled over to customer service where they gave me $5 in cash. i still don’t know what happened, but somehow i made $.61. thanks for the donation target! the preble st. resource center will be grateful for the personal care items.

of course the topsham target is goodwill adjacent, so a quick stop in there i grabbed an awesome 80s dress pattern for $.99, and a sweet black knit minidress for $2.49.

at that point we were getting a little wilted, and it was time for the last stop at the south portland target before we headed home for the day. similar to topsham, it was bunksville. does anyone know the discount endcap filling schedule? when is the best time to go? i’m starting to feel like sundays are not optimal for bargain hunting.

disappointed with my target experience, i decided to sneak over to the old navy while the boyfriend was napping in the car. their summer clothes are really awful right now. all frayed hems and boxy peasant blouses. no me gusta! i did however find a 3-pack of my favorite underpants for a mere $7.99. not exactly a giveaway, but they’re usually $12, and it might just be time for me to toss out some of the 2nd string underpants that are either way too small, way too big, way too unflattering, or have lost all concept of elasticity.

total damage:  $28.87.

$30 a week thrifting/bargain hunting is $1560 a year. would that money be better spent on my credit card debt or perhaps my nest egg? maybe, but at what point is it ok for me to have a little fun? where do you draw your frugal line in the sand? please tell me i’m not the only frugal failure out there with a habit that they might not be interested in kicking!

and the lord taketh away.

the universe is a messed up place. this weekend initially seemed like an incredible thrift shopping sleepwalk through unbelievable deal after unbelievable deal. like all of my garage sale wishes were finally coming true. and then everything fell apart. in an expensive and heartbreaking way… but first, the dream:

score #1: the boyfriend and i were actually driving out of town to go flea marketing down route one when we stopped short (way short- about 4 blocks from our condo) at a small roadside garage sale. beckoning me from the street was a sunshine yellow solair chair. i have been lusting after one of these bitches for YEARS, and have on several occasions strongly considered stealing them from the poolsides of old orchard beach motels. upon closer examination- a little dirty, a couple of spider eggs, but in otherwise excellent shape. $10 price tag- SOLD. a super deal, even if i did have to carry it up the hill in 4″ platforms.

score #2: the ex husband (who i am mercifully still friends with) texted me early sunday morning to tell me that there was a hot looking garage sale happening on hampshire street next to the sketchy east end rite aid. um, this was no ordinary garage sale. this was a WARY FUCKING MEYERS garage sale. authors of the super-incredible interior design tome tossed & found, i’ve long felt fortunate to share a city with such awesomeness. and on sunday morning, i got to scavenge through that awesomeness with both hands. and by awesomeness, i mean the most gorgeous orange enamel electric fireplace (still working!) that i have ever seen. there was plenty of other cool stuff, but this was the only thing i could see. apparently the original price was $25, but i stood in front of it for long enough (trying to figure out where i would put it, how i would fit it in the car, and how i was going to convince the boyfriend bring this giant thing into our home), that they knocked it down to $10. $10!!! the universe was smiling upon me (save for the part where we had to disassemble the unit in the rite aid parking lot in order to get it in the car).

also rolled up in the best thrift store weekend ever, 2 strawberry patterned mugs, a wall hanging of 2 parakeets, a jeremy brett sherlock holmes feature length episode on DVD (still sealed), and a kathy martin book (juvenile nurse fiction from the 50s) that was missing from my collection.

but don’t forget that part about how much the universe loves to take me down a notch whenever things are going really well. while moving some furniture around to make room for the new toys, an old toy was inadvertently destroyed. a dear friend that i don’t see anymore gave it to me for my 30th birthday. and when i picked it up off the floor to put it back into its rightful place… the head toppled off and smashed into a thousand pieces on the floor. devastated. it had survived multiple moves and was one of my most prized possessions. i can and will replace it at some point (well, the next time that i have $175 rattling around in my budget), but it’s not really the same. 2 glasses of wine and an entire bowl of buttered popcorn later, i’m still bummed out.

like i said, the universe is a messed up place.

bummed out.

i decided to take a little break from posting this weekend because things got really crappy for a minute and i just wanted to hide in a hole at the bottom of the sea. it’s all for the best really, all i really would have been capable of yesterday was mashing my hands against the keyboard in rage, or maybe coughing up a little phlegm. not as compelling and one might like. the grisly details:

1. i am still sick. 2 weeks now, and i’m not feeling any better. in addition to being a mucous filled sack, i apparently have also developed a case of glossopharyngeal neuralgia (intermittent stabbing throat pain) that may or may not go away when i get better.

2. i was really excited to be having my very first sponsored giveaway next week, until i found out that the product mysteriously contains GELATIN. as a faithful veg, i just can’t bring myself to pimp the meat products on my blog- no matter how plush the swag. (more on this later)

3. i just got a hot and heavy not from my condo association president who says that me and the boyfriend unit and i need to come up with $5000 by june to pay for a new roof. you mean those cutting boards we nailed over the missing shingles aren’t doing the job? fuck. good thing i didn’t blow my amateur night load yet, looks like i’m gonna need it.

4. did i mention that my insurance company isn’t returning my calls about the water damage that occurred over a month ago?

5. i got my 2nd really mean comment today, and although i realize that it is a hazard of the trade… it makes me sad when people who don’t care for my opinion about something attack me directly, instead of defending or presenting their own opinion. just because we disagree on one particular point doesn’t make me a demon, does it?

anyway, you can see why a girl might be a touch on the grouchy side. i had high hopes for this weekend, and on top of the crappy crap that happened, i didn’t get fuck all done (unless you count staying up until 4 am updating my linkedin profile). i enter into this week on a “$5000 in the shit” super low, with no sleep and no clean socks. oh, and i’m probably going to have to send back that sweet free bathrobe.