a long overdue apology/thanks.

i’m kind of an asshole.

one time, i got married (for like a year), and i didn’t even send out thank you notes to my family. and can i just say, that even though the wedding was in 2007, i still feel guilty about it ALL THE TIME. if you’re out there wilson family relatives… i’m so sorry. i burn with shame and regret.

but here i am anyway, being a jerk again.

a few weeks ago, a reader named sue contacted me about the makeup project, because she had scored some free blush she wasn’t going to use. AWESOME. except it took me a few days to answer her, and i felt like a jerk.

AND THEN, she contacted me again… and i got busy and didn’t respond. jerk +1.

AND THEN, she showed up at the swap drop off with makeup… and i wasn’t there to meet her.

AND THEN, she showed up at the swap with a beautiful bounty of makeup bags, and i finally got to say thank you, and  made a jackass out of myself. i believe my exact words were: “i so want to hug you, but i’m worried about invading your personal space”. she excused herself swiftly.

AND THEN, she emailed me again, and i decided that i wanted to thank her by writing a blog post about how awesome she is… and it took me 2 weeks to do it.

so sue… I’M SORRY! i know i’m kind of a jerkwagon, but i didn’t want to let another day go by without thanking you for your incredible gift. sorry i’m so spastic, but it is in no way a reflection on my gratefulness for your generosity.

ALL SYSTEMS GO!

on monday when i only had 13 tickets sold and no sign of picking up… i was ready to quit this bitch. i really didn’t think it was gonna happen. i even started making other plans for the 23rd.

i don’t know if it was my general sad sackness working the guilt angle, or just that people woke up and realized that they really did need to buy 25 billy book cases in order for their lives to feel complete… but i hit my half way goal and then a little bit more  yesterday.

as of this morning, i’m at 27 seats sold, and i’m sending the bus company my money- eek!  what i’m trying to say is that the IKEA bus is ON. ON. ON.

there are still 23 tickets left that i’m gonna be trying really hard to sell (anybody got any catchy poster ideas?), but the die is cast. i’m going through with it no matter what. i am also taking recommendations for what should go in my local food snack packs.

finally, i want to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who talked about, facebook liked, and tweeted up this event. many of you couldn’t afford it or had other plans, but you still cheered me on. gennyfer shook down the moms over at raising maine! cindy and matt guilt tripped their coworkers! the entirety of the forge brandsstaff decided to drink the ikea bus kool aid!

anyway, thank you. i am overwhelmed! i make you my solemn promise that the ikea bus will be as awesome as i can possibly make it. and for those of you who can’t join us, i promise frequent twitter updates and lots of goofy pictures of people pretending to poop in the fake ikea display bathrooms.

chasing the white whale.

so a while ago, you might have noticed a little red box pop up on the sidebar region right over there –> this box was gently urging you to consider nominating broke207 for the portland phoenix best of 2011 poll. now, i am not a particularly competitive person by nature (unless of course we’re playing scrabble, in which case I WILL CUT YOU), but all the nominees get to go to pretty kick ass party… and i do enjoy a good time.

now, you might have noticed that the red box has magically morphed into a blue box. this is not magic, nor is it the talents of my hard working special effects team… but yesterday i found out that i actually GOT NOMINATED. i almost peed all over myself at work. sure, i put up the red box (hello, PARTY), and i threw down a facebook post about it… but i really didn’t expect anyone to actually vote for me.

now don’t worry, i’m not gonna get all faux humble on your ass or anything. i’m just really surprised, and really excited, and really grateful. so if you clicked on that box in the last few weeks, thank you. thank you a bunch.

well, i’m not gonna do that thing where i tell you that you have to vote for me, but i would really like it if you voted period. the other nominees for best blog are pretty fucking fantastic, and totally worthy of your support. you can find all of them in my blogroll also over there —-> but for the sake of ease in pointing and clicking, here they are:

i’m coupon goddess famous!

there are a lot of crazy coupon lady websites out there (and i do me A LOT). there’s actually even one called the krazy coupon lady, that is pretty rad. but if you’ve hung around these parts long enough, you’ll realize that in my book (and coincidentally also the highlander’s book), there can be only one.  and that one, is the coupon goddess. i love her because alongside her supernatural powers with coupons, she is a margarita swilling high-heel junky with a mouth for sass. she is also constantly blowing me away with her generosity. speaking of which, she was the one who gave me my blog start way back when in 2009, when she wrote a post about me and my irreverent (and profanity filled) coupon antics. since then, she has continued to pimp my site, and just be generally all around awesome to me. i really could not ask for more… but she gave more anyway. when melanie decided to take a 10 day blog break and jaunt off to greece (lucky bitch), she asked me if i would be one of 5 lucky bloggers to fill in while she was gone. i actually got to talk to her on the phone, and did a lot of yelling SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE! afterward. i should probably apologize to my dog, he really DID NOT appreciate that.

but i digress. i wrote two posts- with proper capitalization and absolutely no swearing even (though several unfortunate typos that i am unable to correct)! one about me and how i suck at couponing (and that’s ok), and another one about a very weird experience i had with some himalayan pink salt. anyway, humongous thank you to melanie for the opportunity, and if you’re bored and want some good clean family friendly reading, you can check them out. or, if you’re really really bored, you can print them out and try to figure out where the swearing would have been had i written the posts for this site. either way, good times!

weekend pickthrough- getting around edition.

this has been kind of a crazy week for me. along with eating a TON of candy bars (which is weird, because i’m not really a chocolate person), i had my first official post drop on part time vagabond, and as of friday afternoon,  i’m shakin it over at flyte new media (my first social media article ever!). i’m such a blog slut!

but seriously, i started this blog last year, because i wanted a reason to write every day. my life to date has been clogged with awful poetry, half finished novels, and otherwise general aimlessness. even if i’m not writing about anything important, this blog has given me focus. I joke about being a blog slut, but at the risk of getting all squishy and sentimental, this is a really exciting time for me. pre-broke207, i was just stumbling out of my twenties right into another decade of hapless wandering and bad decisions. ok, i still make a lot of bad decisions (candy bars!), but i find that i’m stumbling a lot less. so to make up for the very poor quality weekend pickthrough below (i was busy!), i would like to take a second to say thank you. thank you for reading, and commenting, and being generally awesome. and thank you also to flyte and part time vagabond, for trusting that i have something worthwhile to say in their space. oh, and thanks in advance for not hating too hard on the lame pickthough.

slap a couple of these babies on your pop tarts and you never have to feel eco-guilty again.

many thanks to the infamous qbert for pointing me toward a website dedicated to my present favorite fashion icon (what can i say, i’m a sucker for sweater sets).

worst gift suggestion EVER.

hey guess what, GETTING A MAMMOGRAM DOES NOT HURT (so get goin)!

a miracle of modern architecture. plus, it’s shaped like a turkey.

who knew that a field guide could be so hilarious.

with everyone competing to make the most ludicrously unhealthy sandwich, when is someone just gonna throw down and slap some lard between two buns (or maybe two grilled cheese sandwiches) and call it the winner?