Live Free or IKEA Hard (and some other boring shit about my life).

Wow, it’s super sad that the last time I updated this blog was a year ago when the last IKEA bus was ready to fly… I was writing for mainetoday.com for a while, and then my life just kind of rolled out of my hands like a rogue ball of yarn and I spent the last year doing “other things.” I painted a house, I wrote some short plays, I painted some terrible self portraits, and I made a lot of pies. Oh, and I watched every single episode of House M.D. Two times. In my bed.  It was a weird year.

And, here I am. I want to start writing again. But, I also want to start jogging again, and obviously that’s gone really well [so fat].

I made a new blog header, and found some less lousy social media icons… I don’t know if I like them, but whatever. Point being, I’m considering a comeback. If one can consider going from single digit to double digit page views a comeback. Or if anyone even notices when a marginally successful blogger rises from the grave…

But, enough of my ellipses and the narcissistic pontifications.

What can I do for you?

I may not have been writing, or doing other blog stuff, but I am still rockin’ the IKEA Bus if you’re interested. Shit is going down on May 31st, and you can buy tickets right here. You can even get out of town delivery if you’re so inclined (and are willing to pay a small fee). You should come. There will be snacks.

Also, if you don’t need any particle board furniture, maybe you want new summer clothes? SwapMaine is up to its old tricks again with our spring swap coming right at your face on May 17th. Come fill up yo sack with all the skinny pants that I have to discard because they’re making me feel bad.

 

 

Pinkies OUT!

yeah, i’m horribly delinquent. it’s been a rough couple of months for me on a number of fronts, but even as i slowly pull out of my tailspin of procedural cop drama and cookies in bed, i’m still having a hard time getting my shit together to write again. although, i can promise a lengthy exploration about why i decided that putting naked pictures of myself on the internet is probably not the best way to make myself feel better (don’t worry mom, i didn’t do it). however, in my long absence, i have gravely neglected to talk about a project that i was working on, and i’m sincerely hoping that it’s not too late to grab your attention and your time for a minute.

this holiday season, the ladies of swapmaine decided to see what would happen if we got ALL FANCY for the holidays. so, instead of having our standard “all you can grab” style swap of big bins and big digging, we’re throwing an intimate little cocktail party swap where everyone brings just a few of their very best things, drinks some bubbly, nibbles some snacks, and goes home with 5 immaculately perfect items. it’s kinda gonna be an amazing. here’s why:

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.

weekend pickthrough- swapmaine hangover edition.

we came. we saw. we SWAPPED. installment number two of the swapmaine citywide clothing swap went off on saturday afternoon like goddamn gangbusters (thanks especially to all of our donors, and our legion of impeccably dressed volunteers). we managed to scare up over 300 people, 3,000 lbs of clothing, and a whole fistful of money to donate to goodwill of northern new england! (we glow with pride)

of course, what we really want to talk about is what did we score?

sadly, i didn’t have too much time to shop in the chaos, but i did grab a few choice bits and pieces here and there

some of my favs are pictured to the left:

1. dkny silk maxi sailor dress (circa 1990ish)

2. YSL slik twill scarf (does anyone know how to get stains out of a silk scarf?)

3. amazing vintage slip

4. acid green heels

5. incredible glass brooch made by some company called “accessocraft NYC”

i also got a fistful of super soft racerback tanks, an olive green boatneck top from banana republic, a gold embellished t-shirt from j. crew, an unbelievable 90s print scarf, a printed cowlneck blouse, and a berry colored wrap sweater that makes me feel like a ballerina.  a totally respectable haul.

now before i move on to this week’s random ass links, i want to take a minute [imagine quiet voice here] to thank everyone who came out and joined in the madness. i hope you all enjoyed the bigger space and addition of snacks and raffle (FYI: whoever got the vintage jewelry lot is now my  mortal enemy).  and i just wanted to let you all know that as participants,  it is now your civic duty to take pictures of your amazing new things and send them to us (swapmaine@gmail.com) so that we can add them to our flickr and show them off to the world when we’re bragging about the superiority of our swap. adorable swap volunteer julia has already put hers up on her equally adorable blog, so GET TO IT YOU GODDAMN LAZY SLACKERS!

we also had our own roaming photog (thanks audrey!) snapping away during the event, so you should probably check back at the blog in a day or two to see if you’re swapmaine famous yet.

oh, but those links i was talking about… (because it’s almost 1 am, and i’m still a bit beat up and exhausted from all the swapping action).

bring on the hooker shoes: a product review.

so one of the various perks (or is it a curse) of being a blogger, is that sometimes i get asked to review things.  companies send me free shit in exchange for a review, and sometimes i actually even write one. like today!

usually, i product test things that are either edible (debatable in some cases), or that i can easily smear on my face/body during my morning routine. so when i got these dr. scholls for her high heel inserts (from my current favorite blog-swag provider, bzzagent), i wasn’t quite sure what to do.  i actually own a lot of high heels, so that wasn’t the problem. but tragically, i just don’t have many opportunities to actually wear them.  on account of the whole not driving thing, i tend to be perpetually in flats- except for the odd “special occasion” (which are pretty rare in my universe).

anyway, i was supposed to test these puppies out, but no high-heel bearing days presented themselves (stacey london would be so ashamed). so i did what any dedicated product tester would do- i decided to do my laundry in a pair of four inch hot pink patent peep toes that i hadn’t worn since my ill fated wedding back in 2007.  that’s right, i tottered around my bedroom & basement in hot pink heels and my laundry day sweatpants for 3 hours (i did allow short safety breaks when carrying large quantities of laundry down flights of stairs. like hell i’m gonna break both my legs for a pair of $12 insoles).

here is what i learned during my very scientific testing process.

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:

back to school.

well, i’ve been a lazy sack this summer, and it was AWESOME. i actually read some trashy books, went to the beach, ate ice cream cones, got a terrible sunburn, did some flea marketing… all the best summer cliches, TO THE MAX.

although now that things are cooling down, i’m digging out my sweaters, dreaming of the pumpkin harvest and watching all the kiddos are getting shoveled back into their classrooms (as if that affects me in any way other than the bountiful reaping of cheap composition notebooks). and, i’m feeling ready to get back down to business.

so as of this morning, summer hours are officially closed.

what does this mean for you?

well, it means:

1. more posting! ok, not like that time that i lied to you and told you that i was going to post every day (i’m such a scumbag!)… but definitely more than once a week.

2. new features! i had a brilliant idea for a a new fashion feature, along with some recipes and some other awesome shit. possibly. possibly some other awesome shit.

3. old feautres! hey, whatever happened to the weekend pickthrough? or what about that time i tried to start a “store spotlight” section? and although increasingly this blog has moved away from the coupon factor (best left to maine’s own extreme couponer, i love to gossip), i would like to bring it back some deal hunting in smaller more subtle ways.

4. special events! one of my favorite things about the past year was my chance to be involved in some crazy projects. well, i’m definitely planning on keeping that shit rolling now that i’m done being lazy. there’s another SWAPmaine scheduled for october (we’re still working on the dates & location, but picture BIGGER & BETTER!), another IKEAbus planned for the spring, as well as the revival of the makeup project, and possibly a mystery event/appearance or two.  would anyone be into a cheap beer pub crawl/meetup (perhaps a joint venture with deal me in portland)?

anyway, thank you for weathering the low keyness that was my summer posting schedule. it was much needed, but i’m ready to reanimate. let me know if there’s anything new you’d like to see/old you’d like to see revived/thing you’d love to see more of/thing you never want to see again. or, you can just tell me what you did with your summer vacation.

i should go, because i’m going to be late for work. BUT, i’ll be back tomorrow with a small announcement about a “celebrity” appearance i’ll be making in september.

i try it!- danger in the kitchen laboratory.

if this blog post had a subheading, it would read: why leaving it to the professionals is sometimes the right thing to do.

so, during the SWAPmaine event a few weeks ago, the lovely keriann of mainely mara, turned me on to the starbucks black iced tea lemonade. HOLY CRAP. new heights of refreshing-ness! since that time, i think of drinking nothing else.

i’m not a coffee drinker, so the amount of time i spend at starbucks (which is inconveniently located multiple blocks from both my home & work) has always been fairly minimal. however, since SWAP day, i have been making any possible excuse to scoot my ass down to exchange street, all for the privilege of paying like $4 for something that tends to take me roughly 10 minutes to consume.

YET I CAN’T STOP.

the crack like pleasure that it affords me, appears to make the $4 surcharge fully worthwhile.

but $4 is expensive, and the $15 giftcard i had left over from xmas lasted almost about as long as it takes me to drink one of these fuckers. so in the spirit of practicality (starbucks is far) and frugality (starbucks is expensive), i decided that i would just gather the ingredients to make this mystical beverage, and assemble it myself in the kitchen lab. just think of all the dollars i would save!

HOW HARD COULD IT BE?

as it turns out, REAL HARD.

weekend pickthrough- swapping your face off edition.

so saturday was finally the big SWAPmaine clothing swap showdown, and it was all kinds of rad. by 10 am, there were over 50 people lined up outside (shockingly, everyone was polite, and not a single fist or elbow was thrown).  that said, it was a mad crush to get to the good stuff, and our perfectly manicured piles were heavily intermingled by 10:15, as clothes were heaved in all directions.

everyone seemed happy and left with bulging sacks (yeah, i just said BULGING SACKS) and the smug smiles of people getting something for nothing, and yet somehow magically benefiting charity at the same time.

by 4 pm, i could barely stand. actually, by 4 pm i was sitting in a big box of sweaters yelling “MY FEET ARE BIG”!

i could barely get home.

i made a rash decision to get burger king for dinner (their veggie whopper is the bees fucking knees).

but  regardless of my physical pain and exhaustion (swapping is a SPORT people), i still couldn’t shake the glow of all the amazing stuff that i had scored at the swap… and how glorious my transitional spring/summer wardrobe is going to be as a result.

i hope to do a full-on fashion show post at some point in the near future (probably for the swapmaine blog), but here’s a little taste of the kind of awesome shit that was available for those who chose to swap:

worth the trip- coupon coma.

remember back in the day, when i used to post something coupon related almost every day? oh, and when my cabinets were puffed out with extra band aids and shampoo, and i had an overflowing box of donate items for the preble street resource center? man, those days were nice.

but then it happens- COUPON FATIGUE.

after a year or more of wringing every possible deal out of every possible store in town, a girl gets tired, or distracted, and let’s those weekend coupon fliers pile up, and even… EXPIRE.

i recently cleaned out my folders to realized that i had indeed lost almost 2 full months of coupon time. blacked out unconscious, i must have been paying full price for everything- TRAGIC. expensively tragic (the worst kind of tragic).

now at this point, the serious coupon clipping mantle has clearly been handed off to maine’s very own extreme couponer, i love to gossip, which is quite liberating (also, she’s a lot better at it). no longer do i feel the pressure to try to keep up with the rest of the coupon bitties, and have time to do other crazy shit like  throw clothing swaps and complain about “easy feet”. but this weekend as i leafed through my sunday circulars, i realized that i actually missed it.

i remember feeling so high (remember that money making vaseline lotion at shaw’s?) when i could grab something for free. like i was pulling off a tiny bank robbery or something.

i also remember having 5 unopened dove deodorants in my supply drawer. now i’m sadly chasing a single stick around my apartment… and sometimes i CAN’T FIND IT.

so this week, i decided that i’m actually gonna start trying to get back into the coupon game.  i have an empty paper box ready for preble street donations, and i feel mentally ready to be able to find my antiperspirant again.

well, it’s going to have to be a gentle re-entry, because there’s kind of shit for deals this week. and actually, i was zooming through the comments on this week’s iheartcvs.com deal rundown, and people seem grouchy that there hasn’t been anything awesome for a while. has the deal climate changed when i was away? are there still bargains to be had out there in the wild? here is what i’m stalking this week (better to start slow i suppose), let me know if i missed anything: