Movin’, shakin’ and money savin’

Last week, I was flipping through last month’s Self magazine, and I stumbled across a little box about BooksFree.com, which is basically Netflix for book lovers. If you know me AT ALL or read this blog AT ALL, you know I’m a huge fan of reading and have had a huge Summer Reader list. Not only do I love to read books, but I love to buy them too. I have a rather large (color coordinated at that) bookshelf in my apartment and for some weird reason, it gives me a strange little joy to add books to the shelves every time I finish one.

But the thing is about not having a job, is that you have to learn to cut corners; and buying books in threes and fours every month is rather expensive. So I looked into this BooksFree.com site, and I AMSOFREAKINGEXCITED. The concept is genius, if you ask me. I wish I would have thought of it… I only have to pay $10.99 a month to receive two in two out, just like Netflix. That’s less than most paperbacks you’ll buy at bookstores. And the selection is larger and more available (no long waiting lists for new books) than your local library. You can even borrow cookbooks! So in some ways, it can be a “try before you buy” thing, and you don’t have to keep crappy books you don’t like.

I signed up immediately, of course. The first two books I have coming to me are:

• Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World by Lisa Lillien
• I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

And some additional titles in my queue:

• The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
• Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir
• Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana by Haven Kimmel
• The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J. R. Moehringer
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I can’t wait to get started! AND… to save even more money, I checked my absolute favorite online shopping saving site – RetailMeNot.com, which has coupon codes for nearly every place I shop online at, so I always check it. And sure enough, they have a coupon for 25% off your first month at BooksFree.com! (DAX8)

Happy reading, lovers.

Currently Feeling: A little shocked and weirded out that it’s already September. This summer went SOOOO fast!
Currently Anticipating: Labor Day weekend and my boyfriend all to myself!
Currently Needing: To finish my professional Web site – so damn time consuming.

One person’s junk is another’s treasure

Oh garage sales. What a seriously interesting sociology experiment into the human mind. Someone should write a book on garage sales and what people will sell and buy – I took a sociology class in college called “Deviant Behavior” where we analyzed the social workings behind gangs, gambling and sexual deviance (David Carradine, what?!), I think that a little section there about garage sales would have been equaling interesting. Although, garage sales aren’t necessarily deviant… so that blows my whole theory, but I digress.

This past weekend, the BF and I combined piles of our junk (me from moving out, him from the divorce and general junk collecting since he owns a house and has more space than he knows what to do with. I guess this equals a lot of junk purchasing) and threw a garage sale. This is my first experience in selling my crap for others’ purchase.

I started out with good ole fashioned advertising – a Craigslist post and some neon signs that a college girl friend helped me decorate. She happens to be unemployed too, so we spent last Tuesday afternoon, coloring the signs and seriously mapping out our route for where they’d be hung. I bet we never would have guessed that four years after college, decorating garage sale signs while unemployed would be the highlight of our week. Oh how I love you, Recession.

Saturday morning the BF and I got up at a ungodly Saturday morning hour, after six hours of sleep, to throw our junk out in his driveway. I’ll let you in on a little secret – even if you put in bold and CAPS, “No early birds,” there’s always going to be some jack ass that shows up at 7:30 a.m. asking if they’re too early. And then commences the mayhem…

I was absolutely amazed at what people will buy. “One person’s junk is another’s treasure” couldn’t be more true. The items of value that I thought would actually sell – nice area rugs, a standing lamp, a snowboard and quality bar stools – remained unsold. But I got rid of a lot of stuff I thought I’d just throw out there for shits and giggles, but would never sell… half-used lotion bottles, ugly jewelry my grandmother bought me, old clothes that I thought weren’t even worth giving to the Goodwill (two pairs of gauchos that someone actually bought. Yuck!), a pink mosaic Kleenex holder, a brown juice pitcher my mom gave me for college that must have been from the 80s, a computer bag with World Vision’s huge logo on the front that I received for free when I worked there, a kinda dingy white bathroom towel, a plastic paper filer, a puff paint butterfly belt I bought at a clothing boutique five years ago and thought was cute at the time… All sold. Some guy jumped out of his car and ran breakneck speed to pick up my crappy iron for $1 that has burned junk on it so every time you iron, it leaves black goo on your clothes. Lucky him.

Seriously… who would have thought I could sell this crap? The BF thought it was so fun to make money off the junk you just kinda have lying around, that nearly the whole time we were supposed to be sitting out there together, he was going through cupboards and pantries, trying to find additional items to sell. I joked that our garage sale was like Kmart – new blue light specials added throughout the day!

And I won’t even go into the types of people who came and went… some nice little old European lady was as sweet as can be and kept piling stuff up on the table for purchase. I thought I was going to make a gold mine off her until she turned into the Gestapo and started halving all my prices, combining everything and saying, “All this – $4.” I just shrugged and let her make off with my gold teeth. (Bad joke, bad joke).

After it was all said and done, I made $100 off my junk and then turned around and posted the items that are actually of value on Craigslist. Although some have argued that $100 isn’t really worth my time, I’d say that the entertainment value alone was worth it. The $100 is just an added bonus.

Currently Feeling: Excited for my first Social Media Club Seattle meet-up tomorrow!
Currently Anticipating: Moshi Moshi all-night happy hour tonight with a big group of people.
Currently Hating: Scales. But I bought one anyway.

Okay, it’s about time I created a ‘Dirty Hippies’ label

I’ve been patiently waiting to update everyone with a few pictures from my weekend, but they’re trapped on my best friend’s camera, so you’ll just have to read the text version for now. I’ll spare you long-winded details, but I had some fun events this past weekend, and some even greater photographs. Friday night I went to The Polish House for Polish dinner, Polish beer and hanging out with some Poles. Not, I’m not Polish, in case you were wondering. But you can become Polish and hang out in their private club for $1! Now that is a steal during these hard times of THE.RECESSION.

Saturday I went to crazy friend Wen’s birthday party (he who loves to have me as a back-up dancer in his videos)… as a hippie. What is it with hippies? I feel like I’m always talking about them. Maybe I’m a little bit more hippie than I like to admit. I was certainly a dirty hippie on Saturday. Why, oh why, you ask?

Saturday night I was SUPER rushed to get ready for the birthday party because my friend was picking me up at 7:30pm on the button. I arrived home, unshowered, with seven bags of groceries at 7pm. And, I didn’t know what to wear. A really awesome trifecta, if you ask me. After throwing on approximately five different outfits, I settled on a grey tie-died sweater, skinny jeans and tall, brown-suede boots. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror and realized that the sweater was a bit off-the-shoulder, so you could see my bra straps. Eww. That is one Carrie Bradshaw fashion statement I do not agree with (right next to the duck feathers on the butt) – bra straps are tacky. So I did the trick us girls learn in junior high while changing in the girls’ locker room for P.E. – a little slip and duck of the arms, and I threw my bra on top of storage drawers in my bathroom. “I’ll just throw a strapless on while I’m finishing my make-up” I thought to myself. I continued to run around like a chicken with my head cut-off, and barely threw my groceries in the fridge with enough time to slip out the door and into my friend’s car.

It wasn’t until I had arrived at the party, hung my jacket, said my hellos and took my place in line at the bar that I realized I.HAD.NO.BRA.ON. OMG. I panicked and quickly tried to call my friend who was arriving at the party later, but she didn’t have a bra in her car. Looks like the girls were standing alone on this one. Yep, I officially hung out at the bar all night, braless. And Bestie Amanda had a great time gently poking my braless boobs and snickering at me. Hussie.

Who has two thumbs and is officially a dirty hippie? Yep, this girl.

Stay tuned for my adventures in not shaving my armpits or legs!

Currently Feeling: In love with my recent lunchtime Maximum Sculpt classes. It feels so great to have my workout done so early in the day!
Currently Anticipating: Date night tonight with salmon teriyaki dinner.
Currently Wanting: Another slice of lemon cake that’s sitting in the break room.

Mama’s gotta eat a cheeseburger, officially

I think I realized today that I am unofficially an emotional eater.

I eat when I’m happy. I eat when I’m drunk. I eat (a lot) when I’m in love. I eat when someone sneezes. Because something even that minute makes me hungry. I eat when I see food ads. I eat when it’s in front of me. I eat when I’m bored. I eat when I’m full. I eat when I’m drunk. (Oh shit. I already put that. I must be drunk). I eat when I’m watching TV or working or typing or reading.

I also eat when I’m stressed.

My boyfriend is going through one of those major life thingies today. (Which I may, or may not, elaborate on later), which has caused a great deal of stress for me today. I tried to put it off by watching CNN and being really excited for America this morning. But even then, I was checking my phone every three minutes. Next I tried reading through the 25+ blog posts in my RSS feeder, while simultaneously checking my phone every five minutes. Then I made a trip on foot to Nordstrom’s to pick up the free make-up that’s been advertised, while checking my phone every two minutes.

I’ve done approximately 4,329 things today except work because I.just.can’t.concentrate. Ever have those days? Sometimes I worry that crane operators, airplane pilots and brain surgeons have those days, and then that’s when I start to panic about driving, flying and cancer. But that’s a whole nother post, saved for when I might want to talk about just how neurotic I can be.

So then finally somewhere between thinking about death by flying or cancer from Web-MDing myself, my boyfriend sends me a text message that’s he’s fine, but “doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Well shit. What am I supposed to do? Sit and continue to worry all day?! So, of course I sent back: “That’s ok! I understand!” But what I really meant was:

Cheeseburger.

Even though I’d already eaten my *meager* lunch of Campbell’s Healthy Request (ie: nothing but broth, that’s why the calories are so low), CHEESEburger was like mentally throbbing through my brain.
Must.eat.cheeseburger.to.survive.
Clearly this need for a cheeseburger is directly related to stress, which clearly makes me an unofficial emotional eater.

So I frantically started Googling “burger” in “said name of my work building downtown.” We have like 201 restaurants and little places to eat here, but NOWHERE that sells an effing cheeseburger.

Come on! Mama’s gotta eat.

Finally, I found a relatively nearby restaurant that sold a $12 cheeseburger because this is THE.RECESSION. and clearly restaurants need customers so bad that they’re discounting everything, or something, and clearly I don’t need to worry about living out of that cardboard box anytime soon. So I ordered and ate the $12 cheeseburger, and all 12 pounds of the fries that came with it.

And now I kinda want to curl up in a ball on my couch and…

EAT.OREOS.

We’ll see if I make it out of this one alive. I could be the next candidate for one of TLC‘s fat shows, yah know. And then you could all talk about how you knew me when I was skinny and how it all started when I became an unofficial emotional eater.

Currently Feeling: Headachy from all the carbs, probably.
Currently Anticipating: Using the free Lacome Fatale mascara I scored today. It’s supposed to make my lashes look 3D?! How do they do that?
Currently Wishing: Bestie Amanda wasn’t in the &%@$# Caribbean. How selfish of her to be vacationing when I need her!

Goodbye Corporate America, Hello Office on the Beach!

SO, I’m applying to The Best Job in the World. Have you heard of it yet?

It’s real! It’s real! It’s not even one of those Internet scams…

Apparently, Australian tourism hatched a scheme to protect their 8 billion dollar industry – tourism – from THE.RECESSION. They are hiring one candidate for a six-month contract to fly to the Great Barrier Reef and discover “what the area has to offer.” You’re instructed to explore, snorkel, swim and then all ya gotta do is blog about it with some entertaining words, photos and vlogs. (Oh, and a little fish feeding, pool cleaning and mail collecting). The person who is hired will be paid $150,000 and a plain ticket from their home country to Queensland, Australia.

For reals?! Yep. I’ve checked it out, and even though the Web site is up and down due to the overload of traffic, the job announcement is all over the news sites, and those running the program are even following their applicants on Twitter. (Now that’s smart recruiting).

Kiss my grits!

So, I’ve started to brainstorm a bit about what my video application might be. (60 seconds or less) to tell them just how amazing, eloquent and charismatic I am. (Perhaps I should avoid the booby shaking from my recent video), BUT, I have become quite skilled as a back-up dancer lately, so that might be an option…

Any suggestions?

Wow. It’s like I’m young enough to apply to Real World all over again! (And they say life is over at 25). Pshaw!

Currently Feeling: Zippity doo dah.
Currently Anticipating: My Moroccan birthday dinner tonight with my parents, boyfriend and bestie. Sunday is the BIG celebration!
Currently Loving: The new wine glasses my coworker bought me with a little chalkboard on the front, so I can write my name, my mood or something fun on my glass!