Cha-cha-cha-channnggeeeeessss.

One would think with how internet savvy I am that I'd have all the latest technology gadgets. That is not the case. Up until this morning, I rocked a flip phone, with PRIDE. I am of the belief that you use something until it breaks/no longer works and try to be a conscious consumer (watch the Story of Stuff - Electronics for an overview of how destructive discarded technology products can be.)  My flip phone worked ya'll! No, I couldn't check my email on it, but that's OKAY! I don't want to be plugged in all the time!

For over a year, I've only been able to charge my phone in my car, because I left my wall charger plugged into the wall in New Orleans when I was there last year for Jazz Fest.  This was funny to me, but other people, I believe, found it quite sad.  I received non-stop harrassment about my flip phone, ranging from comments such as "Whoa...who you calling, Zack Morris?" to "Oh COME ON. That's pathetic." Judgers be damned, I love my flip phone.

In February or March, a friend of mine sent me her old smart phone when she upgraded to the Verizon iPhone. Yes...I've had a smartphone since at least March and am just TODAY getting around to activating it.  Please reference earlier posts on my procrastination problem (as well as my stinginess...I'm not thrilled about paying for a data plan!) if you are wondering why it took so long.

I'm on my way to go pick up my phone, so I'm sure I won't be able to call, text, email, or tweet for days until I figure the confounded gadget out. Send help if you haven't heard from me in 48 hours!!

Favorite Characters

While a young thang, my favorite super hero was Wonder Woman. Today, the Wonder Woman collection by MAC Cosmetics hits stores.  Look at this goodness:

 I talk all the time about minimizing and only buying what I NEED, but I really feel like my WANT for something from this collection is so strong that it's turned into a NEED.

I used to dress up like Wonder Woman, complete with bullet wrist reflectors, a lasso, and a crown.  I owned a Wonder Woman bathing suit and was photographed in it and the picture ended up on the front page of my hometown newspaper.

I am such a verbal manipulator that I truly believe I could convince anyone that a purchase of something from this collection is justifiable.  Thoughts?

Win this lamp (or help me win!)

So I don't have the best lighting in my kitchen, which has been the spot where I spend long hours planning lessons, grading papers, surfing the net...the usual. As a full-time worker who adjuncts at the same university I work for, I have to do a lot of work at home, as I can't use my job office for my other job.  Annnddd with the addition of my shiny new stove that looks good yet makes an annoying noise and the desk that was my grandmothers, I might be relocating my work space to a different spot in the apartment.

Curbly is having a contest to win this lamp:

which is very sleek and innocent looking. It's like "Hey! I can light up your work space and help you save your eyes!" but doesn't yell that in an obnoxious way with unnecessary adornment.

I've realized I have no idea how much good household items cost, as all of my furniture is either hand-me-down, value, or from Ikea or Target.  $396 for lamp? Too rich for my blood, but would be an awesome thing to win!

Small Business Saturday

A lot of attention is paid to "Black Friday", when many retailers go into the black for the first time all year, but I'm more excited about American Express's Small Business Saturday.  Support your local businesses by shopping in their stores on Saturday, November 27th, and American Express will pay you back!  Awesome!

Bless his heart.

Yesterday while working with my student graphic designer, there was another student on a computer next to us.  He said he was looking for electives to take next quarter because he has fulfilled most of the requirements for his major. Apparently he'll be able to take mostly electives for the remainder of his college career.  I asked him "What's your major?" and he said "Public relations and advertising with minor in sociology".  I said, without a lot of hesitation, "Take Spanish, if you don't already know how to speak it." He said "Spanish...why?"

*blink blink*

Really?  For real?

I stated "Well, if you're looking to stay in the Chicago area, you will have a competitive advantage over other candidates if you are bi- or multilingual.  They are always seeking candidates who can speak Spanish, since there is such a large Spanish-speaking population in Chicago, and it's the fastest growing demographic in the country..."

He said "What about French?"

I said "Ummmm...there's not really as much of a demand, but of course any language is a bonus.  Do you have an idea of a career path?"

He said "I'd like to get into luxury good sales...I mean, it's such a different experience to sell a $350,000 car than a $20,000 car.  I'd like to sell really high-priced items..."

Oh honey-child. Does he not understand that 1) those positions are usually given to people with a lot of sales experience, and 2) not a whole ton of people are buying $350,000 cars these days.

I could tell I wasn't going to get through to him, as he soon said "Maybe I should take Ethics in Computer Games and Cinema..."

Siiiigggghhhh.

Hold me to it.

Don't worry, I don't put much time into wondering if I'll ever get married, but I can guarantee you one thing: of I ever fall in love with a man who asks me to marry him, I WILL NOT be posting pictures of any ring on Facebook.

Bleeccccchhh.

You have my word.

Gleeking out.

I love the TV show Glee, and one of my favorite things about watching the show is seeing what Emma Pillsbury is going to wear.  I think her clothes are adorable, and while sometimes they are a bit much all together, I covet many of her pieces, especially the jewelry.  Imagine my delight when one of the blogs I follow in Google Reader directed me to this site!

WHAT FUN!  The WWEPW site references this amazing Etsy link (I adore Etsy and recommend it if you are looking for a special, but affordable, gift for someone...even yourself).

Do you think I could pull off sweater clips?  I really want to be able to pull off sweater clips.

The Big Picture.

When I love a television show, I love it with a passion usually reserved for trashy romance books or Celine Dion songs. I know all the details about the characters; their hobbies, their family members names, the names and details of their ex's, etc. and honestly hope things work out for them.

From August 2001 until February 2004 I lived with roommates, making splitting a cable bill a pretty natural decision.  Prior to that, I either got cable at home or in my various college lodgings.  In February 2004, while setting up utilities for my own apartment, I decided "Shit...this cable business is expensive."  Since I had never been a frequent television watcher, even though I was (past tense, yes) a voracious consumer of pop culture, I decided to go on a trial run for a couple months to see how much I missed it.  Turns out, I didn't, and here we are more than six years later and I watch digital television through a converter box on a cheap TV purchase for under $200 at Sam's Club (one of the companies I refer to as an "evil empire").  When forced to miss my favorite shows I program my VCR so I can watch it later (unless I can get the episode for free online the next day.) Retro much?!

The first show I can recall falling madly in love with was the Cosby Show (I have to say "recall" because apparently I was a big fan of Sesame Street and Wonder Woman, but details are fuzzy).  The Huxtable's seemed like such a fun family and I wanted my dad to wear crazy sweaters like Cliff (he kinda does now).  In the latter years of high school, I was OBSESSED with Friends and was pretty sure Chandler Bing was the PERFECT man for me.  This obsession lasted throughout college, which probably explains a lot of my college crushes.  During my last few months of college and into my first couple years post-college, Pacey Witter became my definition of a perfect man (this reflection is so eye-opening) and Dawson's Creek was a show I obsessed over with close friends.  Another favorite was the OC, but that didn't last many seasons (but was, of course, an all-encompassing love, especially for early-Seth Cohen).

I didn't start watching LOST when it first aired, but caught the series when ABC ran it in the summer.  I was sorta like "This is wacky...Matthew Fox is sooooo hot" and kept tuning in week after week.  Soon, I was a total Lostie.  The day after an episode I would read recap blogs in order to see what hidden meanings the reviewer got out of the episode and poured through the comments on the post to see what other people came up with.  While I never really got into thinking of my own theories, I really enjoyed reading other peoples and spreading what I read to other fans of the show.

As we are four episodes away from the FINAL! EPISODE! The SERIES! FINALE!, I am a little put off.  What the hell is happening on this show?  I find it weird that I'm getting so frustrated, as I never batted an eye when there was a POLAR BEAR on the island or a SMOKE MONSTER that would seemingly take pictures of people's souls or a GIANT LOWER LEG STATUE or TIME TRAVEL or the fact that Hurley NEVER once seemed to lose a pound although the food selection was not always up to par with a four-star hotel.  I sorta would be all "Oh Lost!  You crazy beast!" and geek out thinking of what the blogs would have to say the next day.

I think my frustration is partially the faulty of the Gossip Girl writers.  GG was another one of my absolute favorite shows, not only for the eye candy actors but for the clothes, great music, the funny parties, and the overall moral casualness of the characters.  It's always been a little smutty in the most delicious way.  This season, however, has disappointed me.  Not only are the clothes not that great, but the GG music supervisor seems to look through my old mix CD's in order to pick music for the show.  Yes, this does make me feel totally cutting edge, but I wish I was getting some sort of finder's fee for my good picks.  Also the writing is HORRIBLE and I can generally predict what will happen every second of the episode.  But yes, I'm still watching, as I am a little intrigued by the potential Serena/Little J showdown.

Do any of you watch Lost (or Gossip Girl?)  What do you think?  Are you sticking with it/them to the bitter end?

Food for thought.

from becoming minimalist:

currently, world agriculture produces enough food for every one of the six billion people alive on planet earth. according to the world health organization, roughly 850 million people worldwide are malnourished, while 1.6 billion are overweight. a world where people wanted less would result in a world where food was distributed more equally.

Step 1 (we can have lots of fun!)

How retro is it that I can't write "Step 1" without thinking of the New Kids on the Block?  JORDAN KNIGHT 4-EVA.

So I went through my CDs as I promised in this post, and less than five minutes into it, I discovered two things:

1.  There are quite a few more than 75 CD's here.
2.  There's no way I can whittle down to 25 in my first attempt.

As I figured, minimizing my things is going to be a process, and I'm not going to get there overnight.  Just like I didn't accumulate all these CD's in one day, it's not likely I'll get down to bare bones after one try.

One problem is that I have sentimental attachments to things.  I believe this is something you need to learn to numb/avoid if you want to start leading a simpler life and I truly think this will be one of the hardest things for me.  I know "things" aren't important, memories/experiences are, but I have a pretty bad memory and sometimes items can help me remember something fun/exciting.

For instance, I (at this point) cannot bear to part with Sheryl Crow's first CD, because I played it nonstop when it came out.  I remember sitting in high school accounting class and getting teased by one or more (definitely more) of my classmates because I really liked "All I Wanna Do" and Sheryl Crow in general.  They thought it was an annoying, pointless song, but I argued that the CD was pretty brilliant (considering it's listed as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, I WIN).  Then "Stronger" came out and they were all "Wow...this is really good...I love Sheryl Crow" and of course ignored the fact that I HAD BEEN TRYING TO GET THEM TO LOVE HER ALL ALONG.

I also cannot part with Wyclef's first solo CD, Hip Hop Hits, this Blondie CD, or this one by Rusted Root, because they all remind me of various times in college.  I was first introduced to Rusted Root by a friend in my freshman dormitory, I spent practically every Thursday (and sometimes Friday and Saturday nights) at 80's night at a bar named Gargoyle's (BG, OH was really innovative with bar names) where Blondie was ALWAYS played, and we used to listen to Wyclef and Hip Hop Hits endlessly in the sorority house (for real.)

I did put about twenty CD's in the entryway of my apartment building with a sign that said "Help yourself...really random selection!" and they were all gone in less than 24 hours, and gave four to a friend.  I listed about ten on swaptree.com, and plan to try to sell/exchange about ten more.

Progress.  I'm all about small victories.

This is not helping.

I saw a commercial for the Liberty of London for Target collection, set to hit stores on March 13th.

I covet.

I love pretty much every London designer and this is no exception.  Liberty is an iconic design house, the prints in the commercial were fabulous, and I immediately put "Liberty collection at Target" on my Google calendar.

Ahhh...how does this fit into my "simple living" pledge?

You are right...it doesn't.  It also doesn't fit into my "you are so incredibly broke you better only spend money on food and shelter for the next five to ten weeks" plan.

I will probably still go to Target to check it out.  Believe it or not, I have incredible control when it comes to looking at things, loving them, but leaving them in the store.  Sometimes it's just nice to look at pretty things.

Also, looking at them in the store will undoubtedly confirm that all the pieces were made in China, and I've been trying to minimize my "Made in China" purchases.  Limiting your "Made in China" purchases is also a great way to stick to a budget, because ALMOST EVERYTHING IS MADE IN CHINA.

Living on less.

As an admitted pack-rat, I've probably spent at least one to two years of my 32-year-old life "gleaning", which is my family's word for "getting rid of shit". Every time I set in for the task, I would wonder "Didn't I just do this?!" and moan and groan throughout the process.

I was fortunate to get an advance copy of Simplify by Joshua Becker.

The book is encouraging and inspiring in many ways, but most importantly in the sense that "Living Minimal" does not have to look the same for everyone.  I really found chapter three "Jump Right In!" especially motivating, because I often get paralyzed when I think "where do I start?!" when taking on a new project.  I like the idea of starting with something on the smaller side and then moving on to the bigger things.  The "small victories" approach is really motivating.

A couple weeks ago, I went through my bathroom and got rid of some old, beat-up makeup bags, threw out some practically empty bottles, and committed to using up what I have before I'm allowed to buy anything new.  As far as body lotion goes, that might take a while, as I have no fewer than nine (9!) bottles of body lotion in varying sizes and scents. Ri-dic-u-lous!  I definitely didn't buy all those, I always seem to accumulate body lotions from my mom, events, etc.  But honestly...enough is enough!  I live in about a 600 square foot apartment, and about 10 square feet of that was taken up by body lotion (slight exaggeration, perhaps?)

Next up?  I plan to go through my CDs (I probably have about 75?) and whittle that down to about 25.  I have all my music on my computer (and backed up) but know that I will not be able to get rid of all of the CDs.  I intend to keep the CDs of my favorite artists, and you'd better believe it'd practically have to take an act of God to separate me from my personalized, autographed copy of Debbie Gibson's Greatest Hits.

If you are looking for a pretty quick but enlightening read, order a copy!  In keeping with the idea of living simple, it's an e-book, not a hard copy, so no need to make room on your bookshelf!

BLAZING MAD!

I adore the Olympics. Some women watch Lifetime movies (I totally don't...honestly never have and really hope I never will), but I prefer to get my emotional overload from the trials and triumphs of elite athletes.  I love Olympic athletes because they are in it for the LOVE OF THE GAME, not necessarily for fame and fortune.  Most of the sports at the Olympics hardly have any true media presence, and are usually only given attention once or twice every four years.

Naturally, I spent Friday night at home, watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.  Some friends and I tossed around the idea of watching them at a bar, but frankly, staying at home was probably better. I may have been embarrassed when I burst into tears when the athletes/representation from Georgia got a standing ovation or when I openly drooled over a lot of the male athletes (especially from South American or Nordic countries...hubba hubba).

Most definitely, I would have gotten into a knock-em-down-drag-out fight over how REPULSIVE I think it is that the Official TEAM USA Opening Ceremony Knit Sweater is FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE FUC*ING DOLLARS and it's NOT MADE IN THE USA!  OH. MY. GAWD.  How ridiculous is that?!  Ralph Lauren knows (banks on) that America thrives on a culture of consumption, one that is all about having the "newest, coolest, biggest, best, ETC". Of course talking about our consumption culture is a post all in itself, and one that I'm not really qualified to comment on (fortunately, she can), but I just find it offensive that they'd market/promote such expensive clothes to the masses during these economic times. I understand it's a business, perhaps their sponsorship deal was done before the economic downturn of 2008, but I really doubt it.  Yes, I think they look sharp, in general, but I'm just appalled that all the Team USA clothes are "imported" (which is what it says on their website).  I called the Ralph Lauren customer service line to see where the knit sweater was made (yes, I really did...it's a 1-800 number) but the woman who answered couldn't tell me.  She told me to call back during regular customer service line business hours (of course, I find it odd that they wouldn't have actual customer service rep's working now, to take orders for Olympic gear).

Anyone else find this a little shocking and upsetting?

Heading up north!

I'm heading on a little winter escape with my dad today!  We are going north to Wisconsin to visit his cousin's and have some outdoor fun.  We have cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, and downhill skiing planned.  Fingers crossed that we don't break anything.

One thing I know we will be doing...we'll be stopping at a Culver's on the way so I can get my grubby paws on some Dairyland Cheese Curds!  Yummmm!

Those ads were SuperBORING.

I liked the actual game, as I was rooting for the Saints due to the fact I am a sports socialist, but man...the commercials were, overall, very LAME.  Not only were they lame, but I found them problematic in the sense that they were showing all these emasculated men who were acting like they are just at the beck-and-call of the women in their lives.

This flowchart nicely sums it up.  Am I being overly sensitive?

Things I find funny.

In Chicago, if you have two unpaid parking tickets and the Department of Revenue comes across your car, they "boot you", which means they put this contraption on your car:

 

rendering it useless.

The other day, I saw a boot on a BMW.  Two thoughts came into my head, 1) "Oh no! Maybe that person lost their job and couldn't afford to pay their parking tickets!", followed quickly by 2) "Jackass...probably thought they were 'above' paying parking tickets..."

Is this normal?

The Customer Service Challenge

One of my strengths, if you were to ask me in an interview, is my dedication to superior levels of customer service.  At every job I've ever had, I have always gone above and beyond the norm in order to provide a great experience for a customer (please, keep it clean).  Because of my own standards, I expect a pretty good level of customer service from places I frequent.  I am rarely disappointed, and if I am, I usually let them know pretty quickly (i.e. - I once told a cashier who was on the phone that I would "wait until she finished her conversation" before paying because I "didn't want to interrupt." I know...totally passive-aggressive, but that is how I roll.)

Since I'm so intuned to good customer service, if I get good service, I am very likely to tell someone/write about it.  Whether it be pulling a manager aside to let them know that someone did a great job, or sending a quick email, I do it on the regular.  What's happened recently though, is that I am getting FREE SHIT for BEING NICE.  Can you believe it?!  I wrote the customer service department at The Limited to let them know how awesome their employees at the Water Tower store are, and guess what?  I got a gift certificate.  Later I wrote into Anthropologie's website to ask if they had an artist list of the music they play, and although they don't have anything official, the customer service rep typed out a bunch of the artists they play on Anthro satellite radio and sent me TWO FREE CD's.  WTF?!  Who knew being nice was so lucrative?

Well, keeping in mind my recent successes, I decided to put it to the test to see if Potbelly would care that I got mugged less than 10 minutes after buying one of their delicious Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies.

I'm not really smart enough (that's not true, let's say I'm not patient enough) to figure out how to make my tweets show in this post, so let's do it the old-fashioned way. Read this, then this, this, this, this, and this and this.


They've been emailed!  I wonder if I'll get a cookie? ;)

The pressure!

One of my least favorite activities in the whole wide world is picking out eyeglasses.  For some reason, it tends to exacerbate my neurotic hangups.  All of a sudden I start obsessing about my crooked ears, my close-set eyes, or my relatively petite nose (which in theory is good, but makes eyeglasses sit a bit lower on my face than I'd like).  Not to mention eyeglass stores tend to have really crisp lighting which seems to point out the new wrinkles I've acquired, my roots, and the lovely under-eye circles I'm sporting (I blame the mice nightmares I've been having...true story).

While paying for the glasses I picked out (which is kinda nonsense, as I hate paying people for things they HAVEN'T DONE YET...I'll save that for another post) I said "You know, it's so unfair that glasses are so expensive (thankfully I still have vision insurance for the rest of this month)...it's not like we WANT to have to wear them."  I mean honestly.  I'm totally unable to go about my day like a normal human being without some form of visual assistance.  All of these things (eyeglasses, contacts, seeing-eye dogs, canes) cost money.  How is that fair?  It then made me think about how aggravated I get buying tampons.  It's not that tampons and pads/sanitary napkins in of of themselves annoy me (well, okay...maybe it is) but the fact that we have to PAY for them, and that they are not cheap, really annoys me.  Why do women have so many more things they have to spend their money on than men do?  This burns me, especially since women still only make about 82 cents to the dollar that a man makes for doing the same job.

What are other things (necessities) that women have to pay for that men don't?  Is there anything that goes the other way?

Vicious cycle

Okay. I'll put it out there...Heidi Montag and her husband Spencer Pratt bug me. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I just wanted to admit it. While I think Anderson Cooper's clip is funny and scathing, it's also exactly what "Speidi" want...coverage. The more we talk about these people on major media outlets, the longer they are going to stick around. I wish people would just not bother (but then look! I'm writing about it!) I wonder if journalists think that their criticisms and mockery will shame Heidi and Spencer into submission? Clearly they have never watched "The Hills". They don't care what the nature of their coverage is as long as someone's talking about them.

What other "stars" do you wish the media would just stop talking about? Lindsay Lohan? Paris Hilton (although we must admit, she's been "quiet" lately)?

Baby showers for any child other than your first...

In a word - NO. Don't do it. Why do you need more onesies, blankets, bottles, a new car seat, high chair, etc.? More importantly...why should other people buy them for you. AGAIN? You're the one who decided to continue with the most expensive past-time (child raising), so why must the pocketbooks of your friends and families suffer?

Is it surprising to learn this custom originated in the United States? I understand, and fully support, baby showers for your first baby (but really, just have one. You really don't *need* three unless it's purely for geographic reasons), although, like wedding showers, I find the whole "unwrap a present you picked and put on a registry and then exclaim 'Oh my gosh I love this...'" very odd. I mean, you picked it out. You basically told us to buy it for you. But I cannot get behind a baby shower for your second or third child. Just because you had a boy first and are having a girl second does not mean you need to have another baby shower. I'll let you in on a little secret...baby girls can wear blue! It will be okay! It won't make them grow up socially stunted or prevent them from making the cheerleading squad.

I do want to point out the following:
1. Adopting a baby? Yes! Have a baby shower (if it's the first child in your family). Just because it didn't come from your womb does not mean anything. It's still your first child! So exciting!
2. If you had a baby in 2000, and sometime around the time your first child is entering college you get pregnant again...okay. Maybe. I'm sure they'll find poisonous paints/toxins/etc. in all the baby stuff on the market now. Or you didn't hang on to anything, because you thought you were done.

Let's all (meaning the two people who I force to read this site) agree to boycott baby showers for anything other than the first born. Only through activism will we end this ostentatious trend!