Flip-It Friday - More on Floors with a Bonus Feature of Shame

Source: dwellstudio.com via J on Pinterest

So what do you think of this one? It's on super-sale.

I probably wont get it as it's a thin rug and not plushy-plush. Thanks for your input though.

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Good, now that we got that out of the way.

I want to talk to the kids for a minute. I want to talk to them about smoking their future.

I got into a political discussion this morning - before 8 AM. It was not heated or angry but we certainly all weren't in agreement on big issues. It was good, save for one thing.

One of us had NO CLUE what she was talking about.

I've been known to spout my mouth when I'm under-informed. I admit it. We all do it sometimes.

But when you don't recognize the current Vice President of The United States when he comes on TV, take that as a sign to start gettin' learned.

Meet Joe. He may offend you, but he's kinda a big deal.

Now, I'm trying to learn to limit my verbal opinions (bet you can tell where I stand, though). I'm trying to not use this blog as an outlet* for my view on the hot topics. I try to lead in with pictures of rugs and questions of "do you like this one?" I make myself sick sometimes with the level of blogger bull I re-purpose just for some pageviews.

Does that drive you nuts, too?

I can't tell what makes me crazier: The fact that I am pandering to a short-attention-spanned, vane, blind-follower, Kardashian-concerned, idiot race of my peers... or that I'm substituting that for what I care about.

Basically, am I more concerned that I am becoming accustomed to lowbrow interests? Or that my peers are that low in the first place.

Don't worry. I'm not calling you lowbrow (although I do think you should educate yourself). I think I'm calling myself a sell-out.

Microphone drop. Hangs head in shame.

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*This blog used to be an outlet. I could say whatever I wanted to here when no one was listening. Then my dear husband gave the URL to his dear mother (unsolicited... how apropro) and I decided the cat was out of the bag and distributed my blog to family and friends. I wonder all the time if I should have just kept it secret. A diary or wailing wall, if you can imagine. 

Resolutions for 20-Somethings

Love this list. I think we could all stand to learn a thing or two:

Before you status update, Tweet, Tumble or Instagram, pause and say to yourself, “is it entirely necessary that I share this morsel of thought with my entire social network?”and if the answer is not, “yes, I absolutely must,” then step away from the Internet. 

Know which candidate you’re going to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, and know why. 

Enough with the 14-day juice cleanses. If you want to lose a little weight quickly, eat less and exercise like crazy. If you want to lose a lot of weight slowly, do whatever Jennifer Hudson did. 

If you really like the person you’re hooking up with and would like them to be your boyfriend/ girlfriend, find a way to tell them, and hope for the best. If you don’t and wouldn’t, stop. 

Find a way to save approximately 300 dollars and spend it on a flight to see a friend or family member who lives far away. 

Please stop liking the Kardashians, all of them. It’s not helping anyone, least of all the Kardashians. 

Spend less than or equal to the money you earn each month. 

Wear clothes that fit you, especially to work. 

Call someone on the phone at least once a week, and speak to him or her for at least ten minutes. 

Start preparing now to get over the fact that Facebook is probably going to change again in six months. You’re not going to deactivate your account. You don’t know how. 

Wait 30 seconds before you look up a fact you can’t remember on your phone, and try to remember it using your brain. This is what the olden days were like. 

Replace one terrible reality show you’re currently watching with one wonderful scripted show currently available on television. Swap suggestion: Real Housewives of Anywhere for HBO’s Enlightened. 

Try that food you think you don’t like but have never actually tried, unless it’s brussels sprouts. They really don’t need any more attention. 

Cut one person out of your life who you truly do not like and add one person who you truly do. Note: not on Facebook, on Earth. 

If you’re still blacking out regularly, you should stop. 

Volunteer once over the next 90 days. You’ll feel really good about it, and probably end up volunteering again over the next 275. 

Tell someone who you love that you love them on a more regular basis. To their face, not in a text.
Back up your entire online life onto an external hard drive, especially your photos. 

Crap or get off the pot. This applies to whatever thing you’re not doing that you should just sack up and do already. 

And in the eternal words of Tom Haverford, “TREAT YO SELF!”

Via here. Seen here first.

Go For Broke but Don't Go Broke For the Holidays

money money money mon-ey ... Mo-NEE!

Geepers. S and I have put our wallets on lock-down as of yesterday until our budget starts over next month. We have to make it 9 more days without any noticeable purchases. (Can we do it?!)

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Between holiday gift$, the turkey and trimming$, entertaining friend$, the mo$t awe$ome cu$tom card$, and needing/wanting new pant$, we/I have tapped the budget and then $ome.

Granted, I got a wee bit of a raise when I was promoted, but not enough to justify all this over-spending. Where did I go wrong??

Custom cards, a fresh, local turkey and new pants were really the only splurges. But I have excuses for all of that:

1) This is the only appropriate time to use wedding/engagement photos in card-form. If I don't stomp on this milestone this year, I never can!
2) This may be the only Thanksgiving I host so I need to make it wow-ser.
3) And well, I am popping buttons on my old pants and am upgrading from hand-me-downs.

Ok, ok. Calm down mom and dad. We are still meeting all of our basic needs, paying all of our bills, and still contributing to savings. All's well.

So let's explore where we went right:

1) Use coupons/Groupons/sales to shop for gifts. I was able to use a coupon on like 80% of our gifts for family this year and the rest were on sale/discount. Fives.
2) Splurge on only some things (the turkey).
3) When entertaining, go pot-luck! Even our Thanksgiving dinner is going to be a group effort.
4) We're spending inside of our means. No lay-away, no credit card bills larger than our checking account balance, no opening up new lines of credit, no black-Friday plans to buy electronics we don't need (cough cough, S, cough cough).
5) Eat leftovers! To make room for all of the Thanksgiving food and all of the Thanksgiving leftovers, eat what you have now. Oh and leftover make great lunches, so pack your lunch.

What are you doing to financially survive the holidays?
Have you found Black Friday deals for which you were glad to get up at 3 AM?
I am seriously curious.

Flip It Friday: What Are You Doing to Give Back for the Holidays?

Happy Friday! Be warned, this post is full of exclamation points because I am just that excited!

Last night S and I went to Target to get some gifts for a few charities we are supporting this season. We budget our giving so that we can be generous on a monthly basis, and this month it was super-freak-fun to shop for the needy - young and young-at-heart.

The children's charity we are supporting this Christmas is Operation Christmas Child. I loved packing shoeboxes for this charity when I was in high school and it was no different this time around. Shopping the toy aisle as an adult is like stepping into a whole new world.

S packing a slinkie, velcro catch game, monster truck, jump rope, chapstick, soap, washcloths, toothbrushes, toothpaste, coloring supplies, pencils and a sharpener, silly putty, baseball cards, a harmonica, chewing gum, fun flossers and more!

 

Tiana fairy princess barbie! (I know Disney is not socially accurate, but these shoeboxes go to countries all over the world. I would have bought a Filipino barbie if they sold one at Target.)

Get. In. The. Shoebox. Barbie!

The tiniest little reigndeer socks ohmywordthey'recute!

My little girl's shoebox contained a lot of the same stuff as S's but also some hair ties in pretty colors, a Hello Kitty puzzle and some glitter stickers.

I wrote a little handwritten note to put in each box - telling them how much fun we had shopping for them and how we love them because Jesus loves all of us. Sappy sappy, I know, but important.

We also did some shopping for Northpointe Resources, an organization that helps the mentally and physically challenged here in northern Illinois. A girl at work and I are splitting up a wish list for a woman named Ilona and getting her fun things like body spray and headbands. I'm going to make her a mix CD of her favorite music - 60's and 70's - to add to her gift bag. So much fun!

So how are you giving back this season? Do you have charities that you give to regularly? Are you looking for ideas on how to give back? Some of you may be doing Chicago Loot Drop. Are you one of 'em?

Comment, comment, comment!

Flip It Friday: Gift Giving and Some Gibberish

Let's get the flippin' Friday thing over with so I can brag a little:

When giving a gift, is it acceptable to be fruigal? Or is inexpensive always considered "cheap"? Can you get and then give a deal? If you know someone isn't going to use a years supply worth of bath salts in their lifetime, is it ok to be reasonable and get them just a few bath's worth?

Via Pinterest. Yes, Sarah, Pinterest. You know the drill. Reply with comments on what you think.
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Ok, on to bigger, braggier fish.

I have readers in the US, Russia, Germany, Peru and South Korea!!!!

I probably have for at least a little while now, I just didn't know how to check for my blog's globalization. That's right, Russia, you are reading real, American, ignorant writing! Feel authentic!

And upon my Magellan of a discovery, I am going to honor my foreign readers in their language. [Per a sketchy site with babble-like translation... here goes]

Я Tooting свой рог

Ich bin tooting meine eigene

Hupe Estoy tocando mi propio cuerno

내 자신의 경적을 tooting 오전

And there you have it. I said "I am tooting my own horn" in 4 languages. Of course, I'm sure that the literal translations of what I just said refers to farting, but I'm proud nonetheless!

[p.s. The Korean looked like wingdings on the translation page. Sorta glad they actually appear to be characters, but also kinda sad that Koreans don't speak "wingdings", but then glad again because they don't have a word for "tooting" and the English word helps ground the phrase on the page, but then sad again because what do the Koreans call it?? Oh, translation machine says: 방귀뀌다]

Advice: Yee-haw! Get Back On The Horse

Sometimes you're up. Sometimes you're down. I feel like there's a song here.

I've had an awesome and terrible couple of weeks.

I've also exaggerated how terrible it's been. It's been mostly great with a few slight hiccups, if I'm being honest and reasonable.

But I'm not honest and reasonable. I all sortsa crazy on a whim.

So what do you do when you've: picked 3 fights with your family in 24 hours, put your foot in your mouth, broke the website at work that they JUST entrusted to you, been late to dinner, wasted money on a cab when you should have walked, let your emails pile up, been "overserved" and therefore "dehydrated" the next morning when you have to go to work and deal with a problem, AND failed to sew the button back onto the only pants that match the sweater you NEED to wear and just say 'screw it' and go to work all sloppy-bobbie with an unbuttoned pocked flap?

 High five me. High five.

What do I do after all of this and a solid half hour of complaining and dramatizing my demise (a la phrases like "This outfit? Take a good look. This is the outfit I'll be wearing when I get fired.").

But after all that I get back on the horse. Nothing's all that bad. I still have a family that loves me (sorry guys, I know you love me even if I've tried to alienate each of you lately), a job (no, I didn't get fired), friends that are willing to say "yes" to a 3rd (or 4th?) bottle of wine, and a trip to Tucson in January to look forward to. Nothing is that bad. All will turn out fine.

So maybe the song should be Where the Blacktop Ends. Original, drugged-out, short-haired Keith Urban.

Actually, no. This is the song.

Tipsy Tuesday Advice: Know Your Pie and How to Slice It

I made this chart with the data from our Mint.com and this site. Yes, it may be a kids site, but it makes a pretty good free graph. Neat.

Looking at this graph, I'm all like, "Woah, are you supposed to spend 40% of your cha-ching on rent and stuff??"

Let's take a step back.

This chart only shows our total spending broken out by category. Whew. It's totally ok that out of our total spending, 40% is on rent. It SHOULD be the largest expense we have each month. Unless, we have a mortgage, then that should be our largest ticket item.

To give you some perspective, here's how much we really spend a month:

We save quite a bit, so the first pie chart shouldn't be so scary.

Now, people who claim to be experts say that you shouldn't spend more than 1/3 of your income in housing.

We seem to fit comfortably within our limit of spending less than a 1/4 of our income on rent. High five for saving, spending within our recommended limits and for charts in general.

Fives to NewlyWedsOnABudget too, for getting me excited for charting.

Drink suggestion for this post? What goes well with pie...

If it's a pot pie, a beer; if it's a dessert pie, then have a glass of Merlot. (Some would argue that you should have a sweeter wine with dessert, but who can take all that sugar... let's go DRY.) Last night I had a glass from a winery my parents visited in Paducah, Kentucky. Thanks Mom and Dad for the Purple Toad Merlot! I love a good, local wine with a story behind the hunt for it!

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Flip-It Friday: I'll show you mine...

Will you show me yours?

Apartment, house, duplex, cardboard box...

Here are a few photos of our apartment before we moved in. Somehow I always have pictures of the "befores" and not a lot of the "afters" when it comes to moving in.

(The above are all of the master bath. It was truely a selling (renting?) point for us when we saw it. Steam shower, jacuzzi tub, double sink and HUGE mirror? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Here's the main room empty. I have no wide-angle lens on my iPhone; the room is just that spacious.)

Except for this "after". This is after we got all of our stuff inside but not put away. Geeze Louise, that was a stressful weekend.

The "After-afters" [read: decorated and orderly] are coming soon!

So tell me, what does your place look like? Can you see where we went wrong with moving? Send me a link to your own house tour video or pictures! Or leave a comment describing the features you love in your home.

Beverage pairing with this post? We got a housewarming gift of champagne... or we could pair this with a PBR because that's what we drank at the local hole-in-the-wall/hipster-joint, Maria's, after we couldn't stand to look at this mess anymore! They have what they call "sh*tty beer of the day" and it's only $2 or something like that. It's a grab-bag o' beer, but it's cheap!

Hand-Out or Cold-Heart?: Thoughts on the Homeless

(Disclaimer: This post is lengthy and contains emotional material. Read on with a tissue, B.Lill, or you can just skip this one for now.)

Spending some time outside today, I dodged the rain by walking around a drug store. Just like Dane Cooks says, being at "The Wall" (Walgreens) or in my case, CVS, makes you want to steal stuff. Being honest, I paid for my knock-off Swedish fish and was on my merry way to peruse the rest of a train station, hiding from the rain. Leaving the station to return to work, headphones in, I was targeted by a young guy with a backpack and no umbrella.

"Ma'am, can I trouble you for a dollar? I'm trying to get on a tr..."

Ma'am. Pft. I handed him a little red fish that I was about to stick in my mouth, smiled, and turn to go without speaking. He looked bewildered, smiled back and then remembered his game.

"So, no then?"

This little scene I lived today reminded me of a conversation I've had with 2 separate groups of woman I value.

So what do you do when someone asks you for money on the street? How to do you deal (listen to me, "deal") with the homeless?

Both groups concluded that one should generally have something to give them - a meal, a snack, a dollar if they really look like they need it. I've heard of the great idea to carry around little "hobo packs" wherever you go so that you can provide someone who's saying they are down-and-out with a granola bar, transit card, chapstick, toothbrush, and even money. Great ideas, but somehow, we don't use them. Call it impracticality. Call it expensive. Call it lazy.

The most recent of these groups of women was a book club I am in. We read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand about WWII and some of its most notable POWs. Harrowing stories of abuse and accounts of inhumane conditions were accounted in this book. Enough to tug on the coldest of hearts. One woman posed the question:

Would the way you approach a homeless person change if you knew he was a war Vet?

She went on to say that this book changed the way she thought of them. That we often ignore the homeless asking for money because they will most likely use it for booze or drugs. She said that she can't blame a vet for wanted to get a bit wasted after living through anything like what those POWs had. She said she'd adopted a homeless person near her work and gave him what she could when she saw him.

This insightful friend of ours, Liz, was sideswiped with a swell in an underlying heart condition and is spending the short time she has left here on earth in a hospital being watched over by family and prayed for by many friends.

Over a week ago, when we all first heard the news, one hopeful friend found Liz's homeless guy (possessive in the loveliest way possible) and gave him some cash. No questions asked. Because that's what Liz would have done.

God doesn't call us to ask "Why?", He just asks us to give. Period.

You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say,

“They share freely and give generously to the poor.

Their good deeds will be remembered forever.”

[2 Corinthians 9:7-9]

Liz, you and your good deeds will be remembered forever.

A Web-iquette Love Story Continues: Grammar Check

Don't let the love story fool you. I'm in a bitchy mood today, so I'm gonna grammar check like a bia. The only love I'm feeling today is for my self-righteous grammar, overuse of ellipses and this french press coffee. Bam.


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Let's get down to brass knuckles tacks.

Possessive pronoun lists are hard. Boo. I know. Have a cry


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and then do it right, like so:

It was his and my wedding...

NOT:

It was S and I's wedding... (dumb)
It was him and I's wedding... (dumb)
It was S and me's wedding... (just plain ignorant... say it out loud... do you hear that? That's ignorance...)

And certainly not any other dumb combination you can think of that doesn't solely consist of "his" and "my" in that order. Certainly don't bring "your" into it. Certainly.

Yes, we are all human and make mistakes and typos. I make mistakes and typos. There, I said it. But the difference is that if you re-read your own blog article/heard your velociraptor voice on a tape recorder, you wouldn't spot the problem.

This is ironically how you sound and also how you make me feel. Enjoy.



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Tipsy Tuesday: Cha-ching and Womp-womp.

It's Wednesday. I know. Let's just deal with it.

I did have a tipsy Tuesday, though, over a bottle of white wine with S. The wine last night was quite in-line with this wallet-friendly post in that it was:

a) cheap to begin with;
b) on sale;
c) bought in bulk because it came with a reusable wine-carrier (think reusable grocery bag but with dividers to make carrying 6 bottles must less noisy);
and
d) we drank white instead of red because we turned off our AC for the past few days to try and cut back on our energy bill and it was too HOT to drink anything that wasn't chilled.


Turning Leaf. The Pinot Grigio (I think it was) was good.

We also had fish sticks, a Bertolli insta-meal and chips & guac for dinner. That has nothing to do with anything except that meal planning has become a liberated adventure in our house. Themes and consistency be damned.

So let's talk budgeting.

I used to just do some quick rounding math in my head when I was single to try and budget myself. $50 here on a dress for work - justifiable. $25 here on cover and a drink at a bar - gulp *for the drink and the price tag. $7 for lunch with a friend once in a while - necessary to keep up on my ignored social life. I didn't know where all of my money was going exactly, but I wasn't breaking the bank. I didn't have debt (praise Je-sus) and I was building some small savings. So who cared?

My future self, that's who.

Turns out it is wickedly hard to keep track of money and investments when you add another person to the moola-mix. But regardless of how many people are in your financial household, no post-college person should be without a working budget. I mean a real one. Not a mental one that you compile while in line at H&M.

Tools:
There are some great tools for keeping your budget transparent and on track. Our parents had to balance a checkbook and keep bank statements. Our lives are easier with online banking and budget tools like Quicken and free budget tools like Mint.com. (We use Mint and LOVE it. Easy to use, safe and free!)

Set up:
Be honest with yourself and your tools (be it Mint, your checkbook, your online banking or your significant other. Did I just say your significant other is a tool? Hey-o!). You'll have to set up budgets and be real about it. If you "need" to spend $200 a month on clothes, put it in the budget. If you want to get serious about your debt and will choose to skip a meal once a month so you can make that happen, put it in the budget! (I have a friend who skips a meal once a month to make ends meet. That's dedication!)

Keep with it:
Track your progress. Make appointments to talk to your financial players (the bank, your family, your budgeting tools) and adjust spending, income and investments to reflect what you can do. Take pride in your growing bank account. Remind yourself that you brown-bag your lunch so you can afford the ski trip in March. Live within your means and find joy/peace/existence in that. Hell, make the ski resort your computer background.

Reward and reprimand yourself:
Did you do well this month? Have a latte. Did you compulsively wander the aisles of Target and end up with a cartful of "not in the budget"? Cut back next month, sell some of your stuff on Craigslist or try and pick up some extra hours at work. Make sure you hold yourself accountable to your actions. When you reward yourself, you are less likely to fumble when you feel weak (this works for diets too!).

Here's to some good company in the budget blog-o-world (Not to be confused with the Blago world. Another zing, I'm on fire! Fives!).

Newlyweds on a Budget
The Budget Babe on fashion
Etsy for the budget friendly and socially minded ~swoon!
Broke and Healthy on food and fitness

Happy hump day. S and I are off to Jazzin' at the Shedd with BLill. Budget friendly because we get the aquarium AND the fireworks AND time with B.a.M. :)

Thoughts for Thursday: Don't Get Defeated/There Will Be Swearing/FIVES

This image is from Pinterest, but I saw it first on & Everything Nice.

This inspires me.

When people tell you you can't, but you are confident that you can, who do you believe? Is silence worse than a tear down?

I've been faced with the revelation that maybe not everyone has faith in me. Let that sink in. I used to think that I was capable of nearly anything (you know, within reason) and that everyone understood who. I. was. But my font line seems to have pulled back a few paces.

Now before anyone leaves an encouraging comment or denounces their involvement in this self-esteem blow, stop. I don't need your sympathy.

(*Puffed chest. Cape waving in the wind.)

Any man who's one thing is a boring thing. Fives to those who are multifaceted. To those who use both their left and right brains. To those who can sing and do math. Do a Rubik's cube and design an outfit. Write poetry and form an opinion on the economy. Big ol' FIVES.