Sleep and Things

YAY! I slept in today...until 8 (...so, so programed).

I am officially on vacation starting today. The first one I've had this year (other than a day here and there taken for other reasons) and husband is coming down to Louisville, so this means no blessed four hour drive home. Instead, we are driving three hours to Nashville for a thrifty and thrifting stay (I used my bizillion hotel points for three free nights).

I have a list of places I want to visit: Cool Stuff Weird Things, Tennessee Antique Mall, Goodwill outlet (we don't have one in Lou or IN), Ernest Tubb's record store and several recommendation for the Loveless Cafe. I have the Thriftshopper list of stores as well. I have been briefly to one area in Nashville (for work) and saw several chain type stores I may find the time to try (however, I will be back for work in the area in a few months so may concentrate on other areas). We also hope to hit a honky tonk (old style), and Indie rock show and a museum. It is Halloween weekend (my favorite holiday!) and I probably should have made a costume. Time, for me, is the ultimate treasure (I, sadly, seem to have none). For the most part, when I travel for pleasure, I keep my options really open (no itineraries for me-I have enough of those for work!)

Anyway...

Meanwhile, before hitting the road, I need to clean up the teeny apartment (can't wait to move next spring), make my coffee, and do some more hunting for weird things to do in Nashville!

A Year of No Shopping

Van over at Thrift Core has challenged her readers to go without retail shopping for a year. It's been a few years since I tried this type of challenge. I have read recent books and blogs chronicling other people's various level of success of being a non-consumer and, although I have a few gripes on some of the books, I love reading the success stories. It is a challenge I really need to try again with my recent economy worries and the fact I need to save money/pay off some debts.

So, I accept her challenge and will begin producing a weekly report on my progress.

My exceptions to the 2011 Buy Nothing New challenge are as follows (but even these have an exception to the exception; I will try to substitute, find cheap or free or make my own whenever possible):

*Food and/or medical needs

*Cleaning supplies

*Vehicle needs (e.g. window wipers, etc.)

*Hygiene products (I'll include underwear here, but we are really set right now)

*Household items needed to get house on market (see exception to the exception)

*Gifts (again, see exception to the exception, but I will have more on this on a later post)

*Limit our eating out and bar patronage (I will try to be thrifty with coupons and "Kids Eat Free" nights)

I will try to be better at the curb-side shopping or using Craig's List. I plan to be more exceptional at using coupons for food/pet food/household items. I do not want to give up thrift shopping, but I am going to limit is to two days a month (at most and I will make up "passes" for myself to use. If I happen to use them all in months 1-4 then I am done for the year). I will carry my thrift wish list and try to stick with it. Last, if I slip and buy new, I will try to get it from smaller shops (this is part of my gift exception).

I am looking forward to the challenge and will begin my posts on the topic starting next Wednesday!

Thrifty Times

I really wanted to keep this blog light-hearted, a glimpse of what I feel is the happier, more fun me. All of that being said, I blogged about recessions and depression and difficult times for years and it is hard for me to let this go. I have practiced for The End of the World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) for a long time and when I hear something that alerts me of hard times I tend to listen. I don't want to be panicky about the New Year, but I plan to start tightening up the purse strings.

Case-in-point: My friend M. works in the coffee business. He is a master roaster and makes a great, smooth-tasting coffee that I am so hooked on (and often the recipients of his great coffee gifts!) He has been depressed for a couple of weeks and tonight he told me that several employees were laid-off and his hours were cut. Why? I mean coffee is an addiction and I don't see "Drink less coffee" on too many resolution lists. No, the reason is coffee beans have gone up 65%. Another way to put this is consumer coffee is about to go literally through the roof. I am a coffee addict. I need to stock up ASAP!

Then, if this coffee news is not enough, I hear on Chicago news that produce is tripling in cost. Even the price of things like bananas and cabbage is increasing exponentially. 2010 has not been a good year for produce yields. I guess I'll be planting that garden this year after all (order seeds now!) Of course, we could all have wonderful local produce yields come spring and summer (we can hope anyway).

The other agricultural item that is about to increase is cotton. Well, the price of raw cotton is already high, but what is going to go up is the following essential items: blue jeans, towels, and diapers (the non-disposable ones). I will thrift most of the jeans for DH and myself, but decent ones for the 8 yo always seem harder to find (will have to really hit yard sales this summer).
No one is in diapers any more and we are set on towels.

Anyway, I really was trying to get away from the panic, the doom and gloom I felt from being/having to be "prepared", but I still want to be thrifty and ready for tough times ahead. When I hear my friends are losing their jobs and the rest of us have frozen salaries, I wonder if this recession is just getting bigger and not better.

Scratch Line 1

(Bad photo, but almost everything in the photo is Hand-me-down, thrifted, or found.)

So, for my first WIP completion*, I started rearranging our master bedroom after being inspired by her arrangement and New Year goals. A while back I was pining for my sunny California days at the ocean and found myself despising the inland Midwest, craving a bit of salty sea cottage life. On Catalina Island (and I will totally go there when I win that proverbial lottery), I fell in love with the tiny, colorful cottages. One had a glass door with encrusted bits of sea life (e.g. seastars, seaweed, shells). Completely ignoring any sort of personal space of the owners (who weren't there anyway), I stared and stared at the lovely things and even took a photo (and will post when I find the right card). I so wanted to be living in that great cottage.

A few months later (winter 2009-10) I started spotting sea related items in the thrifts. I started to envision a room somewhere in my house that would at least attempt to give me that sunny calm feeling of a seaside cottage. I picked these items up and stored them away. DH painted the bedroom (at my request) a light blue and it made me think of the sea. I found (in my own house) a chenille bedspread in white-and it made me think of the sea. I already had two giant conch shells in the sun room and various sea related tchotchkes scattered about the abode. I gather them all up and made a plan to turn my bedroom into my seaside cottage escape. I could at least pretend, right?

Fast forward, and I do mean fast forward, a year later and I am finally getting around to the design! Actually, this is much better than my usual years (or never) approach. I didn't take a "before" photo (sadly in a way), but I will take after ones and post when I am through (Goal: Get this done before I head back down to KY). First order of business was moving the giant furniture around. I hate the furniture. We bought my MIL's Sleep Number bed this past summer and she "threw-in" the giant, circa 1980's furniture. It is very high quality, solid wood, but ugly, so damn ugly! It is not my style in any shape or form. It is also not the right size for the tiny room we call the 'master'. However, it is functional and has a lot of room for storage, so it stays for now. Eventually, if I keep it, I will repaint it or something. I don't like the finish or the brass handles or...OK, I digress.

I puzzled the dresser and gianormous chest of drawers into a new layout and I think it is a bit more tolerable. The room is one of those narrow rectangles and there really isn't much more I can do. Next, I made the bed. Don't laugh-this a rare event! I put all the white linens I could find (which actually translate as turning a comforter to the white side, placing a white handmade quilt on top and topping it off with the chenille spread). I put one of the sea-related themed pillows on it. I have plans to make some more from graphics found on The Graphics Fairy and I have one more found pillow I plan to alter (another post). Already the room has a salty feel.

(thrifted "angry" sea print)

Now everyone that knows me, knows I am not a "sunny", "cutesy" type. I like the dark, the weird, the mysterious. Yesterday, I went back to a ST. Vinnie's thrift I had visited with my mom on Monday to get an item I thought about in the night (don't tell me you have never had this happen to you!!). After retrieving the vintage wooden ironing board ($1!), I thought I would glance at the mountain of picture frames they offered. Lo and behold, I found the perfect print (not in the best frame, but that is the fun of this project, right?) It is a vintage snapshot of an angry sea ($1) and I love it!

I have a few more projects in progress for the room (and will share these WIPs another post), but I am really happy how it all came together. It is the first time, in my adult life, I have managed a decorating "theme" beyond Christmas.

*One of my 2011 Goals

Linking to Apron Thrift Girl's "Thrift Share Monday"

Thrifty Monday: Blue Christmas Rendition

(Complete and unused bridge set)

Sigh. It is 9:18 already and I feel like I have done nothing at all today. OK, so I went to work today, finished last minutes gift-buying at the Liquor Barn (can't go wrong with Kentucky bourbon), and spent way too much money at the Goodwill across from the L-Barn, but, really, where does the time go?

This time of year is so hard for me. I can't stand the race of Christmas and the darkness gets to me. It is one of the reasons I celebrate Winter Solstice is that I so welcome the return of the light and feeling like my day has some length to it. Yes, the hours are the same (and in fact we "Fall back" right?), but the darkness makes me yearn for my (thrifted) gnome pajama bottoms and a warm bed starting at 5:30 pm!

And, back to the holiday race, why do we not gift all year long? I can't sit on gifts and it is why I am never organized enough to space my Xmas shopping out all year long. It is always on the resolution list, but never happens. I was stressing because three stores were out of something that goes with a gift for my mother, but then I thought how ridiculous my panic was considering the piece is not a "sale" item and will be available in the weeks following the holiday.

Both my husband and I received work bonuses this year (something that has not happened in three years). We indulged partly because we had this unbudgeted money and partly because I feel so much guilt at being away from my boys during the week (I will be so happy when we are together this again...hopefully this spring/early summer). I miss my kids so much. It was stupid, I know, but the sad thing is I feel we got so much less than when we used a smaller budget (is it me or is everything more expensive this year???)

So, with the New Year goal list making season almost on top of us (suffocating us, no doubt), I plan to tighten the belt, be more organized and get my family moved down to KY as soon as humanly possible. I'll post the list next week with the specifics. Sadly, one of the items will be less thrifting for me (with a side goal of selling off lots of my "junk") at least until some of the bills are paid off. It will be good to purge since we plan to rent a smaller place while we try to sell the Northern house and land. We will buy a new house only when the bills are tidy and manageable.

OK, enough with the downer talk. Seems a lot of us out there are thinking about new years and new goals. Here is some thrifty fluff from tonight's scores:

(Cheese plate and dome)

(Set of 8 7 Tab glasses...dropped one in parking lot)

(Ok, so the Spotted Dick Pudding wasn't a thrifty find [container under it was], but I had to snatch it up for a friend last week at a Irish gift shop. It's a long story, but suffice to say it will have meaning to my dear friend...hopefully shared with a sense of humor! ;)