Cheapening Effecs

Day one as a thrift store shopping platinum blonde... or something like that.

Today, I've got my first $2.95 shirt on, American Eagle, and I can finally see the full effect of my hair dye-stravaganza.  So survey says: pretty much the same, although it got rid of some of the brassiness, which is nice.

So far, I'm calling yesterday the day of ultimately positive choices, however, I'm definitely open to suggestions, reviews, and mockery.  Here's some pics, for your viewing pleasure.

Strappin on my cheap-skates

So I've done two slightly odd and very "college" things today.  The first, was shopping.  Not that shopping is odd, but my shopping choice was.  After a stop at the bank to collect my weekly Benjamin (or 5 Jacksons, as it were), I headed to the Goodwill.  I've had a dilemma lately.  I need shirts that fit, and aren't falling apart because I've had them since high school.  On the other hand, I've committed to spending less money.  Focus on the debt.  Become a grown up.  I decided I wanted to spend very little money and get a lot for it.  I wanted to spend $20.  That felt reasonable.  Even at Target though, that's MAYBE one shirt.  I tend to avoid thrift stores since my post-teen years.  I feel weird about them, like I'm stealing from poor people, or like maybe I'm homeless.  But today I swallowed that last bit of pride.  I hit up the Goodwill and got 5 nice quality, attractive, great fitting, work appropriate tops for a grand total of $14.75.  I am officially in love.

The second thing is that I dyed my hair.  More though, I dyed my hair blonde.  Scratch that, I dyed my hair Ultra Light Ash Brown.  Scratch again, pretty sure I dyed my hair crazy.

Last time I dyed my hair, I picked a medium ash brown.  Ash is supposed to minimize redness, and redness is my biggest annoyance with hair dye.  Of course, as some of you so astutely pointed out, the last dye job came out, well, red.  Maybe auburn, okay, but definitely red-familied.

I chose today's color for a few reasons.  One, the Crack-addict version of Mrs. Robinson  on the box cover actually seemed to have (what I assume to be) my natural color.  Apparently, I have a Ultra Light Ash Brown hair.  I'll need to remember that, next time someone asks.  It should sound a lot better than saying "dunno".  Next, it was a color that proclaimed to be specifically FOR those of us with darker hair.  And while it specifically warned against using over hair that had been dyed anything darker than medium brown, I thought, well shucks, lucky thing my last dye job was a medium!  I figured this box was meant for me.  Thirdly, even though the last ash-dye was a miserable failure, I chalked it up to the brand. L'oreal certainly won't fail me.  Certainly.  And lastly, well, I just like the word ultra.  It sounds powerful.  It sounds electric and exciting.  Exactly what I think of when I think light ashy brown hair.

So I did it.  And the results are, well... I don't know.  I'm scared.  It looks ridiculous wet, like, strawberry blonde roots and nearly black the rest of the way down.  And I followed the instructions on the box!  I'm... pretty sure I followed the directions on the box! Start at the ends, do the roots for the last ten minutes, right?  Ah well, I'm hoping it'll look better dry, but I'm just too nervous to accomplish that.  Plus, we're watching The Postman Always Rings Twice, and it's a riot, so I'm not going anywhere.

If you think I'm terribly upset about this, then it seems you don't know me.  I consider a bottle of hair dye  an adventure.  The color never looks anything like the picture, and you could come out looking like a complete imbecile.  It's almost like some cross between a Choose Your Own Adventure novel and Russian roulette.  I guess this particular bottle may have been the loaded chamber.  Just the same, I bought a back up bottle.  If it's as bad as I suspect, it'll be nearly black again within a week or two.  Just the same, it would have been nice to go au'naturel again, if only for a little while.  Seems I may not have the patience for that.

Another reason I'm not concerned though, is that I've firmly decided to not ever go to a salon again.  Or at least a while.  It's been over 10 months since I paid for a haircut, and I'm shooting for at least 2 total years.  I'll dye my own hair, the same as I cut my own bangs, and suffer any consequences that follow.  I don't like going to salons.  I don't like paying $100 for a cut and color.  I have no idea how much to tip a hairdresser.  I don't even know why we tip a person who sets their own rates.  And to top it all off, I can't help but feel that they're constantly judging me.  Sometimes I even tip more than I think necessary (of course, what the heck do I know) just to make them like me.  Because here's the thing.  Every hairdresser I've ever met is amazingly cool, WHEREAS, I am a raging dork.  Somehow, it always feels like high school again.  And anyway, who really cares what your hair looks like?  Am I going to be socially shunned for having roots lighter than my tips?  Well by golly, it's a little too late for that, again, DORK.

Anyway, I'm back home for good now, and I've been marinating LOTS of thoughts, so stay tuned in for lots of chatter in the next couple weeks!

Hope you're all having a honest to box-picture kind of day!

A-camping we will go!

So this camping thing, gotta say, it's not too bad.  For starters, we're not so much "camping" as we are "staying in a hotel room with 2 sinks, beds, housekeeping, hot showers, electricity, bathrooms, and, as you can see here, rare, but present, internet service".  I don't have to work, don't have to cook, don't have to make our beds, or vacuum, or do the dishes.  Mostly, I hang out with my kid.  Oh, and read a lot, while she takes naps and goes to bed by 9pm.  Camping is flipping incredible.

Just to make things exciting, I set a personal goal for the trip: 3 pounds lost.  That will move me from about 147.5 to about 144.5, and I REALLY want to see the underbelly of 145.  Really.  Plus, that means less than 5 pounds till Shane needs to start doing sit ups.  Did I mention that Shane and I made a bet?  He grows 2 ab muscles for every 10 pounds I lose from here on out.  The idea is, I hit 120, he has a six pack.  We would officially become the hottest couple you know.

Anyway, the reason my 3 pounds MAY actually work out, is that, as you may previously have heard, most camping is done in nature.  More specifically, in the mountains.  Oh, and my swanky hotel room?  Well, it's about a mile downhill from the place where our camp-tivities are happening.  And while Shane has had the car to cruise himself around, I've been hoofing it.  Hoofing it, while pushing my I-didn't-realize-she'd-gotten-so-heavy daughter in her monster-truck sized stroller.  One way, the trip is downhill, and I have to lean back and tense every muscle in my body to avoid letting the stroller careen down the side of a mountain.  And the other direction, well, that would be uphill.  I walk uphill bent at a 90 degree angle so that I can use my leg muscles to push the 1000 pound child/stroller contraption upandupandup.  Oh, and it's not all paved roads.  No no.  A good portion of this trip is over dirt, or sand, leaves, pine needles, pine cones,  large, half-buried rocks, tree branches, protruding tree roots, and the largest number of giant ants I've ever seen in my life.  I don't think they bite.  Sometimes they try (I wear flip flops, so I'd know), but it feels more like a very tiny person trying to kung-fu grip your toes, rather than that normal ant-bite stinging sensation.

By the time I get to the top of the hill, I've been huffing and puffing for 20 straight minutes, and every muscle in my body feels like it's on fire.  I do this multiple times a day.

Now, I should mention, there have been attempts to subvert my weight loss progress here.  Jeff Atherton, our churches youth group leader and my self-proclaimed "biggest fan"  (Hi Jeff!) would like it to be known that he served me up an EXTRA helping of fries for lunch on Tuesday.  But he should also know that I ate a grand total of ONE french fry.  And about half my burger.  My family ate the rest, and to be honest, I don't care if they get fat.  So HA!  The ones who should really be proud of subverting my progress are the nice ladies at the Snack Shop, who  provided me (for a nominal fee) with a very decadent, very delicious chocolate milk shake last night.  I can also gladly say though, that my tiny peanut of a daughter finished most of that too.  It seems the kid likes ice cream.  Who knew?

So that's where my weight loss is right now, the one good sign I had was realizing I could pull my belt to the next tightest hole yesterday.  So once again, Either my tummy's getting smaller, or my belt is stretching!

Oh, and something I may delve into more later:  Freakin teenagers.  I don't care if saying this makes me creepy, or whatever, but if you have any sort of body-issues, just, stay as far as you can from freakin teenagers and their stupid skinny, firm, tanned, gorgeous bodies.  With their stupid short shorts and teeny weeny bikinis, it's just insulting.  Models do not look as good as these freakin 16 year olds do.  And why?  Because models are generally not 16.  Nothing sags when you're 16.  Nothing even wiggles.  Live it up ladies, in a few short years, it'll change for you too.  At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Dress it like it's hot!

I've decided this summer has a dress code.  Seeing as I'll only be working 2 days a week, the rest of the summer will be clothed in....


Drum roll please....




Layered ribbed Tanks!!!!!  Wooo hoo!


As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that I just ripped that straight from Tosh.0.  It wasn't on purpose, but apparently I keep cable television comedians in my brain in place of an actual internal monologue.  That's unfortunate.

Any-whosit, this decision came around for a number of reasons, which I will list..... wait for it.... now:
1)  I already have some that fit pretty well.
2)  It is outrageously hot during the summer where I live, and sleeves seem masochistic.
3)  I find styles and trends to be both expensive and confusing.  Pants I'm okay with, but I'm not good at buying shirts, so I tend to... not.
4)  I actually DID buy some shirts today.  I ran across some ribbed tanks at Walmart for $3.88 a piece.  I bought 4.
5)  I think layered tank tops nicely conceal my stomach.  I also think they look really great with jeans and flip flops, which are other things I love to wear.  Here is a picture of a smokin' hottie wearing the aforementioned ensemble:

This is definitely what I'm going for this summer, although my less delusional mind says I probably look a little more like this:

Well, that's it for tonight folks.  Here's hoping you all get the sensation that you're smuggling a couple of perky grapefruits instead of one giant, hairy watermelon in YOUR summer tanks!

Today is a Risky Business kind of day

Yeah!  HECK yeah!  WOOwooooWOOOO!  ::Irish Jigging all over the living room::  ::Realizing I have no idea how to do a jig::  ::Sitting back down in an attempt to regain dignity and composure:: Ehem.  Yes.

At the moment, my daughter is in time out.  She woke up at 8, wanting to go outside.  Despite breakfast, play time, and cartoons, she wouldn't give that up.  She said outside. I told her no.  She said outside.  I reminded her I said no.  She brought me her shoes.  I put them aside.  She cried SHOOOOOOEEEES!!  I made her ask for the shoes.  She said peeeeaase. I gave them back.  She cried OUTSIIIIIIIIDE!!!  I said no.  She made snarly-demon face and smacked me.  Then she cried aaaall the way to time out.

Then, I sat down on the couch to do some important morning internet work, only to have the cat bite my hair.  WHY?  Cuz it moved.  And she had decided to sit behind me.

So you may be wondering why I'm in such a good mood?  Well, that's because a couple good diet/exercise/prayer days have helped to move the scale again, and this time in the RIGHT direction.  I know I said I was 150 yesterday, but I hadn't actually checked.  In fact, I was only 149 yesterday, and today I was a superduper skinny 147.5.  WOOT!!!  You have no idea what being over 150 had been doing to my brain for the past two weeks.  In that span of time, I managed to decide I really REALLY do want to be back under 140, while at the same time became incredibly defeated, assumed hitting 140 would never again happen, and that I would probably wind up gaining ALL the weight back and being an obese lady forever.  Gosh, it's kind of amazing what a few stupid pounds can do to a person's psyche.

Body's getting better, 145, here I come!!

Budget-cation. Also, I got fat again. Bums-ville.

Hello old blog-friend, I missed you.  By way of explanation for my blog-quitting, it should be said that today is my first full at-home day since Memorial Day (I've been working a TON during the last 2 weeks of school since I had some extra childcare), and we had company at our house then.  And the week before that, we were on vacation.  Basically, I haven't been on my normal life/work schedule since mid May.  This ALSO means that I've neglected my blog, my reports, my Bible reading, my exercising, and my house cleaning.  Oh, and the lawn is starting to look all "Welcome to the Jungle".  So.. can you guess what's on my To Do list for today?  Potato chips and couch-lounging, here I come!!

Anyhow, onward and upward.

This is week TWO of my cash budget living and it's going.... pretty well.  Pretty well?  Yeah... I think so.  Yeah.  I'm definitely making money-saving choices in life, I switched to cheaper coffee creamer, and I'm noticing the "little extras" that I'm inclined to go to the store for, and am now forced to choose not to.    In essence, life has become a zero-sum game.  You want to spend extra money on X?  Well then you won't get Y.  And as we're going on vacation AGAIN next week (Seriously? Who have we become?) there has been extra stuff we need, and no extra money to buy it with.  Sorry local restaurants, we won't be patronizing your fine establishments, well, maybe ever again at this rate.  It's going to take some time getting used to, some time till I get really good at this, but I think it's possible.  And in the mean time, we're still saving some money!  Debt-free future, here we come!!

Oh, and are any of you still interested in my weight?  Well, with all of our vacationing and celebrationing and what not, I gained some weight back.  I'm sitting rather solidly at 150.  Not. Going. Well.

Oh number two:  Vacation is not TECHNICALLY a vacation.  At least, not for Shane.  It's Hi-Camp.  Maddie-pants and I are coming along to vacation in the vicinity of Shane's strenuous work week.  It's gonna be AWESOME.

Hope you're all having a faux-cation worthy week!

Getting Budget-Faced

Why hello there!  Hey, remember when I used to post everyday?  Yep.  That happened once upon a time.

Well, we're home from vacation, and empty homed now that our parent-visitors have now all left.  Whew, what a week!  Lots of fun, lots of crazy, and it's time to get back to it.

One way in which I thought I'd help us "get back to it" is to institute our first official cash budget!  ::Trumpeting fanfare time is now::  Now I have found that I have the ability to do all of our grocery shopping for about 50-60 bucks a week.  This CAN include all of our little possible extras, toiletries, makeups, pet supplies, baby wipes, whatever shopping must be done CAN be done for that amount.  If I focus.

Because if I DON'T focus, I find myself making loads of unnecessary trips to Target through the week buying. . . I don't know.  Target stuff.  Oh, and we start "picking something up" when I am too lazy to cook the stuff I so frugally planned for earlier in the week.  Laziness is expensive.  Laziness is officially banned from the Miller house.

So, as of yesterday, we are now officially spending no more than 100 bucks a week on variable expenses, including everything except gas for our cars.  So any food, clothes, shopping, gifts, dates, etcetcetc, have to fit in that $100.  And I'm carrying it in cash, so that I can feel the painfully clear stop sign at the end of the money.

My first experience of this, was that it was thrilling.  Because I'm an idiot.  I got the cash out of the bank, and ran straight to Target to purchase some printer paper, my weeks supply of slim fast bars, and diet soda.  But guess what?  Target carries SOOO much more stuff than that!  The demon in my brain started pointing out all the extra stuff I could buy.  "Hey, as long as it's not over 100 bucks, it's no big deal!"  Because buying a purse or cute top in lieu of groceries this week makes tons of sense.  Right.  Thankfully, I made it out of Target with only the few items I'd gone in for.

I'm going to have to get used to this, but it's kind of exciting.  I couldn't do all the ridiculously specific budgeting at the beginning of the month, but I know we'll do away with tons of thoughtless junk spending this way, and I get to know exactly how much money I have to spend (as opposed to the previous mindset: spend as little as possible and feel really guilty about it).  I get to make decisions each week, for any monies above the regular grocery budget.  New jeans for the husband?  Cute earrings for me? Date night? Family trip to the zoo?  Save it up for next week and go on a crazed 50 dollar shopping spree?  Ah, the possibilities are nearly endless.

Oh, and Grandma, (who won't read this, as she doesn't have the internet because she believes it may be infesting her home with bugs.  No Grandma, that's not what "bugs" means.) you've convinced me.  All the adorable thrift-store dresses that you've purchased for my daughter has finally gotten through my thick brain, that Target trips are no longer necessary for my life. Wow.  Can't believe I just said that.

Have a wonderful week y'all, hope you're finding the bestest ways to spend YOUR blow money!