Adventure #23-- Contemplating the Trophy Wife

Let me get this out there: I love women. I love being friends with women, I loved being in a sorority, and, so far, I love being in the Junior League. I am extremely suspicious of people who say they are only friends with guys because women are so [catty, bitchy, shallow]. What the hell kind of women do you know? I know the ones that have been with me for years. The friend who let me sleep on her futon when I had a room-mate crisis, the one who fed me milk and cookies and let me cry after breaking up with a boyfriend, the multiple ones who have spent hours talking through life plans and changes as we dated, married, went back to school, got jobs, bought houses, etc., the one who unpacked all the boxes of dishes and organized my kitchen, the one who will go to the sonic and eat chili cheese tots with me with no guilt or shame. These examples are just a handful of the wonderful transformative experiences and friendships I have had with women.

So, today, I was knocking around the old inter-webs, and came across this series of pictures:

Holy shit.

This is from a blog of a young pretty blonde woman who is a tri-delt at a southern college. She painted this cooler for her boyfriend for a fraternity weekend they're going to together. If I'm being honest, my first thought was to roll my eyes. My second thought was "thank God we didn't have to do that at Sewanee", but that's neither here nor there.

I go to yoga class at this studio in town across from the super trendy organic grocery store. The classes are filled with what I might call "trophy wives". Thin, beautiful, lots of pretty hair, and the time and money to go to these classes. All decked out in lululemon, of course. When I am busy judging and labeling people, I conveniently leave out of the equation that I too am thin, reasonably attractive, working on having pretty hair (any day now, y'all), and also have the time and money to go to these classes.

Is there any better way to devalue a woman than to dismissively call her a sorority girl or a trophy wife? Am I really saying anything other than "I don't know you at all, but I'm going to call you vain, shallow, and say you contribute nothing to society other than your ornamental beauty"? Really? Is that my place? For the love of Pete, I call people "sorority girl" and I WAS a sorority girl. What is wrong with me? Those women are someone's friend, and they could be my friend. Those women are the friend who let someone sleep on their futon. They are they friend who have gone through life stages with someone.

Just because someone is beautiful or put together doesn't mean she isn't smart, talented, and hardworking. The girl who made that cooler is, at the very least, artistically gifted, extremely patient, and generous with her time. Based on some other things I see in her blog, she also has a mother who cares very much about her. The women I do yoga with are so strong and so dedicated to their health and mental well-being. What's not to say they aren't also teachers, investment bankers, lawyers, or any other high stress career, for that matter? Or that they're going to yoga because it gives them the peace and strength to care for their children or a dying parent?

Point being, I need to knock off judging people I don't know. Especially people who are what I perceive to be prettier or richer than I am. Appearances can be deceiving, and sometimes the most wonderful surprises in friendship happen when you let your guard down and take someone at face value instead of putting them into a narrow category before you even know who they are.

Adventure #22-- The Rules

I think we each have a set of internal rules that, if we obey them, make us happier. For your reading pleasure, I have underlined the ones that apply to me, because, let's face it, I'm fascinating and you want to know aaaaalllll about me.

Anywaho, for some people (me), those rules are things like "If I don't have quiet time to myself at least once a day, I will freak out and stab someone in the neck." For other people they are things like "if I don't listen to music I don't work or study as well" or

Magnificent culinary achievement. Nothin' wrong with cheese.

"Full-fat cheese is the enemy" (pish tosh!)... I've been thinking about my own set of rules lately, and have come to an important conclusion:

One of the greatest rules of yours truly is.... DRUMROLL PLEASE....

If I don't do a chore at night, I'm definitely not going to get it done in the morning. 

I do this crap constantly, where I say "I'll do it in the morning." Do I EVER do it in the morning? NO! In the morning, I do things like transfer myself from my bed to the guest bed, play on the internet for way too long, then scramble around like an insane wildebeest, fling myself into and out of the shower, and run out the door headlong, iced coffee in hand.

Does the litter box need to be cleaned, Sarah? Do it before you go to bed.
Does the laundry need to be put in the dryer? Do it before you go to bed.
Does the cold brewed coffee need to be strained into the pitcher? Do it before you go to bed.

Mmmmm.... 

Do the financial statements for that board meeting need to be prepared? For the love of god, do it before you go to bed.

I have never regretted getting something done the night before.

I always regret not having done it earlier when I'm in the mad rush to get out the door the next day.

...

A somewhat related and extremely annoying other life rule of mine is:

The only way to feel better is to do what is hanging over your head.

In life, in work, or at home, this is true for me. When I'm stressed, it is almost 100% of the time because I am procrastinating with something that is either unpleasant or difficult or both. The giant heap of folded laundry that will take less than 5 minutes to put into the drawer. The work project that is 95% complete except for one stupid question you can't bring yourself to ask. The tedious mind-numbing task. The check you keep forgetting to write. Just do it and get it over with. Really, really, Sarah, you will feel better.

And finally:

It's a lot easier to avoid temptation in the store than in your house.

This is why I have banned myself from buying the following items except for special occasions:

• Doritos
• Candy
• Wine (I know, right? I can be trusted with beer or liquor, but not wine. Weird.)
• Double stuff oreos

If any of these items are in my house, I will make less than ideal choices.

Those are the rules of my life.

I also have one single rule for my house that I will include just in case any of you come to a party at chez moi:

If you have to throw up, do it outside.

Fin.

Adventure #21-- The Arsenal of Democracy, Part I

So. I am 29 years old and have never even shot a gun before. Except a BB gun, of course. And yet, I am now a gun owner as of this weekend.

Because you can't talk guns without talking politics (apparently) and family background, I'm just going to put my cards on the table and tell you that I'm a liberal republican swing voter. Ready to have your mind blown? I voted for both Bush and Obama. On purpose. I grew up in a conservative republican family, my dad had a large gun collection, and it was never a problem. So I don't have anything against guns, but I did not think I'd ever want to own a bunch of them or anything.

But this weekend I bought a gun. And I got another one as a present from a friend that same day. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about it, especially since I know that some of you disagree with this decision.

Annie Oakley is the revolver on top and Lil' Shortcut
is the semi-automatic on bottom. They are both quite dainty.

Meet the beginning of my Arsenal of Democracy (as a friend of mine calls his gun collection)... I say "beginning" because I really want to get a rifle too, so I can take vengeance on the deer that decimated my hosta garden. Venison is tasty. That's neither here nor there. 

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I am starting from square one on guns, and it seems like everyone I know either thinks guns are satan incarnate only used to murder innocent children, or knows everything about them and are perhaps what the "other side" would refer to as "gun nuts". I thought it would be okay if I, a moderate and generally reasonable person, talked about my experience learning about them, and my rationale behind having them. Today I'm mostly going to talk about why I decided to get them and what I think about that. Another day I'll tell you about gun lessons, which I am taking because I want to be a responsible gun owner.

So, why did I get Annie and Shorty? Because even though I live in one of the "safest" neighborhoods in Chattanooga (though "safety" in Chattanooga is pretty much a joke as far as I can tell-- twice the national crime rate in every category, what what!!!), there have been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. Including when people are at home. I'm alone in the house a lot, especially at night, and that's pretty scary. As a petite and non-burly woman, I recognize that if I were ever in some sort of physical altercation with basically anyone other than toddlers or the elderly I would lose. Hands down. The end. And I can't even run fast. 

And it's not just as easy as "call the police."** I'm not saying I want to shoot someone who breaks into my house, but I'm saying I would like to have the option to defend myself if worse comes to worse, or at least scare off a burglar while I'm waiting for a man with a gun to come defend me. And seriously, the fact that as a woman, I have to wait for a man with a gun to come protect me in order to be safe in my own home feels pretty shitty and disempowering. 

I don't trust the police here to arrive quickly either. A friend and I got rear-ended by a drunk driver last year, and it took nearly half an hour for the police to show up even though the station was just "five minutes away". I would certainly hope they'd show up faster than that if someone were breaking into my house, but who really knows. A lot can happen in a few minutes, and I'd rather not take the chance. So that, in a long-winded nutshell, is why I began my own Arsenal of Democracy.  

One of the character traits I value most highly is taking responsibility for yourself and your decisions. I think that owning guns is a serious responsibility, and I will treat it as such. Maybe this is weird, but the closest metaphor I can think of is that owning a gun is like choosing to have unprotected sex-- a split second choice can have a lifetime of consequences. That is a heavy thing to contemplate. Having the ability to defend myself for the first time in my life is actually a little frightening, because it means that someday I may have the opportunity to make the decision to do that... rather than to run, hide, and pray for the best.

Stay tuned for Part II-- Gun Lessons! 

**Also, so help me if one more person suggests I get a dog. A dog is a living (high-maintenance) creature, not an alarm system. If I wanted a dog, I'd get a dog, but I'm not getting a dog just because of burglars. JJ sleeps during the day, and we can't have a dog barking its fool head off all the time.

Adventure #20-- Homemade Makeup Brush Cleaner

 Do you ever actually make things you see on pinterest? I don't. I'm not crafty, first of all, and I'm extremely cheap, second of all. So I don't want to waste money on something that will likely turn out to be an abomination. But that's neither here nor there, since today's post is about how I actually did something I saw on pinterest.

This is a sick thing to admit, but I basically never wash my makeup brushes. Grody to the max, right? So, I saw this brush cleaner recipe on pinterest and sent it to my sister. She raved about how well it worked, but I completely ignored her. Until tonight.

Recipe:

• 1 cup really hot water
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp dish soap

Generic brand vinegar and Palmolive! Fancy!

Peep investigates.

The second my foundation brush hit the mixture. 

Seriously, y'all. It worked SO FAST. You know how black tea immediately turns the hot water that gorgeous dark brown? It was like that, but really gross. 

Foundation brush and eyeshadow brush after swirling around
a bit. The liquid was completely opaque by this point.

EEEEW. It looks like a cheerful pink in this photo, but it was brownish pink, like a sad melted chocolate strawberry milkshake. My makeup isn't even that color. I have no idea how this horrific slurry of pinkish brown happened. I rinsed the brushes out, but they were pretty much perfectly clean when they came out of the cleaner. I made a second batch of the cleaner just to see how much crap was left in the brushes, but the first batch cleaned them extremely well, and hardly any more makeup came out the second time through. 

Ooooo... Aaaahh...

The brushes are drying right now, but they already look so much better and do not smell like vinegar at all. I will definitely be using this recipe frequently in the future. Yay!

Adventure #19-- Hot Yoga

I have done a fair amount of yoga in my life-- a couple years ago I was doing about three classes a week for months in a row. I got to the point where I noticed a change in my body and my skill level. I hate exercising with a fiery passion, but yoga has been the one thing I've done repeatedly because I enjoy it. I've done four or five different types of yoga, but never hot yoga. Yoga in the noog is a lot more spendy than yoga in other places I've lived, so I leapt on the living social deal for a month unlimited at the hot yoga place as a chance to get back into it.  

So, I went for the first time ever today.... 

.... and an extremely perky lady named Blair tried to kill us all with a "yoga" routine developed by what I can only image to be superhuman robot people with arms, legs, and cores made out of titanium and sorcery. 

Artist's representation of Blair.
"Just breathe into the pose. Now we're going to hold it for 10 more breaths."
Editor's Note: 10 breaths = at least three hours

I know it's hot yoga, but the room was approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun. Chattanooga is not known for being a cold place in July, but I felt a little chilly walking out of the lesson. Needless to say, I was sweating by the time I sat down on my mat. I wore shorts, which was a BIG mistake. Any sort of pose where you have to rest a sweaty arm on a sweaty leg? Danger, Will Robinson! (Though I'm happy to say this is an excellent excuse to buy over-priced yoga pants that will completely cancel out any savings brought about by going to groupon yoga classes).

But seriously? Some of those poses? Woah. Things I have never even heard of! It started well. It was just an intense flow yoga. That surely would ease up at some point? Right? Right?! 

Then it kept getting harder. I did my best to keep going, and I didn't cry or throw up. That's about all I can say for myself. I think that's what yoga is about, just doing what you can.  That being said....

Artist's representation of me, with 20 minutes still left in the class.

...it was by far the hardest workout I've ever had in my life. And somehow pretty much everyone else in the class was some sort of yoga master. Bitches were doing inversions. Maybe they are part of the superhuman robot people race.

All that said, I might be a masochist, but I'm totally going back on Saturday if I'm able to walk again by then. I feel fantastic and accomplished. But if I don't look like Heidi Klum by the end of this month, I want my $49 back. 

Adventure #18-- The Time When Travel Took Me Home

When I abandon something I love, I need emotional space. When I make a big decision about myself, I sometimes have to close a door for a long time. Then maybe, someday, I can go back for a visit.

In college, I had two academic loves-- history and Latin. I especially loved Latin, but I never felt like I had a natural talent for it, so I minored in it for fun. I thought of Latin like I thought of being in the university choir-- I am no amazing singer, but I'm at least capable of carrying a tune, and I enjoyed it a great deal. After I graduated, I taught history and Latin. It was the most terrible job I've ever had, but not because of the history, or the Latin, or even the teaching, for that matter. The politics of it were awful and I was terrible at classroom management. But, not being one to give up (see also: stubborn), I decided to keep going in that same direction. I moved back home to get married, and decided I would apply to grad school to get an M.A. in Latin and go back to teaching. I was even accepted by a couple of programs. But two years after I left my first and only classroom, I was still having nightmares about teaching. I was struggling through my second semester of Greek, and finally admitted to myself that maybe I needed to explore other options.

Eventually, through a truly random series of events, I decided to take an accounting course. It turns out I had found a new love. But the decision to pursue accounting as a career was not easy. It seemed like everything accounting meant for me, as a career and as an academic discipline stood in stark contrast with the study of the classics that I loved so much. I wasn't just leaving the ivory tower, I was setting it on fire and walking away to the land of Business, never to return. I felt like I was letting down all of the brilliant and kind professors I had the privilege of learning from. I felt like I was letting go of a major piece of who I was and who I had always expected I would be. I mean, tax accounting? Really???

Really.

So I left Latin and history behind. I worked full time and went to school full time, and networked, and tutored, and took and passed the CPA exam. I'm a very happy tax accountant now. I love my life, and I love my job. I don't regret for one minute that I've gone in this direction. Plus they tell you that Sewanee teaches you how to think. As far as I'm concerned, "analyze, don't summarize" should be Sewanee's second motto along with "EQB"... and tax accounting is very analytical. So in that way, it suits.

But at the same time I've finally had enough distance for long enough that I can now begin to go back home to the things that were so meaningful to me in the past. I'm not exhausted by constant schoolwork, so I can read and explore on my own terms. I can be a tax accountant who reads the Aeneid and watches historical documentaries. For fun! Because I'm a giant nerd.

Perfection.

So, I decided that I was going to reread the Odyssey during my travels in Greece. And I did.

We had an entire day at sea on the leg of the trip between Venice and Corfu. I made fairly good progress in the book, getting to the point where the Phaecians bring Odysseus home to Ithaka. Poseidon, who has a grudge against Odysseus, finds out what they have done, gets angry, and turns the Phaecian ship into stone right before it gets to land.

The next day, I had one of those random joyful moments that brings tears to your eyes because you are so overwhelmed by something you can't explain. We got on the bus in Corfu and our tour guide started talking about the various places we were going to go that day-- a distillery, an orthodox monastery, a restaurant on top of a mountain with a fantastic view... and a rock in the harbor that is said to have been a ship turned to stone when returning from bringing Odysseus home to Ithaka. It turns out that Corfu is the modern name for the land of the Phaecians.

The one in the back. 

So yes, I cried right there on that bus. And I cried again when I saw the rock. Because there I was, halfway around the world and suddenly brought back home by a modern-day Phaecian.

Adventure #17-- Cold Brewing Coffee

I don't know if you've heard about cold brewing coffee. I heard about it first when I was working at Stirlings, but we didn't have room to do anything but what we already did. I assumed cold brewing was complicated and took a lot of equipment. I also didn't drink coffee, so the matter of cold brewing completely left my mind until recently.

I started drinking coffee during tax season. Hot coffee still has not won me over, but "addiction" may perhaps not be too strong a word for what I felt towards these beauties:

Get in my belleh

Ingredients? Coffee, milk, and sugar. Actual sugar, not corn syrup. Something in the neighborhood of $2 a bottle. One or two of those a day? It starts to add up. Not going to happen on a continual basis. So I started looking for iced coffee recipes, presuming I'd have to get a coffee pot, brew hot coffee, wait 'til it cooled, etc. 

But no. I found the Pioneer Woman recipe for iced coffee. It turns out that cold brewing means you put coffee grounds in a container, add water, and let it sit for at least 8 hours. I put half a pound of coffee in a plastic 1 gallon pitcher and filled it with water and let it sit overnight and partly into the next day. 

I used Cafe du Monde coffee for no reason other than
some girl from work cold brews too, and she's from Lousiana
and orders this coffee by the case, so she gave me
a brick of it for free. Thanks, Caroline!

After letting the coffee sit, you strain out the grounds (I used a coffee filter inside a wire mesh strainer), and you are left with... a sort of iced coffee concentrate. You probably would not want to drink the concentrate on its own unless you are brass of stomach or ball. So I added milk and some simple syrup to mine, and kablam! Sweet creamy victory way more delicious than the starbucks in a jar. The Pioneer Woman says that a batch of iced coffee concentrate made with a pound of coffee and two gallons of water lasts her about a month if kept tightly closed in the fridge. A pound of coffee is about $10-$12 bucks, and that lasts a month? Way more economical, too. 39¢ a day, plus however much a splash of milk costs.

Hello, beautiful!

Adventure #16 -- Thinking about Style Icons, How I look, and What I Want

Oh, how you've all missed me, amirite? Well get excited for the best kind of blog post evah: the kind with lots of pictures! 

So, at the end of last summer, I got rid of most of my casual summer clothes. I had worn them into the ground. Right now I have a grand total of... two t shirts and one or two sundresses? And just about nothing else. For real. I have one pair of shorts, but they, uhm, seem to have shrunk. Damn you, shoddily made shrinking shorts!

At any rate, there is this notion of Style Icons. You know. Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy and people like that. Do any of these women look remotely like me? No.

How I dress vs. how I look for real.
I clearly do not know how to dress so that I look how I look.
I don't know if I want to dress how I look. It's... a conundrum.
I would have fit in super well in the '50s though, I tell you what.

I actually can't seem to find a woman of the petite and hourglassy type to study. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor before all the pills? But it's not like I can go prancing around in skintight slips and satin heels waiting for my gay alcoholic husband to want to do a thang.

Not work appropriate?
What about for a quick jaunt to the Publix?

Super helpful, right? 

So I've been looking around online for some inspiration for idea of things I like, if not for actual women who look like me, and this is what I've come up with:

Casual clothes

These five images are from Sweet Southern Prep. She shops pretty much exclusively at J. Crew and Tory Burch, from what I can tell. I think all of the above clothing items are from J. Crew, except for the Lilly shorts. What I like about her style are all the bright colors. Everything looks so crisp and clean but comfortable and appropriate. 

These three images are from Classy Girls Wear Pearls. In fact, I had a slight life crisis and almost wrote a long-winded post about how old and insecure I felt after reading her blog... you should all be lucky that I had the good sense not to publish that post. I realized I was being absurd when I found out that this girl is a model and the girlfriend of Kiel James Patrick. So yeah, obviously she's going to look amazing and wear $1,000 outfits every day and be photographed by some genius. She wears a lot of long sleeved tops with shorts, which I approve of. She wears bright colors too, but if you go to her website, you'll see that she also wears a lot of interesting prints, mostly of animals. I am obsessed with that sheep sweater. It turns out that someone else was too:

So here I am with plenty of ideas of things I like and not really a clue if they look good on me. When I google "dressing an hourglass body" all I get are pictures of very tight, sexy dresses, none of which are made from natural fibers, and all of which involve a prominent showcasing of the boobies. Not helpful. 

Adventure #14 -- Picking Apart Why Motherhood Intimidates Me (the answer is the internet)

I'm at the age when people have babies. I've been married for five and a half years. JJ and I are educated, both have stable jobs, and we have a house. So "obviously" the next milestone is having a kid. And we probably will in a couple of years.

But I'm going to be honest here, I find motherhood very intimidating. It seems like such an awful and terrifying thing, and I will tell you why I think that is:

The Internet.

I'm pretty sure the internet ruined everything. If I were in the same position I am now in 1982 or 1975, I would probably have already had a kid without giving it much of a thought. But right now, the more I read about motherhood on the internet the more intimidated I become.

I am not a particularly political person. But it seems like every decision about motherhood/parenting these days is like belonging to some sort of radical zealot political party and the internet is a psychotic echo chamber that makes everything Much Bigger Than It Needs To Be. Every decision is breathlessly cataloged on blogs and "mommy" websites, then rabidly picked apart and judged by others on the internet. This then translates to groups of women who all basically hate each other in real life with as much smug condescending scorn as republicans and democrats hate each other (which I also think is unbelievably absurd, but that's another rant for another day).

Anyway, the expectations I will face if I choose to have a kid make me feel like the wind has gone out of my sails. And maybe some of these expectations are a class issue. But I know what is expected of me. I am expected to breast-feed. For a year. And to be devastated if I can't. I am expected to explore alternative birthing options, and probably pick the one that means I will be in the maximum amount of pain. I am expected to limit my child's TV watching. I am expected to do the majority of my child's science fair project. I am expected to spend hundreds of dollars and hours on elaborate and beautiful birthday parties and holidays. I am expected to put my child on the waiting list for the "best" daycare the day I find out I'm pregnant and then feel horribly guilty about going back to work. I am expected to walk some magical perfect line between being nurturing and fostering independence. I am expected to put a few photos of my baby up on facebook, but not too many (and let's be honest, I already put up too many photos of my cats). I am expected to research schools, send my kid to the best one, help with homework every day, and be involved in the PTA. I am expected to lose the baby weight in the first year, though six months would be better.

How do I know that these are just a few of the thousands of subtle or overt expectations that I will face? Because I've seen it in real life and I've read about it on the Giant Terrifying Internetz. It's like I'm a baby-hypochondriac and the internet is the webMD that answers every time "you have a special form of cancer known as 'You Will Permanently Damage Your Child and Be a Pariah In Civilized Society and Other Mothers and Also Childless Women Will Hate You'".

This is maybe why I couldn't stop crying inappropriately over the last year or so as I tried to think about whether or not I wanted to have a kid. Places I cried included the Janie & Jack outlet in Opry Mills, my sister-in-law's baby shower, in front of nearly every friend I have (one of whom I called on the phone specifically so I could cry about this), and at a baptism at church when I was sitting in the choir stalls (in front of the whole church) surrounded by pregnant women. They were all like, "Are you okay?" Hell no, I'm not okay. The internet has made me terrified of motherhood, but has also instilled two other fears:

• I might horribly regret not having a kid because it will likely be one of the most profound experiences in my life.
• I'm old as Methuselah (biologically speaking) and my insides are turning to dust within me and OHMYGOD WHAT IF IT'S TOO LATE?!?!?! It's not politically correct to talk about this, but as far as fertility goes, I've only got a good five more years before I have to start taking all the scary extra tests because I might birth a two-headed baby.

It wasn't until I read an article (ON THE INTERNET!) written by some lady about how she basically did the bare minimum (which wasn't anything near abuse, she just refused to do her kid's school projects, ate soft cheese while she was pregnant, and forced her kids to get their own buckets to throw up in when they were sick once, which apparently counts as the bare minimum these days) that I began to consider that maybe I could have a kid someday. This lady has three or four grown up well-adjusted kids. I can't for the life of me find the article, which is driving me crazy, considering it was what changed my previously held hard-line stance against having kids.

It turns out that I'm not actually afraid of having a kid. I'm afraid of the expectations.

Who could be afraid of this? Look at that sweet little face.
(Yours truly, circa 1984)

I think if I'm going to have a chance of having a sane relationship with the concept of motherhood, I'm going to have to stop reading about it. I cut myself off from webMD once, and I think it's time to cut myself off from reading about motherhood and use the internet for its intended purpose-- looking at pictures of cats.

Adventure #13 -- In which I outline the things I think are abominations

Abomination. It's a good word. It has a strong religious "hellfire & damnation" subtext that I appreciate greatly.

I enjoy declaring that various things are abominations. Here, in no particular order are the five abominations I could think of off the top of my head after accidentally drinking a rather strong gin & tonic.

1. Extremely cheap gin

So, there was a point last year where I was simultaneously kinda broke and also having people over a lot. First of all, let me say that I am by no means a Bombay Sapphire kind of girl. I actually think it tastes too much like vodka. I also do not like Hendrick's. Too cucumbery. I want my gin to taste like gin. I usually go for regular Bombay which is probably about $30 a handle. (Gotta buy handles, it's much more economical!)... Anyway. I was in the booze store, and I saw New Amsterdam. Which was about $20 an handle. I cheaped out. NEVER cheap out in the gin aisle. Especially if you are buying in bulk. New Amsterdam gin tastes like orange dreamsicles. Maybe it's acceptable after you've had several other cocktails, or if you need liquor to wash down an actual orange dreamsicle, but as far as I'm concerned, it is an abomination. Anything cheaper than New Amsterdam is also likely an abomination. An undrunk section of that handle is still in my house, though several handles of bombay have come and gone (into my liver) since.

2. Truck balls

Abomination. 

3. Sweet white wine

EEWWWWW. If you want (alcoholic) kool-ade, just drink it. Go to sonic, drink a quarter of your cherry limeade or purple slushy thing and replace it with vodka. You're an adult now and can do what you want. (Unless you are a child, in which case, put down the bottle, get back to studying, and kindly remove yourself from my lawn). Sweet white wine? Abomination. Cheap champagne (other than korbel, which is an abomination), is acceptable.


4. Low-fat cheese and other fake food-like objects

I mean, really? Because that springy squeaky chemical-laden texture somehow indicates that this product is more healthy than actual cheese? I seriously doubt it. If you want to eat cheese and not gain weight, here's a secret: DONT EAT THE ENTIRE WHEEL. You'll be fine. Really. This also goes for artificial sweeteners, low carb carbs, and fake meat including, but not limited to, turkey bacon. How is pumping a food full of artificial chemicals, sweeteners, etc. (in an attempt to make it something other than what it is) going to make it anything other than an abomination? I don't know.

5. Liquid silver polish

I don't really know why this was invented, considering how completely useless it is. It is so thin and awful. The paste-like polish is the only one worthwhile. Plus it comes in the tub with the sponge, which is also much more functional than whatever rag you use to apply the liquid. Liquid silver polish= abomination. 

Adventure #12 -- Tuppence a Bag

Mary Poppins is one of my favorite movies. I rarely watch it, but frequently think of it. There are just so many great things about it-- the music, the actors, the crazy old man who sets off his canon throughout the day, sister suffragettes, jumping into a chalk drawing and going on a fox hunt, the sweet, darling penguins, tea party on the ceiling, England, the "fidelity fiduciary bank"... (probably why I wanted to be a banker when I was a kid...yeah, I was weird)...

Anyway, point being, I have developed this urge to feed the birds. In my yard.

When we lived in Sewanee, we didn't have a backyard. We had the woods. Three feet from our backdoor was where the woods started. Needless so say, we had lots and lots of birds. If you sat still and paid attention for a few seconds, you could hear them chirping (and feathering their nest, with very little time to rest, while gathering their bits of twine and twig!-- Seriously, Mary Poppins, such good music). It was nice.

This morning the damned cats woke me up early. So I retreated to the guest room to shut them up/ play with them and noticed I could hear the birds. I like that and I want it to keep happening. So, as of today, I think I may become a crazy bird lady (like my mother) in addition to being a crazy cat lady. Our yard is already pretty bird friendly, so I think it shouldn't be too difficult to make it even better. We just need to keep the bastard squirrels from eating everything. So.

I got the squirrel deterrent:

"Does it say anything about leaving piles
of squirrel diarrhea in your yard?" -JJ
I married well, y'all. 

And the feeder:

Squirrel Slayer 3000 (not really)

We're going to put it up on the back deck and feed the birds. I really want some cedar waxwings to come visit, but I think they mostly eat berries.

Like their wings are dipped in red wax. Apparently
they've been at the Makers Mark, the little lushes.

Adventure #11 -- Spending well

How often do you buy something that is "totally worth it"?

For me, the things that are worth it are some of the most random purchases. And some of the things I think will be the best EVAR are complete flops.

I recently turned 29, and I was going to get an iphone for my birthday. There are a few things you should know about me: I'm extremely cheap, I've never had a smartphone, and I've never had a phone contract. I pay $30 a month for unlimited talk and text for a piece of crap burner blackberry knockoff that is clunky and terribly unhip. I mean, it's totally fine. But I wanted an iphone. In preparation for the purchase, we started looking around online, and it turns out if you are actually going to buy an iphone (and of course you *have* to get the 5) and you don't have a parent to pay for it, it's going to run you over $2,500 over the course of two years. Yeah, no. I completely freaked out.

You know what I can do for $2,500? Fly to Venice for a few days and then take a cruise of the Greek isles for a week. Or I could get a really amazing rug. And a gorgeous antique sideboard. Would I give that up to have siri in my pocket? Unlikely. On the other hand, a friend from work told me the iphone changed her life almost as much as having her twin children. For her, it's worth it.

For me, it's a shot in the dark. Will I eventually have Siri, a rug, furniture, and exotic vacations? I sure hope so. But for now I have to prioritize. Which got me thinking about things I've spent money on.

Here in no particular order, and for no particular reason, are things in my life that are totally "worth it":



1. Good knives-- we spent a ton of our wedding money on a set of ridiculously nice Wusthof knives and have never looked back. The santoku in particular has been a tremendous workhorse.

2. Stainless steel cookware-- after living with a hodgepodge of bachelor pots and pans and scratched up nonstick (yum, tastes like cancer!), we got this awesome set off of amazon for a steal a few years ago. I think it was on special sale for $99. We use at least one piece from the set daily, and unlike nonstick, it's not going to end up in a landfill in 6 months. It's also still really shiny, which does it for me, quite frankly.



3. Glass tupperware-- I'm scared of how plastic always turns orange. What IS THAT? Glass is the bomb. It's also deeply cathartic to throw all of the mismatched warped orange plastic crap in the recycling bin.

4. The living room rug-- not to sound like a freak, but [begin npr voice] it really brought the room together. It was the first grown up house purchase JJ and I made together, and all of a sudden we realized our house could look like more than a dorm room. We then both promptly went back to school and were totally broke for years, but the rug is awesome.

5. Expensive makeup-- and by "expensive" I mean "a step up from drugstore". This is me we're talking about, people. There is no Chanel or Guerlain on my face. Yet. I finally broke down and bought the exorbitantly expensive YSL concealer. But no one has told me I look tired since I bought it, so hah! I just love fancy makeup. I became bitterly jealous of the person who stole my credit card number and spent $3,000 at Sephora in France. Whoever invented foundation primer was a genius, and whoever invented eyelid primer is an even bigger genius, and I will pay them handsomely for their genius.

6. Expensive face wash-- Bare Minerals purifying facial cleanser, to be precise. Loveth. Doesn't mess with my incredibly sensitive skin. A bottle lasts forever and it smells so nice.

7. Gray pants/any wardrobe basic ever-- I hate buying wardrobe basics, I hate spending money for wardrobe basics, but I have NEVER regretted buying them once the initial cheapskate pain has subsided. If I ever whine about spending $70 on a pair of charcoal grey pants, slap me and remind me that I will wear them so often I'll be scared to dry clean them because it would mean being apart from them for too long.

8. A giant bed and amazing mattress-- REVOLUTIONIZED MY LIFE. After spending 5 years of marriage in a full size bed with with 6'3 husband and a cat, the king sized bed and giant pillowtop mattress have changed my life. I can turn over without waking up. JJ can turn over without me waking up. We can spin around like rotisserie chickens without disturbing each other. Magnificence.

9. A leather jacket-- impulse purchase in 2005 back when the noog mall still had a Wilson's Leather. My aunt sent me a $100 check for Christmas, and they were having a $99 sale on leather jackets. I got a white one with a white rabbit fur collar. It currently looks like gaping butt, but it served me very well for many many years.



10. The "rolly box"-- I bought a $35 box for my cats to crap in. But instead of scooping it, I roll it. Changed my life almost as much as the king sized bed.

Stay tuned for the exciting sequel: Spending poorly

Adventure #10 -- Hiking is fine, but walking in the woods is better

So, my latest adventure occurred on Saturday. I went hiking in the Laurel Snow State Natural Area with a group of friends. I think a natural area is a park without a welcome center, but I'm not really sure, because I pretty much just made that up.

Anyway, if you know me, you know that I frequently describe myself as an "indoor-kid". This is not really that accurate. I love being outside, if by outside you mean "sitting on my screened-in porch whilst sipping a cocktail". That said, I really do not like hiking. Yeah, yeah, fall back in horror, clutching your tie-dye, ya hippie. Hiking, to me, involves rapidly walking through the woods, up and down a bunch of hills that all look the same, until finally reaching some destination. Wow, what fun.

Screw that.

I am a much bigger fan of walking in the woods. Walking in the woods involves meandering and taking time to actually look at all that nature. I don't understand how people can walk briskly, not trip over rocks/roots, and still manage to enjoy looking around them all at the same time. Maybe I'm clumsier and slower than the average person (likely), but I am not going out into the woods so that I can look at my feet the whole time. I am going so that I can look at how pretty it is outside. If that makes me too "slow" ... well... this is why I don't go hiking, because I'm always slow.

I grew up around streams that looked just like this.
I love them and they make me happy.

Next order of business: I will never again be tricked into hiking to a waterfall. People are obsessed with waterfalls. That's good for them, but I would just as soon hike next to a river or stream. Here's the sordid truth about waterfalls, people: It turns out that waterfalls occur when water actually falls off of something far up in the air down to something below.

This is it. Laurel Falls. It was actually awesome to haul my nearly-dead ass
up that damned mountain and turn a final corner and see this.

The more impressive the waterfall, the greater the change in elevation. You know what that means? If someone wants you to go on a hike to a waterfall, it pretty much means you're going to be climbing a freaking mountain or descending into a valley, after which you will be forced to climb back up the mountain to get back to your car.

I made it! Adventure Jacket™ helped!

THAT SAID. If you like hiking up mountains to get to waterfalls, or if you like walking in the woods slowly next to a gorgeous stream, Laurel Snow has it all. It is ridiculously beautiful, and there is not a time of year I can think of that would be bad to visit. I would really love to go back with some like-minded walkers who want to have a fancy picnic next to the stream rather than hauling ass up that mountain. That would be lovely.

Adventure #9 -- The Four Agreements

So, a few years ago I went through a self-help book phase. Nothing has really stuck with me, particularly, except one of the four agreements in The Four Agreements. This book is a little bit in the woo-woo mystical healing powers of crystals genre, but it makes really good points, one of which I need to remind myself of periodically:

Agreement #2: Don't Take Anything Personally.

I don't know about you, but I really struggle with this. I'm a fairly type-A, highly achieving, gold-star seeking person. Those gold stars are important, y'all, and if someone gives me negative feedback or seems like they are in a bad mood, I immediately jump on the unhealthy rumination train. "Did I do something wrong? Do they not like me? If they don't like me, is it because they are a jerk? Or is it because they think I'm stupid/lazy/incompetent?" You know how it goes, maybe.

"Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world."

"When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do, and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made-- and these opinions have nothing to do with me."

How much easier would my life be if I took fewer things personally. It is really never about me.