Best Thursday Ending

I used two of my gift cards this past weekend and purchased much needed snow boots. Just try to find a pair of quality size 7 snow boots right now, totally not an easy endeavor. Much to my surprise, all my stuff was waiting for me at my doorstep when I got home from class. It kind of felt like a mini Christmas. Too bad I only just took down my tree a week ago.

I happily have warm waterproof winter boots, new tasty coffee, face wash and new make-up tools. In case you have never ordered from Sephora, you should reconsider online purchases rather than store ones. You get to pick out your samples online. Yeah, most of it is perfumes, but it is still it is fun to pick things out that I really want to try out. There are also codes you can put in to get even more samples, I now have some Bare Essentials powered. Coooool. :)

Can't wait to try out my boots tomorrow. The bus stop is a good 15 minute walk away with the snow, I hope my toes stay super warm.

My CC is keeping me on budget

Ever since I moved out of my parents' house, money has been my biggest concern. I needed to be sure I was covering all my bills, have some left over to save for a rainy day, and then still even more for retirement. Bills were initially easy, as was saving. It took me until about year out before I really started with any retirement savings.

Then I got a little too ambitious. I decided to live by myself. This quickly cut down my ability to save. Once I returned to school, there were a few additional costs, but class and homework got in the way of part time work. This meant serious budgets!!! I need to reduce spending that does not fall under utilities, rent, gas, and food. After a unexpected trip to the garage, leaving me with a $139 bill, I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to pick up some items from Sephora I had meaning to get, or a new pair of winter pants. Boooo.

Just to be sure that I was up to budget for January, I went to check on my credit card. That is when I noticed I haven't cashed in my points for about a year. I use my credit cards for everything. All those charges allow for me to gain points, and I always use them to order $25, $50 or $100 gift cards. It allows for me to treat myself guilt free. :)

This time I am going with Amazon, J-Crew, and Sephora. This should allow me for a combination of things I need and want to get me through the next semester. Honestly, if I could charge my rent check I would be this much closer to a Banana Republic guilt-free splurge.

Best tape ever

The Christmas gifts I was so proud to have purchased so early into the Christmas season have been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for about 2.5 weeks. It is now my Birthday-Eve, which is Christmas Eve cubed (the 22nd for you lay people) and at this rate, I will most likely end up wrapping gifts at 11 pm on the 24th. I think part of my procrastination is that I want the wrapping to look awesome. I want to have embellishments like ribbons or bows, but don't have the goods on hand or the confidence that I will pull it off.

While surfing the web for wrapping ideas - time that could have been used for actual wrapping - I found a site for happytape! which might be the best tape ever.

At first, one might get some sticker shock for a $36 pack of ribbon tape. But just think about it. Imagine purchasing nice thick ribbon and rolls of tape, you so pay more than this. Trust me, I frequent craft stores enough to know that ribbon is not as cheap as you may wish to believe.

If I had to time to wait for the shipping, which clearly I don't, I would make the purchase - maybe another time...

Christmas is getting expensive

The 12 Days of Christmas is by no means a favorite Christmas carol of mine. It takes about three and a half minutes to sing, which gets exhausting, and the tune doesn't make me want to dance around the tree. Imagine getting all those gifts! Personally, I don't have the space for the 50 extra people in my apartment (12 drummers drumming, 11 pipers piping, 10 lords a-leaping, 9 ladies dancing and 8 maids a-milking) and my lease only allows for 1 cat, not 23 birds (partridge, 2 turtle doves, 3 french hens, 4 calling birds, 6 geese a-laying, 7 swans a-swimming).

Additionally, I would feel bad for my true love as he would have to spend $23,439.38 to purchase the final round of the song. A group of people have been tracking the cost of the gifts since 1984 and just so you know, total costs have increased 9.2% since last year. Eeeep.

I went to see if I could find an enjoyable version of the song on youtube, and well, this is amazing. There is a gem of a moment around 1:30, I hope you enjoy it!



I mean who doesn't think of Toto when they think of Christmas?

It's called the juice aisle

I stumbled upon The Boston Shaker website when I decided I would rather think about Christmas shopping instead of homework. After flipping through the pages, I realize that I have been in the actual store in Davis Square. The owner was super nice, and friendly. Based on the pictures the store has really come together since I last stepped in. (They had opened up for the Midnight Madness Shopping event, they hadn't painted yet, and he was using ladders to make shelves...)

Anyway, the shop has a section containing gift baskets, and one is called "Mock"-tail Recipe Starter Set. I understand some people don't do booze, or can't - i.e. pregnant women - but let's just be honest. A mock-tail is never as good as the real thing, simply because there is no booze. There is no need to purchase a kit when a smoothie recipe book costs like $10. Oh wait, it comes with some straws. Now it's worth it...

Now I feel bad about this post since I didn't realize that the store was local until after I got ramped up to rant about how unnecessary a mock-tail kit is. Support local!

The $29.95 Question

How did I celebrate taking a $250 test?

I bought shoes. Duh.

The GMAT website tells you that the exam takes about 4 hours. With this in mind I told my friends to meet me at the bar at 4:10 as my exam was scheduled to start at noon and knew I would need a drink as soon as I was finished. Being the neurotic individual that I am, I arrived at the testing center about an hour early. The women in charge didn't even flinch when I said I was an hour early and even let me start the test 30 minutes before my scheduled time. Between starting early and opting out of the breaks, I finished just before 3 pm. Being the responsible individual that I am, I opted to go for a walk rather than head to the bar and drink by myself for an hour.

I have been carrying a $20 coupon with me for the last few weeks for DSW so I figured I'd head on over to Downtown Crossing and see if there were any good 4 inch heels that needed a new home. Luckily, a pair of Harajuku Lovers shoes were there and priced at $49.95 (minimum amount I needed to spend to use the discount!). I would have rather had the option to purchase the blue, but my size wasn't in stock. I'm thinking I will bring these along with me when I drive home for Easter and see if the DSW back home has the blue in a size 7.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that these shoes are not as comfortable as the yellow ones. The cage around the toes will require some getting used to. But for $29.95, the shoes are a steal and totally worth it! (Retail value $100.00)

Great Gift from A Wonderful Friend

One of my friends gave me a Valentine's Day Haiku. I love it and want to share it with you!

Get free drinks this week
You're a long tall zesty gal
The boys are waiting

Do they know me or what?

My birthday is this week. Given the awkward timing of my birth being so close to Jesus's I often go about celebrating most of December. This past week I was able to see a number of friends, share a number of drinks, and ended up getting a number of gifts. Above you can see me sporting most of them. What can I say, my friends really understand me.

One friend gave me a leopard print Snuggie. After I opened the gift and subsequently let out a squeal in the middle of the thai restaurant she told me how she was hoping to get this for me before someone else did. When in the store, there was a few shelves of Snuggies, but only one leopard one. A woman was holding it, thinking about it, and eventually put it down for a moment to mull on the purchase decision. My friend was watching this whole thing go down, as soon as the box hit the shelf and the woman turned her back, my friend grabbed the box and dashed to the cash register. Moral of the story, when looking at a one of a kind (in the store) tacky item, don't put it down, someone else probably has a friend that has as bad taste as you do.

Another friend helped further my sunglass collection with a pair of hot pink sunglasses. These will be worn with pride. In fact they were worn this morning on my way to work. The glare off of the snow was completely unnoticeable.

The lip gloss is actually Venom. The Twilight lip plumping gloss. "Get bitten...be transformed" is written on the container the product comes in. I have tried it out. The color and the plumping seem to favor my bottom lip, which really shouldn't get any bigger. It is fun, and it does make your lips look you just sucked the blood out of some poor souls artery. Can't wait to sport it public.

The final gift in the picture is that beautiful metal flower ring. Don't fool yourself, that thing is heavy. It was a treat just seeing the friend that gave it to me as she now lives on the west coast. She told me she happened to see it and thought of me and had to purchase it. Of course I love it and of course I wore it to work the next day. One of my coworkers saw it and said "oh man that ring is just so you!!!". I smiled. It is fun to know that I have a style and look that is my own, no matter how tacky it is.

Well, tomorrow is the big day. I will be 26. Eeeep. Can't wait to see my family and home friends. This blog has been rather ignored this month due to personal stuff, it will probably be ignored again until 2010 as the holidays will keep me busy. On the off chance I can find time to write, I will.

E! Holiday Gift Ideas

Giuliana provided E! viewers with a gift guide for buying for females. Her suggestions were pretty awesome. I was totally psyched to see that she suggested the folding flats.


The flats she showed were about $60, which is so much more than what I paid for mine. I got a pair of gold ones from Mint Julep for about $20. I was dying walking back from an interview, needed a break, and remembered that I had seen these at the store earlier that week. I bought them and use them all the time. Walking to the T is more than just a few blocks from my house so I usually wear these until I get on the train. While looking for a picture of the shoes I found this great site that sells the ones I got, cute gold pouch and all!

The other item that she mentioned that I found particularly interesting, and that was Big Lips Skinny Hips. This is a lip gloss that doubles as an appetite suppressant. I don't know how I feel about this. A lip gloss that messes with my appetite? Does it taste bad or something? The funny thing is that I have no problem with Venom, which causes your lips to puff up, but messing with your eating habits is just wrong. Honestly, it probably has to do with how weight/eating is combined with fashion and beauty. Make-up does change a person's appearance, but this just seems to be messing with a girl a little much.

I did find a link that provided information on how to apply make-up to make your face skinnier.