i know, enough already...

just give me this one last post to talk about exciting things related to The Project.

it's over.... and that was a feat.

a week or so ago, liz put out a call for new ideas for her monday dare project... a little {hilarious} self improvement thang she did along side her no shopping adventure.  they were simple things - plan a party, try new food, join a gang, yada yada.

in jest, i dared her to spend a weekend in vegas, living like a mormon.

now.

1.  yeah right.  who wants to do that?

2. something tells me liz and i have different itineraries in vegas.

that's what makes blogging so great.  maaaaybe we wouldn't be friends in real life if were across the street neighbors.  maybe we wouldn't think we had anything in common..... but we're blog friends, and blog friends are real.

3. liz was in vegas the same weekend bestie jen and i saw britney in vegas.  bizarrely, our weekends did not intersect.

but liz told me her husband spied my dare and double dog dared her to follow through.  funny.

what does a weekend in vegas entail when you're mormon?

i'm open to suggestions.

but i know it has something to do with donny and marie. lots of shopping + diet coke. attending the first hour of church, but ditching out on the rest {because after all, "travel rules apply"}

so.... we're going to vegas.

someday soon.

help me plan.

and one final note about liz/The Project: her story was featured on glamour magazine's website today.

holy smokes, that's major!

this will all be a repeat to her, but i laughed to myself this morning when i read it.... thinking back to that unsuspecting sunday evening, watching her story on the cbs sunday evening news at the davis"... completely shocked by this brave soul with a fancy craft room and lots of shoes.

and all this time {tweets, blog comments, facebook likes} later.... we're friends planning a vegas vacay.... like mormons!

let the wish list-ing begin.

d*s @ home

 decorate

if i'm going to live these next few months with the goal of a great birthday in mind - and not the anxiety-ridden one i imagine it to be - then i ought to keep pace with my love for things.  birthday present things, in particular.

for all who say i'm hard to shop for: that's a lie. i'm a lover of all things... too many things... if it's cute, i'll love it.  if it's for my house, my bod, my feet, my nails, my stomach, guaranteed i'll love it. you guys, that covers a lot of things.

but today, i love these things. these books. they're delicious to my eyes. and if i was a money spender, i'd snatch the both of them up right this second.

aaaaand.  this just in: the d*s book tour is coming to slc on november 8 - almost birthday time - with a promise that it won't just be a stand in line book tour.  it will be a crafting hour + partaaaay.
happy birthday, aubry!

true love at first sight.

on my last day, last afternoon in boise {after a rather unsuccessful week of shopping}, andi + i hit a crummy run down house with a silly name - something like "the shabby chic house".  we didn't have much hope for it, considering the hot pink paint that was slapped across all the lattice and old furniture that welcomed us in from the road.

but it was a wild jungle of treasures.  nooks and crannies and pop up tents in the back yard full of genuine treasures... just the kind i like - real, old, but not held with enough regard to box me out of my price limit.

i bought - yes, i broke the rules of The Project again - vintage fabrics and linens and a metal tray that seemed to have once held something very common and practical in 1928... like kitchen utensils.  i hope it's happy as my new Important Mail receptacle.

and then we turned the corner to the last room of the house and the heavens opened and angels started singing in their heavenly, angelic choral voices and i had a moment. it was something of love at first sight.  but then i saw the 50% off tag and we quickly fell from that love-at-first-sight kind of love to soul mate love.  the kind of love you don't give up on {crazy, stupid love, anyone?}  

the equation of me + that 6.5 foot door + more errands + a car full of five people + a road trip home to utah made no sense at all.  but soul mate love was not to be ignored.

bypassing all the boring details - but a shout out to spencer who broke his back {quite literally} to get that door to fit in my car and take special care to ensure the glass tiles were well cushioned - the door is home and it is mine all mine.

plans for future use?  with a little tender loving care, and probably the help of a manly man, it will stand side by side with the other door of mine {somehow attached, somehow secured} and sit behind my bedas a headboard.

best out of town purchase ever.

a real rug tutorial.

i spent a long weekend in boise with amos lee + andi.

heyyyyy. amos + andi.  cute.

andi time is precious time because we live 350 miles apart and only see each other when there are 321537 other things happening at the same time. play time is a commodity.

i broke the rules of The Project in the name of having andi's diy expertise at my disposal for hours on end.  days, really.

what started with this tutorial, which was really really pretty but didn't tell me the guts of what i needed to know.  namely - how to get your chevron lines so perfectly straight.  i'm certain there is some math involved, but if it took any more than 7th grade skill - i'm no good for it.

that and a realization that chevron pattern was sooooo early 2011 and we're inching near late 2011 and i'd hate to be/do/live with anything passe. 

so we opted for something a little more fresh. and a lot more interesting if you ask me:

a homemade version of ikea's stolkholm rand rug.

tools:

this $40 rug.

2 quarts of paint. i chose gold.

green masking tape {go green. i promise.}

a drop cloth.

a small {4"} paint roller.

pencil + yard stick.

your most handy, crafty, generous, willing-to-break-her-back-and-ruin-her-knees, loyal friend.

true to the original, i measured this rug in thirds and marked tick marks about every 6 or 8 inches down the length of the rug.  i'm sure this is doable with the snap a chalk line, but to be sure my lines were straight and to humor my practically perfect-ness, i measured, and measured again.

because the two outside panels are on the same "line", we taped across the whole rug.

in my case, since we had a 4" roller, we measured 3.5" stripes.  this made it easy to roll within the tape marks and get the whole stripe covered with a single swoop of the roller.  there was a total of 22 stripes.  11 to be painted, 11 to be left as is.

after we got our horizontal lines taped, we taped the vertical lines.

silly us, we got all the rug entirely taped before i realized our tape needed to mark the outside lines of the painted stripes, rather than taping directly below each line..

don't do this:

do this instead:

pull up every other piece of tape and replace them in their proper place.

the wider stripes were ready to be painted. the skinny stripes were left bare.

we were careful around the edges. the natural fibers of the rug are porous.  there's nothing we could do to prevent it from seeping through the fibers.  we were careful with the paint.... not overly generous like we could be if we had slapped it on a wall.  less is more when painting a rug.

after the paint dried, we lifted all the tape and used the gold lines to place the tape to mark the inside stripes -  exactly offset from the outside stripes.

tape. roll. rinse. repeat.

bonus, if you do it in the exact heat of the day, you'll cry in misery but your paint will dry really really fast.

a prize goes out to the person who points out the flaw in my rug.

hugs and kisses and a sigh of relief if no one does... because that means it's not severe enough to pull out the tape and the paint all over again to fix the non-apparent issue.

exposure therapy: groupon style.

someone give me a pat on the back.

today i passed up a laser hair removal groupon.

i have this compulsive habit of urgently buying them on all these flash sale sites...

followed by an deep rooted fear of cashing them in.

thanks to The Project, i resisted the purchase of my fifth - yes, fifth - laser hair removal package.

p.s.  can someone tell me why all the images from my blog between march + july 2011 are missing?

the thrill The Project loses its lustre when it comes so easily.

aside from dinner at the copper onion with bestie jen before the concert on monday night,

today is the first day i spent any money in the last 7 days.

how is that even possible? me!

in conjunction with The Project, i've been surviving on this cash-only thing lately and i challenged myself to hang onto the last remaining $5 bill in my wallet until the end of the week.

knowing that tomorrow is friday {pay day here} i even sprung for today's round of diet cokes at the c-store.  and bonus, co-worker greg wanted a donut... widdling me down to $2 and some change.

i can do this.

i am doing this.

p.s. salted caramel + chocolate pistachio soft serve ice cream at the copper onion.  good gracious, that was a tasty treat.

it's back.

The Project. 

pin.

it's the only thing that can stretch me beyond this blog's lazy lower case habit to reach for the shift key... for The Project is A Thing.  A Real Thing That Deserves A Proper Title.

It's A Thing And I'm Doing It Again.

Since Doing It The Last Time Around, I've Becomes Blog, Twitter, + Facebook Friends With The Woman Behind It All - Elizabeth From Flourish In Progress.
{She's Funny, You Guys.  Read Her. Yesterday She Told Me She'd Fast And Pray For Me If It Could Help Cut All These Crappy Dates Out Of My Life And Win A Decent Man. A Perfect Stranger Would Do That For Me? How Kind.  We Love Her...}

I Tweeted Her This Morning, Asking How Much Longer The Project Had And Told Her I Would Finish Strong With Her. 

Her Reply: "7 Weeks And 1 Day.  Let's Do This!"

Count It Down, My Friends.  7 Weeks And 1 Day Of:

Things I Can't Buy:

Clothing

Accessories

Jewelry

Shoes

Purses

Magazines

Cds

Dvds

Craft Supplies

Fast Food

Home Furnishings

"Non-Essential" Fun Beauty Expenses

Frou Frou Coffee Shop Coffee, Which I'll Equate To Diet Coke.

What I Can Buy:

A Good Haircut

Makeup

A Meal At A Lovely Restaurant With Family And Friends

Frou Frou Coffee Shop Coffee With Friends {Meaning, No Solo Drink Runs} Which, Still.... I'll Equate To Diet Coke.

Classes {Enrichment Classes Offered At Local Craft Emporiums Or Community Colleges}

Gym

Gifts For Family And Friends

Charitable Contributions To Organizations We {I} Currently Support

team florida.

basketball games are back on.... and so is The Project.

so when brooke needed to make a return at nordstrom, she sent out an s.o.s. call to her shopping sponsor.

and i came running.

turns out her wallet went missing, but we had time to kill.

so what's two girls to do at nordstrom when there's no such thing as shopping?

we watch basketball, of course.

we sat at the ebar, snacked on a chocolate caramella cookie, and watched basketball via refresh, refresh, refresh on our mobile web during the final two minutes of the byu-florida game.

and in case there's anyone out there who's not from utah... or doesn't know a byu-loving mormon.... or doesn't have any byu-loving mormon friend on facebook.... there's this CRAZZZZY thing going on here called jimmermania.  it's kiiind of all over the place.

{call me a contrary, but i called for them to lose this round.}

it looked a little bit like this.  see how delicately i nibbled on that cookie?

i said "surely there's a tv screen somewhere in this mall.... like a cable kiosk or something..."

and then refreshed my browser some more.

but then all of the sudden brooke bolted out of her seat and said, "c'mon. we're moving.  i found a tv."

DO YOU SEE A TV?

i didn't see it....

at first.

but there it was.  in the men's department.

let me zoom in for you...

{brooke's got a good eye, eh?}

and we watched them play into overtime.... while every single male employee pretended to straighten a rack or fold an awful pair of true religions... just to catch a glance at the score on the tv screen.

we also happened to be the only ones cheering for florida.

it's confirmed: everything's better at nordstrom.

boredom? illness? illness.

just filled a warby parker shopping cart for the five-for-five deal....

they ship me five pairs of frames... i have five days to mull it over {which means there miiiight be a self portraits in the mix.... oh, the vanity!} and if i like any of them, i buy.

but what about The Project, you say?

yeah, i forgot about that.

but.  i gave my mom {who happens to have my same prescription} one of my fav pairs two weeks ago.... so, consider it a break even move.

huxley  |  japhy  |  sinclair  |  fillmore  |  colton

i hope the orange ones are the winners.

{i secretly hope they're all the winners.}

super shop-a-licious bestie saturday.

i couldn't decide which picture more accurately depicted saturday with bestie jen, so here are two:

it was a really good saturday.

The Project resumes on monday.

clarification/admission/honesty hour.

before i head into the weekend, i feel like i need to clear something up so y'all don't think i'm a sham.

i'm going shopping this weekend with bestie jen to celebrate her birthday, the end of the play, and.... what was originally going to be the end of of the project.

i'm going shopping. for one day.

j.crew outlet, nordstrom, and anthropologie {must pick up the winning gift card.}

and then i'll resume the freeze.

this day has been on the schedule since before i devoted myself to The Project.

but before i do, i really have a feeling i'm going to strike gold. like, i'm drooling... imagining all the things i'm going to wear this spring/summer on my tan skin.... toms {canyoubelieveit?}, that yellow watch, the summer picnick tablecloth-esque checkered easy breezy button downs that effortlessly cuff twice just below my elbow, nautical stripes, cardigans galore, and a default summer sweatshirt.

i wonder if the shackles i put around my own ankles will hold me back from reallllly buying much of any of this. or if three seconds in the doors of nordstrom will bring me back to home.

i also feel like i should tell you - my audience of accountability - that brooke bought these pumps a couple weeks ago and they don't reeeaaalllly fit her. so i adopted them.

you know you have a shopping problem when:

... co-worker greg gets bored in your car while you're pumping gas, discovers a mysterious envelope in the driver's sun visor, and counts

one, two, three.... TWENTY validations to the gateway parking garage.

that means i'm both a frequent AND speedy anthropologie and j.crew shopper.

it also means that i've got in, got out, over and done before the free first hour - at least twenty times.

... and that doesn't count the {many} times jen and i have filed into the pay booth and realized we forgot to collect even a single validation from any of our shops...

they never expire, but i will admit they haven't been collecting up there for years and years.

at least i have my senses about me enough to self-correct this crazy habit of mine, right?

another giveaway.

in celebration of the lack of money spending in my life, i'm hosting another giveaway.

as in - i'm spending money for the sake of spending money... BECAUSE I CAN.

{The Project is officially over. more on that later.}

if you're a regular reader of mine.... or a friend of a friend of a regular reader of mine, i think it's safe to say we have similar taste.  or can, at least, recoginze it when we see it.

so, how about $30 to....

a $30 gift card to anthropologie!? yes, please.

because $20 won't buy you anything special enough, $50 would put this recovering money spender into a state of shock...

but $30 is just right.

the rules:

1. become a follower and tell me so in a blog comment.

{or tell me you are one of my existing followers}

2.  add an additional entry for blogging, tweeting, or facebooking about it with a link to this post.

{seperate comments for each, my friends.... more entries will up your chance to win.  it's for your own good!}

3.  TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO ENTER TOO.

4.  praise me, love me, tell me i'm pretty, or that i have the self discipline to keep this spending freeze business up for another month.... or so.

i'll choose a winner on saturday {march 19th}

The Project.

tomorrow.... march 15, 2011:

 

The Project IS OVER!

that's one month - one full month - that i went without "shopping"

you know, mall shopping...

consumerism.

the hobby that i enjoy.

and the one that drains my bank account.

everyone's asking me how much i saved.

and to be honest, i have no idea.

for one, i'm not a budgeter.  i'm a spender or a non-spender. 

i'm a pay your bills first, then stash this much there, and that much over there, then equally divide the remainder among anthropologie, j.crew, and nordstrom. 

{i'm no respector of quality shops}

but this month:

incoming: federal tax refund {my best yet!}

outgoing: auto registration, homeowners insurance, auto insurance.

it's an expensive time of year.

the regular ol' maintenance-of-the-day money spending was all out of whack.

so it's hard to say for sure.

but there was always enough.  always plenty.

as it should be.

now, saturday?  i shop.

hallelujah, i SHOP.

building up my immunity {and a giveaway winner}.

i drove all the way to the j.crew outlet in park city tonight to try on 25 cardigans and button downs and skirts and stripes and even the most comfortable grey sweatshirt with SILVER shimmery shine. i live for weekend wear, people.  live for it.

.... and didn't buy any of it.

i went into the night prepared to buy any/all of it for "jen's birthday", even...but walked.... for the sake of living the rules of The Project to a teeeeeee.

but not without a mid-try-on discussion with three j.crew girls about what exactly, in my pile, would still be on the racks in two weeks when jen and i have the bestie saturday of all bestie saturdays {to celebrate the end of The Project and the end of the plaaaaaay}.

... thankfully, i err on the side of classic and all the pieces i chose are staples in the store for the entire season.  i can wait two weeks.

i can wait two weeks.

what i really can't wait two weeks for, though, is a new pair of jeans.

see that?

my favorite cheap pleasure - my $29 american eagle boyfriend jeans - with a hole in just the wrong spot.

i watched it grow from a small, well worn patch to what it is now.... which isn't even appropriate for a weekend run to the grocery store or home depot.  it's flat out indecent.

but i have to wait two weeks.

i can wait two weeks.



in other news....

random.org says ALI wins the o mag giveaway!

few things about ali:

1.  she JUST sent me a text that said "eric just surprised me with a trip to NEW YORK CITY.  UNREAL.  I'M FLIPPING OUT. i'll update when i can."

2.  i predict she'll come back with a ring on her finger. 

3.  she's a lot younger than me - like 8 years - but she knows all the deets of my life and we are very best facebook message friends.  we just graduated to the next rung on the communication ladder to gchat.

4.  she loves oprah like i do and even has an ali's favorite things list, just like me!

5.  if you were her facebook friend you would see the most clever photo album of all time: a handstand in front of every amazing place she's ever visited - all around the world.  paris, amish land, petra, nyc....

amazing.

 she deserves the practically perfect in every way like you wouldn't believe.

congratulations, ali.... in all sorts of ways.

a worthy {and allowable} purchase.

my stranger friend meg fee does physique 57 classes in nyc and apparently, they're amazing.

they also happen to be the daily special on gilt today.... so i bought the set.

six dvds and a medicine ball.

i'll be jazzercising in my living room every night, yo.

almost.

i almost sold my soul for $29.

these bensimon shoes popped up in a stranger's blog on my google reader... via a sale on swirl.

i shouldn't have clicked it.  but with a picture like this...

i was completely helpless against it.

maybe it's because i'm DYING for spring.... but the idea of owning those yellow lace ups hooked me.

i called in my #1 sponsor, bestie jen.

i sent her a screen shot of the shoes and asked her to talk me off the ledge.

he reply? "not going to lie, tdf.  but, be strong bestie."

after, like, thrashing my body and forgetting to breath, she relented and told me to buy them for her birthday.  we'd deal with it then.  maaaaybe she didn't want them when she saw them in real life and i'd have to return them... or keep them for myself.  it was going to take them 14 days to arrive anyway. 

lost in the mix of chatting, the yellow were all sold out.

that should have been my sign. 

but i pushed my limits.

the dark purple were just as amazing.

i added them to my cart as jen reassured me it was going to be our little secret.

i even had to run out to the car in the garage to grab my purse/cc.

billing address...... shipping address...... cc info...... secret code......

and then i learned shipping was $10.

my $29 shoes {with a savings of $28}

were suddenly $39

so i closed the page and put my card away.

phew, that was close.

but i really want those yellow shoes.

"your consumeristic posts have really multiplied since you started the project"

pin.

robin brought up a valid point in her comment on the warby parker post:

"your consumeristic posts have really multiplied since you started The Project."

believe me, i knowwwwwwww.

while i'm always on the hunt to discover and share sweet things, they're screaming for my attention by now.

begggggging.

so instead of buying it, i blog about it.

and maybe if someone out there - someone who's not on a self-inflicted spending freeze - will indulge, i can live vicariously through you?

i'm half way through The Project at this point, guys.  only 14 more days to endure this madness.

but the real reason my posts have been all bubble gum and nonsense? 

because the rest of my life is terribly unbloggable.

of COURSE i'm itching to tell tales of last week's dating adventures and the like.

{like my opinions on grown men who lack personality or my impression of meeting the male form of me - style, bieber fever, henry higgins complex n' all.  good?  bad?  intriguing?  asking for trouble? or maybe a non-issue entirely?}

but if there's one thing i learned last year, it's that my audience is wider than i give it credit for and a simple google search of my name gives any past/present/future suitors a helluva lot of information to work with.

in fact, on last week's date with the fireman, we talked about googling each other.  i shot myself in the foot and planted the perfect seed.  so now, the last thing i can do is blog about him!

moral of the story:

 i'm way too google-able and there are too many of you run in the same circle as the subjects of my unbloggable life.

instead, you get pictures of babies and exploits of my expensive taste.

but you like it, right?  you love it?

warby parker glasses.

in case you thought i had enough pairs of glasses..... think again.

enter warby parker.

where every pair are a flat $95, shipping is free, and include anti-reflective lenses {a MUST if you ask me}.

they're all very cool. "vintage-inspired witha fashion forward twist." i want at least five of them.

speaking of five: since they're an online gig, they'll send you five pair for five days - for free.

for you to ask your friends, stare at yourself in the mirror, and then choose the one {or five} you want.

genius, right?

aaaand, they've got this TOMS philosophy {except their product isn't ugly} where you buy a pair and they give a pair to someone in need.... most often in a 3rd world country. imagine if you couldn't see and you had no glasses!

{or, if you're my best friend jen, imagine if you wandered around for 33 years, with like 20/300 vision and you had no idea your eye sight was, like, debilitatingly awful, until a groupon saved your life.}

honestly, i want them all.

p.s. day 13 of The Project and i'm itching for something new.... can you tell?

an oversized white nixon watch.

long running joke states that i have a thing for the schmuckiest of all schmucks

not true, by the way.  i only like 'em a little schmucky.

{enter the story of all those life insurance policies i bought..... giving me all those hours at my insurance agent's office}

but i've ALWAYS stood firm that the oversized white nixon watch was a sure sign of a schmuck. like, beyond schmuck.  too schmucky for my taste.

so what if i told you i'm swooning over the yellow nixon watch?

is The Project making me a little crazy? or maybe my inner schmuck is coming to the surface?

i promise, though, not to wear true religion top stitched jeans with rhinestones AND my future nixon watch at the same time.

i have visions of this yellow watch around my taaaaaaaan, dark, mexican summer skin and i'm liking what i'm seeing.

17 more days of The Project and my wish list is growing mightly long...........