I Have A Black Belt In Shopping: Lesson #2 - Stacking for Savings With Promo Codes

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 


Let's get back to one of my favorite topics... food, er, shopping.

Okay, to recap Lesson #1: if we can't tailor clothes to make them fabulous at whatever size or shape we might be, we do some serious comparison shopping. We look at brick-and-mortar cost, Google the item to see where else it might be at a lower price. I devoted some decent real estate in that post to clothes, but this applies for ANYTHING we want, be it hardware/software, big ticket items, household appliances, hotel rooms, WHATEVER.  If you're not comparison shopping you're doing it wrong.

Now that you've homed in on that which you desire and you've found where it's sold and calculated TOTAL cost including any tax or shipping... it's time to stack.

Stacking?

I didn't make up the word "stacking" - I heard it in reference to those super couponers you hear about getting a year's worth of groceries for two bucks and change. (Sidebar: as focused as I am on getting the best deal online, I rarely do this with groceries.  I'm probably spending needless coin at Tom Thumb, but I just can't bring myself to peruse circulars and clip coupons and map out a multi-store car ride. So I'm loyal to this one chain - they've got the best produce outside of the super expensive chi-chi grocers - and they have virtual coupons that I use via their app.  One trip in the car is all I'm good for.)

Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant

(Sidebar to sidebar: chi-chi in the above paragraph is pronounced shee-shee as a derivative of chic which is pronounced sheek. There used to be a Midwestern chain of Mexican restaurants called Chi-Chi's which is pronounced chee-cheez. And there's a Greek letter chi, which looks like an X, and is pronounced Kii, rhymes with eye. There's also the Roman numeral X which is pronounced eks, and represents the number ten. True story: in college one of my sorority sisters referred to the Mexican restaurant Chi-Chi's as kii-kiiz because she was all about the Greek system.  She is now a professor at Wharton. And the chain has the dubious distinction of being named one of the worst restaurant chains ever made.)

I digress.

Stacking!

Stacking. As in piling things on top of each other. In the brick-and-mortar world, coupon stacking means layering a sale price (layer 1) with a coupon (layer 2), and sometimes even a rebate (layer 3) and/or a loyalty card discount (layer 4a) or app discount (layer 4b). Again, I choose not to do this because finding the sales (base layer) usually means stopping at multiple stores when I'm getting my groceries and, well, ugh.

The same concept holds true for online shopping. You've started by finding prices - maybe even a sale price. Now you do another Google.  Yes, this is getting complex but unlike brick-and-mortar stacking you can do online stacking in your pajamas with no makeup and a fierce case of bedhead at any time of the day or night on any day of the week. 

Anyhow, you're going to do another Google with the name of the site + "promo code" or "discount" or "coupon code".  So, like, macys coupon code or ebay promo code. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy. You will get pages of results for these searches. It's up to you how deep you want to go in your quest, but basically you go to these sites, copy the coupon code provided and add it to your shopping cart - lather, rinse, repeat until you get a hit.  Sometimes it's a quick process. Sometimes it's work. I'd say my success rate is about 67%. And I get piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssed if I can't find a workable code. I feel like I've been outsmarted by The Man.  Grrrr.  Gets my blood pressure up just thinking about it.

BUT... there is a potential way around the slog of hunting up coupon codes. Yes, I'm talking about signing up for their damn emails. If that's what it takes to save 15% then do it.  You can always unsubscribe or block the emails later. Already on the list and the savings code is only for new subscribers? It takes 10 minutes to create a new gmail account. Yes, this can be a PITA. Some would say keep the item(s) in your shopping cart and hope to get an 'abandoned cart' email from the retailer with an incentive to complete your purchase. I've been known to call the retailer's customer service line and just ask.  I'm not above that. How much of a PITA process this is is simply a matter of personal preference.  Go forth and stimulate the economy! 

My Weight Loss Journey - Part III, Getting Obese

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Where last we left off in my weight loss journey, it was the early aughts.  I'd lost nearly 40 pounds doing Weight Watchers®, hit a plateau, struggled, started re-gaining, went to Mexico with a friend with a killer body and she went shopping at Zara and I still didn't fit into anything even though a size 12 isn't that big, so I just gave up on the whole watching-what-I-eat-and-exercising thing because that's always an effective way to get to and stay at a healthy weight.

Ugh.

Gaining weight is one of those insidious things that just kind of creeps up on you until you look in the mirror one day and say 'what the hell happened?!' I managed to stay a size 12 through a trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in 2004. (Sidebar: this 10-day trip was done with two carry-on size bags.  This was back in the day when you could still fly with full-size shampoo, keep your shoes on during security check, and bring two fairly large carry-ons.  How did a fashion plate such as myself accomplish a 10-day funfest with such small bags? The garbage.  That's how I did it.  I packed clothes that I could happily part with, knowing I'd be acquiring new pieces; at the end of each day I'd toss what I'd worn that day into the trash.  It was AWESOME.  I felt very clever. And while I've never repeated such a feat I always pack as many nice-but-unnecessary things as I can when I travel.  This is super hard for business trips and trips to cold places, but give it a whirl - you may surprise yourself.)

I was a size 14 a year later when I went to Colorado. (Note that these were wide-leg Lucky 240s, the first pair of jeans I'd ever bought that cost more than $35.  They were $90 in 2003 when I was in Vegas on business and a friend I met there convinced me to try something other than The Gap; the Lucky store associate was so kind - I was marveling that I fit into a 10 but freaking out at the price so she cut 20% off the tag.  Remind me that I need to do a post on how to negotiate when shopping for clothes.  Hint: just ask. Anyhow, I'd bought the larger 12s at the local store shortly before heading to Europe but by the time I went to Colorado I could only find 14s on eBay and was a little concerned because that's as big as they got. Spoiler: I got bigger.) That trip sucked a little. I was with three slim girls I worked with, and I huffed and puffed trying to keep up with them, and I had a super hard time bending down to tie my laces and my long wool coat barely buttoned.

Then life got really wacky. My dad was diagnosed with brain cancer; prognosis: 44 weeks. My employer wasn't too keen on me taking two unpaid days a month to fly cross-country to spend time with him before he died so I quit my six-figure job with the fancy title. (And I will never work for a small privately-held company that isn't compelled to offer FMHLA.) I promptly took a vacation to Alaska where my expanding waistline continued posing challenges to my traveling enjoyment. (Note: tour operators that use twin prop planes for hour-long sight-seeing tours do NOT like having fatties throwing off the balance of the plane. And it's uncomfortable for a big gal - those planes are not spacious.) 

I spent the next year bouncing between Texas and my parents' home three hours' flight away. And I was unemployed for 16 months. It freaked me out. I didn't have unemployment because I'd quit my job (well-played, douchebag former employer). But somehow I survived, and found contract work in 2006. By the time my contract was up in early-2009, I was a size 16. 

This time I was almost giddy to be out of work.  I'd survived it before, and this time I was going to enjoy myself. I spent a lot of time meeting friends for lunch, because I could. 

Found my third new job in five years, and I weighed 190; I'd re-gained everything I lost in 2002 and then some, over a period of 7 years. By then I'd discovered Chico's Travelers Collection - perfect for the fatty-in-denial: unstructured, elastic waist, wide legs.  Everything a girl needs to make herself feel stylish-while-obese. Remarkably, I felt really good about myself. Part of that was having a boss who was pushing 400 pounds.

Alas, said 400-pound-boss was also a raging narcissist. If you've ever worked for one of those, it's nucking futs. 

By the time I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, I tipped the scales at 225. I was up 90 pounds in the 17 years that I'd been in Texas. That's the equivalent of a newborn calf.  But it didn't happen all of a sudden.  Even with the year or so of losing a lot and looking good, that's an average gain of a little more than 5 pounds a year, or about half a pound a month.  I'm telling you, it's slow and insidious that weight gain thing.

And a funny thing about cancer (because cancer is hilarious). I talked in an earlier post about losing my hair (it wasn't that bad) but let me tell you cancer did NOT make me lose weight. I had six rounds of chemo, and for each round my tastebuds would stop working for two weeks. Most people would say about their meal, 'hey, this doesn't taste like anything so I'm just not going to eat this because why?'  Not me! No sirree, I was all 'hey, this doesn't taste like anything but perhaps another bite with a lot more salt will be delicious. No? How about THIS bite?'

The only thing that kept me from getting even bigger was radiation. Since my abdomen was getting nuked, my intestines were getting cooked a little bit and becoming more susceptible to bugs. I wound up getting some mad intestinal infection and food poisoning at the same time and lost 25 pounds over a very short period of time. But then chemo started up again, and so did my weight.

So this is what I looked like in 2013, a year after my cancer treatment was done:

Me in 2013.  I am obese. 

I have officially spent way too much time detailing how I got super-fat. There's still a couple chapters to go in the story of My Weight Loss Journey. But let me give you a bit of a spoiler/happy ending...this is what I look like now:

Me in 2018. Size 8 jeans. How'd I do it? Hint: Weight Watchers®

To be continued...

I Haven't Washed My Hair in Nearly Three Weeks And It's Never Looked Better: These Are a Few Of My Favorite Things

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

I thought for sure after not washing my hair for 18 days I'd be posting selfies that look like this:

Or like this:

So imagine my continuing surprise that after avoiding all shampoo for longer than most of my romantic relationships have lasted, my hair looks like this:

Look at all that freaking volume! Look at those curls! OMG! Who knew?!

Apparently I'm tardy on the uptake and this "no-'poo" thing for hair - especially curly hair - has been around for a long time. The basic theory is that shampoos strip your hair of natural oils, and if you skip that strip your scalp oil glands will be re-trained (!) to not produce so much oil. 

Whatevs, I thought in disbelief.  My hair is curly and I can barely make it look decent with my umpty-ump number of hair products and I really do not buy into this au naturel thing. After 50+ years I've finally gotten into a routine that makes me feel presentable on most days.

But then my friend Babs posted some before-and-after pix of her long dark locks.  Her tresses were noticeably healthier-looking and curlier after weeks of avoiding the shampoo. My skepticism began to crumble.

Here's what I knew about curly hair:  it's dry.  So I've tried over the years to find products that added moisture to - or at least didn't desiccate - my hair. Part of it was decades of trial and error.  A lot of products made my hair feel like straw. I became loyal to Kiehl's Amino Acid shampoo about ten years ago. I sought out conditioners that had some kind of oil as a key ingredient, and had recently fallen in love with Suave Avocado Oil conditioner. (I tried an expensive brand made with Moroccan oil, and another with argan oil - apparently all oils are not created equally.)

But shampoos and conditioners are only part of the equation.  If I could get my hair to be not-straw (yup, I have low standards) all I'd need was after-products to look well-coiffed. So while my shampoo and conditioner search was self-directed trial-and-error, after-products remained a mystery to me.

Enter the Birchbox subscription.  Birchbox is the OG of subscription sampling programs. For a price, you get a monthly box of five sample-size beauty products.  You can't necessarily choose what's in your box, but you can indicate if you're interests include makeup, skin care, hair care, accessories, health food/supplements. If you got a sample you liked, you could then go to the Birchbox website and order full-size products (and since you know I'm a competitive online shopper, I spent a lot of time finding the products I liked at the best price regardless of website; sometimes it was Birchbox, sometimes it wasn't).

Anyhow, with Birchbox I was all about the makeup and the hair care. On the makeup front, there's nothing I found that was so awesome that I purchased and continued using over the years.  But, dang, there are some haircare products I swear by.

The first thing that blew my mind was Hair Rules Curly Whip.

Hair Rules Curly Whip - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Hair Rules is a salon based in NYC, and its founder is a Seattle-born hair-whisperer. If you can make hair look good in Seattle with its constant bad-hair-day-guaranteed mist of moisture, you can make any hair look good anywhere. This guy is a go-to for Ebony magazine and in addition to his salon he's got this hair care product thing going on (three cheers for vertical integration). Anyhow, it was divine inspiration that put his sample in my Birchbox. Curly Whip is a leave-in conditioner, and yes, after a shampoo and conditioner I use this leave-in conditioner. My hair is as grateful for this as a wilted plant is to a rainstorm. Similar results too. (Note: because Hair Rules is a small company, their manufacturing isn't done on a massive scale and sometimes I've found that my beloved Curly Whip cannot be found anywhere. So when I find it I buy in bulk.)

Anyhow, even after my hair got clean and moisturized, it still needed help.

Dear Clark Thickening Balm - if you have fine hair you NEED this

This is a freaking miracle worker. In addition to being dry, my curly hair is fine.  Not fine as in 'hey you're looking fine af' but fine as in a fine-tip pen. The diameter of the strands is just plain small. And while curly, the fine-ness of my hair renders it limp.  And limp hair doesn't curl.  So there I am, stuck with hair that's got unfulfilled potential.  Gah.  I've tried mousses and gels and pomades and just about everything short of Something-About-Mary techniques. Nothing had the desired results.

The sample in one of my Birchboxes was actually Dear Clark's Volumizing Tonic. And it was pretty good. And it turned out that Dear Clark is actually a Dallas-based salon that makes these products, so when Birchbox stopped carrying the brand I marched my candy ass to the salon to stock up on the tonic.  Imagine my surprise when I saw more product options.  I asked one of the salonsters what she recommended for my sagging curls and she recommended the Thickening Balm.  I wish I'd gotten her name.  She changed my life. This stuff is amazing. I rub it in my damp hair when I get out of the shower, and when my hair air dries I finger-fluff the crunchies out and voila my hair is puffy and thick.  You can't pay me enough money to not use it. (Similar to Hair Rules, Dear Clark doesn't manufacture products on a massive scale so when I buy Thickening Balm I tend to stock up as if I'm planning for the zombie apocalypse.)

The other thing I discovered through Birchbox is dry shampoo.  A few years ago I went all rebel and decided I'm not going to shampoo every day.  I'm going to shampoo every OTHER day (oooohhhh, so anti-establishment!).  And because wetting my hair on non-wash days meant needing time to air dry and who wants that, I was stuck with bedhead.  I'd splash a little water on my head in an effort to start from scratch without starting from scratch but that usually meant using any time I'd saved by not wetting my hair with trying to get my hair flying in a desired direction.

Enter dry shampoo. It's just enough moisture to let me re-direct the dry, pointed-in-weird-directions strands with just enough drying stuff to let me fluff the roots. (Sidebar: I once got in the awkward situation of having to explain to a manager what a fluffer is. Don't know? I'm not telling. Go look it up in Urban Dictionary. What you learn you cannot unlearn and for that I apologize.) I found a couple brands through Birchbox, but the one I buy is Klorane because they make a version for brunettes - the stuff isn't white so when I use it I don't look like I have dandruff.

Klorane Dry Shampoo - Natural Tint so brunettes don't look like they have dandruff

And you know what I found just a few weeks ago?  Dry CONDITIONER!!! Who knew. So I did some research and the one that got the best reviews for curly hair was Oribe. So I got some and it's fine and all but I feel like it leaves a bit of a white residue on my dark locks. Meh. But I am now fully-prepared for no-wash/no-wet hair days and that's what's important.

Anyhow, I thought my hair was in a good routine, but then I went and got myself all cancered-up. I had two surgeries, six rounds of chemo and 25 sessions of radiation.  It sucked but TBH I was thrilled to get the time off from work.  My boss was THAT bad. True story: she asked me to reschedule a chemo session so I could attend an all-day meeting. I laughed, she assured me she wasn't joking, I laughed some more, reported her to HR and she was gone six weeks after I came back from treatment. SMH. I can tolerate a lot of bs but that crossed so many lines... I digress.

I don't know about you, but more than once I've threatened to pull a Britney Spears and shave my head and start from scratch dealing with my hair.  Well, be careful what you wish for. It would have been cheaper and less traumatic to just shave my head but I went the chemo route. Shrug. 

When my hair fell out it wasn't like the movies where a clump suddenly falls into your dinner plate or you wake up and you've got a tribble on your pillow. It was just a LOT of hair coming out when you shampoo, and when using a brush. My good friend Staci who is a former hairdresser whipped out her clippers and shaved my noggin to save me from obsessively pulling out my hair on my own (which did not hurt BTW). Bald, I look just like my dad. And I found I had a good skull.

Papa Boops, the handsome devil

I had a wig when I was bald but it was a hot PITA.  I sweat a lot to begin with, and add a wig to someone undergoing medical menopause in the North Texas heat and, well, let's just say I didn't wear the wig a lot.  I didn't even wear scarves because I was afraid they'd go flying at the first gust of wind and THAT would be embarrassing. I mostly went bald. If this should ever befall you, go bald.  It's liberating.  And people are so freaking amazing to you.  They offer to take your shopping cart back to the store for you when you've unloaded your groceries. They tell you you're pretty. They offer to help with just about everything. They smile a lot.  In general, when you're a bald lady people go out of their way to be nice.  Except for this one dick who cut in line in front of me at Walgreen's. But other than that I saw the best humanity has to offer. (Sidebar to bald guys: I do not know HOW you do NOT rub your bald head 24/7. It's hypnotic to rub your head and find no hair.)

Dang that was a long tangent. So yeah, I lost my hair and I didn't mind being bald. People were nice and I saved a LOT of time getting ready in the morning by not needed to shampoo/condition/dry/style (or shave my legs or pluck my eyebrows).

But all good things must come to an end and my hair started growing back in late-2012. And I kept it short because I was so delighted with the easy maintenance. (I even stopped coloring it. I hadn't seen my natural hair color in 20 years. There was a fair bit of grey but I was digging the whole natural vibe.) So my hairdresser friend Staci recommended TIGI Manipulator to get a spiky look and I loved it! And I still use it! It gives me just enough extra poof to feel my most confident.

TIGI Bedhead Manipulator - this is awesome for spiky looks or just adding more poof

Fast forward six years. I'm shampooing every other day with Kiehl's Amino Acid, conditioning with Suave Avocado oil, slathering my wet hair with Hair Rules Curly Whip leave-in treatment, rubbing Dear Clark Thickening Balm in my damp hair, using my fingers to break the crunchies then finishing with some TIGI Manipulator to add volume; on off days I'm using Klorane dry shampoo and Oribe dry conditioner. And for the most part it's all good.

But then Babs shows how awesome her hair looks without shampooing AT ALL. And being the adventuresome gal that I am I decided to see if there was any merit to her claims.

Oh  My.  Gawd.

I thought for sure I'd look like a greasy slob after the third day, but I'm kind of feeling like Kramer in that one episode of Seinfeld where he's test-driving the car and it's on empty and he wants to see just how far he can go on E ("I've never felt so ALIVE!").  It's been nearly three WEEKS and my hair hasn't looked better. I wet my hair every time I shower, I slather on my Curly Whip, and do the post-shower Dear Clark Thickening Balm and TIGI Manipulator. And my hair looks amazeballs. Added benefit is a few more minutes back in my morning. (OK I'll also confess there have been a couple days where I've been in a rush and didn't shower - I know, ew - and on those days I used the Klorane/Oribe dry shampoo/conditioner.)

Not only does my hair look great, my scalp doesn't feel gross. I thought with no washing I'd have product build-up and SOME greasy action going on, but nope - I just have follicular pulchritudinousness.

So come join me in the no-'poo revolution! I'll let you know how long I go before breaking down and shampooing.

Movie Review - Aquaman, BirdBox, Dumplin'

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Jason Momoa is gorgeous.  The muscles, the tats, the intensity.  I'm normally not a long-hair-on-guys type of gal but I'll make an exception here.  I looooved Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones and hope to the heavens that there will be at least a cameo in the final season. 

Jason Momoa is beautiful

Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo, rocking the guyliner

(Sidebar: to me, Game of Thrones is best enjoyed by watching the HBO series as well as reading the bookes. There's no hecking way I'd understand what was going on just by reading the books - there's so much detail and so many characters, even the maps and family trees in the books are only moderately helpful. Likewise, the series is amazing to watch but I still miss some of the nuances the book contains.  And while the books are way too daunting to re-read, I've watched each season of the series 2-3 times each and always find something I hadn't seen before. And every now and then there are Khal Drogo dream sequences. So the books and the series are companion pieces. It also helps that I've got a friend who is a GoT savant and can explain anything in gob-smacking detail.)

Anyhow, despite the dreck that was the Justice League movie, Momoa's Aquaman character was a fun breath of fresh air so I was eagerly anticipating the stand alone flick. And then there's promo photos like this:

Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry aka King Arthur aka Aquaman; he even makes a manbun look good in this movie

I managed to stay awake for the whole movie and Momoa is fabulous (did you see him on Saturday Night Live? He did a good job, especially as an Elf on the Shelf) but he's just about the movie's only redeeming quality. The one other redeeming quality? Yahya Abdul Mateen who plays one of the many (too many) villains.

Yahya Abdul Mateen as Black Manta in Aquaman

Yup, muscles and intensity. It appears I have a type. Hello, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman (aka my husband) as Wolvering in X-Men Days of Future Past

Honestly, it's Jackman's back that really does it for me.  Not even the backside, the back.  I mean, the front is OK too but it's the back that gets me. Seriously, I gasped out loud when he first came on screen in the original X-Men.

Be still, my heart

No, really, be still...

A few years ago I read an article that referred to this type of character as the 'noble savage' which I guess is the male equivalent to the 'hooker with a heart of gold'. Whatever.  These guys are hawt.

I got myself all side-tracked.  In sum, Aquaman sucked but the eye candy was fun; go watch GoT; Hugh Jackman is at the top of My List and the original X-Men movie happened to be really good as was X-Men Days of Future Past and I can't count how many times I've watched either of those Two Boops Up-rated movies.

Sadly, not every movie ever made can star Hugh Jackman. But there are a couple on Netflix that are Must See: Bird Box, and Dumplin'.

Yes, Bird Box is all the rage on social media now and has over 50 million streams. But I first heard about this I think in an Entertainment Weekly book review a couple of years ago.  If I could only read one magazine for the rest of my life it would be EW. It covers movies, TV, music, theater, books, video games, and overall entertainment zeitgeist. (They also happen to have an awesome GoT blog.) So I read Bird Box in hardcover. It was one of the most atmospheric, paranoid stories I've ever read. I turned my teenage nephew onto it and he has talked about it for years. The Netflix movie was good - I wasn't expecting to see John Malkovich in it - but there were a few scenes I'd hoped would be in the movie that were only in the book. If you haven't already watched it, read the book first. Movie by itself: One Boops Up.  Book: Two Boops Up.

And finally there is Netflix's Dumplin' where the overweight, Dolly Parton-loving, high-school-age daughter of a former beauty queen decides to enter a pageant. I was expecting a basic everyone-tries-to-stop-her-but-she-goes-on-to-win-the-pageant-and-everyone's-heart plot but it was surprisingly much richer than that. I don't want to hand out any spoilers, but know that I was misty-eyed almost through the entire movie. (Sidebar: I can't stand Jennifer Aniston. After watching her play the beauty queen mom, I still can't stand her.) Two Boops Up, check it out.

Organization? What's THAT?!, and Other Musings on Object Permanence and KonMari

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Note the absence of 'where is the proper place to put this thing?'

Someone recently asked if I had tips on organizing. I laughed so hard I fell on the floor.  Once I was done laughing I looked around and thought:

1. I need to vacuum...why do I ALWAYS need to vacuum? (Then the dogs came over to investigate why I was on the floor and so there was the answer to THAT question.)
2. There are an awful lot of shoes I have scattered about this room...I should really put them back in the closet where they belong
3. Is it time to eat yet?

I am *really* good at turning off the lights when I leave a room, but I am NOT good at putting things back where they belong.  I've always been this way, even as a small child. (Sidebar: if you want a glimpse into the dark side of the Mind Of Boops, do a Google on object permanence then go down the rabbit trail of lack of object permanence in adults - I'm horrified and if I'm horrified you should be too.  I digress.)

So, yeah, organization is not my strong suit...if I don't see something, it just doesn't exist. I've got good drawer and cabinet space in my kitchen but my tools and appliances must be on display.  All of them.  At all times.  Yes, this infringes on my counter space.  Most flat surfaces in my house (not to mention my desk at the office) have stuff piled up because I'm just not quite done with something and therefore not yet ready for it to 'disappear' into some drawer or file.

However, the one part of my house that is always ALWAYS organized is my closet. At any given point in time I can tell you what clothes I own and which are in the laundry vs available for wearing. And I own a LOT of clothes. Workout clothes, dress clothes, date-night clothes, lounging clothes, casual clothes, shoes shoes shoes, and more accessories than God.

I credit my closet awesomeness with a full-on Marie Kondo.  Kondo is the dimunitive Japanese author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  Some people describe her as an 'organizational expert' or 'organizing consultant' but I think she may take umbrage with those descriptions.  She's not about organizing what you have - she's about de-cluttering/reducing what you have, and the less you have the easier it is to have things in their proper place. (Separately, I read somewhere that everything you own sucks up a little bit of your energy so the fewer things you own the more energy you have.)

One of the more radical aspects of her method (known as the KonMari method) is tackling your possessions NOT room-by-room but category-by-category...IN ONE FELL SWOOP.  Basically, you take all of your (whatever category) and put them in one giant pile. She recommends starting with clothes, then books, then I can't remember because I'm not sure I ever really got there.

Anyhow, so you take all your clothes - your gym clothes, your work suits, your shoes, your underwear, your silk sequined evening gowns, your down parkas, your rainhats, your EVERYTHING - and put them in one giant pile. YOU WILL BE HORRIFIED.  You do not have a CLUE how many clothes you have until you do this. Once you recover from the shell-shock, you are ready to cull.

For EACH AND EVERY ITEM in that pile, grab it. While you're holding that thing, ask yourself if it makes you happy. If the answer is yes, then you keep it.  If the answer is no, then you ditch it. You ditch it even though it was expensive. Or you never wore it/the tags are still on it. Or if your mother gave it to you. Or it might fit again someday. Or you've had it for 30 years (I'm talking about you, NY Mets sweatshirt that I'll never be seen in public in but it's the last thing I own with a NY logo so I have a hard time saying goodbye). Or whatever.  It sounds so simple but it's really an emotional process.  And it's time-consuming. And you MUST do this ALONE so that no one (especially not your mother) is standing there saying 'but what about...' and shaking you off your straight-and-narrow path of happy-yes-or-no.

You will be exhausted when you are done. You will have bags and bags of things to take to charity or toss in the garbage or list on the secondary market (eBay, Poshmark, etc). But you will be left with ONLY the things that make you smile when you look at them.  And who doesn't want nothing but rainbows and unicorns when they step into their closet???

Once you've culled down to your rainbows and unicorns, there's a lot less stuff and it's easier to organize because there's so.  much.   breathing room.  Since you emptied your closets and drawers to start with, you have the freedom to rebuild and reconfigure to your heart's content. Organize your clothes in a way that makes sense to YOU and how YOU get dressed in the morning (or evening or mid-afternoon - this is a no judgement zone).

Me? I've got a nice-size walk-in closet.  I use every square inch.  I don't know how the couple I bought this house from shared the closet.  (Sidebar: this may be a big reason I'll never get married - I will NEVER give up closet real estate!) 

I fold-and-stack jeans, pullover tops and sweaters, and 'nice'/non-workout t-shirts. I hang tops on two half-rods: blazers and cardigans on the top rod, shirts on the bottom rod broken out by sleeve length (long, short, none) and ordered by ROYGBIV color. 

Just about everything here is less than 6 months old because I dropped so much weight in 2018

Top rod is for blazers and cardigans, bottom rod is for blouses and shells

I hang pants/leggings, shorts and skirts on a half-rod that's over a couple of 3-drawer chests (for my extensive scarf collection, which is not just a whole separate post, really it's a whole separate website). They're grouped by type and ordered by color. (Leggings are grouped together so I don't accidentally reach for a pair of trousers and get a pair of leggings - that would be calamity!) 

I hang my leggings and pants folded because I've got a couple 3-drawer chests here
that house scarves on one side and gym clothes on the other  

Handbags are on a shelf. Shelf dividers are wonderful, and there are tons of options.  I like the kind with soft sides (more stability?).  They come in different heights so make sure if you want dividers you're measuring your space.  

Handbags are stuffed with bubble wrap to keep their shape, and stored in dustcovers;
 I use soft-sided shelf dividers so they don't fall over

Dresses, dusters and belts are on the only full rod, and shoes are on racks that take up a whole wall.

I have one full-length rod which is where dresses and dusters go, as well as belts and empty hangers

The wall of shoes - I think I have 60 pairs including tall boots which are kept upright by pool noodles
That white thing with the cord is a hand-held steamer which is great when you're not in the mood
to whip out the ironing board for one shirt

My closet is my happy place.  Everything in my closet makes me happy.  Since I've been getting smaller, I've eliminated a lot of clothes that cannot and should not be salvaged and even now after re-building my wardrobe I've got more storage space than ever. And rather than filling it up with more new things, I'm re-thinking the best ways to store what I have in a way that makes everything as viewable and accessible as possible.

Kondo recommends tackling books as the second category.  Same method: pile them all together and keep only the ones that bring you joy. The one piece of Kondo's book advice I remember clearly from culling my pile of 100+ to-be-read books: if you haven't read it by now, you're never going to read it. Truer words have never been spoken.

In the kitchen, I recently installed some awesome pull-out shelving in my cabinets which were too deep to really be useful.  These shelves are LIFE-CHANGING.  Super easy to install all by my mechanically-disinclined self (just make sure you measure accurately). And once I had these, I went through all my pots and pans and Tupperware and did the KonMari cull.  I do not miss anything I let go of.

These pull out cabinet shelves are amazing and so easy to install.  
Yes that's a wine cooler - I used to have a trash compacter there but I never used it and this is such an improvement

And yet I still have a ton of random stuff that's scattered from one end of the house to the other.  Kondo writes that if you truly embrace her method there is close to a 0% level of clutter recidivism.  Happy to be the curve-buster. She's got a new show on Netflix so perhaps that will inspire me back into good habits.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things - MAKEUP! For The Eyes

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Wayland Flowers and Madame - LOVED them!

Every time I hear the word 'makeup' I think about Wayland Flowers and Madame; they entered my imagination after appearing on Laugh-In.  Anyhow, I can't remember why but  quite often Madame would scream "MAKEUP!" and get swatted in the face by a ginormous powder puff.  (Sidebar: I also loved Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Shari Lewis and Lambchop; I like puppets but not ventriloquist dummies because the movie Magic with Anthony Hopkins and that one episode of Twilight Zone completely freak me out.)

Anyhow.

I started wearing makeup in 9th grade, much to Mama Boops' horror.  A friend took me to the drugstore and helped me pick out liquid foundation and green eyeshadow(!).  I'd put it on at school.  I later added bright blue eyeshadow to my repertoire.  And rouge (yes, I'm so old that I remember everyone calling it rouge instead of blush). One of my horrifying memories is of Mama Boops repeatedly slobbering on her hand and wiping my jawline to erase the dreaded 'line'. Ew. Saliva has that smell, you know?  Ew. (And yes, she referred to me as a clown more than once.  Junior high - good times. In fairness, once she realized I was committed to makeup she took me to a few makeup counters for lessons/makeovers.  I usually ended those sessions looking like a prostitute but loved the idea of makeup as transformative magic which now makes me think of Cinderella and bs fairy tales about needing to be beautiful to get your Prince Charming - fight the patriarchy - but when it's all said and done if makeup makes you feel more confident then by all means go for it, girl!  Or boy.  No judgement.)

Thanks to that healthy dose of negative reinforcement I'm obsessed with getting makeup done right and yet I never feel like I do.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when Mama Boops recently said 'your makeup always looks nice'.  Twilight Zone, indeed.

And don't get me wrong - I'm not one of those people who posts tutorials online.  I don't think I'll ever feel so confident in my routines to do that. And I don't spend hours in front of the makeup mirror.  Depending on the occasion, I can be showered, made up, dressed and out the door in 30 minutes and not look like a crack addict.  I'm a real person, dammit.

It's taken me decades to find products I like.  And there are several to which I'm insanely loyal. It's taken a lot of experimenting (read: disasters) from different sources to get here. So here's what I do with my eyes:

Let's start with those eyelashes.  They're 100% natural, all mine.  Don't be jealous - those lashes come part and parcel with all sorts of thick, long, dark hair in places you DON'T want thick, long, dark hair to be in. I started electrolysis on my upper lip in high school (bleaching every week was scarring the sides of my mouth). Once the hormones really started raging I needed it for those five really awful hairs that sprouted on my chin (yes, I'm sexy). It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I got brave enough to do laser treatments (yup -  25+ years of electrolysis and plucking and bleaching and I STILL needed laser treatment).  It took over a year but I no longer resemble a walrus in my natural state.  And while the Kardashians make me cringe, once I read that they lasered their hairlines I opened the laser floodgates and no longer have sideburns or guy arms. (I've mentioned in a previous post that I had cancer a few years back.  You've never meet a person more eager to have chemo.  ALL the hair fell out - my brows and lashes thinned but otherwise I was like a hairless mole rat.  My nose hairs fell out! I didn't have to shave my legs or underarms for a year! I didn't need a bikini wax to wear a swimsuit in public! And my facial hair and arm hair was gone too.  It.  Was.  Awesome. Yes friends, there are silver linings everywhere.)

Back to my eyelashes.  They've always been awesome.  I've never had to curl them which is good because eyelash curlers scare the 💩out of me.  I remember being in kindergarten at Disney Land, and Snow White told me my eyelashes were beautiful.  Being the socially-awkward child I still am, I told her that her eyelashes were beautiful too.

I love mascara. But I always had raccoon eyes.  I always blamed my eyeliner pencils until someone (can't remember who but it was some dude at a department store cosmetic counter) suggested it might be the mascara.  Hmmm.  So I tried waterproof mascaras.  They helped but not completely. Then, just about three or four years ago, I was reading a Buzzfeed article on makeup and they were talking about OILY EYELIDS.  Mind blown.  Yes I have oily skin but I never considered that would include eyelids. Hunh.

So this Buzzfeed article recommended a Korean brand called Missha (or as I like to call it, Miss Ha).  I don't know what it is about Korean beauty products but dang that country knows its 💩 when it comes to beauty. (Sidebar: once upon a time a friend and I spent a buttload of money [we're talking over $500] at the Kevyn Aucoin counter at Neiman Marcus - which is a whole separate blog topic - and the sales associate was so awesome she gave us this massive box of samples.  One thing in there was an AmorePacific moisturizer which I swear you could tell an immediate difference.  Alas it's $450 a bottle and no there's no decimal point there and no I don't spend that kind of money on moisturizers no matter how freaking magic they are.) Not only did I find this brand on Amazon, but there was a Miss Ha store in driving distance. Well, talk about an instant cure. I will never, ever, EVER use another mascara.

And here's a technique I swear by that I picked up from a beauty magazine back in college.  Yes, wiggle the wand at the base of your lashes and pull up slowly.  But here's the kicker: do that again ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR LASHES.  So you're getting the top and bottom of the lashes! And if I use powder eyeshadow I'm always getting powder on the top of my lashes so when I do this trick that boo-boo is erased.  So yeah, I do the bottom of the lash, then the top, and then the bottom again because when I do the top it kind of pushes the lash down when I want it up and you can't pay me enough money to use and eyelash curler.

I usually don't put mascara on the bottom lashes.  Even though the Miss Ha mascara doesn't smear, I feel like a kewpie doll and that's not the look I'm going for.

So the lids.  As a person with dark hair and fair skin I am cursed with looking like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, in my natural state.  Like, turn off the lights and you can see my pale skin shining like a beacon.  But flipped to a positive, this means I can get away with a lot of color. I've got a friend with olive colored skin and brown hair and she looks best 100% of the time with brown shadow on her lids.  While it must be nice to always know what color your lids will be, I prefer having limitless options. My lids taste the rainbow.

And with oily lids I've always had a problem with creasing shadows.  So I've become reliant on shadow primer, and Smashbox is my fave brand. Really really really life-changing.

Even more life-changing was discovering SeneGence. I've got an online friend whose makeup always ALWAYS looks awesome.  And she's incredibly photogenic (yes I'm envious because no matter how little I weigh I take awful pictures). Turns out she sells this brand as a side gig, and while my primer + powder routine has been quite satisfactory for years I figured what the heck let me try their liquid shadows.

Oh.  My.  Gawd.  This stuff is AWESOME.  It.  Doesn't.  Move. She's posted a few tutorials on her Facebook page so I picked up on her technique and I'm thrilled with the results. Tip: do one eye, one color at a time, so you can blend - otherwise this stuff dries super fast and like I said - it doesn't budge. These links all go to her Facebook page (I hope that's cool Stacey!) so you can check out some of her videos.  She's doing a Facebook party later this month and that might be a fun time to try something if you're so inclined.  She's also amazeballs at helping select colors. (In these pix I'm wearing a cream color under the brow, a brick color on the lid, and a purple on the corner/in the crease but sometimes I use a dark blue.)

OMG nowhere near done - we still need to talk liner and brows!

Eyeliner.  Love it, but for years the bane of my existence. I used to use pencils on the upper and lower lids, and as I've said a couple times now my lids are oily.  That includes the lower lid.  Ugh.  So yeah I'd be a multi-colored raccoon between the pencil and the mascara.  So I stopped doing color on my lower lid - nope, didn't solve the problem.  The pencil and mascara on the upper lid got me every time.  Dammit.

Enter Stila's Stay All Day liners.  These have felt tips which make it easier to manipulate (but I'll still never master the wing in the way Adele does), they come in a bazillion colors (yay they came out with purple!), and they truly stay all day. I've got a cornucopia of colors and yes I use most of them but I could probably pare down to black and purple.  And brown.  And navy. But I also use grey and green (they have 3 shades of green!). And white is fun to use on the inner corners. Taste the rainbow, indeed!

Home stretch: my brows. Ugh.  My brows.

I was born with a Bert-from-Sesame-Street level unibrow. Between that and the walrus upper lip action (and the arms and the legs) I was mocked mercilessly for years. So I have issues. Heck I have subscriptions on autorenew.  I snuck into Mama Boops' beauty kit one day when I was 10 and used her tweezers to eliminate the unibrow. Did I mention I have sensitive skin? I had a red patch smack between my eyes for over an hour after that.  Which is how Mama Boops found me.  She applied an ice pack. This did not prevent her from maintaining the habit of slobbering on her hands after rubbing my jawline and smoothing my brows.

So in 6th grade I went from Bert brows to Groucho Marx brows.  In 7th grade some guy called me Fonzie in the cafeteria (yes I remember his name, no I won't share it).  He then sent his buddy to call me Fonzie (yes I remember his name, no I won't share it).  I Spocked him and made his neck bleed (I had super long yet unpolished nails back then, and who knew my kindergarten crush on Mr Spock would pay out so well?). But so began my obsession with the eyebrow arch.

I fell victim to the over-plucking thing in college, and while most of my brows recovered the part over my inner eye corners never fully recovered.  And the ends are on the thin side. (And they're still long af so I have to trim them weekly - brush up, and snip the ends that extend over the brow.)

Enter the eyebrow pencil. I've used them sparingly over the decades because, I'll say it again, I HAVE OILY LIDS. There's nothing worse than getting sweaty and seeing your brows melt (well, yeah, there's a lot of things worse than that but dramatic license and all). Or wiping your brow in the summer and having your brows smear from one temple to the other. Or taking off a pullover shirt and having your brows smear over your forehead. You get my drift.

Once again, enter Stila Stay All Day stuff.  It comes in brow pens! And just like the eyeliners, the brow liners do not smear.  Problem solved!!!! Mad props to the nail tech I've been going to for nearly 20 years who waxes my brows to perfection. If I ever become an international celebrity she will be part of my H&M team that travels the globe with me.  Have I considered micro-blading?  Yes, and as soon as I find a place and a person I think will do it right the first time for a reasonable price (I haven't even thought of beginning to research so I have no clue if it's $20, $200 or $2000) I'll give it a whirl.  But with Stila it's not on the forefront of my mind.

(Sidebar: yes I've had Botox in the past.  I love it.  It's worth the price. When I become that international celebrity, I will be more frozen than Elsa or Nicole Kidman.)

My next Makeup post will be about lips!!!