I Saved a Bazillion Dollars!

I have hit the jackpot the past week with excellent sales, and I thought I would share them.

First, and there are no pictures of this, I picked through the racks at Fashion Exchange, a consignment boutique in WLR that I visit once a month or so. Their clothes are always in great shape and I have often bought items with the original tags. This time, I scored a super cute Ann Taylor brown and white striped cardigan with green trim, a coral flowy tank from Express, a green and white striped knit knee-length dress with a cute blue sash, and the best--a brown ruffly floral dress with a high-low hem from Anthropologie, for $40! I happened to go on a day when all summer items were 50% off, plus another 20% off two items that had been in the store for more than 30 days, besides the already great consignment prices.

I also placed an order recently with fabric.com, and all the lovelies came in yesterday. The fuschia knit is going to become a flouncy circle skirt, and the lilac a flowy tank.

This fantastic "Mosaic Blue" fabric is a linen/flax blend, with the most beautiful drape. There is nothing more comfortable for Arkansas summers than linen or flax drawstring capris, and now I can make another pair in a beautiful opaque blue.

This teal and grey striped jersey will become a lined dress that I can wear now for comfort while giving tours outside at work, and well into the fall with a cardigan and pantyhose while teaching freshmen why art matters.

Now, to the yarn. Boy, did I hit the motherlode at Yarn Mart, a beloved little shop in the Heights we might have lost recently, had three employees of the store not shouted "Oh no you don't!" to this bully of a small-business economy.

I picked out two big hanks of undyed deep grey baby alpaca for a project for a certain someone to whom I am married. I also grabbed a few balls of coral yarn from the clearance section. When I went to the register, I was told that, during that very hour, all clearance yarn was buy one, get one free.

Then, things got crazy.

I grabbed a bucket and started stuffing yarn into it until I couldn't carry any more. I knocked out almost all my purchases for Christmas crocheting and knitting for less than $100.

Here are some of my favorites:

This soft, greyed-out aqua is a 16-ply cotton from Pennsylvania, and is already on its way to becoming a soft, squishy basketweave scarf. It's a little bluer and a little greener than this sunny photo.

This Italian yarn is probably my favorite of all I got. It's a plied roving made of two colors of undyed wool, and is going to become an extra warm neckwarmer.

These three tweed yarns are merino wool and silk blends with little bits of darker fluff plied in with the pale laceweight silk and fingerweight wool. The coral, which started the clearance madness, is for a ric-rac pattern cowl for my mommy, while the blue and green are going to become a Brioche Cowl, a Purl Bee pattern I've been meaning to try.

This chunky wool/acrylic blend, which is slightly darker than in this photo, has three strands of charcoal, light grey, and mauve, and is for a project for my mother-in-law.

I also bought myself some Elizabeth Lavold Calm Wool, a blend of wool, camel, and alpaca, which has long been a favorite of mine for it's loft. It's soft against my skin without being slippery, so it's perfect for another snuggly giant rib cowl like this pink one.

I spend a little time this morning cataloguing my stash on Ravelry. If only finding a place to store them in my office were as easy and tidy as uploading a link.

All together, I would have spent:

Clothing at original price: $315

Fabric at original price: $104

Yarn at original price: $291

__________________

$710

Instead, I spent $180!

Sometimes, it pays to give a store your email address and deal with the few extra seconds of scanning "spam" emails, to see that there are huge savings on something you needed to buy anyway.

A Visit with My Mommy

My mommy came to visit me in the Capital City this week.

This is my mommy with her doggy, Mattie. This photo is not from this weekend, though.

She arrived early on Tuesday, while my hair was still wet and before I had "put on my face." I was still in my PJs, and there were a few dirty dishes in my sink. But that's okay, because she's my mommy, and she raised me to value time spent with people more than time getting gussied up for them.

We went to an antique mall that afternoon with my mother-in-law, Teri, where we ooh'd and aah'd over the size of other folks' rooms, which must be enormous to be able to fit late 19th century English throne chairs around a Louis XV dining table. I pondered whatI might trade for a pair of early 18th century French chapel doors, washed in peeling teal stain, and envisioned a pair of marble cylindrical vases with bathing Grecian women flanking my piano, while the two children of the mid-century (vague enough?) pointed out items they recalled from their teenage years. The three of us sifted through postcards for the best story among notes sent from the Grand Canyon, a monastery in Italy, and Lake Tahoe to loved ones at home. Then, the three of us joined Chris at Trio's, one of Teri's favorite supper spots.

Wednesday, despite our plans to leave early and beat the heat, my mommy and I talked while we had coffee and sat with various cats in our laps until early afternoon. Despite the belief which we now share that "the entire day is gone!" if one has not gotten "up and at 'em, Adam Ant!" by 10:00 a.m., the two of us still cannot seem to put away our conversation before four or five hours have passed.

Nevertheless, we still had an afternoon of shopping, where we both managed to catch a clearance sale at my favorite local consignment boutique. Then, a two-hour trip to my Kroger, which has to be one of my mommy's favorite spots in Little Rock for it's variety and abundance of fresh food. My mommy lives in my small hometown in northwest Arkansas, which despite it's proximity to larger cities still lacks the quality of our stores. It is easy for me to take for granted that I can find nearly any ingredient I might need within my little city, but if there is such a disparity between Little Rock and Van Buren in the availability of healthy food, imagine how much more difficult it is for the thousands of tiny rural towns in our country.

From shopping for produce, we made our way to Silvek's Bakery, another must for any trip to Little Rock. Then Chris drove us to a spot we've found with a 360° view of the sunset. When we got home, we snacked on baba ghannouj, hummus, and Trio's leftovers, made ourselves sick with sugary, buttery deliciousness, then went to bed, which was an excellent end to a wonderful day.

Thursday morning, we really, really tried to get out of the house early, but then we had coffee, and then somehow we ended up on the couch, and then a few cats showed up, and four more hours of talking just happened. We picked up my mommy's beloved Jeep from the dealership, where she had left it for two days for warranty work, a stay that was her car's first night away. It was a big step. ;)

We stopped by White Goat Chateau and Farm's tent sale (I still think their name is silly), where we passed up a few great deals by saying "Alaska!" to each other. For those who don't know, my mommy and I are saving up for a long-awaited trip up to San Francisco, then up the coast to Seattle/Vancouver and on a boat to Alaska. There are few little trinkets that can hold their sparkle next to the idea of finally getting to Alaska.

Then, we were off to Yarn Mart, where we somehow arrived on a sale day. I picked up a few skeins for a project for Chris and asked my mommy to pick out yarn for her birthday present, and she picked a beautiful coral tweedy wool from a clearance bin. While checkingout, I was told that all clearance yarn was buy one, get one free during that very hour, at which point I grabbed a bucket and tossed in several skeins of absolutely everything I liked. My mommy is a good luck charm when it comes to sales.

Then, the best part. When we got back to my dark, cool (I keep my AC at 68°) house, we took a nap. Mom went to the guest room and read and dozed, and I sifted through my yarn and dozed for about thirty minutes. This is what summer is for, and for the past two years I have worked and been in summer classes and professional development. Despite working, building two courses, writing a thesis, and preparing for another research trip to Mexico, I've taken more time this summer to rest and spend time with friends and family. This little nap was such a good reminder of how much happier we all can be if we take time for ourselves.

AND--I'm busy is no excuse. I am incredibly busy, just like everyone else. But I took a nap.

When Chris came home from work, Matt came over and we went to the neighborhood pool. The boys were only in the water about ten minutes before we heard thunder and had to leave. Chris grilled veggies in the rain and wind while I made fish. We ended our evening with a giant bowl of strawberry shortcake.

My mommy had to go home this morning, and she should be arriving to her kitty, two happy puppies, and my brudder within a few minutes. I had such a fun time with her here, and every time she visits I always think of what we're going to get to do together the next time!

A Gra(d)itude List

I sit at my little pink desk, eating sweet early summer cherries from a beautifully etched glass bowl, with a cat on my sewing cabinet to the left of me and dozens of books on my purple desk to my right.

I am working on three school projects concurrently, and studying for my comprehensive exams in mid-August.

I just got home from two weeks in Yucatan, Mexico, studying Maya art and architecture.

I was just given very exciting news that could be a new opportunity for me.

My husband goes to work each day and comes home cheerful and ready for whatever project we have planned for the evening. (Tonight, we are waging war against the ant invasion in our kitchen.)

I am very blessed.

~Meredith

Hair Feathers. What?

Considering the recent hair feather trend, and the fact that I wore feathers often in my hair my sophomore year (6 years ago!) and got funny looks, I feel the need to comment.

What the heck, people?

(Though, I admit, my feathers were more like...the time I dressed up as an Indian for Thanksgiving dinner and no one else did. It was a costume Thanksgiving dinner, and no one took this seriously but me.)

Which leads me to one of my favorite movie monologues of all time:

Anyway, I blame it on this guy:

Source

I guess I'm okay with being ridiculously off-trend, as long as I don't look like a caveman with a raccoon all up in his hair.

~Meredith

What it's like tonight.

Graduate school. Sometimes I feel like I'm paused and the world is going on somewhere without me.

Like when someone told me about the tsunami in Japan and I realized that if they hadn't, I wouldn't have known because I hadn't turned on the TV in two weeks. Or when I could only remember Christmas as so many days past when grades were due. And the expanse stretching before me where I see one and two day windows from now till next winter break and that's just this year and there are so many years left and they will probably only get harder.

I love what I am doing (love isn't even the right word...I am what I am doing) but I also have a "someday" feeling about it. Some days hunched on the library floor with a pile of books taller than I am or writing on the deck in the speckled morning sunshine feels like I'm part of some enormous eternal wood-panelled academic ether and it's warm and I'm doing something. Some days writing at my cluttered desk in a room where the light bulbs keep burning out and my eyes are heavy feels like the loneliest quiet and someday I'll be back.

These are the last two cherry blossoms left on our anniversary tree after the storms this morning.


I don't know. I'm awake three hours after everyone else in the house, still reading.