To Fix (and fix and fix) or Buy?

So the Blazer is in wretched shape - even more so than usual. And Brad and I are 65-70% of the way to just getting rid of the thing and buying a different but much better (read:  much pricier) used vehicle with 4WD or AWD. 

The catch? We've never had a car payment, and I can't see how we can afford one at this point without much misery, esp. if we do have a baby anytime in the near future (fingers crossed . . . ).

As you might suspect, I don't make a whole lotta dough as a graduate teaching assistant. Brad makes pretty good money, but we've got a mortgage, his school loans, all the usual bills, and we pay about $550-$700 a month in gas from mid-August to mid-May. 

Yeah, I know - yikes! It's the cost of an apt. rental or a few hundred dollars less than a mortgage in these parts. On gas. When it isn't winter, he drives my Honda 120+ miles a day to work 5 days a week, and I drive his gas-guzzling crap show Blazer 2 or 3 days a week into the city, which takes 50 min. one way if I'm not in rush hour. Which I very frequently am. Then make that an hr. and 5 min. Not a ton of miles, but still a ton of time with the car on, eating up $3.69 a gallon (today's price).

Anyone who has shopped for a vehicle with 4WD or AWD recently can attest to the costliness, but it's not an option not to have it since Brad traverses really crappy, sometimes dangerous, and mountainous roads from December to mid-March. If we don't go with one of those options, we'd need something like our long lost Bonneville (read: totaled by Brad) with snow tires - and that thing only got 20 miles a gallon. 

We've toyed with ditching the super brat before, but always decided that paying the $200 or $350 or $500 was a better option than paying $300 a month. For 4 years. Or whatever it would be. Honestly, I can't even do an online loan calculator right now b/c I'm pms-ing (or pregnant, though I'm not holding my breath) and that means my freak-out mode switches on from something as silly as a stranger giving me an unfriendly look. 

Currently the B-lazer needs a lot of work. Like, a lot a lot. There are all kinds of, well, car-y things wrong with it - idler arm (?), pitman arm (?), some new humming noise, other things that I don't understand/know about/want to think about. And then there's the absurd bullcrap: 

1.  the driver's side door won't open from the inside and hasn't for 2 months.

     But you can't just put the window down and open it from the outside b/c

2.  the driver's side window hasn't worked in about 5 months. Nor has the passenger side window.

     So, to get out, you've got to put the back window down, slide the seat all the way back, reach out the window, and open the door from the outside. But that's not all. 

3.  As of last week, the side mirrors no longer adjust with the control. It just stopped working. 

I hate that car. I really do. But if a new-to-us (i.e., used) one costs $300 a month, that's $3600 a year. We've never spent that much on repairing the Blazer in 2 years. I'd guess that, in the 22 months we've had it, we've spent around but no more than $2000. Which is a lot, but also a lot less than $7200. (I just like to state the obvious.) 

Brad is convinced that we can swing the car payment without going nuts. Make a few cuts (there are, really, only a few that can be made b/c we are not super indulgers), suck it up, and it'll be fine. He's sick of the crap, sick of the stress, and sick of worrying about me breaking down on the Parkway. 

I'm sick of it, too. But the frugal and thrifty me has come out as usual, and even though I've announced to Shannon, Amanda, my mom, and Butcher in the last three days that we must get a new car, I'm teetering. And tottering. And altogether uncertain what's the best course of action.

Gettin' further from the couch . . .

I've officially completed the second week of Couch-to-5k! 

I can report that it's quite exciting. Not exciting like, "Oh, this is such a fun time!" b/c I don't really think working out is ever fun (unless it's volleyball). But exciting b/c during the running portions of the workout, I'm actually running. Not just jogging, but running. 

Now, I'm not sprinting or anything like that, and it's only 90 seconds at any one time at this point, but considering that even the website says you'll be jogging - as opposed to running - I'm considering the whole fastness thing a step in the right direction. 

Week 3 is supposed to be an equal amount of walking and jogging (up till now it's been more walking), but I told Brad I would hang back with him for the first two workouts of the week - he hurt his back something awful last week and had to miss two workouts, so he's behind. (Never mind that fact that I'm always ahead of him anyway . . . [he's not interested in logical arguments.]) 

My hip has been bothering me a lot lately, but I don't think it's related. I just need to keep an eye on that and, like Brad likes to warn me, not push it by running too hard b/c that's always how I end up with a hip-related injury, whether it's in my actual hip or in my leg or back. 

Anyway, if you're looking for something to ease you back into shape and back into working out, I highly suggest you check this program out.

The Friday 4: Amazing Stores

As an ode (lament?) to my shopping ban, I'm doing a Friday 4 on my favorites places to shop. Do note that only one of these is exclusively a clothing store (although even it sells shoes and bags, which are decidedly not part of the ban); I basically just love to shop in general. 

Anyway, the following are my fav-or-ites: 

4.  Pottery Barn 

I've only ever bought about 10 things from PB - 2 area rugs, some candles, a box/basket thingy - b/c they're horribly over-priced (and the furniture quality is not nearly what it should be for what you pay), but I can't tell you how much I LOVE looking through their catalogs (which I swear come in the mail every 2 weeks). Their room displays are totally inspiring, and I love trying to recreate aspects of their look for less. (Don't get me wrong, I would love to not include the "for less" part there, but c'est la vie.) 

Besides, one of my favorite parts of their catalog (and their website pics) is the incorporation of non-PB items - antiques, random wire baskets, old chairs, etc. - and this is the kind of stuff I love hunting for at thrift stores, on Ebay, and, yes, in people's cast-offs (i.e., their garbage. See picture below.) 

3.  Gap 

While Gap makes an endless number of ugly things that I simply can't understand, they are my go-to store and have been for years. I worked at the Gap my senior year of high school and was super-spoiled by the discount - who knows how much of my earnings I gave right back to that darn store . . . . 

Gap makes great jeans (got two pairs - black skinnies and white boot cut capris - for my birthday), lots of nice sweaters and cute skirts, and their in-store sale rack can't be beat as far as mall clothing stores go. It's gonna be tough to resist that sale rack for the next 345 days. 

$8 for this stellar lamp. Fully working, no 
scratches; would've been $25+ at Target  

2.  Red, White, and Blue Thrift Store 

This is the second-best thrift store I've ever shopped in - second only to its identically named sister store that was, one upon a time, a huge, glorious, obnoxiously lit place just up the street from Kennywood. (Which is an amusement park, for those of you who don't know. And for Shannon - Kennywood is awesome, so lock it up, b.) 

This RWB (which is located just outside of Pittsburgh, through the Liberty Tubes, on Rt. 51) is crowded with stuff and shoppers and workers and, 9 times out of 10, verging on the chaotic, but I've only ever walked away empty-handed once. From dishes, to furniture, to picture frames, to clothes, to shoes, to books, this place kicks booty - and you can come away with a lot of fab-o booty. (I had to, okay?) 

1.  Target

Matching vases, on sale for a total of $20 

Come on: who among you doesn't own a home good or piece
of clothing from Tarjay? Who among you doesn't love wandering around that store, perusing the many items? Even Brad loves going to Target - though he did attempt to ban it for the summer since we can't leave the store without spending $100+ (I guess we're big on bans this season). Said effort failed in no time, however, given that we just bought three throw pillows, an over-priced but lovely hand towel, party supplies, cat litter, and a bunch of food stuffs a week ago. 

We got 2 of these puppies about a month
ago - $12.99 a piece, orig. $49.99 each 

Target combines a variety of styles, a wide selection of products, and reasonable prices better than probably any store I remember shopping at. And there's new stuff practically every week, so you really can go back again and again and again and . . . . (It's like the TJ Maxx slogan from all those commercials in the early 2000s. You know, "Never, ever the same place twice." TJ Maxx is great, by the way. My mom, Brad, and I just enjoyed a little trip there on Monday. Not to be lame, but it really is considerably different every time you go.) 

Honorable Mention: Gabriel Brothers. A discount clothing, shoes, and housewares store my family has shopped at for longer than I've been around. Watch out for holes, snags, or seams that are a bit off. "Irregular" is not an uncommon word there. But man, can you find some cool stuff at great prices. They even have a website now (you know, in 2011), even though, from the looks of it, it's pretty useless. 

CSB: Day 19

I loathe to blog about this b/c doing so makes it more "official" in some strange way. But perhaps that's exactly what I need to do. And so: 

Today is day 19 of my 365-day, self-imposed, sure-to-become-torturous-by-day-45 Clothes Shopping Ban. Yep, that's right - I've set my mind to going clothes-free for a whole year. (No, not naked! Get those minds out of the gutters!) 

Two notions underlie my extreme effort. First, not-shopping for shirts, skirts, shorts, sweaters, etc. will, obviously, save money. That's cash Brad and I can use for home improvement stuff; sock away in our savings account (severely depleted after buying a home); give to our church or a worthy charity; or set aside for when the time comes that we finally have a baby. 

But the other aspect is more important to me. You see, when I say I have a lot of clothes, I'm using that word in the loosest sense. I have, rather, an obscene amount of clothes. And, with few exceptions, these are not items left over from days long ago, things I no longer like but I hang onto "just b/c" - these are recent purchases, t's and jeans on my current attire rotation, favorites that I wear over and over again, etc. etc. etc. And there are just so many of them. 

(So that you don't think I am just a grotesque waster of money - instead, see me as a normal old waster of money - I want to defend myself by saying that I buy the vaaaaaast majority of my clothing at a thrift store, a discount apparel store, on super-dy duper-dy sale at the Gap, or otherwise on sale. So I'm not tossing the Benjamins around like it ain't no thang.) 

I love clothes, and I love shopping for them, however, I have too many. Too many. It's shameful for myriad reasons, such as the - seemingly unconnected by absolutely connected - fact that oodles and oodles of people in Africa don't have a clean source of water. Which blows my mind on a weekly occasion. Which makes no sense to me. Which is a really damning fact when you think about how much it costs, even when stuff's on sale, to fill this 

and this 

and this 

and this 

and this (I'm getting tired) 

and this 

Trying to navigate in this closet is like trying to find your way 
out of the Bermuda Triangle. Blindfolded. While holding 
your nose. 

and these 

and this 

Yeah, there are about 9 pairs of jeans 
in there . . . 

Along with 5 other drawers of shirts, sweaters, fleece pants, and hoodies and 30 or so other items from the laundry that are currently sitting on the couch waiting to take their rightful place in the closet. You haven't even seen my collection of winter coats/trench coats, vests, and so on.

Anyway, this all started May 15th and now it's day 19 - and the first time I've been in a clothing store since the ban was (self-)imposed (the Gap at the Waterfront, oh, how I love thee). I returned a birthday present and bought nothing. Although I was tempted by the many sales. Of course. 

But Shannon talked me down from the ledge. She's actually the initial inspiration for this insanity - a fellow clothes horse, she's bought just 2 pairs of jeans, 2 or 3 skirts (on sale), and a dress in the past year. It only seems fitting that she should be by my side for the first true test. 

Only 346 more days to go . . . I don't know whether to weep or leap for joy - ?

Powder. Room. Reveal. Finally!

I've been majorly MIA in the world 'o blogging as of late, but not without good reason - we recently undertook the Epic Clean of 2011 in preparation for what Brad calls the Great Validation '11. Which, in more colloquial terms, is known as my mom's birthday party at our house this past Sunday for which my sisters and their families came over and our house was on display and under scrutiny (at least in my mind). 

BUT ANYWAY, all of this is important with regard to this post b/c of the fact that it motivated Brad and me to finally finish the powder room remodel that we started, oh, like 3 months ago. Ah! 

In the long, long process, we were stymied (as my mother and my German teacher would say) by about every possible sink/plumbing problem that total amateurs might encounter. Otherwise, this whole thing would have been done in about a month. Brad estimates that we made, between the two of us, 7 total trips to Lowe's solely in relation to the sink. But it's too exhausting to even think of chronicling all those trials right now, esp. when there are pictures to show . . . 

So, quickly, here's what we started with (when we moved in in August '09): 

Then, here's where we were after we started removing the wallpaper (which turned out to be much more difficult and time-consuming - even in this 2x4 of a room - than we imagined) in July or August 2010 (it looked like this for the next 8 months): 

Finally, sometime this February, we got back to work. And where once there was this terrible yellow wall-mount sink 

now there was this disgusting-looking wall 

Here's my beloved with the reciprocating saw on one of the many, many days of sink tribulations: 

Once everything old had been removed/scraped/sawed/sanded/or-otherwise-dismantled, we began the "reconstruction process." Which went a little something like this:  

1.  Brad and I painted the top part of the walls with 2 coats of the same color as the living room. (It's an awesome Martha Stewart color in Behr paint, but I can't find it at Lowe's anymore and don't remember the name.) 

2.  Next my mom helped us apply paintable beadboard wallpaper on the bottom part of the walls (read: she applied it. Although to my credit, I did all the cutting with the utility knife). 

3.  Then the three of us had the most difficult time ever figuring out how to cut the chair rail accurately without a mitre saw and mitre box - or even a compass. After much folly, and some wasted chair rail, we figured it out, and affixed it to the wall with finishing nails. I filled in the nail holes with paintable silicon for a smooth look. 

4.  After the beadboard had been up for 24+ hours (I guess that's drying time - ?), we painted the beadboard, chair rail, interior door frame, and baseboards (which we didn't replace) with Behr paint in Blizzard Fog. It's a soothing white with (I think) gray undertones, and it matches the sink and toilet pretty perfectly.

5.  Next came the faucet and sink drama installation. Through eBay we'd gotten a brand-new Price Pfister faucet, towel ring (perfect for the small space), and tp holder - all for $65! The pedestal sink (which I'm in love with) was under $50 at Lowe's - the smallest and, conveniently, cheapest one they had. 

Getting the faucet properly installed was more than a bit of a challenge. I can't tell you how many different times I had silicon on me (yes, Diplo, Brad was quite wary), but we managed to make it happen eventually. Attaching the sink basin to the wall was likewise a sh*t show and not easy on our backs. I installed the new tp and towel holders with ease though. 

6.  Bullcrap, etc., annoyance, dysfunction, etc.: that about sums up getting the sink in working order. But it's done now, so let's (please) not dwell. Although I should note that there exists unanimous agreement in our house: our plumbing adventures have come to completion. Even the cats concur.

7.  Brad painted the nasty, greasy-looking ceiling the same color as the beadboard and totally brightened up the room. 

Okay, now that you've indulged me, here is is (!) . . . 

Doesn't the floor look so much less unstylish now? 



Like those blurry babies? I made 'em using two of my thrift store frames and pressed flowers! (More on that in another post.) Regarding the blur:  it was hard to get a clear pic. from that position in the bathroom. 

And another . . . 

So - what do you think of our thirfty powder room remodel?! We LOVE it, and every time I'm in there, I'm amazed that Brad and I accompished everything on our own (with, of course, a bit of physical labor courtesy of my mom, some plumbing advice from Amanda's plumber bro, and lots of discussions with Lowe's employees). Soon enough I'll estimate the costs - you'll be impressed, I swear - but right now I'm still recovering from all the cleaning of last week and this weekend . . . yawn. 

If you want something done . . . Part 2

For our front living room window and window seat (as well as some throw pillows, I hope), I months ago chose this Ralph Lauren fabric that I mentioned here. This week, decorator's fabrics are on sale 40% off at JoAnn's, and even though starting Friday they will be 50%, Brad and I scoffed up the 1.2 yards that were left at our JoAnn's (he would probably prefer I call it my JoAnn's . . . ) just in case it was gone by then. 

Oh, and b/c I accidentially took down the old blind and caulked the holes when we began working on the bookcase/window seat redo three weeks ago (oops). So, we've had a bare window by day, and by night, Brad's been taping up a white sheet with duct tape (who doesn't love silver and white?!) so that all those neighbors who are (un-)interested in our lives can't see in. 

Anyway, we decided on a valance and a wooden mini-blind for the window b/c: full drapes will crowd the space too much since there's a window seat and will be pillows there as well; and a custom-made blind (the pull down kind) which is what we both prefer is simply too darn expensive. 

I decided to make the valance myself. How hard could this be? I ask. Brad grimmaces. I'll look for directions online, I say. 

(5 min. passes) 

(Did I mention I don't own a sewing machine?) 

I can't find any no-sew valances that are the kind of thing I want, so I'm just gonna do what I think makes sense, I say. Brad grimmaces (again). I can do this! I say. Just you wait and see! 

(2-2.5 hrs. pass) 

Valance looks lovely; appears to be the correct length; appears to be the correct width. Brad is over-joyed (he has been watching zombies in French, ocassionally glancing my way with some skepticism). We agree to hang the rod and put it up tomorrow (which is today), since it's 10 p.m. 

(19 hrs. pass) 

I hang the rod. We put up the valance. He cheers. I grimmace. Step back. Grimmace again. 

I don't like it laying flat like that. I changed my mind. I want it ruffly, I say. 

He looks at me, then at the valance. Steps closer. Are you supposed to be able to see the seams? he asks. Yes, I say, when fabric is not super heavy you can see the hems through it. Then I look closer. Sunlight streams in through the valance. 

It seems that the brilliant seamstress - failing to realize that you would, in fact, be able to see the fabric folded under for the hems when the sun shines through - did not think to cut the jagged line out of the edge of the fabric or even up the length of said fabric across the width of the valance. 

And, now it's not wide enough, b/c I like it ruffled. So it needs to be twice as long, which of course can't happen unless you would buy twice the length of fabric (which would be ridiculously expensive to do). 

And so: the stitch witchery needs to be ripped out, the fabric edges need to be trimmed, and I need to figure out how you make two valances for one window without it looking idiotic. And then I need to remake it (I'd say sew, but that's not true) and make a sister/brother for it, too. But I face this task with no fear . . . just a little bit of trembling. 

From the couch to 5K . . . this summer

So, I'm tagging along with Brad on his quest to get in running shape. It's been years since either of us rocked the run, so this should be nothing if not interesting. We're following the Couch-to-5K plan, which, if all goes well, will take 9 weeks to complete. They've got plans for running a 10K, half marathon, and marathon, but, as Chris Rock would say, sloooow down. 

We started this afternoon - you know, once it got nice and ripe outside (brilliant idea) - and it went pretty well. Brad and I had come to a compromise beforehand, since I'm a notoriously fast walker and also have a long history of running. It's too detailed to explain here, but suffice it to say that I get to go faster and he gets to go slower while we still manage to feel like we're working out "together." 

And we managed to avoid the bickering that almost always accompanied our walking last summer. (Him: Slow down. Me: Come on, go faster. Him: I'm going as fast as I can already! Me: If I slow down anymore I won't even be getting a work out! Etc. etc.) 

The plan starts you out slow - 5 min. warm-up walk, then alternating 90 seconds of walking with 60 seconds of jogging for 20 minutes - and the first three weeks seem pretty simple. But things start to heat up in week 4, at which point you're running a total of (though not non-stop) a mile and a half . . . eeks! 

If this works, I'll be more than halfway to my 5-mile goal. And who knows - exercise is supposed to be good if you're trying to get pregnant . . . . 

Wish us luck!