My First Haul Video

17 Mar

I’ve been consuming haul videos for a while now…they are an interesting phenomenon: incredibly popular accounts of a shopping spree done on video. Usually by a 20 something or a teen and quite often they cover a trip to the mall.

My haul is a bit different. I definitely didn’t spend hours on my hair and makeup (maybe I should have?) and I’m pushing 40 instead of in my early 20′s. But I was compelled to make it because of the surprisingly great finds I bought from Simons*.

I had fun making it and I think I’ll have even more fun wearing my new finds. It isn’t very often these days that I get to go on a spree.  :)

* Full disclosure, Simons sent me a gift certificate, but they didn’t ask me to follow up with a video or a post or anything. In fact, I get stuff like this all of the time and rarely feel compelled (I’m on some sort of Canadian fashion influencers list…which is funny, but awesome).

Stuff I’m Fed Up With: Boys will be Boys

30 Jan

The other night, I was cruising through the Netflix tv series catalogue, trying to find something to watch. We just finished all of the seasons of Breaking Bad and had started watching season 2 of Californication, but the thought of those shows and other shows were just making me grumpy. I turned to my boyfriend and said:

“Frankly, I’m sick to death of watching irresponsible men as the central plot. Why don’t women get to get away with being irresponsible?”

And so I thought I’d try out Weeds. This seemed promising. Drug pushing suburban mom. But no…she was pretty sensible for a drug dealer. How about Nurse Jackie? Oddly enough, the drug addicted, philandering nurse is doing some pretty awesome work. It seems that even women who behave badly are, at base, incredibly solid. The only exception to this rule I can think of are my favorite duo: Patsy and Edina as AbFab. Drunken, irresponsible, shallow, selfish…everything most women aren’t portrayed as in mainstream movies and tv.

But I’ve always been miffed by the way the male population is pretty much given a free pass on bad behavior from the time they are young. “Boys will be boys,” is the lame excuse I heard muttered time and again from mothers. Blew up the garage? Haha. Boys will be boys. Got in a fist fight? Oh my. Boys will be boys. The same behavior from a young woman is still not tolerated in the same way.

And it continues through life. I often hear stuff like “a man needs his man cave” and other eye rollers for grown men. People excuse the inability for a man to be able to find laundry soap in his own cupboards because his wife or girlfriend takes care of that stuff. Meanwhile, women are taking on the same responsibilities outside the home while we remain stewards of the home. Breaking Bad was a series that started out promising and slowly turned me into a Walter-hater. I cheered a little each time Skyler, who is brilliant and badass herself but wasn’t given near enough of a role in the show, acted out. Still, she held everything together at the end of the day.

One particular scene I could watch over and over (sorry for any spoilers) was in Season 4 when Walter decides to buy their teenage son a sports car and Skyler tells him to bring it back because it would draw too much attention. Her words echoed my frustration at that very moment:

“Once again, he’ll blame his bitch mother for taking away what his loving father gave to him. Thanks for that. But you know what, Walt? Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”

I think it was the only time in the whole series I cheered out loud. A quick check online shows that Skyler’s character is highly UNpopular for many of the fans of the show. I know why. She keeps stopping the fun. That’s the big rub in all of this. Not only are the women expected to clean up the mess left behind from their irresponsible, reckless men, but they also get labeled buzzkills and bitches when they complain about it.

I’ve listened to the stereotype of the man who ‘settles down’ and is both taken care of by a woman and ‘whipped’ by a woman all of my life. Why is growing up a bad thing? Why do men get to rest on some sort of biological imperative to act out while women who act out are characterized as out of control wrecks (see Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid, etc)? It’s not super natural for me to be the responsible one, but I’m judged more harshly when that truth comes out. A bad father is a bad father. A bad mother is a bad person.

This deserves more than a post, but I wanted to rant it out a bit before too long. If there is any reason that women get angry at men, I think this may be at the root of it.

I’m fortunate to have a man in my life who doesn’t see responsibility as something that is against his nature. I think we’d both agree that he is the more responsible one of the two of us. At times, he gets resentful about my lack of attention to the home and living and I need to step up and contribute. He has every right to resent my blase attitude towards the basics. It puts more pressure on him to take care of things. We need to share responsibility. That is the only way that both of us will be able to thrive. Boys will NOT be boys. Girls will NOT be girls. We all have needs and one gender isn’t more deserving than the other.

Let’s not be irresponsible at the cost of the people who love us.

Spend Your Money….Spend it Wisely

3 Nov

Via Andrew Magill

I’m terrible with money and the more I have of it the worse I am. I just wanted to point out a few great articles I’ve come across recently that speak to the topic of spending wisely.

Breaking the brand loyalty bond and save money. You willingly pay a premium as you return time and time again to the brands you know because you know them. There might be a good reason for it but it might just be because you just failed to consider alternative brand’s offerings. For me, these brands are Always (who wants to risk it with “feminine hygiene”?) and Heinz ketchup (no catsup for me). I’ve become less strident in my loyalty to many brands because I don’t want to be snob about things and just be happy with the stuff I can get my hands on. There’s a catch 22 here: by giving brands less attention and reassessing them constantly I may just be giving them more of my mental energy. What do you think?

Shop for groceries less frequently. I’ve been doing this and IT WORKS. Studies show that more frequent trips to the store mean you tend to spend more. You know how this works: you go out for tomatoes and you come back with higher priced items like cheese and packaged frozen foods that are “for later”. Because they’re convenient or perishable, they tend to be eaten first putting you back on the “there’s nothing to eat” cycle. Again, the art of making dinner just with what’s in the house is frugal and easier than I thought.

Beware products that count on your future dissatisfaction. This article on the software cycle updates on iPhones versus Android, brought this home for me. In a nutshell (and without the geekery), Android phones are built on different “flavours” of operating system software that are only supported (updated) for a window of time. This means your Android phone is likely to feel stale as newer applications don’t work on the phone and it’s still under contract so you’re stuck with an obsolete not-so-smart phone. This is a lesson that applies to phones as to other relatively cyclical goods like clothes. Buy things that will last and you’ll be happy with in the long run. For me, this means avoiding the siren call of H&M.

Lifehacker’s follow up post to the one above on brand loyalty deserves a final mention and a summary here.

Things ALWAYS to buy generic:

  • Over-the-Counter Medications
  • Cleaning Products
  • Pantry items like flour, sugar, and Spices:
  • Produce
  • Gasoline
  • Batteries
  • Makeup
  • Infant care

Things NEVER to buy generic:

  • Toilet paper and paper towels (!!!)
  • Garbage Bags
  • Paint
  • Diapers
  • ….feminine hygiene products <— I added this one to the list.

 

 

My Skin and the Mind-Body Connection

24 Oct

I was going through a tectonic shift in my life from identifying as a grad student to identifying as……person-with-a-9-to-5-job. I threw myself into work without putting too much conscious thought into identity. I didn’t have the time! However, this uncertainty was showing in my face.

I’m blessed to have pretty well behaved skin overall. It’s dry sometimes and prone to redness and blah blah blah. Whatever – it’s good skin. I get a pimple or two when overindulge in something truly awful, which is usually when I’m not living right. Same thing when I’m about to get my period. It’s a small price to pay for having a fully functioning endocrine system if you ask me.

But, suddenly, it wasn’t so good. I got a new pimple every day, not every month. They ranged from cystic pimples (those red angry pus geysers-in-waiting) to those ones that sat scattered on the surface for minor bathroom surgery. It wasn’t acne; it was centered around my t-zone and making me look unhappy…and this is what bothered me.

I wasn’t unhappy, I was uncertain. Uncertainty meant that I was wading forth in uncharted waters, not sure if it was about to get really deep, really quickly. I was proud of getting wet, actually, but it was stressful. I was in a transitional phase and it was written all over my face. I was trying to assume my new role and responsibilities and my face was telling the world that I had NO clue what I was doing. In short, I felt like an adolescent again.

Enter Perfect Skin, found at my local health food store. It’s a fish oil based supplement with a few added ingredients like chromium and selenium (what for, I don’t know). All I can say is that it worked. The nasty breakout phase passed after taking it for about 2 months and it hasn’t returned.

I don’t have any interest in this company except to say that it worked to settle one relatively minor problem in my life at an unsettled time. For this, I’m grateful.

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What are YOU Looking For? (survey)

21 Oct

With the Fall here, Halloween in a few weeks and the holidays right around the corner, what is on YOUR list of stuff you are looking for? For example, I’m looking for a new black handbag and would love help. We want to get a sense of what types of things people are searching for right now. You never know…we may even be able to help you! (give some details)

I’ve invited you to fill out the form What are YOU looking for?. To fill it out, visit:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFlNalBsb0w5S2RqYlptdzdWX3NtZkE6MA

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