Work Pants

Those are the work pants I picked up at Goodwill for $4.99 each. Not bad at all for the price considering even a new pair on sale at Target last week was $15.99.

These are not pants I would have normally bought; I wear jeans almost exclusively because these kinds of pants are boring and drab and I happen to like how I look in jeans that fit well. Plus, these types of pants are so IT looking. I was in IT once (full blown network IT manager and user support for a decent sized construction company) and even then I didn't wear Microsoft pants.

Yep, that's what I call them "Microsoft Pants". Granted it could be worse but in my thrifty/forced to be frugal life, Goodwill was the best option for me.

Two are brands I am not familiar with (left two) and the second to right is Merona (Target brand) and the last pair are Dockers. I am kind of bummed because I had gone and picked out the first pair, the black and the last pair of Dockers along with another pair of Dockers. The other pair of Dockers were the same size but longer in the leg yet they were too big around the waist and hips. I was quite surprised because Dockers is a Levi's brand and I rarely have problems with Levi's jeans except for the length. But what was a real drag was they were a red tag and red tags were 50% off last week so I would have had three pair at $4.99 and one pair at $2.49. Eh, I returned them, found those Meronas and that's that.

I will admit, I am in a state of sadness today. While I am still semi self-employed, I now am working outside the home for someone else and I am not real happy about that. I am a very independent woman and the thought of having to be at some place at certain times through the week (with the same walls and same people) makes me a bit sad and a bit frustrated too. I've been able to set my work schedule for most of my life since January 1994 when I moved from Colorado Springs to Grand Junction to start my outside sales career. That's close to 16 years of me calling the shots.

But for some part-time work here and there, a stint at a tile company (that's a long story), tis a long time for independence.

Anyhow, yeah, quite a bit of uneasiness about this combined with working for a large corporation. I know I can do a good job and I will do a good job but with the loss of my independence I worry.

I just hope that tonight I get a good night of sleep and this first week doesn't send me into "What am I doing? What have I done?" I do not want to be a bad employee.

Last weekend my brothers and I got the rest of the stuff out of the storage unit:



If you look carefully you can see Sonny (cat) hanging out on a very old and ugly comfortor I've had since the mid 80s. It was useful for a lot of things through the years (not on my bed though) so I will hang on to it for a while longer.

But it's kind of sad to see all your stuff fit into an 855 sq. ft. apartment when I took up a good majority of the 1400 sq. ft. house I lived in for 11 years. A ton of it is gone and thinking through some of the things I got rid of, I really wish I had just hung on to them until I had a good chance to go through my stuff. I only had three weeks from rehab to the move to get my bearings together and that was just not enough time to think things through.

I made snap decisions about what was donated and such and in hindsight, there's a lot of stuff I am regretting having gotten rid of. The clothes I donated HAD to go but some of the things that were my mom's, things I had picked out that I really liked, my own little jewelry collection, etc are gone and there's no turning back on any of that.

I guess you could say that today I am sort of in mourning. My independence is partially gone and the things that I didn't have time to make good decisions on getting rid of are somewhere in the world.

I will snap out of it but there's a lot of apprehension, sadness, anger, etc today.

I should get in the business of helping property owners during remodels

These apartments were built around 1986 and over the last year or so as time allows, they have been upgrading/remodeling the kitchens and bathrooms. I would seriously like to get my hands on the bonehead that picked out these low-flow toilets for these tiny bathrooms:



Not only that, I would like to give the brilliant designer of this toilet a toothbrush and have him/her clean this stupid thing after a weekend frat party.

Seriously, as it is, you can barely fit a small trash can between the toilet and the tub and you can't fit one between the toilet and the vanity. It is literally a pain to clean and I can't imagine larger people having much patience trying to clean that and behind it either...Ow, ow, ow. I seriously dislike cleaning bathrooms as it is but I really hate cleaning this one.

I had to erase the mounting bolts with Photoshop because they are missing the caps and you can imagine how nasty that is. I attempted to show the depth of the contours with a quarter but perhaps it didn't come across as well as I had hoped...regardless, what a crappy design and what a crappy place to put such a horribly designed toilet. (Pun not intended. HA!)

When remodeling a kitchen or bath, it is important to take into consideration such mundane things as cleaning.  Architects often don't think about the fact that you may need just 6 more inches to make a bathroom usable and cleanable, especially when it's the only bath in the living space. In addition, the people that picked out these toilets for the bathrooms did a poor job of selecting them.

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Hope everyone has had a fine weekend.  Mine has been filled with major cleaning, including washing my flannel sheets today since I ended up with three blankets to keep me warm last night.  They are a dark green, not the bluer or grassier 90s green but a deep pine green.  While they don't exactly go with my decor, they are warm and oh so comfortable!  Fall nights have definitely arrived on Colorado's Front Range.

One of those days but I turned it around. Goodwill!

I woke up today very late and with a sense of "dread". A day where, before, I would have gone to the liquor store and I am not doing that. Well, I got in the shower even though I really wanted to stay stinky, hibernate in the apartment and wallow in whatever was making me feel dread. I know why my mood was so horrible but sheesh, didn't think it would be that bad.

During one of my travels around my 'hood I noticed that Tuesday Morning had moved to the shopping center right by the apartment. I hadn't been to their old location in ages and ages so I didn't know they had moved despite that it was next to The ARC Thrift store previously.

Since it had been so long, I decided to see what stuff they had. While they have some good quality stuff, being the frugal (and currently broke) person I am I was still disappointed in some of their pricing. I certainly will keep them in mind for when I can afford to get a new comforter for the bed and a blanket but keep an eye out for their clearance sections instead. I don't see that a $100 comforter is all that great a value even if the original pricing was at $195. Uh, cat, dog, out of style real quick. Things like that are rarely an "investment" IMO.

It was storming pretty hard while I was in there so I spent a good hour just going through and looking around and walked out as the storm passed without having purchased a thing. Which is good because one of my goals for the day was to get to Goodwill and look for a few more clothing items. So for $4 or so less than I would have spent on wine (given my mood) I picked up a pair of jeans (full price as it's hard to find my size so I snag them when I can), a nice top, two around the house or quick run to the grocery store t-shirts and a cute little bowl that isn't anything special but made me smile. On the way home, picked up a couple of job applications since my mood was much better. It was hard to put on a smile pre-Goodwill so I waited until I was on my way back home.

The two t-shirts are screen printed. One says "I'm probably lying" and the other says "It's only funny til someone gets hurt...then it's freakin' hilarious". Humorous and cynical, fit my mood and will in the future too. The jeans (Levis 515 bootcut) fit perfectly so I am pleased with a $4.99 price tag as they are in pretty darn good shape. The top is a well made cotton long sleeve knit top which will work for fall through spring. It's a nice red color with a pretty satin look trim around the neck which can be worn alone or under something else in the cold months (or even in the summer when it's a bit chilly out). It was only $1.99 since it was a 50% off tag (green tags were 50% today, red tags 30% off). The t-shirts were $1.39 (red tag) and $1.99 (white tag) but I got rid of a lot of my "around the house/shopping shirts" when I moved as many were nothing more than hole ridden icky things so it's worth it to me.

The little bowl I found was only 79¢ as it too was a 50% off item:



Had it been still listed at $1.59, I would have left it behind but at 79¢ I figured I could afford the little smile it gave me instead of stopping at the liquor store, good trade off. It's now sitting on my monitor stand with a dollar store candle in it. It's not always about if things match your decor but if you like it.

Instead of soothing my mood with alcohol, I got some things (for less $) that will last and needed with a little something extra. Now if the job fairy will bless me, it will all be good.

Clearly a day to stick to myself

It's one of "those" days. A day where you wish you could take your frustrations out like my cat did last month:


While I was not amused about his nocturnal shredding of a brand new roll of toilet paper, I look back on that and wish I had such an easy outlet. It's the little things today that are bugging me so rather than blather about that I had a few other things in my brain I figure I could post about...see I am not only a serial internet surfer I also love to type out words no matter how meaningless they are to others. It's my blog and I will post what I want to. ;-)

Anyhow, I got to thinking about that lamp in my bedroom. I've left the price tag on the shade just in case I get buyers remorse. But last night when I went into my bedroom, I loved how nicely the black shade tones down the CFL (it's a 15 watt but I am not sure which standard incandescent bulb it's supposed to emulate). It was given to me in a pack of other CFLs by a friend so it's a bit brighter than those I usually buy (equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent). I am not jazzed how the shade overpowers the lamp base though.

Will painting it really make it look right? I tested it with Photoshop very quickly, and I am not impressed. The drawback to photos and retouching is that photos often don't represent an object as well as the eye can see. I've decided to go ahead and paint it. What do I have to lose? It was going to end up at Goodwill when I moved so it can't look worse than it already does...you never know until you try.