Cobbling Together

A minor bug hit me this week, and so I have been taking it easy, doctoring myself with lots of Vit. C and wellness vitamins of all sorts and reading the funny old $.50 books I pick up from that great outdoor bookstore in Ojai, CA - Bart's. They have bargain racks outside - & all the books there, mostly hard backs, are $.50 - it's amazing the assortment of topics you can find there - from diet books to classics.

I wanted to rest up because I have to sing for an event on Sunday.  Whew, it's hot here - so I have also been thinking about what to WEAR, because I just found out that the singers have to wear black & white. (And I had another lovely outfit planned, too!)

I am getting the last of the spots out of a Donna Karan linen shirt I picked up somewhere with bleach on a cotton swab on wet material until the spot bleaches out. (Same idea as a bleach pen - but MUCH less expensive!) I think they say to DRY CLEAN the shirt - but linen can be washed, so I don't know what they are talking about.  I also have to do some minor mending to the collar - Think in my other life I was a ladies maid or something, since I actually enjoy getting out spots and mending things so it doesn't show! Labels like Donna Karan DO make nice things out of fine materials, but I could never afford that first hand!

Also cobbled together (see title) a closing for my blue National Geographic watch - I got that one with a sky theme and another one, which has a greenish map pattern for $1 each as gifts  - but I had to open the packaging and replace the batteries, so I ended up keeping them myself.  The weakness of these watches is the BUCKLE of the matching plastic watchband - which is flimsy and breaks.  I reversed the buckle on the greenish watch - but the blue buckle went missing - so I picked up some buckles at the thrift shop for $.10 each.  Alas, none of them fit -but I did extract the little fork-thing in the buckle & attached it to my watchband with those wire twisties - and found I could make it work. Also added another closure with those little hair elastics - which I colored blue with a magic marker! So now, I can wear it & no one will be the wiser except me (& YOU).  They are pretty fashion watches.  And the sky blue band of the blue one really makes the watch - so it would have been a shame just to get another band in this case...And it came just at the time my regular watch has to go to watch repair because one of those spring things that held it on to the band flew across a restaurant while I was having lunch & is lost forever.

Hmm, what else?  I got a really nifty little pen knife through the mail from one of my freebie offers.  Sharp, too. And more magazines, of course.  Have to recycle those.  And some hair care samples.  Walmart.com ALWAYS has samples - so check it out.  (I usually wait until my freebie sites alert me to them.)

I also signed up for some more preferred customer plans - they send you samples to try, sometimes. I have had good luck with the ones with the fashion magazines in terms of getting free products.  And the fast food sites offer coupons and discounts.  We got a 2 for one Carl's Jr. Chicken sandwich on a coupon last weekend - good sandwich and cheap at the price, too. (That coupon came with the newspaper - I save them for hubby, since he sneaks into fast food places on the run....) I also got a $2 off Subway CARD, which I think hubby used the other night to buy sandwiches for dinner. 

I did get the $25 gift card for barnesandnoble.com to work and ordered a book for hubby's birthday. (Hubby hadn't been able to get it to work for himself, somehow.)  Did I say that I also got some very reasonable books on amazon.com for him?  He likes sailing and adventure books.  But actually, I think the one he likes the best is a $.50 one about Byrd at the South Pole from Bart's!  And the guy I work for keeps on passing on bags to hubby & me - & hubby does love BAGS. The latest one is a black nylon computer bag -  Another birthday present, I say!

Oh, a note - my nails, which have always been soft, have suddenly become hard as rocks?!?  - Can't think what I am doing differently - unless it's the glucosamine samples I have been adding to my vitamins?   Now, I will have to keep on taking THOSE. Also read it helps to keep skin from sagging internally???

I find it amusing to read beauty surveys asking if I am still getting salon manicures and treatments - as I never DID - except the time it was a freebie! But then again, I have become very allergic to regular nail polish - but I will have to look into the new health food store brands that have different ingredients...

Gee, have all those people really been spending all that $$ on all that stuff?  No wonder they are broke! For me, it's always been that I just have never been paid handsomely for being an artiste and persevered anyway...

I am the kind that looks at the prices of the free Cover Girl/Olay makeup (which I got from being a bzz agent) and the mascara I got as a freebie to see how much money I COULD have spent.  To save $20-$30 is a lot to me. And I am glorying in all the nice new bargain undies I scored at the 99 Cent Store!

I DO have to rub hubby's nose in it, as he was squawking about my undie spree - when I saw the equivalent in Macy's at $7-8 each! See! See! Some people spend $8 for undies.  Not me. (And if I hadn't found them there, one can always get them discounted from the online Hanes site!)

Oh, such a frugal and fashionable wife hubby has! My favorite lipstick is a Wet N Wild brand which costs $1!! And I scored more brand new skin care at a thrift shop for $7 for 7 items - which will keep me going for a while in terms of night cream, etc. (Usually $10 a jar, even at Avon online!)

But Sunday, decked out in my DKNY linen shirt and so on - NO ONE will be the wiser.  Go team!

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Getting Decked Out

Some cobbling together & my designer thrift shop clothes are cool!