Thoughts

A Week’s Review

Random

Spring has sprung, I have officially started taking allergy meds again, have seen at least 3 dead squirrels in the road, I have no idea what to wear and am still recovering from the time change. Ahhhhhhh – Spring, can you feel it? The sunshine has been a welcome change but the rest of Spring can go straight to Hades. Here’s a little rundown of what I got up to this week.

One full week in the new car went mostly OK, it doesn’t feel like my car and still has that new car smell. My old car had a very distinct scent to it because I have a very distinct scent, I miss that familiar scent but I suppose the patchouli seeping out of my pores will eventually transfer to the new car 😉

Some of the Lulroe leggings that I ordered have arrived and they are interesting. I didn’t realize that there was such a bustling market for these leggings on apps like Mercari and Poshmark but I managed to find quite a few Halloween prints that are awesome. It’s interesting how varied the pricing can be, some sellers will list certain patterns as being unicorns or rare while others don’t. Mercari I feel has less variety than Poshmark but sellers can offer their items at reduced prices for a limited time and some even offer free shipping. The leggings themselves are very unique feeling and remind me of the material that seamless undies are made of, they have the infinite stretch thing going on. They don’t provide a lot of support and I couldn’t see myself wearing these in public. I’m not a big leggings in public person anyway but these feel like you aren’t even wearing pants. The patterns also don’t stretch weird on the body, the Wolfman pair are so far my favorite. I have a few others on the way and kinda’ want to do like 31 Days of Leggings for October or something, I’m literally just sitting here waiting for Halloween 😆

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I started listening to the Serial podcast and am so hooked! I enjoy police procedural books and documentaries so it’s right up my alley. I just finished season one, I almost want to listen a second time over in case I missed anything.

My hair is slowly but surely getting longer, I’m almost to that weird phase where I’ll just want to cut it but so far so good. I don’t have plans to grow it out terribly long and will probably end up with super short hair again in the future but it’s growing for now.

Have you been following the Operation Varsity Blues bust?! First of all, who got paid to come up with that name? Second, I know that there were loads of wealthy people involved but it especially irks me that people like Olivia Jade got into a great school by lying. Like, what was the point? You’re already rich and pretty and that will get you a long way in today’s society. Didn’t anyone involved think at some point that they were testing their luck? Also, I had no idea who Felicity Huffman was and am now mired in season two of Desperate Housewives.

That’s about it, oh, I joined a bags league with some co-workers to get out of the house this summer. It starts in June, I’m already exhausted 😭 What’s new with you?

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TOMS Wishlist

Sustainable Living

Have you ever eaten something really disappointing and thought, well fuck, I wish I could get those calories back. I wish I was one of those people who could create recipes but I’m not and depend on the internet for most of my recipes. Usually this works for me but this one was a dud.

It was supposed to snow 10 inches today, it didn’t. Instead it rained for hours and only just started snowing about an hour ago. The rain put me in a panic because I need new rainboots. I wear rainboots from about April 1 to Thanksgiving, I wear out a pair a year. Does it rain everyday for 6 months in Minnesota? No, in fact it does not but a few years ago, I stepped in a puddle of slimy water and woke up with a rash all the way up to my thigh. I got a skin infection, I had a fever and now I wear rainboots all of the time because water in the city is wretched. I didn’t find a new pair of rainboots but fell in love with about 10 pairs of new TOMS that I don’t need. I like TOMS, I’ve been sporting them since they became available in 2006. Over the years though, I’ve become more skeptical of this for-profit organization and its good intentions. It’s a couple of things for me, the influx of donated shoes must disrupt the local economies, canvas shoes aren’t great for most terrain, 40 bucks is a lot to pay for some canvas shoes that have basically become the trendy footwear of hipsters and yuppies. Do I like the idea of One-for-One? Yeah, absolutely but it makes me wonder if local businesses struggle to compete with a foreign supply chain. The donated shoes are exported to Ethiopia, Kenya, India and Haiti. Now, their shoes are plenty durable for my pedestrian, desk job working life but that 1/2 centimeter rubber sole wouldn’t hold up to much more. Are they the best shoes for kids in these countries? Being a middle class American, the cost of the shoes is a bit prohibitive. I own about a dozen pairs that I’ve collected over the years but wouldn’t they sell more pairs if they reduced their profit margin and cut the cost of them? I mean, I’m just sayin’. I’ve also owned my TOMS for years so I don’t really consider them fast fashion or wasteful, I get a lot of wear from them. I know that the organization now supports other causes like vaccines, clean water and eyecare so trendy shoes were obviously a great gateway cause. Anyway, I still like the shoes and appreciate the effort and need some spring kicks 😉

Also, I just noticed that the canvas classics are 54.95! Let me know your thoughts on TOMS. How much good are they really doing? They’d just be ugly ass shoes if they weren’t TOMS, right 😉

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A Week’s Review

Random

This week was pretty pedestrian, I didn’t really do anything exciting but I am so pleased that it’s Friday. On Sunday I worked at Ulta, I have only been working there a couple of days a month and I get to do the fun stuff like unpacking new product and setting displays. It’s crazy how many new brands are coming to the store that I work at, we just got Smith & Cult, Peach and Lily, Boscia, Kiehl’s – it’s like I am just doing unboxings for hours and I love it. Also, if it’s not something crazy anticipated like the Morphe collabs then I can purchase it that same day. I haven’t picked up much lately but it is cool kinda having first dibs.

Remember how I was bitching about being asked what kind of gas I want? Well, the gal at the gas station turned on the wrong pump for me yesterday. So I go back in, and she does something at the register and tells me to swipe my card again and so I do. Then something else goes wrong and she had to cash out the transaction and I had to swipe my card again. Now, I don’t know how it works in other places but where I live, if I pre-pay over the amount that I need then it just goes back to my card so I assumed this was the case. I ended up paying over $60 for $17.50 worth of gas. Then I had to go back to the gas station the next day and they couldn’t put the money back on my card, they had to put it on a gas card which is fine since I always get gas at that location anyway. But seriously, why did they complicate things so much!?

I’m deep into the Lularoe thing, I purchased a couple of pairs and then a couple more and then like 6 more 😂 They are surprisingly hard to get your hands on, each seller has different stock and prices seem to be up to their discretion. There are do many prints and then these ‘unicorn’ prints that I must have for reasons totally unclear to me. I hope they fit.

I scheduled an MS screening for next week, finally. I’ve been putting it off because my hand numbness and weakness hasn’t been an issue but I had a string of bad days recently. I don’t know what to expect, it comes and goes and nobody has been able to figure it out. I hope it’s arthritis or stress.

We are getting 9-11 more inches of snow this weekend! I’m excited because I don’t have to drive in it, the snowshoeing is going to be amazing. I don’t know if I should put the rest of my Easter stuff up or not – somehow doesn’t seem right 😭

Like I said, nothing exciting. What did you get up to this week?

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Dust to Dust

Random

And so it begins, 40 days of repentance, giving up all my favorite things and basking in all-around misery. But I’m Catholic and if I’m not suffering then I’m probably doing it wrong 😭 In all honesty, Lent isn’t so bad – I hated it as a kid but I have found some clarity and peace in making small sacrifices as I have aged. Lent is a period of reflection and rebirth that I’ve come to enjoy. It’s also free of my mother’s salmon patties which is probably a huge reason that I dreaded it in my youth. My mom was a lot of things, a good cook not being one of those things 😂 Anyway, in addition to the usual fasting I chose sugar and social media as my sacrifices this year. Social media was a bit of a softball since I don’t love it anyway but I have a pretty serious relationship with jellybeans and I’m already jonesing for a bag. Oh, and porn, decided to cut back on that too. Not really but I always wonder how honest people are about what they are abstaining from for Lent. Like you never hear anyone mention giving up porn or smoking crack – are sugar and social media really my only vices or are they just the ones that I feel comfortable sharing?! Who can say.

People in my life are generally pretty surprised when they find out I’m a fairly devout Catholic and honestly, same. In the year or two after my mission trip and deciding not to be a nun, I didn’t participate in the church at all, it disgusted me. I still find Catholicism pretty problematic, the entire organization needs a rebrand and I’m not talking about tambourines in the choir because that’s blasphemy. All the geezers who have been responsible for covering up scandals have got to go – from the Pope down. I think that people my age are extremely disappointed and distrustful of our church leaders and these issues need to be dealt with before we can find peace in our faith. Could I convert to something else? Probably but like I said, tambourines.

This post was really just to announce my abstinence from social media (aside from blogging) and a plea for jelly beans 😂 Do you celebrate Lent? Can it be referred to as a celebration? What are you abstaining from?

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Death of a Paperback Romance

Minimalism

No, this post is not about my non-existent love life 😂This weekend I went to a used bookstore that I frequent on the regular. I haven’t purchased anything in awhile and mostly just go to check out their enormous collection of unusual sci-fi novels with hopes of picking up my very own Fox Mulder 😝 It’s a very cool shop operated by some old hippies and just one of those peculiar places that are disappearing. There are literally thousands of books in this store and this weekend I got to thinking about all the stacks of unwanted books and if books are becoming too much of a good thing.

There used to be a time when printed books were incredibly hard to acquire and treated like precious commodities. In the era of the mass paperback though, every household tends to have a few dozen books laying about. As a former educator, I certainly understand the importance of reading and literature being accessible to everyone. However, clearly there’s a lot of waste when it comes to books. While it’s important to ensure equal access to books, does there really need to be 20 copies of one Danielle Steele novel in existence?! Books can be recycled but it feels a bit wrong to throw a book away no matter how trivial the subject matter might be or how well-worn it is. Unwanted books can be donated which seems like a great way to waste not but are they really being purchased or rather sitting on a shelf in triplicate?

Even if the rest of the world doesn’t recognize what I refer to as book-waste or, seemingly doesn’t since I can’t find a single statistic on it, it’s something I’m trying to be more cognizant of. I rarely purchase physical books but always buy used when I do or simply check the book out from the library. I still absorb a ton of literature though through other mediums as well like audiobooks and yes, even the sacrilegious e-reader 😝 I don’t love the e-reader, I only just recently started using one and it doesn’t feel like a real book to me. That aside, my library offers a service where I can check out most any book digitally and access it on my device. There are also loads of free books available through my Amazon Prime subscription. My favorite zero-waste book though has to be the audiobook which I never would have thought possible since I love reading so much. Listening to a book though somehow makes me feel more immersed in the story. Even though I’m sure it’s more beneficial to my brain to actually be reading I still love a good audiobook. I’m still a total book junkie, whenever I need my book fix, I’ll visit a bookstore, do some browsing and then download the titles I’m interested in. It’s not quite the same but having consumed so many book already in my lifetime, I feel better about not creating more waste.

What are your thoughts on book-waste, is it even a thing to be concerned about? Tell me if you prefer a physical book or are fine with digital media! Does it make you a bit melancholy to see stacks if unwanted books or am I just a bit odd 😉

QuiteSimplyStella(1)

A Case of Snow Brain

Random

Tired of hearing about the weather? Same but also, I live in Minnesota where it’s mandatory to discuss the weather at every opportunity. When you aren’t discussing the weather, you’re obsessively checking you weather app and thinking about the next weather discussion. We’re supposed to get another major snowstorm this weekend and I just want to be in the mountains. I miss having amazing snowboarding in my backyard. And yeah, there are some ‘slopes’ in my area but they don’t have that laid-back, mountain resort feel to them. City slickers in gortex just don’t do it for me, it feels too commercial. No snowboarding to be had in all this beautiful snow but maybe a snowshoe hike. I’ve really been into snowshoeing this year, it’s a great way to get moving and the woods are so hauntingly lovely in winter.

I got frustrated at work and told my boss that I needed more work. I feel that I’m being underutilized and it’s driving me nuts. I love what I do and where I work but it sucks feeling like I can contribute more if given the opportunity. I consistently offer to assist with projects and I do get leaned on quite a bit but I have capacity to do more. I don’t know if this was the smartest thing to come out of my mouth and I blame snow brain. On the one hand, I hope he takes my statement seriously but also doesn’t think I’m just dinking around all day.

Driving home tonight, I saw what I thought was a cat walking on the side of the highway and pulled over to check it out. It was a freaking raccoon! It was fairly small but didn’t seem to be in distress and ended up running across a field. I was kinda’ hoping to bring home a rescue kitty 😂 Also, by highway, I mean this two-lane road between two corn fields. My cats probably would have been pissed about a new addition anyway.

Why have gas stations started asking me what kind of gas I want? I don’t fucking know, the kind I always get? Are there new types of gas? I feel like there have always been three pumps, what’s changed? Also, I’m sick of pumping my own gas, I don’t mind doing all of the other self-sufficient single lady things but I hate pumping gas.

My wisdom teeth sockets finally closed, I know you were dying to know 😂 Seriously though, so much food was getting caught back there it was asinine.

That’s what’s on my snow brain this evening 😝 Now I’m just going to sit here and keep an eye on these killer icicles until the snow starts. Legit though, the icicles outside my window are at least 3-feet long. What’s happening in your world, does the weather make you restless?

QuiteSimplyStella(1)

Ugly on the Inside

Random

The recent passing of Karl Lagerfeld earlier this week got me thinking, mostly that I wish I was his cat and slated to inherit a chunk of his wealth but also a lot about why society accepts such poor behavior from people like him. Lagerfeld was notorious for his outspoken anti-fat, anti-refugee, anti-women stances and I’m shocked to see so many influential women sharing outpourings of grief on social media over his death. At the end of the day what did Karl Lagerfeld do? He designed clothing for elitists while promoting a standard of wealth and status that most people will never be able to attain in their lifetime. I don’t understand why he gets a pass because of his so-called creative genius. I don’t understand why Picasso, a misogynist and narcissist is still a revered artist. I don’t understand why Woody Allen isn’t in jail. I don’t understand why society idolizes ugly people who without their wealth and influence and ‘genius’ would otherwise be ostracized. Nobody’s contribution to society should excuse their wrongdoings.

In the wake of the renewed R Kelly scandal and new allegations against Michael Jackson, I’ve heard a lot about separating the art from the artist which is completely asinine. A person’s art is a part of who they are, what would R Kelly be without his art? What would Michael Jackson be? What would Karl Lagerfeld be? What would Picasso be? They would be nobody’s, without the art there is no artist. We need to be more careful about who we idolize and what behavior we are willing to accept. By celebrating Lagerfeld, you’re celebrating the disparaging statements towards overweight women, misogyny and rape apology to name a few of the most shocking things that ever came out of his mouth. You are celebrating someone who used his platform to spread hate and intolerance because he designed some fancy clothing, it’s shameful. I won’t support it and I won’t support women who are celebrating his legacy, it’s too bad that they are some of my favorite makeup artists, models and influencers but they should be using their platform to do better. Honestly, maybe it just goes to show how out of touch some of these people are and that I shouldn’t be admiring them anyway.

Let me know your thoughts on separating art from the artist, can it truly be done?

QuiteSimplyStella(1)