Mo Money-Mo Problems!

I was rummaging through all the magazines and I read and I decided I would start pulling pages for inspiration.  I found my collection of J. Crew catalogues and got pretty inspired. I loved all the layered necklaces over turtlenecks and high waisted plaid pants. And if these things sound crazy, you can always make them more wearable. You could do just the plaid pants, or turtleneck with necklaces-you don’t have to have all three. I get really excited about all the new fall catalogues I get from J. Crew, Anthropologie, Sephora and on and on, because I look at them for inspiration and the things  I can’t afford  I go and find and lower budget places like Ross, Marshalls, or T.J. Maxx. I buy a lot of things that look like what I see in the catalogues but are different and cheaper brands. One of the kids in my class knows I like fashion and today she came and showed me these really cute gladiator sandals (she has rockin style for a second grader) and said “Miss Anderson! I got these at Ross for four dollars!” I was so proud. It is also a good idea to do this for makeup. Look to magazines for ideas on trends you might want to try then go buy the stuff from the drugstore until you know it is something wearable and that you will wear it more than one time. I LOVE Sephora and Ulta and department store makeup, but I cannot justify paying for something I know I will only wear once. (Lesson learned=maroon eyeshadow) This afternoon is new magazine day and new catalogue day so I did my paperwork early so I can go home and pour over them and make lists of all the stuff to look for at the discount stores over the weekend!! Wish me luck, if I find anything awesome I will be sure to report back. Where do you draw inspiration from?

BEDA August 17

So much for me rocking this blog entry. I have a ton of notes from the last two episodes of Project Runway, but with school starting tomorrow and the stress that comes with school starting, there is no such thing as a funny Chelle. So my Project Runway post will have to wait until Thursday, when hopefully I will be calmer.

On a school related note, today I went shopping for work clothes. That was a total fail. My question is this...when did simple clothes become SO expensive. Now, I don't actually have a problem paying for nice clothes, but I have a HUGE issue paying ten dollars for a white tee shirt. I mean, I can get cute printed shirts from Threadless for ten dollars. And they will totally work as work attire because they have like, flowers on them, which work well under a cardigan. And don't even get me started on pants. Where are simple black dress pants? I mean, I don't really want to wear mom pants, and even if high waisted pants are coming back in style, they don't really work for people who are kind of chubby and only five feet tall. So pants are almost impossible. This may be one reason that I am a big fan of YA author Maureen Johnson's "No Pants" regime. Or maybe it's just that dresses are more comfortable when it is nearly 100 degrees out each day.

Regardless of why I am Team No Pants, or how expensive clothes are in relation to my paycheck...the main point is that I will be spending the weekend scouring the internet for affordable clothes and my closet for various combinations so that I can be comfortable and profession during the upcoming school year.

Failing at BEDA

Ally and I failed BEDA. I'm actually surprised we lasted as long as we did. We will return Monday with regular Monday-Friday posts with the possibility of weekend blogs as well. We aren't sure what we will do when BEDA is over, blogging everyday is hard, even when there are two of us. We really intended this to be kind of a beauty blog, with small looks into our crazy lives and friendship...it kind of veered off course though. Not that we mind! We just aren't sure what direction this blog will take come September.

So I'm currently gearing up for tomorrow's double Project Runway entry, hopefully you are all gearing up to read it!

High Times at the Pretend Orthodontist

So today didn’t exactly go the way I had planned. I was going to go to the orthodontist out of state (long story) and go to the mall to buy some new fall clothes and accessories for work. First, I was up all night sick with my allergies. Then, my bosses decided to have a Staff Appreciation day, and we were afraid if we didn’t show up we would have to use sick time. So we went and they had us playing games and had hired a massage therapist for us. So that part was really cool and very thoughtful of them. While we were there the delivered some news about our job, including staff changes, work place changes, and the fact Rochelle will be in a totally new place, with new people she doesn’t know. FUN. So I left early and we headed to NC. On the way we stopped at Burger King and I got my usual kids meal. I was trying to put the toy in the backseat (it was a large plastic satellite from the movie “Planet 51”) and I whacked Rochelle so hard in the head with it that I left a mark. After leaving Burger King, we were on the interstate when I large piece of flying cardboard hit the windshield. We called the orthodontist to confirm my appointment and they told me it was NEXT Wednesday. So we just went to the mall. Upon arriving my favorite Toy Store had been turned into a Halloween store. We found the actual toy store somewhere else. We did however find a pet store that sold “quality ferrets.” Then I got really sick from allergies (so did Rochelle) and so I bought generic Sudafed which made me super high and semi incoherent. On top of that there was no affordable or cute fall stuff out yet. So back to school Fall Fun shopping day…was a massive allergy ridden fail. 

Haircuts and Emma Watson

Recently a picture of Emma Watson aka Hermione Granger circulated the web. All kinds of people were like "OH MY GOSH!!! Not her HAIR!" and completely freaked out. Rumors are circulating that she cut her hair for an audition, and maybe she did. Personally I think she needed a change. Emma Watson needed to say goodbye to Hermione Granger. I think she did a bang up job. Their is no doubt that Emma Watson is crazy pretty. Like so pretty that I am frequently in awe of her. I don't really get why people are so worked up about her lack of hair. Yeah, it's different, but it's her head. And it works for her. I wish I could pull that cut off.

Speaking of haircuts, I think we have ALL done something drastic to our hair at some point. I know that when I need a change I start with my hair. I mean, ultimately, it's just hair. It grows back, you can re-dye it, if it is truly horrible you can pay for extensions or wear a hat. I used to have long hair. I'm not really sure why I ever wanted long hair. I have super fine hair, but I have a LOT of hair. It tangles really badly and if it gets longer than my shoulders I have to wear it up all the time or brush it every fifteen minutes. However, a few years ago I thought I was going to get married, and I found this amazing hair style where the girl had a low, curly ponytail with an old broach in her hair instead of a veil. So, I decided that THIS would be my hair style for my wedding. Long story short, I didn't get married. Also, I hated my hair. It was a CONSTANT reminder of everything that I didn't want to remember. So I called my cousin (who cuts hair) and asked her if she could cut my hair. When I got to her house she asked me what I wanted and I said "I don't care as long as you cut it off. I don't care how short it is, I don't even care what it looks like. As long as it is easy to take care of it." She looked at me like I was crazy and tried to talk me out of a mental breakdown. Eventually I was able to explain that I didn't want long hair because it reminded me of the fact that I was growing my hair out for a wedding that didn't happen. Then she cut my hair.

Which isn't really what this blog was supposed to be about. My main point is that sometimes you need to say goodbye, and sometimes you need to do something drastic in order to do that.

Old French Guys and A Pack of Rolaids

So Rochelle just wrote a really sweet and lovely blog about me. And how cool I am. I feel the same way about her, but I have decided to write about that when you are not expecting me to because writing it now would seem like I did it out of obligation, and that’s lame. Instead I am going to write about the end of my summer which has little to nothing to do with beauty. All of last week we were finishing up our summer camp that our super secret job has before school starts. It was very challenging. Rochelle and I came home and were completely exhausted every day. I was grumpy and did not want to talk to anyone but her or my boyfriend (and that’s a stretch!). After our program’s end and a field trip I went to a nearby city to visit my boyfriend where he lives. His brother and sister-in-law came and so we actually went out to restaurants for dinner and took them to the city’s sketchy Wal-Mart. This place is so bad they keep razor blades, condoms, and baby formula locked up. My first question is, what could you even do with all three of those things? I was happy to see everyone. I really like my boyfriend’s brother he is a really amazing guy. He has struggled with AIDS his whole life, due to a blood transfusion when he was much younger. You never hear him complain; he just lives life to the fullest and inspires everyone around him. I have learned a lot from him. He just looks at things in a different way than everyone else. He oozes compassion and understanding. He helps you to become closer to God through example. His wife is great too. She is a sweetheart. She helped a child who had her skull ripped off in a car accident they saw on the side of the road. She didn’t even flinch just ripped off her sweater and put it on the girls head and kept her calm. Talk about super woman!! And she’s fashionable too. She is always so put together and makes you want to immolate her style. And as if I didn’t like her enough the girl brought me Silly Bandz this weekend!! I don’t know if I have mentioned this or not, but I love silly bands. And she matched them to her outfit, which I had not even thought of yet!! We went to a really popular and trendy restaurant and all the waiters and waitresses were wearing bands.  AND I read about how Sarah Jessica Parker, Kelly Ripa, and Mary-Kate Olsen all wear them. Very cool. In other news, I was wearing my awesome silly bands when we went out on a speed boat in a lake. To most people this sounds fun. To me it is terrifying. I had kind of a messed up childhood, which we won’t get into yet because this is a fun blog, but I never learned how to swim or was on a boat. So deep choppy water freaks me out. And cruising fast in a tiny boat on choppy deep water-even worse. I am sure I made a tool of myself the whole time, holding on. Then I got sick and had to go throw up. LOL, I am beyond cool. And who do you think I was texting about my plight the whole time…..that’s right. Rochelle. And since I am already rambling, while with Rochelle today I adopted an orange kitten and named him Maurice Chevalier….now I am thinking I should have named him something for fallish. Haha obviously my brain is fried. 

Chelle Has BEDA-Block

What is BEDA-Block? Pretty much the same thing as writer's block, only BEDA based. I have certainly learned something this year, and that is NOT to do BEDA on two different blogs. I am OUT of topics! So maybe I'll just talk about Ally, myself, and our longtime friendship.

I can say I'm oddly melancholic right now because summer program is over and in little more than a week school will start. This means Ally and I will not be seeing each other everyday. Now, I know it isn't like she is moving across country or anything, but it will be a pretty big change. For the last six weeks we have spent every week day together, which hasn't happened since we worked at the library together. During the school year we tend to lose track of each other. We talk every day either via text or AIM, and last year it got to where she would call me a few days a week after school so we could just decompress. But that isn't the same as SEEING each other. We tried hard but with work, families, and her boyfriend, it was hard to get together a lot. So I'm really hopeful that this coming year we can do a better job of SEEING each other. I know it sounds silly. I know people who don't see their best friends like ever really, but it's hard for us. We have known each other since we were in fifth grade, which is when Ally moved to Wytheville. We became close friends in high school, and got extremely close in our junior year. We spent our first two years of college at community college together, taking most every class together or should I say passing notes and skipping to go buy magazines? That was probably what cemented our friendship. It has had its ups and downs. We have had small fights and HUGE fights, which have resulted in us not speaking for YEARS. However, we have loved each other for a LONG time, and we always overcome the bad stuff.

I can't think of a single bad thing that I have dealt with since I was sixteen that Alissa wasn't there for. My grandmother's death, being locked out of my dad's father's house in the blazing heat, my granddaddy dying, The Big, Bad Breakup, deciding to quit my first real job...she's been there for it all. She is the person who told me that my first real boyfriend was seeing someone in town while I was away at college, even though at that point we hadn't spoke to each other for almost two years. She is my family. She's more than my best friend, and honestly even through the petty crap we deal with, I'm glad I have her.

Wow...sappiest blog post EVER! Obviously I shouldn't blog when I am full of ennui.