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Month: January 2016

Friday Favorites – Silver Linings

Friday Favorites – Silver Linings

hello weekend

Happy Halfway Through January! I don’t know about you guys, but 2016 has been ROUGH for me so far! Maybe I’m just getting all of this year’s bad stuff out of the way in the first few weeks? Let’s hope!

Since this has been such a rough week, several of my “favorites” are basically just looking on the bright side of crappy things that have happened, but at least it’s something!

1. This post is late going up today because I had to take Puck to the vet. Nope, not Cloudy who went to the vet last week… different cat. He has something owwie going on with his mouth – I was SO sure it was an abscessed tooth, but they all look ok, so it’s a mystery! He doesn’t want to eat or drink, though, so since the vet office is closed all weekend, I got to learn how to give him subcutaneous fluids myself!

You know when you go to the hospital and get an IV attached to a big ol’ bag to rehydrate you? (Uh, might just be me that has too much experience with that…) Anyway, that’s what they sent me home with!

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I asked them to let me do it myself at the vet’s office so that my first time would be under supervision. I LOVE medical stuff, especially vet medicine, so learning how to do it was awesome! Sticking my poor sick kitty with a ginormous needle and keeping that in place with one hand while squeezing the fluid bag with the other is going to be a challenge for the next few days, but I love adding a skill to my “Oh, I totally know how to do that!” list!

(He also got antibiotics and pain meds and goes back on Weds for a check-up! I managed to move Cloudy’s follow-up appointment to the same time so we can do both at once. CAT LADY BUSY WEEK!)

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2. My phone has been acting up lately, but on Weds it just totally gave up on the world and quit. I don’t blame ya, phone, with Bowie AND Alan Rickman gone, the planet is pretty lame now.

Anyway, I pulled up my carrier’s site (I do no contract through Virgin Mobile because it’s cheap and I’m poor) and my choices were basically a) $30 piece of crap b) $99 decent looking phone c) $893247629876 iPhone 6 or d) $150 iPhone 5s. I decided to spend the extra $50 to get the older iPhone over the meh $99 Phone of Okayness. I’ve never had an iPhone before, so even though it’s sooooo last year, I’m feeling pretty fancy! Did I make the right choice picking the grey over silver? Do I have to get a boyfriend with a beard now? How does this whole Apple thing work??

3. Okay, an actual awesome thing: EMMA WATSON FAVORITED MY TWEET!

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I’m Hermione Approved! Her bookclub is on Goodreads if you want to join, too!

4. Okay, this is more of an awesome thing for you guys than for me, but Target has one of my favorite dresses EVER on clearance for like $8!

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5. Let’s end on a high note with this photo of three things I love dearly: My kitten, my goooorgeous cobalt blue bag from my November Stitch Fix (I really will get around to that review soon!) and my super rad Notorious RBG biography that I can’t wait to dive into!

 

I SO hope your week has been better than mine! (I also had to get a tooth extracted on Weds. FUN WEEK HAS BEEN FUN!) Here’s hoping for a way cooler post next Friday, full of things that are all happiness and rainbows and unicorns!

Linkup time!

Bright on a Budgetfri-favs5-friday

Show Us Your Books – January Book Reviews

Show Us Your Books – January Book Reviews

Life According to Steph

I can’t believe it’s already time for my January book reviews! Despite quite a bit of reading this month, I didn’t finish that many books. Wish I was better at focusing on just one or two at a time!



The Woman I Wanted to Be
I’m a pretty big fashion nerd, so I really looked forward to this new DVF autobiography. I love her runway shows – the effortless style and abundance of wrap dresses are totally my thing. Her book was different from what I expected, although I can’t quite pinpoint why. (Helpful, I know!) It was interesting to learn about her life, but I was surprised by how little of her fashion career was really discussed.

Some of Diane’s philosophies are a little less than contemporary (Feel like a woman! Wear a dress!), which really helped me understand why she chose a new brand ambassador (Hannah Beth) who felt like such a surprising choice – they need to bring some youth and edge to the DVF brand to stay relevant in the age of Instagram fashion influencers.

I was most surprised by how many “failures” she had along the way. I didn’t realize how many times her company has crashed and burned, been sold, and been rebuilt.



Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
THIS BOOK, you guys! I read almost the entire thing (228 of 254 pages) in one night. It’s that good. It’s laugh out loud funny and occasionally cringe inducing and painfully touching and surprisingly moving and holy cats does it make you think about life and death.

If you’re unfamiliar with Caitlyn’s awesome Ask a Mortician series on YouTube, I totally suggest checking it out. You’ll totally get the idea of her humor and voice, and if you enjoy her informative videos, you’ll probably love her book. Surprisingly, I’d rank this one as way less “icky” (for serious lack of a better word) than but just as fascinating as  Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, so if you enjoyed that one you’ll probably dig this, too.

New Bill Bryson Book Road To Little Dribbling

I’m only about halfway through my advance review copy (Thanks, Net Galley!) of Bill Bryson’s new book The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain, but I wanted to mention it anyway because it is being released in just over a week on the 19th!

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When I read the above snippet in the opening chapter, it occurred to me that I’ve pretty much always pictured Bryson as sort of eternally middle-aged. It’s tough to wrap my mind around him as being in his mid-60s now. In this book, he embraces playing the part of the “grumpy old man” who is a bit out of touch with technology and those crazy kids these days. His trademark humorous view of his travels still fills the pages, but they’re spiced with more sarcasm and rants about impolite people he encounters than past books were.

I can’t say that this is my favorite of Bryson’s many works (and I think I’ve read nearly all of them) – that honor is still firmly held by A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, which is one of those books I think everyone should read. Even though this new book is not exactly action packed, it’s still an enjoyable read, especially if you’re a Bryson fan in general. (I’ll update you on my feelings about it next month when I’ve actually finished!)

(Post contains Amazon affiliate links because I have like four thousand cats to feed, so I really need those six cents I get if you buy a book.)

Friday Favs – High Five!

Friday Favs – High Five!

Happy Friday, everyone!

1. I’ve survived the first week of my January Yoga Challenge! Barely survived, since I was sick most of the week, but still… go team me!

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Speaking of high fives… I’m the featured blogger over at the High Five for Friday linkup! Whaaaat?

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Bright on a Budget

 

2. I know that I posted about my Yeti Socks when I ordered them, but they finally arrived and they’re even more amazing in person.

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AND THEY’RE FURRY!

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I may have also bought these yesterday:

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#ForeverAlone

 

3. My sweet little Cloudy Cat is rocking a new hairdo:

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A weird bump popped up on his side this week, so we had to make a field trip to the vet yesterday. The vet couldn’t get a very clear image of the borders from the x-ray and was kind of worried it was going to require semi-serious surgery, but OMG THANKFULLY it ended up being simple to deal with. (I’ll spare you the details, but I’ll share that the vet’s assistant asked if she could post photos to her vet class message boards.)

I can’t even tell you guys how relieved I was to hear that the procedure was quick and easy and my little boy could come home!

 

4. Current favorite gif:

Horse Show Jumping Fall Gif

I think I love it so much because I’ve totally had a fall from a horse refusing a jump – wish I’d been as smart as this rider and done the neck grab thing!

 

5. What makes #4 above even better? I found a stable to take riding lessons at! You might not know, but I started riding horses when I was 3, and even owned my own horse for several years in my late teens/early 20s. It’s been close to 10 years since I’ve ridden, though, so I’m SO excited to (literally) get back on the horse!!

I’d like to believe that my first lesson back will look something like this:

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But let’s be honest, I’ll probably look more like this:

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I have to run up to Springfield today for a doctor appointment and some serious library time, then come back and catch up on work from being sick all week. Whee?

Any awesome weekend plans?

 

Also linking up for…

fri-favs 5-friday

First Friday Favs of 2016!

First Friday Favs of 2016!

hi-2016

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This is my current Twitter and FB profile pic. I like to go way over the top tacky festive for holidays.

Here are my favorites for this week!

1. My friend Kelly introduced me to the concept of bullet journals, and now I’m obsessed with planning out ALL THE THINGS.  I’m actually running to K-Mart after I get this post finished because there’s a certain notebook that I want for my 2016 bullet journal, and that’s the only place that sells it. Can’t remember the last time I was at K-Mart, but I will bravely embark on the journey in the name of the perfect notebook!

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2. THIS BAG! You guys, if there’s a Dollar General near you, GO. These reuseable Star Wars shopping bags are A DOLLAR. There’s also one with an Episode 1 design, but screw that, I wanted the original trilogy bag. This is easily the best dollar I’ve spent in ages!

3. Here’s this week’s total Cat Lady moment!

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Yes, my cats have stockings. The little name tag thing on this is actually a collar that I made for Bear when he was a tiny kitten! The red fabric is a scrap from a dress I was sewing at the time, and then I embroidered his name onto some white fabric. CAT LADY ALERT!

The cats always get tasty treats and toys for Christmas, and this year Chewy.com was awesome enough to send me two boxes of the Wilderness Tasty Toppers Wild Cuts from Blue Buffalo, so each cat got their very own package! (With plenty to spare for later use!) These are meant to be added on top of dry food to make it more exciting, or served as a snack. You can find ’em here! (They’re on sale!)

BTW, for my fellow bloggers who have cats – do they find a way to sneak into EVERY PHOTO YOU TAKE EVER?

 

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Impending Photobomb!

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Hey! You’re not Bear! At least steal stuff from your own stocking! (Right after I snapped this pic, he grabbed that feather toy and ran. Cats, man.)

4. All of our Bloglovin/RSS feeds are overflowing with so many “2015 in retrospect” posts that it would takeuntil 2019 to read them all, but I really liked Megan Starr’s take on an end of year wrap-up post, which she did by telling the stories of her favorite drinks this year.

5. Best Buy had the ENTIRE SERIES of Daria on DVD for $10 this week, so as a good 90s teenager, I snapped that up ASAP! It’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, so I’ll be spending the weekend reliving my high school years, minus that icky “high school” part. YAY.

That’s it for this week! How is your year so far?

Linking up for Friday awesomeness!

Bright on a Budget