On Being Fabulous

I recently came across the blog of a fellow Vanderbilt alumna. She calls it "All Things Fabulous: A Daily Reminder of the Good Things in Life." It's a lovely title that made me smile and feel like my blog was comparatively depressing and decidedly unchic. But, I'm not going to let this worry me, as I've already launched a personal campaign to re-chic my life. Half of the effort is a workout group called "Fit As Shit." Starting this week, me, my roommate and some of our friends will embark on a strict training, sleeping and eating regimen designed to get us fit enough to run a 10K this spring and looking amazing in bathing suits by Memorial Day. The other half of the effort is designed to glam up my image. I'm tired of waking up in the morning, staring into my closet for 10 minutes, and then walking out of the house looking like a schlub.

Sometimes I go so far as to blow dry my hair or put mascara on, but most days I just look like a lazy stoner who can't dress herself. To combat the schlubbiness, creativity block and general fashion ennui, I took it upon myself to do some research. This has involved trolling through runway pictures on Style.com and flipping through many, many magazines at the gym. I even went so far as to pay $5.oo for a 500-page issue of InStyle.

I feel weird about knowing that the 70s are back, bright colors are in and the hemlines are all over the place this season but I am trying to embrace my girly side and look better without becoming a vapid slave to consumer culture. A visit Nordstrom Rack and four hours at the Leesburg Premium Outlets nearly killed me yesterday and reminded me why I don't typically go on epic shopping sprees. But, despite the exhaustion, disgust and the sick feeling I got in my stomach each time I swiped a credit card, I do feel better. Dressing for work is going to be easier and much more fun, and I can show up to work without feeling like I have to apologize to my boss for my appearance. Hurray!

Travel on the cheap

In trying to book flights for summer weddings, I've been dismayed with what seem like incredibly high prices. My usual go-to websites and airlines (i.e. kayak.com and southwest) are turning up fares that make me want to cry. $400 to go to Nashville from Boston? I've flown to California for less.

Thankfully, this recent New York Times article offers some helpful tips on how to keep traveling in 2011.

If you have travel deal secrets, please share them in the comments box!

The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

This is a speech and interview with American investigative journalist Bethany McLean. She addresses what happened (and didn't happen) between the Enron scandal in 2001 and the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007. McLean is author of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron and All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.

The video is a little long but well worth watching.

A portrait of Ben Bernanke

This is currently on display at the portrait gallery in D.C.

The Money Issue

Melanie recently asked me for my tips regarding how to live on the cheap. To address that, and in honor of Eddie Money playing in Boston tonight, this post is about saving money.

I just came across a neat article on Public Radio Kitchen called Food Policy Heresy: The Poors Can Eat Well Too. It has some good ideas for eating a slow food diet on the cheap and it includes a link to the New England Aquarium's sustainable seafood list. Overfishing is a big problem people. We're all focused on being green but they don't call it the blue planet for nothing.

Having a garden is a good way to save on food but if you can't do that, lentils and kale are your best friends. They're both super cheap, super good for you, and pretty versatile. I like to buy lentils dry, in huge bags, for less than $4. Other good things to have on hand include: tomato paste (Emily gets it in a tube which is awesome), canned tomatoes, chick peas, Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning (I put it in everything), potatoes, garlic and onions. I've made some serious tastiness with just the ingredients I've talked about here.

Other things that seem to save money:

- oatmeal
- riding a bike
- turning lights and fans off
- only buying food that you'll know you'll eat
- not throwing stuff away until you really can't use it anymore (use a chicken carcass to make stock, keep a bag of veggie scraps in the freezer to make stock, mend your socks, etc.)
- use vinegar to clean. it's a lot cheaper than other cleaning products for your bathroom and kitchen.
- use your connections to get free food, cheap bike maintenance, tools, etc. Can you borrow something instead of buying it?
- not drinking
- automatic monthly transfers from my checking account into savings
- Mint.com - it allows you to set up budgets and texts you when you've exceeded or when your balances are low.

Woo hoo! Go forth and save.

Dreaming of Heat Waves

You know you could use a bigger paycheck when you're going on a trip to see your mom and after seeing your mom, you're most excited about eating in a restaurant. It doesn't even matter what kind of restaurant because at this point, anything that isn't lentils or that hasn't come out of your own frying pan, is pretty damn exciting. And by "you" I'm clearly speaking about myself. What I have learned, is that being less than privileged makes you more creative. It gets you asking questions you might have never asked otherwise: who do I know with a wheelbarrow? how many times can I reuse a teabag and still get some caffeine out of it? would my neighbors think I'm weird if I ask to borrow toilet paper? eating refried beans cold out of the can isn't weird, right?

But seriously, I'm thinking of starting a thread in my blog about how penny pinching is making me smarter, like a lab rat in a new maze. My latest learning curve has come with needing to warm myself.

It's now the middle of March and we're at less than a quarter tank of heating oil. Filling up the tank can run $700, just to give you southerners some perspective. Rather than pay for more for the apartment, we're trying to forgo heat for the rest of the season. My roommates are a little luckier than I in that a) they aren't here all that much and b) their rooms don't have unlockable, uninsulated doors to the outside (my room has a porch- which is totally rad when Boston is sunny and warm, three days a year). To be clear, I don't want to shell out money for oil any more than anyone else does so I've been trying to come up with innovative ways to deal with the drafty situation.

First, I commandeered a space heater from the third floor. This worked very well for a couple weeks, until my housemmates came back to town and reclaimed it, and Emily caught an increase in our electric bill- foiled! Next, I tried sleeping with even more clothing, an extra blanket, socks and a hat. That was okay but my nose was cold and I shivered until I fell asleep. This week I hit the jack pot. Remembering an instrument I saw at Colonial Williamsburg that used hot coals to warm the beds of pasty patricians (shown below), I put an electric heating pad ($10 at CVS) in my bed 10 min before I planned to get in it.


By the time I brushed my teeth and washed my face my bed was toasty. The nice thing about the heating pad is you can snuggle with it for a little while and move it around sore spots of your body to relax your muscles before you fall asleep. No money for heat or a massage therapist? No problem. Get a heating pad.