La Vida Loftusshopping | La Vida Loftus

The One That Got Away

Vanessa — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:39:35 +0000

All this excitement over the new living room has got me patrolling ebay for a cool swag pendant lamp for over the bar. We would consider a new pendant, but we can’t add new wiring there or rather WON’T add normal copper wiring to the existing wiring because it’s aluminum. That’s a big NO-NO when you have aluminum electric! So I’m looking at some groovy retro plug-in swags!

While I was looking, I found the ultimate retro swag: a sputnik-style chandelier. I knew it was too big for the bar, but I showed Mike just to let him feast his eyes on its fantastic existence. To my surprise, he said, “You’ve gotta bid on it!!” I was all… “SERIOUSLY? It won’t fit over the bar!” and he was all… “So what, we could use it somewhere else!”

So I put in an initial max bid of $175 as it was currently only $110 or something. What the hell. A day later I was outbid. No big loss, but I kept my eye on it, thinking that maybe I’d throw in a couple more bucks in the event that we could win it at the last minute. And then I lost track of time and before I knew it, I got the ebay form letter informing me that I missed out… Look at the email, and tell me if you see what I see.

HOLY MOLEY: $1,026 big ones!! It was lovely, but not THAT lovely. :) Oh well!!

Sacrifices

Vanessa — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:14:45 +0000

Despite being raised Catholic, I’ve never consciously given up anything for Lent. (With the exception of the things they made me do for CCD.) Yeah, yeah, I know! Just add that to the litany of things I have to feel guilty about. We Catholics are good that way. Anyway, as I was sitting in Church yesterday, it occurred to me the perfect thing to “give up” this year. While I have to admit slightly selfish motivators, ie. new bathroom to save for, I’ve decided to put a spending freeze on buying clothes. This includes clothes, shoes, accessories and jewelry and it also includes thrift shopping. I realize this is a VERY tall order for me, but I’m going to try, dammit. I really don’t want for anything, and I think this will be a good exercise in self-control.

My spending has really gotten out of hand recently, as evidence in our Mint.com account. We just signed up last night and got a bunch of our accounts hooked up to it already. It really gives us a better picture of where our money is going each week and it’s free. Oh man, what a rude awakening! I was shocked to learn the amount we’ve already spent on fast food this year! Yikes! So it’s going to be a tough 40 days, but I’m determined to do it! Wish me luck.

Are you giving up anything for Lent?