This is an interesting little meme going around the internet right now, several bloggers that I read (FB, Asian Pear) have tallied up the approximate costs of everything they regularly carry in their purses.

It seems the average total of all items for most gals is around $300, but since my purse alone is $300 it got me wondering: just how much IS my bag carrying?

I’m about to find out. And also clean this sucker out, I have way too much stuff in here!

• Purse – $300
• iPod Touch – $250
• Blackberry – $50 (it’s a hand-me-down)
• Sunglasses – $500
• Keys – $30
• “Emergency” makeup kit – $40
• Chinese fan (perfect for hot TTC rides!) – $3
• Various lipgloss products – $40
• Wallet – $50
• Random USB sticks – free!
• Metropass – $100
• Customized purse hanger – $13
• Miscellaneous (hanky, gum, mints, etc.) – $10

TOTAL: $1,386

Holy shit.

I just have sort of average stuff… or at least I thought I did :S I guess because I like to save up and buy quality items over time they add up! All my costs are what I assume it would cost to replace those items.

It’s amazing to see how having just 3 good-quality lipgloss products can suddenly mean you’re carrying around $40 of merch in your bag. I don’t think I even included my hand cream.

The thing is, I don’t really want to get rid of anything in my bag. It’s all useful and I use it regularly. It just shocks me to see how much it would cost to replace everything.

But I’m kind of glad I did this exercise! I will be much more aware of what I do with my bag and will be more motivated to keep it! Sheesh!

So… what’s in your bag?

Me in my Veronica SWAK Dress

After my negative review in March of my Sealed With A Kiss items, the company contacted me and wanted to know how they could make it right.

It seems that my post on this blog and also in the fatshionista! community had caused quite a stir, and the CEO contacted me himself so they could better understand my beef with their clothes and how they could improve.

Right off the bat I was impressed. It takes a certain kind of person and a certain kind of company to step up and take responsibility for their inferior product. Not only that, but they were willing to go straight to the source (aka me, the shopper) to find out what I really want out of a clothing retailer. Believe me, I had lots of suggestions to make!

After several long and educational conversations (for us both!) I am happy to report that SWAK appears to be one of those companies that want to go the extra mile and please their customers. They listened to my suggestions and addressed many of my issues and I feel that if they can run with this and actually implement some lasting changes/improvements they could become a major player in the lucrative plus-size clothing market.

To show their improvement progress, they sent me their new Veronica Maxi Dress to test-drive.

Here’s what I think

I like this dress. For around $60 CAD it’s not a bad buy and is a marked improvement over the last two dresses I purchased from SWAK.

A very long maxi dress, this garment comes with adjustable straps and a waist tie which helps you adjust the dress to your figure. Thank goodness because at 5’6″ I was almost too short to rock this!

I really liked the pattern on the fabric and the colour choices. I received it in the violet colour and it looked great. The pattern was an appropriate scale and had enough visual interest to not only make a beautiful dress, but also to give me a more slender look when I wore it.

The “boobie cups” at the top (I know, I’m so technical, right?) were molded foam which gave my chest a pleasant shape. With the adjustable straps I was also able adjust how much cleavage I wanted to show.

In terms of construction and fabric… well, you get what you pay for. For a $60 dress it wasn’t too bad. The polyester/spandex material was rather thin, but draped well for a synthetic. I also enjoy the silky feel to it and how it feels swooshing against my legs as I walk.

I wouldn’t recommend wearing it on a very hot day, however. The material tends to keep the heat close to your body (as all synthetics do) and could easily become uncomfortable. I didn’t actually get a chance to wear this until today since the weather has been SO hot and humid!

I might also try and hem the bottom a little bit. Most of the stitching and seams were solid enough but I worry about the flimsy hem on this dress. It skims so close to my feet that I’m worried I will step on it and tear the fabric.

All in all, I am pleased with this dress and would recommend it to my (taller!) friends. I can see myself wearing it a lot more this summer, since I got a lot of attention in it today as I was out & about! (and my mom wants to steal it)

I like that it’s not too expensive, it feels comfortable & stable and that the colour and design are so eye-catching.

I also want to mention that it looks better in person than on the model!

Worth it?

I think so!

In an effort to help me relax and find myself again during my time off from work I have decided to join my extended family in New York State for a week.

It’s funny, I’m going to be one of only two under-forty-somethings (my 20 year old cousin is coming) but I’m actually getting excited about it. I think getting away from the city and back to nature (we’re renting a massive cottage) will be good for my soul.

My family will almost all be there (except for some of my cousins who have to work, and my brother) and I’ll be able to hike swim and boat to my heart’s content. I’m hoping this experience will act as a soothing balm on my soul.

It’s strange, if I hadn’t had my meltdown and descent into depression, therefore getting leave from work; I wouldn’t have been able to go to this family retreat. Interesting how things work out.

Now I am looking forward to seeing my extended family again (yay emotion!) and having some wholesome fun. I have started planning all the stuff I am going to pack, including some homemade goodies to share with everyone.

I’ve started canning again this season; so far canning some blueberry-raspberry jam and some pickling with friends is on the agenda this week. It’s good to do something physical and nourishing like that.

I also treated myself to this awesome bathing suit from ModCloth:

I’m having it delivered to my aunt in NJ and she’s bringing it to me at the cottage. I hope it gets there in time because I can’t wait to wear it! I am soooo tempted to bring my pearls, white sunglasses and red lipstick to wear with this, but it might be just a touch impractical! LOL

As long as I don’t think too much about my cat and  job situations, I seem to be feeling better. I think I really DID need some time off from the world.

I am still looking for a new job, but no bites just yet. Summer is the worst time to look for something new :S

I also don’t feel so bad about getting rid of Sheba now. She’s a real bi-polar cat and has become increasingly aggressive to me these past few days (yet still demands snuggles at bedtime?!?!) and while I will miss her, I know that there is no way I could give her the care she needs. She is going to stay with my parents and my mom is going to find a new home for her.

I hope last week was my rock bottom. I really want to start on my way back up.

I’m sitting here feeling a little bit ridiculous with one of those Biore nose strip things on. I’m grappling with a lot of weird feelings these days, and awkwardness even when I am alone is a new one.

My abrupt disappearance from the web was facilitated by the re-emergence of depression in my life.

Back when I was a child/teen I was severely depressed and fought tooth and nail every day just to keep going. It was truly debilitating. I took every type of antidepressant available at the time, and was in intense therapy for many years. I still am, though not quite as intense these days.

After many years of therapy, I finally started getting better. Going to college was great for me, though my struggles had left me with great gaps in my social skills, keeping me awkward and shy at the oddest times. I missed a great deal of my life while I was under the cloud. It gives me a unique perspective on life and people, though whether this is good or bad I can’t say.

I thought I had triumphed.

How naive of me.

I know I keep whining about how this has been such a tough year for me; but it really has. First the Mr. Darcy fiasco, then general glumness. I have grown increasingly miserable at my job and lack of prospects which was made worse when there were staff changes that threw my whole working world into chaos.

At the same time my beloved dog passed away suddenly, I was having no luck finding a new job and my friends were nowhere to be found. I had to adjust to a new roommate which is always a challenge and somehow keep going at work.

Still no job leads, and now my poor cat Tigger develops cancer and dies within a matter of 3 days. I watched his life pass out of him on the veterinarian’s table and my heart still aches for him. I never even got to grieve properly.

I went to the Spirits of the Earth Festival immediately after, hoping to find some healing and hope, to forget about my worries, but instead the solitude overwhelmed me and I was forced to come home early (usually I have a great time there).

I come back to another bomb at work and I’m just so unhappy!! So unhappy! My life has been getting progressively darker and I am unable to maintain control over my emotions or reactions. I call my parents from a random park, sobbing.

Wonder of wonders my dad (who thinks that depression is just “the blues” and not a serious illness despite living with both me and my mom as depressives) suggests that I go on short term disability at work. The thinking is that I get a chance to be away from the misery for a while, and find a new job in the meantime.

Nothing in my industry has popped up lately–the summer is the worst time to find a job. So now I am relegated to finding something, anything that will pay my bills so that I don’t have to go back to my current office. The future is looking rather bleak right now.

I’m sitting here, home alone in my pyjamas, shunned by my cat (who is still peeing on my bed *sigh*) and feeling quite pitiful.

So that’s where I’ve been, folks. That’s why I haven’t been writing much, though there is so much I want to talk about. I am just plain old overwhelmed, and I’m afraid that my sadness is going to seep into my writing; and really, who wants to read THAT?

I don’t really know what the purpose of this post was. I guess I just wanted to talk to someone, and I felt accountable to all my regulars. I never thought I would be this way again, but I guess I am. Sucks.

Does anyone want to hire a down-on-her-luck blogger for something? I’m actually good at a lot of things, but don’t really know what to do. I’m thinking of going back to school for something (but what?) but will still need a job to pay the bills. I’m looking at reception jobs right now because I can’t think of anything else.

Based on what you “know” about me, what kind of job or career would you suggest for me? I’m not good at anything that needs math skills.

I’m a little lost right now, but will have some time to write again soon. There has been a lot of heavy stuff going on in my life right now, you can probably tell by my distinct lack of blogging, tweeting and facebooking. When things get really tough for me I tend to pull away, even from blogging which is an outlet for me.

I’ll be back. Please stick around.

-G

Another day of sadness in a week of sadness.

Today, my baby darling cat Tigger “Mr. T” passed from this world into the Summerland.

A funny shot of Tig "eating" chicken wings

After a brief battle with what we think was cancer, my brother and I took him into the vet this morning and said our goodbyes.

I held him as he rested his chin on my hand and gazed into his eyes as the anesthetic was administered. Gazing into his eyes I watched the life pass out of him gently. He stuck his tongue out at me as he left.

It was so quick. It was the right thing to do, but it hurts. First my dog, now one of my cats. We adopted Tig and his sister Mocha (also the love of my life) from the Humane Society 13 years ago. I did a lot of growing up with those cats, and Tig was there through thick and thin with his goofy meow and sweet disposition.

The house feels so empty now, even though Mocha is still here, and I have Sheba to go home to.

My brother dug a hole in the garden while my mom and I said our goodbyes to Tig. I dressed him in a shroud and lowered him into the ground myself. He was so soft, so limp. It wasn’t really TigTig anymore.

I feel better knowing that his suffering is over, but now I have the fallout of my life to deal with.

Why is there so much sadness these days? Everything seems to be working against me this year, and two of my rocks in the storm have now passed into the clearing suddenly and unexpectedly.

I just don’t understand why this is happening to me, and to my brother.

This post is brought to you by the Silicon Valley Blogger of The Digerati Life, a blog on personal finance: budgets, credit cards, online coupons, among other money management tips, tricks, and strategies.

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Chores are one of the “necessary evils” of life. Everyone absolutely has to do chores, else life would surely be uncomfortable, maybe even downright miserable. If you won’t do laundry for a whole month, you’ll surely run out of clothes to wear. Unless you’re one of the Hiltons, the man on the street definitely doesn’t have the unlimited resources to just discard clothes as they get soiled and buy new ones. Or if you don’t want to wash the dishes, you definitely can’t afford to have a sink rendered unusable by a mountain-sized pile of dirty dishes. And don’t forget a house filled with dust bunnies. Unless you were born dust-resistant, surely, by the 6^th month of zero vacuuming, dusting or cleaning the house, you’ll be sneezing yourself to the hospital. Thus, you would have to either push yourself to get to doing your chores, else, pay someone else to do it for you.

There are some people who welcome doing chores. For them, the act of doing chores allows them to distance themselves from the mental strain of work, allowing them to gain new perspectives on tough tasks, get ideas on projects they were stuck on, or, for some, believe it or not, doing chores lets them relax and unwind.

There are other people who cannot, for the life of them, do these activities. They would rather work on mentally challenging tasks. Chores bore, even disgust them. They would rather pay someone to do the work for them while they maximize their time to earn more.

If you’re the type of person who welcomes doing chores, here is how you will be able to benefit from doing chores:

1. You will be able to maximize your budget and add more to your savings accounts, as you do everything yourself.
2. There were studies in brain functioning and problem-solving that have postulated that people tend to consolidate mental processes as they distance themselves from problems they are attempting to solve. Some inventors have been able to get leads on the portions of their invention processes that they were stuck on when they did something else. While most people view chores as work, for others, chores serve the same function as recreation. If you’re the type who could potentially get their kicks from working this way, then you may be able to benefit from the paradigm shift that doing chores could offer.

If you’re the other type who just cannot do chores to save your life, however, then here is how you’ll be able to benefit from paying someone to do things for you: the main benefit? You’ll save time and effort.

1. Outsourcing your chores allows you to save time, which you could put to better use: closing more deals, getting more clients, working on more projects.
2. You’ll save energy as well, allowing you to destress through other means.

Either way, you win. To maximize either situation, here are our tips:

For the chores-loving people:

1. When you choose to do the chores yourself, make sure that you budget your time accordingly. Time is our true resource. While I could personally clean a room for seven hours straight, this practice isn’t healthy. Seven hours is nearly an entire work shift! Thus, schedule your cleaning or laundry days on days when you’re not working, or, if you don’t have a whole day to have a long stretch of chores-time, try to budget your time. For good measure, try not to go beyond 2 hours. If you need more time, don’t go beyond 4 hours of chores. This way, you’ll ensure that your work, or the rest of your life, isn’t affected.
2. Get the best deals on the material you use for cleaning or laundry. Grocery coupons or online coupons could work for you. You can slash almost half of your expenses if you used grocery coupons or if you shopped at discount stores. Be a wise shopper!

For the chores-averse people:

1. When you try to look for janitorial or maid services, make sure that you’ve shopped around thoroughly and checked your area for the best cleaning companies that charge a fee that’s within your budget. Strike a balance between a good, affordable rate and a thorough, excellent service. Don’t pay cheap for something that you will only have to redo. Don’t spend too much for quality work, either. Take a look at online resources such as Angie’s List or Craigslist for this purpose.
2. When you make a decision to use the services of househelp, make sure that the time freed up would be put to the best use possible. While ideally, you should work more because your time did get freed up, you may want to unwind instead. However, it does not change the fact that you still have to make sure that how you unwind would still be “profitable,” or a worthy “investment” of your time. No, watching TV for hours on end isn’t a worthy use of your time. Find an activity that will truly refresh you. Talking with loved ones: spending time with your wife and kids would be a better use of this time. Reading a good, enlightening book is a better investment too.

Either arrangement, if it truly suits your personality and lifestyle, would allow you to maximize your resources (time and money). Find the better fit for you, and stop trying to beat your brain trying to do something you were not wired to do. The bottom line is, you do need to budget even your time; and since chores take up your most precious resource, time, we hope our suggestions could help you figure out how to best leverage that for the best life you can live!

Beauty review time!

Annabelle cosmetics was kind enough to send me a few items to review a few weeks ago. I waited to write this post so that I could try them out multiple times in day to day usage.

In case you’re not familiar with Annabelle, they are a Canadian cosmetics company based out of Montreal. Their cosmetics focus on what I like to call “the final touches” which are things like eye makeup, bronzers and lip products.

You can find Annabelle products in most drugstores, usually next to the cheap stuff like Bonne Bell or NYC. But don’t let that fool you! Annabelle is actually one of the better drugstore brands I have tried, and I compared it to contenders such as Maybelline and Covergirl.

Maybe I am biased because it’s a Canadian company and I love using products from the homeland, but I was impressed by the items I received.

Here’s a rundown of what I got:

• Smudgeliner in Vortex Violet (LOVE THIS COLOUR!) ($8.50)
• Studio Pigment in Dragonette ($8.50)
• Mineral Pigment Dust in Solar ($8.50)
• Mineral Pigment Dust in Golden Pink ($8.50)

I mostly use MAC for my eyeshadows, so I wanted to try Annabelle’s pigments to see how well the colour really popped, and what the application was like. I was really going with colour (isn’t Dragonette GORGE?) since I noticed that my palette is mostly variations on the name neutral hues.

The pigments are pretty good. To be honest I can’t tell the difference between the Studio Pigment and Mineral Pigment Dusts other than different colour choices. I just mixed and matched.

Overall I liked how smoothly they applied, and the luminous colour they provided. I went totally wild and used all three plus the liner for a crazy rainbow look for a house party not long ago and I got lots of compliments! The one thing I would caution (and this goes for any product) is don’t use too much, even with primer it can get cakey if you go overboard. I used a little too much and spent the night feeling as though my eyelids were 10lbs. heavier.

The solar as a base lid colour and the golden pink in the crease is a totally fab look for me as a blonde. Subtle enough to wear to a job interview (oh I totally did!) but enough colour and glow to satisfy my colour kick!

I’ll throw a little Dragonette on with a liner brush if I want just a small pop of colour and interest for my eyes.

If you’re going to pick these babies up though I would recommend grabbing one of Annabelle’s little shadow brushes as well, the opening in the pot is tiny (to keep it from spilling) and I found that my normal shadow brushes wouldn’t fit.

As for the smudgeliner, it’s pretty great too. I didn’t actually use the smudging part (I can never figure that stuff out!) but I compared the application, pigment load and staying power to my favourite MAC Powerpoint eyeliner and it did pretty well!

It went on smoothly without too much tugging or trouble, stayed on the whole work day and was a lovely pop of purple to accent my green eyes. I mostly wore this alone on the lid (with mascara) but it would go well with a colourful look.

Overall I was pleased with the Annabelle lineup, and will likely purchase them in the future. I think the costs are reasonable for what you get and the selection is getting better all the time!

Brava, Annabelle!

I need some opinions over something that has been weighing on my mind lately. I’ll be addressing it in the next post, please email me or DM me on Twitter for the password.