Not Buying Much!

I have been away from home on business and pleasure since last Wednesday. I feel a bit conflicted that i have been eating out during this time, but have not had regular access to a kitchen or fridge. Halifax was a great whirl wind of visiting and catching up with old friends, Not enough time!
I am now in London waiting for the Natural History Museum to open. so far the only money i have spent is on a travel pass for the trains and underground and some eats. Things are expensive here but not bad so far. Yesterday Véro met me at the airport and we wandered the city, going to brick lane to eat curry and window shop. saw a number of cute coats and jackets that i may attempt to recreate when i get home.
I guess this should not be a surprise, but i don;t really feel like i am in a foreign country let alone on another continent! aside from having to pay to use a public toilet that is! That and trying to train myself to look the correct direction for cars!
The hostel has been great so far. the rooms are clean and quiet and the staff very helpful, except for the fact that i couldn't use the Scottish pounds that Michelle gave me to use! The bank exchanged them happily and using them for the tube was fine too.
Well the museum should open in a few minutes. more non-shopping news to follow!
E

Wow! I did not know i could do That!

This morning i accidently stepped on my glasses. The glasses that i decided i would wait to replace until next year. They are the right perscription, and i generally like them. I lost my other glasses in to the Red Deer River while canoing over the July-Long and so there are not a pair that I like in Reserve. I do have one other set of glasses, but they are PainFULLY ugly. I bought them during a brief period of conservativism and Brown only back in 2002. (This phase is deeply embarassing to be, Thank gawd for good lawyers!)

Any way, so i was faced with 2 problems. I wasn;t supposed to buy new ones, AND it is unlikely i could even get a new pair before leaving for Ottawa Wednesday, En Route to Halifax & London... I can't find my one pair of contacts either, and to be honest, they wouldn't last 2 weeks....

So in the interm i taped the broken glasses togther using duct tape accross the nose. They worked, but didn't stay in place well. Oh well i could see.

Well while making a late lunch i was digging in a drawer in my kitchen and came accross a pair of $10 zebra print cat-eye glasses. I had bought them at Claire's, a cheapy-girly shop before chloe's wedding, and would sometimes wear them with contacts... well they are about the same shape as the recently broken black ones...

SOoooo I popped the non-perscrioption lenses out of the Zebra glasses, and popped in the perscription ones. Not quite a fit.... so i warmed up the Zebra ones, flatted the eye holes a bit and VOILA!!! GLASSES!!!! The fit is not super tight so i may add a drop of crazy glue, but I think they will last until i get home!!! ( i will bring my UBER ugly one's just in case...)

Shower Gift Completed...

Well as is the style of Erin, the shower gift was finished slightly after the last minute... but it turned out quite well i think...

The Lovely Lipstic cozy hides within it a sneaky friend for the bride to be... let's face it. A good man acepts a helping hand.

Border Defense & the Bus.

Please note that there are 2 cats in my living room...

i am sitting listening to CBC radio and finishing off the final touches on a shower gift. The program is discussing the dispute over northern waters between Canada, USA, Russia, Denmark & Norway.
This is very ironic. The dog has left my house and gone back to Edmonton with the last room-mate Michelle. Since Jessie's (the dog) departure the cats have been renegotiating the household boundaries. While the dog was here, she shared the main floor and Michelle's room with Hussy. Hussy is the younger and more recent house cat. Jessie and Hussy got along quite well... they fought but they liked it. Truro, my older vetran house cat was less fond of the dog. When Jessie moved in, Truro basically moved into my room and that became her primary residence. She stayed in there for about 4 months.
Truro has now begun forging her way back onto the main floor. This morning she staked a claim to the couch and my lap as i was whipping yarn through the crochet hook. She would sit on my lap and hiss and growl at Hussy, all the while happily needing the house-coat draped accross my lap.
I don't think there is a UN convention to use as a guideline so I guess I will just have to default to what ever the cats decide. Currently they are just feet apart, and i think Hussy is beginning to relinquish territory.
I will try not to alienate either party. Angry cats can mean bad things for their human families... Thinking of it i should make sure the litter boxes are very clean.

This afternoon there is an Art installation in the garages of the near-by Cathedral neighbourhood. I will check it out after I finish the crazy shower gift and before attending that excellent event. Yay free events! Yay shower games!

Yesterday I took the bus to work for the 1st time. This may sound like a lie, or crazy or something, but i really like the bus. I got a few rows done on the caplet (now finished... pictures pending) got to listen to a lovely conversation between to south american women in spanish. I had a delightful exchange with the bus driver, and had this weird zen feeling of quiet in city noise. As soon as i got on the bus I felt better. I know this seems weird but i think i missed the bus.

Cheers!

Honestly! How did i spend $139 buying nothing

1st week going well!

Well this not buying thing is going well. I have become more productive in the making things department. Perhaps making a new thing from old things is substituting for the rush of buying new things. oh well what ever is floating the boat!

Over the long weekend I sewed that dress that I bought the material for in Edmonton when I was home. It turned out ODD. not odd enough to scrap it, but odd. I meditating on how to fix it.

I also sewed the curtains for my closet, and made my mom a birthday gift.

I fused plastic bags together to create a farmers market bag for her, and made her a mini sock creature named Tad.
I even avoided using postage (not actually in the rules, but still not bad) by sending it home with my parents’ neighbours who stayed at my house Tuesday night. Yay free door-to-door courier. They joined me for dinner on Tuesday and stayed overnight. I was able to buy dinner making supplies from the local little grocery and butcher, which fits the plan well. We had kabobs, grilled veggies and salad, with fruit and yoghurt for dessert. I find that I am already eating less crap. I have made soup from scratch, have been buying almost exclusively organic, and am realising how often I was not realty eating well. I still have a small reserve of crap in the house, which is a bit tempting, but I remind myself that I have 12 months to go and perhaps the crap will be better appreciated later in the process. I have also been more motivated to make “things”. I think that this may just be honeymoon phase of the process but right now all I want to do is sew,cook, crochet, and build. I am getting over a round of strep throat right now, so I was home sick yesterday. (I did buy antibiotics) I don’t have TV at my house so the day of sick was happily taken up by naps and crochet. I am mostly done a very cute caplet inspired by my stitch and bitch-Happy Hooker book. It is made from lovely fuzzy yarn I found at Value Village right before the buy freeze started. Not sure if it is a gift or a keeper yet.

So far this week I have bough $45 in groceries, $20 of which was from local producers from the farmers market: bread, apples, tomatoes, beans, summer squash. They are more expensive than grocery produce, but taste better by a long shot. I had put $200 away to buy my neighbours couch from them, but found one at value village for $44.99, which better suited my room. It is a green chaise style: Very funky. I was divided about if I could buy it, but since I have already set the $ aside, and it was recycling, and it saved me $155 I did buy it. Is this rationalization? To be Honest I did not NEED the couch. It was a Want. It is nice to have my bedroom fully furnished. I have enjoyed a couple of cat naps on it in the sun, with the cat. Blah blah blah.
Expenses to date
$45- groceries
$35- sewing notions for pattern (transfer paper for the bloody pleats!!!! Pins, and my annual sew club membership-50% off until dec 2009)
$45- couch
$12- antibiotics
$2- hydrogen peroxide- I have learned that it is a good household cleaner, and I am out of the stuff I usually use.
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$139.

This still seems like a lot. If I remove the non-regular expenses though $45 ain’t bad. I do need to make sure that the non-regulars remain non-regular though!!!