To Buy or Not to Buy?

Okay, so you have it in your hand, you walk up to the cash register; the moment of paying for it approaches. This is the time to have a dialog with yourself. Do you love it? Do you need it? Do you have one or more at home like it? Will this replace one of those? Is it more about the sexy design, or worse yet, the enticing packaging? Once you get it home, you have to find a place for it, get rid of the packaging, do something with the receipt, pay for it on the credit card later (maybe with interest,) on and on. It is a time consuming proposition to add a new possession to the mix. So—if you have a successful conversation with yourself on the way to the cash register, you may just realize you don't want, need, or "have to have" it. Sometimes just knowing you you can have it is enough to fulfill shopper's lust. Do you ever buy something, only to get home and wonder what you were thinking? You can always take it back. In this scenario, you get to have owned it briefly (acquisition) and then get rid of it (relief). But you do have the added annoyance of having to run that return errand, and risk buying yet another thing. Whatever your process, try and begin to have a dialog with yourself before you buy things. If there is any little shred of resistance, then you probably don't need it. The best part, when you put something back on the shelf, is the blissful moment when you walk out of the store unscathed. You don't have to do anything. It was just a moment of shopper lust. And you're home free.

Arts & Crafts

Some friends came over tonight and we sat around the table, decorating the dollar, making collages, drawing. What fun. With all the choices out there, what a dream that we got to sit around the table and groove on our own and each others creations while chatting up a storm. Like an old fashioned quilting bee. We only got the computer out once, just to look something up. I think the fancy name for it is art therapy. And what a deal. It's free.

Closet too Small? Too Small for the Closet?

The most obvious fix I know for too many clothes and not enough closet space is to purge heavily. But what if you just can't let go of enough? Here is the cheapest, fastest fix for most situations. Dedicate a portion of the closet for blouses / shirts. Raise the bar, enabling you to create a lower bar. In this way you get double decker shirt storage. When you measure for this, make sure the lower bar is high enough that (a) the longest ones don't drape on the floor, and (b) the longest upper ones don't drape on the bar where the lower ones hang. The supplies to do this are quite inexpensive and often someone with just minor handy skill can install it. Sometimes a vertical narrow wall needs to be installed so that you still have room elsewhere in the closet for long hanging things. This situation will require someone with carpentry skills; a good handyman should be able to do the trick. Another of my favorites is to lower the bar for kids, so they can learn about hanging things up from an early age; they can also get dressed without getting a grown-up to get their clothing down for them. This is a beneficial skill for children to learn.

Filmmaking on a Digital Still - Well Kept Secret

You don't need a camcorder to take likeable movies. I was all set to get a camcorder, when I had a chance meeting with someone who asked to see my digital still camera. He knew the camera well (Canon SD750 Digital Elph). He said I would be able to take really good movies with it and that he didn't think buying a camcorder was necessary for the level I was at. I took his advice, and sure enough, it performs really well. I have learned iphoto 9 and have spent a lot of time editing and sound editing footage from my still camera on my 13-inch macbook. The header of this post is a link to my youtube channel which has a couple of my short films. The only downside to doing this is: my camera has no line-in for an eternal mic, and when I import movies to my apple laptop, I have to bring them into iphoto and then bring them from there into imovie. So it is an extra step, and takes up extra room on my hard drive. Also, you can only film with 14:3 aspect ratio. I like the format, but don't like that you can't later mix a 14:3 with a 16.9 aspect ratio into the same movie. That said, it has been a practically no cost (other than flash memory cards) way to learn moviemaking. Now that I know I'm totally into it, the next step is to get Final Cut Express and a good camcorder and sign on for the learning curve. I think if I had jumped in initially to final cut and a camcorder, it would have been way overkill. Now that I've done this for 2 years, prices and camera quality are getting better and better. I have definitely benefitted financially from the process. But I think the best part was that I have felt no internal pressure to make movies. Add to this the benefit of people not having full perception that there is a movie being taken of them with the digital still camera provides excellent reality footage.

Internet Shopping

I recently discovered that if you want a deal on something you're buying, or travel you're booking on the internet, you can do a search for coupons for that item at that website. Often you'll find them. Then, when you're ringing out your purchase just fill in the coupon code!

Bed, Bath & Beyond Discount Coupons

The coupon mailers that Bed, Bath & Beyond routinely sends are usable even if they're expired! Plus, you can use as many as you want at a time. I consider this to be one of the best stores in the Bay Area for organizing supplies, kitchen items, draperies, bedding, cosmetics, and a wealth of other household items. Yesterday I used 5 coupons. My purchase would have been $145 before tax, and ended up at $110 before tax.

Yoga - Baby Steps

Back to when I wrote about New Year's resolutions. It took me 8 years of making a resolution to do yoga to actually do it. Now I do yoga with two friends once a week. We would always remark that we never do it on our own. So we decided to hold ourselves accountable to doing at least 3 poses a day. These baby steps have worked. Now we email each other daily to say we've done it. We sometimes slip, but the main thing is we're all feeling better from the added stretches. This can apply to any goal. Begin with baby steps.