Fabrics and Food Shopping: A Lesson In Obsession

Quick note-slash-big announcement:  I’m on Hollaback Health today in the first of a series of regular posts on how to improve your writing!  Head on over and find out why writing matters so much–and why I just NEED to get up on a soapbox and make us all better bloggers.

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This weekend, I confirmed a fact that I already knew beyond a reasonable doubt:  I am a Class A hoarder.

I don’t hoard junk that would land me on those ridiculous TLC shows.  I just hoard non-perishable food items and fabrics.  You know, the usual stuff.

The worst part is that I know that I do it.  In fact, I recognize the process:

• A fancy can of something interesting or an insanely bright piece of fabric (usually cotton–let’s keep it real) catches my eye.  I get so excited I have to buy it (usually because it’s both special AND cheap) and I yammer to the salesperson about it as I purchase it.  I can tell they all roll their eyes when I walk out of the store.
• The purchase turns out to be SO special that I just can’t bring myself to open it or cut into it.  I set it aside for the right dinner/occasion.
• The right dinner/occasion never comes.
• Fast forward a few months/years and I’m unearthing eight cans of chickpeas and a jar of sweet and spicy jalapeno jelly/ X cuts of fabric from the depths of my kitchen/sewing mess.
• Cue shame–but cue indifference, too, because by the time I dig it out I’ve moved on to other, more exciting finds.

And so it goes.

I usually don’t feel guilty for it, except for when I do, and today is one of those days, sadly.  So, in the interest of not humoring my compulsions, I hereby announce that I will refrain from multiple-can purchases of beans until I’m down to just two cans of chickpeas (two being the amount of cans that I end up using any time I use beans–helps me make leftovers).  I will also refrain from buying any more fabric until I’ve dealt with at least three of the cuts of fabric I’ve squirrelled away.

Honestly, inspiration has struck in a million different ways for each of these beauties.  I just have to simmer down and make a decision and get on with my bad sewing self:

Purple was purchased in April, yellow in February, red in May

Uh-oh: the blue on the right was purchased in March 2009, the green in September 2007 (!), and the one on the left in May

Clearly, I have a problem–and some sewing to do.

And yet…

This De-Hoarding Measure does not mean that I can’t evade my own rules by making bean-free dishes and chopping up my curtains to make my own Hostess With the Mostest/Trophy Wife version of this Anthropologie dress:

Convincing reasoning, no?

Are you a ruthless de-cluttering machine, or do you hoard things like the world is ending tomorrow?  What is your hoarding poison?

No More Skirting the Issue: The Ride for Roswell Skirt Giveaway

Remember my Ride for Roswell?  Oh, that little 20-mile bike ride for cancer research fundraising?  The ride for which I trained with a shaky first ride and with a few rides full of panache and cycle style?

For which rain did not cooperate sometimes and for which I rode ghetto-unfabulous with a posse of my badass sisters for backup and commiseration?

For which I ate like a beast (sometimes during the actual bike rides)?

Baby Bel and I chomping on hot dogs

And which, of course, I rode with the coolest people on earth–my sisters and friends, not to mention all 8,000 other awesome Ride for Roswell participants?

The unofficial shot--sisters scream silly Spanish swearwords, as per tradition

Yes, well…  All of that happened almost a month ago and I have been shamelessly neglectful in holding the Ride for Roswell Skirt Giveaway, due to some circumstances within my control (too much household craziness, chasing down some post-ride donations and pledges) and some outside of it (family issues, work craziness, flight delays, etc).

But no more!

I decided to go about this in a thoroughly unscientific way because math hurts my head on a Sunday night (as for the flash, the camera manual for my new DSLR also hurts my head on a Sunday, hence the glare–I’ll learn soon, I promise).  Each donor was allocated a number, which was entered once for every five dollars they donated:

How very scientific!

The numbers were folded up into itty bitty little squares and tossed in a most appropriate vessel–my scratched saucepan:

I know--it's time to replace this with better Teflon

Wherein they were tossed and shaken all about:

Boom shakalaka shake...

Shake it like a pan full of popcorn (go on, sing it to the tune of Outkast's "Hey Ya")

Then stirred for good measure:

The oatmeal spoon sees some night action, ooh la la

Before a winning number was pulled out:

The spoon is as impartial as I am!

Under the watchful eye of Umbi, who was monitoring proceedings for fairness and procedural propriety:

I swear his eyes are under there--and they're SERIOUSLY watchful...

And the winner is…. Kendra!

Woot woot!

Congratulations to the lovely Kendra!  I’ll be getting in touch to get measurements and ask for color/print preferences, etcetera.

I would also like to thank EVERYONE who donated and everyone who wished me well or even gave me and my silly team a thought on Ride for Roswell day.  We couldn’t have done this without you and I can’t wait to do it again next year–33 miles, here I come!

In Which I Show You That I’ve Been Wearing Clothes

I have been very remiss in posting outfits during my time in Buffalo.  This morning, I realized that you might even think I’ve been running around in  my altogether–or in clothes for running and Zumba and riding a bicycle.  Frankly, there’s been very little evidence of sartorial sass around here lately, never mind sewing antics (what’s a sewing machine again?).

Well, I can assure you that I have not broken any public decency laws, as I have been FULLY clothed this entire time in Buffalo (except for a bikini sighting at Stonybrook and its beautiful gorges last weekend).  And, not only have I been fully clothed, I’ve also been making the most of having access to the closets of others, namely Baby Bel’s closet.

(Now handing camera over to Baby Bel, who will give picture-taking a worthy shot despite some rather creative, or sloppy, cropping tendencies.)

Exhibit A:

The provenance of this dress is unknown, except for the fact that it came from Baby Bel’s closet.  I think a friend gave it to her, and since it no longer has tags, I don’t have a clue as to the brand.  Or the size.  Or why it is so damn cute and I had never spotted it and thieved it from her before.

Exhibit B:

This dress was found in Baby Bel’s closet.  She acquired it in a nefarious trade with Little A, in which Little A wrangled a much more expensive item of clothing (what it was, I have no idea) in exchange for this dress, which originally came from Target.  I don’t care about the politics and trade negotiations and settlements that went into the agreement; I’m just glad I get to wear it when I visit in the summer.

The funny thing about having sisters–apart from being a collective toilet-paper-sucking unit–is that we all shop at pretty much the same stores .  If Target and Old Navy were as marketing-savvy as they should be, they’d ship us a truckload of their best items each season and have no need for any marketing campaign beyond that.

However, though we often end up buying the same items (and I mean the exact same items!) we manage to wear them differently.  Little A wears her bright tank tops slouchy and oversized; Baby Bel might wear the same one, fitted and layered; Minxy will wear hers fitted and with jeans; and mine will be fitted and tucked into a colorful skirt.  Clothes around this house get as much mileage as I’ve put in on Caribbean Airlines in the last two years.

Sadly, it’s just not the same with shoes.  We wear different sizes (ranging from teeny with Minxy to respectable non-Bigfoot with Baby Bel) and have widely different views on which shoes are “comfortable” and which ones pose the risk of a broken ankle or falling into a manhole.  Case in point:  Little A insisted that I wear a pair of her very high, very strappy, very platformy, very mean-bitch shoes out for dinner a few weeks ago.  In the ten minutes that I wore them and contemplated leaving the house in them, I managed to trip down the stairs, drop a contact lens, snag my dress on the shoe, and create scuffmarks on my mother’s kitchen floor.  You all know what happened after that:  I changed into flats and she rubbed my heel-sporting ineptitude in my face by teetering to and from the restaurant.  Oh, the indignity of it all.

So you may be seeing less of my own clothes and more of theirs in the coming days.  I’ve got just a few days left here, and I’m planning on squeezing out the very best from their closets.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll rock their clothes so well that they’ll feel generous and make a donation to a sister in want.  Here’s to hoping!