Adjusted Reality

Over the last year, I like to think I’ve made some pretty healthy lifestyle habits.  Oh, I am not an angel by any measure of the word, but I’m better than I have been.  Through this “being mostly good most of the time” workout and diet ethic, I’ve easily lost at least 5 lbs per month (or more).  Somehow, the month of September was the end of the ride.  That, or 165-170 lbs is a huge sticky point for me.

I didn’t experience anything new this month that I haven’t before.  I’m not denying it was a hectic month, because it was absolute crazy-sauce!  But I’ve wrangled crazy before and rocked the house with it.  I’ve dealt with a parental visit before, but this time it drove me to exhaustion and eating more.  I’ve dealt with March, the other OMG-birthdays-and-events-every-week month, but this time I actually skipped workouts because of either exhaustion or time crunch.   Just dealing with that all at once, plus various stress at work…I wish I could say it sent me over the edge and I all out binged and didn’t work out a day – because that would explain it better.  Instead, I’ve been still “pretty much” good and “pretty much” followed my workouts, but I still kept flucuating between those 5 frustrating pounds.

Besides life contributing to an epic fail – the workload was just a little bit overbearing.  Maybe it was just a bad month to try really ramping up my workouts, but I think it was also just too much, too quick.  Instead of jumpstarting my metabolism, I think it shut down the first two weeks.  I was constantly exhausted, constantly freezing, my workouts got harder instead of easier, the weight I could handle went down instead of up, and I wasn’t losing at all.  It got better performance-wise the last two weeks because I ate more good food but still – no loss, just floating around.

Let’s take the workouts day by day…

Day 1: 20 mins on Cybil, 20 mins arms/squats, 20 mins running

This is the one I did most often, and loved (sometimes with the other strength set of abs/bootie).  I liked the break in between 2 different cardio sessions, and I could go as hard or easy as I needed.  It was also a good workout to do when I was a little sore and/or tired because it was only 20 mins mild pounding.

Day 2: 5k run for time, 20 mins core/bootie, 15-20 mins yoga at home

I only did this twice and usually skipped the yoga for a good stretch.  I did actually perfect my treadmill stretch program but yoga is still better.  I’m glad I did put this in because I accomplished my goal of running a 5k in under 30 mins (29:35).  However, this was too much workout at once.  With warmup and cooldown it was 40 mins, then stretching, and then half a full body workout and THEN YOGA?  What was I thinking?  I think a 5k + yoga OR one body part is about all I can do in one day.

Day 3: 40 minutes of DDR, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Not much to say about this, although I did it MORE than once a week because I didn’t have to leave the house and it’s easy to just substitute a quick stretch for yoga when I am pressed for time and don’t even have an hour for the gym.  This his been and will probably continue to be a once or twice a week staple in my workouts for a long time to come.

Day 4: 1 mile run for time, 20 mins full body strength, 20 mins on Cybil

Again, glad I did this (although I think I only did 2 or 3 times) because I have a new best time of 8:45.  However, 20 mins full body strength is a retarded thing to say, because a full body strength train session is about 40-50 mins if I’m rushing it.  And how do I figure out what to skip if I’m supposed to work my whole body?  So I spent way too much time on this one, or skipped it.  1 mile run + half body strength train + cybil is about all I can take in one workout.

Day 5: 4 mile run, 15-20 mins yoga at home

I enjoyed these, but again, usually replaced the yoga with a treadmill stretch.  This was a great day to just space out to music and/or whatever was on the TVs and not have 3 parts to my workout.  I think I did this every week.  I’m a little sad I’m not doing any long runs this month, but I’ll add them back in November I think.  Unless I fall in love with what I’m doing and run away to Vegas and marry my exercise program.  Zliten might be sad but hey, these things happen.

Anyways, I definitely learned a lesson in how much working out I can tolerate.  Someday, if I’m ever part time or unemployed or the fiance wants to start training for marathons or my friends all decide they hate me, I could perhaps consider more time.  But about 1 hour 5 days a week is all I can handle with my current life.  And to make myself feel better, it’s not necessarily about my capacity to handle the actual workout load.  Sure, the hard ones tuckered me out, but I wasn’t passing out on the gym floor.  It was mostly the time commitment.

I would get off work at 5:30pm, change in the bathroom at work (I just got used to it when I worked out at work and it stuck), and by the time I’m at the bottom of the parking garage its 5:45 – then a 15-20 min drive to the gym, then 10ish minutes parking/showingpass/locker-room deposit-bag-and-pit-stop and then I’m working out at 6:10.  A particularly demanding day and it’s 7:40 after a workout, then 5 mins to collect crap and drive home, then shower and dry off and get dressed and HOLY SHIT ITS ALREADY 8pm and I’m just having dinner.  2.5 hours since I left work.  Time gets sucked into a black hole somehow when I hit the gym.  I wish I could squeeze more workout and less other stuff in that time, but until I figure that out, them’s the facts.  And I can’t have it suck that much time.

So that’s that.  Epic fail, with lots of lessons learned.  Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the plan for October, which is actually underway, being that it is the 8th of the month!

Something I hear on MMORPG message boards fairly often is “OMG, the devs must have hired a psychologist to figure out how to make us play more” or something to that effect.  While I haven’t ever witnessed this first or second hand, having an understanding of how human behavior and interactions with human controlled characters or humanized AI generally works can definitely be beneficial.  In plainer words, just stopping and thinking how you would react to the scenario you have thought out and planned to impose on your player base.  Now ask a few other people, hopefully of varying backgrounds.  Having the ability to pull the proverbial puppet strings of a whole world for a few years really taught me more than I could have ever learned by theories – and thus the exploration of psychology of games.  A quick intro into WHY this interests me is probably warranted – so the first installment (and second part) is an introduction of sorts.

So, I’m going to try to go over this as quickly as possible.  I like to try to weave a good story and all, but there is just so much I can say.  The functional awesomeness of thousands of people running around together in a virtual space, feeling free to interact with each other with little fear of repercussion…

Ok, truly getting ahead of myself.

Back to business.  After finishing up dealing with college stuff and deciding I was going to take a year (forever) off school, I halfheartedly looked around for waitressing jobs while Zliten found this Monster ad saying “Do you want to make money playing video games?”.  He took the job at SCEA and called me the first day at lunch saying that I HAD to come work there, I would love it.  So I applied the next day and a few months later I was starting my first day of work.  Which made my poor, maxed out credit card very very happy.

It is a very interesting psychological situation to thrust 2 females (myself and another new trainee were the only women there) into a workplace with over 100 young, geeky, mostly neanderthal-like guys.  Some went back and forth from looking at us and drooling and muttering “girrrrrrrl” to belittling our video gaming skills.  Some also gave us special treatment – which was good by me.  I got the good assignments and while some boys got laid off and called back when work was scarce, I kept a continuous job for a year, my boss always found me something to work on.

Basically the way I survived there was to act the opposite of the way that anyone should in the workplace.  If they said something gross, I said something grosser.  I laughed at all their dirty jokes and told my own.  If they picked on me, I picked on them back harder.  If they found obscure bugs, I found the MOST obscure bugs (my proudest moment was getting the company’s IPs banned from dalnet on IRC because they thought we were hackers).  If they geeked out, I geeked out harder.  And it worked – I fit in (at least better than if I was playing up the girly girl side of me).  Lesson learned?  Sometimes you have to embrace the native culture to get a good experience out of life.  When in stinky boy land, do as the stinky boys do.  I had MUCH more fun there than if I scoffed at their antics.

Life then was working, or playing EverQuest with people I worked with.  This is a whole ‘nother 31 part series so let’s leave it at that.

Sometime though, you have to graduate from junior high school to high school, and I did just that by moving to SOE’s QA department in 2002.  People were slightly higher-evolved in the primate chain, but not by much.  Since I was working directly with Zliten, I couldn’t really use the same “grosser than gross” tactics, because I didn’t want to ruin my perfect and angelic image (yeah, right) of his beloved in his eyes.  So instead of that, I had to posture myself as more knowledgeable about obscure things about the job (which I was), that I could keep up with everyone playing the games they played even though I did not in fact have a penis.  But mostly, I was just looking to transition to a full time position.  Not having paid time off and benefits chapped my ass.  Learned from that?  Sometimes subtlety has a place in negotiating and business, but sometimes, you just have to repeat over and over exactly what you want in plain language to as many people as you can until someone gives you the answer that you want.

The Customer Service department was offering the stability I needed, and back then it seemed like the only way to move up in the company was to work for CS, so that’s where I went.  Again, psychology and customer service is worthy of a whole ‘nother post or twenty.  Let it suffice to say that if you are patient enough to experiment at it, and rebellious enough to not give a flying fuck about numbers or quotas or minimizing the time you spend on contacts, you can really find out how to get people to do the right thing.  Or at least what you want.  I just remember spending an HOUR debating with one player about why kill stealing was wrong and why the rule was not just “stupid” but actually needed to keep order, and after a while he saw my point and ended up being an outstanding community member.  I could have just gave him a warning, logged off, and eventually banned him when he didn’t stop, but taking the time to talk to him made all the difference.

Then all I wanted to do was move to game design – I took the same approach as I did with attempting to land a full time gig, talking to everyone and anyone who would listen (after getting over the fact that it’s what I had to do, no one was going to hire me just because I might have been good at my current job – heck, I’d actually be less likely, but I digress), submitting design documents, writing, until finally the team I worked for took pity on me (or got tired of reading my submissions) and threw me an apprentice design job, which became the most awesome situation for a psych-type like me.  It was a vast world where I was given a paintbrush to make the flowers whatever color I liked, the whole garden, for that matter.  I like to believe I was a benevolent goddess, always trying to do what was right and good for the world overall.  The experience was a rush, a privilege, a great learning experience, and what kept me up at night.  Many, many long posts to come on my dev exploits.

A special thanks to Zliten’s friend D for getting my brain running this way again, and now that you know where I’m coming from, I look forward to delving deep into theory and grey matter.

1.  When anyone in the whole world could possibly read this page and attach that to me, IRL, there are a lot less things I feel comforatble ranting about.  I miss ranting though!  I think I need to generalize it.  Like ranting about people who park their SUV’s in the small car only parking.

2.  I’ve done some good on the treadmill lately.  I cut my best mile time down to 8:45 and my 3k down to 29:35!  Under 30 mins was a goal for me, and I actually didn’t even feel like running that day.  I guess I decided that if I was going to pry myself off the couch, I might as well make it worth it.

3.  Losing and regaining the same 5 lbs for 2 months is just about torture.  I’d like to think of something positive to say about it, but pretty much it just sucks and is frustrating me.  I think it’s one reason I haven’t been updating lately.  That and life-crazy.  But if I am going to do this blogging thing, I need to do it regularly.  I’ll probably expand more on this in another post.

4.  I got some really awesome shoes!  The picture is the closest thing I can find online to what I got, take away the peep toe and the buckle and skinny out the heel and you got it.  I got two other pairs, which I will photograph someday because I can’t find a damn thing online like them and I got them from a shoe retailer going out of business.

5.  On a related note, it’s now a dangerous world (for my finanaces and shoe closet) since I discovered I am no longer too fat to wear true heels.  To mitigate the damage to my closet, at least, I got rid of 15 pairs of shoes.  About 2/3 of them were falling apart so in the trash they went.  The others were ones that had been rarely or never worn because they were too uncomfortable are set to be donated to the thrift store next trip to plague someone else’s life!  I then organized what I have and my closet looks all purty!  I do have about 35-40 pairs left.  That’s a lot of shoes, but not too many.  You can NEVER have too many, no matter what Zliten says.

To be fair, my schedule has been hell on wheels this month.  It’s not so much a fail on my part to execute, but a fail to realize expecting a big boost in activity in an already crazy month was a bad idea.  What happened?  Well, to start, let’s recap the plan here:

Day 1: 20 mins on Cybil, 20 mins arms/squats, 20 mins running

Day 2: 5k run for time, 20 mins core/bootie, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 3: 40 minutes of DDR, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 4: 1 mile run for time, 20 mins full body strength, 20 mins on Cybil

Day 5: 4 mile run, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Crazy plan for a crazy girl, right?  It seemed like a good idea at the time for many reasons.  I had just spent two weeks working normal hours and figured I would be rested and refreshed enough to tackle something harder.  My weight loss was slowing, and I wanted to kick it up a notch and thought this might help get the ball rolling faster.  My parents were going to be here and staying with me, so I thought I could use some extra me-time, and it was a perfect excuse, and a perfect excuse for Zliten to get away and workout with me as well.

How did it go?  Well, the first week was fine – tough, but fine.  I completed, minus yoga one or 2 days (just stretched in place of it), everything.  I hit a pretty decent starting 5k time of 32:20, I matched my mile time of 8:55, my 4 miler wasn’t torturous, and I set myself up a pretty good and efficient arms/some legs and core/other legs strength circuits.  Four days of running did sort of aggrivate my foot slightly (only lasted a day, but still a bit disconcerting), and I had on and off hip and right hamstring issues, which both seem to have cleared up.  Behind that I believe was introducing myself to Cybil the arc trainer on maximum incline, and misusing one weight machine for a week before I realized like a dummy that I was putting my calf where my foot was supposed to be.  However, Zliten decided to work out in the mornings, so my extra time at the gym was extra stress for him (being around my parents nagging at him without me to intervene), which was more stress for me later.  Also, some weird stuff happened at work which made everyone around me just become ridiculous Negative Nancies, which started to rub off on me.  In other words, I was doing it, but MAN OH MAN I was a grumpypants to be around.

The second week, everything fell apart.  I felt sorta like that cat in the cage, I knew I was having an off week, but couldn’t do much about it since I was already paws deep into it.  I had industry parties to go to last Monday and Tuesday, and I missed my workout Monday and just did 40 minutes of DDR on Tuesday due to time constraints.  I couldn’t drag myself to the gym on Wednesday, so I did the same workout plus some yoga, due to utter and complete exhaustion.  Thursday and Friday I got back in the swing of things with a 20 minute Cybil, 25 minute partial full body strength, 22 minute run and a 4 mile run and major stretch session respectively.  Saturday, I had to cut it short with 40 minutes of DDR right after I got up so we could head out for the day to the waterpark.

I am proud of myself that I still managed to get in 5 workouts last week even with the super frantic schedule I was keeping, but 3 of them were definitely light days.  The energy was just not there for the intensity I wanted.  Actually, I’m also proud of myself for knowing my limits.  I could have pushed through the exhaustion and figured out a way to sacrifice the time to do the killer workouts, but I think it would have negatively impacted me.  The last thing I need right now is to be sick or hurt, and I could have easily done that to myself last week.

Possibly contributing to the fail-ness is I haven’t lost a pound this month.  I did set a new record low weight by 0.8 lbs, but last time I got on the scale I definitely wasn’t there.  People have told me I look like I’ve lost weight, so I might have firmed up a bit, but there is only so firm a 5’5″ girl can be at 167.  Unless miracles happen, I’m not going to hit my goal of 165 by October 1st.  I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this is the first month I haven’t lost at least 5 lbs in over a year.  I don’t want to lose momentum.  I do really well with keeping something in motion, but I don’t do well with starting or restarting something.

My plan going into the next two weeks is going to be:

• Eat more, but good stuff.  The plan is to eat the same types of things I normally do, but add extra servings of fruit and veggies and maybe even some lean protien/nuts.  I’m hoping to be at 1500-1700 calories on the weekdays, and 2000 calories on the weekends.  Reason being – I think I might have screwed up my metabolism by trying to pump up the exercise without the good fuel being there at first.  If this helps, I’ll have to remember to eat more for a while when I bump my program, and then gradually eat less as I become more accustomed to it.
• Try to push through and finish the month as scheduled, more or less.  The next 4 days are back to normal, and then I have a 3 day music festival to attend which will combine walking and lots of food/drink, which will hopefully cancel each other out.  I’m not going to be insane and try to work out during that time, so I’ll miss one day this week.  Besides that, I’d like to follow it as closely as possible and see if by the end of the month it gets easier.
• Start figuring out what’s up for October.  Things that have piqued my interest are HIIT, longer workouts and cutting down to 4 days per week, 3 super hardcore workouts and 2 really light ones, a month of only cardio, a month of minimal cardio, and alternating weeks of heavy and light activity.  So, erm, yeah, all over the board.  Stay tuned to see what I decide.

I’m excited for the next few days to get back into a normal schedule with normal happenings.  No houseguests, no crazy weekday parties, no going out to eat every meal.  I felt myself slipping in weird food ways the last two weeks (noshing off an appetizer tray at parties after having eaten a huge dinner, eating two gigantic meals in one day and still being super hungry the next, not counting calories on the weekend because it’s just too much to deal with), and I’d like to get that back in check before it becomes a habit.  It’s good to know that I’m dedicated and active enough to get through a tough two weeks without gaining (or at least fluctuating up and down like normal within an acceptable range), but the scale must start showing me a lower number or I will go nuts soon.

That being said, I’m off and running to grab this week by the horns and really try to rock at living healthy for the next 4 days.  Wish me luck!

I owe part 2 of my Pyschology and Games intro, I know.  None of the stress has gone away (though my attitude is holding pretty steady, thxuvarymuch), and I’m just not ready to tackle anything heavy.  So, soon.  For now, I am going to discuss a much more important topic, clothings!  Hey, it’s Friday, I can’t be bothered to be too deep, right?

I am now completely obsessed with this blog.  I am just recently emerging from wearing mostly black, brown, dark blue, and maroon shirts with either jeans, dark colored pants, or varying ranges of muted toned skirts, so the fact that I now have a baby blue and two purple shirts (as well as some crazy colored paisley skirt) I wear regularly is actually a vast improvement.  It’s not like I haven’t been trying lately, but the results are a mixed bag.  Outgrowing clothes (or, more accurately shrinking out of clothes) doesn’t help.  When I find a gem of an item like a beatiful lime green sweater (in the picture, damn I looked really cute for being 40 lbs heavier) or a sweet pair of bright red trousers, they only fit for a few months, and it’s hard to replace stuff like that – the season is over, it’s been through the bargain bin and is gone, or it is 8 years old and been out of style so long it’s almost back in but not quite.  Believe me, I am not complaining about the weight loss in the least, but I see people like that who are dressed so bright and cheery looking and think “damn, I need to be more colorful”.

I love bright red but alas all the red shirts I have are either dressy only, too big, or just a wee bit too small (or I haven’t found the right bottom to go with them and not make my tummy bulge).  My way-too-orange tank top (from the rock wall video) is too big, and the orange retro tee I have is both too sheer and a bit too short.  The yellow tank with a rainbow stripe just fits funny and my yellow threadless rock at work tee is begging to be worn but alas it is dress length and I have yet to get brave enough to try to make it shorter.  Green is always an utter failure on me although I would kill to have a lovely assortment of sage and lime and emerald and forest to wear.  The only two I have that might be considered green are so muted they are almost grey.  Then there is my many blue shirts, two purples, two greys, and sea of brown and black.  I have just inherited a cotton candy pink shirt, which I will wear at least once, but I don’t think I can rock the pink.

I guess I also need to get over the fact that I can wear different colors together, like today – I’m wearing brown pants, a brown patterned shirt with red and green, a brown sweater, and brown shoes.  After peeking at that blog, I might consider wearing my green sweater instead, and realizing that I have a maroon sweater that just almost exactly goes with the lettering on the shirt – duh, why did I go so brown?  Shoes?  Well, I guess I could have gone with the nude colored wedgies, but they aren’t comfortable.  Now, I could almost see rocking this outfit with some loud yellow, red, or green shoes.  Great, I *just* finished getting my summer and winter foot needs in black and brown (as to match everything) in both casual, dressy, and bootish, now I am craving ridiculous colored shoes to wear.  Zliten is going to kill me.  My shoe closet is already so, so full.

At the heart of it, I’m just happy I can enjoy my thrifty and silly version of fashion again.  It really sucks to be stuck in one outfit (skirts and tank tops) because nothing-and-I-mean-nothing-else fit and freak out when having to don anything else because of weather (actually, I can’t really complain about that freakout because it’s what started the less-of-us movement) .  There are many things that I can’t wear still and probably never will (those babydoll dresses make me look ginormous, any fitted blousey non tank without stretchy material makes my muscles cry and shoulders look hulkish, those long shrirts both in the tight and loose varieties, the below the hip jeans, etc etc) but I at least have more options (the simple fact I can wear pants and shorts and knee length skirts without being uncomfortable is good), and keep obtaining more as the weight falls off.

That being said, I need to try for more colorful things.  All I can do is keep shopping my little heart out, though I will probably wait for the weather to be fall-ier and gravitate towards sweaters and long sleeves since I pretty much have to replace my entire winter top collection because I’ve lost 40+ lbs since I’ve touched any of it last February or previous.   I long for bright argyles, vibrant reds, beautiful greens, ocean blues, and crazy patterns/decals.  I guess I just have to make a concerted effort this time to stay away from the same ol’ same ol’.  I tried the “find a tshirt you like and get every color” trick, and it just did not work.  I would always return or trash the light blues, the violets, the yellows, the oranges, and the light greens because they never looked right on me, while the black, red, brown, and blues looked as fabulous as they did at the store.

Instead of just lamenting about my dark closet rainbow, I might as well share something useful, besides my shopping face.  One thing I *have* picked up in the last few months/years/decades are some general clothes shopping guidelines.  This is mostly for chicks, because most of the dudes I know go out to a store or 2, grab a few things in their size, and head home without much of a care (or order everything from Threadless – you know who you are :D).

-Pay attention to what you’re wearing when you go to the store.  Generally speaking, if you want to find clothes you like, you want them to make you look cute/sexy/awesome, and it’s easier to do that if you’re feeling that way already.  Make sure your hair is in a low maintenance do that won’t get ruffled badly by shirts going on and off in dressing rooms.  Wear a cute pair of jeans that fit perfectly and go with anything (so when you try on shirts, you can see how they look with something that you might wear them with).  Your shirt should be something short sleeve or tank toppish (changing in dressing rooms is hard and sweaty work) and a plain color that goes with a lot of things – I prefer black but that’s just me.  Your shoes should be comfy enough to withstand a few hours of standing and browsing, but nice enough that you could try them on with a dress.  I like my all purpose black wedgie sandals with the cushy soles.  I know this sounds completely overthought, like most of my life is, but I’ve found that the mood and plumage going into a shopping trip directly effects the outcome.

-Don’t go after a huge meal, or when exhausted, hungover, or on a totally crampy/bloaty day.  This is just setting you up for a miserable mood.  If you absolutely need to go that day, stick to specific needs, and kinda squint at yourself with one eye and repeat over and over, “this will look better when I’m better” and squint at yourself with one eye in the dressing room.  Hey, if it still sucks later, you can take it back, right?  Unless you can’t – then just don’t get it.

-Go through the sale racks first.  I usually try to limit myself to them, but sometimes I will see something at the front of the store I MUST HAVE.  I try to make sure I try it on last, after I’ve either frustrated myself with all the crappy sales clothes or finding so much for cheap, I don’t want it anymore.

-That being said, if you find pants you love for 30 bucks, and pants you like for 20-25, go for the ones you love.  They will be worn much more than pants you like.  This goes for anything.  Splurge every once in a while and get something full price if it makes your heart sing and you think you will wear the hell out of it.

-Try everything on.  Even if you hate trying stuff on, sizes are so different everywhere that you never know what will fit.  I’ve tried on 2 of the same sizes, same cuts, same everythings of old navy pants and one was too big and the other too small.

-Try to have an idea of what you are looking for, but don’t be completely clothes-minded (har har).  I’ve gone looking for jeans and came back with an awesome pair of leather pants, I’ve gone looking for skirts and found a rad jacket, it’s simply not always in the cards to get exactly what you want (but I’ve found some of my favorite things not looking for them).  For example, on my next shopping quest, I need new black and nude tights, a white tank top or tee shirt, red pants, a grey sweater, and I’m always on the lookout for cute bright clothes like orange, yellow, and green stuff.

-Shopping is a workout.  Do your gym thang before you set out with your plastic and high hopes.  I never succeed at getting a workout later because it tuckers me out.  Then again, I rarely spend less than 3-4 hours out.

Thrift shopping has it’s own set of rules…

-Take someone patient with you.  The best partner I’ve found was Zliten’s mother.  My mom got impatient, Zliten was allergic to all the cat and dog hair on the used items since everyone and their mother has a pet, apparently, but she was a trooper and had fun (and even bought stuff) too.

-Realize that this is your afternoon.  It takes a few hours to properly comb through a good size thrift store (I’m either lucky or cursed to have two warehouse sized ones that I know of within a few miles).  You want to try everything interesting on, and that is usually a heaping cartload.

-Try things you would never usually wear.  Chances are if it’s kinda cool, it’s cheap enough to give a go.  Like my 7 dollar leather pants.  I cannot wait for colder weather for that one reason, I’m going to embarass the hell out of my friends and wear them everywhere.  Granted, I have a handful of things that ended up not working out and are in the pile to give back, but some of the things I purchased are at about 10 cents per wear.

-Look carefully at the condition of the clothes.  Having someone with you helps with a second, impartial set of eyes.  I mean, I’ve been almost ready to buy something I really liked anyway and had to be told firmly no (which is a good thing).  In your piling-the-cart-high-to-try-on-things joy you might miss the rip or stain.  I found the most AWESOME pair of bright orange pants, which fit divinely and made my ass look…spectacular.  However, someone had bled heavily on the inside of them.  Ewww!  As hot as they were, I could not deal with that and let them go.

-Keep an eye out for sales – I know it’s a thrift store, but how much cooler is half price thrift store clothes?  It makes the little inner Jew sing (being half-blood, I can make fun of half of myself, so step off)!  Also, donate old clothes back.  Our Savers gives you a 20% discount that day with a donation.

Man, now all I want to do is go shopping.  I know there is a perfect emerald green tee next to a cute, hippy, boot cut pair of red pants on a sale rack somewhere, just waiting for me to unearth it.  And maybe even some yellow shoes.