Cheap Thrills: Splurge.

Oh hello, blog world. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you sorely over the last month or so... I've been up to my ears in wedding madness. I'll try to jump back on the bandwagon here, and maybe even use my Fridays to show you bits and pieces of wedding planning love. But for today, as it is Tuesday, we're cheap-thrilling it up.

I confess that this cheap thrill breaks the rules. It sort of annihilates the rules, really, at over three times my promised budget of $5 (hey, I'm planning a wedding... going over budget is what I'm supposed to do, right? ;) ). But it's one of my absolute favorite fall things, and I have to pitch it to you. Ladies and gents, meet my daily guilty fall pleasure:



Cinnamon Buns by Philosophy. Oh how I <3 this body wash/shampoo/bubble bath. It's like bathing in a bakery. It smells so darn edible that they suggest it not be used by children since they are likely to wind up eating. I'd caution adults: you too may wind up trying to eat this stuff. I can assure you with confidence that it tastes like soap. Don't bother.

Anyway, once a year in early October, I treat myself to a bottle of this yummy scented stuff. It's one of my very favorite fall rituals, and if you are feeling a bit splurgy, I highly recommend it. I usually make the bottle last through February, so really, that's a lot of bang for your 16 bucks. Bonus points if you use the recipe on the bottle to actually make cinnamon buns.

You can get some at Sephora, or online through Amazon or Drugstore.com. Or, if you're Rachelle, Shannon, or Kevin, you can find some in our shower. Have at it. :)

love.

Cheap Thrills: Be in the right place at the wrong time.

To be fair, this week's Cheap Thrill is not a new idea. I've heard it suggested in many different forums, read about it in a few books, and watched it play out in a movie or two. That said, it is sort of a fun challenge, and I'm daring you to do it sometime this week. That's right. I dare you. Double dog.

Here are your steps:

1. Choose a buddy. I especially like the idea of doing this with someone you see regularly in a way that could be perceived as "routine." This person could be your significant other, a coworker, a close friend, or a sibling or parent or child... someone with whom you spend some time doing the sameoldsameold thing. It also helps if your buddy of choice is, well, down with crazy. Because they're going to need a bit of a can-do attitude for this one.

2. Choose an activity that has an appropriate time and place, like eating breakfast or dinner, or rollerskating, or sleeping, or sitting on a couch, or watching a movie. You'll be wise to choose an activity that doesn't require help from professionals - for example, getting pedicures won't work out so well here. Unless you DIY it up.

3. Choose a completely incongruous time and/or place to perform your activity of choice. This is where it gets fun. Get together and make pancakes at 2am. Go rollerskating in the snootiest neighborhood in town. Stage a sleepover on your front porch. Load a loveseat into a truck and take it up a hill to sit and watch the sunset. Form a knitting circle in a popular bar on a Friday night. Grab your laptop and a DVD and have a movie afternoon at the beach. Go for a walk in the pouring rain. Agree to meet for coffee at 4am, bring a french press and a blanket, and chat until the sun comes up. Get all dressed up and go eat at McDonald's. Do something in a way that you've never done it before.

4. Enjoy seeing your chosen buddy in a new context. Laugh about that time you met for hamburgers on the roof at midnight for years and years to come. Learn something about each other, form a bond, mend a distance, create a moment.

5. Tell me what you do! I'm dying to know if you'll try it.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Local Addition Edition

Okay, so when I started this whole Cheap Thrills bit, the goal was to keep things very non-Portland specific to allow for equal opportunity participation. However, tonight I'm making an exception to the rule for the purpose of plugging one perfectly perfect new Portland haunt.

People, you must go visit my favorite new spot, Palace of Industry. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine that Anthropologie suddenly became less corporate and spendy and is now all genuinely second-hand or handmade, and then imagine that they started selling delicious food and obtained a liquor license and became somehow just, well, cooler, and there -hold that thought! You have behind your eyelids the fantasticness that is Palace of Industry.

I keep hearing that the stretch of N Killingsworth near our house is going to be reborn, revitalized, and turn into one of the hip little Portland neighborhoods it looks up to and admires. Palace of Industry makes me believe. And with The Naked Sheep, a fairly decent yarn store, mere feet away from the door, it's entirely possible that I might start spending ridiculous amounts of time there.

Palace of Industry wins the cheap thrill award today because I bought a very cute dress there for $5. They have a ton of super well-edited, spot on vintage clothes, and if you have a sewing machine, you can score something with a split seam or tiny hole for next to nothing and fix it up. I had my new dress in wearable shape within 10 minutes of bringing it in the house. There were plenty of $5 or less (fewer? The money thing always gets me...) items left on the shelves, so get to it already.

Palace's FB page is here. If you want to just take my advice and go there, set your GPS to 5426 N Gay Ave. Portland, OR 97217.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Felt It Up

Today's Cheap Thrill is a craft project! Hooray!

I love felt. I love felt because it's cheap and fairly sturdy and doesn't unravel when you cut it. My beautiful friend Katherine got married a while back, and we used felt for all kinds of projects, not the least of which was this pretty little flower in her hair:

Here are your steps:

1. Admire how cute groom Chris looks over Kat's right shoulder all smiley in the photo above. Happiness is adorable.

2. Go to the store and get some felt (should be about 30 cents a sheet... go buck wild!) in the colors you prefer, and some cheap buttons (or raid your button stash if you have that sort of thing, or use one of those spare buttons that came with a coat or something).

3. Go to this sweet little blog and acquire the template: Click Here!

4. Cut out your petals, stitch or glue them together, stick the whole shebang on a spare bobby pin, and tada! You are now a craft genius. Martha is shaking in her intimidatingly well chosen and sensible shoes. Of course, she's making a five course dinner from scratch while she's shaking, but whatever. Screw her.

5. Wear. Feel proud. Glow a little. Make more (cause felt is cheap!) and give them away.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Operation Beautiful

Today's Cheap Thrill is a real do-gooder, and it's brought to you by one beautiful girl named Caitlin who saw fit to start a bit of a body image revolution that I can't help but get behind.

Most of you who follow this blog know that I deal with women and their body image issues at work every day. I witness first hand the absurd tendency that we all have to zoom in on the worst parts of ourselves the moment we step in front of a mirror, and the venomous way we turn that critical gaze onto each other. It's tragic really - so many beautiful pieces of intentional creation being torn into unrecognizable ugliness, verbally berated, and scornfully poked and pinched. How very wasteful and how very sad.

Operation Beautiful is a rockstar of an idea - effective, unexpected, and cheap and easy to participate in. Here's how you roll:

1) Buy some PostIt notes. Standard PostIts can run you anywhere from $1.99 up, depending on how many you want and how fancy you want to go. Or take some off your desk at home. Or ask your boss if you can have a pack for a good cause. Take note that this blog does not advocate stealing PostIts from work. But I'm not really watching you, either. Get some sticky notes.

2) Onto said sticky notes, write encouraging phrases, like: "You are beautiful EXACTLY as you are" or "Hey hottie, you look GOOD!" or "You are worth so much more than just your reflection. Beauty starts inside of you. And girl, you've got it going on." or whatever you would like someone to say to you while you're bikini shopping.

3) Take your PostIt army and deploy it onto mirrors in public places where women, or men, might see a PostIt in an insecure moment: dressing rooms, school bathrooms, other bathrooms, department stores, etc.

4) If you want to, take a picture and send it to Caitlin at www.operationbeautiful.com. She'll write back to you, even, which is neat. Definitely visit the site for inspiration.

5) Remember that the words you've written to encourage others also apply to you. Remember that you were created to be who you are, not who you could be airbrushed into. Remember that you are a work of art. Wear yourself proudly. Go forth and be beautiful.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Textapalooza

Okay, today's cheap thrill is actually free if you have unlimited text messaging, and if you don't, a lot of plans will allow you to upgrade to unlimited text messaging for (say it with me) five dollars! Hooray!

Here's how to use your powers of text messaging to annoy/encourage your friends and laugh hard and feel great about life.

Annoy

This gag requires you to be in the presence of at least one other person. Annie and I are masters of this little game. You can be a master too, with a little practice. For the purposes of this blog, I'll use Annie and I as the two involved in the prank. Shocker. Kyle will be our target. Typical. Here's what you do.

1. Choose a target (why do so many of my blogs involve choosing a target?). Someone you know well enough to know that they won't hate your guts for messing with them. We choose Kyle.

2. I (you) send a text to Kyle (target) that says something like "Hey Annie, are we still on for coffee tomorrow?" Kyle now thinks I've sent the text to the wrong person. Which is not too far fetched, really.

3. Let the fun begin. Annie sends a text to Kyle that says something like "Yep. Coffee with Karyn is my favorite. What time?" Now Kyle is confused... and you, if you're like me, are collapsing into fits of giggles.

4. Choose your own adventure. Have an entire conversation, play dumb when Kyle texts you back asking what is going on, accuse him of eavesdropping, try to convince him you can conference-text, whatev. This is an expecially fun game to play if you're waiting in line for something or waiting for a show to start. For bonus points, involve a third or (gasp!) fourth person in the madness. Oh hilarity! Oh silly silliness!

Encourage

Now that your friends are good and annoyed with you, it's time to remind them that you love them again. Time for text bombing! This works especially well for job interviews, big tests, bad days, or emergency situations. The process is very simple:

1. Text everyone in your phone that knows your target and ask them to send an encouraging text to your target at 12:15 (you can choose anytime you want). Send your own text at the designated time.

2. Sit back and enjoy the knowing that your friend has just received 20 something texts of encouragement simultaneously. Cheap, easy, day-making fun. Gotta love it.

Take back text messaging from the teens, friends! Use it for good!

love.

Cheap Thrills: Comfort Food

I didn't go to Home Community tonight. Instead, I took a dog and a book and a blanket and a sandwich and sat myself down on the lawn at Mt. Tabor and enjoyed just being outside and peaceful for awhile. Which was lovely. But if I had gone to Home Community, I would have needed to bring my favorite food for the "Favorite Foods" potluck. And I would have brought this:

Oh, Haagen-Dazs vanilla raspberry swirl frozen yogurt - I love thee with a love that is more than love.

Now, make no mistake, this frozen yogurt isn't good for you. Its list of ingredients, though refreshingly short, has both sugar and corn syrup (not really any better than its high fructose cousin) in the first four spots. But it isn't terrible for you. And if you're going to eat ice cream, I mean, come on. We'll settle for "not terrible."

Calorie wise, if you eat this whole pint, it'll only set you back 510. Which is, ya know, a meal, and though you probably shouldn't eat the whole pint if you can help it, (though you may not be able to help it. I understand.) it still beats the heck outta the 1000 calories you'd be downing in a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

And for crying out loud, this isn't a blog about nutrition, it's a blog about cheap happiness. And at around $3, a pint of this will make you super happy on a hot summer day. Because it is super, super yummy - just the right blend of vanilla and berry to achieve total summery bliss. It's pink, it's sweet, it's cold, it's just about perfect. It might even be perfect. Whatever it is, it's too darn good to be yogurt.

Yum.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Start a War

The following is my all time favorite cheap thing to do on a random weeknight. I'm fairly convinced that 90% of what is wrong with the world today could be solved if grownups would simply remember how, and find time, to play. This week's thrill is offered with the intention to ignite that dormant spirit of playfulness. Go forth and be goofballs.

Here's your plan:

Step 1: Choose a target. Ideally, an easy going friend or couple or collection of friends who live near you, have a front door with at least a few feet of yard in front of it, and might be willing to engage in some shenanigans.

Step 2: Choose an accomplice. Who wants to run around in the middle of the night on a school night making mischief by themselves? Plus, having an accomplice doubles your buying budget.

Step 3: Head to your local Dollar Store. If you don't have a Dollar Store, a Walgreen's or Fred Meyer or Rite Aid will usually do. Find the toy aisle and locate the army men - you know, the cheap little plastic ones kids used to play with way back before Nintendo DS. At the Dollar Store, you should be able to purchase a package of 100 army men (or firefighters or police officers if you're the pacifist type) for $1. Buy five. We're maxing out the budget on this one. If you have an accomplice, this would be the best time to use them and their five dollars and buy 10 packs of army men.

Step 4: Giggle a little. This whole thing is very silly.

Step 5: Don't miss this step: OPEN ALL THE PLASTIC BAGS OF ARMY MEN and put them into one big, soft, canvas bag. Crinkly plastic negates any and all efforts to be sneaky.

Step 6: Go time. Wait until you suspect your targets are sleeping and set up a battle in their front yard. Aim all the men at the door if you want to be belligerent, or create two armies and have them war with each other. If it's windy, curse a few times as you fail to get the darn dudes to stand up on their own. Get creative. Put them in mailboxes, suspend them in midair, line them up in patterns or spell words. Let the spirit move you.

Step 7: Stand back and admire your work. Take a picture in case a squirrel or cat knocks the whole display over and you need to prove how awesome and artistic your original concept was.

Step 8: Try not to say anything doofy to your friends the next day like: "So, how was YOUR morning? Anything unUsual happen?" so as not to have the spotlight of suspicion aimed squarely at your forehead. Though, if you're me, you're the first one they'll blame anyway.

Step 9: Sit back and wait for your target to retaliate. Reduce, reuse, and recycle those little guys. Spread the love through your social circle. Attack each other. It's what friends do.

Go play. And send me pictures if you do. :)

love.

Cheap Thrills Tuesday, Inaugural Post

Ok, so I'm not usually the sort of girl who gets all married to beauty products, as in "OMG, this moisturizer is life changing" or "I have not lived before this mascara." If anything, I'm sort of fickle... I gravitate toward whatever is new and shiny and on sale at Target and very rarely maintain any sort of brand loyalty. I'm fairly certain that most eyeliner is created equal. However...

I love, love, love, love, LOVE... Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers.

I know this isn't the first time you've heard about the magic or DPLS- I've heard many a celebrity rave about it and read about it on other blogs- but just in case you didn't believe it then, I'm telling you now. Holy cow, Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers will change your life. It tastes good (not really like Dr. Pepper at all, but good) and is perfectly pink (in an "I'm not wearing anything my lips are just naturally this sexy and kissable" way) and perfectly subtly shiny without being any stickier than Chapstick. I got some for Christmas several years ago and ignored it for awhile, but I'm telling you, I didn't know what I was missing.

Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers will cost you exactly $1.75 at the Lip Smacker website, which is where I lifted this picture. That $1.75 will buy you at least a solid month of satisfaction that won't dry out on your lips, make your hair stick to you, or smear all over your significant other. Trust me on this one.

Of course, this could be just another step in my lifelong journey to become Felicity:

I'm obsessed with Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers too, it's been my guilty pleasure for years! - Keri Russell via lipsmacker.com

You be the judge.

love.