A data dump, because otherwise I'll never manage to post again.

OMG, people. I'd tell you that real life has me by the balls, except I don't have any. And I have so much to do today, I can't stand it. So I'm going to do the blogging equivalent of what I do when I haven't written my mother a letter in a really long time and the stuff I need to tell her keeps mounting higher and higher and I get carpal tunnel syndrome just thinking of how many pages I'll have to write to get her up to speed.

(My mother is old skool and expects written letters.) But sometimes the idea of writing everything down is overwhelming, and I have to just dump the data. So I call her up and babble at her for an hour.

So let's pretend that I called you up, and you asked me how I was.

1. As soon as Christmas was over, I got going on Operation Get The Girl Child Into a Private School, because honestly? I really don't see her doing all that well at the huge John Hughes-ish high school in our district.

So there were campus visits and shadow days and SSATs and application-writing. The good news is the more we found out about the local private schools, the more we realized that only one would really work for her, so that's the only school she had to apply to. But then? She didn't get in. So that accounts for about six weeks of being crazily busy, culminating with much time spent comforting the girl child.

2. The many Clean House mini-marathons I've watched since discovering this amazing show have inspired me to really take charge of my house, but the cleaning alone is overwhelming--and that's not even dealing with the clutter. And I think I'm getting a little compulsive. I mean, I'm sitting here thinking about how I really need to mop the kitchen floor.

3. I haven't been talking about style because my shopping has been confined to Christmas presents and the cleaning product aisle of the supermarket--with occasional trips to Bed Bath and Beyond for closet stuff.

4. In related news, how did I not know about the wonders of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser before now? I bought one a long time ago and discovered it sitting in my broom closet, still in the package. But when I opened it up and tried it on a stubborn scuff mark on a baseboard, the clouds parted and a chorus of angels began to sing. And then I ran around looking for stubborn scuff marks to clean. I also did an entire bathroom floor, at which point, the plump, exuberant, snow white Mr. Clean Magic Eraser was reduced to a sad, skimpy festered lily--that's how much fun I was having.

5. You should see what a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser does for a stainless steel kitchen sink that has been sullied with tea and coffee stains. Shines it right up.

6. I'm thinking of using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on my teeth.

7. Just kidding.

8. Blackbird tells me she approves of the rebooted Talbots. Have you checked it out? Everyone talked about the new Burberry and the new Brooks Brothers and the new this and the new that, but where's the love for the new Talbots? I tell you what: I've picked up a few things there and have been deliriously happy. The latest is these gold hidden platform sandals

which are lovely and retro and astonishingly comfortable.

9. Recently, Jen and Wendy and Susie Sunshine and Blackbird and I had a combination girls' weekend/Tour of Homes, where we checked out Wendy's addition and Casa Fletchcaster and my place too, although with all the Mr. Clean Magic Erasing, I'm surprised there was anything left to see.

Interested parties were also treated to Jen and Poppy's John Hughes movie location tour. We visited Kevin's house from Home Alone, the park where Kevin visits Santa, Cameron's House from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Jake Ryan's house from 16 Candles.

When I admitted to never having seen 16 Candles, we had a movie night and watched it. And I'm so glad I did, for several reasons. First of all, Anthony Michael Hall is completely adorable in 16 Candles, which is great because he makes me a little crazy in The Breakfast Club. Also, Jen wasn't giving us any of her home-made lasagna until we'd watched the movie, and the lasagna was incredible.

10. Jen gave us all pre-publication copies of her latest book and first novel, If You Were Here. John Hughes cognoscenti will understand the title, which I understand now too, courtesy of our movie night. Anyway, I read it and it's great. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. If you like Jen's books and/or John Hughes movies, you'll love it.

11. And here's an extra bit of data as a GWP: I recently made a complete fool out of myself by calling on my twitter army to shame Crate and Barrel into delivering the sectional I ordered from them in October. This was pretty much of a total failure, since I have no twitter minions to speak of. Still, if you'd like to see how a baby boomer who grew up watching syndicated episodes of Gilligan's Island uses social media to bend a major corporation to her will, check out my twitter stream.

Clean sweep

Hey internet! I'm back!

Sorry, that whole getting-the-kids-back-to-school completely kicked my ass. But now that the dust has settled somewhat, I'm incredibly excited and energetic--the way I am every fall.

I love summer, but fall--when the heat's not on yet, but the air conditioner is off? Is the best time of the year. And it doesn't hurt that my kids are in school and I can actually get things done.

So here are three ways I'm welcoming fall.


My Diet

I signed up for a free LiveStrong MyPlate account. This is a great site with fabulous free diet tools. As far as I'm concerned, this site leaves Weight Watchers's online tools (which ran really slowly and frequently crashed my laptop) sitting in the road.

LiveStrong offers a lot of important health information--so much that I feel sort of petty bothering them with being pudgy. I mean, hello, the first thing you see when you head to the site is a huge photograph of Lance Armstrong. Way to make me feel shallow, Lance.

But MyPlate has so many useful tools. It helped me figure out how many calories to eat every day in order to lose 1.5 pounds a week. (And mid-life ladies? Do we agree that a measly 1,375 calories a day is not very much food? I thought so.)

I track what I eat every day. I track my so-called workouts. And once or twice a week, I weigh myself and add that information, too.

I'm just geeky enough to sort of enjoy this kind of thing. This helps me tolerate a life of 1,375 calories a day. Which is good, because 1,375 calories = Not Enough Wine.

Also, I've lost six pounds. That helps, too.

My Complexion

Have any of you bought a Clarisonic? I've heard great things from a couple of friends, but I balk at spending $250 for a face scrubbing doo-hickey.

That's why I'm so delighted with the Sephora complexion brush I got in a party goodie bag.

A couple of my friends have popped for the Clarisonic, but I'm analog to their digital. I use a Sonicare on my teeth two or three times a day. At this point, I'm excited about using a tool that doesn't make an annoying high-pitched whining noise.

Believe it or not, this little $5 face brush does the job. I use it morning and night, and it helps bump up the cleansing power of my Murad cleanser. The cleanser rinses off better, too, probably because the brush distributes it more evenly.

I swear, I have a real glow, and my pores look smaller. Not bad for five dollars!

My Closet

I'm either bored with or sick of everything in my closet. On top of that, I have clothes that are size 10, 12, 14, and 16. It's time they went. I deserve to have a closet full of clothes that I like and that fit.

I am in serious purge mode.

This is way more than a change of seasons switch-up. It's like I walked into my bedroom and went all drill sergeant: Listen up, good-enough clothes. You're not. You're The Clothes Formerly Known as Good Enough. And your mama isn't here to help you out. It's time to shape up or ship out. Now drop and give me fifty!

I'm getting rid of an amazing amount of stuff.

I'm starting with the size 16 summer stuff. When I do laundry, I'm folding my summer clothes and putting them in donation bags.

By next summer, I'll be wearing significantly smaller clothes! Either that or I'll be wearing a barrel.

It's ... alive. And wearing Lilly!

Hey internet! Look, sorry I haven't been keeping in touch--I've been really busy lately, what with taking my son back and forth to performing arts camp, dealing with our post-fire condo renovation, attending various summer-themed social events, and throwing a cocktail party for a friend who has finally bitten the bullet and moved to the suburbs.

Many of these activities involved shopping for and wearing lots and lots of Lilly Pulitzer. So I will intersperse this post with pictures of the stuff I've been wearing. (Not pictures of me wearing it, because Lord knows I'm not that organized.)

For example, for my welcome-to-the-suburbs cocktail party, guess who made her husband wear a Lilly blazer?

YES I DID. And he looked adorable, with a huge, abashed grin on his face all night long.

And hey! I've just heard that a lot of you are signing up for The Great American Apparel Diet. Which I thought meant you took a solemn oath to wear only bright colored solid clothes designed for teenagers, but which actually means you promise not to buy any clothes for a year.

And you know what? If you think you have a problem with shopping, then go for it. But I've done the moratorium thing before, and really, I think it's much more sensible to clear out your closets, set a budget, and buy only what you need.

Like for example, the way I needed that bracelet. (OK, maybe not really.)

But think about it. Buying what you need. It's not faddy or internetty. It's kind of old-school. But it works.

The hard part is figuring out what you actually need. Instead of going cold turkey with shopping, how about figuring out why your closet doesn't work with your life? Figure out what clothes you own that don't suit your life, and either store them or get rid of them. Then fill in the gaps with the stuff you really wear.

Like the way I recently bought 5,000 Lilly polo shirts.

In the summer, I wear shirts like this five days out of seven. And the white ones always get messed up somehow. To me, it makes sense to replace light-colored summer shirts with fresh, new, not-stained ones.

See, here's my theory: what happens if you get invited to a wedding or you lose a lot of weight or you need new bras? I did the buy-no-makeup-for-a-year thing way back when, and later on, I did The Compact. And frankly, they didn't significantly alter my behavior.

The easiest way to keep from overindulging is to avoid triggers. People who are trying not to drink shouldn't hang out in bars. People who are trying not to smoke shouldn't watch old Bette Davis movies. And people who want to stop buying so much stuff need to steer clear of malls, catalogs, shopping TV programs, and blogs where people are always talking about the latest crappe they've bought.

Like this dress, which I wore to my cocktail party. (Isn't it cute?)

Keeping your look fresh: How to cull

The ideal closet holds clothes you wear regularly, with enough space around your pieces so they don't get crushed or wrinkled. If your closet is very far from this ideal, you need to go through your clothes and get rid of anything that isn't working for you.

Empty your closet Take all your hanging clothes out of the closet. (I stack mine up on my bed.) Then go through the stacks and evaluate each item. If you wear a piece regularly, hang it back up in the closet.

Right away, this should give you a pretty good idea of where you stand. Don't be surprised if the stack of clothes you rarely or never wear is five times bigger than the stack you put back in the closet. It happens.

Clothes that don't fit Make a stack of clothes that you're not wearing because they don't fit. Are they too small? Unless you're within 10 pounds of their fitting again, I'd say get rid of them.

Remember--we're recovering frumpaholics. The lure of the past is very strong. Resist it. If you have to lose 30 pounds before a pair of jeans will zip again, shouldn't they be jeans from this year, and not jeans from 2004?

I understand the desire to zip up your old skinny jeans. Keep a pair if you must. One pair. And don't wear them in public. I don't want you to look like you've been doing the Time Warp.

If the clothes are too large, good for you! Now get rid of them. OK, you can save one pair of fat jeans to wear when you pose the cover of your weight-loss memoir. But larger size clothing is pure gold for thrift shops.

Clothes that are dated This is where women of a certain age run into problems. We seem to lose our sense of what's current and blithely go on wearing clothes that are five years out of date. So evaluate each piece based on what you see in stores and catalogs right now. Trust me, you're not seeing ankle-duster coats, tapered pants, witchy-toed shoes, embroidered jeans, hooded sweaters, or mid-calf-length skirts in stores these days, so you shouldn't see them in your closet.

Timeless basics What about classics? Aye, there's the rub. You might not be wearing them right now, but good wool, cashmere, camel's hair, and silk are expensive. If they're in a classic style, you won't want to get rid of them. OK, we'll deal with them later. For now, you can keep them.

Upkeep issues If you haven't been wearing a piece because it requires expensive dry cleaning, hand-washing, or fussy ironing, think about it. Not wearing your loveliest clothes and sticking to wash-and-wear t-shirts and jeans every single day is like packing away your good china and crystal and eating off paper plates. Clothes are meant to be worn. If you're not wearing them because the upkeep is too time-consuming or expensive, maybe these pieces shouldn't be in your closet. Let them go.

If a piece needs needs repairs/tailoring, take care of it. Then enjoy.

Mistakes Then there are the pieces you bought in some kind of clearance sale feeding frenzy. Some of them still have the tags on them. Keeping those clothes is false economy. It won't get you your money back. If it's a mistake--wrong color, something's off about the fit, it turns out you don't have a garden party to attend--what's it doing in your closet? It's a squatter. Get rid of it.

Seasonal/Special Occasion clothes Are a lot of your clothes out of season? I live in Chicago and have to buy clothes for freezing cold winters and hot, sticky summers. I have tiny, old-fashioned closets, so twice a year, I go through the ritual of packing away out-of-season clothes. You might not have to do this, but at least set aside a section of your closet for rarely- or seasonally-worn clothes. It will cut down on the visual clutter.

The next step OK, now. The clothes you actually wear are back in the closet. There's a pile of stuff to clean/mend/repair. What to do with the rejects? You can hold a clothing swap with your friends; bring your too-big clothes to a Weight Watchers meeting; sell the clothes on eBay; or bring them to a consignment store.

You can also donate them to non-profit. My church holds a huge rummage sale every year. Prices on sale day are so low that people come from miles around to shop the sale. The proceeds benefit various local agencies, including shelters for homeless women. I pack my rejects off to the rummage sale drop-off knowing that every piece I donate will find a good home. Which makes me feel not just lucky, but smug. I love that.

Final thoughts Clearing out your closets is hard work. You'll find yourself playing the blame game--beating yourself up for having gained weight or wasted money. But think about it--by getting rid of the evidence, you'll have a fresh start. You won't have dozens of pieces of clothing hanging in your closet making you feel bad every time you try to put together an outfit. Doing a major clear out is like ripping off a bandaid in one go, rather than teasing it off in tiny little tugs.

Trust me. The sight of your closets filled with wearable, comfortable clothes that suit the life you're living now will fill you with nothing but joy.

(Oh, and before you get rid of everything, please blog about it. With pictures. Like my friend Badger did here.)

This is Part 2 of a two-part post. Part 1 is here.

Keeping your look fresh: Cull

When you want to freshen up your look, the first thing you think about is buying something new. And this is a great idea--if you've just graduated from college and are working at your first office job.

But in my stage of life, my closets--yes, that's closets in the plural--and drawers are overloaded with clothes. When I go on a real laundry-doing binge, I literally can't shut my dresser drawers. (You know, it may just be possible that I need to get rid of my Red Sox 2004 World Series Champions t-shirts. Maybe owning six of them is overload. Ya think?)

It occurs to me that this is as embarrassing and confessional as anything I could have come up with as a mommyblogger. You know the old saying, "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are?" My version of that is "Describe the contents of your closets, and people will sign you up for Hoarders."

So OK, maybe you aren't in the same situation. But the fact remains, at our point in life, it's far more likely that you're dealing with too many clothes than too few. Nowadays it's easier to have too much of something than too little. Unless you ruthlessly curate your clothes, you're going to end up with a closet full of stuff you never wear.

Not to mention that some of us change sizes with a certain sad regularity. We lose weight and whee! We buy tons of new clothes. Then we gain back the weight--but does anyone ever get rid of their "skinny" clothes? Please leave a comment if you do, because otherwise, I'll refuse to believe you exist.

And the sad reality is that getting rid of stuff is much harder work than just going shopping. It's grueling and unglamorous and a lot of emotions are bound up in our clothes. Each one speaks of personal successes or failures. A lot more is bound up in them than just money, although the financial aspect has its own power.

Which is why your instincts want to send you to the mall. Resist this instinct. First find out what you own that's worth keeping.

Part 2--Keeping your look fresh: how to cull

Weird Things I LikeTM: Old crappe

Confession time: I'm a pack rat married to a pack rat.

And this is good news! It means there will never be a shortage of Weird Things for me to write about. I've got a few years worth of posts right here at home. This means you can look forward to some delightfully schadenfreude-y Fridays.* You'll look around at your tiny accumulation of old newspapers and catalogs and think "At least I'm not as bad as Poppy."

Here's how bad I am. Yesterday Mr. Buxom got a new violin string from Amazon.com. He'd been missing a string for a while, and as soon as he tuned up, he wanted to play.

Mind you, the last time he played the violin, internet shopping hadn't been invented. There was no Amazon.com. Or if there was, it was for buying books. Which gives you an idea of how long it's been since he's played.

Anyhow, he tuned up the violin and started looking around for his sheet music. And couldn't find it, so he asked me if I knew where it was. Now, we moved into this house 11 years ago and he hasn't used the music in all that time, so no, I didn't know where it was.

The contents of what we laughingly refer to as "the music room":
Four instruments, one amplifier, a bunch of music, and two
misplaced board games. What's missing? Talent.

I started digging through the sheet music. When I was finished going through my vocal music, my old piano music, my now-deceased father's piano music, the flute music for my daughter who never learned to play the flute, the recorder music from each child's third grade recorder-playing stage, my collection of sheet music from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, a few random bits of accordion and organ music of my father's which really shouldn't be here because we don't own or play an accordion or organ, I still hadn't found it.

A small sampling of my massive accumulation collection of vintage sheet
music. Do I actually play it? No. Do I frame it? No.
Does it hang out in the piano bench? Yes.

He started giving me the hairy eyeball, but I didn't throw his violin music out, I swear. I told him that if I haven't thrown out his Ranger Rick magazines from the early 1970s, or his high school spelunking equipment, or his grandfather's genealogy charts, or the 12 linear feet of National Geographic magazines even though ALL of the NG is available on disks now, I wouldn't have thrown out his violin music.

I mean, there's been an empty violin case in our basement storage area for years, and I haven't thrown THAT out.

And he believed me. Not because of my eloquence, but due to the completely ridiculous amount of crap I generously allow him to own.

I guess this means I need to clean/reorganize the basement, because I really believe there's a box of violin music down there somewhere. So if you don't hear from me for a few days, send paramedics. I'll probably be pinned under a collection of vintage Fisher-Price Little People sets.

---
* Yes, people. The internet has spoken, and the weekly Weird Things post is going to take place on Friday. Apparently people like the whole WTF idea.

Numbers

I've got eleven minutes to post. So I'll keep it brief.

425,945 cold and/or virus germs
+ 1 skipped rehearsal
+ four tablets of cold and/or virus medicine
________________________________
17 YouTube videos watched
2 foot stack of old magazines put out in recycling bin
3 boxes old files moved down to basement
2 wastebaskets full of old makeup tossed
2 loads of laundry washed dried and folded
3 pounds of oven-barbecued ribs cooked and cleaned up
6 dozen Quadruple Chocolate cookies baked and packed up for son's advisory party
1 shoddy excuse for a blog entry

A tale of three porches

This is my porch as of a week ago. I was waiting for the guys with the truck to come by and haul off the furniture and take it to one of the local church rummage sales.



There's a wicker computer hutch and chair, a teak "executive" desk, a mahogany bar, and some other shit you can't see.


Also a TON of air conditioners that I was Freecycling.


I managed to get rid of it all, except the ancient desktop computer and printer.


In order to get rid of them, I actually have to pack them into my van and drive them away myself. But I was encouraged enough to put the porch furniture back where it belongs. Yeah, there were these old bicycle helmets and this shmancy bathroom mirror that my husband managed to step on and break that needs to be repaired. But there was definitely a lot of progress.


And then they called and said they would be here on Monday to start installing the air conditioning. And here they are.

... going, going ...

A few signs of spring appeared to have shown up--finally--so today I uncurled from the fetal position and looked around cautiously.

Yes, it was definitely sunnier. And the day was lasting longer. And the ice ... was it actually melting?

Time to get back to de-junking.

This morning a guy drove up in a truck from one of the local church rummage sales and took the following:

• an art deco mahogany bar
• a mid-century teak desk
• a white wicker computer hutch with matching desk chair
• an arm chair

Then the guy from FreeCycle showed up and took:

• two old air-conditioners

Then I got busy in the basement and threw out two trash bags of crap. And two or three brown paper grocery bags of recyclable paper.

On Thursday another guy is coming to take away:

• the big-ass giant air conditioning unit that used to uglify the dining room window.

Next Tuesday I'm going to fill up the back of my smoking hot minivan and drive to Oak Park, IL, where the 19th Century Club is generously accepting donations of any old computer crap I want to donate. They will be getting:

• my son's old IBM desktop and printer
• my old Mac Centris and printer
• my old Mac iBook
• my old Hewlett Packard laptop
• probably a couple of other old Macs down in the basement but I'm skeered to go count them
• assorted peripherals and cables
  

Now if I could just stay away from the Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies--by far the single greatest cookie known to mankind--this would be a lose/lose situation.

Instead of a lose/gain situation.

Still, my front porch is looking remarkably less like the set for Sanford and Son. And my basement has a lot less junk in its trunk.

If only I did.

Chick Lit Winner!

Now that I am a practiced random integer generator, what with all these drawings and all, you'd think I'd post the winners of my contests a bit more promptly, wouldn't you?

Well, no you wouldn't. I'm husbanding mah blogging resources, people. You see, as a proud member of Blog365, I'm stretching things out, posting one winner a day. Because you never know--there may come a day when I don't actually have anything to blog about. OK fine, it hasn't happened yet, but you never know. I might hit a dry patch come November.*

So I did my drawing--and then I held back. Until now!

The winner of the chick-lit-with-a-token-book-by-a-man contest is

Jenn

of

Jenn Cooks and Footprints on the Moon and a whole lot of other blogs. (Seriously, girl--when will you have time to read all these books?)

Congratulations, Jenn! Email me your snail mail address (to poppy2006 @ gmail.com) and I'll pack up those bad boys and send them out.

To everyone else, thanks for playing!

* Oh great. I just reminded my intestines that I'm planning to blog every day for a year. They appear to think that's a bad idea, and have sent me a shooting pain or two to communicate their displeasure.

Barbies Winner!

OK, I was really busy and there were a LOT of comments. And that is why it took me a while to do the drawing for the three new-in-box "Limited Edition" Barbies you were all so excited about.

Can I just say that I really enjoyed the comments? Especially the ones that used outrageous amounts of flattery? My other favorites were the ones that tried to evoke huge volcanic eruptions of hot molten guilt on my part. It didn't work, but I appreciate the effort.

You see, I am long past feeling guilt for anything other than my own stupidity in holding on to these Barbies for so long.

I mean, think of how many opportunities I've had to put those Barbies into a Toys for Tots bin. But no, I held out for Internet Stardom Whoredom!

----
For the drawing, I had 198 comments to deal with, so I headed over to random.org to work some random integer magic. But then I realized that not all 198 of the comments were actually people wanting to enter. Some of them were blackbird saying that while the Barbies were lovely, she thought she'd pass. Others were Joke, making fun of me (which seems extraneous when I write this blog, the one you're currently reading, to do exactly that.)

And then there were the people who entered more than once. I dumped the duplicate entries. I also snipped anyone who entered after the cut-off time of 5:00 p.m. Sorry, people, but I left you out of the running to make the odds better for the people who managed to enter on time. I'm cruel--but fair.

So that left me with 183 names. Then I added Jen Lancaster to make a total of 184.

So I plugged 184 into the random thingie. And the winning number was 169. And this left me using my left hand to count ... down ... 168 comments ... while ... I ... scrolled ... down ... the ... screen ... with ... my ... right ... hand. Which, not surprisingly, was easy to fuck up.

This resulted in much frustration and swearing as I started the whole ... long ... laborious ... process over again. And again.

And then, That Stuff Muffin I Married rescued me from my English-major stupidity.

Why not, he asked sagely, count up from the bottom?

So that's what I did.

(You know, he's just brilliant. And when I burst into grateful tears and hugged and kissed him, he looked at me calmly, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and said. "Well, dear--I am, after all, a computer scientist." Which is bullshit. He's an attorney. A smart one. Who doesn't stuff Barbies into every single one of our house's orifices.)

But I digress.

The winner is: Mandi. Who left this comment:

So I found you again through Jen's blog, originally heard of you from Susie Sunshine (I am sad she left her blog)... all that is beside the point, any who, I would love to be entered in the drawling for the Barbies because my "daughters" would love these, I have 2 daughters...one of them should like them right lol if not I have 3 nieces! Hey free barbies..I'll take anything free...they are free right? Haa haa

February 01, 2008 10:01 AM

(Just so you know, I've tried to accommodate Mandi in every way, including typing this description of the "drawling" with a really annoying affected version of Long Island Lockjaw. You can't hear it from where you're sitting, but I sound exactly like James Spader in Pretty in Pink.)

So anyway, Congratulations Mandi! Email me your address and the Barbies are yours.

To everyone else, thanks for playing! If I don't hear from Mandi in three days, I'll hold another random drawing, so keep the flattery and ass-kissing coming. A better woman would be above enjoying that sort of thing, but I LOVED IT.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Hermes scarf--We have a winner!

I kept track of the responses so it would be strictly fair. Susie Sunshine only got one entry (even though she posted two comments) and Babelbabe wasn't entering, so I took hers out of the computation. I entered everyone else, even Kim, although she wanted to hold out for my eldest child.

I used random.org for the drawing. Here's what it said:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

14

Timestamp: 2008-02-02 02:51:19 UTC

So the winner is:

Number 14

Miss Britt!!!

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Fragrance giveaway winners

The fragrance giveaway was the easiest for me to decide, because it wasn't a random drawing--not with nine different things to distribute. Basically, I planned to start with the first commenter, give away the fragrances until they were gone, and then stop.

(If only life were always that easy.)

OK, I know I said you could ask for more than one, but I wanted to disappoint the fewest number of people, so starting with the first commenter who specified something, each person is getting one fragrance.

However, as a consolation prize, I'll stuff a few samples or decants into the packages. If you're reading this, ahiltz, email me and we'll work something out. (Also, blackbird--I do believe I have another bottle of Ombre Rose. I'll bet you can guess where.)

Here we go:

Sara gets the Serendipitous
Jafarhie gets the Caleche
m.e. gets the Hiris
flutterby gets Jardins de Bagatelle
Hanna of Cultivating Home gets Ombre Rose
Smellyann gets the Eclat d'Arpege
Naomi gets the Madeleine Vionnet
reeva gets Joy
and Laura gets the Allure

I'll email the winners this weekend--or feel free to email me.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Hermes scarf, or, the best things come in orange boxes

Today's giveaway is yet another thing that I thought I would like, but didn't.



Mind you, I think the design is lovely. But my computer monitor misrepresented the colors. When it arrived and I opened the package, I recognized at a glance that this particular color--a shade I categorize as "gym uniform green"--was going to make me look, in the words of Helen Gurley Brown, "recently exhumed."



And so, Internet, I am giving you the opportunity to find out whether you find this particular shade of green flattering. It's a definitely more green than turquoise, but there is just a suggestion of blue in it. Other colors are a medium smoky blue and a medium rose pink, yellow, and taupe on a white background.



The design is called Marionettes blah blah blah--here's a close-up of it.



OK, I stand corrected. It's called Le Temps des Marionettes, which is French for "Ze time of ze puppets." And it can be yours! And I'm sure it will look lovely.

To enter, leave a comment. If you don't have a Blogger ID and profile, let me know your email address, too. I'll hold a random drawing on Friday. Polls close at 5:00 p.m. Central Time.

Good luck!

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Perfumes that aren't good enough for me All gone!

You know how it is when you read a ton of makeup and fragrance boards and people are raving about some fragrance, so you click over to some on-line perfume store and they have free shipping, and some of the prices are unbelievable, so you buy a bunch of fragrances based on their descriptions, and when they arrive, they're OK, but you never wear them? And you want to get rid of them because each bottle sits there collecting dust and reminding you of the money you spent that you can't get back? And yet, the average thrift shop or rummage sale isn't interested in a bottle of eau de toilette with a half inch missing?

No? It's just me?

FINE.

Today's giveaway/virtual rummage sale is the following used fragrances:

Jardins de Bagatelle by Guerlain
Madeleine Vionnet
Caleche by Hermes
Hiris by Hermes
Serendipitous by Serendity 3
Ombre Rose by Jean Brosseau
Allure by Chanel
Joy by Jean Patou
Eclat d'Arpege by Lanvin

Because there are so many bottles, I'll send them to the first takers. Feel free to pick two or three, but don't go nuts and ask for the whole bunch, because that's not nice.

Bottles will be shipped out Priority Mail, probably next week, but don't hold me to it.

Also, I don't remember when I bought these, but most of them are two or three years old and used, OK? Except for the tiny (.05 oz/1.5 ml) bottle of Allure perfume, which I got as a free sample at the Chanel store in Paris because my attempts to speak French made the French ladies there decide that Americans are pleasant enough, maybe even charming, but hardly their intellectual equals. So they felt sorry for me, and loaded me with samples.

"Allons enfants de la Poppy! She is giving free perfume!"

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Limited Edition Barbies, BNIB. A random drawing for Jen Lancaster anyone who enters.

You know, a lot of people would try to eBay this kind of thing, but I'm not organized enough.

Well, of course, I'm not organized enough. These are Barbies I bought for my daughter under the assumption that she'd become interested in Barbie some day.

OK, confession time--I bought one of them when I was pregnant with her. Yes, I really am that hopeless.

But anyway, my daughter's interest in Barbie evaporated a few years ago--and it was never all that great to begin with, as it was limited to extricating her from her package, losing her shoes, and messing up her hair.

(It seems pretty obvious that even as a small child, my daughter had a somewhat cavalier, frat-boy attitude towards her dolls.)

OK. Obviously, the interest in Barbie was really mine all along. Pathetic Baby Boomer that I am.

So anyway, for your Giveaway pleasure, I have the following:

The Avon Exclusive, Special Edition, Second-in-a-Series "Winter Rhapsody" Barbie, copyright 1996, which you could only get from an Avon lady
The Little Debbie Snacks Special Edition Barbie, copyright 2001, which you could only get if you sent in box tops. Of Little Debbie Snack Cakes. OK, we interrupt this shame spiral to bring you our final Barbie,
The Walt Disney World Resort Four Parks One World Barbie from 2002, which I bought for my kids' babysitter's niece ... and never got around to giving her. Because I am a LOSER.

You know, it's a good thing confession is good for the soul.

Anyway, I'm assuming these would be of interest to Barbie collectors, but of course, you'll be glad to know that none of them was made in China, so if you want to risk that whole choking hazard situation, you could probably let your children gnaw on the paint with impunity. Although if you do, you didn't read that here.

Leave me a comment if you're interested. I'll be running a drawing at 5:00 p.m. this Friday. Oh, and you have to take all three of them--no choosies.

(Did you notice they're all brunettes? I always had a soft spot for Barbies who had brown hair LIKE ME.)

***Edited to add***

Hello, friends of Jen! If you think Susie Sunshine should shut up and let Jen enter the contest, just like everyone else, I agree. So I'm entering her.

But I'm not entering Susie Sunshine. Even though I totally know she wants the Little Debbie one. Because I'm cruel--but fair.

***Edited again to add***

Yes, I'll mail overseas, so feel free to enter even if you live in Antartica. Also, be sure I have a way to email you--either a link back to your blog or your email address or both.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Chick-lit and a token male author

The de-cluttering never stops around here. And now, I've found a new way to foist my belongings off on the world! Thanks and a tip of the hat to Shannon, of Rocks In My Dryer.

Here's how it works. I'm giving away some books. They have all been read or at least handled, but except for the Jennifer Weiner book (which looks like two beach-book-crazed Mommies wrestled for it at Border's) they are newer rather than older. (You might even be able to get away with regifting some of them ... but you didn't hear that here.)

I was going to post a picture, but because I am Poppy, Hear Me Make an Idiot Out of Myself Whenever Little Buttons Need to be Pushed, No, Not That One, And Get Your Mind Out of The Gutter, I can't figure out why I can't get the picture out of the camera and onto my laptop.

So a list will have to do. I'm giving away:

A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke
Confessions of a Slacker Mom by Muffy Mead-Ferro
GRITS Friends Are Forevah by Deborah Ford
Stop Dressing Your Six-Year Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark
Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner
This is Chick-Lit, edited by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

To win, leave a comment saying you're interested.

I'll be holding a totally fair, objective, random drawing on Friday at 5:00 p.m. (This means Susie Sunshine will not automatically get them, no matter how much she whines.)

Then I'll post the name of the winner on my blog.

Have fun!

UPDATED because OK, I finally figured out the new camera. Happy?

Quiz

Please pick the item, unearthed in our most recent round of decluttering, that would send you into the deepest shame spiral:

• posters from Mr. Buxom's college dorm room (he graduated 22 years ago)

• the George Michael "Faith" cassette I used to fuel my daily run the summer before we got married (19 years ago)

• a Macintosh Centris (released 15 years ago) complete with lots and lots of 3.5-inch disks of data

• the plastic smocks the kids wore to do messy art projects when they were in preschool (about seven or eight years ago)

• the Halloween costume my daughter wore four years ago

• a bag of quilted, heavy-duty diaper-service diapers I bought almost 13 years ago

and

• a single, much-worn pair of rubber pants

There will be no winners and no prizes. Because you obviously

wouldn't want anything I have. Because obviously everything I

have is covered in diaper cooties.

176

I went to Weight Watchers today not in fear and trembling, per se, but not feeling all that great about it, either. I haven't been tracking my food, and I certainly haven't been working out.

See, I'm still getting the house back in order after last fall's construction project. Yes, still. Not to mention Christmas. Confession time: our Christmas tree went down on January 20th, mostly because it seemed a little silly to still have a Christmas tree up on Martin Luther King Day.

It's taking so long because I wanted to do this right. Not just put everything back into the kitchen--not to shove Christmas decorations into random boxes, but do things properly. This meant I needed to do a whole shitload of some decluttering.

So I haven't been working out, per se, but I haven't been sitting around eating bonbons, either. I've cleaned out a bunch of closets and made multiple trips with a van packed with stuff to donate to the rummage sale. I've moved furniture around. I've cleaned out the storage area.

(Which badly needed cleaning. I mean, I found a box of rattles. May I remind you that my kids are not 1 and 2 but 11 and 12?)

While I've been dejunking the house, I've been pondering my clutter situation. I decided that if you want to see a house that needs attention, maybe the first person you need to talk to is a woman with a weight problem.

Marcia Cilley, a/k/a Flylady, has a book out called Body Clutter. I haven't read it, and I probably won't, because to be honest, the Flylady stuff gets on my last nerve--all that stuff about Purple Puddles is so ... how can I put this tactfully ... not me.

But. It seems to me that weight problems and clutter problems very frequently strike the same people. And the reason is Freud's Pleasure Principle. You know, where you seek pleasure and avoid pain. Because let's face it: it's much easier to let crap accumulate than pare way down. And it's much easier to have the second helping, super-size the fast-food order, and sit on the couch and watch television rather than get up and move.

In both cases, the deciding vote is cast by entropy.

This means that if you don't do anything about it, what with the gifts, the junk mail, the outgrown children's clothes and toys, the collectibles, the books you're not interested in any more, the DVDs you aren't watching, the CDs you aren't listening to, the clothes you're tired of, the stuff that doesn't fit any more, the piles of antique linens your mother foisted off on gave you--you, like me, are up to your armpits in a lot of crap you don't use or love or have any real reason to own.

And if you sit around on your ass and eat a little too much every day, and drink a little too much every day ... you are probably carrying around a bunch of clutter under your clothes.

So for the past couple of weeks, when I thought I wasn't working out? I really was. At least, I was doing something very similar to working out. I sure didn't want to do it. But once I got going, I got all energetic. And when I was done? I was exhausted, but I felt great. Also, I needed to take a shower.

So you see, decluttering really is like going to the gym.

And I think that's why I lost a pound last week.

Did you miss me?

OK, I survived the Cub Scout Pack Night. My guys did fine. It's over. Thank GOD.

In fact, it was over last night at about 9:00. And at that point, I'd have liked to swim laps through a wading pool full of martinis. But they're not in season.

Instead, I drank a glass of wine and watched teevee.

See, it was Monday night and my favorite teevee show, "How Clean is Your House?" was on. Last night's episode was pretty good. But only pretty good. It's only half way through their first season, and I'm wondering whether they're starting to slip.

I mean, there was a truly distressing lack of vermin. Call me picky, but I've gotten used to infestations of mice--or at least cockroaches. A drag queen with an incontinent 20-year-old poodle--while inherently somewhat amusing, I admit--is not the same thing, people, and you're not fooling anyone.

Then today I whipped off a bunch of overdue correspondence and cleared the accumulated piles o' crap out of my bedroom and did more Den Mother shite because Lord knows there's no point in giving her a day off, right?

And I did a bit of research into the raw material--I use the term advisedly--for my other blog, in which I skewer (food pun) bad recipes. I'm still too tired to actually try to post anything there, but don't worry; I found some real stinkers in a couple of my cookbooks. I mean, not to blow my own horn, but I believe I've discovered a rich vein of humor which I plan to strip-mine ruthlessly, and to hell with the environment! Well, OK, I think I've found a decent-sized nugget or two. Actually, it's probably only fool's gold. Whatever.

At any rate, < Ahnuld > I'll be back. < /Ahnuld >