August Shopfessions

Clothes
Poshmark - $35
Torrid - $43

Makeup
Amazon - $36
Poshmark lipstick - $10

Books
Felicia Day's Memoir Signed - $30
ShoreLeave splurges - $103.30

MISC
Chain Maille fez - $6.36
Pillow and wristlet - $55



Earned/Returned
eshakti - $27.95
Torrid return - $25
Sold books - $9.50
Poshmark - $22


The Poshmark dress was marked as new with tags and was $35 with shipping and looks great. I've already worn it to work several times.

The Amazon listing was for 3 lipsticks 2 of which were for costumes, one this month.

A signed copy of Felicia Day's book ordered from an independent bookstore? I regret nothing. Buying $100 worth of books at ShoreLeave, I regret a little bit of that.

No Kickstarter or music this month. All songs were obtained with Viggle points. I may let myself order an album in the coming months if I can manage to keep other spending under control.

My total unnecessary spending for the month: $318.66. I didn't do much shopping on vacation (benefit of going to the boonies) nor did I have much time before or after given the move.

Looking at my new living expenses from the move, I really don't have much room to play. I have to plan my splurges more carefully. I'm enjoying my new job but I'm a contractor so there are no guarantees. The new apartment also needs things like a couch and bookshelves so these things take priority.

I've also realized the new apartment has limited space so I'm doing another assessment of my clothes. I want to do a full KonMari sort but I don't have time right now. I've already pulled somethings aside and if I don't miss them in the next few months, they're going on Poshmark. Speaking of Poshmark, if you count the two returns and two checks I got in, I got $84.45 back. That knocks $318.66 down to $234.21.

Now that my money has to go to concrete things like furniture and rent, I think I'm going to do a lot better. Not having much choice is really motivating.

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 28 or All's Fair

For a book that takes place in my hometown, I bent the definition of hometown just a little bit with Valerie Plame Wilson's Fair Game. I’ve worked and socialized in DC for several years and grew up just outside the beltway. Most people aren’t from my little slice of suburbia and, after hearing Plame Wilson speak, I wanted to experience her story.

I was in high school and college when all of this was happening so I never really caught much of it while it was happening. I always knew I never liked the Bush administration but this just adds to the list of reasons. It’s surreal that while all of this was going down, I was too wrapped up in petty drama to notice.

Because the CIA redacted so many things, I had to go to the afterword and use that to fill in the blanks. Unfortunately the afterword was much dryer but it provided helpful information. It became apparent that the redactions were largely out of spite because even the review committee couldn’t understand what they were trying to protect with so much of that information now out in the public.

When I heard her speak, she talked about how they redacted the word “station chief” but less than a year after that, they published a memoir with the title Station Chief. I can’t be sure exactly how many times they did this but they did it at least once on page 33.

Despite several powerful people in Washington ruining her career and almost destroying her marriage, Plame Wilson still says she’s a patriotic American. I feel like that’s more of the correct answer than the honest one. I’m sure she still loves her country but I think she is far more jaded than her book would have you believe. You’d have to read it to truly see what I mean but I think she subscribes to the notion that “It’s not slander if it’s true.” Very interesting read.

Times They Are A-Changing, A LOT

I have hopefully maxed out on life changes for the month of August. In the span on one month, I’ve:

-Started a new job

-Learned a new commute

-Moved into a new apartment

-Moved in with BF

-Moved to a different state

-Had a relative pass

My grandfather’s health had taken a nosedive recently. He went into the ICU for pneumonia and other ailments. My mother was hesitant to call me until an ER nurse and ICU doctor told her he might not make it through the night. He had only been able to swallow liquids since. He lasted longer than any of us expected but passed away yesterday afternoon. For the first time in my life, I have no grandparents.

Grieving for an ailing person is an odd thing. You spend a lot of the time they’re alive grieving for who they once were and the life they once had that by the time their suffering is over, you’re kind of relieved. While I’m not glad for his passing, he was mostly blind, mostly deaf, immobile, and lost the last pleasure he had in life, food. I’m glad he’s no longer miserable (his words).

Due to the lack of large furniture (two dressers, one bed), the move was “one of the smoothest I’ve ever seen” to quote on helper. I’m missing at least one box of books and clothes but I’m stopping by my mom’s house this weekend to grab some stuff that wasn’t included in round one. I’m excited to start this phase of my life and relationship. I’ve got most of my clothes put away and realized that I need to cut down my wardrobe again. BF is not overly pleased with 1/3 of a closet.

Bookshelves have been ordered and were shipped recently so I look forward to getting those assembled. BF is still getting his computer and such set up but we’ve cut down on a lot of the boxes in our apartment. Our kitchen is 1-2 boxes away from completely unpacked. We know the couch and chair we want, we just have to order it. I need to change residency but I’ll worry about that after I make it through this week.

The new job is contracting for a place in MoCo. I’m not fulltime currently but have in writing that it is being considered. A friend of mine sent my resume to her boss and we had a phone interview. She got back to me to let me know that the perfect resume for the position came through and it went to someone else. I could tell she genuinely felt bad about not being able to hire me so when she asked to keep my resume on file, I said “Of course.”

Fast forward to a few weeks later and I get an email about a new position. I get some details and say yes. I was going to wait to announce the assignment but the friend who submitted my resume got an email about me joining the team that day. I like the work and I like the people. It’s a bit solitary but I felt like an equal from day one so I’m not going to complain.

Now that I have more expenses, my desire and time to shop has decreased exponentially. I really want a couch and being a contractor is not a guarantee. The budget could get cut and my job could disappear (again) so I want to save as much as can if the worst happens (again). I'm hoping for the best but the employment worst has happened before and could happen again.

Shore Leave #2 or Book Round Up

Because I have a very large amount of books, I’ve been keeping track of them on GoodReads. This has been somewhat complicated given my recent purges but overall, it’s been helpful. The neurotic little crazy person in my likes knowing how many books I own.

Books were by far my biggest splurge at ShoreLeave. I bought 11, all of which I was able to get signed. Some folks were cool and gave me a deal for buying more than one, proving it never hurts to ask.

One was a speculative fiction anthology called Pangea. The continents never shifted and Neanderthals still exist as second class citizens. Everybody go! I bit. When I went to add it to my GoodReads, I couldn’t find it. I had to do some searching before I discovered it’s not out yet. I got a very cool anthology before the rest of the world? Sweet!

Otherwise, my list includes:

-No Small Bills by Aaron Rosenberg (There was a whole think involving free rubber duckies with purchase last year. It was too perfect.)

-Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs Aliens by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier

-Beauty Has Her Way edited by Joshua Palmatier

-Heroes!: The 2013 Fiction Anthology edited by Kelly Swails

-Into a Strange Land by Ben Anderson

-The Witch and the Walking Tree by Ben Anderson

-Taming the Goblin by Ben Anderson

-Snyper: A Matter of Caliber by J. Merideth Harmon

Shore Leave Part 1

This past weekend was Shore Leave! A fun, fan run sci-fi con in Baltimore County. The guest list had John Barrowman, Jamie Murray, Jesse Rath, Tony Curran, Daniel Davis, David Nykl, and Rekha Sharma.

John Barrowman was AMAZING!!! I hope to do a more detailed post later but he was hilarious, sassy, sexy, and heartfelt. The relationship between Jaime, Jesse, and Tony was clear and made them so much fun. When they were presented with their Shore Leave bunnies, Jesse looked at Jaime and said “I wanted Kirk. Trade?” and they swapped bunnies on stage. It was very funny. John said the bunny would be in good company with Easter kitty who shows up in a lot of his photos. The Defiance trio said they may make a background appearance in Defiance if they get a 4^th season.

I think that’s my favorite thing about a lot of the guests at Shore Leave: most of them really appreciate their fans. They know without us, they don’t get to live the dream. 

I think my most memorable moment was when I was walking past Rekha’s autograph area and saw her. She’s very slim and about eye level with my throat. The first words out of my mouth were “You’re so tiny.” I genuinely think she’s smaller than she was on Battlestar but she made a comment about the camera adding 10 pounds. I said that seeing them on screen, they also appear bigger than life.

The average American woman is 5’4 and many Indian woman are smaller than that. Celebrities are still people at the end of the day and subject to the same rules as the rest of us. Actresses are more likely to be slim because the business says so but they also follow the same height rules. The average American man is 5’9, my height. Seeing our heroes on screen in these worlds we escape to, playing characters we can only dream about being, we forget that they’re just people with a cooler job. Ms. Sharma was very nice

As far as spending goes, I spent more than I should have, as always but not on what I usually do. My normal big splurge has been clothes and jewelry. This weekend I couldn’t seem to say no to books. More on that later.

It was Boyfriend’s first Shore Leave. He had a lot of fun and enjoyed staying long enough to hear David Nykl. He sounds very interesting and I would love to watch Stargate if they ever put it on streaming.

Challenging Reading

The PopSugar Reading Challenge

I'm past the halfway point! This pleases me greatly but it also makes me concerned about my ability to finish since it took me until the end of July to get halfway through this challenge. My 'hometown' book has been somewhat slow going but I'm hoping to make progress with that and my 500+ page book on vacation.

I know my popular author first book should be a quick read but I'll have to find time for it with the move, new job, new commute, and family crisis that have all arisen. I'm cramming a remarkable number of life changes into one month.

A Graphic Year

I haven't forgotten about my graphic novel challenge but life keeps getting in the way.

I've got a vacation coming up before the move so I'm hoping to at least play catch up on what I've missed. I've been making my way through Deadpool and Cable when I can so that would catch me up through July. I've set aside enough comics that I should be able to catch up through August while I'm on vacation.

I haven't been a saint about doing it every week like I'm supposed to but I think I get a pass if I can make the numbers balance out by the end of the year. This is a fairly hectic summer for me.