run, rest, eat, bitch, buy things, cross-train, blog, repeat.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Money Well Spent

Mindy Kaling used to keep a blog called... Things I Bought that I Love. It was awesome. So, I thought I might throw a few shout outs to things that I've bought that I love every once in awhile. WARNING: This will likely have nothing to do with running.

Coral Colored Bathroom Stuff:

Seven years ago I bought my condo and I bought baby blue and dark brown themed bathroom towels and shower curtain. The Aughts called... they wanted their bathroom color scheme back.

After hemming and hawing and looking EVERYWHERE and almost pulling the trigger on an $88 shower curtain from Anthropologie (WTF????), I instead opting on buying two colorful hand towels from World Market and a coordinating (but not matching) shower curtain from Target.

Hand towels: 12.99 (I only bought hand towels)

It is amazing how much this brightened my bathroom up. In the store the colors looked very Coral/Red. In my bathroom they look very pink. And surprisingly, that doesn't bother me at all.

I couldn't find the shower curtain online.
But it's $19.99 and Target still has them in stores.

At first glance, I winced at the idea of spending $12.99 on something that I wipe my hands on. But, they are really good quality and at the end of the day, $25 bucks on hand towels, isn't really that big of a deal, ya know?

Primer + Makeup Setter

So, apparently, throughout the course of the day, I touch my face a lot. Because, by about 1pm, my makeup is practically gone. This is not good, because I don't have a lot of natural coloring on my face, so, I end up looking like I'm working on the set of The Walking Dead. 

This is probably a good look for a zombie.
For an accountant, not so much.

I've tried primers in the past. But, I made the mistake of getting "mattifying" primers. And that just made my face look even duller. Blah. Boring.

Then, I got a sample of Laura Mercier "Radiance" Foundation Primer and I used it the morning of my brothers wedding. And between that and the NYX Long Lasting Makeup Setting Spray (in Dewy finish), I didn't have to touch up my makeup before the 5:15ish wedding ceremony.

This is my makeup at about 5pm. 
I put it on around 9:30am.
That shit is magic.
Also my dad is adorable.



Weekly Planner for work

When I find a planner that I like, it's hard for me to make the jump to try something new. I started out with just a cute notebook that wasn't designed to be used as a calendar where I just used one page per day and just noted my daily to-do list and kept track of my billable time. Easy.

Then, I started having appointments (not many, but a few) and needing to plan things more based on days, so, I got a planner from Target that had one week spread over two pages. It worked fine, but, at the end of this year, I couldn't find another one like it. So, I had to move on.

I searched high and low for something that had one week broken into two pages. Something that would lay flat on my desk and I needed it to be big. I can't handle those small little purse-sized planners.

I ended up buying a Moleskine Weekly Extra Large Softcover Planner. I think I paid about $25 for it and I bought it at Barnes and Noble. It had the two page weekly layout, but one side was all the days and the other side was just a blank page. I wasn't sure how I was going to like it.

Turns out, I LOVE it and it's perfect for me. It's like the best of both worlds. I get to jot down my daily to-dos and plan ahead with the calendar and then I use the blank page to keep track of my billable time. (50% of my work is just a weekly/monthly flat rate to clients, that I don't keep track of my time for, but the other 50% is tax work and billable bookkeeping that I do have to keep up with my time).

On the left side, my daily schedule and to dos.
On the right, my billable time tracking.
BRILLIANT.
(This was a week in March. Sadly, I don't have a party on this Saturday).

Bonus points that it's very lightweight and easily packs into my work tote.

So, these are a few of my favorite things lately. What have you bought lately that you love?



1 comment:

Carina said...

I wonder if we were planner buddies last year and didn't know it. I also use a 2pg/wk format, and my planner love was discontinued for 2015. I found something very similar, but it lacks the "month at a glance" feature, and the monthly tabs my old calendar had, so I still kind of hate it.