An Awkward Encounter: Goodwill Purse Edition

Hello!

As promised (in this post, specifically in the caption of this photo), I will share with you how I met the previous owner of the purse I bought at Goodwill.

However, before we get to that, I need to share something else with you. I feel like social situations have three main ways that they can go down. One way is the normal way; you know, the way pretty much everyone ever handles average everyday situations. Another way is super unnecessarily dramatically; for example, how every situation occurs in R. Kelly's Hip-Hopera "Trapped in the Closet" (Here is chapter 1 of 24... and it is not even finished, yet. He wants to add more. I once saw all the parts one weekend during my freshman year of college. Here's what I remember: any situation is worthy of bringing out a gun, everything is escalated WAY TOO QUICKLY (hence, always pulling out a gun), and a little person jumps out from a cabinet and that actually made more sense than most of the rest of the hip-hopera). Finally, there is the way that I handle social situations: as awkwardly as possible. My life might as well be the socially awkward penguin.

Source; I have accidentally told so many waiters and waitresses this...

Now, that you all know how weird I am, you will understand how I handled the whole situation. Daniel and I went to one of our favorite restaurants a couple of weeks ago, which is fairly normal, right? The woman at the counter joked that one day she would finally learn our names for our order and we awkwardly laughed with her. Then I lifted up my purse so I could reach my wallet. Suddenly, she gasped! "Oh my gosh! Can I see your purse?!" I lifted my purse to show her and she exclaimed, "Where did you get that? I have a purse just like that! Mine was my grandmother's."

That's the moment when I first realized that her grandmother's purse could now be my purse. See, I bought the purse a few weeks before this at Goodwill, because I am really hard on purses. I don't have many purses and I do not change them out until they fall apart. Being frugal, I decided that I should not spend a lot of money on a bag that I would wear out. So, I bought a purse that I could use and not feel bad about ruining.


But, suddenly, this purse was possibly this woman's grandmother's purse. I admitted to her that I bought it at Goodwill and she said, "Oh, I must have donated it. I'll have to check my house." Immediately, I offered the purse to her, because clearly it had sentimental value, it was her grandmother's. She refused, so Daniel and I went about our dinner normally.

Then, as we were leaving, she asked to see the purse again. I obliged. She looked at it closely and asked WHEN I got it. I told her a few weeks before. She said, "Oh, good. My house was broken into last week and I just wanted to make sure that someone did not steal it and then donate it. " Now, I was thinking, "Her house was broken into?! I have to give her back this purse!" So I again offered her the purse. Again, she refused. She told me that she did not really use the purse before because she had another one from her grandmother so she rather have me own it and have great adventures with it. Suddenly, the purse that I bought so I would not feel bad for ruining became the most important/ interesting/ awkward purse that I own. With that being said, expect to see it a lot on the blog...

I hope that you have a great rest of your weekend and is generally not awkward!

Rachel Cathleen

How To Do Things: Ice Cream Sandwiches

Good morning.

I would just like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who serves and has served and to there family. I hope that you receive the respect you deserve at least today, because many times we fall short of honoring you every other day of the year. 

Additionally, I hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend, whether you went to a parade to honor those who serve, had a barbecue, went swimming, relaxed, or whatever else you did/are doing.

If you are still looking for something to do, I can provide. A few weeks ago I found this:

Source: https://twitter.com/LifeHacks/status/459552340442640384/photo/1

Look how easy! It is just 3 steps and then it is ready to eat! So my boyfriend (Daniel, he told me it is fine for me to use his name) and I decided to try them out.

• First of all, we went to the store to buy the ingredients. 
• We debated about buying pre-made cookies (so we could cut out the steps relevant to baking cookies) or cookie dough (so we could eat raw cookie dough later; which is dangerous, so don't do that; sorry, Mom). We ultimately bought cookie dough (the one in the yellow tube).
• We also did not buy Ben & Jerry's. Partially, that is because we are cheap. The other reason was because we would have to use have a container of Ben & Jerry's each since we did not know how to store it once it was sliced open. Instead, we bought little Blue Bell cups of ice cream that are always served at kids' birthday parties.

• So, if you buy cookie dough, follow the instructions they give you (We made our's like twice as big as normal on accident, it made holding the ice cream easier. If you do that, too, do not change the directions in any other way.) 
• If you bought pre-made cookies, or already have cookies, you are doing great!

Here are what they looked like fresh out of the oven.

Cookies and ice cream, perfect combo!

• Ok, now we are putting on the ice cream. So do you see in that first picture how easy it is to cut that carton? Well, blue bell cartons are apparently made of paper steel. Those things would not cut. At all. So we took spoons and stabbed around the edges (between the ice cream and the carton) until it was loose enough to scoop out in one piece.
• Then put the ice cream on once cookie, and put another cookie on top!
• Now, you have an ice cream sandwich! Yay!
• Now... get a bowl, the ice cream is way too thick to stay together and not make a huge mess. Seriously, we each took like one bite of our respective sandwiches and then got bowls. Hey, it is still two cookie layers with ice cream in between. That still counts as delicious in my book.

See, that sandwich is WAY too thick to last. Also worth noting, Daniel used vanilla. So if you wanted to be festive today or July 4th (which is kind of coming up), you could add red and blue sprinkles!

I used chocolate ice cream, which is much better (You know, if you prefer chocolate ice cream)! Also, we first tried this a few weeks ago (hence, the sweatshirt and my hair still long enough to be in a ponytail), and since then, we have made these so often we are almost out of ice cream and cookie dough.

I hope you try these, because they really are yummy. Let me know if you try it a different way and how it works for you!

Best,

Rachel Cathleen

Short Hair and a Short Post

Hello!

Yesterday, I finally cut my hair into a pixie cut, so I thought I would share.

Love it? Hate it? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Tips and Tricks for styling it? Let me know below!

Best,

Rachel Cathleen

Playing with Patterns and Wearing Flowers

Happy Monday!

Just shy of a week ago, I shared my first tutorial-esque post and was wise enough to use Goodwill accessories AND take pictures! Do you know what that means? You get to see a new outfit post! Which is exciting since the most recent one was over a month ago. So here I am, playing with patterns (and textures!) and wearing my flower crown.

It was super bright out and I forgot my sunglasses... So, yes, I am squinting.

I got this purse at Goodwill recently. I also met the original owner. It was surprisingly awkward. That can be the story for another day.

I bought these shoes like a year ago from Goodwill. They are super flat, even for flats.

Some flower crown action!

In this outfit I am wearing: Flower Crown (tutorial here), Shirt: Kohl's (old; not really similar but still cool and this has similar colors in it), Skirt: Forever 21 (old; similar but out of stock, similar color but lacy, and something I would buy in a heartbeat if it went on sale because OMG it is floral & it comes in multiple colors/patterns!), Purse: Goodwill (similar here and here), Shoes: Goodwill (similar and apparently, I am not capable of seeing the snakeskin pattern, but the description says it exists, plus there are several different color options).

Have a fantastic week!

Rachel Cathleen

How To Do Things: Floral Crown

Good evening!

So I have wanted to start crafting, baking, knitting, doing my own makeup in interesting ways, etc. for a while now. Essentially, I am interested in doing things.

The problem with doing things is 

1. I rarely have time because I have class and 

2. I lack the talent to do most things.

Fortunately, the world has Pinterest and countless YouTube and blog tutorials for pretty much everything. Plus, they are always as easy as 1, 2, 3. You know: step 1 is gather your supplies, step 2 is do whatever you're trying to do, and step 3 is show off your awesome whatever to all of your friends and family (or just take a bunch of pictures and make a blog post about it).

If you cannot see what I am getting at, the internet (as awesome as it is), makes a fatal flaw: it assumes we already are good at doing things. But, really, if I was already good at doing whatever, why would I bother looking up a tutorial? I mean, did it really only take the original person 3 steps? Because it takes me like 50 to do some of the same simple activities and only 37 led to a total failure, which means they at least left out 13 or so steps. This gave me an idea: why don't I try to do things and give you all the steps the tutorials left out, like the fact that no one already owns half the stuff that the tutorials claim that you just have around the house.

So today I am going to tell you all about making a flower crown, because I like flower crowns and want it to be socially acceptable to wear one (which will become a reality if you make one and wear it, too).

How to make a flower crown:

• Pick the busiest week possible to decide to do this craft, preferably a finals week or just a really stressful week in general.
• Whine about how you never get to do anything fun to anyone who will listen.
• Decide to look at the craft store's coupons anyway, preferably at 1 am (when it seems like the best idea)
• Realize that this day is the last possible day to take advantage of their 60% off sale (fortunately, you have finished your last final, or other super stressful activity)
• Be financially responsible: pick out the flowers that you want for your floral crown online ahead of time, you do not want to go to the store and be overwhelmed.
• Go to the store and see this:

Totally overwhelming aisle of silk flowers,

• Realize that you are never going to find the flowers that you originally wanted.
• Pick out new flowers and become completely and totally attached to these inanimate objects.
• Find the flowers you originally wanted to purchase (remember, you are still attached to the flowers that you already found, but also the ones that you found online).
• Decide that it is a great idea to make 6 flower crowns. Because...they're 60% off?
• Decide not to buy floral wire because you know you already have some and you will not need it anyway (By the way, you definitely need it. Buy it now. Really. I promise. You will see why in a minute).
• Go to the check out counter, talk with the woman working at the check out counter about shoes and wedding planning.
• Realize that she is actually engaged and hide your left hand for the rest of the conversation because you are an awkward human being.
• Pay and leave; while driving decide that this should become a blog post.
• Get home and see how many flowers that you bought:

So many flowers.

• Decide to make your flower crown using the "daisy chain" method.
• Google "How to daisy chain."
• Choose not to look at the Urban Dictionary definition (you know it will be gross anyway).
• Learn how people make daisy flower crowns with real flowers, it seems applicable to silk flowers.
• Cut the daisy, like this:

Surprisingly violent.

Cut off the leaf things and it will look like this.

• Now, with daisy chaining, you simply cut a slit towards the bottom of the flower; I thought it would be brilliant to use a seam ripper for this. Getting it to poke through was surprisingly easy. Making a slit was pretty much impossible.

Shockingly (sarcasm), this method failed because plastic and real plants are not the same.

• Give up on this method (preferably after your boyfriend notices what you are doing and as nicely as possible tells you that your idea is not as awesome as you originally thought). You [I] have a tried and true method for making flower crowns anyway. Ok, you [I] have only made one. But, that one time you [I] made a flower crown, Hello Luvvy (here is their much better tutorial) used your [my] picture on Instagram:

Fun fact: this is a blurry picture of what I looked like last year.

• Measure your head and bend floral wire into the shape around your head where you want it to sit (or skip measuring it, just bend it).

It'll look like this.

Mine fit like this.

• You will notice mine needed two pieces of floral wire and I twisted them together; hot glue could probably work to secure it, too.
• Next, give up on those daisies. Clearly, it was their fault for your previous failure. Move on to a different flower.
• Behead these new flowers; mine could just pop off:

Before...

Pop!

• Cut really close to the silk flower part:

Like this.

It will look like this.

• Hot glue the flower to the floral wire.

You probably should craft on a table or something... The spiral on the bed method worked for me, so, there's that...

You can kind of see the hot glue here. You can also see where a plastic flower stem scratched me. This craft may seem dainty, but it is super dangerous. Consider yourself warned.

Finished Product! (Just kidding. I went back and added one more yellow flower that night. It was even across, but the uneven pattern made it look uneven. So that had to be fixed. You can just do it right in the first place.)

• Now go show off! You look great!

Go out, craft, take pictures, and let me know how it goes!

Best,

Rachel

Finals Week

For some reason Instagram makes everything blurry. If you have a solution to fix this, please let me know.

Ah, finals week. The one week a semester when professors forget all about pity. Multiple times this semester I have had professor move back a due date or two because they felt bad that we had so many things due at once. But, then comes finals. You were worried about the two papers I had due two days apart? What about the five finals in four days? Two of which were scheduled back to back. Lovely, I know.

Fortunately, my three most difficult exams are over. And were surprisingly easy (showing that professors still have a soft spot in their hearts for our poor unfortunate souls). I have this habit of procrastinating. For example, I do not make blog posts frequently (because I rarely take pictures), but suddenly it was super important last Friday that I take pictures to make this blog post. The stranger part is Thursday and Saturday, I wore clothes from Goodwill, Friday I did not. That just means I have extra outfits to eventually share.

Now, I have lost my point. Let us regroup. I procrastinate sometimes. Ok, a lot. For example, right now I am working on an "open-note, go ahead and use the internet, just cite everything" final. And what am I doing? Making a blog post. And, if I am willing to make a blog post while actually working on an exam, you can imagine how many random things I did while I should have been studying. This means that right before each final, I was fretting about not studying enough. But, when I left each exam, I thought to myself, "Why on earth did I even bother studying? PSH. Studying had been a waste of time." If only I could think that about every test I have ever taken...

Cool art installation made to look like paper blowing in the wind.

I bought these from a little antique shop. Here is a link to their Facebook page. Also, if anyone wants to buy me the phrenology bust, that would be awesome.

"Tangled" was playing on a large projected screen, so we watched for a bit while eating snow cones. We also took this picture.

This charming robot was in a toy store. My birthday is in a month, so if someone already bought me the phrenology bust, this could totally be a good back-up gift. ;)

The little museum had lots of really weird, creepy, borderline terrifying art. But they also had a neat tapestry (which I unfortunately did not get a good photo of) and fancy shoes. So here are the shoes. Because SHOES!!!

Here is a picture of a mother and daughter. Because it was adorable and not at all scary. Plus mother's day is very soon.

Trees made out of fabric scraps depicting the seasons.

The boyfriend by spring's tree. 

I am wearing a shirt I thrifted while studying abroad this summer (similar), the cardigan I got at a yard sale for $0.25 on my birthday last year (similar), the belt from my mom, pants from Grey Dog (similar-ish), shoes are my poor loafers from Maude, which are falling apart at this point because I have worn them so much (Guys, they still have some left. I am buying another pair.).

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and if you are in the same finals boat: I wish you the best of luck!

Best,

Rachel Cathleen