Chapter 337: Material Girl

Okay, so tonight’s blog is going to be a little different than a lot of my blogs because there is one central theme that I am going to focus on here: Money. The reason I am making this the central theme for tonight’s blog is because it was kind of the central theme of my day, in a lot of ways. I don’t normally blog about money much because it isn’t generally a huge focus in my life, in general, but today it definitely was. Before I start on all of that, though, I did want to make a little mini-announcement about the remaining 28 days of this blog. You may have noticed the fact that I showed some restraint with yesterday/this morning’s blog by not just doing a video blog while I was drunk and being done with it. There are a couple of different reasons for this. First of all, after a few recent nights out where I came home and filmed myself practically passing out or just being completely belligerent, I have decided that it is simply not a good idea to film and edit videos of myself while I am in that type of state. I am a classy guy, in general, and posting up videos of myself in that type of state is simply not conducive to maintaining this concept of myself, in the minds of the people who read this blog as well as in my own mind. So, that is something that I don’t really have a desire to do again moving forward. The other reason for this is because I decided a couple of days ago, when I was talking about only having 30 days left of the blog, that I am not going to do anymore videos as a part of this blog. This decision is simply in the interest of making the best use of the little time that is remaining on this blog. Video content will wind up being a very big part of both of the new blogs I am starting after this one ends, though. I just feel like, as this blog winds down, I really want to get back to the core of what this blog was intended to be and where it all began. So, there will be no more video content on this blog moving forward. It is all about the plain text from here on out! I know that a few people will be happy to hear this, and a few people will probably forget that this blog exists because they only ever pop in for the videos. Either way, though, this is what I feel like doing with this blog.

So, on Wednesday night I had a fairly long conversation on the phone with my Mom while she was still at her boyfriend’s house. We just took that time to catch up a little bit, which was nice, but also used that conversation to discuss a few different things that needed to be discussed. I caught my Mom up on my boy situation and discussed my Halloween party with her and sorted out her plans for that time, (she will be at her boyfriend’s house that weekend.) One main thing I needed to talk to her about, though, was money. You see, October is one of those really exciting months that happen to have 3 paydays fall within it. The way we had initially plotted this out was that I would simply pay half of my rent and utilities and such out of the first paycheck and half out of the last paycheck, and simply not have to pay anything out of the one in the middle. After the spending I did over the weekend and such, none of which was all that excessive, I was in a position where I felt like I really shouldn’t be spending any more. Then it dawned on me – what if I paid a quarter of my rent this paycheck and a quarter out of the middle, then half out of the third. This seemed like an absolutely perfect plan to me but I wasn’t sure how my Mom would feel about that or whether or not she would need the full half we had initially discussed at this point. So, when I talked to her on Wednesday I asked her about it and she agreed that this would work out well. What this actually wound up meaning to me was that I had a whole lot more money than I had initially counted on and, as is often the case with “extra” money that I have, it began burning a hole in my pocket. I spent a fair bit of it yesterday evening but still had quite a bit extra.

I had been looking around on the Stila website quite a bit over the past few days, as well as Beauty Crunch, trying to see if there was anything that really popped out at me that I felt like I absolutely had to have but nothing in particular was sticking out to me. That was the case, anyway, until I saw a post on my Facebook news feed from Stila about this product that I thought was completely discontinued and no longer available, beyond coming from Ebay or something. This was Stila’s Jewel Eye palette, a palette of four eye shadow shades with extra shimmer and glitter in them, perfect for a night out or any sort of event where you need to be a little extra sparkly and showy. I had seen this item on Ebay and such a few times but find it really hard to trust cosmetic products from there. So, when I saw this post from Stila saying that they were bringing it back temporarily but only had less than 100 left, I knew I had to jump on it! Fortunately, I managed to get in before they ran out and I am now freaking out with excitement over this product. Like I said, it is four extra shimmery and glittery eye shadow shades – a pink with silver sparkle, called Rose Quartz, an eggplant color with champagne colored sparkle, called Amethyst, a black with silver sparkle, called Black Diamond, and champagne color with silver and gold sparkle, called Golden Topaz. They are really gorgeous colors and I saw a lot of great reviews of this palette on YouTube and had kind of become obsessed with the idea of having it for myself. Fortunately for me, soon I will! Speaking of Stila, I received a package at my door today from Beauty Crunch, which consisted of Stila’s recent “Step Out & Shine” color collection. This is a gorgeous set of purple/plum colored items, including an eye shadow quad that I had no idea I was getting. It was not included anywhere in the item descriptions or anything but it was in the package. The main things I was psyched out in this package, though, were a new Convertible Color in Orchid, which is a pretty dark, reddish plum color and Stila’s Pomegranate Crush Lip & Cheek stain, which is also a reddish plum color and looks kind of gorgeous on me. I spent a good deal of time today playing around with these products, as I often do when I receive new makeup in the mail.

It was late in the afternoon, around 4pm, when my Mom finally arrived home. She called in sick to work again today because she was still really sick, and it was evident when seeing her. Still, there was a small bit of running around that we needed to do, like getting the money out of the bank for the quarter of my rent that I was paying today. I did something that I hadn’t done in a very long time when we did this running around, actually – I left the house without ANY makeup on. I know some people, women mainly, would find this kind of liberating or something but to me it was awful. I even had to stop by my work to drop something off to my sister and I spent the entire time I was there trying to cover my face. We also went to Walgreen’s because my bank doesn’t have a lot of locations in the area but they have ATMs in every Walgreen’s location, and I needed to replace a few products that I was nearly out of, like my daily moisturizer and my Clean & Clear Makeup Dissolving Facial Cleanser Wipes. While we were at Walgreen’s I spent a little time going through their makeup section, as well, to see if there was anything there that really popped out to me but nothing really did. You see, even with buying myself the Stila Jewel Eye palette and paying my rent, I still had quite a bit of extra money and it was still burning a hole in my pocket. Still, I didn’t pick up any new drugstore brand makeup while at Walgreen’s. I did make two Starbucks runs during the time that we were out, though, which cost around $10.

Once we got back home, my Mom and I watched this week’s episode of “Glee,” because she was out of town and hadn’t gotten to see it yet. We both sat there and bawled our eyes out. The rest of my day, for the most part, was dedicated to sorting out my Halloween costume. Sometime last week, while just dicking around and drawing at work, I came up with a Halloween costume design that I kind of fell in love with. The main part of this costume is the makeup, which required that I order a product that I have been coveting for ages now but could never bring myself to actually buy – the Burning Heart palette by Sugarpill Cosmetics. Sugarpill Cosmetics is a pretty new company and there has been a LOT of buzz around their products, particularly the fact that they make matte pressed eye shadows that are pigmented to an insane degree. A few weeks ago, the last time I saw my friend Whitney, she was wearing some of their stuff and it looked AMAZING. So, I went ahead and ordered this palette because it has the absolute perfect colors that I need for this costume. Plus, this palettes consists of four eye shadows – a bright, true orange, a really bright, pigmented yellow, (which tends to be hard to find,) a blue-toned purple and, most importantly, an honest-to-God true red eye shadow, which I can’t ever seem to find in a decent quality. I am extremely excited to use these colors for my Halloween costume, as well as to use them in day-to-day life. Like I said before, I saw Whitney using the colors from this same palette and it was insane – it was like you would get distracted when talking to her because of the colors on her eyes. I absolutely loved it! Aside from ordering that palette, I have been scowering the internet for the clothes that I need for the costume, as well, which basically consists of “club wear” type clothing but in specific colors. You see, my Halloween costume is going to be a really chic, glammed out devil. As I said, the makeup is kind of the main focal point but I will also need horns and a tail, maybe a pitchfork, and a sexy red outfit. I am really excited to see what I can make of this concept – I think it is going to turn out to be a LOT of fun.

Anyway, it is Saturday morning now – I got really tired while writing this blog last night and had to go to sleep. So, like I said, I was spending money yesterday, which is always a fun thing to do when you know you have the money to spend. I love that feeling. Today my Mom and I are headed down to Fort Myers for my brother’s baby shower. I am not actually invited to the baby shower but I am going to go down and spend the day with my brother while my Mom does the whole baby shower thing. It should be cool. I always have a good time hanging out with my brother. The thing is – it is 11:40am right now. My Mom had to work until noon and is kind of expecting me to be ready to go when she gets off, so I can’t really say a whole lot more here because I need to be getting myself ready to leave the house. So, I’m going to get to that. Have a great day!