On Being a Cheapskate (& loving the earth)

At least once or twice a week, I look down and take stock of my outfit for the day. Almost everyday, I can count on wearing one item that I bought at a thrift store. Sometimes my entire outfit (excluding under-things) is made up of things that were either thrifted or free. I actually love scouring thrift store for lovely things that others have left behind. Case in point: my favorite pair of shoes.

These babies were found at a Goodwill store. I have worn them for three years now, and they are still in decent shape. I like shopping at thrift stores because tons of clothing is tossed aside that is still wearable. I like the idea of buying things at a cheaper price, and buying reused things instead of new.

Thrift stores are not just for clothes. I outfitted our entire kitchen with dishes & glasses senior year of college for under $10 at a Salvation Army store. I always have a list in the back of my mind of things I'm looking for: sugar bowls, wineglasses, candlesticks, Pyrex baking dishes, etc. When I find them at thrift stores I snatch them up. Most of these things are better made and last longer than what I could buy at Target.

While putting our new apartment together, I have often exclaimed, "Craigslist is amazing!" And it's true. Without Craigslist, getting furniture for our apartment would have been much more expensive.

Every piece of furniture in this picture of our living room was purchased from Craigslist. We also bought our vacuum cleaner, nightstands, and microwave from the site.

I like the thrill of Craigslist. Of finding something promising and contacting the seller...hoping to hear from them right away...and going to check out items. This is my favorite because I generally develop a picture of the person in my mind based on their name and email address. It's great to visualize who I will see...and then be completely surprised. I also like that by being a thrifty cheapskate, by default I am demonstrating my love for the earth. Otherwise, we would have bought a brand new coffee table that was just as nice. This way old things continue to be used, and are not discarded in landfills.

Our most recent (and most awesome, in my opinion) find took 3 months to happen. Since we moved in, we've wanted a table for eating meals at, but have a very limited amount of space to work with. Our kitchen has an awkward counter that takes up the space available for a table. So we decided to look for a round table with drop leaf sides, so it wouldn't take up much space, and cleared a space in our office for it. These tables are hard to come by, and way too expensive to buy new (because they are generally solid wood and well-constructed), so I relegated myself to the search. James and I had made several inquiries that all fell through...until this Sunday. Just 5 minutes from our house, we were able to acquire this:

The novelty of having a table hasn't worn off yet. We look forward to dinner not only for delicious food, but also for the chance to use the table. We're looking forward to treating the table to its first Thanksgiving dinner this month.

I am actually pretty proud of being a cheapskate when it comes to buying used clothing, furniture, and other items. It's a practical and fun way for me to feel like I am doing something ecologically sound.


Public Service Announcement: Always be careful when buying used upholstered furniture. I actually prefer Craigslist to thrift stores because you can talk to the person who is selling the items and take a look at their home. Bed bugs are a big problem, so I don't think I'd purchase something upholstered without interacting with the seller.

Things I Have Learned

1) I do not, in fact, hate cow's milk. It turns out that I love cow's milk that comes from happy cows, and just do not care for the taste of watery conventional grocery store $1.99/gallon cow's milk. This means that we drink 1 half gallon of happy cow milk every two weeks.

2) Sometimes, the best choice is the lesser evil. I worked at a member-owned co-operative health food store for a year. I love co-ops. I think they are the best places to buy your food--reasonably priced, small enough to provide excellent customer service and relationships, and good food. However, there are 4 co-ops in the state of CO. None of them are in Denver. So I shop at Whole Foods now, the same company that basically puts co-ops out of business when they move into the same town. I believe this is a better choice than a) using gas to get to a co-op, or b) shopping at a regular grocery store for all of my food (we still buy some things there) to avoid supporting the Whole Foods corporation. Here's the thing: because of Whole Foods I can choose which state my food comes from (and avoid Chilean apples and New Zealand kiwis) and choose locally produced meat. I think this is a better choice than buying food from who knows where made from who knows what at a conventional grocery store. I'm still supporting a giant corporation, but it's the best I can do.

3) Grey weather really impacts my mood. Where is the sun, oh lovely state of Colorado? At least the brilliant red & orange tree outside my window adds a burst of color to the grey sky.

4) I love Smartwool socks. Nothing else keeps my feet as toasty.

5) I will always love waking up naturally with no pressing schedule, as opposed to hitting snooze twice and groaning when the alarm goes off.

Weekend Update

Friday: Semi-hectic morning of work, including teaching one surprise class to a really fun group of kids. Came home to tidy up the house, wash dishes, and make dinner--zucchini fritters & brown tomato gravy. I grated 3.5 c of zucchini that is now in the freezer, just begging to become chocolate chip zucchini cake at any moment. :) In the evening, we had Anna & Brian over for coffee and dessert (hot fudge pudding cake with vanilla ice cream) and games. I was completely destroyed in Ticket to Ride and lost an epic 44 points due to taking a risk too late in the game. Good times.

Saturday: Delicious Waffles (name of the recipe in the church cookbook) in our new waffle maker! Yum. Then we went to the Farmer's Market, and then off on an adventure with Kate. First to Northglenn to buy a Craigslist turkey fryer for James. Not for turkeys, but homebrew. He's pretty happy. Then we went hiking in a Jeffco Open Space, White Ranch Park. Great day for hiking, and it wasn't too strenuous and still beautiful.

Pretty, isn't it?

We don't take ourselves too seriously...

And we found this amazing beetle trying to camouflage on my blue shirt (edit: it's a species of Pleasing Fungus Beetle)

After the hike, James and I were seriously craving pizza, so we made possibly the best homemade pizza we've ever made, using my mom's crust recipe, "homemade" sauce (crushed tomatoes with spices added in), diced sweet orange pepper, spinach, mushrooms, and cheese). We ate while sipping a new homebrew and watching The Office, followed by the movie Adventureland. Both were definitely enjoyable.

Sunday: Woke up at 4 am and couldn't sleep. At 5 am, my chest began to feel tight/heavy, I was lightheaded, and felt like I couldn't breathe deeply. I still feel about the same, but less panicky. I'm assuming it's a lovely combo of sleep deprivation, dehydration (I drank homebrew last night and didn't worry about replenishing water after the hike in the sun), and psychological effects. Hopefully all will improve. We did meal planning, grocery shopping, Community & Parks and Recreation watching, and now James is doing laundry. Our plans to freeze roasted chiles are foiled, as I feel don't feel great, and neither do the friends we were planning to freeze them with. Bummer. Back to work tomorrow, but there's still dinner to look forward to! It might involve the grass fed organic ground beef in our fridge. Thanks for the sale, Whole Foods!

Rehearsal

I still haven't gotten pics from many friends and family, so I don't have many pictures from the day before the wedding, but I do have a few my dad took at the rehearsal dinner. This picture is a good summation of the event--great conversation. The rehearsal dinner was hosted by James' parents in an Amish family's home. What incredible food! The majority of the produce came from the family garden (my kind of place :). Let me re-create the menu for you:

Salad, homemade bread w/ apricot pineapple or raspberry rhubarb preserves, chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, homemade buttered noodles, green beans, marshmallow fluff, and peanut butter, fresh raspberry, and fresh peach pie. Heavenly. The food was amazing, we all ate our fill, and enjoyed just being together.

Friday morning started out like my favorite kind of Goshen morning--at everyone's favorite greasy spoon breakfast place, the County Seat. Before James and I started dating, we met for several friend dates there, eating breakfast and chatting. So it was really awesome to return on the day before our wedding. This time we invited James' parents, Drew & Justine, and my mom (b/c my dad and brother weren't in town yet). Delicious. I ate eggs and homemade raisin toast & a few bites of the famous fritz special from James' plate. :) Yum.

Then we went separate ways to unload stuff at the cabin/set up the church. When I arrived at the church, there were quite a few there to help. James alerted me that one of the sanctuary's windows was broken. He approached me a little hesitantly, not knowing how to tell someone about a broken window in the very same place we were getting married. But I just suggested putting a plant in front of it. We all spent a decent amount of time picking up glass shards to make sure no one cut their feet, and within 20 minutes one of the church members was cutting plywood to fit in the window. It looked fine. I got so overwhelmed at this point b/c it seemed so real, finally. All these people were there to set up the church for us. So I hugged everyone, and we got everything set up, from the candles and vase on the altar to the rows of chairs to the hymnals in...45 minutes! Awesome.

We went to the cabin to meet the rental delivery guys, and to watch in awe as they raised a huge 50x70 foot tent in the air. When it didn't fit in its original spot, the guys were a bit apprehensive, but were reassured when James' uncle jokingly yelled, "The bride says it's ok!" I couldn't be bothered to care too much.

James and I snuck off to eat Chief ice cream for lunch. Mmmm...mint chocolate chip.

We checked into our completely lovely B&B right on the Millrace, then went back to the church to figure out the reserved seats for everyone so we were prepped for the rehearsal. Then I went off to do a makeup trial with my cousin at another cousin's house. Fun to hang out with them and even got to catch a glimpse of my first cousin once removed, Roman.

The rehearsal went so well! James and I came early to let our musician friends in, and almost cried 5x when we heard our processional song, "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys, sung by two housemates of mine and accompanied on guitar by one of James' housemates. [As an added bonus, Pink Menno used this song for a video they made--one subtle way to sneak in our Pink Menno convictions/involvement] They practiced together for the first time that day, as they live in Virginia, Alaska, & Indiana, respectively. Amazing. When we practiced, I think we all teared up. So beautiful. Everything seemed so organized. It was great to have another good friend, Sarah, help get the processional organized and properly timed. Yet another time that our amazing friends shined!

Then off the rehearsal dinner, followed by James and I a) forgetting gifts we still needed to give out at the rehearsal dinner location and b) realizing that I should probably pick up my dress from my aunt & uncle's house. Finally, we got to the B&B and James headed to a bar downtown for his bachelor time, and I hung out at the B&B with my amazing women. We had a great time. I hadn't seen many of them in a year (since Kyle & Christy's wedding), but it just seemed normal to be all together again. Lovely. They put me to bed with a full body massage, and played rock paper scissors to see who got to sleep in the bed with me. :)

Wedding Week

Earlier today I thought, "Wedding re-caps aren't going to be so difficult. This isn't a wedding blog, so I don't have to share every little detail." But now I am realizing that I don't want to bore people, either. So I'll do a few posts, and publish them slowly, so those of you who do actually read this won't be suddenly overwhelmed with posting. :)

Today's theme is the week leading up to the wedding. It was busy, do not let me kid you, but it was also wonderful. I'm so glad we got married in Goshen (where we both went to college) because it was like coming home. Our to-do list was multi-faceted: 1) the things we had to do for the wedding, and 2) the things we had to do because we were in Goshen. List #2 included entirely too many restaurants to visit (we were forced to eat double scoops of Chief ice cream for lunch on Friday), coffee shops to go to, and people to see. We completed almost everything on both lists. Just walking around downtown Goshen made me grin. We also got to stay with Zeb & Sarah at their new apartment, which was awesome.

On Monday we did 30,000 errands, and even managed to get a marriage license (we forgot we needed cash, so we had to try twice).

Tuesday was also a lovely day. We met with our officiant, Doug, who was James' pastor at the church he attended in Goshen, to go over the ceremony. We went through all the details of the service: who stands where/where are the mics/who has the rings/who reads from where/when do we sit & stand/etc. Then, Doug asked us to tell him more about our relationship. James and I spent about an hour recounting the story of our dating life, including our first date and the craziness that was student teaching, making a documentary, and starting a new relationship. We talked about breaking up when James studied in the Dominican Republic, and how he spent 6 months in total in far away Latin American countries. We discussed the move to Denver, etc. It was so, so cool, and made everything so real. We looked at each other, grinning happily, when we left. I think we both felt that we had a deep history together that will only improve in our marriage.

Are you looking at the flowers in this picture? You should be. They are gorgeous. One of my favorite wedding-related tasks was driving up to Michigan to pick out the flowers for the wedding. We chose to buy our flowers from an organic (but not certified) farm called White Yarrow Farm. They sell produce and flowers at the Goshen Farmer's Market. It was important to me to choose flowers that were actively growing in the area at that time of year. It was so cool to go up to the farm and see our flowers growing in the ground! So many beautiful colors!

Thursday morning, James and I looked at each other and realized there wasn't a single item on our list that we could do until Friday. So we went to Goshen and hung out with friends outside the Brew. As I mentioned earlier, we didn't really feel that stressed over the week--couldn't really figure out what to stress about, and most people were shocked to see our level of calm. I guess we did a lot of organizational work before hand. We also didn't feel the need to micromanage every tiny detail. I had a lot more fun at my wedding because I didn't care too much.

As this post has gotten too wordy, I will leave Friday to it's own post. Look for one more on the ceremony, one on the reception, and possibly one on general wisdom/thoughts. Thanks for reading!

Home

Reason #587 that I live in Colorado: Right now there is a pretty serious rainstorm outside with decent thunder. There is a dark cloud over the top of my house. On either side of that dark cloud, there is bright blue sky, sun, and clouds. Even a rainstorm includes sunshine!

i who have died am alive again today

Why hello, blog-world! I'm just writing a quick post to let you all know that I am not, in fact, dead. Here's what I've been up to:

Number of states visited: 6

Number of miles traveled: 3643 (Yes, we need another oil change. It lasted 1 month.)

Needless to say, I have been slightly busy. I left Denver in mid-July and traveled to the following places:
Kalona, IA
West Unity, OH
Shillington, PA
Goshen, IN
Angola, IN
Omaha, NE

There was first a family reunion in PA, followed by fanatic wedding prep in OH, followed by said wedding in Goshen, IN.

And what a wedding it was! I will devote at least one real post to the wedding, but it's taking some time to process. I hate hate hate using the word 'perfect,' but our wedding was seriously just that. Yeah, it rained in the morning and my carefully prepared reception set-up didn't go just as planned and there was a broken window at the church--but it was perfect. The ceremony is vividly sewed to my mind, and I remember almost every detail. The church was filled with gorgeous singing and people, vivid flowers & paintings. My cheeks ached from smiling. I apparently hit the microphone in my eagerness to kiss my new husband. The reception was beautiful and the food was delicious--I actually ate it!

James and I were completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from our family and friends. A few weeks before the wedding, we sent out an email detailing how folks could help out, where to meet, and when. I wasn't really sure if anyone would show up. But oh my goodness, did people show up! We had so much help and everything came together like a dream. I was almost crying because it took approximately 30 minutes to set up the chairs in the church b/c everyone was calmly and diligently helping. The morning of the wedding I was at the cabin with Lindsy to put my bouquet together. At 8 am (!!) around 10 people showed up to move chairs and tables. TEN! And more just kept coming! During the ceremony, we stood at the front of the church for the last hymn, and it was amazing to look across the congregation and know that each person was there for me and James. Amazing.

Also, James and I were both pretty much eerily calm the entire weekend. We got to Goshen on Monday, and got a TON of stuff done. By Wednesday, we had 3 hours to sit around at the library and veg out. On Thursday morning, we looked at each other and could not think of a single thing we HAD to do. So we went to Goshen and sat outside the Brew with friends, just hanging out, laughing and talking. Periodically someone would say, "You're just sitting here. You're so calm. This is amazing!" And it was amazing. Every person we met said, "You seem pretty calm for getting married on Saturday." And then James and I would look at each other and think, "Is there something we're missing? Is there something we should be stressing about?"

We never thought of anything.

I'm not trying to say "We were perfect blah blah no stress blah." But we did not feel the need to take control of everything. Vendors stared at me when I said, "I don't really care. Do what you think would be best." 'I don't care' became my mantra the week before the wedding. Oh, the tent's not in the spot we wanted, but I don't care. It's raining on the morning of my wedding-where's the umbrella? Otherwise, I don't care. Apparently this is crazy wedding talk. Apparently I was supposed to be stressed out and focused on every teensy, bitsy detail. Earlier in the wedding planning, I was afraid I would be stressed about everything. But I wasn't. To any future brides who might possibly be reading this, know that there is hope.

The wedding was beautiful. Now real life is beginning. James and I were pretty grumpy while driving back to Denver. But literally, we drove into Denver and started to smile. And we have been crazy happy ever since. Denver is home. We're working on making our apartment look like a home as well.

Now I have officially written enough. I'm off to look for books and DVDs at the library. More wedding posts soon, I hope!