Yes, I went thrifting again - April 25, 2012

I have a feeling these posts about my thrift store finds are nobody's favorite posts but mine, but I enjoy them so you shall DEAL WITH IT.

Yesterday I swore I wouldn't buy much and would focus on the few things I did need. I got a bit distracted, but I had a wonderful day hanging out with Amy and just trying things on, figuring out my new body and new size, and spending not much money at all. Also, randomly, it seems like my feet also lost weight - I apparently have gone down a half shoe size. Go figure.

On with the photographic evidence!

First store, the infamous (if you're a regular reader of my blog, anyway) Humane Society. I spent $12 total there for all of the below:

I think I have enough jeans now. Maybe. Er...you'll see. These were the priciest item I bought at the store - two whole dollars! Hehe.

This skirt is adorable - and it has built-in shorts. At first I thought that was a bit...toddler-y. Then I realized it was fantastic. The skirt is a tiny bit shorter than I usually wear - and it doesn't matter! Whee!

Running skort! I was looking for one of these. At least I can see if I like running in something like this for a small investment and then decide if I want to buy a new one. 

Converse All-Star shirt with cute little blue stars.

Fun skirt. I seem to be focusing on browns this spring/summer - I'm on a quest for (new) brown dressy sandals!

Amy has the magic when it comes to finding Thrashers gear. Sigh. This one fits my husband better than it fits me - we can share.

Running shirt.

I'm kind of undecided on this, but Amy convinced me to get it. It's a velour-y/terrycloth beach coverup thing. It's definitely cute and soft and fits. I'll try it out at the pool this summer.

Shirt for the kid. Hard Rock Munich. I'm not big on the Hard Rock shirt thing, but the design (click to see it bigger)  was really cute.

Ladybug pants for the kid.

Old Navy skirt-with-shorts for the kid. Cute design, fun for the summer.

Next up, Value Village. I've said this before, but I used to be a Goodwill-only girl. Then Goodwill jacked up its prices to what I consider to be high-for-a-thrift-store (but still not awful, especially if they have something specific I want - and still cheaper than new!) and Value Village became more appealing. I like that they price things individually, which means you can find a great bargain - especially if you catch a half-price color (their half-price days are also great, though I haven't been to one in a while). The downside is that they INSIST on stapling the tags to things - often creating holes where holes did not need to be created. They also don't have fitting rooms, so you either have to dress creatively (I used to wear skirts with leggings so I could try on pants, but I haven't really had the energy for that lately) or pull things on over clothes (done that) or just take guesses (which I hate - even a dollar on something that doesn't fit and can't be returned is still a wasted dollar). But still. I like Value Village.

Jeans identical to the ones I was wearing yesterday. $5.29, but half-price color = $2.65, hooray!

A bit of a risk on these denim capris as they're Old Navy and my size, but they're also from a few years ago. Old Navy is *terrible* about both vanity sizing and changing what their sizes mean every so often. But I think they'll be OK. $4.29.

Soft T-shirt. Faux vintage! $2.29.

I went back and forth on this shirt but decided it was cute (the letters and stars are sewn on). $2.29.

Favorite find of the day, and I wasn't even going to try it on but Amy convinced me. $5.29 and really hard to get a good picture of it, but it's brown and turquoise and super duper cute. I may even consider posting a picture of me *in* it!

After that, we checked out a new-ish small store and bought nothing (GASP). Finally we hit another super secret local spot. Everything below was $3 - pretty much all of the clothing there is $3 unless there's a sale or something. Also, everything I bought with one exception was a Target brand. It's not what I usually prefer to do, but I liked everything I picked out and while I did score a tank top for $3 at Tarzhay last week due to sale plus coupon bonusness, most of the time even Target prices just aren't THAT low.

I didn't have a plain brown shirt that fit me in my wardrobe. I have lots of newly purchased brownish skirts though, so I fixed that situation. The shirt is a Converse shirt that I'd seen at the store a few times and always passed up. Today I gave in to its charms.

More jeans - see? I should be done now. Except I'd like more skinny jeans - but I probably won't be wearing that style in the summer so it can wait. The top pair is more denim capris - I'm maxed out on those too. Mossimo all around. 

Cute floofy skirt. IT IS THE SUMMER OF SKIRTS.

Also, I blew off tracking Weight Watchers points at dinner and instead ate queso and chips with abandon (and then didn't eat the tortilla on my spinach quesadilla to sort of balance that out). It was too cold to run on Monday (read: I'm a total wuss) so I'm playing catch up today on that too - but the scale still smiles upon me and I'm feeling good about my ability to maintain the weight loss despite reading a scary article that said that pretty much nobody ever manages to do so. EXCEPT ME.

And I drove today for the first time in quite a while and it confirmed that a) I am a perfectly capable driver and b) I HATE DRIVING SO MUCH. But at least I do it? That's a step. The next step is calling the therapist whose phone number I now have sitting in my email inbox.

And we're working on getting the kid set up with hippotherapy. And I find it amusing how many of my friends thought that involved hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) - it doesn't, it's horseback riding therapy. I have high hopes for it (and the kid isn't afraid of horses! and loves them!) so cross your fingers.

The Second (5K) Goes Down a Little Easier - April 14, 2012

This morning I woke up way too early in the much too cold (oh how my blood has thinned since I moved from Massachusetts to Georgia - it's embarrassing!) to run my second "official" 5K.

I mean, I ran a 5K on Wednesday and hit a personal best, but I was all by myself so apparently that doesn't count.

Today's 5K will probably be my last race for some time. It cemented that I simply do not like racing against anyone but myself. It wasn't a fluke - I still don't like the crowds, the jockeying for position, the unknown route (yes, yes, I could have gone before the race and learned the route - for various reasons, that wasn't feasible either this time or last time). I also don't like feeling competitive in a situation in which I am simply not a competitor (yet) - racing brings out my "I am not good enough" feelings for a minute, before I realize that I have been running for a mere 11 weeks - and nine of those were the Couch to 5K program. I have only been running three miles at a time for about three weeks, and I still can't even run that without walking (but never stopping and always walking as fast as I possibly can when I take a break for about 10 seconds at a time).

That said, and despite the fact that today's race was on an uphill incline for much of it, so I walked, I still hit my best time ever. Did I win or place? Nope. Did people I know beat me handily? Yup. Did I run a 9:21 mile? Heck yes. Did I run a 5K in less than 30 minutes? 29:10.

I am doing this for exercise - to improve my body inside and out. My next goal is to run 12 miles a week for a while. At the moment I'm at 10. I'll do 10 for another week (or more, if I feel like it). Then 11. Then 12. I don't actually want to run a 10K or a half-marathon or a marathon. I don't want to run for that distance or that length of time. But I do want to be able to run as fast as I can for three miles. I would love to run an 8 minute mile. I think I might be able to do that sometime, if I stick to this.

But I also want to mix it up. This summer is going to be hot and I probably will switch to DVDs and indoor activities for a while (and playing at the pool). I am a runner, I feel strong, I feel proud - but I don't think my goals are the same as most runners.

Then again, I might get annoyed enough to train for a marathon, just to prove the haters wrong. I've done that before...

Go me.

I started uploading one picture a day to 365project.org/marlatiara - usually one that I also upload to Instagram. There's no real reason why I'm doing both, except that I am. Feel free to look.

Spring Break recap, Instagram, Pinterest, and beyond - April 9, 2012

Last week was very very difficult. Luckily we managed to have plans for at least part of most of the days off from preschool, but my daughter is going through some amazing moves forward and so her behavior has taken a dive. Saying more words/sounds = having more tantrums. Standing unassisted for longer and longer periods of time = having more tantrums.

But in the middle of it all, Instagram was released for Android and I did a little happy dance. Look, I'm pretty much an Apple fangirl. I have a MacBook that is now held together with spit, twine, and hope (anyone who wants to buy me a new or new-to-me one, please feel free-and no, I am not joking). I have an iPod Touch (sadly, a generation or two before a camera was added, but I still use it pretty much daily). My daughter has an iPad2. If I could afford to have an iPhone, I very likely would strongly consider it. I can't. I couldn't figure out how to make that work at all budget-wise. But I could afford an inexpensive ($50 on Black Friday!) Android phone (an LG Optimus V) on a pay-as-you-go plan (Virgin Mobile - $45/month for 1200 minutes - which I never come close to using, so might drop this plan down to a cheaper one - plus unlimited everything else). (I like parentheses.) (A lot.) (I'm sorry.) In any case, I have been intrigued by Instagram for forever and even installed it on the iPad but didn't really use it there - now that it's on Android (AND can move to the SD card - my little phone doesn't have much internal memory but I have an 8 gig card...) I'm using it daily.

You can add me on Instagram - I'm marlatiara. You can also follow me at ink361.com/marlatiara. At the moment I'm using it mostly to be silly and to try things out and play around. I confess, I've always wished to be a great photographer. I don't know why I didn't pursue it further - perhaps my short attention span headed me off at the pass. I am NOT going to become a great photographer using Instagram, but I can pretend.

ETA: Me and my big mouth. Facebook bought Instagram. I really believe that's why the Android app finally appeared - it likely was the final piece of the acquisition puzzle. We'll see what happens now. PicPlz is almost identical (I like some of the filters better, actually) so feel free to find me there too (marlatiara) and I'll see what I do with what I do.

Other Android apps I like for photo editing and/or photo manipulation: Pixlr-o-matic, ActionSnap, FxCamera, Vignette, Retouch, Photo Grid. All are free, all can move to the SD card, and all seem to work well with Instamatic. I also bought IncrediBooth for the iPad (using an iTunes gift card I earned from one of my various earning sites) and ADORE it - that app makes me wish for an iPhone again...or a phone with a front-facing camera.

(And for some speech therapy needs, I just bought an inexpensive laminator, but I'm already also plotting to make things with these new filtered, tweaked, silly pictures too.)

(And speaking of SD card, yes now the ENORMOUS Weight Watchers app can supposedly move there, but I attempted it and it was fail fail fail. I'll have to continue to use the mobile web version on my phone and the far-superior app on my iPod until WW moves into 2012 with the rest of us. Ahem. Streamline that app and make it actually WORK when it moves to the card, would ya?)

Oh and I'm now two months into being a Lifetime member and things are going swimmingly, though Passover has been challenging so far. I'm almost eating too little in fear of eating too much, but I have a whole week to navigate this challenge and then to move on. I have a list of recipes and a fridge full of fresh fruits and vegetables, I'm OK. BUT I DIGRESS.

I'm also on Pinterest, if I haven't mentioned it yet - I'm marlatiara there too (notice a theme?) and you are welcome to add and follow me. Alas, the influx of ridiculous spambots over there (WHY? WHAT IS YOUR POINT, SPAMMERS?) has made me wary of following back, but I'm pretty good at spotting a real person from a fake one so go for it. I pin recipes (healthy-ish, vegetarian, low calorie, some indulgences), DIY projects, fitness tips and inspiration, and more.

Are you on Instagram? Are you on Pinterest? Any other sites/apps that you want me to check out?