Near free– Or, the next best thing!

I have a TON of free clothes, but I also love shopping. Which costs lots and lots of $$$…Enter thrift shopping! Yes, do it, but choose your thrift shops wisely. For example, Value Village does excellent 50% off days (when everyone and their grandmother will come), but I would recommend avoiding Salvation Army for most things, as they are way overpriced.

St. Vincent de Paul’s can be either really scabby or the source of some hidden gems. For example, I was reminded today of a waffle iron my mom bought from them in Sidney about 5 years ago..for the grand, princely sum of $.10–yes, that’s a whole ten cents. And we cleaned it up, and still use it to this day! Fab!

I also liked buying clothes at Liquidation World back when they had better deals than way expired salsa and chips. In Whitehorse, LW was one of the only places you could find some interesting designers (Fidele, Matt & Nat, Suzy Shier, American Eagle, Kenzie) and name brand stuff at ridiculously good prices. You did have to be careful though, as some of the clothes were seriously damaged/busted. So, buyer beware- but I came out with some really great stuff, like a full-length velvet blue zip up winter jacket for $12, a wool full-length zip up jacket for $12, and countless other fun styles, like a short-sleeved black velvet blazer for $12 too.

OH and Terry’s Chocolate Oranges when they were changing the style of the packaging- I bought like, 16 of them for .37 cents each! YEEHAW

It took some thrifty doing, but I managed to continue to grow my wardrobe and outfit styles even while living in the Great White North. Don’t turn up your nose at near-free or thrift–it’s a nice way to explore different styles/cuts of fabric while keeping a close eye on your budget.

Another breezy summer outfit!

Ah summer, the time for pastel colours, casual scarves and capris. Everything in this outfit was free–including the scarf! The top was from a clothing swap in Whitehorse, the capris are from my dear aunt in England, and the scarf is courtesy of a hipster clothing sale, which has a very generous free box. Gotta love ’em!

Mom and Gidget

Animals and other objects

Ugh, so we are not having a good time of it at the funny farm here. My husband ran over his parents dog (she will be ok, is recovering), Mr. Oats is being grabby, nippy and snarky but good to ride, and I think the only good news is that Buster is off his hunger strike! Jesus.

Just another day amidst this miserable drizzle and rain we call ‘spring’ although we are rapidly nearing ‘summer’ which I do believe should be noted with quotations, as though I don’t really believe it WILL be summer at all!

Horseshow number 4 is coming up too. Woo hoo! Hoping for the best- a fun day and we come home happy with each other. That’s my goal for this season: to enjoy the horse I have!

Hunger Strike

We went away for the long weekend, just a quick trip, so we had to leave our dear Buster Bunny at home, and dog went to visit the in-laws farm. And what does Buster do, to show us his displeasure at being left behind for the weekend? Why, a hunger strike!

Yes, Buster has discovered the ultimate animal trump card–voluntarily starving himself. He is no stranger to this, having done it on and off over the past few years to protest the pellets he gets (now only extruded, having dismissed an entire 10-lb bag of regular pellets for so long I was worried he was going to starve to death!)…And periodically he goes on hunger strikes.

And it drives me absolutely crazy. This rabbit…Is the cleanest, most aloof rabbit ever. He is extremely fastidious, hates most people and the dog, tolerates me. BUT continues to go on food strikes. He will gobble down everything in his food dish one day, and then refuse to eat on and off for a month. What to do? He is a cute little fuzz…But still.

 

The adventures of Mr. Oats

I own a particularly goofy pony who loves nothing better than to cause trouble! Case in point: the other day I went to get him out of his paddock, and he was snoozing in his shelter. It was a fairly rainy and chilly day (ugh, for May it was terrible) and he gave me a look like–go AWAY. And refused to get up. I had to walk over, put his halter on while he was still laying there, and physically drag his pony butt upright. With much protesting, I got him over to the crossties to tack up. He loves the crossties because he can really get some action going with the chains…Yes, it’s as loud and hazardous as you can imagine!

Once I had him tacked up, I walked him to the indoor arena and draped his reins over his neck while I tightened his girth. Oats is a curious fellow, so he started browsing around on the floor of the arena’s hogfuel and came across a crop another rider had forgotten. And this is where it gets strange–

He took the crop in his mouth, and proceeded to draw figures in the hogfuel with it! He struggled to make some marks, mostly straight lines as he dragged it through the hog fuel, but he made a half circle as well. He then carried the crop to the mounting block and dropped it, and then picked it up again (like he was changing his mind?) and dropped the crop back where he had picked it up.

So…Oats is maybe trying to communicate something to me? Perhaps that today, I should just consider his feelings and not ride? Let him have a nice afternoon snooze? Hah! I rode anyways, but it was pretty funny and I have never seen him that determined to do something with the crop he had grabbed in his mouth! Such a cutie.

The dressage judge called him a cheeky monkey at the show. hahahah

Mom special- Party dress!

Love this one–a plain t-shirt converted cleverly into a fancy, fun dress for summer. I have worn this to work, to a party, a bbq and more! It’s so comfortable and fun, I love sticking out in a crowd with this one. She also made the little flower brooch/pin too. Fantastic!

Smocked top delight!

Another mom classic–a smocked top made out of a t-shirt (white Stella Artois) with some fancy smocking embroidery. Nice stuff eh?!

The ugly face of beauty

After reading a lot about the wedding industry, and hearing the unpleasant experience a friend had at a local wedding dress shop, I have decided to dedicate this blog post to a special rant about wedding dresses.

First off: The wedding dress boutiques that you have to make appointments for. Why?! Oh, wait, it’s to make their boutique look extra-special, isn’t it? And then when they say they frown upon making multiple appointments with them… The hell?

Secondly: Wedding dresses themselves. Ugh. Poufy confections made of heavily layered polyester (only the finest~) puh-leeze. I tried on several wedding dresses when I was engaged and hated pretty much ALL of them.Yuck. So heavy, so clunky, so awful. Even the ones that looked pretty nice were horrible to wear. Oh, and the stores recommended ordering the dress 11 MONTHS in advance?! Huh? I didn’t even plan my wedding until like 2 weeks out (not recommended. it was kind of a nightmare). I don’t want my dress to be able to stand up by itself, thank you very much! And don’t get me started on the sample sizing…I had to have every dress pinned to me, because it would have fallen straight off. They weighed like 30lbs, and white? Cream? Boring boring boring! My dress, made by my mom, was pink silk, thank you very much, wedding industry brainwashers. Pfft. And I did not take my husbands name either, sooo take that.

Thirdly: This related to the wedding dress. I cannot stand the wedding industry itself. Like any money-grubbing cottage industry (see: clothing and accessories for purse-dogs, babies, yoga, horses), the wedding industry, like the reality TV-term, Bridezilla, has taken on a life of it’s own. And it is monstrous.

To conclude: Weddings are getting kind of out of control, wedding dresses are mostly horrible, and I only enjoy going to weddings as a guest, thank you very much.

Work- for day and for night!

Yet another great outfit courtesy of my mom (and the blouse-type thing is couresty of the sidewalk..those people had great taste!) Dress is black corduroy, sewn by mom.