Random. February 19, 2009

Yikes! It’s been so long since I blogged that they changed the whole interface! I don’t even recognize my control panel!

So I have the flu right now, and I have been creeping around the house this afternoon folding laundry and cleaning the bathroom. I can’t really stand up straight, but Erik comes back tomorrow and my friend Holeigh from California also comes for a visit, so I’m trying to get the house ready. I ate some potato soup but nothing else sounds good at all, and I’m starving. I guess I’m feeling kind of sorry for myself. Can you tell?

Random other thoughts: I’m liking the sound of this $8,000 tax credit the government is offering if you buy a house during 2009. I think Taylor Swift’s music kind of sucks. I need some new crock pot recipes.

How to save money in the bathroom December 16, 2008

If this seems like a weird title for a blog post, I suppose it is, but I’ve been thinking about writing on this topic for a few days now. As I’m sure I’ve made abundantly clear, money is tight for the Willitses right now. So we have been cutting corners where we can, even where I thought there were no corners to be cut. One of those is my skincare products. If you would have told me a year ago that I would no longer have my extensive skincare regime, I assure you I would have laughed in your face. However, ever since I ran out of my alpha hydroxy facewash a month ago and had no money to buy more, I have come to adopt several of my husband’s products that I saw in the shower every day but completely overlooked. These three products work equally well for me as a woman. If you find yourself in the same financial bind, you might want to reach for these unisex favorites.

1) Nivea for Men Energizing Face Scrub
The scrubbing particles are not too large or too harsh, and using this scrub daily really achieves a surprising softness and buffs off all the dead skin. It foams up really well actually and stays cold on your skin for an instant, leaving you with that refreshing feeling that is so important to men. It doesn’t take off my eye makeup too well but overall I love it. 

2) Axe Snake Peel Body Scrub in Desert Minerals
As the commercials insist, this Axe stuff does smell wonderful. And it lathers up quickly, exfoliates your entire body and prevents any nasty bacne. I was freaking out when my organic Nature’s Gate body wash ran out, but now I thoroughly look forward to using Axe. 

3) Irish Spring Micro Clean bar soap
On the days I don’t use Axe Snake Peel, I use my husband’s bar soap with exfoliating microbeads. It smells so fresh you won’t even believe it. I prefer it to Dove or any of the more expensive feminine brands. And soap gives you an all-over clean feeling that you just can’t get anywhere else. 

Save money, ladies. Use your husband’s bath products. You won’t be sorry (except when he finds out and yells at you).

Advent ramblings. December 12, 2008

This Advent season has been filling me with a sort of achy longing. I just long to get outside my body and my all-too-normal life and float up into the starry night and rediscover mystery and prophecy and the folklore of a messiah that feels like the perfect fairytale even today. I want to pretend that Jesus hasn’t been born yet and reimagine the whole thing in my mind. That meditative state is difficult to capture in modern-day America, but I get this feeling that it’s going to slip away completely after the new year. 

This is a special Christmas because it’s my first Christmas with Erik, our first Christmas married. I want to make it magical. I need to do that without money.I’m not really the type to cut snowflakes out of paper or anything like that, and I looked up frugal ways to decorate a Christmas tree but the thought of stringing lots of popcorn together or making gingerbread ornaments seems way too hard. I want to read a manual about how to make your first Christmas together a wonderful memorable experience without having to make crafts. Like, does anyone own a reindeer farm? Or where is there a store that carries only gadgets that 29-year-old men will like? I wish I could knit us matching stockings but all I can see myself producing is a legwarmer. Maybe if I dress up like an elf or bake a lot of cookies? I mean, what is the secret? 

There are some practical details that need to be ironed out as well, such as exactly what time will be spent with my family and with Erik’s mom and how to be fair and all that. I am actually kind of looking forward to the long drive back to the Midwest because I think it will give me a chance to contemplate Advent.

Last night was the first snow. This whole week has been rainy and cold to the point that I haven’t done any work to speak of and sleeping has been my activity of choice. I have always been affected by the weather. Living in California I didn’t have to worry about that. Being back here I have become reacquainted with seasonal affective disorder, which is pretty common and starts with it getting dark at 4:45. Blah. The only good thing about that is that it makes our house seem even more bright and warm and cozy. It’s fun to look out the window at the snowflakes and smell dinner cooking.

Bailey Willits post. October 24, 2008

The need to blog came over me all at once. I was standing in my bathroom realizing that we’re out of toilet bowl cleaner, and the next moment I was like, “I need to blog.” This realization was spurred by the fact that I have been wearing my pink polka-dotted bathrobe A LOT. For example, I wore it for most of the day today. I worked from home this morning and so I stayed in pajamas until about 2:00. Then I got dressed but I kept it on because our house is really cold and we don’t want to turn on the heat because heat. costs. money. So I am totally feeling like one of those old ladies who wanders around the house all day in one of those raggedy housecoats. So because I am becoming one of those ladies, I need to blog about it. I think that is the way I am going to cope with wearing my bathrobe all day. 

Yesterday was really fun. I helped my friend Christi style a photo shoot for a photographer friend. It was a break from the couch action I’ve been getting lately. I got to scurry around and accessorize teenage models. They also had breakfast and lunch catered so every hour I had a snack. 

Tonight Erik and I finished making dinner and I feel too weary to clean up the mess. Why does a simple task drain me of all energy? Yet, I feel like my mind is distracted when there’s clutter lying around. It interferes with whatever clarity of thought I might currently have. I think I will clean it after I finish procrastinating endlessly by writing this post and standing around staring at things. 

My very dear friend Christa has been helping me adjust to the life of a freelancer. Without her I think I would fall into a coma. She has been freelancing fulltime for several years now and recently published two stellar novels–I know they are stellar even though I have still not read them, it’s a true confession, and I’m sorry Christa, I absolutely am going to read them–one called Around the World in 80 Dates and the sequel called Blessed Are the Meddlers. I am inspired by her on many levels and she is my model of what a successful freelancer looks like, if only I can attain it. I just think it’s comforting to know that I am not completely alone in the world, drawing my schedules on big pieces of sketchbook paper with colored pencils.

Tomorrow night Erik and I are volunteering at a wine festival with our friends Emily and Allison. I have quite a bit of experience pouring wine and I plan to put it to good use tomorrow night. Usually they give you free bottles at the end if there’s leftovers so keep your fingers crossed that I leave with a nice Sauvignon Blanc or Reisling.

OK, this is my life right now: I live in Nashville. I am a freelancer. I am clad in a bathrobe. I feel like going to bed right now and it’s not even 10:00. I am married to a wonderful man who does not always agree with me on things and has a very different way of living life, which I am learning does not always have to be the way I live mine. We watched an episode of the Office while we ate dinner and fortunately both of us like the Office very much. We both like meat, hence the pork chops. We like Nashville, hence we are here. See, we do have things in common. No seriously, sometimes I don’t know if my husband is my husband, my roommate, or my friend, and then I figure out that he’s all three and it kind of baffles me. He’s the holy trinity who lives in my apartment. Being married to him comes first above all the other things that I used to do when I lived here. That is taking some getting used to, but I also like being married to him very, very much. Thanks, Erik, for being married to me. I am starting to like that my last name is Willits. It’s like a piece of you is stuck to me and it won’t ever come off.

This is the week when I turn it around. October 20, 2008

I think last week was just a bury-your-head-in-the-sand kind of week. It was my first week in Nashville, and my first week of being unemployed, or that we weren’t driving like it was our fulltime job. As you could probably tell, I felt pulled and pushed and uncertain and frail and I just wanted to get away from it all. What is it all? Oh, you know–the fearful freedom in my schedule, the discovery that both my husband and I forgot our six-month anniversary, the boxy muddle of our apartment, my sad ownership of only five long-sleeved shirts with winter rapidly advancing. And myself, of course, all the treachery of my hardworking little mind. I had myself all tied up in knots before I even left the house to go to the coffeeshop, or my office, as Erik cheerfully calls it. He can’t believe I am not doing better with the whole not working thing. He remembers all the things I hated about working, so he figures I should be like, the happiest person alive. I don’t think the poor man realizes that it’s complicated. When women think they want something, getting it is not guaranteed to make everything OK, and in fact, sometimes it makes it worse. 

Well, before I give up on myself, I am going to give this whole thing another chance. I am going to make myself a schedule and stick to it ruthlessly. I will awaken every morning at the hour of seven thirty. I will do some form of exercise. I will cook. I haven’t felt much like eating lately, so cooking has been kicked to the curb along with exercise. I will section my day into chunks and do only the designated tasks. This is the week I get my poop together, if you get my drift. I’m not going to get mopey and irritable. I am going to be a romantic wife and plan little surprises for my dear husband, who hasn’t eaten very much lately. 

So I had a good weekend, even though Erik was in Indiana on a 30-hour fast retreat. I got three new pairs of shoes at the Goodwill and they are lined up perfectly in the bottom of my closet. I went to a new church and played Scrabble at Fido. I lit candles and put on a CD and made myself all cozy in the duplex that annoyingly still smells like new paint and carpet like nobody lives here. I have to stamp this place with our own smell–in California it was the pomegranate elixir from Pier One. Isn’t that one of the first things you do when you move in? You mark your territory, sort of like a dog. 

I started reading a book called Julie and Julia about a 29-year-old aspiring actress who lives in New York and is married and works a crap job that totally depresses her, so she decides to take on the giant task of cooking through Julia Child’s French cookbook (500+ recipes) in one year. I wish I could find something like that to wrap my life around for the next year, a goal that I could reflect upon and feel worthwhile. I felt worthwhile after I carried all the moving boxes, but the last time I remember feeling thrilled with an accomplishment was several years ago when I scaled a 70-foot wall at a rock climbing facility. Does anyone know what I could do to plump up my self-esteem? Emily suggested that I take on NaNoWriMo next month (National Novel Writing Month) and churn out a book. I said, “But what if it’s bad?” She thinks that I can give myself permission to write a bad book because it’s my first time. There’s only one problem. What if it is bad the second time? 

Goodnight, then. I am ready for week two of being self-employed and fabulous, even if it kills me.