Let me tell you: four years of thinking about what i could do with them was four years too long. Talk about putting pressure on yourself to make something really amazing!

I moved into my apartment last May (I can’t believe it’s coming up on a year!), and I allocated the wall space above my couch to the yet-to-be-created twin masterpieces.

I love geometric shapes and lines, so I decided that I would try using painter’s tape and make something with white lines. I’ve had the tape for a while and every weekend I would tell myself that it was time to just buckle down and paint something.

For some reason, I actually did it this weekend! Yay!

Or not.

It’s not a bad painting per se. It’s not perfect or anything, but there’s nothing terrible about it. But I just don’t love it. It doesn’t really speak to me or have any meaning. This is probably not the best way to introduce something, but I like to be honest.

So, let’s reveal the masterpiece, shall we? (Pardon the photo quality. My cell phone camera is not quite state-of-the-art.)

Step 1 was taping:

I kinda liked the white and blue – it looks very Greek.

Then I painted, and then the fun part came – peeling the tape off!

Not pictured: Me shooing away my cat while the paint dried. He still managed to jump on it – thankfully it was mostly dry by then.

Here’s the final product:

It’s just ok… I think that the paintings are too small for the space and I didn’t do a very good job hanging it. I also do not really like the color – I was hoping for something darker with a little bit more green.

I didn’t really have much of a plan when I started on this. I just started taping a jagged line and then I decided to tape another jagged line parallel to it. It was pretty haphazard and not a lot of thought or passion went it. I’m realizing as I think more about it that it kind of represents my life right now. I’m going through the motions and doing the things that I need to do, but I am not really excited about any of it.

Now the question is what to do with it. I could keep it on the wall and learn to love it. Or I could give it away (does anybody want it? because you can have it. i mean it! just let me know.). Or I could paint over it and try something new. If nobody claims it, I’ll probably go with option 3.

Hopefully it won’t take me four years to come up with a new design.

(Sorry if this post is Negative Nancy. I was just really excited about the painting and then that turned into I’m really not excited about the painting.)

My six days have been pretty meh. I woke up Tuesday with a sore throat and have been sick ever since, but I’m starting to get better so there’s hope. I’m spending my Friday night reading blogs, watching Dateline (seriously I don’t think I’m ever going to get married because every Dateline is about someone’s spouse dying or better yet, someone killing their spouse. color me single please!), drinking a delicious and somewhat healthy banana shake, and taking pictures of my cat:

My handsome man

And he's a cuddler

Can you blame me?

I would like to pretend that I’m only spending my evening this way because I’m sick, but it’s a pretty normal Friday night for me!

I wish I had some sage advice for the New Year, but I’m all out of ideas. This year my goal is to pay off my credit card debt, which is the same goal I had last year. I made some progress on it in 2011, but not as much as I had planned. If I buckle down and barring unexpected expenses (because that NEVER happens), I could potentially pay it all off, which is kind of crazy to think about it – in a good way of course! I’ve felt so enslaved by it for so long, it would be nice to get that monkey off my back. I already have a cat on my back.

I mean … come on … kittens!

KITTENS!

Since it’s a new month, we have a new selection of $5 albums. And since it’s now the holiday season, they have a selection of $5 holiday albums. Or you can buy individual holiday songs for 69 cents.

P.S. I’m really excited Christmas is coming, you guys! I don’t really care about Christmas music that much, but I care about my family Christmas traditions, and more importantly, I care about seeing my family. Living across the county from them kind of sucks sometimes, so I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

For the love of all that is holy, do not buy:

• Trader Joe’s baked blue corn tortilla chips. Since they’re baked, I didn’t expect a flavor fiesta in my mouth – which is good because those “chips” tasted like straight up cardboard (el cardboardo). Barely salted cardboardo at that. Avoid it. Also, while we’re on the topic of TJs, if you buy their avocados, carefully inspect them and if they seem too soft, do not use – I got food poisoning several years ago from it. It was unpleasant and turned me off guacamole for a while – and that is a travesty.
• Lipton Cup A Soup (chicken noodle). I am no snob when it comes to this type of stuff, but this soup, which I just made 5 minutes ago, is really not good. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this cheap as hell instant soup isn’t very good, but let me tell you that Lipton Soup Secrets chicken noodle soup is the bomb. It has been my food staple when I’m sick ever since I was a kid. It is delicious and salty and wonderful. I don’t know what Lipton did to the Cup A Soup. Maybe it was the decision to use “A” instead of “of” that sent bad grammar vibes into the broth? Avoid it.

What say you? What’s your food regret? What should we not buy?

I’m especially excited about the inclusion of Death Cab for Cutie’s new album, “Codes and Keys.” Five dollars!

On the day I moved in, I walked inside and immediately noticed a picture left behind by the previous tenant. It was hanging on the wall, but I took it out of the frame before taking the photo:

It’s really really really not my style. And even if I did like the way it looked, I don’t like wine, so why would I hang ugly pictures of it?

I took the picture off the wall and stashed it in a corner, with the intentions of trashing it later.

A few days went by and I realized that maybe I could do something with it after all. The frame was really flimsy plastic, but it was the right size for that narrow wall between the kitchen and the living room, and the nail was already in place, soooo…..

Since the frame was cheap and I wasn’t sure how it would wind up looking, I decided to frame something inexpensive: wrapping paper! I went to a few card stores, but none of the wrapping paper I found called out to me. Then I went to Target, and lo and behold, would you believe I found something (along with about 10 other things I didn’t intend to buy – you kill me, Target)?

It’s very springy (I can’t even think about summer yet – it feels like it’s never going to happen), and so bright. And did I mention cheap?

I removed the offensive wine picture and used it to trace a shape to cut out of the wrapping paper, and voila!

Close up:

Sorry for the poor photo quality, but hopefully you can get an idea of how it turned out. It’s definitely not perfect. The thin plastic kind of buckles, so it looks like the paper is a little puffy in one spot, but my craft and art projects are never perfect, so it fits right in!

In unrelated news, as I was organizing my CDs, I found a very special album that is near and dear to my heart:

I realized that I never imported it into my iTunes Library because my old Powerbook didn’t recognize it because the CD was so old (the nerve!). My MacBook Pro, however, accepted it like an old friend.

I’ve been listening to this album a lot lately, and reminiscing and cringing at my music tastes as a 10-year-old. Man, I loved Paula Abdul back in the day. She really was my (American) idol. I used to sing along (and dance!) to this album for hours. Now some of the songs just make me laugh, but I still sing along.

My unpacking and organizing music has consisted mostly of Glee songs, the Paula Abdul album, and Justin Bieber. So really I’m still a 10-year-old at heart. A really cool 10-year-old.

But in May, they’re offering 1,500 albums.

You have been warned!

Happy Friday!

A while back, her song “The House You’re Building” was a free download and I really really liked it. And then recently I discovered that her album is only $5 on Amazon. Check it out!

This month is a trial period to see if some of the pain in my abdomen I’ve been having is related to gall bladder stones. This one-month diet is to see if my pain improves and to try to see if gallstones are really to blame. If it is, then I might be able to control it with diet or I might have to get surgery, which is very scary to me. But that’s something that’s out of my hands at the moment, and this next month is just about eating non-fat and watching what happens.

The upside to all of this is that I’ll probably lose weight. For the most part, I eat fairly healthy, but my weakness – my BIG weakness – is sugar, specifically anything that comes from a bakery. Some people crave cheeseburgers; I crave chocolate cake.

My doctor said I should be eating mostly vegetables and fruit, very lean meat, and some carbs. I can have all the calories I want, but I just have to keep it as low fat as possible. I know I’m going to get very sick of chicken and rice and vegetables after a couple days, so if you have any suggestions for healthy non-fat or very low-fat recipes, pass ‘em on to me!

I find happiness in food – probably too much. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying what you eat, but for me, I know that I rely heavily on food to make me happy. So when my doctor said “non-fat diet,” my first reaction was: Yay! No surgery right away! But then my next thought was: Well, there goes my joy in life. And it makes me sad that I thought that. I know that most people’s reactions to a non-fat diet probably aren’t positive either, but I’m still trying to rack my brain about happiness-inducing things and activities I can do to replace eating cupcakes.

As a Christian, I also feel this extra guilt about looking to food for satisfaction. But to be honest, God often feels far away, and that piece of pie is right in front of me and it makes me feel good. I was brought up this way – food is used as a comfort and as a celebration in my family, and I haven’t shaken that. I don’t want to completely shake that either because I don’t think it’s bad that food tastes good, and I don’t think it’s bad that we enjoy food, but there has to be moderation.

I don’t want to be obsessed over food – whether that’s obsessed about eating what I want or obsessed about avoiding unhealthy food. I just want food to be in my life and just be food – to be sustenance and not the only thing I rely on to make me happy. I don’t want to eat food that I don’t think tastes good, but I want life to taste better than what’s on my plate.

So there’s a lot of uncertainty in my life right now regarding my health. My doctor is a bit baffled about what’s going on with me, but I guess we’ll just see what happens. It could be a blessing in disguise though with this change in eating. It’s just a scary blessing.

I wonder what the person who put that up was thinking. Who or what were they missing? I have some theories, but we’ll never really know.

I also wonder why am I so drawn to this. Sure, there’s the fact that someone put up an honest (at least I hope), direct statement of feelings out for the world to see; it’s like PostSecret. It’s attention-grabbing. But beyond that, when I saw this photo, my heart just went YES. I don’t even know exactly what I miss. But I miss something. I miss people. I miss places. I miss some hopes and dreams that got squashed as life happened.

I don’t want to be all “woe is me” as I have much in life to be grateful for, but it’s given me some food for thought. I’m realizing that on the hope-o-meter (picture one of those giant posters for a fundraiser with the thermometer thing showing how many donations have come in), I’m pretty low. I miss those squashed hopes and dreams, and it’s probably time to come up with some new, or least modified, ones.

Now that I’ve bummed everyone out, here’s a song about missing someone. And yes, I own the “Time, Love & Tenderness” album and I quite enjoy it. Ain’t no shame. I will say that it’s probably the only song featuring Kenny G that doesn’t make me throw up a little.

(hey, it’s Teri Hatcher! one of my favorite celebrities with my name!)

And confidential to early ’90s Michael Bolton: Here’s something else you’re missing – a deep conditioner. (You know I still love you.)

Thank you, Internet.

Now is where I insert the obligatory “sorry for not posting much in 2010″ statement. So let’s just move on.

I don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions. They seem destined to fail, and I generally shy away from setting goals anyway. I will say that in 2011, there are two big things I would like to do: make a big dent in my credit card debt and get into a regular exercise routine.

Yesterday (Jan. 1) I paid off one of my credit cards, so that was a good start on the credit card debt. Now I have two cards left – one with a somewhat low amount (depending on your idea of “low”) and one with a really huge amount. I used to hope that I would be credit card debt free by the time I turned 30, but since that’s a mere 8 months away (um… scary!), I don’t think it’s gonna happen. But 31 might be realistic. We shall see how it goes. It seems like every time I start to get up on my feet financially-speaking, the rug gets pulled out from under me – or I pull the rug out myself – but maybe 2011 will be different.

As far as exercise, I need to bite the bullet and join a gym. I’m going to visit a gym hopefully this week and get started on the process. Ugh. I do not like the gym at all. I don’t like exercising, and I really don’t like exercising around other people, but sometimes we have to do things that we don’t like.

I would also like to do more traveling this year, but that sort of conflicts with the whole paying off credit cards thing. Oy. I flew back to Indiana for Christmas (which was great, by the way), but being in airports is kind of painful for me. I still miss California a lot, and it always hurts my heart to get on a plane headed to Washington when I could be on a plane to California instead. So this year I would like to go down to LA at least in the spring and maybe again later in the year.

I like Seattle – don’t get me wrong, but LA is always going to have a special place in my heart. It’s hard for me to watch movies and TV shows set in LA because it makes me homesick. It’s not like I had some amazing fantastic wonderful life there, but I still miss it. The grass is always greener on the other side, I suppose. I’m not sure if I would ever move back, but that’s probably not something I can even consider doing until I get this stupid credit card debt paid off.

What are your goals/hopes/fears/resolutions for the New Year?

I’ve decided that I want to branch out my blog beyond deal-related things. I’m going to keep cutecheapstuff.com because I like it, and I’ll still talk about cute and/or cheap stuff, but I don’t want to be limited to those things.

So that’s the plan. Also, I’m moving in a couple weeks, so I probably won’t be blogging a whole lot right now, but please do stay tuned. Good things come to those who wait, my bloggy friends!

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