November on $200 or less

I just returned from another work trip to San Francisco and the Napa Valley area. On the last night of my trip I realized how expensive work trips are for me. When I go on one of these trips I spend all of my free time shopping I find lots of cool things but I really need to slow down on the spending. For example on my San Francisco trip here is a list of what I bought in the short 3 hours between my meeting and picking up my car at the airport - poncho/sweater at Anthropologie, hair stuff at sephora, new boots, a new dress, paper at the paper source, a dress at disIgual, Pastries and misc items at Miette, lunch at the Ferry Building, honey at the farmers market, honey sticks at the farmers market, books and stationary at lola north beach in ghirardelli square, cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes.
Clearly I have a problem. So I am going to see how far I can stretch $200. I am hoping to make it all the way through the month of November. Here are the rules I am going to try to stick by -
Purchase of fuel, medical and home related bills do not count towards the $200 dollars
Any money I make at the farmers markets, holiday sales, or anything I sell on Amazon or ebay or purchases I have made then returned can be added to the $200.00
To accomplish this i am going to have to do without dinners with friends, pass up new clothes purchaes, no massages no hair appointments, no treats for Ruby Foo. Now is the time to use up Cafe Rio free meals, McDonalds Monopoly food prizes and Kneaders points and gift cards.

I am excited to see how far I can take this and how long I can stretch out the $200.

Carzy week of Travel

The week of October 10th was one of the craziest weeks of work travel yet. It started Monday with a flight into Boston, a flight to NYC on Tuesday and then a flight to Toronto on Wednesday night.

Purpose of Trip: Visit 3 customers.

What I read: Vanity Fair and people magazines.
I also picked up what might be my favorite book of the year - You Had Me at Woof. I purchased it in the Boston Airport and could not put it down until I finished reading it late that night in my NYC hotel room. Totally inspired me to work in animal rescue someday.

Favorite Purchase: A few new fun dresses during a fast and furious pop into the new, huge Forever 21 at Times Square. A fantastic coat and a skirt at a store in Toronto that my super cool friend Susan G told me about called Joe Fresh - located in a big grocery chain. Loved it. Other than that not much time for shopping.


Best Thing I ate: Sad but true story - I did not eat anything great - most of my meals were at airport restaurants - yuck..

Inspiration - As always, any trip to Toronto would not be complete without visiting a Chapters or Indigo bookstore. They are one of the customers I usually visit in Toronto. They are basically a Barnes and Noble but with a much larger gift section. I usually spend hours there looking at all of the amazing products and the European magazines. They do such a great job merchandising our products.

Remember for the next trip: Element Hotel is awesome - even though it is next to Port Authority bus terminal. You may walk out onto 8th ave looking for a place to eat and get to watch a girl sitting on the street curb vomiting into the gutter - but I guess that is just part of the charm of staying near Port Authority. They have a roof top terrace that is fantastic.

Freak of the day: Hands down I had the strangest cab drivers on both the way in and the way out of the city. The driver on the way in really wanted to be facebook friends and hang out together in the city. The driver on the way out hated all forms of the US governement, big corporations, the war and on and on - not really sure of 85% of what he said or what I was agreeing with. I am just hoping I did not join some radical extremist group.

Loving life today!

I am in San Francisco looking at the ocean eatting an apple danish
waiting for a meeting to start....awesome day so far.

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

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