A Blonde's Blog

So the plan has changed! I’m not moving to Pac Heights, or even staying in my current apartment. Instead, I’ll be moving into a tiny shoe box near the lovely Dolores Park. I don’t really know why I made this decision, but I did and its final, so not point thinking on it too much.

As many of you know, I don’t deal well with change, and am freaking out a little bit (a lot) about moving into a new place approximately the size of my current kitchen (not an exaggeration). But, I’m trying to focus on the positives such as: Do not need to buy large furniture (more money to pay the rent that is strangely a lot MORE than what I pay now), can walk around in underwear any time (note to self: buy cuter underwear), can make a big mess everywhere and never clean it up, walk in closet (ironic), right by Man Shelf of DoLo, can watch TV whenever I want, can have strange men over all the time (jk mom and dad), laundry room in the basement, the list goes on and on.

Here’s what I’ve been doing for the last week:

Making a dollhouse of my new place to try to figure out how furniture can fit in it. Note the size of the ENTIRE APARTMENT relative to my bed.

Packing. How is it that you always have about 50 times as much stuff as you think you have?

Stay tuned for pics of my new digs…possibly with stuff just sprawled everywhere since I have a ton of it and no furniture to speak of!

I’m back! But I’m not apologizing. Don’t act like you didn’t know I was the least consistent blogger ever.

They say that the first step to overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem. So here it is, world: My name is Kate, and I’m an online shopping addict. I love the rush I get when I find a coupon code. I love ordering items in multiple sizes and getting free return shipping on the ones that don’t fit. I love clicking that “place order” button almost as much as I love it when I see the delivery guy at work heading towards my desk (yes, he knows me by name).

But I’ve resolved to make a change!  See, I’m been trying to spend less this month. Trying really hard, because Christmas was a doozy, and I just booked a vacation to the Dominican Republic. My credit card could use a rest, so I need to cut back on unnecessary expenses, like manicures, laser hair removal, chemical peels, and yes…online shopping.

Unfortunately, this is the week that I am “in between jobs.” My current team has already replaced me, but the new team wasn’t quite ready for me to start, so I’ve been sitting at my desk bored out of my mind- splitting my time between staring into space, napping, and watching James Franco videos on Funny or Die.

But these free time wasters can only satisfy you for so long…I couldn’t resist the urge to do some online shopping this week. What’s a girl on a budget to do? I couldn’t indulge in my usual online purchases (shoes and face crap) so instead…I bought a  ton of cheap electronic accessories! Wait until you see these deals. Seriously. You will want to fire up eBay and get like 100 chargers for $4.

It started innocently enough. I needed a charger (or two) for my Nexus One phone. They’re like $25 if you buy them at a reputable retailer, so I chose instead to get two for $7.23 (I love you eBay).

Then I remembered that I haven’t been able to use my GPS for a month because THAT charger broke. It was literally $1.00 on eBay. Clearly this is a product that’s being produced by a 4 year old in China, but…ONE DOLLAR!!!! Come on.

Then Jill had the brilliant idea of buying a cable to hook her COMPUTER up to her TV (what will they think of next). I wanted to do that TOO (because I copy everything Jill does), but was not about to shell out $30 on the apple store brand. What am I? Made of money? I don’t THINK SO: my price point was $2.99. Luckily, there was an eBay seller to satisfy this need.

Though I’m not officially still on my team at work, I decided to show support for them by attending a meeting about our Q4 performance. SNOOZE FEST! What could I do instead of paying attention? Remember the Nexus One phone? Yeaaaah, I lost the case it came with and really needed a new one. *boop boop beep boop* (that’s the sound of me pulling up eBay). It was only $4.85 FREE SHIPPING. *buy it now*

It was getting out of control. I was about to call the eBay addicts anonymous helpline…when I managed to think of something (semi) productive with my time. I browsed over to Lifehacker! Great! I’m going to learn lots of nifty things and read about tech gadgets that will make me sound smart to my new boss! Unfortunately, they were featuring this AWESOME laptop stand. ON SALE FOR ONLY $5!!! You know I can’t pass up a deal like that.

Now I’m embarrassed to start my new job because I’m going to have approximately 39 packages delivered to my desk within the first week.

However, today I took a little field trip to visit my new team. I noticed an empty desk- its owner was still out on vacation. In front of that absent co-workers desk was: a pile. of packages. AS TALL AS ME! Have I finally met my online shopping match?

We shall see…but for now, I gotta go- I have to leave feedback for 5 items.

What better way to wrap up a long weekend than…organizing your closet! Okay, so I have a different definition of fun than most people.

Unfortunately, I failed to take “before” pictures, because I got the idea to blog about this midway through the task. My closet wasn’t TERRIBLE, but it was getting a bit disorganized, and I always dreaded putting away my clothes that needed to be hung up because I knew it would be yet another battle to find a hanger and squeeze something in.

Dream closet:

Reality Closet: A full 60″ of space WOWEE. Additionally, getting into this closet is a death-defying feat because half of it goes onto the stairs. I almost died today.

Lousy as this closet is, I’m an advocate of making the best of what you’ve got, and with a few modifications of things I already have, as well as some ‘as seen on TV’ helpers, I was able to get things in tip-top shape. One cool thing about this closet is that there is actually about 15 feet of what I call crawl space that isn’t great for anything you need easy access to, but is great for storing things like your suitcase, or that foot spa you HAD to have.

I think that the first part of organization is to diagnose the problem. In my closet, I realized that bulky hooded sweatshirts (I have like 100) and dresses that I rarely wear (SF is warm ~10 days/year) were taking up SO much space, and lots of stuff was just getting lost in the middle of the closet. Also, as with any closet, I was hanging on to a lot of things I never wore anymore- that was an easy fix! To the Goodwill it will go.

I ended up putting all my dresses and my Gortex shell (that was more useful when I lived in Chicago) into my SPACE BAGS aka the best $15 I have ever spent. I hung up the biggest of the hooded sweatshirts on my handy-dandy thingie that used to hold my purses:

Before I go any further, I have to confess that the impetus for this whole project was the fact that I saw the Wonder Hanger on TV and (as usual) I had to have it! Luckily, they sell it at Target so you can avoid paying that pesky shipping & handling fee. I reeaaaally wanted to try it out, hehe.

Does it triple closet space? Can I stand in my closet like the lady on the box? I’m not actually sure if it’s saving me any space, and I definitely will never be able to get my body into that closet, but I think it does help to organize things. You can hang 5 shirts on each Wonder Hanger, so I can keep my work shirts separate from my other work shirts separate from my work blazers. Man, I need some new casual wear.

That left the other half of the closet free for miscellaneous shirts that didn’t get a Wonder Hanger, and….more zip up hoodies. Ugh, anyone want a zip up hoodie?

When I moved in, I also ripped the top drawer and wheels off some clear drawers I had, and that’s where I store my measly (non-zip up) sweater collection.

Also, here is a peek inside the crawl space! It looks kind of messy, but it’s actually decently organized compared to how it was before. Also note, I have about 100 extra hangers now. Jill, remember when we were at Target and I made you buy me some hangers? Yeah…may not have been necessary.

Um, yeah, I wasn’t kidding about that foot spa.