Friday, October 31, 2014

Halloween Happenings Part 1


Little witches, Elsa's and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be out in droves this evening filling treat bags up with chocolate, gum and the ever present pencil from the dentist down the street.  We've always made Trick or Treating an event for the entire family and with small kids excited to scour the neighborhood, I've stopped buying Trick or Treat candy for our house.  I used to then I realized we were never home to pass it out so it ended up as an extra five pounds on my hips.

The entire week of Halloween, we are usually busy with pumpkin patches, Fall festivals, carving pumpkins and costume shopping (or hectically finishing costumes up).  We started out our Halloween week with some awesome news from my husband's God-Brother and wife who are our closest friends. After years of infertility, they had a successful IVF treatment and are now expecting twins.  They did their gender reveal on Tuesday and I am so excited for them!!

Twin Girls!!

Dallas, Cricket and Jager are their dogs and will be acting as protective older brothers I'm sure!

We had a Fall Festival at Billy and Shalyn's church last weekend where the kids enjoyed earning candy for winning games.  The church youth group ran the games and we got to have a costume dress rehearsal.

Zakk the Ninja Warrior and Shalyn the Mermaid

Billy Goat and his girlfriend Bailey Cat

Shalyn covering her mom's arm in face paint.
On Wednesday, we picked Shalyn up from school and headed out to the "Pumpkin Patch".  Tons of photo ops while we were picking pumpkins.  I think the kids finally got tired of posing for me though!





Tonight, we'll dress up again and head to our uncle's house.  He always throws together a nice dinner and fun treats for the adults.  The entire extended family will gather there and our little group cousins will have fun running through the neighborhood together with tons of glow necklaces and bracelets.  Part 2 will feature the Shay's Hello Kitty pumpkin and this evenings happenings.  Hope you have a great Halloween and be safe!

Dustin's first detailed carving


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Beauty Review: Warm Love Pumpkin Mask

So first off, excuse the pictures.  No matter how brilliant the light bulbs are that I put in my room, it still gives this warm tone that I can't get rid of, even with editing.  So let's just pretend that I put a pumpkin filter on them.

I received Warm Love by Albertini International (.05 ounces) in my October 2014 Ipsy bag.  Never heard of Ipsy?  It's a terrific monthly subscription for $10.  Every month they send four to five beauty samples, the bag is always (so far) valued over $10.  Below is the complete shipment I received.


Sabrina also gets her own subscription and we never, ever open them without the other present.  That way we can trade if we'd like.  Her October bag is pictured below.  I'm going to talk her into doing a guest post every month to review her bag as well.


If you're interested in learning more about Ipsy, check out their website:  http://www.ipsy.com/r/6vox?sid=ipsypoints&cid=general  And if you decide to sign up, make sure to use that link.  I'd love for them to know I sent you, because I receive points for referrals.  No shame here!

So anyway, back to Warm Love.  I'll admit, when I first read the name, I was wondering what in the hell Ipsy was sending me.  I was thinking maybe it was like the KY warming lubrication and was a getting a little nervous.  I felt all sorts of relief (no pun intended) when I realized it was actually a beauty product instead.  Specifically, it's a pumpkin exfoliating mask.

Smells are always important, so that was the very first thing I did (after breathing a sigh of relief that it was a mask anyway).  I opened it up and smelled it.  The smell was like a craft store in the fall.  For those who don't partake of craft stores, think dusty fake flowers and pumpkin spice.


I'd been working out in the yard today, so I was happy to try it out after my shower.  I washed my face, then applied it per instruction.  The first thing I noticed was that it was WARM.  I use an exfoliating cleanser to wash my face, so my skin may have been a little sensitive, but it was almost too warm.

I'm not an oompa-loompa I promise! #pumpkinfilter

The mask goes on clear, the picture is just using that pumpkin filter we spoke about eariler.  I massaged it in for 3 minutes and then rinsed.  After my face fully dried, I didn't notice any difference, either in look or feel.

"Albertini’s Warm Love Pumpkin Exfoliating Mask removes old skin cells and stimulates new cell growth. Warming and fragrant, this mask uses pumpkin, papaya and pineapple enzymes to purify, exfoliate and brighten skin. You will experience imitate improved skin smoothness and texture with your first application."

After another hour, my face felt greasy so I was glad I had forgone the moisturizer to fully try it on for size.  I'm not sure if the makers wanted you to be able to go without moisturizer, but their instructions say to use before moisturizing, so I doubt it.

"To Use: Use Warm Love pumpkin exfoliating mask after cleansing your face, and prior to moisturizing, 1-2 times a week for improved skin texture. Apply mask to clean, dry skin. Distribute approximately the size of a quarter over your entire face, avoiding contact with your eyes. Dampen hands and continue to massage for 2-3 minutes, enjoying the intoxicating fragrance and the warming effect. Rinse thoroughly with tepid waster. For increased benefits, wait 5-10 minutes before rinsing."

 I wasn't impressed and for the price of $23 for 5 oz., I won't be buying it unless the rest of this sample produces some amazing results, quickly.

Ingredients:

peg-8, glycerin, zeolite, kaolin, glyceryl stearate, cucurbita pepo (pumpkin) flake, cucubita pepo (pumpkin) powder, titanium dioxide (c177891), propylene glycol, jojoba esters, steareth-21, ppg-15, stearyl ether, cucubita pepo (pumpkin) seed oil, lactobacillus/pumpkin ferment extract, papain, bromelain, hydroxypropylcellulose, cetyl alcohol, tocopheryl acetate, fragrance (parfum), annatto, ethylhexyglycerin, caprylyl glycol

5 oz. $23.00 

If you'd like to try out Warm Love for yourself, buy it directly from Albertini's website:  http://albertiniinternational.com/product/warm-love

Blogging?

So I guess I've started a blog.  I've always loved writing.  I love putting my words down and having them heard.  In a social arena, I'm the listener.  I take too much time to think about what I'm saying to be a talker.  I've always expressed myself so much better with the written word than I have with the spoken.

For the past year, I've been following some awesome bloggers that have me feeling that I might actually be able to do this.  I've had some website or another for years and I taught myself HTML, back when that's how you wrote websites (dating myself here).  My first website is so embarrassing to me.  It was based on the EA Games Petz program.  Not only did I create a website off that game, but I also learned to how code within that program.

That expanded to me rewriting the code for a few computer games like Diablo II, for my sons.  I've had a ton of blogs, but those were all for family members to follow the going-ons of the kids.  This time, I'm doing it for me.  I want a public blog where I can talk to adults, about adult things.

Chicken Caprese made with homemade, homegrown Basil Oil

I love to bake and craft so I plan on it featuring those two things heavily.  I also plan on featuring beauty product reviews since I've gotten into both Ipsy and Birchbox.  I love receiving those sample products every month and for those who don't have subscriptions, maybe introduce you to new items or keep you from making a mistake.

October 2014 Birchbox

Right now, the blog does not display my vision of itself.  I'm not happy with the look and I want to be able to categorize my posts better. I want those who just want to see the beauty reviews to not have to deal with my posts about life and family.  I can be a tad wordy at times so it's completely understandable.  My Facebook friends have had to deal with my very frequent, very wordy, very picturey (no, that's not a word, but for today it is) posts and maybe this can help relieve their agony.

How I spent my day today

So thank you for coming and hang in with me, it's going to get better.  I promise.


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Regulating

I have a horrible ability to adjust to things easily.  Most people would see this as a good thing and honestly, most of the time it is.  I adapt to new situations without much struggle at all.  It's terrific really but what's not terrific is the fact that my body adjusts quickly as well.  

Over the last 20 years as I've been treated for this and that, I regulate to my doses extremely fast.  My last doctor would switch me between medications every three months because of it.  I thought that since it had been so long since I had been on medication, I'd take awhile this time.

Nope, not even close. 

My RLS is worse.  My muscle spasms are worse.  And the back pain is back.

I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday, but it really sucks!

But onto more interesting stuff.  Monday, Sabrina started her Phelbotomy classes, woohoo!  She's loving them and came home tonight with specimen tubes, needles and a tourniquet.  She's been going around all night practicing with the tourniquet.  Wrapping our arms and pointing out the veins: cephalic vein, basilic vein, median cubital vein.  Then she practices her one-handed removal of the tourniquet.  I'm so happy she's enjoying it that I even volunteered as her first guinea pig.  See?  There's my arm in the picture.  The gorgeous, young thing is Sabrina.  You'd let her practice on you, right?


Saturday night, Zakk stayed with his cousins at his grandparents house and they all went out for pizza.  He and my nephews were so excited to go, they all piled into my brother-in-laws Tahoe way before everyone was ready to leave.  So in Zakk's boredom, he decided to buckle himself into my youngest nephew's car seat and was in quite a hurry to get out of it before I could get a good picture!


The next day while Dustin and my brother-in-law were being nice and doing an emergency brake job on my SUV, Sabrina took Zakk and the nephews to Steed's Dairy.  

Sabrina
Zakk, Corran, and Brennen







After they came home, I snapped a quick pic of the face paintings they had done at the dairy.

Zakk, Brennen, Corran

Today, I finally finished weeding my garden and thinning out the radishes.  I had been almost done on Saturday when Zakk begged me to take him to Grandma's and wasn't being patient at all!  I also trimmed up my basil and since I had lost three broccoli plants, I filled in the bare spots with garlic.  It's really the only thing that can be planted this late in the fall and I wanted a full garden, so now we will have 26 garlic bulbs to dry out and enjoy come summer.


I went out in the early afternoon hoping to avoid the mosquitoes this time but it didn't work out that way.


All that was after taking Dustin to the doctor, I thought he had strep after loosing his voice over the weekend but it was bronchitis.  I'm not happy with him but that's because I'm probably going to end up with it.  

I don't let the kids have soda except for special occasions and the rare treat.  Grandma's doesn't count.  But I drink soda nonstop, trying to keep the kids from developing the habit, and Dustin will pick up my glass and take a long swig off of it.
  
Good thing I don't drink alcohol often and try to disguise it!  I kept telling him to knock it off because he was getting sick and he'd shoo me saying it was just allergies.  So if I get sick, it's completely and totally all his fault!

And what did I do with all the basil I harvested?



I made basil oil and then topped baked chicken breasts with it, tomatoes and mozzarella for some yummy Chicken Caprese.  It was a hit!!  Incredibly easy and incredibly delicious, basil oil is awesome!  I had never tried it but I think it's going to become a staple around here.  In fact, next planting season I will have to at least double the amount of basil plants.  I made mine without straining the basil out afterwards because I like the color and wanted a stronger flavor, but a lot of people like to retain the look of the oil.

Basil Oil

2 cups fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
1 cup good quality extra virgin olive olive
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Blanch leaves in boiling water for one minute.  Remove and place immediately into an ice bath to stop the blanching process. Dry leaves with paper towel.

Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor (I used a smoothie maker just for convenience), pulse for one minute.  Let rest for 30 minutes to let the froth die down then either pour directly into storage jar or strain the basil out, then store.

Oil will last up to one week in refrigerator, but let it warm to room temperature before use.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

RLS

Two posts in one night!!  Yes, I thought I was done too.  Even went to bed with the hubbie for the first time in a week.  Well, okay, I can't say that as there's only been one night I did try to go to bed with him.  The last week or so, my leg sensations are back when I try to go to bed.  It was one of the reasons I started taking the medicine Neurontin.  It's a anti-convulsion medication used for Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), Epilepsy and Parkinson's Disease among others.

Now I've dealt with RLS all my life.  I remember as a child waking up in the middle of the night with severe leg pain and rubbing my legs against my "silky" pillow to ease the sensation.  As an adult, my RLS came more as crawling sensations that caused me to want to kick my legs out.  But it wasn't just in my legs.  I'd get it in my shoulders and hips as well.  Now it's evolved again.  Instead of the crawling/kicking, it feels like every tendon and ligament in my shins and calves are tightly stretched while the muscles are incredibly heavy.  I have to move them to make it go away.

The Neurontin helped for a little while.  I started at 100 mg and that worked for about a week.  It started happening again so I went up to 200 mg.  A week later I had to increase it again to 300 mg.  300 mg is the beginning therapeutic dose, so I'm just barely scratching the surface of this medication but unfortunately, the side effects are not merely scratching my surface.  My extreme depression is being caused by this drug.  The higher I go, the worse it will get.  The anti-depressant I'm taking to combat it causes headaches and I already suffer from occasional migraines.  I've already had to increase the dosage of the anti-depressant once and the headaches became worse.

So it's this huge cycle.  RLS acts up, increase the Neurontin.  Neurontin worsens the depression, increase the Effxor.  Effexor worsens the headaches, increase the Maxalt (for headaches).  When do I finally call it quits and just stop taking the medication?  I realize I need something but I just get so frustrated.  I went off all treatments for about 10 years just because I got tired of using one pill to treat the side effects of another.  Hubbie didn't like me hurting all the time and asked me to try again.  I'll admit the Neurontin gets the back pain under control and that's really a relief, but this other mess?  There's got to be another way.

Baking, Beauty and Bugs

Did well today.  Late last night I ended up making some dark chocolate chip pumpkin bread, which I honestly didn't like but the rest of the family did.  That tends to happen a lot.  I'm a "eat to live" while the rest of the family is "live to eat" and it causes us to have much different tastes at times.  But I like making them things, so I'll keep trying new recipes.


Fridays, my father-in-law and I have a standing "date" where I run him to his Diabetes Dr. followed by lunch.  Had some nice chatting time with him and then we hit Popeye's Chicken afterwards for lunch.  I tried the new Hushpuppy shrimp on his recommendation but wasn't really a fan.  I don't like fried food, but every once in awhile I'll eat it.  Fried shrimp and hushpuppies are both a nice liking of mine, but I didn't like the combination.

I also got out into my garden today.  A couple of weeks ago, I planted green cabbage, garlic, broccoli, radishes, spinach and basil in a raised bed.   I lost a few broccoli plants and one of my cabbages is struggling but other than that, it's growing!  I seriously have a black thumb so I'm surprised it's lasted this long.  I'm doing exceptionally well at growing clover.  If Lucky Charms ever runs out, I can help!  Pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, ya know?  This afternoon, I thinned my radishes and spinach and pulled all the little tiny clover patches.  In half the garden anyway.  The mosquitoes chased me inside before I could finish.


Sabrina and I also received our favorite shipment of the month: Ipsy!  Below is my haul.  The Warm Love is a pumpkin exfoliate mask.  The Indie Lee is a facial cleanser.  I also received a Tattooed eyeliner in black, Starlooks lip gloss and Rose Berry hand cream in Fig and Rouge.  The eyeliner was full size.  I plan on reviewing them eventually.


Sabrina's haul included Ayres Body Butter, Epice Facial cleanser, the same lip gloss by StarLooks, Volumeyes mascara and Nicole Opi nail polish in On A Gilt Trip.  Both the mascara and nail polish were full size. 


I received my monthly Birchbox as well which included: Vasanti Brighten Up facial exfoliating cleanser, Ellovi butter in vanilla (for body and hair), Ojon Hair Oil Therapy, Jouer Matte Moisture Tint and ModelCo Powerlash mascara.  I'll be reviewing these as well and seeing if I can get Sabrina to review hers.


This evening, it was just me, Sabrina and Zakk in the house.  As a lot of ten year old boys do, Stitches has stinky feet.  So I jumped on the "girl's night +1" bit and did a pedicure on him.  Started with an eucalyptus and spearmint foot soak.  Normally he clips his own toenails, but he's a boy and hates doing it so they always look horrible.  I clipped those, pushed his cuticles slightly back then scrubbed them down with a pumice stone.  I then followed with a peppermint and plum foot scrub.  After he was all rinsed off, I gave him a nice foot massage with Burt's Bees Almond Milk cream, tossed on a clean pair of socks and told him to keep them on til morning.  Zakk has always loved foot rubs so he ate up all the attention big time!



I also finally picked up my used iPhone 4 from my sister-in-law.  I've been fighting getting a touch screen phone and she bought a new one, so handed me her old phone.  I happily accepted it mostly because of the better photos I could get with it, lol.  So, I've been having a little fun playing with it and of course, all pictures in this post were taken with the new phone.  Still don't know if I'll ever turn into an Apple person but we'll have to see.  All in all we had a really nice day. 

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Speed Bumps

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is coming up with the title.  A title should be something that completely sums up the entire post.  While thinking of the days events, I recalled an incident that just had me laughing today that involved speed bumps and that definitely applies to this post.

I've been having a couple of decent days lately with my depression but today it started creeping back up on me.  I wanted to just be lazy, but there were a few things that had to be taken care of with Sabrina.  So I sent her off to get the mail while I got ready for the day.  That involved getting dressed in something comfortable, brushing my hair and teeth and throwing on my tennis shoes.  No make up, no great hair style (or even my usual mediocre attempts at styling my hair), nothing fancy.  We got in her car and headed out.  The car is still being sketchy but I refuse to give into it.  Hubbie was home so I knew we had a rescuer, if needed.



We ran around having a great time of it, laughing but still getting things done.  At one point, we pulled into a parking lot and Sabrina was having so much fun going over the speed bumps that five stores past the one we actually wanted, I had to remind her that we had to park if we were going to get anything done.  She wasn't flying over them but going over speed bumps in an SUV isn't the same as doing it in a compact car.  Her little car doesn't handle bumps like my SUV does, oh no, not at all!  So she had some fun with it.

About halfway through our errands, the tiredness hit me.  Full on exhaustion which really made it hard to get through the rest of the day.  We finished up and headed home about thirty minutes before it was time to head out for church.  The kids ended up going by themselves even though I had committed to helping out on Wednesday nights.

We had decided on salads for dinner and didn't run to the grocery store while we were out.  I had two and a half hours to run to the store down the street and pick up stuff for dinner while the kids were at church.  It took me almost that long to get myself going.

I also missed a deadline for a project Zakk had in school.  He was actually supposed to turn it in on Friday and I just haven't been up to helping him with it.  After a call from his teacher today, I had to tackle that as well, past his bedtime.

I'm definitely dropping the ball here and it's so hard not to feel guilty about it.  The guilt only makes the depression worse, but how do you let go of it?  Life is full of speed bumps.  You run full force day after day until one of these little devils creeps up and slows you down to almost a crawl.  I normally have such a hard time slowing down but lately it seems it's just one speed bump after another.  I want back on that interstate, but can't seem to find the right road.



Hubbie's been patient with me for the last two weeks, that ended tonight.  He had gone to bed and got back up a few hours later, upset that I hadn't gone to bed yet.  I'm depressed, I have a houseful of people.  It's nice to have some quiet time without anyone making any demands on me.  He doesn't understand that.  He doesn't know how to handle this situation.  Normally, I'm the one keeping everyone straight, figuring out schedules, making sure everyone's where they need to be when they need to be there.  I'm making sure kids are getting homework and chores done.  I'm the motor behind the wheels and now, this motor is needing a serious overhaul.  I spent two years working full time and going to school full time.  For a year, I was the sole bread winner while he dealt with a job loss and depression of his own.  I was burning my candle at both ends and now, this candle is just burnt out.  We'll get past this of course, just like we always do but this is one speed bump it may take a while to get over.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The Sun Will Come Up...

...tomorrow.  So you'd better hang onto tomorrow, come what may!

I'm pushing through my clouds finally.  My motivation levels still aren't where they should be but are already so much better.  Two days ago, I hit bottom.  I usually have to be doing something.  Even if I'm sitting on the couch watching TV, my hands are going, either with my laptop or a craft project.  Always in motion, no matter what.  My fallout was fully realized when I laid on the couch watching an entire football game (Roll Tide!) and not moving at all.  The next day, I told myself enough was enough and I was going to at least get something small done.  Two hours later, I still hadn't moved and instead I was crying because I couldn't convince myself to get up.

Luckily, it seems the anti-depressant's have kicked in finally!  Monday I finally tackled that huge pile of laundry.  Folded, hung, put away and I fully finished the one load of dirty clothes we had.  I pressed my husband's uniforms and started straightening up my bedroom.  We ended up having frozen pizza for dinner just because I didn't dare stop with the laundry for fear that I wouldn't be able to pick it back up.  Tuesday, I organized the freezer, made a sourdough bread starter and organized my bathroom counter including all my makeup.


That's just all my regular use stuff!  So it's been weeded through, staples stored in a small bag kept in a basket on the counter with everything else thrown in my big makeup bag under the sink.  I'm going to have to get a drawer system soon as I subscribe to both Birchbox and Ipsy, receiving more makeup every month.  But for now, it's a start.  And yes, fifteen eyeliners and eight mascaras are necessary ;).

Life's definitely getting easier again.  I'm an organizing freak though none of the males in the house know how to put anything away when they're done with it and that means I'm constantly reorganizing.  When I can't motivate myself to do it, I have to start again from scratch and that's where we sit now.  I have a lot of housework ahead of me and when that's finally set right again, I can work on my projects.  Guilt doesn't let me get crafty when there's housework to do.  It's going to be a little while but I'm itching to finish up my oldest son's jean quilt and my oldest daughter's paintings!

Current project list:

Editing my granddaughter's 1st birthday pictures for an album.


Her daddy's (my oldest son) jean quilt.


My oldest daughter's paintings.



A Hello Kitty Pumpkin for the youngest daughter.


Alabama hair bows for all three of us girls.


Making an Alabama wreath for the front door.  Below is a picture of the one my talented cousin made for her house.


Trying out new bagel recipes.  This was my first batch of poppy seed bagels which were a huge hit!


And finally, I need to get the youngest's Halloween costume altered.  She had a full body mermaid costume that she has outgrown, but that's what she wants to be for Halloween, so I'm turning the whole thing into just a skirt.  She has a top that goes well with it so it will work out terrifically.

All of these, I want completed in the very near future so this whole depression, lack of motivation thing has GOT TO GO!  Especially since that Halloween costume and Hello Kitty pumpkin are needed in the next week!  So I think my first step is to hit publish and get some sleep because tomorrow has to be a busy one or I'm going to be in trouble.  Thank God for anti-depressants!  Now to sneak back into bed before my husband realizes that the sun's going to be up in a few hours and I'm still awake, he he he.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Still Struggling

So it looks like this blog is leaning more towards me working out problems than anything else right now.  Sort of like a personal diary gone public.  I had a few good days this week.  I had a goal, I made it to that goal but then it kind of blew up in my face and I'm feeling like I'm right back to where I started.

About two years ago, we bought my oldest daughter a used car.  We bought it from a family member and knew it had some major issues.  I felt since we couldn't afford to buy new, I'd rather buy a used vehicle with problems I knew about than one where I had no idea what could be wrong with it.  It sat for quite awhile getting little repairs here and there until finally this week we put about $1500 into it.  She was driving it around, thrilled with life.  My black cloud was temporarily lifted and all was well in my world.  Then the car died and that little black cloud crashed back down on me.

I just feel like the crappiest mom in the world right now.  I can't even manage to get my teenage daughter a reliable method of transportation. She has put college on hold until she had a way to get to class without relying on everyone else and to get some money under her.  Our money is exhausted, we can't help.  So everything she had planned on putting away for school is now going into getting her car working again and it just breaks my heart.  I feel like a complete and total failure.

So far I think I've done pretty well about hiding the depression from the outside world.  It's only those I've made a commitment to that know there's a problem.  And most of those people just think I'm flaking on them for no reason.  How do you tell someone you can't honor a commitment because you're too sad to leave the house?  Close family knows I'm struggling but I can't admit it to anyone else.  Not vocally anyway, maybe I should just send everyone this the link to this post.  Pathetic right?

I am trying but as my mother said about another issue, it took a long time to get to this point, it's going to take a long time to get out of it.  This is really years in the making.  While I've struggled with depression on and off, I haven't had a crash like this in a long, long time.  Over the last three years, we've had family member after family member pass away.  During the same time, my marriage had issues, my husband had some serious issues, we've had some major life changes and the stress just kept piling up.  I've finally just hit my breaking point and something has got to give.

I am actively working on trying to get past it but it's difficult.  I have to literally force myself to do anything right now.  I know it's going to get better and I've been through a whole lot worse than this in my life so I realize it's just a cycle.  You have your bad times, but it always becomes balanced with good times.  It will be okay, let's just hope my house is still standing when I can finally manage to move past this and take care of it.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Retail Therapy

Yesterday's post was really depressing so time to liven it up.  Right now, my "Because it's cute" budget is seriously deficient so I'm going to do some retail therapy wish list style.  Hubby had to go into PayLess today for work shoes and of course, I couldn't spend anything so I found a ton of cute shoes!  I honestly don't prefer PayLess, but these were adorable.  The first two would be perfect this Fall.  The third, I wouldn't mind closeting that one until the Spring.

DexFlex Harper Zip Shootie $34.99 Reg. $49.99

Fioni Kambridge Platform Pump $29.99 Reg. $34.99


Fioni Krime Peep Toe Pump $29.99

Since I shared Payless shoes for my deficient budget and this is in fact a Wish List, onto Nordstrom!  I am in LOVE with all these boots!


MUK LUKS Chris Knit Cuff Bootie $65.95
COACH Tristee Rain Boot $148.00
MUK LUKS Patti Boot $50.95


This wrap from Echo is another to die for item!


Echo Ruana Wrap $48.00

Okay, these wish list items just made me seriously feel the need to up my clothing budget.  If you decide to take advantage of some of these, just remember to save me one!