Tangled Up in Blue

Any guess as to what my favorite color is? That device just behind the shoes
is an anti-barking device that works wonders. Buy some right now. Either one.
This blog is dedicated to my favorite mommy blog, Ms. Sensible of Shoe.


They are not anything special. They are Asics' Gel-Bravado size 10 running shoes, brilliant blue/lightning/black in color. They were made in Vietnam. They cost $47, taxes included, at Kohl's. I once swore to only buy New Balance running shoes because they last the longest. They also cost a little more. But cost wasn't really a factor in this purchase. These shoes were just so ... blue. I had to have them.

And it was that purchase this morning that marks my mental return to adulthood. I left adulthood a little over two years ago. TW was going back to graduate school. We both gave up our jobs and moved across the country to live in Maine. I still think that was mostly a good call.

But we knew finances would be tight. In part because I am a colossal cheapskate and in part because we had to be thrifty, I vowed to not purchase any clothing or shoes for two years while TW was in school.

What about work clothes, you ask? I had plenty of those from my time in Salt Lake. And I also have a pair of aunts who like to buy me clothes, often at Costco and TJMaxx. My cheapness runs in the family.

What about shoes? I bought a couple pairs of Sketchers in February of 2010. And a friend gave me a pair of running shoes last fall. That gift of shoes was the only thing that prevented me from spending money I didn't have on footware from Southeast Asia.

We have not been paupers nor living a horribly thrifty lifestyle since moving here. We eat well. I will not give up my Trader Joe's chicken. We have a satellite TV. We have cell phones.

We also have a PlayStation 3 with no new video games. I'm currently playing two careers on MLB The Show 08. I've spent a grand total of $4 on video game rentals in 2012 (thank you, Red Box!).

Thank God for friends and family. I mean that quite literally. Since TW enrolled in school, my family has paid for a plane ticket for me to come visit them four times. TW's parents bought her a last-minute flight to come back for the Fourth of July last summer. I have two sets of friends who paid for me to come visit them. The memories make my eyes water a little. I know good people.

Part of the reason I haven't blogged much lately is I'm not doing much of anything. I've played around 500 games of baseball on my PlayStation. That's not good blog fodder. I run with my dog for a couple hours in the woods. Do you want to hear about her chasing deer and wild turkeys? Pipe down Mom, you're in the minority.

But things are changing. TW and I sat down on the couch Saturday and she mentioned how peculiar it was that I hadn't spent any money on clothes in two years. And then she said something to the effect of, "I wish we knew I was going to have a job so you could spend some money on clothes."

"Um," I replied, "We actually do know that you will have a job. We're just not sure which one."

And then the lightbulbs went on over our heads. We have nothing to divulge in regard to what's going on because we don't want to talk about "what-ifs" with everybody. Everybody has an opinion, which is fine, but we find ourselves confused by all the options at the moment.

And so I will leave you with this: Tomorrow, I will be going shopping for a pair of pants. Dress pants, if you must know. What could an unemployed person be doing with a pair of dress pants? Hmmm ... Think about that for a minute.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aw, Maaaaaaan

Image
Journalists aren't normal. You could say it takes a certain kind of person to be a journalist, but you'd be wrong. There's lots of different kinds of people who are journalists. It's just that they sometimes have more extreme personalities than you see in, say, the movie Office Space. That brings us to Dan Dickson, one of the few larger-than-life characters I have ever known. If you were to write a book about Dan, or perhaps a movie, his character would inevitably watered down by editors because nobody would ever find a character like him believable. Though I'm sure I'm mostly writing for an audience of a hundred or so Salt Lake Tribune employees who already know "The Danimal," it's important to pause here to talk about one of his most important personal characteristics, his voice. Dan's voice is a strange blend of cowboy Western accent and surfer-dude guy accent. Take The Dude from The Big Lebowski, make his voice a little more nasal, and add...
Read more

The Most Unlikely Couple ~ Part VI ~ Roman numerals: Yuck

Image
For those that missed them, here are Parts One , Two , Three , Four , and Five . Last one. Then, because I believe in the power of dreams, I'm going to take my shot at being a NASCAR driver and blog about it. Let me know if you need cigarettes or chewing tobacco. I lied to you. Right there in the final paragraph of Part V. I made it sound like, on a drive back from Los Angeles, I waited until Cedar City, Utah, to call Amy. Not true. First, I called her outside of Las Vegas. That call was just to satisfy the voice in my head saying, "Call Amy" over and over again. It was 9 a.m. Central Daylight Time. She was at work and I knew it. Voicemail. No need to leave a message. Done and done. She didn't have my Utah cell phone number. She would have no idea who had called. Take that, voice inside my head. Then, as previously mentioned, the voice got incessant. "Call Amy. Call Amy. Call Amy," it said. Fine, I decided in St. George, Utah. I'll wait until Cedar C...
Read more

The Most Unlikely Couple ~ Pt. V ~ Phantom!

Image
For those that missed them, here are Parts One , Two , Three and Four . Only two left (with an epilogue). Then, as suggested by a reader, I'm going to take up a Sister Wife , to promote more rom-com blog posts. So stay tuned for that. The canine weight loss plan. Available at www.petfinder.com Some people go into a tailspin after a breakup. To an extent, I fit that profile for a couple of months, but it turned into a wonderful positive. I lost all appetite. Which was actually great. I capitalized on the lack of appetite and joined a gym. I lost 40 pounds in three months. It helps that I had a spaz for a chocolate lab, named Duke. He is fondly remembered by our new puppy, Daisy. But you know that already. Something snapped in me when Amy and I broke up. I started eating right. I attended an awesome church in Duluth, The Vineyard . I started writing. I do that when I need an outlet. Perhaps you've noticed. Most important, I matured. Instead of wanting acceptance from wo...
Read more