Doesn't everyone need a little treat sometimes? Sadly, more than likely no one is going to get you a little treat unless you get it yourself. But a little treat is just that--little. So it needs to certainly stay under $20, and hopefully less than that. My latest little treats:
1. Well of
course you know I'm going to say the wonderful, always free library. While you're there, kindly check out
Valley of the Dolls by
Jacqueline Susann, go home, lie on the couch, and start reading. I finished it last night. So good, so much fun. It's
Hollywood, it's
New York, it's lunch at 21 and drinks at
El Morocco. Just a total soap opera, with sex and drugs and...well, no rock and roll, but there are some
Broadway stars with issues. It starts in 1945 and goes through to 1965. Susann wrote what was considered a trashy novel, but holy smokes, could she write! I think a lot of trashy novelists today didn't make it much past 7th grade composition class. Go on! Just go get it!
2.
Havaianas flip flops on
Amazon.com for $14, with free shipping! And in the color I wanted (navy blue--I'm not really a fashion risk-taker).
3. Buy a magazine and a nail polish at
Target (or
Wal-Mart, whatever). You can do that for about $10.
4. Get a single-serving dessert at the grocery store bakery. Nice big eclair, maybe a slab of carrot cake...your call. $5, tops.
5. Go to
Amazon.com and download free music. Amazon puts it directly into your
iTunes, once you download their (free, very good) software.
6. In Target, there is a
makeup line called e.l.f. (which stands for eyes lips face). Well, don't buy the makeup, since it's
made in China. But the makeup brushes (which are also made in China, but you don't leave them on your skin for hours and hours)? Well, you need to own those. I mean, buying good makeup brushes can start at about $20 and go up (and up). And just because they are expensive doesn't mean you won't eventually want to throw them away, even if you are good about washing them. These e.l.f. brushes are either $1 each or $3 each (those are the expensive ones). I am trying to try a little harder with my eye makeup, and since I already had some MAC eyeshadow from ages ago floating around the drawer, I certainly couldn't justify a few new $10 eyeshadows (and we won't even talk about department store makeup prices). But for $4, I got two new brushes, I'm using up perfectly good makeup I already had...well, I'm just so thrifty!
7. I love perfume. A lot. And not just any perfume. It has to be unusual, it has to have certain notes, and it has to be made in France. I decided it was time for a change, so I was on a perfume hunt, but the stores in my travels just didn't have anything that worked for me. So, naturally, I turned to the internet. Now perfume shopping online is risky, at best. You can spend a fortune on a bottle of something that smelled wonderful on the woman in line behind you at the movies, but smells dreadful on you. However, you can get samples (or decants, as they are sometimes called) for a very minimal cost. And there is enough in a sample vial to wear it for a few days, so you can really give it a good test drive. Try
Luckyscent.com,
fragrancenet.com, and
theperfumedcourt.com to buy sample vials. Most samples are under $10 (Lucky Scent has a few that are $12 or $15, but that's for perfumes that cost close to $500 a bottle!), with most being around $3 or $4--certainly cheap enough to get out of the celebrity-fragrance rut. I went to The Perfumed Court to get a sample of the perfume my mother wore when I was a child (Dioressence). Made me feel quite wistful--amazing how scent can instantly take you somewhere in your past.
8. Finally, one of my favorite treats is getting all my housework done early on a Friday, and then spending the afternoon reading or cooking or laying in the sun (with sunscreen on, of course. No, not really. I thought I should sound responsible. It makes me feel goopy. But at least I don't stay out very long, since I get too hot.) or doing something fun like a blog entry. And frankly, a cocktail wouldn't go amiss in any of these scenarios. In fact, I'm going right now to try a concoction of homemade lemon simple syrup, Ketel One Citroen, and soda water. At some point, I'm sure I'll report back.
www.NOAA.gov I am a little bit weather obsessed, and this site caters to that. You type in the name of your city and state, and it gives the seven-day forecast, as well as any special updates. In our neck of the woods, the summer forecast consists of slight variations on the theme of hot and sunny. Nevertheless, I probably check it almost daily (because frankly, you just can't be too careful). In the winter I'm checking it at least once a day. Okay, so maybe I'm more than a little bit weather obsessed....
www.astrologyzone.com What can I say? I love reading my horoscope--it feels like I'm reading all about me me me (and trust me--in real life it's never all about me me me). On the first day of the month, AstrologyZone does a huge prediction for every sign, and it's just a lot of fun.
www.makeupalley.com I usually resist, kicking and screaming, any time I have to register for a site just to browse it. But I've never got any spam from them or apparently because of them, so I guess I don't have a problem with it. Makeup Alley's best feature is the product reviews, written by the site's users, which include drugstore makeup, department store makeup, shampoo, fragrance, hair color...everything beauty related.
www. hookedonhouses.net Addictive. You look at MLS listings gone awry, information about houses in movies and on TV, before and afters, celebrity homes (Jennifer Aniston's house--too museumy and cold. Sally Field's house--I loved it).... I have to literally make myself turn off the computer--I can't stop!
www.whatshouldireadnext.com You enter the title of a book you enjoyed, and it gives you suggestions for similar books. Sometimes the recommendations are a bit out of left field, but most of the time it's pretty good.
