spending hiatus: party particulars

There was only one little blip on my spending hiatus radar this week.

Just after all the Christmas and New Years excitement died down, my friend and party planner extraordinaire, Margarita, approached me with an idea for a dinner she wanted to host. Though she always throws the most rocking parties in their smallish apartment, it would not do for a sit-down dinner so we planned to use her culinary skills, my dining room table and the opportunity to get together her friends and mine.

Once we sat down with the guest list though, trying to keep the numbers down to ten or even twelve was absolutely impossible. It seems that when you try and pick out a few folks from a whole circle of friends, it all unravels at the seams. So the idea evolved into a cocktail party rather than a dinner and when we looked for a date February 14th seemed ideal. Soon we realised that cooking up something to eat for twenty might be a bit of a challenge unless we kept it simple, like a stirfry. Thus a theme emerged and we thought, wouldn't it be fun to dress up? Werner, not knowing what he was getting himself into, had bought me Playstation Singstar for Christmas and 1,2,3 just like that, a Chinese (non) Valentines Dress-up & Karaoke party was born!

The Valentines date had its pros and cons. Most singles were only to happy to have a party to go to with a distinct lack of hearts and lovey dovey paraphenalia. A whole group of couples also found it a welcome release from the usual pressure, expectation and often disappointment of Love Day. I'd never had a great Valentines Day before, and while I don't publicly slander the 'holiday' I do find it a bit forced. On the other hand I feel: how can celebrating love ever be wrong? Conflict of interest there!

So on Saturday we spent quite a bit of money on the party. Werner and I dug out a kimono and a black velvet robe from my closet (I told you I have a lot of stuff in there!) so we didn't spend a cent on outfits. We told guests to bring their own drinks but I wanted to serve cocktails on arrival. Between the food and liquor, prawn crackers, fortune cookies, lanterns, flowers and other decorations, it all came to quite a shocking amount.

However, as I haven't been spending any money on clothes or accessories and since it was the first party we hosted since our house warming almost a year ago, I decided it was well worth it.

By the time the party was in full swing and everyone for clamouring for a go at the Singstar, it was priceless!

These pics are all from very early on in the evening. I'm afraid the China Blue cocktails I made were far too delicious to resist and impaired any photo taking abilities straight off the bat! I highly reccommend it!

Ice
1 Measure vodka
1 Measure lychee liquer
Top up with grapefruit juice
Add a dash of blue curacao

Yum.
Just the thing to get me through the second half of Simple Lovely's hiatus! Don't you think so agirl and october12? Welcome to the club! x

spending hiatus: update & thank yous & eye surgery

The past week presented no serious challenges in my spending hiatus, for which I'm ever so grateful. I did get a little shopping-kick out of buying envelopes and other bits of stationery for our thank you cards. But surely that doesn't count, so I experienced a little guilt free pleasure, hurrah!

We printed four different postcards of our favourite wedding portraits and we're getting most of them out by hand delivery, but I'm worried about the rest getting ruined in the mail, hence the last-minute envelopes. And yes, the thank you cards are now quite overdue etiquette-wise, but some guests have theirs already so we're only about 60% late! We're all set to finish them tomorrow night so I can mail the last ones real soon.

On a completely different topic, I have a little poll I'd like to take. Have you or has anyone you know undergone Lasik corrective eye surgery?

BB is very sweetly encouraging me to have it done and today my eye specialist found that I'm actually an ideal candidate for a successful procedure. The only thing is, I'm terribly squeamish and a little bit scared of all things doctor / hospital / operation related. Maybe it has something to do with my Grandfather having died during a routine operation? My mom was only 10 at the time so I never even knew him or anything and I'm sure medical advances have been humongous since then, but I've just always stayed as far away as possible from any unnecessary medical attention. I'd rather leave well enough alone and carry on with my scratchy lenses and sexy red frames than risk a botched op.

So, if you have any knowledge or opinion on the matter, I'd love to hear from you!

spending hiatus: i cheated!

No, no, not in the way you think. I did get a new pair of shiny tiger print flats from Aldo and two pairs of pyjama pants from La Senza BUT I still had vouchers left from my birthday & hen night in November, yay! I didn't go one cent over the vouchers either, so I'm very impressed with myself. So what if I used up my last remaining shopping power all in the first month of the hiatus? Of course that doesn't mean that I find this quite hard? Hmm.

Cute, comfy & just a little bit wild. Half off on sale AND a gift card? Hiatus heaven.

On Saturday we attended Cape Town's annual show-off day at the (horse) races, the J&B Met. The Met's theme this year was Glitz & Glam so I truly deserve a pat on the back for not caving in and allowing some minor purchase to glitz up my glam. Not only did I borrow a (perfectly gorgeous, glamorous) dress from my honey of a sis-in-law but I even abstained from buying some incredibly bold and beautiful earrings, cuffs and/or statement necklaces from Diva.

I was in the shops with Minki just last week, looking for her new outfit, when we strolled into the little bargain accessories shop and I nearly succumbed. I don't know if it's just the lure of forbidden fruit but I've never seen them stock such fabulous things as they do at the moment. Maybe it's just that the trend for bold pieces is so appealing to me. Or a bit of both. Regardless, I walked out of shop empty-handed, severely conflicted. Over coffee we devised the clever plan that Minki could just buy it for me, as a gift. That would neatly circumvent the whole nasty hiatus business and I would have my oversized silver bling to wear!

Alas, as a bit of time passed and caffeine divine entered my system, the thrill of the prize started to wear off. Half an hour of pleasant conversation and laughs later, I remembered that I have some perfectly bold and beautiful silver things at home and I really, really didn't need anything new. That was it, crisis averted. Now I only wonder if I would've confessed to you, had we gone ahead with our criminal little plan?

My Beautiful Boy and I, en route to the Met.

spending hiatus: 100 monkeys

Bear with me here, complicated story, very simple ending.
A great friend recently told me about the Hundredth Monkey Effect and it had such a profound influence on me that I now keep noticing such effects. (Oops, wikipedia has just debunked the whole shebang so I don't know where that leaves my monkeys, but regardless, I have a point!)

The whole world and more directly my fellow bloggers have been focussing my attention on all things green and ecologically sound. I've been recycling for about a year now, I walk when I can and try to shop eco-aware. While I'm surely not offsetting my carbon footprint yet (or even my carbon toe-print for that matter) I am trying to do my little bit to help out this pretty blue planet of ours.

So during and after the wedding planning, all these thoughts and ideas on reduce, reuse and recycle have been floating through my mind. During this time I also experienced a ridiculous slew of gifting, thanks to my hen night, my birthday, our wedding and Christmas all happening within a 6 week period. By the time it was all over I felt sick of stuff, more over-fed on pretty things I don't really need than on Christmas pudding. I'd even tried to ask my family if we could give each other heart-felt letters in stead of gifts for Christmas but they'd already done their shopping. Damn organised early-birds.

Enter UK Vogue, December 2008 issue. Inside this fantastically beautiful tome to over-spending and wasteful consumerism I found a little article about a woman, who works in fashion, and stopped buying clothing for one whole year. I was fascinated. I immediately raised the issue in conversation and my FIL started laughing at me. He said "No my dear, you shouldn't even consider it. You'll make yourself miserable, and for what?" Then he told my MIL what insanity I was contemplating and she seriously admonished me "Don't do this to yourself, it's not necessary!" When BB joined in on the conversation he also found it laughable, and I believe he still does.

The more everyone found it crazy and laughable, the more they seemed to insinuate that I'm a shopaholic who'd be a wretched wreck without a weekly spend, the more determined I became. So without making an official proclamation or promising anything to anyone, I silently vowed to give this a shot. My extenuating circumstance for such apparent masochism is that I honestly have an extensive wardrobe. I mean, it's stuffed. With beautiful things I maybe wear once a month, every two months. This all came about when I worked in a gorgeous boutique for two years where part of my compensation was a very generous clothing allowance. So apart from my normal thrifty bargain hunting trophys, I also have two year's worth of really good items crammed in there.

To get back to the monkeys, as soon as I came back into blogland, what do I find? A spending hiatus revolution, complete with support group! I've also spotted this on many other great blogs, but this was the first one I found.

Thus. I am joining the spending hiatus, and these are my rules.
I will not buy any clothing or accessories. I'm starting on the three months with the group, but secretly I am aiming for a whole year. There, I said it.

I actually started at beginning of January already, so I'm three weeks in and so far so good. I'm too high on my accomplishment to even miss it.

The only thing I almost bought, that very nearly tempted me, before I'd even formalised the resolution, was a check shirt in the prettiest shades of grey & lavender that I KNOW I would've worn to death with rolled up sleeves in the summer and then layered in the winter. It was only R100 (10 dollars) and I still think of it (obviously!) but that is the price I'm willing to pay...



Whether this plan will save the planet, reduce me to a pleasure-starved, unpleasant person or just put a few extra pounds in my pocket, remains to be seen!