Spring Link Love

It's spring! It hit 80 degrees in Rhode Island this week!  That's unreal and I was in a panic about what to wear as I keep being fearful of being trapped somewhere cold.  But since spring is almost here, springlike weather is definitely here (my co-worker's turtle came out of hibernation this week), let's do some celebrating.

--Big props to Color Me Katie for reminding me that even though I don't have a plot of land to work with, I could still create a lovely green space for people to enjoy--and I will.

--Thank you, Heidi, for being such an awesome listmaker!  Now that it's getting warmer and warmer, we need to think about what kind of delicious cooling beverages would be most fun to drink.  Heidi put together a fantastic list.  including this one:

Classy and delicious?  Yes please!

--Even though I'm not planting a garden this year (I know, I know, I feel guilty every year, but maybe I'll plant something...), you might be!  Leah Ingram at Suddenly Frugal composed a quick and easy tutorial on what you should be doing to get ready for planting time.  And she also included a slogan, from Wal-Mart of all places, that I really like: “Spend $1 and get $20 worth of food.”

--Also, let us not get so blinded by the sunshiney days that we forget we also need to spend time in a dark movie theatre watching THE HUNGER GAMES!  Umm, I'm probably there right now, as you're reading this.  And I can guarantee, I'm pretty pumped.  Annabelle over at Shopping Detox composed a list of Frugal Fashion Lessons from The Hunger Games. Fashion + Frugality + Awesome = duh.

--And now for something completely different.  I suck at negotiating.  I've mentioned this before, and I chalk it up to my Midwestern "nice"ness, the fact that I don't know when negotiating is ok, and that I honestly just never think of it.  It seems to me that the reward gained by negotiating is not worth the feeling of discomfort it gives me.  But this is just me guessing, because I never actually negotiate.  Thankfully, Jezebel.com laid out a lovely step-by-step guide to negotiation--and it's awesome.

This person, Christine Borne Nickras, hit on another reason why I'm trying to drive as little as possible, because being in your car isolates you.  It isolates you from the world, the weather and other people.  Part of the reason people find New york so invigorating is because people are out and about all the time.  I'm not a big house-leaver, my hobbies are reading and internetting, both of which are most comfortable from my home office, but I realized once I started going running outside just how much of a charge you get from people-watching.  And I don't even like people that much.  I think this line sums up the way that I try to look at my own amenities every time I get a little bit down about being poor, "understand that your car is a luxury. Understand that when you get in your car to run a ten-minute errand, the same errand might take someone without a car two hours on the bus. When you turn your key in the ignition, please feel the same sense of wonder and good fortune that I feel every time I take my dirty clothes down to the basement instead of hauling them to the laundromat: what a lucky person I am to not only live in a world where someone was smart enough to invent this thing that makes my life easier, but that I, by some additional happenstance of good fortune, can have one."

--Finally--for your awesome springlike polka dotted nails, we turn to The Beauty Department.

OMG