Category: Finances

  • Maximalist on Jewelry, Not So Much on Beauty Products

    This post is expanded from a Facebook post.

    Jared and I went shopping at Ross last week, and Jared picked me out two outfits. This floral dress is one of his choices; I snapped the photo while we were on our way to Costco today.

    My husband is biased, but he commented more than once when we were in Costco about how lovely I looked today. I’m pretty sure he liked seeing me in a dress he picked out himself.

    And Jared’s comments reminded me that while I am 46, I am mostly rejecting typical beauty regimens for women in their 40s.

    Here’s my routine:

    I mostly exclusively use Trader Joe’s 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, and body wash for their intended purposes as my sole product in the shower.

    I found TIRTIR milk toner at Costco probably a year ago, and I use it on my face immediately after I get out of the shower. It came in a double-pack, and I only just opened the second bottle in the last probably three weeks.

    Then, I use L’Oreal Pro Longer 10-in-1 cream on my hair before I comb it out, and then I spray my hair all over with Kenra Sugar Spray, and then comb it out, still wet. I used to use the entire L’Oreal Pro Longer line but 1) it’s massively expensive and 2) it weighed my hair down too much.

    Next, I put probably 5-6 drops of Trader Joe’s jojoba oil on the palm of my hand and I rub it slightly into my hands and then rub it onto my neck and chest area. Then I used what’s left on my fingertips to coat the last two inches of my hair lightly in the jojoba oil film.

    These days, I am mostly letting my hair air dry unless I specifically want a blow-dried look and know I will want to leave my hair down.

    But most days these days, I am putting my hair up in a French pin. The Ulta ones I have posted about in other posts are my standard go-to’s right now.

    I don’t use any makeup at all, other than a Neutrogena lip oil and I do use that religiously.

    I am eleven months post-surgical-menopause, and I’ve noticed in the last two months that my hair is a different consistency now: it’s always been baby fine, but now it feels exceptionally delicate and its graying process is vastly faster now. I’m not upset by this in the least, but it’s made this routine all the more important. When my weight fluctuates I do notice aging in my neck, and my bone health must also be delicate because my scoliotic spine is definitely not stable right now.

    I’ve tried other products, and here I will admit something I rarely think about but is true: I haven’t actually used lotion on my hands or other real moisturizers in a decade, other than the jojoba oil and the TIRTIR toner. My hands always looked young, but they still pretty much look like they did in my 30s.

    I tried The Ordinary’s line probably two years ago and that didn’t last more than a couple of weeks. My skin is naturally, pre-menopause, very greasy, and all that stuff did was weigh my skin down and make me break out.

    I also gave up most makeup over a decade ago. For a couple of years recently I used a blush cream most days, but I gave that up probably eight months ago and honestly, I feel better and I think I look better because of it.

    My diet is also a factor in all this, but that is a post for another time.

    A note about my hand photo: yes, my jewelry is maximalist. No, in the grand scheme of things, it is not expensive. Jared kindly upgraded my original center diamond to a lab diamond that was less than $200 for our 20th, that we had set in a 4-prong setting I found on Etsy, and the eternity rings are moissanite and sterling, and the index finger ring was a $32 Kudzu find that I treasure because I was out shopping with a friend the afternoon I found it. I like shiny, not expensive. Jewelry on a budget is a whole other post I could do, but not today.

    **Edited to add: Not a sponsored post. I just really like the products I talk about here, and the places I really shop on a regular basis.

    **Also adding: I am low-key anxious about my hair turning silver and its much more delicate texture. The consolation I get is that I never have gotten caught up in the highlighting or dyeing treadmill, so the natural silver streaks are somewhat of a novelty that is happening gradually. There will never be a root line or a synthetic transition I have to battle.

    **Also also: Jared really likes shopping for me. I sent him to ThredUp tonight to look around at dresses and he’s sent me probably a dozen links to dresses. All of which were overpriced, but it is the thought that counts, right?

  • Maybe Recliners Aren’t the Be-All-End-All

    I have severe scoliosis. As in– I started wearing a back brace at age six, wore some variation of said brace through age 13 (think hard plastic shells molded from a cast of my whole torso, made every few months as I grew)…..it was not fun times.

    And at age 13 when I had surgery for an 87-degree curve, I really hoped that was the end of it. I grew from five foot six inches to five foot seven and a half inches in 10 hours. True story.

    But….life happened, four pregnancies and three healthy boys happened, and here I am at age 46 with a secondary thoracic curve that has to be at least 45 degrees in addition to the original lumbar curve, which has settled also at 45 degrees or so.

    Suffice it to say between the curves and rotation, my whole skeletal system is a mess.

    For the past six years, we have loved our Kirkland Signature leather electric reclining couch. We now are at Costco all the time, but we actually scored our couch at a local salvage store for $250, brand new apparently. When we bought it I thought we’d be doing well to get six months of use out of it, and here we are six years alter, and it still works.

    I have been in physical therapy now for months, and after last week’s session I decided I might be done with the couch. I’ve known for a long time that it was not good for my back, so I decided to just take the week and sit, when I sit, in this straight back cushioned rocking chair with the pillow, as pictured above.

    And…..something minor-miracle-wise, happened:

    I found myself sitting less. A lot less. I started getting back on my stationary exercise bike daily. I found myself sitting to do what I was going to do and then getting back up to resume household tasks as needed. And my mental health has been better on the whole, as well.

    I did not realize that what one sits on can literally make a change in lifestyle in the span of a week.

    So, the couch is posted on Facebook for giveaway, and we will find a better recliner for my husband, who legitimately does need one since he sleeps out here in our living room occasionally.

    Yes, we are a couple that does not always sleep in the same room, and no, there is nothing wrong with our marriage.

    I suppose that is another post, though.

  • It’s Just a Toe

    On January 21, I had a permanent matrixectomy on my left big toe. And for eight weeks and two days, I completely avoided posting any public pictures of that toe– it was gross.

    But Friday morning, March 20, I woke up and saw when I looked at my feet that there was no 1/2 inch square scab in the bottom left hand corner as had been there the night before, when I went to sleep.

    So, bored on Friday afternoon, I took the above photo with my phone, and captioned it this on Facebook:

    “It took 1 day shy of exactly two months for my gimpy toe to have the 1/2 inch square scab to fall off, apparently in one fell swoop overnight. My toe feels no different, and I didn’t feel it happen, but my big toe looks so weird without a nail or anything there even though I’ve known for 2 months this was the goal.

    To me it looks like I just have pink fingernail polish on that one toe.

    I spared y’all all the photos I took of the gore as it was in progress over the past two months— it was really gross especially about the 2-week mark. But I couldn’t resist this one.”

    And I thought nothing more about it, until I saw on Saturday that the post had 20k something views.

    As of this writing, Monday afternoon March 23, that post has had 73,212 views.

    The lone negative comment was that I needed clean my shoe, which if anybody knows anything about Birkenstocks, that is a nonissue.

    And honesty time: Had I known that that photo was going to go mini-viral: I would have gotten out the good camera. I would have trimmed on that second toe which is not quite straight with its nail, where the right side of the nail skims upwards slightly. I would have gotten the green strap from my physical therapy off the coffee table behind my foot. I would have probably, yes, worn different shoes or better yet, no shoe at all.

    It’s just a toe, people.

    But it is pretty funny that a stadium or two’s worth of people find it fascinating to look at a toe without a toenail.

    I posted the following as part of the comments:

    “Since people seem to like this post, the back story: This toenail had been giving me ingrown problems at that top left corner since I was 13 years old, and had become fungal to the point it had stopped growing over a year ago. It was so thick that I could no longer cut it at all myself. At age 46, I said enough and went to the podiatrist for a matrixectomy. I did try the prescription anti fungal lacquer and Vicks and ketoconazole cream prior to giving up. 

    I am extremely squeamish about people messing with my toes and especially my toenails. I told my doctor about my phobia, and she was very compassionate both with local anesthesia and patient with me. My doctor was great, and the whole procedure after insurance (admittedly, we do have good insurance) cost about $346 out of pocket. 

    I took Tylenol for the first two days but after that needed no pain meds, and I did have to wear flip flops (not these Birks) in the dead of winter (procedure was January 21) for a long time, and in awkward social situations at times. 

    But, for a lifetime of not having to deal with that toenail anymore….100% worth it.”

    Thankfully, most comments have been kind; a few people have shared their own feet or tips for future use as my foot settles.

    But really, people. It’s just a toe.

    Fediverse reactions

  • The Ghost of Christmas that I Didn’t Know I Needed

    For Christmas, Jared gave me some spending money, with the only condition that I buy things that would bring me joy.

    One of the thing I bought was the Schneider-Kreuznach Min/Mag pictured here. I bought it thinking it would adapt to either my Cinelux 85mm or my Cinelux 37.5mm, both ways, making it a useful tool.

    And when it arrived, I was crestfallen to realize that the 85mm filter threads were dented.

    But, not to be deterred, I ordered a Neewer lens vise. So when the lens vise arrived, I went at it, determined to be able to screw on the Min/Mag.

    And, I got the lens filters successfully re-shaped, and went at screwing on the Min/Mag on the Mag side.

    And, I was ecstatic to see the results.

    But then I went to screw the Min/Mag off. Stuck.

    Irreparably, nothing-works-because-Jared-and-I-have-tried-everything, stuck.

    There were tears. I was soooooo upset. There were more tears. There was anger, because then I saw that Jared had the 85mm lens itself taken apart.

    Turns out, the dented part was a lens hood for the 85mm, with the logo on it. a lens hood that is every bit the material of the rest of the structure of the lens barrel, meaning there is no cutting it off the Min/Mag.

    And then, Christmas faded, and the Min/Mag with its problems, resigned, went into the dehumidifier cabinet.

    And then comes this past week, with the job falling through, and I resorted to what I always want to do when these things happen: I started daydreaming about camera and lens gear.

    But today, I had a renewed resolve. The Min/Mag went into the freezer for 30 minute with a dehumidifier pack, in two baggies.

    No dice– that lens hood is not coming off.

    But then, I remembered the screw. And I wondered: what would it look like if I used the glass from the Min side on the lenses?

    The Min side has its own version of a lens hood, since the glass is on the lens side of the barrel.

    The Super Cinelux 37.5mm is a no-go. Doesn’t work– has enough vignetting from the barrel that it isn’t worth the wide angle.

    The 85mm though? I gasped when I saw what it could do:

    The Min on the 85mm acts as a focal reducer and slight wide-angle teleconverter, giving me absolutely 99% of what the 85mm could do on the GFX 50sII. It gives me back the 60-70mm perspective that the 85mm had on the GFX.

    Would I like the Min/Mag to be completely functional? Of course. I was convinced that it was the Mag side that I would want the most.

    But I am thrilled to have stumbled on this serendipitous turn of gear events.

    It feels like Christmas all over again today, and literally all it cost me was going out to the garage to get one of Jared’s electronics screwdrivers.

    The setup looks ridiculous, admittedly, for a 60-70mm equivalent setup on the X-S20, but I care not. one. bit:

    So super excited. I’d given up working with the Cinelux line since Christmas in the fallout of all this, along with the sale of the GFX itself, but now I am thrilled I can have 99% of the GFX look with not spending another single dime on gear.

  • So Long GFX, It’s Been Real

    Like the title says.

    Last week I got the M65 to FX adapter I needed to be able to adapt the Cinelux lenses to my Fujifilm X-S20. And the 37.5mm focuses like a dream now that I have the proper adapter.

    And, I played around some more with my Minolta lenses.

    And I got to thinking that I really missed that beautiful XF 50mm f1 lens I sold a little over 4 years ago to be able to afford the GFX 50S II camera to begin with. 

    And common sense began to really get the better of me in knowing that really it’s going to be quite some time before I can really afford to buy the XF 70-300mm lens that I really wanted to be able to do bird and other wildlife photography with the X-S20. 

    And since I could still make yummy portraits with the Cinelux lenses (that arguably have a better look), and since I could do 99% of the things I wanted with the X-S20, I started to question the wisdom of hanging onto the GFX camera knowing it had served faithfully for 4 years but was a heavy camera.

    And, I did some heavy comparison shots with both the Cinelux and the Minolta lenses.

    Turns out, if I up the denoise tool and the clarity and the sharpness and the shadows in Lightroom, there’s an awful lot of questions about which lens shot what with what camera.

    And so, the GFX went to KEH yesterday, and I came home with the XF 50mm f1, the 70-300mm that I wanted, and a little extra grocery money for the month. 

    The cat in the photo above is not our cat. This is a cat that belongs to some random unknown neighbor, a cat that has claimed our yard as its own when our dogs are not out in the yard to terrorize it. It’s outside in our yard a lot when I go out there or when I’m backing the car out of the driveway. Today it got to be a test subject since I couldn’t quickly spot any birds before the rain started.

    And, I won’t lie: I will miss the medium format camera. And I won’t lie even more because it’s true that I will miss the self-imposed “status” that came along with shooting medium format even if it was a status that only I recognized. APS-C just doesn’t have the same ring.

    But when 99% of the look I love is achievable with the camera that is more fun to shoot with…..there’s an awful lot to be said about that. Especially when it is far easier to achieve focus, especially when the focus is faster on the autofocus lenses, especially when the whole setup is smaller and lighter, and especially since I can dictate the direction of whatever business I may or may not have.

    And probably most importantly, especially when the itch to upgrade happens and it won’t cost another $4,000 or more to do so next time. 

    So, that’s been much of the labor of this week. Reining in is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary. I have been in a realism and a “buy it once” sort of mindset since Christmas, and it was time to realize that the tools I had in my photography arsenal were not exactly serving me as best they could. 

    Besides, that yummy jute purse I made and carry around is an awful lot lighter when it’s carrying around X Series gear than it was with the GFX stuff. And it’s a heavy purse to begin with.