Professional Wardrobe essentials

I know the picture on the right is terrible quality.  I thought I could take it with my camera phone and zoom in later.  So naive.  The picture quality is terrible, but I still thought it worth showing the outfit, so whatevs.  Deal with a crappy picture.

Picture #1:  Cardigan: Gap Outlet, Striped Tee: H&M, Skirt: Express, Tights: Forever 21, Flats: Gap Outlet (Similar here)
Picture #2:  Blouse: Forever 21, (Similar here) Skirt: Forever 21, (Right now the only color skirts available are black and gray, but they change their colors constantly.  These skirts are only $7 so I have it in about four colors) Tights: Target, (Hard to see, but the tights are nude fishnets.  I wear them with EVERYTHING) Boots: Macys (Similar here)

(DISCLAIMER:  Originally this was supposed to be a "What I Wore + What we did in class" and then the "What I Wore" part just kind of took over, like some kind of bad fungus.  I'll post what we did in class next week.  Also, I don't know that I have ever dedicated an entire blog post to clothes, and I am a little embarrassed to now as my love for clothes is one of the more vain and unawesome things about me, but whatever.  It is what it is.  As discovered tonight, I can talk about clothes for a long time.)

It is tough to find cute, professional looking clothes without breaking the bank.  Sure, J. Crew and Banana Republic got plenty of drool worthy merchandise, but I can never justify spending that much money on my clothes.  I have found the trick is to get a few expensive "staples" and supplement the rest with cheapo skirts and blouses from Forever 21 and Target and call it a day!  Here's my basic "professional wardrobe" breakdown.

DRESSING PROFESSIONALLY

Wardrobe Essentials that are worth the splurge:

Dress pants.  I get all of mine from Express.  They're around $80 a pair normally, but you can almost always find a sale to get them cheaper.  Right now Express is giving $30 off if you spend $75, and their pants are also buy one get one 50% off.  Combine the deals and you spend $45 per pair of pants instead of $80.  It's still expensive to me, but it's worth it because the pants are not frumpy, easy to clean, and last forever.  I love the "Columnist" pant- they are almost more of a skinny pant and they give nice shape to your rump and legs.  I also have a few pairs of "Editor" pants, but they flare out too much at the bottom for me.  I ain't tall enough to pull that shiz off.

White button up shirt:  I paid $50 at Banana Republic for a beautiful white button up my first year of teaching and I have used it ever since.  My only regret is that I didn't get the non wrinkle verzion- the only thing that ever prevents me from wearing this is I'm too lazy to iron it.  Still, I say it's way worth the $50 as it's a total staple and I use it often.

Black pencil skirt:  I bought mine from Express, and I think I spent about $60 on it.  That was four years ago.  The zipper doesn't go up all the way anymore without sucking in, (oops!) but other than that it is in perfect condition.  I wear this probably at least once a week.  It does not look worn or faded at all even though I've probably washed it 100 times.  Worth the money for sure!

Items you should have a lot of:

Flats:  As a teacher it's pretty hard to wear heels all day, but I still want to look professional.  That is why I have about 20 pairs of flats.  I try to never pay more than $20 for flats, and because I buy them cheap I let myself buy a lot. (Greg is unaware of this little deal I have made with myself.)  About every store sells them and you can find them in any color or pattern.  I have a red pair and purple pair that get WAY more use than I would ever think.  Whenever my outfit is in muted colors I wear bright flats and it helps to brighten the whole outfit. (I'm a freaking genius, I know!)  My all time favorite place to get flats is called Forever Young.   They have so much variety, the flats run around $20 a pair and I've never seen the store not have a buy one get one half off sale going on, meaning the flats are only $15 each.   If you are local there is a store in the University Mall.  They don't have an online site so I don't know what to tell the rest of you.

Gap Outlet has great flats (I scored a couple of pairs for $8 each in October.  You just gotta hit the sales!) and Target can really surprise me with their flat selection as well, although they can be a bit overpriced.

Tights:  This is a winter necessity if you live in cold weathered areas.  I don't like wearing pants all the time to work, (something about skirts makes me feel like I'm the boss!) but there is no way I'm going bare legged in the winter.  The solution is tights.  My nude fishnets are perfect for any hard-to-match outfit and I have found navy tights to be pretty much essential as well.  I've got black stripes, black fishnets, black eyelets, etc. Bright colored tights can be way fun too, but it's harder for me to figure out colors- I'm always going way too loud with them.  I have a red pair that's just been sitting in my drawer for two months while I figure out how to wear them.

The tight queen is Forever21.  They easily have the best selection and best prices.  Their tights get runs very easily though, so beware.  As soon as you take your shoes off, take your tights off!  Target's tights are a bit more expensive and they have less variety, but they last longer.  And I'm sure you could always spend $30 for a pair of tights at Nordstrom, but I like to keep mine in the $5-8 range.  I'm certainly not going to blow my retirement on tights!

Cardigans:  Again, this is probably more specific to cold weathered places, but I feel like almost any outfit can have a cardigan thrown over it and then if you need to take it off during the day, take it off!  Cardigans are perfect for layering and for when it's 7 degrees outside but in a room with 40 horny seventeen year olds it's 83 degrees.  Gap has great cardigans, although a bit more expensive.  ($30 range) Target usually has cardigans for around $20 but I find they look kind of dingy after three or four months of wear and washing.

(Also, in general my opinion on clothes from Target is that they are not worth the price if not bought on sale.  Target's clothes are cute, but the quality is not great and they charge as much as higher end places like Gap or American Eagle that are generally going to be much better quality.  That's just my two cents- I only shop clothes at Target if they're on sale.)

AND THAT IS EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT ABOUT CLOTHES.  GEEZ OH MY!

Oh, and here's more pictures of me in clothes if that's what you're into.  If you're into me not in clothes, you are SOL.

Notice it's pretty much a big vomit of cardigans, tights, flats, skirts.

I quit winter

Winter has gotten to me.  I realize we're only what... one, two weeks in?  But I can't do it.  I have no motivation to dive into the deep abyss of January or explore what blistery February has to offer.  I wish to stop this whole winter charade right now and just be done with it.  The past week has literally been work then home then repeat five times.  This weekend I went to a bridal shower for my sister but other than that it was the safe and warm confines of my four apartment walls.

Maverick hasn't had a walk for almost a week.  He's going insane.  His insanity is driving me insane.  But when you get home at 4:30 and it's already almost dark how in the world do you force yourself to go outside in seven degree weather to walk a pup somebody answer me.....?!?!

Some people really love the snow and I wish I were more like those people, especially since I have lived the majority of my life in Utah and there's no definitive end in sight.  I feel bad even writing that because the truth is there's so much I love about Utah.  I just don't love the winter.  How do people drag themselves to the gym and to the movies and to Christmas parties when you could just never leave the house instead?  So I guess that it's not so much that I hate winter, just that I hate that it sucks away my energy and motivation and leaves me feeling so totally lethargic.

I think it's time I consider Arizona.

Those of you who live in cold weathered areas please tell me what you do to get you through the winter months.  Give me some ideas- something to give me a bit of energy.  Also snowboarding is out because that crap's just way too expensive.

Taking over the rest of my post for me today is Becca.  This girl has probably the most frank and candid blog that I have ever read.  It's a bit more "PG-13" than the typical blog and she's definitely got some edge which I really love. I have never met someone so unafraid to bear all and I am trying to take my lessons from her about being honest and open.  She recently started seeing a marriage counselor and I have learned so much from these posts... almost like I'm getting free sessions from her blog!  Make sure to check out her best of page as that will direct you to all the best posts.  Hit it, Becca!

Hey Life of Bon readers! My name is Becca, and I blog over at I Ate Skinny. I'm twenty three years young and live in Alaskaland with my husband. We're not here by choice, the Army sent us, but we're doing our best to survive in the -30 and below weather. I work with adults with special needs, and really love my job. You can find me writing about anything from my weight loss progress, (52 pounds down baby!) to my struggle with being cray as bat poop, and everything in between.




One thing you'll realize pretty quickly about me is that I have an unusual love for lists. There's something so satisfying about being able to cross something off of a list, or being able to see how many different ideas you were able to come up with. I just love lists and I tend to write a lot of them. Like my ten random facts about my childhood, twelve random facts about my high school years, or twenty things you really didn't need to know, but that I'm going to tell you anyways. So when deciding what to write for Bonnie today a list just felt right, and I decided that I'm going to tell you all about my five biggest pet peeves.


1. Bad Driving. I've written a bit about it here, but it's bad. I have awful road rage. It gets a million times worse when ice is on the ground, which unfortunately means I spend six to nine months of the year angry while driving. I drive slow when there's ice on the road because I'm super paranoid of dying in a car crash. (I told you, I'm cray.) A lot of the drivers up here are bullies to the slower drivers and will drive riiiight up on the booty of the car, when this happens I tend to leak a bit of that cray out and scream obscenities... that's normal though right?

2. People singing the wrong lyrics of songs on purpose drives me insane. My little brother is the biggest contributor to this pet peeve. When we were younger he would change the lyrics of songs I loved to annoy me and sing them loudly over the original one. Parodies are one thing but just ruining a good song to be mean? Nope. Hate it.



3. That one hair on my husbands chest that grows in longer and darker than the rest. I'm slightly OCD and that ish bothers me so much. I pluck it whenever I see it, and I'm convinced it exists just to spite me. There was about three months where it didn't grow back, and he went to the field for two weeks, when he got back that sucker was like an inch long! And last time THREE were growing from that same spot! I obsess over strange things, I'm okay with that.

4. I hate when people don't put their shopping carts away. I understand if you have four kids, it's snowing, and you're way out at the end of the parking lot, but if you're three cars away walk your happy butt over and put it in the stall. It's hard enough to find parking without carts taking up spaces too.



5. Telling me to calm down when I'm calm. This isn't so much a pet peeve as a way to make me incredibly angry and my husband knows this and uses it to his advantage. Especially when he wants to remind me forcing him to come grocery shopping is an awful idea. The last time I made him come with me he followed me around the entire time telling me to calm down, and then told the sixteen year old bagger that I beat him and he was afraid of me. I was about ready to pop him one after that trip!

So those are the five quickest ways to annoy the ever loving heck out of me, I want to know what annoys you? Do you have any of the same or am I even crazier than I thought? Either way I hope you'll stop by and check out the insanity! That was a lame ending, I suck at conclusions. Oh well, thanks for letting me write Bonnie!

Why I am the Worst Student

Student Bonnie: Grade 8. 

I got straight As, thought chokers were the bomb, 

and had yet to discover the beauty of teeth whitener and padded bras.

Today I was a student.  My school district asked that all of the English teachers who are "new to the district" this year spend the day with them evaluating a few of the veteran teachers.

Sounded great to me.  I could certainly use the day off from being a teacher!  I often envy my students when they come trudging into class with their half done homework and their cell phones a buzz.  I look at them and think, "What a life.  All you have to do is sit there for the next 85 minutes.  Just show up, and you're good.  I on the other hand have to put on a whole horse and pony show for you riff raff all day every day.  Oh, to be a student again!  To sit in my chair and day dream.  Tis the simple life!"

So when I heard I would spend the day observing other teachers' classrooms I figured nothing could be easier.  I would return to my model high school ways, (I literally never sluffed a single class, got straight As, and was president of National Honor Society.  I have no idea how I did it.) and soak in the simplicity of being a student again.

Turns out being a student is a lot harder than I remembered.

We met at one of the five high schools in the district to observe some of the stand out teachers.  It wasn't long before I was seated in the back that I started wanting to talk to the people around me.  I knew that the "veteran teacher" was talking, and I knew I needed to be polite, but gosh the lady in the chair next to me teaches AP Lit at the neighboring high school and I needed some ideas.  What a chore to be quiet!  Couldn't the teacher see I had legitimately important things to be discussing?  I whispered a few things to my AP teaching neighbor but she was not interested in having a conversation with me and quickly shut the conversation off.  How rude!

At that point, my phone which was sitting on my desk, went off.  Just a text message, but the noise was on full blast and it let out an obnoxious "CUCKOO!" to indicate a new message.  I turned beet red and silenced it immediately.  Had I been the teacher I would have taken my own phone away.

Next, the veteran teacher passed out a short story we were reading.  I took one look at the story and said to myself, "That's way too long.  I'm not reading it."  I THOUGHT THIS.  ME.  SOMEONE WHO READS AND BEGS OTHERS TO READ FOR A LIVING. I am ashamed of this, just so you know.  I don't know what came over me, it's just that the paragraphs were so long and dense, and my attention span was feeling oh so short, and I could suddenly feel my tummy rumbling.  Distraction distraction distraction I wanted a distraction.

Cue digging into my purse to find something to eat.  It was barely 10:00, but the gross thing is that when you wake up at 6:00 you've already been awake for four hours by 10:00.  My body was hungry again.  Famished is more like it.  After a small search, I found an orange in my purse.  I knew the scent would be a major distraction, but I was so hungry.  Suddenly my future was clear to me.  I had no other option- I had to eat it.  I tried my best to quietly peel the orange and eat it discreetly.  I was not discreet.  I got many looks from students sitting around me and from the other AP teacher sharing my table.  I knew I was obnoxious, but distraction distraction distraction and also starvation.

After eating the orange, the story looked to be about half way over.  I could jump in now, but I wasn't going to understand a thing.  I noticed my phone light up.  Oh phone!  Pretty!  Someone somewhere wants to say something to me!  Nope.  It was a notification that all my lives on Candy Crush had been restored.  "What a stupid notification," I thought, and decided that now was as good a time as any to figure out how to turn that notification off.  I clicked on Candy Crush.

DING DONG, DING DONG the music went off immediately and at full blast.  Everyone was turning around to look at me.  The teacher had stopped reading.  I couldn't turn the phone down.  This was a disaster.  In a mad state of panic, I fled.  I ran right out the door into the hallway to try to shut the damn phone off.  Anyone who has played Candy Crush once in their life knows the music and knew exactly what I was doing in the back row there.

In the hallway I investigated my phone.  Apparently I had turned my messages off, but not the sound for games.  Stupid phone.  Silent means silent- just silence everything!  And you call yourself a smart phone!

I was morbidly embarrassed and didn't want to show my face again, especially to the other "new to the district" teachers who were observing the class with me.  How big of a clown was I?  I decided as long as I was out of the class I might as well take a little freedom and explore the school a little.  I got a drink.  I went to the bathroom. I moseyed. 

Then I thought of one of my best friends from Copper Hills who teaches at the high school I was in.  I should try to find her classroom!  We could ditch together!  

It was at that point that I realized with glaring alarm- I am my own worst nightmare.  Everything I have always been so frustrated at students for doing I had just done myself.  In 30 minutes I had racked up all of their crimes:

- Not doing the work.

- Finding excuses not to read.

- Getting on my cell phone

- Talking in class

- Interrupting and distracting the class

- Leaving the class for long periods of time.

- TRYING TO DITCH CLASS WITH FRIENDS.

I went back in sheepishly and tried my best to listen to the rest of the lesson and pay attention to the reading and discussion. I left my phone in my pocket and was a good girl the rest of the day.  

I gotta tell you, though, I have a whole new respect for my students.  It ain't easy to sit in a chair for 85 minutes subject to whatever the teacher decides to throw on you.  To any student who I have yelled at or disciplined for having your cell phone out, for not paying attention in class, for leaving for extra long bathroom breaks, I apologize.  It's not easy to be you.

Book Club 2014

Alright, ladies, it's time to get a head start on 2014 and get our book club selection picked out.  Last year was the first year of Bon's Book Club and I really loved discussing books with all of you.  I like reading best when it is a social activity.  Read AND discuss.  It's how I get the most out of books.  I also loved how the book club last year pushed me to read books I normally wouldn't have read.  Lastly, I feel like as adults who are busy with college, careers, and families it can be really hard to have time to read for pleasure and certainly can be tough to find other adults to talk about our favorite books with.  Book club is the perfect way to get us reading and talking about books.

There are two purposes to this post.  The first purpose is to see how much interest there is in a 2014 book club.  2013's book club started off strong and then dwindled off toward the end of the year.  I know November and December are crazy, so I understand not being able to do the book club but before we for sure decide to do another go of book club, I want to make sure there is an interest  So, if you think you would be interested in reading a book every month and discussing it online let me know.  This certainly doesn't mean that you are locked in for the entire year, it just means that you would possibly have interest in participating for some of the months.

Purpose #2 for this post is to get some ideas out there for books to read during the 2014 book club.  Assuming there is enough interest to do this book thing for another year, there are a couple of changes I will be making to the book club to hopefully make it more successful:

1.  I'll have a link at the top of the blog that link that has all the information about book club.  It will have the dates and book titles for the coming months as well as the reviews for the books we have already read.

2.  At the beginning of the month I will give four or five questions to help gear discussion and that you can be thinking about as you read.  The night before the discussion I'll post the questions again so that if you don't know what to say about the book the questions can give you a few ideas.  Of course you are not limited to writing on these questions, they're just to help if you need them.

3.  Every book club will be a link up.  Ideally you will be able to find and visit the blogs of other book lovers and get some traffic to your own blog.

Your job now is to leave a comment and tell me if you'd be interested in book club and to leave suggestions for books you would want to read in 2014.  If someone has already mentioned a book you want to read, mention it again!  I will take the top 25 books or so that are mentioned most often and created a survey for them.  You will then vote on the 12 books you want to read for 2014.

Just a couple of guidelines:  Suggestions should be PG-13- nothing that is going to make anyone too squirmy or uncomfortable.  It's also probably good if suggestions are kept to about 300 pages.  These books will be read in a month so shouldn't be anything that is impossible to read in that amount of time.  I'd love to get a good variety of fiction and nonfiction, classics and contemporary, etc.  Any suggestion is a good suggestion!

Here are a couple of suggestions to get the party started...

1.  Happiness at Home.  Nonfiction.  Written by the same lady who wrote The Happiness Project. All about being purposeful in finding happiness in every day tasks.  I'd definitely read The Happiness Project again, too, as that was one of my favorites this year.
2.  I am Malala.  Memoir and autobiography.  The story of a girl who speaks out against the Taliban in defense of education and women's rights.
3.  My Story.  Memoir and autobiography.  This is the story of Elizabeth Smart and her kidnapping.  I have heard it's an interesting story, but not terribly well written.
4.  The Light Between Oceans. Fiction.  I have wanted to read this forever after Elizabeth said it is one of her favorites.
5.  The Book Thief.  Fiction.  Narrated by death.  The movie is coming out this year so it makes sense to read it this year.  I didn't LOVE this book, but most people do so it's likely it'd be a good choice for book club.  It's a holocaust book and very heavy.
6.  Z- Fiction.  The story of Zelda Fitzgerald the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote The Great Gatsby.  I'm a Gatsby freak so this is one of those books I've been really wanting to read.
7.  I'd love to read a class Roald Dahl book like Matilda or James and the Giant Peach or one of my childhood favorites- The BFG.
8.  Lolita- Fiction.  The only thing I know about the book is it's about a romance between a much older man and a young girl.  I feel like it's one I should read just because it's so often talked about and referenced.
9.  Any young adult selection I always like to read a few young adults books, just don't know any good ones that are out right now.  Tell me your favorites (The Fault in our Stars was a total hit in March.)

Alright, your turn!  Give me your suggestions!  I can't wait to see what book ideas you've got floating around in your head.  And if you want to read any of the above books make sure you say so otherwise I doubt we'll be reading them.

Read on!

(P.S.  This month's book club selection is We Need to Talk about Kevin.  It's about the parents of a boy who has shot and killed many of his classmates.  It's fascinating.  We'll be discussing it December 30 so it's not too late to get reading.)

Would you have let me student teach?

Digging through my google drive account tonight, I found this essay. It was written four and a half years ago as part of a student teaching application. It's a wonder, they let me in, huh?

I'm a firecracker- the littlest things excite me, and I am always ready for an adventure.  I love parties, dances, huge groups of people, and staying up late. I live to travel and see how crazy the world is.  I love diet coke, the Office, and a fresh tube of mascara.  I have intense road rage.  Annually I pay hundreds of dollars in speeding and parking tickets.  April Fools is my favorite holiday.  The entire month of March I spend preparing to do clever pranks to my friends and family.  The pranks each year must be better than the year before.  One year I had my entire apartment of friends believing that the apartment was haunted.  They were crying in fear of ghosts.  Another year my sister received millions of phone calls for cheap electronics.  She couldn’t figure out where the calls were coming from. 

I do not like taking out the trash, cleaning out the car, or breaking up with boys.

From June of 2007 to December of 2008, I served as a full time missionary in Resistencia, Argentina.  What I originally thought would be a crazy, fun adventure turned out to be much harder than I ever imagined.  I spent six of my first months in a small town, isolated from other missionaries, and with a depressed Latin companion who I could hardly understand.  The branch in the city had less than 20 active members and no one was interested in the message we carried.  The work was so unsuccessful that I wondered what in the world I was doing on a mission.  As I suffered, cried for home, and questioned the Lord, I grew closer to Him in a way I never could have imagined.  Suddenly, I could no longer run to my family or friends with my problems.  The only one who was always there was the Lord.  I learned to pour my heart out to Him.  I learned to trust Him.  I learned to stop telling Him what I wanted, but rather to try to align my will with His.  I have now been home for four months, and I can hardly talk about my mission without tears of gratitude and tenderness.  My “service” to the Lord is the greatest gift He has ever given me.  

The road to be a teacher seems to have no end for me. To help me pay for my endless journey I have taken up a job serving the geriatrics at Sizzler.  I still can’t figure out how I ended up working at the one restaurant in a college town where no college students come in.  But the people are nice, and somehow I have been working there for three years.   I like the job because there is no time to think of any outside pressures- no thinking about school, money, or boys.  I just have to remember that table four wants a plate of lemons, the couple needs refills, clear the plates, and pick up the crumpled bills left on the table.  I earn the money to pay my tuition on my own- two dollars at a time.

I am a voracious reader, practically inhaling any book that comes my way.  Writing is my passion.  There is a constant conversation in my head as I try to think of a way to write about a certain event that just took place, an interesting person I have met, or why I hate ironing.  My dream is to help kids become powerful communicators through writing, and because of that I want to be an English teacher.  I am stoked and terrified at the same time.  Since the time I was 17 years old I have dreamed about becoming an English teacher.  I look forward to teaching high school “punks” and trying to get them excited about reading, writing, and even grammar.  I don’t expect all kids to love language arts, but I want them to respect it, and understand why it is so important.  Patience is something I continue to work on, but I do have a ridiculous amount of energy- which I am hoping will save me on those long days with sixteen year olds.

I hope to spend several years as a teacher.  I also hope to raise a family, and pray that somehow I can manage to be a mother and an English teacher at the same time.  I want to have a grip of kids and a crazy busy life.  I am making no significant progress towards meeting a husband, (I seem to have a bad habit of dating deadbeats) but I trust in the Lord’s timing and am happy with my life right now. 

FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING:
+ If you're new to the party- a little introduction to everything Life of Bon.
+ One of my most viewed posts ever- why making friends after college sucks.
+ Tis the season to be engaged.  Here's what I think about it!  (Hint:  it sucks!)
+ One of my favorite posts I ever wrote- the "good old days" are right here and now baby.
+ This has been saving my butt ever since it dumped on us resulting in a constant stream of snow and dirt coming into our home.  Winter, go away!

P.S.  If you are here from Becky's blog please say hi!

THANK YOU FOR THE BREAST PUMP

Tonight I went to a bridal shower for my lil sis.  I forgot to take my brand new fancy pants camera so I didn't take any pictures.  I kind of half forgot to take the camera because I still feel self conscious carrying a big old thing around.  I also half forgot because Greg has been lecturing about using my Christmas present before Christmas.  Honestly, the boy wouldn't have cared less if I hadn't have told him last week he couldn't wear his Christmas jeans yet.  He's been holding onto that one with an iron grip and therefore now gets mad everytime he sees the camera out.  It's a weird married world.

Anyway, what I meant to say is that I have this hilarious aunt who always unknowingly says the weirdest things about my blog.

Tonight she looked me right in the eye and said, "You still writing on that blog thing every day?!?"

"Yes..." I replied.

"Well I see it pop up on my facebook feed every once in awhile, but I don't read them very often.  I only read the interesting ones.

Thank you, aunt.

My sis got a lot of great new married stuff.  Oven mitts and measuring cups and bath towels, eee gatz!  My mom is always paranoid that family isn't being thanked enough so she always makes the "shower receiver" yell out "AUNT GAYLE GAVE ME A SET OF TUPPERWARE!  THANK YOU AUNT GAYLE!" and show off the item for everyone to see.  I will never forget the baby shower for my sister.  My sister was deathly ill and went home, so 19 year old me was designated the person to open the gifts.  BABY GIFTS.  I opened the gifts quickly and sheepishly set them down, trying to avoid the awkward thank yous.  My mom caught on- "Say thank you for the pacifiers, Bonnie!  You're not being grateful!  Say thank you for the bottles!"  she scolded.  I will never forget holding up a big box for all to see and yelling out to the crowd, "THANK YOU FOR THE BREAST PUMP WENDY!"

And that's everything you ever need to know about Mormon showers.  That and my mom is awesome.

Today I've got Erin taking over for the rest of my blog shift.  She gives five reasons why she isn't a typical blogger.  I don't know about you, but I 110% agree with #4.  Blog embarrassment all the way!

Hello Life of Bon readers!  I'm Erin and I blog over at Love, the Campbells!  I have always been inspired by bloggers and how they always seem to have their act together.  Life always look so glamorous when you have a filter on it, doesn't it?  When I first started blogging, I noticed that I wasn't as into typical blogger things that were popular.  Here's five reasons I shouldn't be a blogger even though it's not stopping me.

1)  I look terrible in pictures.  There are so many fashion blogs out there that are everyday people but somehow make their photos look gorgeous.  I am NOT one of them.  But I sure as heck try still.  I don't like to ask my husband to take my picture so I'll set up my tripod and after a minimum of thirty attempts, the best one that comes out looks something like what you see above.  It's really a disaster when it comes down to it.

2)  I never jumped on the chevron bandwagon.  I also hate how top knots look.  Thick headbands makes it look like I have no hair and thin headbands look like I'm back in kindergarten.  I've tried StitchFix almost 30 times now and have kept one item.  That one item I have worn one time.  Great use of $45 that was.

3)  When I first started blogging, I thought bloggers had to have a good solid theme and we shouldn't veer off that theme.  My first blog had to do with interior design.  That passion ended faster than it began.  My second blog was called Read, Eat, Create except I would always feel too pressured to read books under a deadline that I always failed, I'd forget to take pictures of dinners and desserts before I ate them, and I didn't have a crafty bone in my body back then.  Love, the Campbells is now my third attempt at blogging and I finally have no theme or set topic.  I write about everything and anything so if this blog fails too, I should probably throw in the towel.

4)  I hate talking about my blog in person.  Does anyone else feel this way?  The minute people mention it in person, on the phone, or even via a text message, I instantly move to another topic.  I should be proud but...let's just say I'm still working on that one.

5)  I am having my first baby in February and am beyond ecstatic!  Except...I don't want my blog to turn into a mommy blog.  And I know it's going to happen.  But here's to hoping it doesn't just end up being a compilation of cute pictures of my dog and the baby.  Make sure you swing on over come February to see the cutest baby in the whole wide world.  Am I being a little biased already?

Thanks so much for letting me take over Bonnie!  Hope to see you all around my parts!

Meet Bonnie The Photographer

Last night I came home to a honking box sitting in front of my door.  The delivery man had braved the storm and ice (Eight cars were stuck on the hill by my house. My car barely made it up.  I was literally shaking when I got home from the white knuckled driving.  It was 20 degrees.  And a delivery man shows up with a box, what?)  

I knew what it was the second I saw it- MY CAMERA!

After my DSLR fail on Black Friday I found a deal on Amazon and ordered the Nikon 3200 in the mail.  It said it would be here by December 11, but one thing I love about Amazon is that they always give you the latest possible time and then surprise you by showing up early.  I'm the opposite.  I tell people the earliest possible time I will arrive somewhere and then end up being much later.  I need to be more like Amazon.

Now, my major disclaimer here is that I am not a photographer, nor do I want to be.  I feel like all the real photographers out there are going to roll their eyes at me an tell me that I can't have their passion and that I'm just a poser.  This stems from a friend I had many years ago who would claim certain things as "hers" and would get mad at the rest of us if we started doing them too.  Wearing red lipstick was her thing, volleyball was her thing, the A-line hair cut was her thing.  The rest of us weren't allowed to do that thing once she had claimed it.  (High school was a mess for me, how bout you?) The whole thing was very Mean Girls and I realize now was a total form of bullying.  Luckily we are all grown up and nicer now, but the fear remains that those of you out there who are real photographers are going to get mad at me for pretending or for trying to steal your hobby or some other ridiculousness.  Hi my name is Bonnie and I worry over really stupid things.

There are a couple of reasons why I got the camera.  To start with, I am tired of the pictures on my blog looking mediocre at best.  I blog primarily to write, but I realize that blogging is also a very visual form of communication, and it seems to me like I need to up it a bit on the visual platform.  I'm tired of feeling like the quality of my pictures are hurting the quality of my blog.  Secondly, I would like to have a good camera to document our family life and our trips and future babies and adventures and all that warm gooey stuff.  So I bit the bullet and bought an "entry level" DSLR.  It is definitely absolutely the most complicated camera I have ever owned or will ever own.  My leveling stops at the entry.

The only slight problem with all this is that I don't particularly enjoy taking pictures, I just like to have pictures.  I like nothing more than looking through old pictures and having them to perserve memories and to remind me of times past.  On the flip side, I hate nothing more than when I'm enjoying myself somewhere and I think, "I should get out my camera.  I need pictures of this."  I don't want to ruin my good time by trying to snap pictures of everything.  Sometimes I feel like my camera is a burden.  Also, it's very annoying to get pictures with you, yourself in them because then you inevitably have to ask someone else to take a picture for you, and that's kind of embarrassing and awkward.

I am hoping, though, that having a nicer camera will help me enjoy the actual taking of the pictures more and that within time I can learn how to manage the bad boy and that I can have beautiful pictures of my family to cherish for all eternity.

And now, I present to you, my first pictures taken with my DSLR.  Mostly it goes puppy snow puppy.  Enjoy!

That's a wrap!

Christmas Card Time!

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign 

with Pollinate Media Group™ and Open Me, but all opinions are my own. 

#pmedia #OpenMeHoliday  http://cmp.ly/3/8vNxcO.

This month marks five years since I came home from Argentina.

I was in Argentina for 18 months.  Short enough time to never lose my strong American accent but long enough to get good and attached.  I cried buckets when I left and for months after I had returned to the states I yearned to go "back home" to Argentina.

I didn't miss the weather. (Over 110 degrees nine months of the year!)  I didn't miss the dogs. (Consummating like bunnies in the streets!)  I didn't miss the men whistling and yelling as I walked down the streets, "Rubia! Rubia!"  (They're hard up for blondes in those parts!)

I miss the people.  The meat-loving, siesta-sleeping, fun-loving Argentines.  I met some of the most humble, giving, and loving people I have ever met.

When I left I made a lot of promises to keep in touch with my friends.  I will write!  I will skype!  I will come back to visit!

It's easy at first, but gets more difficult as the years pass.  Somehow life gets busy and the relationships that once meant everything in the world to you are tough to maintain.

This year I really wanted to send Christmas cards to all my Argy friends.  For many, it has been months since I have heard anything from them, but at the very least I want to make sure I keep in touch with them once a year through Christmas cards.  Of course, then there's the added difficulty of printing cards, buying stamps that cost a buck a pop, mailing the cards, waiting for three weeks for them to find their way to Argentina, etc.  It sounded utterly exhausting to me this year.

In honor of my new goal to simplify I decided to try an online Christmas card.  That is where OpenMe comes in.  It's convenient, it's easy, and it doesn't carry any of the stress I usually associate with Christmas cards.

Step 1:  Pick your card from creative and fun options.  You can add a picture to make it a bit more personal or just keep it easy with an already prepared card.  There's a great variety of cards from sentimental to funny to even romantic!

Step 2:  Personalize!  Add your message and you can upload photos from your computer or even grab photos off of facebook.  So insanely easy.

Step 3:  Preview , inside and out.

Step 4: Send!  If you decide to send digitally you can send through email or post on facebook.  You can also set it up for days in advance.  The card I did was personalized for an individual but you can make a generic Christmas card and send it to all your friends!  And if email isn't your thing, you can have OpenMe print the card and sent it for only $4.

You can find OpenMe here:  Website// Facebook// Twitter

Frittered away by detail

This weekend Greg's best friend, Eric, got married.

I really love going to weddings.  You can always feels so much love and hope and peace.  It certainly didn't hurt that I had the best steak of my life, so good that instead of getting chocolate cake for dessert, I got another steak.  It was smothered in mango chutney sauce and the meat melted in my mouth as soon as it touched my tongue, as if chewing were completely optional.  And I have finally figured out that the only thting that matters in planning a wedding is good food.

It was really fun to be with Eric and Jess on their big day and naturally it reminded me of my own wedding getting on three years ago.  There's a lot of things I have learned since being married.  Truth be told the first year of marriage was nowhere close to easy for Greg and me.  We are both stubborn and passionate and insanely sensitive and a little bit crazy.  Soon I will write a very real post about how Greg and I made it through our first year and the lessons we learned along the way.  In short, it was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.  (And even to write about it sounds like more work than I am willing to tackle right now.  So I will save it for later. Most likely I will write about it after my little sis gets married at the end of the month.)

For now it sufficeth to say that I am so happy for Eric and Jess.  Marriage rocks.

Also sufficeth is the coolest word.

Tonight feels so peaceful.  I absolutely love this time of year.  Minimal Christmas decorations are up at our apartment, (I stole whatever decorations my mom wasn't using.  I'm still not grown up enough to invest in my own.) and a huge snow storm is supposed to moving in tonight and there is a brown puppy lying at my feet.  The house is warm, the countertops are clean, there is a half done puzzle on our kitchen table.  I am filled with an overwhelming satisfaction and contentment in my life.  I spend so much time worrying about little things and it feels good to just try to enjoy this moment right here.  There is so much that Greg and I don't have figured out yet, so many question marks in our future but right this second all I need is to just sit in this apartment on a December night and feel peace.

I am trying to live a more simple life.  Less busy.  For the longest time I felt like whenever anyone asked me how I was doing I replied, "busy!"  As if that was some kind of status symbol.  "Look how important I am!  I'm busy!"  I feel like "busy" is a terrible way to describe your condition- I'd so much rather say "happy" or "healthy" or "blessed" than "busy."  I don't want to say busy and truth be told, I don't want to be busy.  I want to have time to chat if a friend calls unexpectedly.  I want to be able to rearrange my schedule without too much hassle.  If Greg gets his rehearsal off on a Wednesday night and wants to hit up a 5:00 movie I want to be able to say yes. Mostly, I want time with loved ones.  I want time for relationships and for my mom and my sisters and my puppy.  Some of this, I suppose, has been inspired by Henry David Thoreau, who I have been studying with my junior class.  Two quotes that stick with me:

"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."  I especially love the line about poverty not being poverty.  I often think that Greg and I are "poor" because we live on fairly low salaries, and don't have a ton of money to spare, and what we do earn often seems to be spent before it's even in our hands.  But poverty is not poverty.  It's not sadness or sickness or loneliness.  Poverty is not poverty.  I'm having a hard time putting the flying thoughts in my head on paper, but basically, I love this quote.

And my all time favorite, one I can't get out of my head: 

"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify!" 

Frittered away.  What a description.

Also Matt Walsh said something on his blog a few weeks ago (two days in a row referencing this guy!) that I wrote down on a sticky note and stuck next to my computer:  "We are never as busy as we think we are, and however busy we actually are, it is more than we need to be."  I am busier than I need to be.

So yah.  I'm been trying to simple it up around these parts and it has made me so so so happy.  I'm leaving time and space for the essentials, but trying to weed out all the little things.  Amazing how many little things there are.

In other completely unrelated news, I have a canker sore on my tongue.  It is about the most painful sore I have ever had and I can't bend my tongue right to talk without it causing me an immense amount of pain.  The only way I can speak without sending jolts of pain through my body is to let the left side of my tongue just sit there.  Consequently, it sounds like I have a lisp.  My students could not get enough of it today, and I'm afraid they didn't take any of my instructions too seriously as it sounded like they were being taught by a third grader.  About 2:00 this afternoon I was eating some pea pods (Give me a break!  I eat lunch at 10:50!  2:00 hits and I'm starved!) and a kid looked at me dead serious, rolled his eyes good and hard into the back of his head and exclaimed, "Well no wonder you have a canker sore if you are eating those!"  As if it all made perfect sense now.

Now you know.  Pea pods = canker sores.

That's it for Monday.  Simplify!

I went shopping on Thanksgiving. I am not a crook.

A week or so ago I read this interesting blog post by Matt Walsh entitled "If you shop on Thanksgiving you are part of the problem."  I thought he made some good points but mostly I wasn't terribly concerned because I was planning on spending the entirety of the day with family.  There wasn't anything particular I was wanting to buy on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.

Yet.

You see, I've had my eye on a DSLR for awhile.  Thanksgiving day I saw an offer at Wal-mart for a DSLR package that included two lenses, camera case, and 16 GB memory card for over $250 below the usual asking price.  Now that's hard to pass up.

But I didn't really want to go out on Thanksgiving.  Walsh's blog post was still ringing in my ears and this line, especially, seemed to play itself over and over in my mind:

"How appropriate, then, that a holiday created by our ancestors as an occasion to give thanks for what they had, now morphs into a frenzied consumerist ritual where we descend upon shopping malls to accumulate more things we don’t need."

I also have a lot of students who have to work Thanksgiving and Black Friday so it felt kind of cruel of me, their own teacher, to be among the group of people who make teenagers work on holidays.  On top of all that, I felt some allegiance to my old man, who loved Thanksgiving more than anything.  Certainly I couldn't dishonor him and his favorite holiday by hitting the sales just minutes after saying thank you for what I had been given.

So I resolved myself to wake up Friday morning and go get the camera.  No big deal, right?  

Thanksgiving night Greg and I were playing games with my brother and his wife.  On their way out, about ten o'clock, they mentioned they might stop at the outlet mall that is practically in our backyard just to see what sales are going on.  Mostly I like being around people and I like having fun so I told Greg we should go just to look and see if there was anything interesting.  I caved.

The outlets were an absolute mess.  We should have known purely by the amount of cars that we were in for a walking disaster.  We entered American Eagle where the entire store was 50% off.  It was a mad house.  The line to try anything on was 20-30 minutes and the line to check out was at least that long, if not more.  You couldn't even turn around in the store.  People were acting like chimpanzees, screaming and beating their chests.

It took Greg all of about seven minutes to abort the freak out of there.  
"I can't take this, Bonnie!" he exclaimed, "I'm going home!"  
"You can't go home, we drove together!" 
 "I'll walk."  
"Seriously?!  You are going to walk home in the freezing cold rather than just stay and look around?" 
 "Yes."  And he was off.

Which left me by my lonesome at 10:30 on Thanksgiving night fighting a mob of serious shoppers for a cheap pair of jeans.  It wasn't pretty.

The whole thing ended up being too insane, even for me, and so I decided to just go home shortly after Greg had hightailed it out of there. Although the sales were great, the lines were not even close to worth it for things that I didn't particularly need or want.

I walked to the car and headed toward home.  Then the idea dawned on me. As long as I was already out I might as well just hit up Wal-mart for that dumb camera and then come home.  That way I wouldn't have to worry about it Friday and could just relax and enjoy the day.  I was out already anyway.  I turned around and drove on toward Wal-mart.

By the time I got to Wal-mart at 11:00 on Thanksgiving night I was feeling tired and ornery and ready to put the whole thing behind me.  The electronics section of Wal-mart was exactly what you would expect it to be- pure chaos.  People were rifling madly through shopping carts full of marked down merchandise and there wasn't a worker in sight anywhere.  Finally I found a woman in a blue shirt trying to pretend like she didn't work there.

"Do you work here?"  I asked.
"Yes.  Shhh."  She replied, averting my gaze and trying her best to look incognito.
"I'm looking for a Canon DSLR package that is on sale today."
"Check the carts" she said without even pretending to listen or care to what I had just asked her.
"You put $500 cameras in those carts?"
"Oh!  It's a camera?"
"Yah."  I showed her my ad.
She literally laughed in my face, "We sold out of that hours ago!"
"Hours?"  That seemed a little dramatic.
"Oh yah.  We opened at 6 pm.  They were one of the first things to go."
"And you won't be getting any more?"
"Not on that sale."
"Not even tomorrow?"
"Nope.  The sale was for today."

And just like that I walked out of Wal-mart empty handed.

So I guess that's where I disagree with the Matt Walsh post.  I didn't want to go out on Thanksgiving night, I didn't want to buy anything.  Out of pure interest I went to the outlet malls, and then out of a desire to avoid an inconvenience the next day, (and a little bit of panic that I would miss the deal) I went to Wal-mart. I did, in fact, miss out on the deal entirely because of my tardiness and left the store empty handed.  I tried to stand up for some kind of cause and not go shopping on Thanksgiving and because of that I will be spending an extra $250 on my camera if I choose to buy it.

I admit, I was frustrated by all of this.  I was frustrated that if I didn't get there right at 6 pm that I didn't stand a chance of saving $250.  I was frustrated at myself for not just showing up at 6.  Mostly, I was frustrated by the implication of Walsh's blog post that I need to stand up for a cause and sacrifice myself and my money in honor of Thanksgiving day. I don't at all believe that I am the problem, as Matt Walsh suggested, nor do I believe that the other shoppers who did get there at 6 pm and did get the camera deal are the problem.  I believe Wal-mart is the problem.  And Best Buy.  And Kohls.  And any other store that opened its door on Thanksgiving night.  They didn't have to open on Thanksgiving.  They could have ran their deals at 8 am on Friday morning, but they decided to open on Thanksgiving night and they decided to make teenagers work retail on Thanksgiving night and they decided to give ridiculous deals that any sane human being would have a hell of a time turning down for the cause of Thanksgiving.  I didn't make the stores do it, nor do I agree with it, but I don't think it is a sin for me to save $250 at 6 pm on Thanksgiving night if that is an option for me.  Certainly I wish the deal were available another time but if I find the savings too hard to pass up, I am not "part of the problem."  I am a teacher, my husband is an actor.  We are not rolling in money and so when there is a terrific deal on an item that we need (I realize this is an extremely relative term as our first world status means that all of our most basic and essential needs are well taken care of.) it doesn't seem fair that I should have to take up the cause of Thanksgiving and stay home while someone else gets the deal.

So, Matt Walsh, don't blame me.  Blame K-mart and the mall and capitalism and consumerism and whatever other words you want to throw around, but human nature is that if someone does not have much money and there is a chance to save a lot of it by showing up at an inconvenient time, people will take that chance-  Thanksgiving or not.  If I don't show up to get the great savings someone else will (and did!) and then I am the one who loses.  Stores could run that deal on a wedding day, a birthday, your sister's funeral and people would still show up because the savings are too great.  We should stop pointing fingers at each other for wanting to save a few hundred bucks and instead place the blame on stores for being open in the first place. 

Oh, and while we're on the topic of Black Friday deals, my best friend has got some terrific deals going on in her jewelry shop through this week.  I posted this on Friday but I don't know that a lot of people in the world were reading blogs on Friday.  Check out Amy's shop here- she sells very affordable and classy jewelry.  Through December 6 all jewelry is 35% off with the code lifeofbon35.

Oh, and to really sweeten the deal we're giving away five $25 prizes to readers. Count, em FIVE!  Winners will get a heart necklace and their choice of two sets of stud earrings.  Only mandatory entry is to follow @miaearrings on Instagram.  Entries thus far are very low so your chance on winning one of five sets is very high.  Get entering!

(Giveaway open to U.S. residents only.  All entries will be verified.)

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