The Wait Begins

Since we are now in February and this month is off to a little bit of a strange start. Late last week, I received a letter reminding me that I needed to get dog licenses for both my dogs. If I didn't get them or order them by January 31st, I would have to pay $30 per dog but get them by the 31st, it's $15 per dog. I didn't forget about getting the license bit, just forgot about the whole cost thing. By the time I got home from work, I couldn't run back out and get them. So I ordered them online, had to pay an extra $2 because I was paying by debit card.

I did file my taxes last week, even though I said that I would hold off. I just said screw it and let's just do it. So the wait now begins to get my refund. There are some things that I want to get ahead on and hopefully get that crown on my tooth, especially before I go to California. Thus far, my state refund should be in my account by the 17th. So that is a little over a week away. Something did pop up that I had to put on my federal taxes and even though the IRS did accept my return, there has been no word on if it was "approved" yet. Maybe I will find out in the next few days about what is going on through there website. So there is nothing that I can really do in the meantime except wait. I am still holding off on depositing that large check but thinking of doing a 30 day CD, mainly so I don't lose the check and maybe earn a little interest on it.

You know that whole not buying anymore perfume and candles? Yeah, I failed on both accounts. Amazon decided to drop the price of the Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum and I snapped up a bottle. A residual bit of a gift card brought down the price a little more. Well, all it did was pay for the tax but still. Yesterday, Bath and Body Works had a candle, hand soap and body spray for $20. It was an offer that I couldn't refuse. I got the Japanese Cherry Blossom body spray to give to my coworker for her birthday, the Sweet Lavender hand soap for a Mother's Day gift and if I think that the Lavender Bergamot might be a good smelling candle, but if it sucks, it becomes an emergency gift. I failed again in the past hour as I spent a shade over $35 on samples from Luckyscent. Any perfume nut can tell you that vintage and niche perfume doesn't come cheap. I am hoping that I can stay on the no buy in terms of no perfume and candle buying thing.

I have had a little bit of success though. I managed to finish another Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 lotion and I am about to finish up the travel sized body wash. I also finished a face wash balm and a face cream. I am pretty close to finishing a couple foaming hand soaps. I think I have to count my wins where I can. And let's hope I can keep using things up.

Getting Sick of Some Shit

Have you worn a handful of perfumes so much that you have gotten sick of them? I am currently going through that right now.

I own tons of perfume and I have probably more than two that are work safe but have been way to lazy to look for them. So I have been wearing a shit ton of Infusion d'Iris and Cheirosa 62 on days that I have to work and have started to get sick of them. So at this time, I added Chanel no 19 edt to the mix. It is a vintage ish travel spray with not a whole lot left in the bottle. When I finish that bottle, I can work on the vintage ish no 19 edp bottle. So I am still trying to finish samples and bottles and mostly failing.

I am a retail worker that works part time due to disability. So I work 3 days a week. What has gotten me pretty annoyed right now is one of my co-workers. Apparently, they didn't get paid for a vacation that they took last year and didn't notice. How can one not notice that stuff until higher ups caught it. They were probably given a choice of either adding that vacation pay to a paycheck or take another vacation, so that coworker took an extra week. And so I end up working extra shifts and while I want the extra money, I am not thrilled with working more days but shorter shifts. It might help with my California trip nut would have liked a little more of a heads up.

But earlier tonight, I was wasting time on Luckyscent and was thinking of another bottle of Number One Intense. I saw that a one ounce bottle jumped from $80 something to $115. So it was around a $30 price hike. But I wasn't poking around too much and it was a good thing that I looked at the pricing before I did anything in terms of buying. The whole fact that everything has gone up in price. I bought the same amount of groceries that I normally do for the week has gone up by at least $20. So it is imperative that I show some serious restraint in terms of buying anything fun.

Pulling Out the Old Stuff

So I am starting to pull out some of my older stuff. It's not always the vintage stuff. Some of what I have been pulling out is the stuff that I have had since the beginning of my perfume obsession or pretty close to it. Today was the original Lolita Lempicka and yesterday was vintage Mitsouko.

It took me a while to get into the original Lolita Lempicka. It was the licorice or anise that I wasn't used to, probably because whatever I might have tried or smelled that was very anise dominant, I wasn't a fan of. Now the the original became Mon Premier, the original scent is getting harder to find and hard to find at a decent price. I still think that the Mon Premier bottle sucks because I think it is too crude compared to the original. The Mon Premier is a little thinner and has been tinkered with. I would rather have the original bottle and juice but I will keep searching. Or just might bite the bullet and order a bottle, even though I have made a resolution to not buy anymore perfume for the next six or seven months.

But I have been flirting with the idea of pulling out and wearing Mitsouko.. As much as I love Mitsouko, I find that Mitsouko is a challenge to wear. Mitsouko is a bossy perfume, even in the best of circumstances, Mitsouko can run you over. So, I don't wear Mitsouko all that often.

There was a time were I couldn't get enough of Mitsouko. When I first got into perfume, I wasn't thinking about vintage perfumes or looking for vintage. Then a few years later, I did get into vintage perfume and started shopping on Ebay for vintage. I was snapping up vintage bottles of not only vintage Mitsouko but vintage bottles of Bal a Versailles. Let's just say that vintage Bal a Versailles seemed to be a little cheaper. Since finances are a little on the tight side, I don't have the income to prowl Ebay let alone too many bottles of anything as much as I would like. Let's just say that I am hoping that tight finances and saving up for a trip will force me to make a bigger effort to use up what I have.

 

Out With the Old and in With the New

Technically, it's New Year's Eve and I am debating on setting resolutions or goals for myself for the new year. Every year, I say that I am going to finish some bottles, save money, only get one bottle of perfume. But that shit never happens.

This year, I have a little more motivation for some of this shit. I am planning on taking a trip to California to see my sister and nephews. As it stands right now, it looks like it is going to happen some time in June. So that means is that I have to take care of Afterpay, Zip, Klarna and Sezzle. That means that there will be no more candles to be bought, no more perfume buying and saving money like crazy. The upside is that this might force me to actually start using up some perfume for the sake of creating space and not adding to my collection.

The biggest challenge for me is when I file my taxes. I know that I will be getting a refund and I will be tempted to spend that money on frivolous things. But I can't exactly do that. So I have to cut expenses somewhere. The candle thing will probably be the easiest thing to cut since I am a little bored with it and since I live with people who don't really want me to have a lit candle around, the luster has gone off. I am going to have an issue with staying off of perfume discounters, Sephora, Ulta and Luckyscent. I did blog about how I probably shouldn't have bought that big bottle of Narciso Rodriguez for her. I did get more stuff than I probably should have in the past couple weeks. At this point, I have to buckle down and get moving on the saving part. So I am looking at where I can make the cuts. I am not holding my breath on any kind of stimulus payments that our current administration has been talking about/promising since their campaign. I am going to get moving on getting my hands on that abandoned bank account check to give myself a buffer.

But since I am planning on a trip to California, I am thinking of which perfumes to take. I know that I am only limited to 3.4 ounces but I do want to take two perfumes. The one that is really sticking out is Chanel no 19 and I have no idea on the other one. Maybe Nasomatto Nuda would be another great idea for the second bottles. I would rather take two bottles of perfume and not one.

 

Those Large Bottles and Christmas

You know that in my last post I talked about not getting anymore perfume for the year? Well, that resolution didn't last 24 hours. A new Sol de Janeiro or newish one was on the ULTA website and with the five points per dollar, a twenty percent off and free same day delivery, I was hooked and impulsively got in. I was looking at picking up some lotion and kind of figured, why not? It's not like Sol de Janeiro breaks the bank in terms of perfume. Some people might think that but I don't. I am the one sitting with bottles of Chanel and Amouage offerings and those are pretty expensive. But usually this time of year, I know Ulta and Sephora offer free same day delivery this time of year. That shit is fine for one or two things but I have enough being delivered in the next couple days to truly wrap it up for Christmas. But that isn't fully the reason on why I am posting.

When I got to really thinking about bottle sizes, for a good long while, you were hard pressed to find anything larger than 100ml of any perfume now. I know way back when Guerlain did some very bizarre sizes. But that was way back when. You still are hard pressed to find anything larger than 100ml and anything larger you really have to look for and only online. I do have a fascination with massive bottles of perfume. There is just something about them. To have a bottle of anything larger than 100ml is quite a rarity. I do have bottles of perfume that are over 100ml. The largest one is a vintage bottle of Bal a Versailles that is 9 ounces. Most of my large bottles are vintage Guerlain bottles that are probably 8 ounces. How am I going to refuse a reasonably priced bottle of vintage Mitsouko? But my big bottles of Chanel are mainly from the Exclusifs line up and that was way back when the Exclusifs line only came in the 200ml size. Yes, Chanel has massive bottles called the Grand Extrait or something like that but there is no way in hell that I am able to sink a minimum of seven grand for a few ounces of no 5 extrait. I just can't find any smaller bottles of the extrait bottles anywhere and have been looking for months for one.

But since we are a couple days away from Christmas, I am way behind on wrapping my gifts and a little behind on which perfume I want to wear. The only choices that I have thought up are Lyric, Theorema, and Feminite du Bois. I am not fully sure on which one I want to pick out but will probably be able to make a decision soon enough. I just have to get through the next few days. But the bigger issue at this point is wrapping my gifts. I have a couple packages that are arriving today and would rather have all the gifts that I ordered in the house before I commit to wrapping.

 

Probably Shouldn't Have Done That

A couple days ago, I made the mistake of taking a peek at Fragrance net. I have no idea why I was doing that. Maybe it was because I had found my travel size of the original Narciso Rodriguez for her in edt form. Off and on for the past few months, I had debated of if I should get the 5 ounce bottle of it but never did. I just couldn't make that decision or it might have been more than I wanted to spend.

But late Friday night, I decided to take a look. Fragrance net didn't have the the original edt when I looked. The edp was being sold in the 5 ounce bottles. And being tired and impulsive, I was sold. What really sold me is that Fragrance net was offering free 1 to 3 day shipping and I still was spending a shade under $95, including tax. So I am thinking that since I ordered late Friday night or very, very early Saturday morning, it should be at my doorstep on Tuesday. I am more hoping that it arrives tomorrow. 
 

I had swore to myself that redeeming my ULTA rewards for a bottle of Chanel no 5 was going to be my last full bottle purchase for the year and probably for a good while. Then I moved the goal post of that bottle of Narciso Rodriguez would be the last but nope, the goal posts got moved yet again. I made another mistake of checking out Sephora and saw one of the Sol de Janeiro body sprays on sale and I am doing the same day delivery factually

Yes, I probably shouldn't have done those things. Well, I know that I should have stopped at the Chanel no 5. I really have to stop those late night window shopping things and it always seems to be right around Thanksgiving or right around Christmas that quite a bit of this stuff happens. I think that I seriously need to crack down and actually adhere to not buying full bottles of anything for at least 6 months.

Back from Vacation

 

So Tuesday was my first day back from vacation. It wasn't a great vacation, let alone good. Between my mother repeatedly calling from the hospital either wanting clothes or just angry calling, it was marked by appointments or visiting my mother. So it was not very relaxing. I have a little under 3 weeks to go before my next vacation. I enjoy taking most of my vacations a little later in the year.

I wore a few of my perfumes that I don't exactly get to wear too often. I was wearing more of the bombastic perfumes like Lyric, Number One Intense and Nuda. I figured that if I am going to be on vacation, why not wear my louder ones and it wasn't hot and humid so a louder perfume was and is easier to wear.

Was I able to make progress with my candle collection? The only progress that I was able to make was finishing that Winter candle from Bath and Body Works and start a Sun Drenched Linen from Bath and Body Works in single wick form. I was hoping to make more progress with that but between all the appointments, phone calls and other bigger projects, it wasn't really possible to do.

Even my Kindle was being an ass. I wasn't able to watch Prime Video for some reason and after talking to Amazon, I had to do the option of last resort and that was resetting my Kindle to factory settings. Let's just say that I wasn't to happy with that. I could have used my Fire stick but with my mother always calling or the appointments, the Fire stick was a bigger pain in the ass for pausing movies and shows that I was willing to go through.

So now, things are getting a little more back to normal. The only things that are different is how my mother is still in the hospital and we have a holiday weekend coming up. I am planning to go to the county fair on Sunday and eating a bunch of junk food and seeing the animals. I do not plan to go with one of my friends though. He is more interested in a certain section of the fair with the folks that take pictures of wildlife. I have no problem going over there and looking at the pictures and talking to them for a couple minutes. I do take issue with the fact he wants to rush me through so he can do nothing but deep fried Oreos, eat from the Italian food stand and see if there is a way he can get business for his photography stuff. So he seems to take away the enjoyment from anything because he wants to use certain events to see if he get an opportunity to make money. I asked him once if he can just enjoy fairs and festivals with friends and family without looking for ways to bullshit or bully his way into some kind of minor side hustle. If he wants to keep friends and family in his life , he has to give it a rest. I want to enjoy small things like that. I have enough problems and want to try and enjoy something, even if it is something small.

Many Things and Some of it Bad

It's been a rough few days in my neck of the woods. On Thursday, we got a phone call from my grandmother's memory care letting us know that she did pass between 6am and 7am. We are just waiting for the doctor to sign off on the death certificate before we finish planning the funeral. Her death wasn't really a surprise between her dementia and her kidney disease. 

But this got me to starting think about what I need to wear in terms of clothing but I started to mostly about which perfume to wear. I have more of what I want to wear in terms of clothing. The choices are Jicky, Infusion d'Iris or De Profundis. Even though I have a mini of Calvin Klein Euphoria but I think is inappropriate even though it was my grandmother's signature perfume. 

Since I have a dentist appointment today, I decided to give Lush's Sleepy body products a go. Wanted something a little more soothing for today. With the whopping dose of lavender, I am thinking that this one can be layered with Jicky since Jicky has a huge lavender note. I figured that why not give layering a go. I haven't applied Jicky yet so I can't tell if that combo is any good. When I get around to using some Rose Jam, I can probably get away with layering it with Lyric. Eventually I will report back and see how it goes.
 

Starting to Get Somewhere

I am typing this on my Kindle since this is the only technology I have that is still working okay for the most part.So I view it as getting somewhere since I kind of gave up on the home computer for now. I am not so willing to even attempt trying to blog on my cellphone.

I am not fully sure on what happened with my mother and why she was having a meltdown. But she has been in the hospital since last Monday and she is coming home tomorrow. So that means that I have to get a little more serious with the cleaning right now. I am just taking a little break before I hunker down to get going on the last little bit.

 What I did was refreshed the bottles of perfume that I have sitting out. I was a little tired of looking at the bottles that I had out for weeks but not really wearing. There are some that remained. I kept Lyric because I still wear it quite often and no 5 edt and the parfum  version. I still have loads of no 5 that I really need to get working on to thin that part of my collection. What changed was I put away what I wasn't really wearing and pulled some new ones out. I pulled out some Epic and Ubar along with a bottle of no 19 edt. We are going to have loads of 90+ degree temps next week and want something a little cooler but has some kind of backbone. My bottle of Charles 62 has remained due to this be my current work go to.

One thing that I am looking forward to is either a full bottle or travel spray of something from the perfume house called Headspace. Portia from Perfume Posse was having a drawing and somehow managed to win. I am not one who wins anything in any drawing too often. I am perfectly happy with a travel spray, especially since I have never tried anything from Headspace. There are just so many perfumes houses and perfumes and I can't get to them all.

Apres L'Ondee and Other Things

Life is really kicking my butt right now. I have a family member that's been in the hospital for a week with a mental health issues and last Monday, I had teeth pulled. The teeth in question were all on one side and what was left of four back teeth. Early June is when I get the rest of my back teeth taken out and then I will have just my front teeth up to my eye teeth. Then I can have partial dentures. I have had bad teeth for years and it will be a relief to have the better ability to eat and not have to deal with the threat of infection. Well, I will still have my front teeth but the threat will be lowered in terms of develpoing an infection.

Since I have had a little more free time than usual, I almost finished the Lieberman Papers but haven't really watched a whole lot of Vienna Blood. I thought that yesterday I would finish the last book and maybe watch some of the Star Wars movies but I got sidetracked with getting dog food and some grocery shopping. It was a weekend of trying to catch up on housework.

About a week and a half ago, I had a hankering for Apres L'Ondee and after going through tons of decants to find the decant I had of Apres L'Ondee, I realized that it had evaporated. So I made the trip to STC to get a small decant and I have no idea why I added a small decant of Muscs Koubli Khan but I did. I suppose I wanted to make the shipping cost a little more worth it. I haven't gotten around to spraying my decant of Apres L'Ondee but from what I remember, it smelled like a stripped down version of L'Heure Bleue. Jicky has the same association with me in regards to Jicky being a stripped down version of Shalimar. I think the reason that I have been wearing Jicky a little more and have more of a hankering for Apres L'Ondee is that since I have been reading the Lieberman Papers and watching Vienna Blood, both perfumes would have been around during the time frame that both have been written about. So much of my collection dates from much later in terms of when they were released. I was also thinking that if I do fall head over heels for Apres L'Ondee, I might get a bottle. But I am on a no buy right now and I am slowly trying to use up more decants and I am hoping to finish a bottle or two of perfume this year and I already added enough to my collection. What I think that I will end up doing is that when I am on vacation is that I will really get going on finishing decants. It's only 11 more days before I get my first vacation.

 

Retail Therapy and Lyric

 Ever since Luckyscent had that free shipping sale on no matter how much you spent, I did have a little bit of a bender. Instead of using up more samples, I just ended up adding more to my stash. Then I preceded to hop on over to Fragrancenet and ended up with a bottle of the edt version of Narciso Rodriguez for her and a mini of Obsession. I made the mistake of browsing Fragrancenet again and saw that there was a 50ml bottle of Amouage Lyric for around $120. As much as I love Lyric, I didn't bite. With three 100ml bottles and the travel spray set, I couldn't quite justify that, even with Afterpay. I had to remind myself that I ordered a Rogue Perfumery discovery set, a MAC lipstick and a lipliner and had to order my sister's birthday gift. And I have to keep in mind that I my cellphone bill is higher and it's slow at work. I might be filing my taxes and getting a tax refund but that still does not justify another bottle of Lyric or any more full bottles of anything right now. I need to take a break.

It is always tough to remind myself that I shouldn't be going and spending money on fun things with no regard for tomorrow or three months from now. The only thing is that I haven't been adding to my candle collection. But even though I am not adding to my candle collection, I am not using up any candles either. But I am hoping that if I burn one candle for an hour or two a day, I can start to get moving on my collection. But I am going to stick to my days off. When the weather gets warmer and I can have my windows open, I can burn them for longer.

But back to the Narciso Rodriguez for her. I found that the perfume has grown on my and I now have a liking for it. A one ounce bottle for a shade under $40? Sold! What is really catching my eye is that the bottle is black and I mean solid black to where I cannot see how much perfume is actually in the bottle. I have tons of vintage Bal a Versailles that are completly white and have no real way to tell how much perfume is actually in there. Weighing the bottle in my hands does not tell me a whole lot.

Now we have to circle back to Lyric. I have no idea on why I am not wearing Lyric too much. For the longest while, I was wearing Lyric at least once or twice a week but just stopped. Maybe it's because I am trying to show other perfumes that I own at least some affection? Or maybe I just needed a break from wearing Lyric. But I do think that I might start wearing Lyric for the hell of it on Sunday.

Almost the New Year

Christmas feels like it's long gone already and it was only last week. Now we are already looking at New Years. I meant to do a blog post for after Christmas but either forgot or didn't have the time.

Today was the day that I had started to go through the massive perfume hoard in the guest bedroom. It wasn't so much to sort through to see what I wanted to get rid of and what to keep. It was the whole thing of what had evaporated and what I could really throw away. There were quite a few minis that I threw away, not because they were evaporated but they were ancient and really needed to be thrown out. I had to throw out a couple bottles that had gone off. But like I said earlier, I wasn't sorting to see what I wanted to keep and what to sell.

I had also started to go through my massive book collection to see what I can take down to Half Priced Books. I could donate them but most libraries in my area are not looking for what I read. The little library things in my neighborhood are very far and few. So it's either Half Priced Books or going in the trash. But I would rather try and raise some kind of monies and create some space in my house.

I keep saying that I am trying to make space and use things up and I swear that I am trying. Yesterday, I went through my bathroom and managed to combine half used shampoos and body washes. I also combined some face creams too. So I managed to recycle about 6 or 7 bottles along with throwing out some other junk. Every little thing that I can manage at any given time helps.

What is mostly good right this moment is that while I have been seriously working on clearing things out these past couple days, I really haven't been shopping. By not indulging in too much retail therapy, that means I am not undoing what precious little progress that I have made. Candle Day was a little bit of a bust for me this year and the Bath and Body Works Semi Annual Sale is lackluster. With the $40 Amazon gift card that my sister gave me for Christmas, I ordered Quake II for my Xbox, so I can start playing my Xbox a little more and not spend so much time with window shopping.

With it being so close to the new year, I am trying to make more serious changes. I would like to really start to crack down on my candle collection. By cracking down on my candles, that means actually using them. There is no need for me to have well over 100 candles. With the people that I live with, it is going to be somewhat of a tall order. They don't approve of having lit candles, even when there is a power outage. I want to spend less money in general as well. Eating out will have to be limited to once or twice a month and I am looking at quitting smoking as well. I know that not eating out much and quitting smoking will help my bottom line. I just want 2025 to be a good year.
 

Coming Down to the Wire

In a little less than 7 days, I will be having gallbladder surgery. I keep thinking if I should honestly wear perfume the day of my surgery. The last time I had surgery to have 8 teeth removed, I wore perfume but this time it's a little different. The first time, it was my teeth and this time around it is going to be on my stomach. If what I am reading is true, it's no lotions or perfumes. But I am thinking of the tiniest smidgen on my ankles.

Will I be going for heavy hitters like any of my Amouage offerings or some vintage Mitsouko? It's going to have to be a hard no. The last time I had surgery I wore Chanel no 22. I can't help but think that it might work better this time around. When I wore no 22 for my teeth, there was only the EDT version and the parfum hadn't been released yet. Since I have the parfum version, I can put the smallest dab that I can on my ankles. I could go the Sarrasins or De Profundis route but I honestly don't think that it would fully work. Sarrasins is too much of a slutty, leathery jasmine but actually De Profundis might work but I am not fully sure I would want to wear De Profundis for my surgery. At this point I am limiting myself to perfumes that I can dab on my ankles. I am sure that I have a few others that I can use as well but I have so many strong perfumes.

Another option for me is maybe a dab of no 19 extrait. Less is more at this point when it comes to the day of the surgery. It's a different version to the title of Why I wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy type of deal. Worst case scenario is that I don't wear perfume but instead of my ankles, I might just go with in between my toes. What I am looking forward to is being able to wear what I want when I want. Maybe I won't be wearing so much no 5. There is the other option of that is exactly all I will wear while on medical leave even if I don't wear anything on the day of my surgery.

 

Worth Courtesan and Door Dash

Since today is the unofficial start of summer in the US, I got to thinking about some of the summer like perfumes that I have and how I can't access most of my collection. The only on that I was able to get a hold of was one of my unopened backup bottles of Worth Courtesan. Courtesan is probably the most summery perfume that I own. But I noticed some things with it.

The first thing that I noticed was that the cap and spray mechanism are not compatible. The cap takes the little spray part right off the rest of the spraying mechanism and the base that is attached to the bottle has condinsation issues. So the cap, more often than not has some of the perfume itself in it. Who ever did the bottle and spray design was an idiot that didn't think this through. Courtesan isn't so easily purchased like Chanel no 5 is. Online retailers only have it intermittently, making backups a little harder to procure. With the sprayer being all wonky means that evaporation is a massive threat.

The second thing that I have noticed with Courtesan is that Courtesan has the lasting power of nuclear waste on my dry skin. With how fruity and light Courtesan seems to be, that is a remarkable feat to be that long lasting. My dry skin eats perfume like there is no tomorrow. I can apply Courtesan at 8 in the morning and I can still smell it at 8 the next morning. I had forgotten how long lasting Courtesan is. So with those two issues, I think that I will be wearing Courtesan a whole lot more.

Two or three years ago, one of my guy friends had gifted me a Door Dash gift card. Some of it was a joke but maybe he might have gotten it from someone else and he had no use for it. Maybe he figured that since I don't drive, I would probably have a little more use for it than he would, since he drives. So I used that gift card today. I had a hankering for some fast food, a promo code to make the price just right for me to use. There have been a couple times where I was in a bind where I had to use a delivery service for groceries. Delivery services like Door Dash and Instacart are freaking expensive so I make an effort not to use them too much. I know it's about the convenience but a $10 fee at the low end and a tip kind of makes that a little out of price range to have it on a regular basis. One of my friends is totally blind and only gets $600 a month in disability is reliant on these services. She has said that even with a roommate and having food stamps, it's something she has to use because it's difficult for her to find any kind of ride or help to go grocery shopping. Yeah, having a disability can be expensive and time consuming. But it was kind of nice to just get a burger and fries and not have to deal with any kind crowds
 

Moving Shit Around

 I don't know who knows, but I have a grandmother who has dementia. On Wednesday, we had to start moving some things into her new room at her new memory care unit. The skilled nursing place wasn't really taking care of her. Thursday was the day when she moved in as well with more belongings. 

At this point, I am livid. What was sprung on me is that I had to give up my tall dresser. Then I had to take apart my smaller dresser because I am supposed to get new dressers. If I wanted new bedroom furniture, I would have said so and got it. Does anyone know what it is like trying to move heavy furniture that you still want to hang on to and use? I don't think my mother quite understands the amount of time and brute strength it takes to move large, heavy pieces of furniture up and down flights of stairs.

Since I am functioning with two little nightstands that are covered with candles. I managed to do a little shuffling (used up) and crated a tiny space for 5 bottles of perfume that I did manage to liberate. Yeah, with how everything is, I can't get to 99% of my collection. I have Ubar, Lyric, Mitsouko, Courtesan and a bottle of Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon. It's probably the oddest lineup that I have ever created.

Since I am dresser-less, I have to start going through the trash bags of clothes and figure out what I want to keep, throw out or donate. But that is going to have to wait right this second, I have a few other things that I need to take care of. What kind of sucks, besides having things being all over the place, it lack of access. I don't have the access to most of my perfume collection, I do have access but how motivated am I to move tons of things out of the way to get to what I am looking for. I don't like the fact that I don't have the space to burn candles safely. I'm not willing to risk setting the house on fire because one of the dogs knocked over a candle by either wagging their tail or roughhousing. 

Let's hope that I can find another perfume to add to that odd collection. I don't think my coworkers would appreciate Ubar or Mitsouko. I am not sure my parents would appreciate that either now that it's going to stay warm.

Valentine's Day

 It's Valentine's Day here and for those who follow the Catholic faith, it's Ash Wednesday. I work in a bakery and had to deal with the overload of paczi yesterday. If I didn't work at a bakery, I wouldn't have had a clue about Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday. But the paczi that we sell at my store is an overrated jelly doughnut. You would probably have a better paczi if you went to an old school Polish bakery.

I'm not following Valentine's Day either. I might be off but I am not with anyone, so I have nobody to celebrate it with. I am waiting for tomorrow because I want the half priced Valentine's candy. But we shall see if I really want to be out and about tomorrow. Probably not though.

I'm pretty sure that many people have bought their significant others jewelry, candy, flowers and perfume. I was thinking about that I think would be great perfumes for a Valentine's gift. Then I got to thinking about a list of solid choices for Valentine's perfumes, even though I am bathed in the traumatically discontinued Fendi Theorema. The people at Fendi were total morons for getting rid of Theorema.

I have to start off with Lyric. Since the Valentine's colors are red, pink and white, the bottle fits with the general color theme. Since roses seem to be the most gifted flower on this day, the spicy rose of Lyric fits the day. Lyric is one of my most loved perfumes and probably the first Amouge that I fell head over heels in love with and then Epic was my second. Yeah, Amouage is expensive and probably the most expensive brand on this list but you only live once.

The original Shalimar is going to have to be my 2nd choice in all of it's vanilla goodness. Shalinar isn't a straight up vanilla thing, there are more moving parts. There is the citrus aspect of it and whatever else is in there to make Shalimar a little on the slutty side. I haven't tried too many of the Shalimar flankers outside the Ode a la Vanilles. Shalimar is pretty affordable but the Ode a la Vanilles from around 2010/12 and crazy expensive if you can find them.

My third choice would have to be the tried and true and probably my lamest pick on the list is Chanel no 5 in extrait form or the edt form. You could possibly get away with the edp version but the extrait and edt are the first two versions of no 5 that came out. I would ignore all the other no 5 flankers for Valentine's Day. Coco said that she wanted no 5 to smell like a woman and not a flower. In the '20's, that was revolutionary in terms of perfume but that would be a whole different post. With no 5, outside of the aldehydes, no other note sticks out but no 5 wants you to move in a little closer.

I was thinking of putting Mitsouko on the list but outside of perfume nuts, who really would seek out Mitsouko? She is a little too strange and maybe a little too harsh for a lot of people. I am thinking it's a little too strange. I am leaving out vintage Bal a Versailles due to the fact that it's vintage and can be a little on the pricey side. Plus I don't think that most can deal with the outright slut in vintage Bal a Versailles.

Not Exactly Amused

I have blogged about having my Afterpay account frozen and wanting to pay it off before I thawed it out? I decided to pay the rest of the stupid thing off a week early and thawed it out. Because I was stupid and needed to make a payment arrangement to make sure it was paid off, Afterpay has reduced my limit to $100. I fully expected them to reduce that $1,400 limit to maybe $200 at worst and maybe $400 at most. Between those two numbers, it was a usable amount  and very workable amount. I just wasn't expecting something that severe. Afterpay's reasoning was to "encourage responsible spending" but after reading tons of posts on Reddit, Afterpay seems to be on everyone's shit list. People who have never paid late or made excessive purchases are getting denied for orders or their limits reduced. Some are only getting a limit of $50 and that isn't a usable limit at all. I am going to use the $100 that I have and maybe use that for gift cards and then get the things that I will need. Maybe by March or April, May at the very latest, I might have a $300 limit. So perfume purchases have been pushed back and probably way back. I am okay with that though. With having Afterpay paid off and the rest of my cellphone bill will be paid next week, I can rework my budget and I am a little more relaxed at this point. Paying $75 every two weeks was starting to kill my bank account. But it looks like Afterpay might not be doing all that great if orders are being denied or limits being slashed to something unusable along with taking away the no upfront payment feature.

Tax season has started in the US and I got my W-2 in the mail a few days ago. I could have filed it yesterday or today but I am being a little lazy about it right now. I don't want to file it right now, even though I am going to receive a small refund. The extra funds would be beneficial to me but I have to wait until what others decide what is about to happen with the cellphone business that we have going on. Are they getting their own plan or wanting to stay on my plan and just upgrade their phones? And this is another first world problem. I had let someone know that if she wants an iPhone, she either pays for the entire thing upfront or she goes and gets her own plan, my budget doesn't support an iPhone. What I would really love to do is upgrade my phone, pay the activation fee and just bank the rest of the money.

I am trying not to go out and get back ups of anything this year and mostly succeeding at this point. I would love to get a backup bottle of Chanel no 5 in extrait form. Even though Sephora has it and will have a spring sale around April, I must remind myself that I have tons of no 5 already and I don't need more of it. I want to finish up another bottle or two of no 5 and must finish the extrait bottle that I already have before I can consider getting another extrait bottle. This is a year were I am more motivated to make some changes to my life. To have a better relationship with money, to use up more things (like candles and perfume) and actually go out and do more. By trying not to buy stuff, means that I can save some money to actually go out and do things. At the end of the day, I just want to enjoy life a little more. I am tired of being invited to go out and do something but have to turn down the invitation due to money. I would like to live a little bit more and live a little better.
 

New Year's Resolutions

 It's New Year's Eve today and I got to thinking about some resolutions. I didn't decide to do the same old lose weight or quit smoking. I always fail at those, probably because I am not ready to do those things yet.

My first resolution is to limit myself to only buy 2 full bottles of perfume. The restriction is no back up bottles, it has to be something new. The two perfumes that I did pick out is the Gris Charnel extrait and the Viktoria Miny Eau de Hongrie bottles. The other part of that resolution is to use up what I can with full bottles and decants of what I have.

My second resolution is to seriously start using up the candles that I already have and make an effort to not buy more. Or at least buy as little as possible with the candles. I keep making that resolution and keep failing at it. I can never seem to keep that one. As soon as I start to make some serious progress, Bath and Body Works seems to either release old favorites or have a really good deal. And I can never refuse a good single wick candle sale. For right now, I am only allowing myself 2 candles every 6 months.

I guess the main part  of this whole post is just to make an effort to spend less money. I am thinking the whole idea of saving some cash is to maybe do a short trip somewhere. With one of my vacations, I would like to do a 3 day trip to Gettysburg and maybe around October, I can do a ghost hunt at the Mansfield Reformatory. I don't think that I will have to try all that hard to convince a friend of mine to go. It just comes down to if the cost would be reasonable for him. Well, tax season is right around the corner so it might be a whole lot doable then.

Does anyone else have some resolutions?

More Amouage Exceptional Extraits

 Yesterday, I received an email from Amouage with news of some Exceptional Extraits being released. In some ways, I was hoping that it wasn't Memoir or Lyric. Reason being is that I love Memoir and Lyric is probably my favorite from Amouage. The Exceptional Extraits are things that I really can't afford but this line up is Amouage on steroids. By looking at the pictures of the email, I didn't really think that they would were not releasing Lyric or Memoir yet. The bottle colors didn't match the pictures. If an unexpected $500 to $600 were to drop into my lap, I would still get Epic 53. I was thinking that it was going to be either the women's version of either Jubilation or maybe Dia.

I was partially right and it was the women's version of Dia, called Dia 40. The men's offering was Jubilation 40. In some ways, I was hoping that it would be the women's Jubilation. It took me a long time to understand Jubilation 25 and even longer to fall in love with Jubilation.

I don't think that Amouage has really run out of ideas but I do think that the people at Amouage are trying to garner some more interest. Most of the common folk, like me, are probably not what Amouage has in mind. Us common people, who do not have tons of discretionary spending, might get one bottle a decade. Every business wants to make money but most people are not into perfume and to spend $300 and up on a bottle of perfume doesn't cross the mind of most people. Amouage can set the prices to whatever they want, as their right.

But I still want to get a sample of Dia 40 to try out. Just like I want to get that sample set of the Exceptional Extraits. Maybe next year, after I recovered from Christmas.

Fall Has Arrived

According to the calendar,summer is over and now it is fall in the Northern Hemisphere. That means that I have to start rotating out some of my summer stuff and adding some of my fall stuff. With cooler temps, the days getting shorter and leaves changing colors, summer friendly perfumes don't cut it. But it's not cold enough to pull out my winter perfumes. 

I want things that are a little more substantial but not too substantial. I am looking for some kind of transition between seasons. I don't have a whole lot in terms of transitional perfumes and I am not seeking more of them. My collection is large enough as it is. Well, I'm not really seeking out a whole lot in terms of perfume right now. I'm still trying to see if I can actually finish a full bottle or two before year's end.

I find that a good many Tauer offerings are great for fall. Au Couer du Desert and L'Air du Desert do come to mind for fall, along with Lonestar Memories. I find that Shalimar and Memoir are great for the fall as well. The original Chanel Coco is probably going to be pulled out of storage a little later. I find the original Coco more of a later fall, early winter type of perfume.

I've just pulled out my massive bottle of Cuir de Russie. After years of not really wearing too much of it, it's time that I started wearing it a little more. When I first fell down the rabbit hole, Chanel's Cuir de Russie was my first purchase. At that time, there wasn't a huge Les Exclusifs line and the bottles only came in a 200ml bottle. When the Les Exclusifs line was only in EDT form and it was $200 for 200ml. Looking at the whole line again, I am amazed about how expensive perfume has gotten in the past 10-15 years. I'm just amazed about how many big perfume names now have an exclusive line and some of the prices of those things. But while I am at it, I should think about pulling out that bottle of Sycomore and start wearing that as well.