Goodness, it feels like such a long time since I've written on here!  It hasn't really - my last post about my time home alone babysitting the dogs was a little over a week ago - but I still feel like I've neglected this blog of mine.  Well anyway, I'm back with an update on what I've been up to!


I continued to babysit the dogs, and for the most part it went really well.  Beasley was an absolute angel the entire time, so sweet and following on my heels everywhere I went, and so willing to get in my lap and snuggle.  It was so hard when my brother finally came and picked him up.  Wah, I want my own Beasley! :(  He's just one of those dogs who has a way of getting into your heart.  The only thing is that he's not a very fun dog to take for a walk, which is a shame, because I was so eager to show my little dog friend off and walk him all over the place!  It was weird, we could barely even get down to the end of the street before he would stop in his tracks, no longer budging an inch no matter how many times I would encourage him and tug on his leash.  I think my brother's turning him lazy.  He's also turning him into one of those dogs who simply craps wherever he pleases.  We would be walking and before you knew it Beasley would be pooping in a neighbor's yard.  Even when I would scold him and yank him out of the yard, he's still continue pooping and end up getting it on the sidewalk!  Agh!  I mean, I had those dog poop sacks with me at all times just in case, but still.  And of course I could never get too mad at him because he would look up at me with those big sweet eyes.  Curses.  Oh well.  Besides that little faux pas, everything went really well and he was the perfect little pup to keep me company.  I think Jessie was glad to have him gone when the time finally came.  She missed having all my attention on her.  Sorry, Jess!  He's just so cute!  But hey, when the parents finally came back from vacation, I guess they were really impressed with how well I kept up the house and especially the yard, because Dad paid me with an extra $50!  He gave me $50 spending money when they left, but I never ended up using it, so I was hesitant to take another $50.  It was really no big deal for me to take care of everything and I wasn't expecting to get paid for any of it, but Mom insisted that Dad really wanted to pay me for taking such great care of the yard and being responsible.  Aww!

So now it's back to the old routine again, of having the parents back home.  Me and Mom have been trying to do things everyday to keep us busy, but these past couple of days have felt so exhausting!  The dry hot days are gone, now replaced with the familiar dreary overcast drizzly days that we're normally used to.  It's been hard trying to get used to them again, though.  These kind of days make us feel so tired and lost for energy.  I even feel... heavier?  Like I have more gravity pulling me down or something, if that makes sense.  It's just so much harder to get the motivation to do things when the weather is like this.  Yesterday was a pretty productive day though.  To start, me and Mom went to the laundromat to wash a bunch of bulkier things like blankets and my large comforter that normally won't fit in the washing machine at home.  Once we got the clothes in and machine running, we decided to pass the time by driving over to Value Village and browsing around for awhile.  The day before the parents came back last Saturday I had taken a trip to Value Village myself and saw that they had some really good mugs and plates there, but was still deciding about buying them.  This time around, though, I still had them in my mind and was eager to see if they were still there.... They were!  The mugs I was interested in were these really nice, ceramic off-white kind with horizontal lines embossed on it (?).  Anyway, they had a really nice feel when you held them in your hands.  And then I spotted a stack of really pretty pale blue plates.  I was thinking of just buying one, but I couldn't resist buying the entire stack.  And all of it - the mugs and the plates - were only $0.99 each, so why not!

Four pale blue plates + off-white ceramic mug: $0.99 each = around $5 altogether = !!!

When I saw the mugs on Saturday I had plans, if I ever came back, to buy all five that were there, but as I looked closely at each of them, I found that nearly all of them except one had minor flaws about them, whether it was a few dinks or faint bluish ink streaks that I wasn't sure would wash off.  Looking back, I should've just not worried about it and bought more than one anyway, but at the time I really wanted one that was mostly perfect, which is the one I bought.  Oh well, one is good enough.  Plus, Mom thinks I'm going a bit overboard on the home items for someone who doesn't even have a home yet!  Haha!  But I can't help it, it's so fun!  Altogether the mug and the plates only totaled up to about $5, but Value Village has such a great home section, you could easily buy everything for your kitchen there on a fantastic budget.  I am so, so happy with my purchase!  Needless to say though, Mom has pretty much cut me off on buying any more home things until I actually have a place I can put them all.  But just today we made a trip to Target to buy a few things, and I saw the CUTEST bowl and cup set ever!  It was unimaginably hard to pry myself away and resist the urge to buy them all.  They were $3.99 each - so not quite as good a deal as at Value Village, but still a pretty darn good deal if you ask me!  Oh, they were to die for, though.  This is what I mean:

UNGH, PLEASE CAN I HAVE THEM?  SO.  CUTE.
Mom says I should wait until they go on sale, but are they going to go on sale any lower than $3.99?  That's also a great price for them.  What if they're too popular and they end up getting sold out!  I'll try to figure out what to do.  I may just have to go against Mom's orders and buy them online.  Shhh... I swear, Mom, I'll find a place to put 'em!

I don't know what's gotten into me, but I've really been getting into a homey mood lately, coming up with ideas for what I want my own home to be like someday and already getting a head start and buying some of these things.  Besides taking a trip to Value Village to eye those mugs while my parents were gone, I also took a walk to town one day, not expecting to do much besides drop off some library books and stop by the Dollar Tree for a quick look around.  While at the Dollar Tree, however, I happened upon something I've been looking into buying recently: velvet, non-slip hangers.  It was a 2-pack for $1.00, so I figured starting off with 10 hangers for $5 was an excellent deal and a good number to trial-run, to see if they really were as good as everyone says they are.



  I first heard about them through my favorite Youtuber, Zoella, in one of her homeware haul videos.  They were purple, just like the ones I ended up purchasing myself, and from what Zoey said, they seemed like just what I needed to keep my closet looking tidy and organized.  It wasn't so much the non-slip factor that made me want them (although I do have some soft tops that will benefit from these), but more the fact that they're very slim and will most likely make a big difference in closet space compared with the bulkier hangers I have that so often get in my way and that I am constantly having to push aside to make more room.  I thought these hangers would be the perfect thing I needed - and they look so cute, too!  So I was immensely excited to rush home after I bought these and try them out.  Since I only bought 10, I don't have quite enough to completely replace all of the hangers in my closet, but from the small section of clothes I have hung up with these, I'm already noticing a difference.  Since the hangers are so slim, they bunch next to each other nice and compactly, making a small space for ten clothes to occupy easily.  I fell in love with these hangers so much, I went back to Dollar Tree a couple of days later to buy more, but they were completely out of the purple ones.  NOOO!  I knew in the back of my mind when buying the first ones, that I should've splurged and bought more than 10 in case they ended up selling out, but I didn't think they would sell out that quickly!  They still had plenty more then!  Erg, this is what happens when something popular comes to Dollar Tree.  I could buy more online, but none of them seem to hold up to the amazing deal I got at Dollar Tree. *sigh*  Well, I'll be sure to update on my closet when I can get around to purchasing more of these hangers somewhere.

Okay, the last reason behind why I haven't been updating is because I've been sort of busy occupying another site that I'm so glad I found out about: Swagbucks.com



Basically how I happened upon this site was that I was bored on the laptop one day, pretty bummed that I was led to believe by my old job that they would hire me back on this summer only to have that not happen, and wanting to do something to earn a little extra cash.  I'd been trying a couple of times this past year to find websites that pay you for taking surveys, like CashCrate.com.  But every time I signed up for one of those sites, I would only feel discouragement after clicking through survey after survey, never actually earning anything from the time I wasted on them due to my not being "qualified" enough.  It seemed like much more time and effort than was truly worth it.  On this day though, when I searched "Sites to earn money," Swagbucks popped up on the results, and after clicking through a few personal reviews, people swore by it, declaring that it actually works and you can get great rewards from it.  So I signed up to see for myself how legitimate it is, and I found it is so much easier to earn points!  You can earn points in a number of ways, either by playing a few games (up to a maxiumum of 10 points), watching videos, registering for websites (make sure to use a bogus email you don't mind getting filled up with junk email!), doing surveys (where, even if you don't qualify, you still get a 1 point for your troubles), and you can get even get major points just for searching the web through their search engine.  I just registered maybe four days ago?  And already I'm up to 716 points.  It's definitely a website that takes a considerable amount of time to get at least 100 points per day, which is somewhere around where I'm averaging, but it doesn't feel like other sites where you put in a chunk of time only to not be qualified and end up with nothing but hours of your day lost.  With the time I've put into Swagbucks so far, I've far surpassed the amount needed to earn a $5 gift card to any of a variety of different stores and now nearing a $10 gift card within the next few days.  I think I'm going to keep earning and only cash in once I reach one of the larger rewards, like a $250 gift card to Amazon, or maybe even just a $100 Paypal Cash Card.  I'll make a special Swagbucks post once I successfully earn my first reward, to prove that this site really is as good as it seems and hopefully to spread the word to others!

Well, I think this is about where I should stop.  It's been a good, hearty post to make up for my not updating.
Until next time!

x Danielle