Bloggin' On A Budget || Week 6-7 of 52

How are my favorite savers out there? It's the end of week 6, beginning of week 7 for our 52 week savings challenge. If you haven't started saving, it's not too late. To date you should have put in at least $21 into your savings account/piggy bank/ under your mattress/ in a hole in the back yard/etc. But if you're like me and want to be an overachiever, you could put in double a week and be up to $42. Your call savers! Hope all is well.

Let me know what you plan to buy with your savings come this time next year? As for me? I'm looking at revamping my wardrobe. Or adding on to my future house fund.

For those that need a reminder of what the 52 week savings plan is, I aim to please.

You Own a Busines...and?

Hi, my name is Karla (With a K) and I'm a business owner.

There. I said it. I own my own business. Started it when I was 22 and almost a year later, I haven't failed. So I'm going to call it a success.

Recently, I was contacted from a friend from high school. We'd briefly talked about my business last time I was home and she probably had seen me posting stuff on facebook about it. But she contact me because she wasn't aware that I OWNED a business. Like my own. Mine. Me. All me.

So yes. I'm going to proclaim my business owner status to the entire world. I and a 23 year old MBA student that owns her own business. What's my business? Love-Lea. You may have seen the link to my website at the top of this blog. No? Well go ahead and check it out. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Now let's get down to business (all puns intended). I sell lotions, body butters, lip balms, hair butters, detoxing clay hearts, bath salts (not the turn you into a zombie and eat other people's faces kind), and much more. I do most of my business through craft fairs so you can assume the business is pretty small. And you'd be right. And that's the way I like it right now. Juggling grad school, working nearly full time, softball, working out, and a business is pretty tiring. So for once, small is how I'd like it to be...for now.

Oh. And did I mention that I make everything? Yes. You read that right. I, Karla With a K, makes everything on that site. By hand. So don't get it twisted. This isn't a Mary Kay, Avon, Scentsy sort of thing. I make everything on my own. I am my own boss. And I love it.

But what I'd love even more is to share my lovely Love-Lea concoctions with you all.

So visit the website. Peruse to your hearts desire. Fill a shopping cart. Press OK. And give me your money let me make something special for you and yours.

www.shoplovelea.bigcartel.com 

If bird's the word, spread eagle.

Reasons, Seasons, Lifetime

Going home is always a mixed bag. The town I come from is comparable to a black hole (in my opinion). If you don't leave once you graduate high school, you tend to get stuck there. Which could be a good or a bad thing. For me, it would be considered a bad thing. I like being the girl from a small town than the girl stuck in a small town. 

Going back and reconnecting with friends from high school makes me realize how much I've changed and just how much we've grown apart. It hurts sometimes knowing that you don't quite fit in with the people that you shared your formative years with.  But once you get past the hurt, you realize that those people, and everyone else you come in contact with were put in your life for a reason. Or a season. Or a lifetime.

I've had plenty of people enter into my life as possible lifetimes only to go out after their season, or even sooner after their reason was fulfilled. In elementary school I had a best friend who I thought would be a bridesmaid at my wedding to the cute kid with a bowl haircut. Luckily, that cute kid with a bowl haircut never liked me back so that wedding I talked about is still on hold today. But the best friend? She found another best friend and life went on. What about that guy in high school who you were best friends with for about two years until he decided to drop out his senior year? Seriously, you two were inseparable. You bailed him out of trouble more times than you could count. He taught you not to judge a person before you got to know them. Reason. And that girl that has a key to your apartment and let's herself in at any time just because she doesn't want to stay at her place? Or that guy who is your emotional tampon and is actually okay with that title? Or your best friend, roommate, therapist, and "other mommy" to your pudgy drool filled blog of a dog? All lifetimes.

We all have people in our lives that are there for a specific reason, there for a season - say four years in college, or for the rest of your lives. The hardest part isn't determining who is apart of which group, it's letting people flow in and out of your life at their desired times. There is nothing worse than holding onto someone who you hoped was a lifetime and only find out that they were there for a simple reason.

Well I'm sure there are some thing some things that are worse. Probably child labor, child birth, and all things having to do with pushing a large object out of an orifice. But still, it's pretty bad.

You Might Be Racist If... Part 2

I was perusing through the book of faces this afternoon when I stumbled over this little gem of an article that one of my cousins linked to.

It pretty much sums up every reason why you, yes you reading this, is probably most likely a racist. Don't worry (yet), it's been cloaked in mainstream entertainment for so long that it might as well be wearing hipster glasses with no prescription lenses drinking your root flavored tea outside of a Starbucks.

Side note: I have a pair of hipster glasses. They're pink. They have math symbols on them. And they are fab.

Here's the link. And the picture pretty much describes it all. And yes, it more accurately and more wittily (I may have just made up my own word) describes racism better than my post a while back.  A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism' 

Bloggin' On A Budget || Getting More out of Your Taxes

Before you trip over your pudgy dog while running to the mailbox to get your W-2's, here's a bit of advice for you straight outta Dunwoody from Bankrate.com that will help you get more from Uncle Sam this year come tax returns.

Hope this helps lovers!