Vices

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I am off for an evening of scrapbooking. It is my only vice besides reading and crafting and and and. I do everything with Creative Memories partly because it is some of the best stuff on the market and partly because my best friend is a consultant. Anyway, what are your vices? What do you splurge on when no one is looking(food or chocolate doesn't count!)Come on tell, No one would know you if we saw you,so your secret is safe with us!-God Bless

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), December 07, 2001

Answers

Political intrigue, Tom-Clancy-type, spy, mystery and other assorted novels.

-- Randal (randal@rhyme.cjb.net), December 07, 2001.

Books, books, books! I LOVE used book stores - my favorite place to shop, besides thrift stores and garage sales. Also movies. I love to go to the movies with my honey. We don't go very often - maybe 2- 3 times a year, since it's a 40 mile drive to the nearest theater - but it's great when we do go. So since we don't get to go to the theater very often, we rent movies usually twice a month, and we've got a ton of them on video - half for the kids and half for us! :-)

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), December 07, 2001.

Certainly books! I have too many and lists of ones I want to read, I will never finish them all in this life-time!

Also plants for my perennial bed. I love looking for new varieties. Another weird one is I like everything to match. So if my dish- towels are looking bad, I will switch all of them to cleaning rags and buy all new ones so they will match. Same with dishes, when all my glasses start to get broken, I give all the old ones to the Fireman's Auction and buy all new ones. It is just a peculiarity of mine. I don't do this very often, so it isn't too expensive. But I want everything to match!!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 07, 2001.


I guess I would have to say musical instruments. I have a hammered dulcimer, a banjo, an epiphone 6 string accoustic guitar, a gibson SG custom electric guitar , a gourd shaped mandolin (a gift), and a 1930 violin (family heirloom). I would like to get a bass guitar next, but we went into debt to buy our farm this year so that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

-- Rick (Rick_122@hotmail.com), December 07, 2001.

One of mine is suspense movies like Silence of the Lambs, Bone Collecters and the like. Not horror movies. I only watch them when I am by myself.

-- Jo (mamamia2kids@msn.com), December 07, 2001.


Books. I like to read just about anything but I particularly like mysteries that run in series like Tony Hillerman and Sharon McCrumb. I also love used books stores-its my favorite place to go.

I used to have a weakness for fiber-fabric, yarn, different threads- but it got soooo expensive. I'm pretty good about only buying exactly what I need for a project, and pretty good about using up remnants. But I will get books anytime, and even stay up half the night reading.

-- Kelly (Ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 07, 2001.


Okay, here it goes, you can all see how shallow I am now! When I was in high school, I actually considered a career in modeling; I think I was too chicken that I couldn't take the criticism of people sizing me up and that I might come up short (well, not literally, but you know :o) ). Okay, now that said, since I stay at home, I haven't indulged much in the last few years, but I am noticing lately that I am getting more picky again. I love clothes, makeup, especially nails (my own, not those fake ones), and my hair has always attracted attention; it's red, and long. So there: now it's out in the open, and you probably all will think I am awful! I mean, after all, it's not even a productive vice!

I do also love to read (everything I can get my hands on), but I consider that learning, so it's not really a vice, as long as I actually read what I buy! I also try to buy either at deep- discount, used bookstores, or garage sales when I go books. I signed up to sell Mary Kay mostly to get my makeup at wholesale (and my mom and sister's also), and I used to actually win trophies for my sewing in high school, so I am trying to get back into that, as I can make a $45 pair of velvet pants for $8 in material and a $2 pattern, plus use the pattern for the skirt and blouses that are in it also!

So, it's not all that bad, right? Are there any more out there like me?

By the way, Melissa, I do the same thing with the matching stuff, towels, glasses, placemats, even down to my underwear! At least my husband is the same kind of weird, so he doesn't complain!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@aol.com), December 07, 2001.


I have an odd one for you. While I'm pretty frugal on a lot of things (and maybe not so much on others), here's my secret splurge; Sox!

Yes, those things on your feet. I love a brand of athletic sox called Thorlo's. You can get them in designs for different sports/applications. They are wonderful. Before I found a deal to buy them wholesale by the box they were a real extravagance at around $15 a pair. Even now they're not cheap, but I love them and I don't care. ;o)

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), December 08, 2001.


Yes, Ms. Never Pay Retail has a secret vice that is funded by a leak in the family budget and consumes almost as much time as children. (as this is a secret vice, it is obviously NOT the horses!)

This splurge of money, time and space is heavenly scented or flashy flowering plants, many of them sub-tropicals.

Roses in barrels in sunny protected areas that are not (gasp) organically grown. I get armloads of long stemmmed hybrid teas to smell up my entire house all summer. Double Delights and Chrysler Imperials and Tiffanies.

I have different kinds of jasmine that has to come in the house for the winter where it climbs and blooms all over the bathrooms. I have gardenias blooming in the living room making it smell like a funeral parlor. I even have a Clementine tangarine tree that blooms indoors in October so I can have the scent orange blossoms. I have a hot pink bouganvilla climbing my living room window. Underneath it all are small pots of blooming African violets.

Outside near the doors I have daphne, akebia, oregano, calla lillies, heliotrope, monarda and jasmine for scent. ThenI have showy roses, fairy roses, irises, hydrangeas, humongous fushias, peonies and wisteria, foxgloves all underplanted with violets.

Even my walkways and patio are planted between he stones with pennyroyal, creeping thymes, smallmints, texas blue star and violets.

You see, here in the extreme Pacific Northwest everything is green all the time. Our air and everything else smells like rain or algae, except when it gets real warm, then it smells like rotting vegetation. Color and scents help me get through the long, wet gloomy climate we have.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@hotmail.com), December 08, 2001.


Well, it took me a while but reading Christine's post jogged my mind. I don't have to purchase my vice very often and if you were to meet me or visit my house you would never know. It's Victoria Secret underwear and they have to match. There, my secret is out.

-- LaDena,Tx zone 9 (littledena77458@yahoo.com), December 08, 2001.


For me it's colognes and perfumes! I love to go to stores and try them on. I love to wear some scent that smells wonderful! I could never have too much of a few brands! And...I know the ones that get a gleam in DH's eye!!

-- Ardie /WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), December 08, 2001.

Chocolate doesn't count!?;) (I'm pretty sure in my case it should)

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), December 08, 2001.

I have a how-to book problem. My husband would say I have a bigger animal problem. I love them both..and I sort of have a fiber thing too...

-- Jenny (auntjenny6@aol.com), December 09, 2001.

My vices? Well, I don't have any! On the other hand---good lookin old 55, 56 Chevys, steam engines, home cooked grub, Iced Tea and a certain Lil Red Headed Dumplin. Does Ice Cream count? Old hoot the vice-less hillbilly from IL. Matt.24:44

-- old hoot gibson (hoot@pcinetwork.com), December 09, 2001.

Mine is magazines.....but I don't buy like I use too. I still get the log home books. I never use to part with my magazines but now I share them with people remodeling or love log homes books, too. When we travel, my husband and I both love to stop at a book store and stock up on reading material. I'm sure I have other vices but someone would have to point them out to me. My husband has spoiled me through the years and I have lots of things. Love to go to the diamond store.

-- Jo (farmerjo@kvalley.com), December 10, 2001.


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