About Amanda
I’m a disgruntled LIRR commuter by morning, real estate journalist by day, insomniac by night, and cancer butt-kicker for life.
Where To Find Me
One Man’s Trash is Another Amanda’s Treasure
Published January 15, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/15) – It’s Saturday. You’re Not At Home.
I rummage through the rack of scarves, picking up a gold-embellished pashmina. Only $2! I put it in my cart, which is filling up with clothes, books, board games, and other long-discarded items. It’s just another Saturday rummaging through thrift stores with Lexcie. He’s off looking for Coca-Cola glasses, which are found in almost every store we go to.
Flickr: Pete Boyd
Thrifting is relatively new to me. Once in a while, I’d stop at a garage sale or local thrift store to see what things people were getting rid of. Sometimes I’d end up with a new novel for a quarter or perhaps a nice basket. It wasn’t until Lexcie introduced me to the mega thrift store (Salvation Army, Goodwill, Savers, and consignment boutiques) that I’d really become a convert. I’m constantly finding brand new clothes, expensive books, and vintage accessories for mere dollars. (That is, unless Lexcie watches my shopping cart. A lot of things for mere dollars can add up to $50 or $60, I’ve learned, especially when you’re in Great Britain and thrift store density is akin to Starbucks in New York City.)
Some of my best finds include: a $60 pencil skirt for $3 (new with tags); a vintage teal Samsonite Fashionaire carry-on, which I now use as my briefcase; a $50 Ann Taylor scarf for $4; and plenty of spectacular, signed vintage brooches for my jewelry collection.
I hardly shop retail anymore, which is good for my wallet and overall materialism. It feels nice to give something a second or third home. I’ve found some really great buys that I may not have necessarily sought out elsewhere, opening me to new fashion, new ideas, and new inspiration.
The Road Less Traveled
Published January 11, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/11) – You Are In A Motel Room
Mom, my sister Alyse, and I watched from the window as a freight train rumbled on in the distance. Ten, 25, 50, 80 cars – we lost count after 100. The motel we stayed in was in the Mohonk Valley of upstate New York. My friend Erin was having her Sweet Sixteen party at her new home in Edmeston, a town that falls in the middle of the Schenectady-Syracuse-Binghamton triangle. We decided to take a road trip up from Long Island.
It’s hard to believe that this was the same New York we live in. We saw green valleys for miles and miles from the hotel room. We’d gone horseback riding, explored Howe Caverns, ate lunch in a town with only one traffic light, tried sulfuric spring water in Saratoga, and passed many, many cows. It was a far cry from the ocean beaches, Long Island Railroad, and miles and miles of strip malls I was used to.
That road trip wasn’t as glitzy as many of the vacations my friends had taken – weeks at Martha’s Vineyard, transcontinental flights to California, resort stays in Mexico. We didn’t have that kind of money.
But I didn’t know that. Mom always made sure our trips – this was our first multiple-day jaunt since I’d gone to Disney World at five – were full of fun, unique, and memorable experiences, even if they didn’t cost a lot of money.
Even though our money situation has improved drastically since then, we still don’t go for the glitz. Vacations are spent meandering and exploring, sometimes throwing the map to the wind. Luckily, my fiance Lexcie shares the same traveling philosophy. Our house is full of treasures from those trips – rocks, seashells, little trinkets picked up at a small town gift store.
It’s finding a stone with the words “THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES” painted on while horseback riding in the Mohonk Valley. Eating stinky tofu in a little mining town in Taiwan. Finding a free pair of roller blades on the side of the road while taking a different route than originally planned. Buying the most comfortable hammocks ever from a seaside shack on Prince Edward Island. Visiting Islip, England just because it has the same name of your hometown.
You never know what you’ll find along the road less traveled.
The 6th Day of Christmas – Secret Santa
Published December 6, 2011 | Today is St. Nicholas Day, a day when people in my household usually each receive a small gift in celebration of the feast days (this year, I gave Mom a copy of Shel Silverstein’s newest book, Every Thing On It; I received the Zagat Commuter Pack and Lexcie a tin of Almond Roca).
But each year around this time, I give a different gift – one to a child at a Women In Need shelter in New York City. Each year, the Association of Real Estate Women Charitable Fund plays Secret Santa to over 200 children at the shelters. If you participate, you’re given a wish list of three items a child wants for Christmas. You’re only obligated to buy one of the items, but most of the participants go above and beyond.
I first participated in the WIN Secret Santa three years ago. That first year, the coordinator sent me the list and I just about cried – the young boy wanted a bicycle. Like I did when I was 10.
That year, I had asked for a bicycle for Christmas, as I had outgrown my old one. So did my younger sister Alyse. Little did we know that our family didn’t have enough money to afford new bicycles that year. On December 25, there were no bicycles under the tree, but we were satisfied with the other gifts that Santa had brought (that year, I remember a Troll doll, Magic 8 Ball, and Beauty and the Beast VHS).
After we’d opened our gifts, Mom told us to go into the living room to watch TV – and sitting in front of it were two shiny new bicycles bedecked in big ribbons. Alyse and I ran outside, still in our pajamas (but bundled up tightly) to test out our new bikes, riding them up and down the street in the bitter December cold.
Years later, I learned about our financial situation, and never understood how those bikes came to be. Mom eventually told me: two of her friends found out that we wanted the bikes and purchased them for us. They were our Secret Santas.
Now was my chance to fulfill that same Christmas wish for a little boy. It was the best gift I could have given anyone.
Help Me Squash Lymphoma!
Published September 1, 2011 | It’s been a while since I’ve blogged – life has been that crazy. So crazy that I just started fundraising for my annual Light the Night Walk, which benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As many of you know, I am a six-year survivor of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, so this cause is near and dear to my heart. Last year, I raised over $7,700, my best fundraising year ever.
This year, I’ve created a website, Squash Lymphoma, to make donating and promotion a bit easier. It talks about my history, Team Squash Lymphoma, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and my fundraising efforts for the year. I will be walking at Bethpage Ballpark in Central Islip, Long Island on October 29.
To kickstart fundraising, I’m holding my first contest for the month of September. Every $10 donated to my Light the Night fundraising is an entry to win an iPod Touch 8GB. A winner will be chosen at random on October 1.
Other things to do: send out my nifty thank-you notes to last year’s donations (fashionably late, as usual with everything in my life), check out if there’s another Islip street fair this August, and pound the pavement for business sponsors.
Would you please consider donating?
$380 Million
Published January 5, 2011 | I, like 99% of other Americans who played Mega Millions last night, did not win the $380M jackpot. Or even part of it.
But what the heck would I do with that much money? I can’t even decide what to do with $38 in my pocket sometimes.
Lisa Brewster
So, I thought about what I’d do (after making sure people around were taken care of properly):
- Donate significant portions to my three favorite cancer charities: Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Journey to the Cure, and I’m Too Young For This!
- Donate a significant portion to Stony Brook University Cancer Center as a thank you for treating me
- Establish scholarship funds for Fordham University and St. Mary School, so students who can’t afford to go to either school could have a chance like I did
- Upgrade The Ram‘s office and technology, and upgrade the technology in Fordham’s Communication & Media Studies department as needed
- Likely a pipe dream, but convince the Sisters of St. Joseph to reopen The Academy of St. Joseph and upgrade the school so it can properly compete with other private schools on Long Island
- Buy an abandoned movie theater – preferably Islip – upgrade it, and name it “A Theater Near You” (which I thought was the name of every theater when I was three years old)
- Buy a house, preferably with a pool and near a library
- Make sure every food pantry on Long Island is well stocked
- Build a shelter or transitional housing
- Buy some commercial real estate
- Open up my own bookstore
- Travel the world
I’m sure I’ll think of other things. What would you do with that much money?