I am not going to lie; I like nice things. However, I pride myself on being a bargain shopper through e-bay, Craigslist and various discount stores. I have bought a room-sized area rug for $200.00, Pottery Barn lamps for $2.50 each (from Pottery Barn) and have no qualms about buying designer clothes at thrift stores. I like nice things, but I like to be cheap about it.

Unfortunately, when my husband and I bought our house in 1998 it was in sore need of rehab. There were yellow plastic tiles on all sides of the kitchen, including the ceiling. All of the bathrooms had linoleum, the foundation needed jacked up and there were trees growing through the patio cement.

We were both working full-time at good jobs and were plugging along on the renovations slowly, when I found out I was pregnant. Suddenly, we were rushed…and decidedly less wealthy…because I would soon be staying home with a new baby. We didn’t even have the money for discount items. We had to buy clearance discount. It wasn’t pretty, people.

I made many, many decisions on the fly as well. I picked out wallpaper because it was in stock, not because I liked it. I bought carpeting off of a 5″ x 5″ sample at a bargain outlet. I made a lot of mistakes. Times one thousand.

This may just be the worst of them. This is the boob light that hangs on my bedroom ceiling.

We have other boob lights in the house, but I see this one every morning when I wake. It stares at me whenever I lie in bed and despite searching e-bay and Craigslist and every other site I can for a chandelier to hang in its place, I have not yet been successful. In 12 years.

I hate this light. From the bottom of my bosom.

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1. If you happen to be home on a Sunday afternoon and are expecting a camera crew from a major national magazine to stop by, you may find it beneficial to empty the liquid from a glass like this into your belly. Twice.

2. Then you’ll still be nervous.

3. If the photographer has told you that he will be shooting pictures in your kitchen and in your garage, make sure you spend two days cleaning your kitchen.

4. Then realize that you haven’t touched the rusted paint cans, dried leaves and random pieces of cardboard in your garage until two hours before he arrives.

5. At which time you may beg your husband to clean it for you.

6. There may also be be shrieking involved.

7. If the magazine for which you’re posing has a circulation of roughly 4 million, you may find it is a perfect time to a) wax your own eyebrows, b) experiment with liquid eyeliner and c) forget to test your hairspray nozzle so that it doesn’t so much spray as it does shoot a solid stream of liquid into your fresh curls.

8. As soon as the crew sets up their equipment and has your kitchen completely blocked off with lights, wires and big umbrellas, your kids will tell you that they’re hungry.

9. If you happen to be busty then, by all means, pick a button down shirt for the shoot so that every time the photographer asks you to put your hands on your hips it pops open at just the right spot.

10. Then it will be like you’re posing for an entirely different type of magazine.

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