Important news: Muir Glen organic salsa is on sale at the Westside Grocery Outlet for 99 cents. It's like a gift from the long-weekend gods.

I just ordered this $11.98 (originally $24) Sounders knit hat from the Nordstrom Half-Yearly sale. Cute, huh? There are a number of MLS team options still available, and Nordstrom always offers free standard shipping, no minimum.

This one's totally random, but whatever: if you're near Ralph's Thriftway and baking something that involves sprinkles (like this Smitten Kitchen recipe), be sure to check the weird little alcove in the bakery section by the refrigerated cakes. That's where the bakers keep their store-packaged sprinkles, which are considerably cheaper (by weight) than the little jars in the baking aisle.

Follow up tip: That Smitten Kitchen recipe? Way more of a pain than the author makes it sound. My kitchen is COVERED in sprinkles.

While out on a walk yesterday, I stopped by one of the many local Little Free Libraries. (You can check the official LFL map here, but there are plenty of unregistered free libraries in the area, too.) I was happy to pick up a copy of Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera's All the Devils Are Here, and in return I dropped off a copy of a weepy-looking melodrama that I was never, ever going to actually read. Other people appear to enjoy that sort of thing, so I hope it finds a good home. Anyway, today I thought I'd do a quick post about Little Free Library etiquette, based mostly on my mother's experience with maintaining one.

1. If the Little Free Library you're using is overstuffed, it is totally okay to not drop off a book in return! They are rarely 100% watertight, and jam-packing them with books just means more books are likely to end up water damaged. Hang on to your donation, and make it at some later date when the pickings are more sparse.

2. Please don't drop off religious texts. It's okay to simply recycle that battered copy of The Watchtower or The Book of Mormon. If you feel really guilty, return it to the church in question. Either way, God will forgive you.

3. And speaking of religious texts, please don't drop off anything written by L. Ron Hubbard, even if it's not Dianetics. Scientologists work very hard to keep Hubbard's enormous body of work in constant circulation, and frequently pull stunts like donating huge crates of his extremely dated (at best) science fiction novels to local children's groups. Please do not encourage this behavior.

This Essie "Mint Candy Apple" nail polish + top coat combo is available at the Lacey Grocery Outlet for $4.99 (normally $15). My nails now look pleasantly springlike, even if the local weather is shifting back from unnaturally warm and sunny to our more typical late-May rain/chill/sun/thunderstorm variety pack.

This is a little further afield, but soccer fans should note that Living Social is currently offering a $9.99 ticket to Seattle Reign FC's upcoming game against the Boston Breakers on Saturday, July 2. (The upper grandstand tickets normally go for $18.) I'm not sure if this is a one-ticket-per-account deal, but Reign games are always fun, and—considering their current rash of injuries—they can probably use all the support they can get.

I spend a lot of time poking around Olympia-area stores (I have a pedometer, and you have to get your steps in somehow), so I decided to make an online home for the cool, cheap stuff I encounter, in case you are also in the market for cool, cheap, Olympia-area stuff. And in honor of the upper-middle-class-hipster lifestyle I mention in the header, I thought I'd start with this awesome art deco-y planter I just found at the Westside Homegoods:

It cost $12.99, and it's roughly 9 inches high and 10 inches wide. I filled it with a prayer plant from Ralph's and my mother's birthday gift is done. If you too keep wistfully eyeing Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters/West Elm promo images that look like the Platonic ideal of a plant-filled 1970s record shop, be sure to check out the Homegoods/Marshalls stores. They have loads of great planter options.