The ever growing list

This past weekend was like many others, like many of you had, too much to do and too little time. I finally got to the “big city” with some time to spend on trying to complete my growing personal shopping list. Here’s a reminder

My list:

• A black pencil skirt 
• A white blouse (no collar!)
• Black boots
• 2 pairs of jeans
• New foundational garments
• New socks

The maybes: 

• Brown boots
• 1 or 2 dresses
• Off white lace shirt
• Good walking/training athletic shoes 

Recent additions: 

• New black clogs
• Grey boots or “booties” 

So, I looked down at my feet the other day and was mortified to see the seam up the center of my right shoe, which I like a lot ~ a pair of black leather clogs ~ had split open! I don’t really know how long I have been walking around with a big ol’ split in my shoe but I was not too pleased. The left one has the start of a split as well. I am bummed. Now, I have worn the heck out of these shoes for the last year, but still.  I need to replace these shoes and pretty soon. 

Since I found myself in the big city with a bit of time on my hands, alone, I decided to go for the foundational garments. Ugh. What a chore. They change styles and fabrics all the time and why? Furthermore, you know you have to try on about a million bras before you find the right size and style for you. Yes, I know they have bra ladies at fine department stores. I was not at one of those. I’m just a tad frugal at times and quite frankly, bra time is one of them. 

  

I trekked into the dressing room with 10 bras at a time, 3 times, 2 stores. I felt beat up. After I conquered bra land, I tackled underwear…panties (for a lot of people, this is not a favorite word for some reason). Why have they stopped making all cotton panties? What was wrong with all cotton panties? I found them to be functional. But, failing at all cotton, I settled on just a few pair of some sort of blend or another by Vanity Fair. They are fine, thank you. They are underwear ~ enough already. I am super glad to have new underwear folks, and if any of my male readers are embarrassed or uncomfortable at this point, I do apologize but seriously, boxers or briefs and that’s it? You have no idea. 

  

I did a quick run through the shoe department at two stores, looking for boots, clogs and whatever else caught my eye. My plan was to head to DSW to check out a big ol’ selection (and where I got my clogs last year) but ran short on time after the tremendous amount of trying on bras I had to suffer. I also looked briefly at dresses in one shop and did a very superficial search for a black pencil skirt, but hated all the material I felt. That’s how I shop…glance over the colors selection, left to right through the entire displays. Zero in on colors and then feel the material. Many, many items do not get pulled from the rack as I don’t like the feel of the material. I stay 100% away from acrylic sweaters…I don’t care how they feel or how great they look on the display ~ their life is limited. No black skirt on this pass. I did see a crazy print skirt that I may have to find online as they did not have my size. 

  

Earlier this year I picked up a little “bohemian” style sleeveless top. Now, I am not into sleeveless so much but did pair this top with a cotton cardigan and really like it. I stopped in to the same store to see if they might have this shirt in other colors, on clearance and in my palette. They did and even though one was not quite in the palette, I bought it. It’s almost in the palette and I already know I like the shirt. So, a bit of overkill, but I have 3 and next summer is not that far off (ha!). I splurged on a red blouse that just screamed to me as I walked by. If you know me, you know I love me some red. Even on sale it was a bit pricey but made well and great material. May push back the white blouse and besides, you know I’m not sold on that idea anyway. We’ll see.

So this shopping trip went pretty well. I like what I bought, although I will go through everything one more time before tearing tags off to wear. While I was in the dressing room with all the undergarments I noticed my pants were at least 1” too long and pooling around my black clogs. How did I not know this? That looks super dumb. I really need a full length mirror.