Retail Therapy

The past few weeks have been busy. We were out of town two weekends in a row. Then one three day weekend Hubby was gone all day and evening, three days in a row, filming a movie (more details on that later...). So it was me and the three kids all day and night, and all night and day for three days. FUN! I can deal with two kids all day any day. But it's just that third one that puts things over the top. Anyone feel me out there? I feel like my head is spinning after just 2 hours.



Anyhow, I digress. My point is, that there's nothing like taking a few hours for yourself after weeks of feeling exhausted.Some people find comfort in food, others find comfort in shopping. I have the bad habit of needing to "reward" myself with a "little treat" whenever life has me needing a vacation from myself. Even window shopping makes me feel better. The good thing is that I'm typically not a big spender. And I get much more satisfaction over a good sale. Especially the sale where the good stuff is on sale, not the items no one wants to buy, sale or not.

So yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised with an unexpected afternoon to myself that involved shopping. I don't work on Thursdays but usually my Thursdays are consumed with typical errands like doctor appointments, folding and putting away the endless pile of laundry that never goes away (did I ever mention I do one load a day- madness!!!). Something or the other always seems to consume most of my Thursday. And if I'm not busy, I pick up the kids early. Well the only thing I had scheduled yesterday was my annual eye exam that I cancelled several times and have been putting off since July. I had no choice but to go this week because I was all out of contacts and LensCrafters refused to sell me anymore until I had my eye exam. Since I refuse to wear my glasses in public unless medically necessary, I had to go.

So here I was, finally at the doctor thinking about all the things I could be doing instead of sitting in the waiting room reading about Brittney's binge drinking and partying that apparently attributed to the "comeback debut" debacle, and I was just completely annoyed at how being almost blind was so inconvenient. Finally, the doctor sees me and he convinces me to allow him to dilate my eyes for some special "screening." For any of you that have had that done, it's no fun at all. You can't read or see anything up close and your eyes are very sensitive to light. Well, the LensCrafters I go to is in the midst of some awesome shopping. Ten minutes after the eye drops were in, I could hardly walk straight since my eyes couldn't focus right. There was no way I was going to drive home under those conditions so I managed, as hard as it was, to make my way to some of my favorite stores. Bless my heart, it was hard. Despite not being able to read or see very well, I was very able to see the big red "SALE" signs all over the place and even managed to get a general idea of how much the item I was looking at cost. I'm sure I looked absolutley insane holding a price tag to my nose with my dark sunglasses on in a store.

I can only imagine what people thought. Who cares because all I have to say is, 70% off summer clothes. I live in Florida- it's summer almost year round here folks. What an adventure I had. Just to give you a taste of my good fortune, I bought four really cute outfits for $32. AND included in that price, a nice pair of summer sandals that I've been meaning to buy for Oldest. Even better, I finally used two gift cards that I received last CHRISTMAS that I never had a chance to use.

Fortunately, my vision and balance started to come back right around the time I had used up just enough money were I wouldn't have to hear Hubby complain about "over spending." I grabbed a quick lunch, made my way back to the car, and headed for my round of school picks ups. Twenty minutes later, I had one baby screaming his lungs off in the car because I didn't have his daily after school snack that he gets right after day care, then I had Daughter ripping apart the note Oldest's teacher stapled to his book back with all the important information on today's field trip (yes, I had to put the shreds together when I got home) and I had to answer Oldest's twenty questions on who was coming to his birthday party this weekend and what did I buy for the goody bags. I knew there was something else I was supposed to do!