I Love Shopping Now

A friend and I celebrated our birthdays (we each have one about a week apart) by having a day out. We started with a mid-morning pedicure. The we drove to a nearby shopping center where we had coffee and some British chocolate. We then shopped a bit. I found a great new store here-Saks 5th Avenue off fifth. It is basically a Saks Fifth Avenue outlet store. We happened to hit the place on a big sale day. There were hard core designer outfits still being sold for 1000.00 (starting out at $3000-$4000 dollars!). Some of these things were clearly of a very high quality while others were already dingy and some sweaters had pills on them and they were still on the rack. They were all tooo rich for my blood.

We wandered over the the step-down designer section and found some great dresses. I found three of them! one started out at $500 dollars and I walked away with it for $45 (Calvin Klein). The other two were nearly the same. I also found a couple of things for my trip this summer. A nice white linen skirt and an oatmeal colored linen jacket (Ellen Tracey). My friend had about as good luck and found two dresses, a skirt and a wallet.

This shopping thing...IS AWESOME! You may have noticed that I am buying new clothes almost every weekend now. Stuff really seems to be on sale but also I am finding that for the first time in my entire life trying on clothing isn't about finding something ...anything that fits in a half way decent way. Now it is about pulling a bunch of clothes into a room and then prioritizing which one I like the most or which are going to cost me whatever I am willing to spend. It is CRAZY good. I am going to pace myself on the clothing thing..well..at least try to :)

We skipped lunch and stopped and had a diet coke. My friend wasn't hungry (she is the friend who lost 90 pounds by going to weight watchers and exercising her rear off). I wasn't hungry so we had our drink and another square of chocolate and kept right on shopping. We hit a few more boutiques (looking for a nice shrug for her to wear with one of her dresses). We then went to the container store and had a look around.

Finally it was time to check in for our massages. I have never had one. I was always too embarrassed at the idea of having a stranger massage all of my fat. Sure I have had a husbandly massage here and there but...well...they were untrained. The massage was great. I had a 50 minute one with hot stones added. The stones were great! she let them sit on my back for a while and then did part of the massage with the stones..very warm and soothing. She then rubbed and pressed my achy horse poo shoveling muscles from Friday. Then did my legs then back up to my neck and then arms. It was well worth it. All I could think the whole time was that now I knew why they put those massage tables on sale at Costco...I need one of those and to train my husband to do this :)

ON a funny note there was one band incident during the massage (not serious mind you but worth mentioning). Before we went into the massage they offered us a small glass of water. I drank mine and then shortly after that went into the massage room and laid down on the table...well that water had not really gone completely through my band yet. laying face down on a massage table is not conducive to funneling stuff through the band. At one point I wondered if they could put a trough under the face opening so I could spit the water out :) ...in the end it slowly trickled through but it was kinda noisy..and I really needed to burp! I toughed it out and when she had me flip over it finally finished going through and I could burp.

After the massage my husband and Grace met us with her family and we had a really nice dinner out at a seafood place. IN all it was a great time!

I put on my two party dresses last night and found my other gray shoe so I made David take some pictures of the 8dollar black lace dress and the first dress I found. I will have him do pics of the newer dresses when I put them on next time. This new dress obsession does have a history. I have always looked horrible in dresses. My big belly and boobs together made all dresses hang on my like a sack. I always had to wear skirts and blouses. This is the first time in my life when dresses actually looked good.

This is the one that cost $8.00 at the Pendleton outlet store. It looks really short in the picture but David assures me that it doesn't look that short when I walk around in it.

The dress is fully lined and made of a black eylet-like lace. I love the bell sleeves. I need some darker hose and a black pair of strappier heels I think (the ones I am wearing are a dark gray as are the shoes).


Ok yes I guess I do have big ta-tas again. I really thought they had deflated beyond repair (well at least without surgical intervention). These new bras seemed to have pumped the old girls right back up again.
David says that my arms are a bit too fleshy (well skin saggy in reality) to go without a shrug. I do think it looks better without the shrug..if it weren't for my arms.

Again I need strappy sandals...do you think flats? I can wear this one in the summer I think even if I don't wear it to the dance.