Shopping: It's worse than the dentist

I'm taking a break from Colorado posting.  We lost our internet connection after a bad storm we had three weeks ago and I have not been able to use anything but my phone to connect.  I have missed posting in here!  I've taken to jotting down ideas for posts on little sticky notes at work.  We'll see how many actually turn into reality.  I have had alot on my mind lately.

Because there will be some serious ones coming, I'm starting out with a bit of fluff.  I want to talk about shopping.  And how my attitude towards it has changed in the last 30 years.

I used to consider myself a stylish person, as is my mother and as was her mother before her.  The only trouble was, I could blow a huge wad of money on clothes in a very short amount of time.  This continued all through my 20's and into my 30's.  But sometime along in there came some responsibility.  I didn't want to have credit card debt for years to come.  I knew I would have to get a handle on these binge shopping trips.  So my trips to the mall became fewer, and I would go only when I really needed something, like a new pair of jeans.

Then came marriage, owning our first home, and a tighter budget.  Then came the things that foever ruined me from wanting to go shopping like before.  CHILDREN.  (Sinister Dah Duh Dum!!!!! in the background).  When you first have them you are so overwhelmed that you can't even think about clothes and don't give a crap what you look like.  Then you realize you must face people in public from time to time, and your body is completely misshapen and doesn't fit into ANYTHING in your entire closet.  So you are forced to go shopping.  But it's impossible to focus if you have a kid with you, even an infant.  Since you have no idea what size you wear anymore, you must actually go through the trouble of trying things on, sometimes multiple times.  When you have 15 minutes while the baby is asleep to do this, it's not surprising that you leave with one top that doesn't really seem to fit like it did in the store when you get home.  So you start buying things here and there online, daring the Shopping Gods to send you something that doesn't fit.  Which they always take you up on and you lose.

I think I took Gabriel with me to the mall approximately five times in a stroller.  I am so clutzy anyway, I would invariably run into clothes racks, sweater displays and fellow shoppers as I stumbled through the aisles.  When Joel came I can honestly say that I took him to the mall once.  I hated those stroller memories so much that I just carried him through the store.  Yeah, that was a good idea.  You can't sift through the clothes on a rack while lugging a 20 pound 6-month-old on your hip.

Then there is the money, or lack thereof.  I try to ask for giftcards for birthday and Christmas gifts.  My mom tells me when things are on sale.  And God bless her, she is really the person who has kept me in anything remotely stylish since I've had children.  She hands down things that she doesn't wear that much, and she takes me shopping when I'm really desperate.  I had a few successful trips with my wonderfully sophisticated and stylish mom.  But it was on one of those trips that I realized something.

I HATE the mall now.  Despise it.  It taunts me because nothing seems to fit right.  It confuses me because I have no idea what is fashionable anymore.  It laughs at me glancing at endless racks and racks of clothes that I have no idea how to put together.  It frustrates me because I need so many things, and I can't figure out what to look for first.  It used to be my friend.  But no more.  We are now sworn enemies.

Internet shopping has become a somewhat better friend.  One that occaisionally still lets me down with fit, but I'm learning which retailers sell things that seem to fit me and which ones don't.  If I continue to have my way, the only mall trips we will make in the future are the twice a year visits to Striderite for the boys' shoes.  As long as we are in and out in an hour, I'm ok.  On these trips it's hilarious to watch their faces as we explore unknown territory for them.  "ALOT of people come to the mall, right Mommy?"   "Why does everyone need so much stuff?"  "That's a Food Court?  Cool!!!!"  They walk around with their mouths hanging open like hillbillies in the Big City for the first time.

Maybe one day I'll tell them how years ago their mom could walk the best stores, spot the hippest items and be headed back to the car loaded down with cute outfits in around an hour.