My hubby and I are attending a wedding this Saturday. With that in mind, my thoughts turned to clothes. With being a stay-at-home mom, I don't often have call to shop for fancy dresses, and my hubby wears work-clothes (aka, clothes meant to be destroyed by dirt and chemicals), so we were in need of some wardrobe updates. I wanted a new dress, shoes and some matching jewellery. Mark needed a new suit with all of the stuff that goes with it. So, we budgeted. We know a suit will cost in the general ballpark of $300-$400 (hey, we wish we were Armani folk, but get real!), and a dress about $100-$150. With shoes and other necessities, we figured about $600 between the two of us.
Mark calls me from the suit shop after work yesterday to tell me that he's getting suited up and will be home soon...Later, he walks in with a description of his nice new black suit, and a bag containing 3 new shirts, 2 ties, a belt and a shoe-shining kit. Oh, and two silky hanky things for the suit pocket (salesman saw him coming a mile away!). To get to the point, in the bag was one more item. The bill. $798. Kripes! To his credit, he was a little sheepish about having blown my dress budget, but now it was time to think.
I have a beautiful dress; I wore it to our friends' Jay and Alison's wedding. It will do nicely. But I really did need new shoes. So I jetted off to the mall. On a side note, the last time I went shoe shopping, there were 7 shoe stores in the mall. Now there are 3. Naturalizer (ah, no....), Payless (great for kids, not for dancing shoes) and the Bay. (Actually there is one called STEPPS, but the heels in there are all 7 inches high. I want wedding-dance shoes, not pole-dancing shoes!). So, I trudged around the Bay. Saw a perfect pair of black sling-backs. I just knew that there would be no 7 1/2's there. Murphy's Law and all...but no! The shopping gods were with me, and they had my size and they fit! And they were comfortable, and...ON SALE!
With such savings, (even with a -$200 budget) I knew that this was a call for some jewellery. Hey, if I can't have a new dress...so I found a great necklace and matching earrings that are PERFECT for my dress. So, all in all, it turned out okay.
But the next big event, I fully intend to blow the budget. ON ME.
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On a separate and sad note, I was holding Ty on my lap yesterday, and noticed something dismaying about his hands. Gone are the sweet little baby hands of infancy. He now has real big-boy toddler hands. No dimples. Sigh...I miss the baby hands...
And speaking of the word baby, and lack thereof, Mark goes for the snip it two weeks! Sucker! (Just kidding, honey!)
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And before I head off, I must tell you about the coolest thing that happened to me the other night. I walked into Tim Horton's for my nightly XL tea, and there was a group of about 30 men there, ages ranging from 60-80 years. They were from a travelling barbershop quartet group and apparently had been entertaining the customers. Sotto voce, I sang "Goodnight Ladies..." and to my delight, the whole group joined in and sang the whole song! I clapped with glee like a 4-year old at the Santa parade. Then they invited me to sing with them. I begged off, saying I didn't know any of their songs, that I wasn't good enough, etc., but they wouldn't take no for an answer. One man (who looked startlingly like my great uncle Jimmy) asked me if I had ever seen the Wizard of Oz. I told him that it is one of my very favourite movies. He said, do you know "Over the Rainbow"? I said yes. He said, start singing. So, I did. It was like something out of a movie. The whole gang joined in with about 20 different octave ranges and made me sound awesome. It was one of the most fun moments I've ever had in my whole life. I applauded them all, took a bow, and headed for home. I grinned all the way.
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And as a new tradition on my blog, the word of the day: improving your vocabulary the fun way!
insuperable • \in-SOO-puh-ruh-bul\ • adjective : incapable of being surmounted, overcome, passed over, or solved
Example sentence:My refusal to iron one more freaking shirt for my husband proved to be an insuperable obstacle for the housework-impaired male.
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2 comments:
I'll have you know that some of us have no choice but to shop at Naturalizer and in addition to making comfortable shoes, they also have a wide variety of rather stylish styles.
This ad may or may not have been brought to you by Naturalizer.
Naturalizer shoes are about $3000000 above my shoe budget. Jeez, lighten up, sister!
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