I have been shopping.
Make no mistake. I do not care for shopping. My idea of an ideal shopping experience is to walk into the first available store, see the perfect item, try it on and be out of there in five minutes. This has happened to me exactly once in my life, so you may extrapolate my general feelings on shopping from there. That said, it was a relatively successful shopping experience.
I hadn’t gotten new glasses since before we moved to Ireland, which wasn’t a particularly big deal because my eyesight improves incrementally over the years or changes not at all, but still, I thought it would be nice to have some new glasses. So I went into Specsavers and found a pair, frames and lenses inclusive, for €149, which was apparently as high as I was willing to go for glasses I didn’t really, really need (I have two pair. Possibly three. The last time I lost a pair was in 2002, when I accidentally knocked them from the bathroom counter into the garbage and didn’t notice until the garbage had been emptied. Because I had extras then, too.). Anyway, so I was satisfied with that, and then the woman said, “Two for one,” which I made her repeat several times, because although the Specsaver ads are always going on about two for one, apparently I didn’t believe it. Anyway, being no fool, I got the second pair too, so now I have TWO pair of new glasses, both of which are semi-rimless, so that’s new and exciting for me. :)
Not so much buoyed by the successful glasses shopping as unable to manage to actually set a date with my sister to go bra shopping, I then bit the bullet and went on my own. I even had myself measured, because they’re always going on about how 98% of women are wearing the wrong sized bra. Apparently I’m one of the two percent who wears the right size, because she measured me at the same size I was last time I was this weight. And I gotta say, wow, eighteen pounds down from where I was pre-pregnancy and boy, still nothing makes you feel like a flabby bit of flesh like trying on bras. Blik. Regardless, I successfully purchased new bras in exciting new colors for not quite obscene amounts of money, so I’m relatively satisfied. Flush with success, I bought new knickers, too, which don’t actually fit like I expected them to, but they’re comfy, so that’s what really matters. And wow, you really wanted to know all that about my underwear, didn’t you. o.o
Then I went and bought a pair of shoes I’ll probably end up returning, because although they fit they’re not really all that close to what I want. Of course, what I want doesn’t exist. What I *want* are a pair of attractive, 2-inch sturdily heeled sandals or slingbacks that have arch support and ball-of-foot padding so they can be walked in, that come wide enough for my quadruple E feet. Actually, what I *want* is a pair of saddle shoes in cream and teal with all the previously mentioned aspect, but that *really* doesn’t exist. So perhaps I should just keep the shoes I bought. And look into selling my soul to earn the cost of custom-made shoes…
Anyway, so that was my shopping trip lately. I’m sure you’re all very excited. I have also dyed my hair the least interesting color I’ve ever dyed it. As I said to Mom, that was my intention–just to darken the brown a bit–but having accomplished my intention, I’m not so sure it’s actually what I /wanted/. I’m suffering from a much more active desire for a Rogue stripe now. :)
And just for the record, I look utterly magnificent in my new J. Peterman coat. :)