IKEA

Dear People who want to shop at IKEA alone (for need or sanity), You can do it! So long as you don't buy anything you can't lift on your own or put in/on your car solo you're fine. First- Park near the end of the store with Returns. Then SHOP! Load all of your belongings on whatever carts or trolleys you can push. Then pay for your items. Next take your items towards the exit where people doing returns enter. Flag down someone who works there (really anyone will do.) Tell them you need someone to watch your purchases while you fetch your car. Finally fetch your car, go retrieve your purchases from wherever they put them and load up! Congratulations, you shopped IKEA without having to bring the circus, consult with others, or talk someone out of buying another Billy bookcase or CD organizer. Go you!

Shopping Spree.

I'm looking to find a new job. So I looked through my wardrobe to figure out what I would wear on an interview and found it terribly lacking. Now the reason for my job search is that the past two years at my current job my pay has been woefully inadequate (as well as having expensive but useless health insurance) so I don't have a lot of money to spend for the old "you gotta spend $ to make $". So after a orientation for a volunteer position yesterday I hit the thrift stores.

Salvation Army at Fullerton and Clybourne... my salvation for all things sweater-y.

Purchased fro $30 + tax:
-One Beautiful Purplish/Majenta Wool sweater with a couple of small holes (repaired in 10 minutes) and one purple long sleeved shirt to wear underneath
-Two Cream colored light cashmere sweaters and one cream long sleeve shirt to wear underneath. One sweater perfect, the other with holes near sleeve cuff--I will convert to 3/4 length sleeves.
-One A-Line knee-length black and white floral skirt with sequins
-One long length very unique black skirt
-Two Business Suit Jackets
-One sweater that I hate the style of but absolutely Love the yarn and will salvage the yarn for knitting

Family Thrift at 2160 N Milwaukee (My FAVORITE thrift store! They are clean, well organized and have FITTING ROOMS!!!)

Purchased for $14 + tax:
-3 pair of jeans! (This is a miracle and is entirely due to the fitting rooms. I have a difficult time finding pants that fit so I usually would not buy where I can't try on. And I usually try on 50+ pair of jeans for every pair I buy-- somehow paying less than $4/pair makes me less picky than when they are $40-$90 and I was lucky to find some that fit fairly well)
-1 pair of awesome pallazo pant dress slacks.
-1 Silk dress shirt
-1 pair of dress shoes

I estimate the MSRP of all of these items new at somewhere over $700. My cost= under $50

Although honestly I'd never pay MSRP for all of those items I'd also say that realistically I'd still feel happy paying $50 for even a single pair of nice pants that fit well and there were probably 3 or 4 items in my purchase that I would have gladly paid $50 retail for had I the money.

Summary: SCORE!!!

Provocative T-shirts

Interesting article on the T-shirts many of the young folk are wearing these days.
Here are a couple excerpts:

Call it rude, call it crude, call it the latest sign of civilization’s decline — there is no escaping message Ts.
Some are harmless. JCPenney sells T-shirts that say “Be happy” and “Looking for my prince.” Some are ironic: “You couldn’t afford my expensive taste” is the message on a $12.99 shirt at Charlotte Russe.

Then there are the baddies of the T-shirt world — the sexy girls smokin’ in the bathroom. “Stop staring, they don’t talk.” “Yes, but not with you.” “Are you a good boy?’’

In a society soaked with sexual imagery, such messages are being worn by girls barely old enough to drive, or in some cases, stay home without a sitter.

But when does playful cross the line to trashy? And how should educators deal with sexual messages in the classroom?

At International Plaza’s Abercrombie store, 16-year-old Rebekah Stellick of Clearwater purchased a shirt that read:

“I may not be perfect, but parts of me are pretty awesome.”

Ariel Levy , author of the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, says provocative shirts are a symptom of a culture obsessed with sexual showmanship.

“Even if you have a dress code that says you can’t wear that to school, it doesn’t change the fact that the entire culture is set up in a way where that is appropriate,” Levy said. She said it trickles down to youngsters from women who confuse sexual explicitness with feminist liberation.

Personally I rarely wear anything that says something at all, if I do it is usually either humorous or advertising for something I believe in. I object to even the "Princess" and "Boy crazy" t-shirts I've seen young girls wearing today because I really feel that the labeling makes girls WANT to fit the words and become some stereotype more than they might already have become. ICK! Why are women creating an ever-heightening sexual atmosphere and hierarchy for OURSELVES? Why do we take over where men leave off and push it even further?

GRRRRRR!

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Trader Joe is my new crush

OMG!

Trader Joe's has apparently been tracking me for years and stocking up on everything I buy or am likely to buy...EVER!

I hit the first aisle and knew I was in trouble. Item after Item was something I wanted and I immediately found myself holding back in a way I usually reserve for tool stores, knitting stores and chocolate shops. I don't think I've ever had this kind of experience at a grocery store!

Perhaps I should explain that my normal grocery store experience entails searching every aisle for the few things in it that I will eat, and enjoy, and can afford, and then having to do a second round when, after I finish the first round, I realize I don't have enough food in my cart.

In a size less than 1/4 that of my normal grocery store was almost everything I ever buy. I was there just before close, so the produce was a little bit low, but that didn't phase me at all, especially when I got to the frozen food section and found vegetables galore, with mixes I've never even seen at my store.

They had the Tofutti Cuties Ice Cream sandwiches that my Dominick's quit carrying a couple of months ago, they had an awesome selection of nuts--roasted, raw, salted, unsalted, They had Indian ready meals for $1.99. They had Frozen Nan and Garlic Nan!
They had, be still my heart... GELATTO!!!! I love Trader Joe....no, really, where is he? Get him over here, I want at least a hug!

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