Woman in Real Life

It snowed again last night. This pretending it's not winter isn't working for me anymore. I'm dreaming of spring...warm sunshine, increased energy, tulips peeping through the soil...even rain would be fine.

The other day, my sister-in-law and I were chatting about spring dresses. We are both over the age of 40 (although I still think of her as a young thing) and we are suddenly finding ourselves wanting to try out a different style of clothing. We are craving more colour, more pretty...something fun.

I have had very few custom-sized dresses in my lifetime so far. I think the most recent was the bridesmaid's dress I wore over a decade ago for my sister-in-law's wedding. So, when eShakti contacted me offering me a free custom dress in exchange for a review, I was pretty excited. To be honest, at first I thought the dresses might be unappealing. But I couldn't have been more wrong.

I haven't done much thrift store shopping lately. The house is full up with dishes and stuff and any spare funds the last couple months went toward Christmas shopping.

Last week, my willpower faltered though when I got an email from the Salvation Army saying they were having a one dollar kids clothing sale this past Friday. The fact is, my kids don't need any clothing, but $1 for jeans? Why not?

Of course, I knew I wouldn't pass by the housewares aisle without having a peek. I loaded up on kids' jeans first. I even got each of the kids a coat for $1. Then I headed over to peruse the dishes.

Since my little beauty is home with me today for the Thanksgiving holiday, I asked her to model some of her favourite thrift store tops for me. Over the past few months, we have acquired quite a range of clothing for her from various thrift shops. These tops set us back about 50 cents to $2 each.

My personal favourite is this AC/DC tee. Of course, she probably doesn't know who they are, but she looks cool wearing it, doesn't she? Daddy gave the kids one of his old guitars, and we're thinking she is likely the rock star of the two. The dude is more low key than her.

With all four of us home for the summer, this house got a lot of use. And, a lot of use means a lot of...mess. It's a full-time job keeping up with the kids, particularly my daughter, who trails stuff behind her like a shopping bag with a hole in it.

My husband and I tried to focus mainly on summertime fun, while ensuring that we also took care of some necessary household projects once in a while.

But, the to-do list is never-ending. So, this labour day long weekend, with a whole summer behind us and the first day of school looming, we diligently worked together to make sure the house was nicely organized and presentable, thus ensuring a smoother transition back to work and school.

 



H&M has a coupon right now for 20% off of children’s clothing. So, I decided to take my kids to get a few new things this past weekend. As we were about to leave, my brother-in-law stopped by with a big bag of hand-me-down clothes for my daughter. I joked that we didn’t need to go to H&M anymore, but my daughter didn’t find that funny.


We found a few items for her at H&M, including this coat, which was on sale and $16 after the coupon. It has been cold the last couple days, so she is still able to wear it. (My son didn’t want anything. He just kept talking about video games.)


She also picked out this dress, sweater and leggings combo on her own.


She got this flowered top, which she paired up with a jean skirt she got from her cousin.


The day after our shopping trip, I fit the new clothes and her hand-me-down lovelies into her drawers and closet. Unfortunately, I have developed a bad habit—when I purge items from her closet, I just throw them up onto the top shelf “temporarily.”


So, my “10-minute tidy” for today involved sorting those discarded pieces and boxing them into sizes 5 and 6. Along with the sizes 3 and 4 in the basement, I plan to sell the good items in lots online.  More work for a later day.

I think my daughter will be happy that she can now actually see her collectible dolls.

A funny side story: My dog, Jolene, follows me around the house, and was relaxing on my daughter’s bed while I sorted the clothes. When I went back downstairs, I heard Jolene upstairs crying. I went to investigate and found this:

She was “trapped” by one small box and a couple of picture frames that I had gathered to remove from the room. Sorry, princess, but I thought you could jump. When we "rescued" her, we thought she was tough. Sure.

(Yep, that’s me in the portrait rockin’ my eighties hairdo. I was a Marilyn Monroe fan.)

How’s your spring cleaning going?