I'm the chosen one. And I choose to be shopping.

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As much as I miss my kids during these weekends, I love having every other weekend off. I can do so much stuff I could never do with them, host wine nights for my friends and stay up way too late watching documentaries about oceans and the geology of the earth. I know, stop. It's overwhelming to y'all when I'm This Cool, but bear with me.

Friday night I got to see all the moms from the playgroup I used to belong to in my SAHM days. It was great to see everyone again, and fun having wine and running our mouths for a few hours. I hope everyone was able to pass of the morning stuff to the hubbies after such a late night :)

Today, after a late start, I hit a couple Goodwill's to looks for clothes/toys/books for the kids. I also scored a pair of Banana Republic pants and a pair of Gap pants for myself.

I found fab books for the girls. Including a couple "My Little Pony" early reader books that Bean will crap kittens over.

My best score was spending about $20 on 6 dresses for the girls, including dresses from Ralph Lauren, Lilly Pullitzer, Laura Ashley and Sweet Heart Rose. These all would have retailed above $20 each, some well above $20, so not bad. I just love getting cool fabrics and solid construction that will stand up to being a play dress, all dirt cheap.

There actually was some big old barn/garage play thingie for $4 at my local GW that I resisted buying, simply because they don't need it. I scored a great Fisher Price barn there for $2 a couple weeks back so, technically, they're set.

I've realized that thrifting is kind of an obsession of mine. I started doing it *way* back in the day, when I was like 15 or 16, and dressing completely differently. So I'd look for cool mens' button-down shirts and jackets (think chunky punk, and that was me). I'd go with my then-BFF, Ashley, and we'd scour the thrift shops downtown. Hell, we may have started before we reached driving age, and taken the bus.

Ashley, if you read this, I actually dreamt that you and I were on the phone, talking about the good old thrifting days, and also about how we'd like to try to plan to meet up some time. So if you get some random nostalgic Sarasota thrifting email from me, that's why :)

I hit a Goowill that someone referred to as Sak's 5th Goodwill, way down (way down to me, at least) on Lake Austin Blvd. I did score the Lilly Pullitzer and Sweet Heart Rose dresses there, but the store was so cramped and chaotic that I didn't enjoy shopping there. No Goodwill, that I've seen, at least, is really good about sorting and sizing their clothes - it's usually something like "black tank tops" as a category, so you have to sort through the entire thing to see if any are in your size. But my local one, at least, has bottoms sectioned into types and sizes, so you don't feel like you have to go through 30 feet of stuff, just your section.

Maybe I should hire myself to Goodwill as a merchandiser for all the local stores ...
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