Off the wagon

Ahh, sweet plastic therapy, may your black stripe erase my black mood.

There really are fewer finer things in life than losing yourself on an unplanned, untimed, unrestrained shopping spree when you're in a bad mood. Scratch that; make that pretty much any time. I've been trying to curb my spending habits, now that I've got an understanding of want vs. need, and how historically I have been a 'want' spender. For the past several months, I've actually been doing pretty good. But today, my need to check out took me to the cash register. Two of them, in fact. And lo, what a suprise, they were the thrift store and the fabric store. Both of which, I am convinced, conspire against me by putting crack in their ventilation systems. I swear it must be true.

I trolled the thrift store for about an hour. I did spend about $20, but am still feeling ok with that. I have gotten *much* better about buying 'needs' there than ever before. I only got one cookbook for me, and one shirt for whichever of my friends has a baby girl first (dude, sometimes you just have to.) The rest was all books for Mags, a raincoat for next year when she outgrows the ducky one, and a nice rain/polar fleece jacket (reversible!) for us to take on our next trip, so that I only have to pack one jacket. See, always thinking! I've also started going through my basket one last time to see what I really can live without before hitting the cashier. I end up putting back about half the stuff I made on my first pass. Plus, I really try to buy stuff that's half off that day. Justification ahoy! Guilt? What guilt? Let's press on to the next store!

Which brings us to JoAnn's. Ah, yes, you can just smell the fibers in the air: the earthiness of the raw silk, the starchiness of the cottons, the flammability of the polyesters. The JA by our house is quite close; probably under 2 miles. On an ambitious day, I've actually walked there. The catch is, it's pretty ghetto. Crappy selection, messy store, constaly overturning staff, poor organization; this store has got it all. You'd think that'd work to my advantage. Nnnope. At one point I still had about $200 worth of fabrics and patterns in my basket. Hell, I must've spent 45 mninutes in the pattern section alone. My dream store would have private booths in the back like a porn shop so that I could squirrel away with my stack of pattern catalogues in order to have some privacy for knocking some bobbins together, or ricking my rack, or whatever sewing euphamism you'd like to make. Whoo hoo! Oooh! Look at the cute maternity outfits! Say, I have a friend who is pregnant..yeah! I'll just whip together a new wardrobe for her with all of my free time. And these natty looking pants! Why, they don't come in my size and I'll have to spend 14 hours altering them to fit my long bod, but hey! They're cute! You, lady, back off! I'm still using all six of these pattern books! You can have them when you pry them from my cold, dead hands, ok?!?

You see my problem.

Then there are the fabrics. My god, if I could only sew as fast as my brain can see the fabulous clothes inside those bolts, just crying to be let out! You hoo, I'd make a great pair of dress pants! (for all of my many formal/work occasions, you see.) Wouldn't I make a great kitchy retro skirt? You know you want me! And me over here, well, I'm just so cool you can't even decide what you want to make out of me! The possibilities!

It's much harder for me to put stuff back at the fabric store for some reason. I had to make 3 entire passes over my basket in order to whittle it down to a fairly painless stash. In the end I bought 5 yards of a sheer black fabric with a red stitched design on it (for that great holiday dress I'm gong to make and fit into in the next month or so. Ahem.) and some stretch twill to make a pair of pants, which I actually am in desperate need of. True, I'm feeling fat right now, so I'll most likely hold off until I am of a more reasonable weight, by whch time I should be back in school full time, won't have the time, and if they get finished at all, it will be during the wrong season. Isn't sewing great?

It's time to eat some lunch now. I really worked up a sweat while shopping off my funk. Why, my little bag-lifting muscles are positively exhausted!