Let's Try It This Way: A Shopping Post

I was going to try to be all organized and stuff and do one big blog post about My Fabulous Shopping Day (or, actually, 2 days), but then I realized that if I do that, I'll keep putting it off and putting it off because it's daunting to get all the photos and write the whole long thing and put the photos in the right place.

I'm lazy about it, OK? I'm sorry, but it's true. So I'm going to do it this way and post things one at a time as I have time. Or maybe two at a time--whatever. I'm just not even going to try to organize it all. You know:  one post about shoes, and then 48 hours later a post about linen tunics. And then--eh. Too much work.

So I did, indeed, have a fabulous couple of days shopping. I kind of gave myself a treat, taking two afternoons off and spending hours in shops and then actually spending money. I deserved it. How come? I think I mentioned that this week I feel like myself again. For the entire two months before that, I felt like crap. I wasn't sick, like lying-in-bed-with-high-fever sick. But I had a cough that wouldn't go away, an intermittent sore throat, some low fevers, recurring infections with the new ear piercing. Stuff like that. The main thing, though, was that I was exhausted every day. I slept more in the last two months than I've slept in years. Almost every afternoon I'd sleep for two hours. Sometimes I'd go back and lie down again before dinner (we eat at 9 or 10 at night, so there was plenty of time for a second nap).

My gynecologist said I was probably depressed. I told him I didn't think so but that if I were, it was because I WAS TIRED ALL THE TIME. And that *was* depressing, because it was suggested to me, more than once, that this was just A Part of Getting Older: I was going to need more rest. I was all like, "?" like Scooby Doo with the confusion, because it wasn't as if slowly, slowly, over the last several years I've felt myself running out of energy. No. It was like WHAM, all of a sudden, I was just tired all the time. And if you're tired and sleepy and have no energy, you don't feel like doing anything even when you wake up. No ideas, no creative spark, no nothing. So, yeah--maybe I was a teeny bit depressed. Because usually I have tons of energy all day long.

The chiropractor--and pretty much everyone else--said it was probably allergies. I pointed out I've had allergies since birth--hell, I had to give myself injections through high school and college--and that this didn't feel like allergies.

Finally, frustrated and worried that it would be like this for the rest of my life, I went to The EGE's doctor, a Regular GP. I don't much care for him--his accent is so heavy I have trouble understanding some of what he says, and he has trouble pronouncing some words in English (he's from the Philippines, so his accent isn't one I'm familiar with, as I am with Spanish). On the whole, I kind of like really excellent communication with someone who's going to prescribe drugs and order needles to be stuck in me, you know?

Anyway, so I got the antibiotics, took them, got well. The sore throat and cough and ear/skin stuff went away. I felt lousy the whole time I took them and lost more weight and was even sleepier, but once they were gone, I was great. And I went in for the check-up. I'd forgotten he'd ordered a blood test--I got it and forgot about it--and so was quite astonished when he showed me the results: sometime in the last 6 months (I'm guessing, gee, let's see? Two months ago, you think?) I had mono. I don't really understand the blood test results for mono and Epstein-Barr virus. There are all these markers, and high levels of some of them indicate you have the infection, but an elevation in another one says it's already past. All the rates were high, and I don't know what that means except that I had it but it's over. Or something like that.

Anyway, I was thrilled: it wasn't depression or old age or allergies. There was a REASON I've spent a big chunk of my recent life sleeping and having the energy of a dead battery.

So I went shopping. To celebrate, right? And if that doesn't make any sense to you, then I don't know what to say. Maybe you are a Testosterone-Having Person. Actually, though, it was inadvertent shopping. I was on my way to the fabric store to find out what kind of cotton this dress is made of (voile, it turns out), and in the little strip mall there was a shop I didn't remember. We went in, and everybody was really nice--they've seen us out dancing and were talking about that and asking about upcoming dances and stuff--and the owner swears they've had this consignment shop for 11 years in the same place. News to me, even though I'm over there all the time--it's not even a block from the only fabric store in town.

Since everyone was so nice, I started looking around. Oh, my. She had a TON of stuff, and reasonable prices. The first day (yeah, I went back again), I bought two linen tunic-y things and a totally cool vest.

 OK--this red one was blowing in the wind, so you can't see the shape. It's like a big shirt, out of linen. I don't know what I'll do with it after I over-dye it, but probably something.

This is a Bryn Walker coat-ish thing, and you maybe have heard me talk about that line of linen stuff:  ugly but inspiring. This was almost new (or brand-new) and cheap. New it was probably about $198. (Bryn Walker stuff is huge at the Dillards here; the woman says people come from all over West Texas and New Mexico to buy it. Huh.)

I'm going to dye them in golden yellow and then overdye the greyish one in green to get, I hope, a bright chartreuse. We'll see how that goes.

The vest I'm going to add more beads to. It has lots of beading and sequins and gold metallic bullion, I think it's called--someone help me out here.

Then, in a bundle of stuff they hadn't logged in yet, I spied this really cool thing. I didn't even know what it was, but she told me I could take it out of the do-not-buy-yet bundle and look at it. We started trying to figure it out, and she noticed that it was stained with self-tanning lotion. She shook her head and muttered about wishing she'd known that before she accepted it and said, "Here. You can have it. Take it home and see what you can do with it." Whoa.

I washed it and let it drip outside all night long. Now I'm going to remove all the white lace, because I am not a while lace kind of woman, in case you maybe hadn't guessed. 

 It's crocheted (or is that macrame? I don't even know) t-shirt fabric and some leather cording with pieces of lace and some soft off-white chamois. It's got lace and long string of the fabric and a ton of junky gold and silver metal pieces hanging off it. The challenge for me is to see if I can keep the cool parts and get rid of the trashy parts--the cheap shiny metal, the white lace--and then add more cool.

I think first, though, that I should probably try it on. It may be too small, in which case I'm going to have to try to find someone who can wear it.

OK. So now I'm going to get busy washing this stuff. The EGE's taking photos of the rest--yesterday, as I said, I went back and bought some other things, including a pair of Nordstrom kitten-heel mules that I thought had been worn maybe two or three times. They were leather, and $12, so I bought them. When I got them home and really paid attention, I realized that they've never been worn at all, unless someone wore them only on the carpet. They look brand new inside and out. I'll show them later, when I get the photos. I think I started this off saying I was going to focus on just one thing at a time, didn't I? See how much trouble I have?

Hope you're doing something fun this weekend. I'm so excited by what I want to do with all this stuff I bought, I'm fairly jumping up and down. All of it was on sale and everything but the bag (more about that later) demands either mending, dyeing, or embellishing. It was the perfect getting-well treat because it's inspired a TON of ideas. And as cool as this macrame-ish vest is, it's not even the coolest thing I got. Can't wait to have photos of it to show you.

OK--these long blog posts with photos are just exhausting to me, trying to get the photos where I want them and make sure you can tell what they are and blah, blah, blah. What a whiner I am! I wish we could just meet for coffee and show and tell and you could see it in person. It would be cool for everyone to suggest ideas for other people's projects, and then we'd all go home and roll our eyes and go, "Can you believe she wanted me to dye it PINK? Gah."

Go work on something; have fun~~XO