Shopping Exhaustion

I hate shopping.

Summary of my recent shopping marathon.

Things overheard while shopping:

• Girl in dressing room: "I like this this shirts but the color is a little too Avera McKennen"
• Girl in shoe aisle talking on her cell: "Yah, I'm just in one of those moods. You know how I get so angry I could just flip out at any second. I feel like murdering a stranger." (I was the only person in sight)
• Mom coming out of Hobby Lobby: "If you hold my hand all the way to the car, you know what you get? OREOS!" I was just imagining what it would look like with that 3-yr-old eating Oreos by himself in the car seat.

First, I stopped in Rock Valley with a plan to go to all three kids' consignment shops, but since I arrived at 1:40pm, they close at 3:00pm, and I'm the world's slowest shopper, I never made it beyond Nearly New Town. Items purchased: I was pretty successful there, finding a winter coat and mittens and 5 shirts for Ryan. I also picked up 2 shirts for myself and a pair of shoes. Tip: I highly recommend this store for their wide selection and better clothes, but make sure you check brands. If the price is higher than 50% of retail, I usually opt for buying new. It can save you a ton on less-frequently-worn or name-brand clothes.

Then, it was on to the shopping mecca (as it's known to all of us in the Tri-State area) of Sioux Falls.

• Hobby Lobby. Items purchased: tons of wooden letters, and a I had to plan my trip by when each store was closing, so the first stop was Hobby Lobby. Here I got lost in the world of modge podge and floral arrangements. Besides picking out all the materials for an ambitious wall project, I also put together an entire floral arrangement...twice. (I picked out the vase, put all the flowers in it, decided I hated it, put them all back, then started over.) Tip: www.retailmenot.com will guide you to a 40% off one item coupon. I didn't buy anything too expensive, but used it on a $27 vase, so it was worth the time to find and print.
• Bed, Bath, & Beyond. Items purchased: most of the store.  1 clock, 1 giant mirror, 4 wall hangings, and 6 pillows later, I was wondering if this might be a good time to just buy a minivan already. Tip: Most people know about signing up for their email list to get 20% off one item coupons, but if you move to a new home, they'll send you a 20% off your entire in-store purchase. I took full advantage.

• Old Navy. Items purchased: NOTHING, even though I had a $5 reward.  They had between zero and none 2T boy shirts in the store and hadn't switched seasons in women's clothing so all the sweaters I saw online were nowhere to be found. Tip: We are over capris; it's like 50 degrees out!
• JC Penney. Items purchased: 2 argyle sweaters for me and a long-sleeve T for Ryan.  Penney's was where I got my first hint that this year's fall fashions may not be for me:

What could be worse than this long-sleeve maxi dress?

 Oh.  This.  (right across the aisle from the dress)

•  Gordmans. Items purchased: bag of Mambas and a tank top (and you better believe I used by 20% off coupon on it even though it was all of $4). The Mambas were excellent, by the way. Real thirst-quenchers. I got pretty into Mambas (and Riesens) after 5 years of having a booth next to Storck at the Sweets & Snacks Expo. Well done, Storck, well done. I still haven't purchased as much as I've eaten in your samples over the years, but I'm well on my way.

 
• Gordman's kept playing announcements about their "Associate of the Month" over the intercom. I'm guessing whoever he or she was, they weren't working the shoe department on a Saturday night. The whole store should have been labeled a federal disaster area. I wonder if they have an overnight crew on Saturdays...if they don't, they should, and don't sign me up.

• Kohl's. Items purchased: Welcome mat, 3 shirts and a pair of pants for Ryan. I finally found some 2T long-sleeve shirts that weren't licensed and weren't completely obnoxious, so I picked up 3--one baseball, one basketball, one football. This is how Ryan picks out his clothes and we were running low on baseball options. I got nothing for myself.

• Does anyone else walk through the aisles and think, "I hate all of this. There's nothing I would waste 5 minutes trying on and if you gave me everything in here for free, I'd probably still wear an old Hawkeye tshirt instead of it anyway." That's how I felt in almost every store, including Kohl's. Fall Fashion and Me are officially Fighting.
• Target. Items purchased...nothing interesting--we're talking toothpaste (grrrr why don't they carry the red cinnamon Crest? I hate green!), kleenex, and a big bag of Skittles.  By this time I was bleary-eyed, my hips ached, their lipstick display skipped right over my "number", and my droiny cart was about 2 seconds from being rammed into the racks and racks and racks of toddler girls clothes (ever notice how there's 3x more girls than boys clothes? Drives me insane. Tip: If you don't want to dress your kid like a lumberjack or in Cars 2 clothes, you can just forget it, because those are the 2 racks they are offering this year.
• McDonalds. Items purchased: Chicken McNuggets (for the first time in about 20 years--they were having a big 4-pc nuggets for $0.50 promotion and I am willing to eat questionable chicken parts for that price and that price only), small fries, and a frozen strawberry lemonade (the real reason I stopped at McDonald's). Keep in mind it was 9:50pm, I hadn't eaten since noon (except for the Mamba) and I had a 1.3 hour drive in front of me.

It was lightly misting most of the way home and I bet you can imagine just how thrilled I was to still be up, driving, trying to dunk my Chicken McNuggets in the dark, and knowing I just blew tons of money and yet didn't cross half the things off my list.


I hate shopping, and I REALLY hate spending 11 hours doing it.