Hey guess what. I figured out how to delete myself and the extra Jim. Does this mean I'm a tech wizard now? Woo hoo!

Yesterday didn't go as planned, which wasn't a bad thing cuz there was fun involved, so I didn't end up doing anything I had planned other than taking a shower and making myself presentable enough to go out in public without scaring small children. Kelley is finally all done at the dentist! Hooray! It had been quite the ordeal with her two bad teeth, one needing oral surgery to extract and the other a root canal. The first couple of visits she was really anxious and I had to stay with her, but she's been a real trooper, and by yesterday, all this was old hat and no big deal. The last couple visits she didn't even need me to come in with her, and she was fine just having the local anesthetic, no longer asking for the gas or to be put under.

I had planned to work on my Bible study lesson and do my daily portion of reading through the Bible at the dentist, but I just had trouble concentrating with all the distractions, and then a friend came in for her appt, and I started talking to her. By the time she was called in, Kelley was done, and then we had to pick up Cory from school. There wasn't much time before his appt., so I got to read all of about one sentence. Again too much outside noise in the waiting room for me to focus. After that we went to our home away from home aka WalMart. Jim calls it our cabin, lol. Here in MN many people have (or at least have a relative who has) a summer cabin and during the non frigid time of the year, they spend a lot of time there. We don't, but we do have Walmart less than a mile away, and I confess I love Walmart. Hey it's the cheapest place within reasonable distance to grocery shop. Yes, I know Aldi is cheaper , but I don't like it. It's a long drive for us, the selection is REALLY limited, It's a pain in the butt to deal with those stupid carts you have to pay for. (Hey when it's 20 below I just wanna RUN inside. Dink around with releasing a cart? I don't think so.) Plus you have to bring your own bags and bag your groceries. I HATE bagging my stuff. And then they don't have half the things on my list, so I end up having to go to Walmart anyway. So by the time it all adds up, and hey there's the extra gas cost too, I don't really save much if anything. Plus there's the time and irritation factor.

We couldn't find a suitable sweatshirt or jacket for Cory there, but did that stop me from spending $? Of course not. I have determined that it's next to impossible to walk into Walmart without buying SOMETHING since they sell just about everything. I needed lipstick and thought I'd try some root lifter. I'm growing my hair out. A year ago it was jawline length. Now it hits a little below my collar, which is such an awkward length that I'm ready to cut it short again, but so far I haven't. I do have a lot of hair so I think I'll be able to wear it long without it looking all stringy. I hate that look when I see it on other women. Just cuz your hair is long doesn't mean it's pretty. Lush shining long hair IS gorgeous, but the stringy limp dull colored mane? Not so much. The problem I'm having now, besides the irritating length, is flat roots. When it was shorter, it wasn't a big deal to get volume, but now it's heavier, and while I do have a lot of hair, the individual strands are fine, so the top goes flat, which wouldn't be so bad if I had perfectly straight hair, but mine is wavy in spots. Anyway, I'm hoping this root lifter helps cuz hairspray really isn't doing a whole lot.

OK back to the original path here...... so we ended up going to the outlet mall. Cory really likes label clothes, but we do not like label prices. But there just so happens to be an Aeropostale store at this mall, so we thought we'd check it out. Well, there also just so happens to be a Dress Barn, which is one of my favorite stores, and I just so happen to be in desperate need of clothes. I did get some money for my birthday and ordered some stuff online and was going to place a second order as soon as the check cleared, but since I was at Dress Barn anyway and since it's an outlet store and since it even has further deals, I thought I'd take a look and see if they had the stuff I was looking for (I'm trying to build a basic wardrobe and then add in pieces as I can rather than just continue to randomly shop for whatever looks good on me and I can afford without thinking through what, if anything, that I already have would work with it. I guess you'd call it shopping with purpose.) And I did indeed find some things that were reasonably priced, in my size, and pretty. I got a black turtleneck cotton shirt, a black thicker knit (almost like a thin sweater) tank, a really cute white lace covered tank, a black leather purse with a cute bow on the side, a shaper (not sure how good it is cuz it was only $24 but the saleslady who looked about my size said she really likes it so I thought I'd give it a try), a hip looking hammered silvertone coins necklace and earring set, and 2 pairs of black tights, one a thin knit, the other just regular tights. It's getting colder here now, and I pretty much wear just dresses or skirts. So I got all that for $151, which I think was a pretty good deal. My order included a few other things as well, but was going to cost close to $300, so I think I did pretty well. So now I can delete that second order I was going to send. I do need a few new bras which were in that order, but actually I think I can get a better deal at Lane Bryant (for all you petite people that's a plus size store). So once I do that and my order arrives, I will have my very basic core wardrobe and can start building on it. I will need to get rid of most of my casual clothes currently in my closet cuz they've become faded and/or stained and/or too worn. My dressier clothes are mostly pretty nice, but other than church, I don't have much occasion to wear them. Oh I also found a black kind of thin velour material collared button shirt at Walmart for only $16, so I picked that up too cuz I figured I could wear that on it's own or or layered over a tank with just about any skirt. Oh and I picked up a packet of those clip on mock camies cuz so many shirts and blouses that are otherwise great are so low cut, and a lot of my shirts tend to show more than I'd like cuz even though I'm more than pleasingly plump, compared to the rest of my body, I have narrow shoulders so my shirts tend to hang down lower than I'd like. So I think these little fake cami things will be great. Oh and btw this little journey out to the outlet mall did not leave Cory disappointed either. He got the sweatshirt he wanted plus 2 shirts since the shirts were on clearance. Hey $4 for an Aeropostale shirt is too good to pass up. That's cheaper than Walmart stuff (and much better made). Now that I think of it, it's probably even cheaper than the consignment shop which sometimes has name brand clothes.

Jim also took me out to dinner at Applebees. I was supposed to go out on my birthday, but I was too sick. So this was my belated birthday celebration. We had their new whiskey mini steaks and French onion soup. YUM!

So today I HAVE to do my entire week's worth of reading and study questions as well as make a dessert for Bible study tomorrow. Plus, I need to see about finding a ride. And I wanna do my daily read through the Bible portion as well. So that's the plan anyway. As I've said before, comments are always welcome. I probably won't say that with every post cuz I don't want to become tiresome (Now we dance! Sprockets. Sorry couldn't resist. If you don't know the reference, you must never have seen Sat Night Live before it became utterly disgusting). But I'm always open to hearing any input you might have to any post. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Wednesday.

Ruby Tink