Thrift Therapy

With a forty-five minute commute to and from work, it's likely that any given day of the week will end up with traffic slowing to a crawl.  Sometimes I'm stuck miles away from any exit that would get me to where I'm going.  Other times, I'm close enough that I can navigate on a few back roads to at least get out of the scary bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate.  One day last week was one of those lucky days that I noticed the line of cars far enough ahead that I could swing onto an exit ramp that would get me home quicker.  And then, of course, my new quick-route home turned into another slow crawl when the "Great Bridge Bridge" opened up (if you haven't seen it, it's not such a "great" bridge; it's a little small, actually).  It didn't take long before I'd lost my patience with the traffic and decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to stop off at the thrift store, browse around, and wait til traffic cleared up a little.
So as soon as my little car could squeeze by the monster in front of me, I made the right turn into the parking lot and let the therapy begin....

Only an hour and half later did I bring my armloads of great finds up to the counter.  I felt like one of those silly t.v. characters, walking around with their arms full, dropping things behind them and tripping over what fell off the pile!  As I released everything onto the counter, and struggled to find my hands, still clenching the three plastic bags full of vintage sewing patterns I'd found, I looked at the saleslady, flashed her my sweetest smile, and asked in my nicest words if we could open the plastic bags so I could pull out only the patterns I really want from the bulk bags.  I looked at the three bags marked $5.  Each contained roughly 10-15 patterns, of which I only wanted 2 or 3.  Surely she would see the sense in switching out the patterns to pay $5 for 10 patterns I want, rather than $15 for 20 patterns I don't! 
She coldly denied my request.  In the words of my deceased Grandma, "Bugger."
I sadly put the bags away.  The visions (while they fought hard to stay alive) of what those designs would look like, in the fabrics of my choosing, on my body, slowly died away as the saleslady rang up the remainder of my pile.  As usual, I bypassed watching the numbers go up as she typed in every new purchase to explore the contents of the showcase below the counter.  I checked the jewelry first, "Anything popping out as extraordinary?" I would ask myself, then let the little angel on my shoulder assure me that there's nothing in there that I can't live without.  The next showcase over was a little harder to ignore, though.  This is where they keep other expensive non-jewelry items.  In this case, I was tempted by the vintage camera staring at me.  The little devil on my shoulder exclaimed, "It's only $25!! That's such a steal!!  Buy it!  BUY IT!!!"
In the end, the angel won again, this time with only two questions: "How many cameras do you already own?  How much dust have they collected lately?"

I was just coming to the conclusion that buying an old Canon wouldn't be beneficial to me after all when the saleslady called out my total.
"What?!  How did I spend $40 at the thrift store?!?"
I'm not sure who it was this time, the little angel or the little devil, that got me to hand over my credit card.  Perhaps it was both.  While all this is selfishly going into my closet to be worn, likely, only one or two times before I've had my fill with it, the money spent on it benefits the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.  Win-win.

It wasn't until last night that all my purchases had finally made it through the wash and I got to try them on again.  My little game of dress up took a funny turn when I tried on the skirt, the shirt, the hat, and the scarf all at the same time!  Take a look:

"If only I could figure out how to incorporate the dress too!"

I think it'll be fun to recreate all my new items.  I already have so many ideas for the pink skirt!  And then there's this:

Size 24W.  Big enough that when I realized I took my laundry basket back to my room with the first load, I was able to open this up and turn it into a duffel bag to carry the rest of my clothes!  Large enough that the short-sleeves cover my elbows and the final button on the button-down front is just a few inches from my knees!  This is one case where I really want to emphasize that size doesn't (always) matter.  It was such a fun, floral print, I couldn't pass it up for a few spring outfits!!  Keep an eye out for these finds in my later posts!

I realized I didn't really get a good view of the best part of my dress on Monday (Ah! And I forgot to list where my clothes came from! What a bad fashion blogger I am!)

Dress: ModCloth, Christmas gift (thanks Mom!)

Leggings (shown in Monday's post): Express, another gift via Mom!