Tag: shopping

Riding A Bike at Target

I am hesitant to put this out there, because the “mask situation” has been a controversy for what feels like most of the pandemic, but I am going to take a chance. My readers know my heart. I walked around Target for two hours yesterday and I wasn’t wearing a mask. I didn’t really even need to buy anything (but of course I ended up with a cart full of stuff, anyway). The experience was delightful!

My family and I have been fully vaccinated for about a month now. Our governor has lifted all mask regulations. Target has lifted their mask regulations. So, like a kid, wobbling around on a bike, when first learning how to ride it, I wobbled around with my big red cart, with a huge smile on my face, to anyone who would meet my eyes. It was kind of like learning to ride a bike all over again. It all comes back to you. I promise you, it does.

I thought to myself, in some weird way, maybe this is sort of a gift, which has come from this awful pandemic. Getting to experience things, like it was the first time all over again, is kind of thrilling. I had forgotten how much I liked to shop in Target. I had forgotten how much fun it is to leisurely amble around a store, without actually having anything really to shop for, instead of zipping around the store as quickly as possible, like I’m a super-crazy-competitive contestant on Supermarket Sweep. Yesterday, I didn’t dodge others like they were poison incarnate. And they didn’t dart away, in fear, from me, either.

I would say that only about half of us in the store (shoppers and employees) were maskless, but that’s okay, everyone learns (or re-learns) to ride a bike, in their own time. When I was checking out my purchases, my clerk, looked at me in the eyes, smiled and said, “Wow, it’s so nice to see people buying lipstick again.”

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Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Friday, you look Great!

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Good morning friends! Today is my favorite day of the week and typically on “Favorite Things Friday” I list three favorite things or songs or books or movies, etc. that make the tactile world we live in, so much fun. My process is this: when I revel in a “favorite”, I run to my Barnes and Noble Desk Diary calendar (a previous, and still all-time favorite) and I scribble that particular favorite anything, on my nice large Friday space. Unfortunately, today’s space is filled with plenty of “to do” stuff, but alas, no favorites. This morning, I was lamenting this with my husband, scrambling to find “favorites” and asking him to brainstorm with me. My husband reminded me that I treasure my authentic connection with my readers, so I can’t be fake, and pretend to love and to adore anything that I have barely tried. So, today, I have no favorites to share. Please forgive me. As I have mentioned, I am in the midst of a three week period, crammed with “big ‘stuff’, events, celebrations, concerns, etc.” that in an ideal world, would be spread out a little more evenly throughout the year. It’s like having too much salt on one part of your meal. That salt tastes better when it is evenly spread, but such is life, sometimes! I’m rolling with it, and I’m trying to stay in the moment.

The other night, I was returning 18,000+ HomeGoods decorative items (only a slight exaggeration), because we are in the middle of changing around our bedrooms and as we all know, what looks good in the store, doesn’t necessarily translate at home. In trying to appease the understandably exasperated sales clerk, I started listing all of the things which we have going on in our family life (which precipitates me having to get my rooms in order, in a big hurry), all happening in this short time period. As I was doing this, I was incredibly annoyed with myself. It’s so lame to do this. The clerk isn’t going to remember any of that stuff, which has nothing to do with her, and frankly, she doesn’t care. Nor should she care. Yada yada yada. But I kept on rattling on and on. Eww. Yuck. I don’t owe the clerk an explanation. She doesn’t owe me anything but courteousness. So much nervous energy happening, as I spout out loud, what my frenzied, and emotionally charged calendar events look like throughout the rest of this month. But you know what? We were both wearing masks, but we caught each other’s eyes and our eyes smiled, knowingly and warmly, at each other. We got it. Two middle-aged women who have been around the block a few times, gave to each other, in just that one look, the feeling of understanding, humor, empathy and reassurance. That, my friends, is the beauty of our shared humanity. And that shared humanity will always, always be a favorite of mine. I revel in it! Have a great weekend!!!

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Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Be Safe Friday

Hi friends! Hope you had a wonderful day yesterday and I hope you are having fun (and having it safely) today! I honestly have never shopped on Black Friday (in retail stores). I don’t really like crowds and I really don’t like crowds this year, in particular. Still, I love to shop and I know the thrill of a deal, so I hope you all are having a thrilling day. On Fridays, I don’t plunge below the surface. I call it Favorite Things Friday. I keep it light and fun and material by listing three favorite products, songs, food stuff, etc. that have made my life fun to live and I strongly encourage you, to add your favorites to my Comments section. Please check out previous Fridays for more favorites that could make could gifts for yourself and others. Here are my favorites for today:

Birthdate Candle – One of my most thoughtful, and most organized friends sent me one of these candles for my birthday already (my birthday is in December). She is having surgery and didn’t want to forget. These soy candles fulfill so much of my favorite things in one – good lighting, good scents and astrology. I love it, and I admittedly have been burning mine already (I’m an impatient, fiery Sagittarius). Each of these candles lists the unique qualities of a person born on that particular date. This is a great, fun, unique, personal gift idea.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu – This book just won the National Book Award. It is written in such an interesting perspective that I found it to be confusing and compelling, at the same time. The crux of the book, however, is an inside look at the Asian immigrant’s experience, in the United States. If there was ever a year that was screaming for us to look at situations through the eyes of others, this year is it. I learned a lot about my own false assumptions by reading this book. Any book which helps me to grow my perspective and my compassion and keeps my interest, deserves to be a favorite.

Amy’s Green Cleaning Products – I got turned on to Amy’s products when I was at the mountains a couple of weeks ago. I purchased some of her roll-ons and her room sprays at a lovely gift shop, and these are some of the BEST aromatherapy products I have ever used (and I have bought a lot of aromatherapy products over the years). I also put an order in for some of her cleaning products, because I figured if they smell as good as her personal products, I might actually get more incentivized to clean more often. I noticed her online shop is currently closed, but when I called about that fact, they explained that there had been an unexpected death in the family and they would be opening again soon. Give her website a look, in the next couple of weeks. And buy something. Your nose will thank you for it, and your nose always knows.

Have a great weekend, friends!!!

Black Friday Quotes and Sayings, Shopping Quotes | Real Simple

Sticker Shock

I’ve been going through the fun experience of “sticker shock” as I have been opening up our credit card bills corresponding to all of our summer fun and the finishing up of our house renovations. It’s not that we didn’t consider our budget when planning all of this. We had a good general idea of the cost of all of this fun and upgrades. It’s just when looked at, as individual costs, they didn’t look so bad. All lumped together, it’s breathtaking. It’s daunting.

I get “sticker shock” at certain stores every single time I check out. Costco and Target come to mind as my biggest, “Oh Wow! Did I really just spend that much? There must be some sort of mistake.” It happens every time. My daughter and I now laugh at ourselves when we say we are just running into Target for Advil or toilet paper. Ha! My favorite experience is when I try to hone myself in and I try to get away without getting a shopping cart. I still end up hobbling up to the checkout counter with a toppling pile of awesome stuff, often running into other shoppers because I can’t see over the pile of things that I am trying to carry, to the checkout line, to buy.

Costco is another harrowing experience of sticker shock. The checker usually whispers to us, the amount of money we owe, I guess in fears of setting us over the edge. How do incredible bargains add up to incredible sums owed, so fast? The person at the front of the store, assigned to check people’s carts, who are leaving the store, never bothers to check over our cart very much. We hand the person our mile long receipt with the scary sum total owed and they just highlight it real fast with looks of fear and sympathy, as they pat our backs on the way out of the store.

Don’t worry, readers. We are fine. Our bills are paid. I am not going to be adding a tip jar to my blog. Once again, I am just trying to get a laugh at what I hope is often a universal experience. I am going to age myself, when I say that I grew up at a time when things only had sticky price tags attached to them (UPC codes, huh?), and moms walked around grocery stores with little plastic clickers to keep a check on how much their carts were adding up to, in order to avoid the panic of literal “sticker shock” when the time came to write a check. Back then, no one got angry at people writing checks at grocery stores. I wonder if there is now a retro app on my phone, equivalent to the little plastic clicker. I guess that would be called a calculator. I may have to start using the calculator a little more handedly, if the ultimate “sticker shock” starts really affecting my health adversely. In the meantime, I’ll just nervously giggle.