It always seems like shopping is hit or miss. You either find a thousand things that you love but can’t afford or don’t need – or your desperate for an article of clothing and would pay any price and it’s nowhere to be found. I had the former shopping experience last Friday (except it was all affordable!) – I should have gone and bought a lottery ticket because I for sure would have won!

The luck started out at Victoria’s Secret. As any girl will tell you, bra shopping sucks. No one likes it and if they do, they are lying. As soon as you have a style you like, it’s discontinued. Just when you know your size, some woman gets in your personal space with a tape measure and tell you that you’re wrong and you begin to doubt yourself. The worst is there are only two extremes for stores that sell bras: you either get Victoria’s Secret with about thirty 20 somethings running around with more makeup on their faces than brains in their heads OR the old lady shop, where the woman who looks like your grandma, is trying to sell you something that looks like it belongs on a nun from 1820.

Sooo, I was obviously less than enthused about the trip and when the second sales twit bumped into me, I almost left – thankfully, I stuck it out. I got a rewards coupon in the mail from buying something on-line recently. It was good for at least $10 off any bra BUT could be worth up to $100, but you had to go to the store to find out. It turns out, mine was worth $50 and thus paid for my entire order. Plus I have $15 left over on a gift card!

Next I headed to Aveda. They have some dumb rewards program where you get points for purchases that can be redeemed for products on their rewards web site. Except that everything on their rewards site sucks.  Now there is a new policy where you can redeem your points for candles in the store! I love their candles and the one I got was free!

Next I headed to Mecca, I mean Nordstrom. I had a few things from Clinique that I needed and, miracles of miracles, they had all the things I needed in stock AND in the colors I wanted. Haleluia chorus! Now if they had just had a gift with purchase, I would have been sure I was being set up somehow…

Lastly, I went to the shoe department. As several of you know, I have what Peter affectionately call skis, for feet. I.E. they are huge. I wear and 11 and I’m ignoring the fact that all my shoes feel a little small after having Baylie (I’m ignoring that wives tale, thank you very much) and finding the shoe in the style, color and size I’m looking for seems to be impossible lately. I happened to get the one sales lady that also wears and 11 (I just love when the chick helping you wears a size 6 and does not understand that when you said 11, you didn’t mean 9 1/2). I found a sandal that I liked and a color that was ok. She brought me more than one style to try on as they usually do at Nordies, and the alternative to what I had picked was a size 11 and in the color I really wanted but was not on display. And the really really good part? They were $40!! JACKPOT!!!

So I think this might mean that I’m destined to have terrible shopping experiences going forward – but I’ll look gooood in the process!