Saturday, December 11, 2010

Shopping



Shopping

Posted by jennifer on December 11, 2010

from http://www.rhealananetwork.com/

I went shopping yesterday in a busy mall. Just last week I ended up with the responsibility for the grandparents gifts as illness will keep them from shopping. It’s definitely easier to spend other people’s money, but shopping for four children, your spouse, and yourself is time consuming. I set out yesterday determined and prepared to complete as much as I could in four hours.

I might throw in that this week is one of the busiest our family has ever had. Our week included a band concert, choir concert, high school madrigal dinner, Christmas play drama practice, two swim meets AND it’s the two week countdown to the children’s musical I direct. My days have flown by. I don’t really like to shop but compared to my week I was hoping the “retail therapy” would work some magic on my stress level.

I should’ve taken it as some sort of sign when I saw people crowded around a shopper who was lying on the floor in the first store I entered. They were waiting on a paramedic. I started chanting in my head…”Mom is counting on me, Mom is counting on me,” and kept walking.

I had quite a bit of success at department stores where they have everything marked down. I found novelty items as well as necessities and was really excited to find some fun games and unusual gifts in the calendar store. There are a lot of shoes and boots in a mall and they were on my list too.

After a couple hours, I was headed toward the way I had come. I was calling it my FINAL MARCH and was mentally scouring my mind for what I needed to complete my mission. All of a sudden I had a terrible accident as one of my largest bags busted and my finds (smallish stocking worthy items and a few pointy-cornered bookish items) splattered across the mall path. I gathered up the items and started stuffing item in my other totes. One of the many problems of doing a lot of shopping in one day are heavy bags. I tried to balance out the weight.



I realized that my “good” parking spot wasn’t anywhere near the center of the mall and now I had to backtrack with my heavy bags. I tried to reassure myself that my children will have wonderful gifts from my parents, and my parents will be thankful for my work. I guessed about 100 pounds of gifts.

P.S. I finished in just under 4 and 1/2 hours.

No comments: