Shop Till You Drop

Yay, I spent a wonderful day doing one of my favorite activities - SHOPPING!!! Like most women, it must be genetic, I love to shop. I also have daughters who love to shop. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a rather large, unwieldy family who tend to be constantly having birthdays, which translates into lots of shopping for birthday gifts. For the last few years I have simplified my life by gifting my children, their spouses and the older grandchildren with gift cards instead of frenzied shopping for the impossible - "The Perfect Gift". It makes sense to me and they all seem to enjoy getting a gift card whether it be for a restaurant, movie night, Michaels, Wal-Mart or even Home Depot or Lowes. Especially since our family has birthdays in clumps. January has 2 including mine, but Zak & Jess, the Christmas kids, have always been celebrated in January. February just has one while March has three. April has always been rather crowded with four, but one of those was mom's. May has two plus Mother's day. June has three, plus Fathers Day. July has a whopping six and after this year will probably be seven, but Shawn is the lone August celebrant. September has 6, including my brother-in-law, two nephews and my aunt. October has three and they're all in the same week. November only has one and December has the two on the 23rd and 24th that get held over to January. I've probably missed a few in there, some of them are by reminder only. Anyway you look at it, even with picking up gift cards, that's still a lot of shopping. This year when March birthdays rolled around, I decided to get creative with my daughter-in-law Tracy and my daughter Carrie's gifts and made them personalized gift certificates good for a day of shopping, pampering or whatever they chose with me. Carrie's was a little bit more specific than Tracy's though. I volunteered to take her for a shopping spree at Michael's. In the past, I have gotten both Carrie and Krystal gift cards for Michael's, but this year I took pity on Craig and would take Carrie myself. Let me tell you, shopping in a craft store with my daughter is an experience. Being given a spending limit, we both entered the wonderful world of Michael's armed with shopping carts and visions of future creations dancing in our heads. I knew that Carrie would be lost in scrap booking heaven, so I proceeded to explore other areas first. I filled my cart with new silk flowers for spring arrangements and neat beads to accent my summer tees and tanks. I'm not a fast shopper by any means, when there are so many riches to explore, but Carrie has me beat hands down. I'm not sure of the exact time, but I'm thinking close to two hours were spent prowling the aisles, lusting after possible acquisitions and making final decisions. Needless to say, we both came out of there with loads of loot. Then it was grab a quick bite to eat and a much needed beverage and head over to one of my all time favorite stores - Indigo. I'm not just a reader, I'm a Voracious Reader. I don't merely read books, I consume them. Last weekend while out with Wayne, we had stopped in Indigo and I found a much discounted and very desirable gardening book which I just had to have. After sharing my wonderful find with two of my friends, I was back to pick up one of these wonderful books for each of them. Now for anyone who reads as much as I do, it is impossible to go into a book store, pick up the book that you came in for, pay and leave. You must scour the shelves, stacks and tables for any new books that you might have missed in the past. I had stumbled across an interesting book last week about the Dark History of the Kings and Queens of England that looked quite interesting and seeing as they had only one copy left, just had to have it. Then while browsing, I spotted a book about Piracy that just had to be bought. While Carrie was off exploring cookbooks, I happened upon a book about England during WWII that caught my eye. It turned out that the author of this book, Edith's War, was doing a book signing and after we chatted for a bit, I just couldn't pass up the chance of a book, not only on a topic of interest to me, but one that I could have autographed as well. By this point I am carrying 5 books, weighing about 30 pounds, the 2 gardening books that I had come in for weigh about 10 pounds each, and set off to find Carrie who is at the opposite end of the store searching out the desired cookbook that she wanted. After much searching, it proved to be not available at that particular location, but could be had in Burlington. Not being one to give up a good quest, it was trek to the car, onto the expressway and off to Burlington. Upon arrival in Burlington, I told Carrie that I really shouldn't be allowed to buy any more books for myself, that we would just pick up her book and be off. Yeah, right. Carrie managed to find her hearts desire fairly easily, but being my daughter, still had to stop and browse on the way to the checkout. Along the way, I managed to get into the gravitational pull of yet another book. Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of a wonderful cookbook of Indian Cuisine. Other than Krystal and Troy, who don't live close enough to stop in for many meals, I am the only one in the family who loves curry. Go figure, I'll be lusting after Butter Chicken, Tika Masali, Naan, and Samosas wondering when I will ever get to try making these wondrous taste sensations for some time. Our little shopping excursion had now taken about five hours and a very full car. Do I regret spending my day off shopping? Hell no! I enjoyed myself enormously not only for getting to spend the day with my daughter, but for the chance to expand my creativity and to fill my mind with new sources of knowledge and enjoyment. After a winter of work both at home and at Capo, it was a great way to enjoy a wonderful early spring day. Now I wonder where Tracy and I will end up?