Never Pay Full Price: Shopping Rules

Me and my friend Jake--after a day of shopping

I am not a leisure shopper.

First of all, I don't live where there is a mall, so leisure shopping doesn't happen. Secondly, most of the time when I go to the city, I have my kids with me. They're behavior has much improved since this last mall post, but it's not a leisurely experience to cram a shopping cart into the dressing room and change clothes. That leaves the only other day to go shopping as Saturday. And we all know what Saturday malls are like-UGH!

So when I do go shopping, I am serious about it and I follow these rules:

1. Know Yourself: I don't shop around big crowds. It effects my decision-making skills. Not sure why, but I feel this pressure to 'hurry up, buy something and get out of here' before the mob runs you over. Know what you can handle.

2. Do It Up: Ladies, there are no ponytails allowed on a day like this. Do your makeup and hair, splash on a light perfume and get ready to look your best. Don't go shopping looking like a slob and hoping that when you close the door to the change room you'll have a Superman-telephone-booth transforming experience. It won't happen. And let me tell you why: Change room lighting!

Most department stores have fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent lighting not only adds ten years, emphasizes dark circles and enlarges your pores it also has the innate ability to make you look like a sickly Sig*urney Weav*r in a sci-fi film. Do yourself a favor and do your 'do and face.

3. Wear Good Shoes: Now it goes without saying that that is all we should own: good shoes. However, I will clarify this statement by saying: wear a slip on pair of shoes. Easy on, easy off and a pair that will look good with most things that you are buying (ie. black, brown or that wild red ballet slipper!)

You will send yourself the subconscious message of "I'm not having fun shopping" if you have to fiddle too much with your annoying shoes and this will effect your over all judgement of what to buy. Good shoes = good shopping experience.

4. Easy to remove clothes: This goes hand in hand with number 3 and the good shoes theory. As an added bonus, you want something you can put on quickly if you have an over-hostile commission hunting sales lady. The last thing you want is to be trapped doing up layers of buttons while the sales lady starts burying you under clothes you must have.

5. Only take off the sales rack: In my opinion, there are only 3 times I pay full price.

a. I'm on vacation and I've come across something I could not find at home. Live lavish and splurge, it is your vacation.

b. You have a function that evening and what you planned on wearing is severely stained or there is nothing on the sales rack that will suffice.

c. Makeup-I buy quality makeup that will last so I have no qualms about full price. (For skin care, I only put on my face what I would put in my mouth to eat, so I don't go over the top with skin care. If you want me to blog about that, indicate in the comments. Yes, even heavy moisturizing eye cream!)

6. Don't buy anything that doesn't say "WOW!" In my language that means, if it's not in your shopping book then don't buy it. My shopping book has all the colors that look great on me and all the clothes and accessories that are best for my body shape. (Again, if you want me to teach you how to make one for yourself and how to figure out what clothes are best for you, indicate in comments)

7. Bring a Friend: My girl Jacquie and I had lots of women stopping us in the dressing rooms saying, "What about this one? Does it make my bum look flat" It's because they overheard us giggling and laughing and talking about our body shapes. I'm a small pear, Jacquie's a goblet. So we know what looks good on us and what to avoid at all costs. But take a friend who has the same shopping philosophy as you and will say "No, absolutely not. I won't let you wear that in public unless you are actually going for the camel look."

8. Accesorize: A girl's best friend! Not only can accessories revive stale clothing but they can give you a good shot in the arm for confidence. My favorites are: big chunky ring, chunky bracelets, chunky necklaces (WARNING: You have to have the right kind of top half of body and neck to pull off chunky jewelry otherwise it makes you look...chunky! As the black ring on my fore finger indicates. I only wear my rings on middle and ring finger for chicness) And of course...

9. Power to the Pashmina! I love pashminas. Ohlala! If you need to learn how to work the pashmina, go here. And if you need to learn how to work a scarf, go here. There are so many ways to work a scarf. But don't do it on your head as I once foolishly did. Oh, yes I did (I'm sorry about the embarrassment I put you through Inez). Can anyone say "Hi Captain Jack! When's the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie?"

10. Finish Strong: If you are not inclined towards shopping, as I once was (as in a year ago before I honed my skills) then I suggest this: Leave yourself in a place of success! After you have bought one successful item, and got a great deal: Leave. Get in the car and go home. It's important to cultivate a level of fun that happens when you shop...rather than three failed stops and the attitude of "I can never buy anything" or "I don't have any style". Alernatively, for us seasoned shoppers, I always save a successful buy for last. Jewelry! I'm always going to get some to go with an outfit and it's a no-brainer buy. Leave the mall with some purchasing power!

That's it, ladies. Please tell me what you use to achieve diva-style. And please let me know if you want me to blog about natural skin care or how to put together a shopping book!

Muah!

I did not say those pants make your bum look flat

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama.

I did not purposely post a blurry photo of me and my girl, Jacquie, having serious bedhead and major tired eyes. That would be a cheeky way to post a picture and I'm not cheeky. You have to be British to pull off a good bit of cheekiness and I'm Finnish and therefore uncapable of cheekiness. Plus, it's embarrassing to post tired and bedhead pictures on the internet and I never do anything embarrassing.

Jacquie is too dear a friend to embarrass. A friend who did not fit the perfect little grey shoes better than I did, so naturally she did not take them. And I never insisted that she did. I am serious about shoe shopping and I would never give up a pair of shoes if it pinched me in the toes ever so slightly. I don't have how-things-feel-on-my-feet issues.

We did not take this picture late at night, in our hotel after gorging ourselves on "the Works" pizza. We are civilized girlie-girls and gorging and pizza aren't things we do. Not even after a day that included massive retail therapy and buying nothing at full price. We are not hunters who stalk the prey of quality fashion and then kill it at it's most vulnerable moment (a slash discount sale). We couldn't do that--we don't even have hunting jackets to wear that would allow us to engage in a sport that requires such skill.

And we most certainly did not watch Hannah Montana for half an hour. Little girls watch Hannah Montana. And we're not little. Or girls.

We're women--mature,behaving ourselves, never giggling at sweaters that look like they came from the dryer lint trap women.

Friday Flashback: My Grandma dances

I have the most incredible Grandma.

She has red hair, has never grown hair on her legs (a trait she did not pass down unfortunately) and an incredible sense of humor. She giggles and it makes me laugh.

She taught me how to make pie. She read goodnight stories to me while I was tucked under the blankets. Her soft voice would float around the room and then was carried out out the window to dance with the fireflies. Tea was our thing. She'd brew a cup of tea for us and we'd sit at the table while playing 500 rummy or a last minute Scrabble.

She taught me to love Robert Frost and took me hazelnut picking. Her hands pressed on top of mine as we rolled out the bread dough and made special treats for Grandpa. Her warm softness would swallow me up in a hug and she would dance with me.

We'd always pretend to waltz and she would hum and sing as we did.

My Grandma is 82 today. And she is still dancing to her own song.

Under cover

We're under the weather

So we're under the covers

Sneezing and coughing

Spewing and sputters

We're snuggled up on the couch

Reading books, drinking tea

We read Shakespeare's Tempest

A man-made storm on the sea

We learned about germs

And our body's system of defense

Then we read Rudyard Kipling

And had a big rest

We listened to the Arabian tales

of fair Shahrazad

And said that snuggling while sick

wasn't all that bad

Robert Munsch entertained us

as we ate bowls of grapes

We looked up the word 'curtiosity'*

and fables of apes

Later, we did word puzzles

and coughed in our sleeves

watched avalanches on you tube

and talked of disease

Finished the Gospel of Mark

and ate crackers of graham

Then tried to stop squabbling

that broke out into mayhem

Now the day is all done

And was like any other

Because we cozied up on the couch

Under the covers

It was not on purpose...this time I mean it

We all remember this conversation, do we not?

Well, I'm taking this Novel Writing thing seriously and last night, I decided to get writing. (I am writing everyday as outlined on the website). I started at 8:30 pm. I always write by hand first because there is something that is quite artistic and therapeutic about writing by hand. Plus, I can still only type 33 words a minute so...naturally I do my first draft on paper.

After a good session of writing, I felt it was time to go to bed and hoped that hadn't gone past my 10:00 pm bedtime.

Lo and behold it was 1 am!

1 am, folks. A.M. as in after midnight.

I was completely absorbed and lost all sense of time.

But I am pleased to announce that by a rough estimate, I have written approx. 7 000 words. Only 43 000 more to go!

Stay tuned, I need help naming a character and you guys get to name her.

Broken and Spilled Out

The woman with the alabaster box has always been a story that has connected with me.

I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I hope that, if I lived in the day and the hour that she lived in, I would be her. I would come to Jesus with oil that cost so very much and I would pour it on Him.

The Bible says she broke open the box and washed the Lord's feet with her hair. How intimate-how worshipful.

I think about when my hair was long I would wash it with flavored shampoo so that at night when I would go to sleep, my hair by my face, I would go to sleep smelling the wonderful smells of wildflowers or exotic fruit. And now, I think about this woman who washed the smelliest, dirtiest part of Jesus' body with this fragrant perfume-how did her hair smell that evening?

Did it smell to her like the picture of her life--smelly and dirty mistakes overwhelmed by the scent of His majesty?

She committed herself to the act of worship when she broke that box. The oil spilled out, never to be recaptured or contained again--it now had the purpose of serving the King of Kings.

How I long to live my life this way...broken and spilled out for the purpose of serving the King of Kings. I long to never be contained again with the way that I passionately love my Saviour. Never again to be afraid to share His name or the power and truth of His cross. Never to back down from giving Him glory...all the glory.

Lord, I commit my life to You. There is nothing You can't have. There is nothing that You ask for that I won't give You. There is nothing that I will withhold from the One I love with my life. Ask for any of it. Ask for all of it. I will freely give it to the One who is so kind and accepts all gifts.

Even those gifts that are broken and spilled.

In my defense, I was very...oh, I don't have an excuse for this one

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by Mckmama.

I did not make the remaining last bit of whipping cream in the carton all for myself. Nope. I am a woman of moderation and excessive use of dairy products is not something I do.

Nor did I run and get my camera thinking, "Hey, this would be a great blog post?" I do not think about my blog other than when I'm on my computer. That shows a weak constitution revealing that digital hobbies are starting to dominate other areas of my life. Me? Have a problem like that? I don't think so.

I did not take 3 big heaping spoonfuls of whipped cream and then gobble it right up and then put another 3 heaping spoonfuls of whipped cream before actually even tasting my hot chocolate. I wouldn't do that. That sounds like a crazy girl out of control with no moral-hot-chocolat-ish restraint. I am the picture of self-containment.

I never once ditched the hot chocolate for the bowl of whipped cream. There's something very childlike about that and clearly, as we all know from reading this blog, I am a very mature, reasonable and grown up adult. I don't "do" childish.

And I absolutely never bailed on the cup of hot chocolate and poured it into my bowl of whipping cream so I could enjoy it's creamy goodness and put an end to this time-wasting efforts of transferring whipping cream into the cup time and time again. While it is logical, I would never do that because, and I feel this bears repeating: although it is logical, it is very unsound in practical application and leads one to believe that there is a strong sense of whimsy nonsense going on in the kitchen.

And that never occurs at my house.

It's time to...survive!

Just a friendly reminder to all...

Christmas is coming.

I'm a week late but I remembered in time:

www.organizedchristmas.com

Be all set to celebrate Christmas by December 1st with this week by week plan.

It's all in me head! It's all in me head!

Have you ever had a conversation with yourself. I did. It went like this.

"Diva, you went to bed late last night."

"Yes."

"Do you remember what you decided?"

"No more going to bed at midnight."

"That's correct. Any idea why you fell off the band wagon?"

"Old habits die hard?"

"That's an old habit from your 20's. Remember when you didn't have as many kids and you didn't know that sleep is integral to health and skin elasticity. Remember what old people look like who have lived wild? It's not pretty, Diva. You don't want that to be you."

"I don't. It's true."

"So...."

"So....?"

"So, what are you not going to do tonight?"

"I won't stay up late watching a movie. Ever again. And then I won't have a flabby face when I am 55."

"This time you mean it?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Good. Now go have some mint tea and try not to talk to yourself today."

Like chewing cud-only not-since I'm not a cow

Trust in the LORD, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Psalm 37:3

I've been feeding on His faithfulness today.

Just thinking, and reminiscing on how faithful He is and how dramatic He can be when He comes through at what seems like the last possible moment. Here are a few to share with you:

-The x-ray technician told us that we would miscarry our first child. He looked at the screen and showed us how the egg was imploding, told us that there were vital parts missing and that if we looked at what he was showing us we would see a very broken beginning.

We went home that day and prayed. I told the Lord that I would worship Him and call Him good no matter what happened. I believed Him for a miracle but trusted all things to His care. He spoke the word "Shalom" to me and gave me a poem to go with it. I looked up the Hebrew meaning of the word Shalom and it means "complete peace, total wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken." And that's exactly how my daughter was born.

-At 9:27 pm one night, the Lord instructed me to stop what I was doing and pray for protection over my husband. I found Psalm 91 and declared the Lord's promises. My husband came home one hour later. The vehicle he was in what side swiped while stopped at a red light by a vehicle that was traveling 80 km/h.

It left a small dent and nothing more.

-My husband shared with me how he felt the Lord was telling him to go on paternity leave when we had our last child. At first, I panicked knowing it would cut our single-income family to an even more meager amount. As I prayed, the Lord only spoke to me with the simple words of "Trust Me." My husband went on sabbatical, much to the derision of family members.( I love how he would rather be obedient to God than to anyone else). He had no promise of a job as he took sabbatical, but got on His face before God and pursued His presence like nobody's business. When we had a $200 commitment that needed to be paid and we waited on God to provide, our church called saying that someone had donated some money for us and left it with them.

It was the exact amount we needed.

My husband went to Africa--a dream that he's always had in his heart. In three weeks, a five thousand dollar trip was fundraised. Money that came from very unlikely places. And nothing we could do ourselves as we were on...a meager income. He came home and reminded me that paternity benefits would run out in the next week and a half. We prayed for about two minutes--we knew that the Lord had specified this time off for His purpose in our lives-- so we knew He would provide a job.

And He did. The guy who took over for my husband left that job a week before our paternity pay ran out. My husband had his old job back. A job he loves.

-My father died 19 years ago today. I found myself fatherless.

. But then He found me. He picked up my broken heart and broken life and gave me His Son who died broken so that I could be whole. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Totally whole.

For this feast, I give thanks. Shalom.