New Clothes and a Date

Wowee. It's amazing what a few new clothes and a date night can do for a gal.

On Saturday, I dropped the hubby and the kiddies off at one of those inside play places and headed off for the shops. At just one store, I managed to score myself some new pants and tops. I splurged a little since it had been so long since I had bought anything. I even bought myself this really lovely deep blue silk top with silver chain entwined spaghetti straps and a black sequined shrug to go over it.

Guess what I wore on date night? A new look that felt great.

It is funny though. After I was done trying on all the clothes I had picked out and narrowed it down to the few I would actually buy I was embarrassed to put on my old jeans. Until I had tried on the new ones I hadn't realized just how bad the old ones were. I cannot stress enough how bad the old jeans were. They were washed out with discolored knees that were verging on thread bare. Not to mention, that they didn't fit properly so were loose waisted. I was down to this and one pair of yoga style black pants. This was what I had to wear to work, taking the kids to school, shopping etc and it looked appalling.

They always say that mothers need to take care of themselves. Reality is that is very difficult to do. The children grow so fast that it seems like every other week they need longer pants or bigger shoes, new winter coats and boots. That leaves very little room for me or my husband. I realized that I had been wearing the same ill-fitting jeans for probably 3 years at least. No wonder one pair quite frankly broke down from exhaustion and the other pair looked like my gardening pants. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I had to dig deep in my closet for an old pair of loose waisted cotton pants that I had worn when I was pregnant. While not actually maternity wear, I can tell you I felt pretty dowdy in them.

Well, I can frankly say that I never want to see those jeans again. I've now replaced them with 3 lovely pairs of jeans, all different with two snazzy everyday tops along with the silk blouse and shrug. Makes me smile just thinking of them. If only I could have snuck in a new pair of shoes and a wrap or shawl. Maybe next month.

Then on Sunday, my husband and I got all dressed up and went to see the Christmas Carol in 3D with Jim Carey. It was really good. The 3D effects were pretty neat. Just a word of warning to you all out there, it is definitely not a movie for the under 12 set. It had lots of dark and scary bits that in my opinion would be just a little too intense for younger children. Some parents may think it's a Christmas Carol and ignore the ratings. The ratings are accurate.

Like I said it was extremely well done. The dialogue true to the original with a few liberal licenses in imagery. My husband really enjoyed it as well.

After that we broke out the BB and looked up seafood restaurants in our town. The one we chose was a little more upscale but after all we were dressed for it. It turned out to be a great choice. The food was delicious. Which was a relief. We have in the past walked away after dropping $60.00 to $100.00 on a nice meal with a bad taste in our mouth. I hate it when you spend all that money and the food is less than appealing.

We had a enjoyable time reconnecting with each other and best of all I think hubby only talked about work for maybe like 5 minutes. He's just started up a new facet to his business, online selling through Amazon, and that is all that is on his brain lately. Every conversation is interrupted with some thought that had been running around in his head about work. So it was a nice break from work talk. It makes us realize how important it is for us to do this. Not necessarily going out and spend money but sitting across from one another talking and laughing. It seems too many nights these days are spent slouched in front of the t.v. together.

After that we went to Wal-Mart. J's birthday is coming up and we need to get going on the planning. I said to K that wasn't it funny that every time we had time to ourselves we ended up going shopping either before or after for family things? But then we're a family and you know that is what family is about. Nothing wrong with that bit of reality. ;)

I realize that we need to find ourselves a proper babysitter. We use K's parents usually but don't like to take advantage so we try not to ask very much. Add to that my FIL is still recovering from his surgery in September so they haven't even been able to babysit much for a while. This is probably the first big sitting job we've asked them to do for 3 months. It's hard to let go and let some stranger look after your children. But we are going to have to suck it up and do it. I think it's good for our children to see that we spend time working on our marriage.

Well, I've got to clean the house now because we may or may not have a showing this afternoon. I just love how realtor's just leave you guessing. Hopefully, this will be the one. I don't know if I mentioned that we've lowered our price another $30,000.00 under much pressure from the inlaws. She wants to get settled and is tired of waiting. So am I but I don't think it will make a difference. It's not the price, it's the house. It needs someone with unique circumstances like ours to be interested in it.

The good news is that we've approached another mortgage specialist and he seems much more encouraging about how much we can borrow than the last guy. Being self-employed can make the process more difficult.

Well Happy Monday to you all.