A Big Shop

Now that the weather is starting to turn cooler here (sorry readers in TX and OK), I have been dreaming about snow and thinking about needing to pull together actual fall and winter wardrobes.  To get a sense of what I'm talking about - Robert found out that if you take the coldest day of the year in Austin, on average, we will have days colder than that for over 6 months of the year.

So today, we went to Goodwill to start getting some fall weather clothing.  Here's what we got:

1 pair of boots
1 heavy jacket
2 light jackets
6 pairs of pants
1 pair of jeans
2 skirts
10 sweaters
7 long-sleeved shirts

For a total of 30 items.  Any guess on the total price?

2 @ 8.99 and 1 @ 6.99

Calvin Klein jeans, Target jacket for Robert, Mystery boots for Robert

5 @ 5.99

Beige Kenneth Cole pants for Robert, grey Eddie Bauer wool pants, striped Target wool sweater, black Ann Taylor pants, grey J Crew wool sweater

6 @ 4.99

Strange stretchy/fleecy black Studio Works pants, brown Casual Corner pants, brown quilted jacket, grey Point Zero skirt, grey Charter Club cashmere hoodie, black Sanskriti tunic

And perhaps the coolest thing about this Goodwill store?  Tuesday is 1.49 day for items with a particular color of tag.

16 @ 1.49

Red Vanity Nordic Gear sweater, green Eddie Bauer sweater, fuschia St Johns Bay sweater, salmon Eddie Bauer cardigan, blue Express sweater, burgundy Liz Claiborne sweater, green Mod-O-Doc cardigan, blue Target fleece

Red Target shirt, black striped Worthington shirt, red Style Co tunic, blue American Eagle shirt, plaid TDK pants (men's but they fit me), brown Apt 9 skirt, black Ann Taylor shirt, green Lands End shirt

Plus, I purchased a pad of unlined recycled paper for $1.

With tax, it was under $110 (e.g., the cost of two new items from Ann Taylor).

There are still some expensive items we'll need to purchase for when it gets seriously cold -- the guy who checked us out said that it gets cold enough to freeze gasoline so you always want to make sure you don't have just a couple gallons in the tank -- but this should help get me through the first couple months of school.

Quote of the Day

"Ego depletion makes people stupid in complex ways but leaves them intelligent in simple ways."

Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, Self-Regulation and the Executive Function: The Self as Controlling Agent

Central Library

Robert and I walked to the central library (1.2 miles, round trip) to pick up some books that I had requested.  Unlike the execrable Austin public library system, Snow City lets you create a request queue with a reasonable number of items (100 at SC versus 5 at Austin).  On the screen with the item details, it tells you what number you will be in the queue if you request it.  This weekend I put about 25 books in my queue, several of which I could see were immediately available. 

This morning, I got an email from them announcing that 8 of my books were ready to be picked up.  When we got there, the entire experience was self-service.  There is a holding area where you find your items on the shelf, then you check out using a self-service scanner like at the grocery store (which I fumbled around with quite a bit, actually).

The library is pretty neat looking, too.

Faaaaaaaaaate

The last couple of days have been spent mostly playing Fate: The Traitor Soul.  I would like to finish it before school starts (Sept. 6) because it and grad school are not compatible (as I discovered during the summer after my first year at My Masters U).  It's been so intense that one day this week I didn't even look at the Disapproving Rabbits web site.

But I have fit in a couple minor non-Fate accomplishments this week, like getting my local bank account set up and starting to organize information about the bus routes between here and the various places on campus I'll need to get to.  I've also figured out the route to math camp (which is on a different campus from the main one where my office and classes will be), but I hope Robert will be able to drive me most days.