Labor Day Shopping

Confession: I bought so much stuff online last night perusing the Labor Day weekend sales that my credit card was blocked due to suspected fraud -- this happened once before when I bought a bunch of shoes on Zappo's in about 4 different orders, one right after the other.  Fortunately, my retention to order ratio for clothes and shoes purchased on the Internet is something in the range of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 (depending on the category), so it's not as crazy as it seems.

I actually really like shopping online for clothes and shoes much better than in stores.  My stamina for shopping is sort of low, so by the time I've picked stuff out to try on, I'm kind of tired of it all already, and the idea of going from one store to another is exhausting even to consider.  But shopping online is fast, and travel time is a non-issue, and by the time the items start arriving (in a semi-staggered fashion over several days) next week, I'll be ready to start trying them on.  I also love that I can try items on from different stores to compare easily side-by-side and that I can try them with things I already have.  With shoes especially, I like trying them with the hose/socks (if used) that I would wear with them and doing things like walking up and down the stairs of my condo.  (You can do this with things you buy in the store also, of course, but I have not historically approached shopping in stores this way.  I think if I can find something that fits reasonably well, looks reasonably good, and is in my price range, I tend to pull the trigger on it right there and stop looking because it means not having to go to more stores, try on more things, etc.  I just want to be done.  But with online shopping, I go into it knowing that the majority of the things I buy I won't want and will either mail back or return to the store, so I am a bit more selective.)

Robert was really funny this morning when I told him about my (late-night) shopping spree -- he said, I hope you checked out the return policies before buying those things.  It's a reasonable concern (though bruited somewhat late in the game, in my opinion) but seriously, this is not my first rodeo.  I bought from stores that have either free return shipping or that it will be (relatively) easy for me to return items to (I say "relatively" because even though Macy's isn't that far, it will take me several trips to return the amount that I anticipate returning), with two exceptions.  The first was Jones New York, who charges a flat $7.50 fee for returns by mail -- I am hungry, hungry for leopard print stuff and they had an awesome selection that I simply had to sample from.

The second was a very special situation -- I saw a blogger wearing a T-shirt from Out of Print Clothing and I was immediately compelled to go to their website and order one for myself.  (I had recently noted a distinct absence of graphic T's in my wardrobe since the demise of my Rabbit Ambulance shirt and have been wanting to fill that hole -- I'm not into the dumb/aggressive messaged shirts, but I do like to have a few T's with neat images -- so it was very well-timed.  The fact that they're also having a 20% off back to school sale made it easier to justify buying two shirts.)  This company specializes in clothing based on books.  Any guesses what two books I will be sporting on T-shirts in the near future?

Think, and then scroll..........







































Come on, this one is too easy!

Here's the first, the one I saw the woman wearing and thought MINE.  Not only do I have a gorgeous tinted print of this scene hanging on the wall of my office (a wonderful gift from Robert), I use a snip of this scene as my blogger avatar.  Yep, here it is:

Not only is it Alice, it's even a scene with the March Hare, so it's doubly awesome.  The only thing that could have been better is if they had a second Alice t-shirt with another of my favorite drawings from the stories -- the Cheshire Cat looming over the people arguing over whether he was to lose his head or not (given that his body had disappeared and he was, in fact, only a head).  And well, there are a bunch of John Tenniel's Alice drawings I would like to have on a T-shirt.  But I'm not going to get greedy here.  They picked a very fine drawing to represent the Alice stories and I am going to love wearing it.

The second one is all about the buns.

How cool is that?

If you now feel compelled to buy an awesome book T-shirt for yourself (and really, who could blame you), note that they have both Women's and Men's/Unisex style T-shirts, and pay careful attention to the sizing guide because on the Women's side at least, they run small -- I had to order up from my usual size, and a person much bigger than I would be SOL on the Women's style shirts.  Of course, because I haven't received the shirts yet, I can't comment on how they match up to my expectations from the sizing guide.  I really hope they work out!

I had also been wanting a bird shirt recently, and satisfied that with a shirt from Nordstrom that ended up draping so well (and tucking and semi-tucking so nicely) that I bought it in several colors.  This is the shirt -- sweet, isn't it?  (I tried to make the image big so you could see the pattern -- it's green and white birds facing each other, beak to beak, that makes up the diamond pattern.)

But lest you think my weekend is all about shopping (and doing crossword puzzles, one of my big things today), tomorrow I will be laboring for Labor Day, getting ready for two phone interviews on Tuesday and sending in some more job applications.  I know I have two "excellent" prospects to apply to and some others that are in the "good" to "very good" range.

I hope your Labor Day will be relaxing or exciting or productive ... or whatever combination of those things that you would like.