Thursday, August 21, 2008

Thoughts for Thursday

So I had some issues with Wordless Wednesday yesterday.


First, my brother had sent me a pic of the back of my two cutie-pie nephews walking down the street. The older of the two was in the lead, and the little fella was hurrying to catch up. He called the photo "Where one goes. . ." Adorable! So I posted the pic, looked to make sure it was up, and went about my business. Later, I had a little blog-reading time, so I came back to go through my sidebar list of blog pals. Except, my pic was gone and a red "X" was in its place! Naturally, I filled in with my first thought--"Doh!" Somehow the original pic was a fail on my part.


Later last night, I finally loaded my pics from our Boston vacation off my camera and into my computer. I found the "world's softest magical unicorn" pic, and couldn't resist. I think that was one of the first photos I took on vacation. Our first full day there, we decided to walk around our "neighborhood." As it turned out, our neighborhood included most of the places I wanted to shop. Coincidence? (mwahaha!) We'd already hit Zara, where I'd found a jacket (like a casual suit coat), and two sweaters. K bought a shirt, I think. We were walking down Newbury Street, when I saw the store window packed with yard gnomes. I couldn't help but laugh and laugh (and take photos). Yard gnomes--in fact, gnomes in general--are hilarious to me, but that's a story for another time. The store looked closed, and we didn't make it back by until our last day. I told K that if they had a gnome giving finger guns, I was going to have to buy it and hold it on my lap all the way home like a baby. I had a mental image of a gnome version of Buddy Christ, which perhaps only exists in my head. Turns out there were no finger gun gnomes in the store, although I did buy a couple of small things. (Including a "hanging with my gnomies" magnet.)

We also shopped that day at H&M, which was a little disappointing. Like our last visit to an H&M, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of being old and uncool. Last time (in NYC, August 2007), I couldn't find any tops that didn't look like maternity tops. This time, I couldn't tell if most of the tops were supposed to be shirts or dresses. I did find my way to their accessory section, though, and found a cute necklace, fun cocktail ring, and a pair of earrings. I think my total bill was around $15.


Our third main shopping stop for the day was Filene's Basement. Apparently, I need to really be in a shopping mood for Filene's, because the aisles and aisles of clothes were totally overwhelming for me. I didn't feel like digging around, so I made a beeline for the shoe department. Hello lovelies! I only bought two pairs--a pair of brown pumps and a pair of black mules. Love my new shoes. I think K bought a couple of shirts there, too. The best way to get him to agree to spend time shopping on vacation is to a) suggest stores that aren't available in Austin, especially if he's already been there and now knows he likes them (see above three examples) b) make sure that the stores have a women's and men's section. He's fairly willing to spend some time just hanging around if I'm in a women's store, but then he ends up pestering me so no one really has fun.


Our last day in town, we wandered around the neighborhood again, and stopped in at Lord & Taylor (just down the street from our hotel). It was too much like any regular department store for me. I entertained myself in the purse section (and admired a gorgeous clutch that was both super expensive and totally impractical for my life, so my credit card breathed a sigh of relief there) while K looked around. I mainly included this store on my shopping recap list because it was K's idea to go there. (!?!)

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is spend time walking around in different neighborhoods, exploring and wondering what it would be like to live there. Newbury Street is different than most shopping areas--much of the street looks like brownstone apartments, except that instead of a tenant's living room, there are boutiques with alluring window displays. There we also visited an olive store (I hope their card is somewhere in my purse), a little kitchen gadget store, and a music/comic book store that reminded me a lot of Waterloo Records. On this trip, I wish we'd spent more time walking around the North End (Little Italy). I hadn't done enough research to know whether any of the shops there would be open on a Sunday, which was our last day in town and our last opening for a walk-about. Exploring that area will be near the top of the list for next time!

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