The Shopping Experience.

Saturday Steve's lovely father came into town to help with a house project we've been wanting to do - replace nasty looking white trim and a door in our dining room with nicely stained trim to match the rest of the house. I have nothing against white trim. I love the look of white trim. Heck, we painted baby's room with white trim. But this white trim... nasty and dingy! It kind of looked like what a cat throws up.

Plus the homeowner before us left random areas without trim and had some stained pieces of trim in the room so it was just a hodge podge of a mess. Enter the Dus's... well after 2.5 years of living there... finally, enter the Dus's.

But, I have this problem when it comes to house projects. Well, multiple not problems but maybe issues. I tend to want everything done now and I tend to maybe, not meaning to, but usually do become a control freak. Well actually more of a perfectionist and think things should be done a certain way. I tend to get anxiety watching others do it, even plan for it.

Knowing my quirk, I explained to Steve everything that I desired, probably too thoroughly, and then got the heck out of dodge. (ps... I never say heck... don't know why I've used it twice)

Why did I leave? I wanted Steve to 1.) enjoy the project, 2.) learn from his Dad on how to do the project, and 3.) just have a father-son bonding experience. So I left the men to themselves and went on my way to do important things like shopping!

Shopping can be somewhat of a chore for me... weird huh? I might be part of a very select few of women who actually think it and even more of a select few that admit it. I usually have a window of time before I start to get cranky. 2 hours. But knowing that I'd have to stay away longer, I dressed appropriately. I wore my comfy, fat pants that are loose around the tummy. I wore my comfy and supportive tennis shoes. I dressed in layers on top. A law should be passed to make all stores set at the same temp. Some you freeze in, some you walk out with pit stains... not fun. So layers it is. Grabbed a quick granola bar for energy when I start to feel week and headed out.

Now I was pretty excited for this adventure. I only had 3 destinations, a pretty specific list, and a stack of gift cards. Whoo hoo.... free money! I was finishing up our shopping for Baby D. So I headed to Once Upon A Child first to see if I could find any items on my list for cheap. No luck... not a good start. And I'm not snoody but I just hate going in stores that have a stack of items and you have to look through to find that treasure. I'm an in, glance around, anything I like... no? and I'm out type of girl. So I bounced and headed over to Babies R Us. Well on my way over I forgot about an e-gift card that was sent to us. So I call up Steve, interrupt his Dude time, and have him email it on over to me.

First problem... I have a long delay for when my phone actually receives the email. So by the time I got to Babies R Us, printed our our registry, returned an item and walked around the entire store twice to kill time and figure out what I wanted to purchase, I finally got the email.

2nd problem... wrong email! Not his fault... it's confusing. So I call again and interrupt more Dude time and have him resend the correct one. This time I anticipate it's going to work and start budgeting what I can buy for the amount of gift cards. This takes some time. It's a hard decision to figure out what is important.

At this point in time I'm starting to reach my limit. My feet hurt even with my comfy shoes, my back is starting to hurt b/c I have this 50 lb belly I'm carrying around and I'm starting to sweat. I put up my hair, eat my granola bar and press on.

Ps... still no email.

So I finally figure out all that I want... still no email. I browse the clearance section... still no email. I browse the cute clothing section that I made myself avoid. Picked out two cute little onesies... still no email. AHH.... seriously, stupid phone delay. So I walk around the store some more... waste some time. 10 hours later... still no email.

So at this time I'm starting to get mad at Steve. He did nothing but I still needed someone to be mad at. I call him up, "try" to politely ask him if he's sent it. He did. But he's resending again. 10 minutes later. Nothing.

Not happy. I've been in the store for about, no lie, over an hour and a half. It should have only taken me 20 minutes. So I finally just have him send me the #s of the gift card with the pin to my phone. I go to check-out, and then gladly except it. At first I was like YEAH!! then I was more like... arggg.... why didn't I think of this earlier.

But I left successful and beyond pooped. I have reached my shopping limit of 2 hours and am beyond ready to go home. But I pressed on to Target. I wasn't even happy to head to Target. Usually Target is my happy place!

But that day it wasn't. The couch was my happy place when I returned home. The couch... a bag of chips... and a big glass of water.

Oh and I finally received those emails 3 hours after my arrival home. Smart Phone... not that day!