Yesterday morning I met Gulley at 9:00 a.m. at Starbucks. We used to meet at Starbucks every Tuesday morning but then she started teaching preschool and that was the end of our Tuesday mornings. Basically, she chose a classroom of three-year-olds with questionable potty abilities over me. But I couldn’t really offer her a paycheck to meet me at Starbucks and spend the day shopping, although HOW GREAT WOULD THAT JOB BE? Not necessarily the coffee with me part because I tend to overshare and can sometimes be moody, but the shopping part would be perfection.
Speaking of shopping (this transition is a stretch), I feel like I need to share the specifics on the dresses Caroline and I wore for Easter because so many of you asked. And here’s where I confess that I swapped dresses with one of my friends because FREE is always the right price. That specific dress isn’t available anymore because she bought it last year, but this one is by the same designer and looks very similar. I recommend zipping it up before you wear it all day. That’s just a free style tip.
Oh, and my necklace came from Francesca’s, but I bought it a few years ago.
I found Caroline’s dress on Etsy from a shop called Kissing Kumquats. And P’s shirt came from Old Navy. No one asked, but I don’t want him to feel left out. Of course he didn’t even know he owned a new shirt until I showed it to him that morning and said, “This is what you’re wearing”. He’s like my very own Ken doll but without the ambiguous sexuality or the Corvette.
Anyway, Gulley and I sat outside at Starbucks even though the humidity was hovering somewhere around 115% and caught up on life. They’d been in Bryan for Easter so we hadn’t really talked in almost 48 hours and had so many important things to discuss like our hair and self-tanner.
After a little while, we headed out to shop. Our first stop was Nordstrom Rack and it did not disappoint. Gulley found a few things she’d been looking for and I mainly sat in the dressing room and offered unsolicited advice. I wasn’t really there to buy since I’ve already reached my $15.00 shopping quota for the month, but I did find one great pair of shorts that I had to buy because finding a decent pair of shorts is like discovering a farm filled with unicorns.
(Why a farm of unicorns? I don’t know. It’s what came to mind. Plus a ranch full of unicorns would be hard to manage and might not come with a big red barn and some friendly pigs with a spider that weaves magical webs living in a corner of the doorway.)
(It’s my unicorn farm. It can be anything I want it to be.)
We left The Rack and drove over to La Cantera because I always like to see what they have at Zara. Ultimately we ended up at the real Nordstrom since it’s one of our favorite places to eat lunch, largely due to the fries with the kalamata olive dip.
But Gulley wanted to make a quick run through the workout clothes before we ate lunch. And the workout clothes are located, appropriately enough, right next to all the new swim wear. It’s just one big section of sweeping judgement and condemnation for the sins of cinnamon rolls and missed workouts past.
We tried not to make eye contact with the swim wear, but got caught up in a spirit of optimism as we both recalled swimsuits from a few years back that we hadn’t hated. We thought maybe, JUST MAYBE, there might be a miracle waiting for us there amidst the racks. Ultimately, I told Gulley I wasn’t going to try anything on because I knew deep down in my heart that it would only serve to ruin my plan to eat way too many fries dipped in kalamata olive dip and I didn’t want to have a lunch consisting of lettuce, Diet Coke and regret.
However, Gulley ventured in because she saw a suit that seemed to hold some promise. She went into the dressing room while I checked the Twitter on my phone. The silence coming from the dressing room was deafening. And then the salesgirl walked in with a few more swimsuits for Gulley to try. I heard Gulley say, “Aw. That’s nice. Thank you but I’m done for today.”
As we walked towards the cafe’ I told her she was one of the bravest women I’ve ever known. And we agreed that being in your late thirties isn’t for the faint of heart. Then we ate a lot of fries dipped in kalamata olive dip and laughed until we cried over various things and went back to our happy place of swimsuit denial.
The reality is that I probably need to spend some time with my arch nemesis, Jillian Michaels.
However, I chose to go all Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow. But now tomorrow is today.
Dang.