Shopping with Royalty!

Remember that boss who left for Cuba last night? Yeah; the one you mistakenly all thought was causing my headache and cuss words on Friday? (It was the Government, by the way?)

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I usually get a bonus from him at Christmas. But last year was a rough one for us (as it probably was for many, many other companies). So, I got a wish and a prayer instead of a fat bonus cheque. C'est la vie! But then a couple of weeks into January, he gave me a $50 Visa gift card. It was kinda nice having money to spend after Christmas!

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I usually only take a trip to the city if there's a particular reason. But this Saturday at about 10 am, Adriana and I drove to the other Value Village in Dartmouth. (Stay tuned for Thrifty-Thursday!) The whole day stretched before us, so we took our time.

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After a thorough 3 hr scour of Value Village, we headed to MicMac Mall for a great lunch at East Side Marios -- chicken and goat cheese pizza, oven fresh & still warm bread and a wonderful garden salad. Suitably fortified, we hit the two and a half storey mall.

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We had nothing in mind to buy. We went into every smelly place to Ohhhh and Ahhhh over grapefruit body scrubs and mango lotions. We looked at lots of beautiful handbags in lots of price ranges. We tried on shoes and hats and sunglasses.

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But when we reached the combined Winners and Homesense, we parted ways. She headed to another shop and I grabbed a cart and headed into one of my favorite stores. And what a great relief to find a store that still had racks and bins of Xmas clearance items -- really really marked down!!!

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It was the perfect place to spend my gift card. Here are the totally unnecessary items that I gleefully purchased:

• A chocolate brown velvet throw for the couch ($18). Look at that gorgeous lining!
  
  
• Something I've dreamed of having for a while now -- A 100% cashmere cardigan (drastically reduced to $30). See the pretty details with the 4 little buttons on the sleeves and the bows on the pockets? It's so soft!*

We then fortified ourselves with a super juice dinner (acai, blueberry, cranberry and pomegranate + other good, healthy ingredients). And that was just enough to get us through a quick hour long peruse of Chapters next door . Then armed with a couple of skinny lattes from Starbucks and a few Fig Newtons we'd brought with us, we hit the road for our hour and a half trip back to Bridgewater, singing along loudly as the radio played a great selection of old and new music. We were home by 10 pm.
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I love living where I do, even though it's pretty limited when it comes to shopping. But I think one of the reasons that I love it so much is that days like Saturday are such a great treat to us lowly country folks. I never get tired of these adventure days.

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Saturday was doubly great though because of Adriana.

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Man! If I'm the queen of shopping and thrifting then Adriana is the princess! We were a perfect match! She is completely happy to be out as long as possible, to hit as many places as possible, and to dine on whatever! It's not about whether you have lots of money to spend but just on the enjoyment of the search!

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Hurrah for the Shopping Princess!

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Long live the Queen