Hello Big Spender

Here's something you don't hear every day - I spent 4 hours on Saturday shopping. *shudder* It all started on Friday morning when I got into my car before heading off to work to find my windshield covered with a thin layer of ice. I just assumed it was the dew that's covered my car every day for the last couple weeks. Luckily the ice was thin enough that my wipers were able to break it away after a few strokes. There was definitely a quick moment of panic after I first heard the wipers scrape across the ice because I didn't have a scraper.

So Saturday morning after sleeping in, I started my shopping marathon. First stop was to fill up the tank since I was running low on diesel after my Toronto trip. Next I went to the bank to deposit my reimbursement cheque from the trip which pretty near set my VISA back to zero... for about 5 minutes. The first store I went to was Canadian Tire where I picked up a car brush/scraper, a Rubbermaid container for some of the smaller items in my trunk, a container of wipes for car interiors, and a set of heavy-duty booster cables. I also picked up some new dress shirts for work at Mark's Work Warehouse, and a pair of new Salomon winter boots at close to 75% off just because they were last year's store stock from The Outside Store.

The big purchase of the day though was a new Columbia winter coat from Sportchek. Normally in the spring and fall I tend to wear a thin plaid, flannel jacket with maybe a vest if it's a little colder out. If it's raining I have a Wetskin rain jacket. When I'm at work, however, the plaid jacket doesn't quite go with a shirt, tie, and slacks so I've been wearing the rain jacket. The thing doesn't breathe though so I tend to get quite sweaty just from walking around at lunch. So I figured I'd look at a fall jacket, and maybe a new winter coat since mine is a few years old. I ended up walking out of the store with a 2-piece winter jacket fully intending to wear the inside shell as my new fall jacket. I've normally had separate jackets for each season so we'll see how this works out.

When I got home and showed my parents the spoils of the war that most call shopping I was kind of hoping for a little praise. I detest clothes shopping and I felt I made out pretty well. But one of the first things out of my mom's mouth was, "You should have gotten your hair cut." Thanks mom. I just spent four freaking hours shopping and you tell me to get a hair cut? Grrr.

This morning I ordered some car mats from VW so I should be all set for winter. Or maybe not. Now that I think of it I should look into some winter washer fluid.

Matthew.