A Totally Random Shopping Day | Funkidivagirl.com

If you follow me on Twitter then you have seen me tweeting with the hashtag #DisneySMMoms. SM stands for Social Media, in case you had other things in mind. I’m going to a Social Media Moms Celebration at Disney World (check the badge to the left) and I’m really excited because #1 I love Disney World and #2 I get to meet other women in social media. This time my family is going with me and my mother too.

Like my other recent trip to Disney World, it’s tricky packing the right clothes for business and pleasure while still being comfortable enough to navigate the parks and since it is a media event and it’s highly possible to be on film, fashionable and cute too. I decided on my outfits last week, but still needed to pick up a few things, so I went shopping yesterday.

My first stop was TJ Maxx. It’s always hit or miss, but if you hit it good there are deals to be had. I hit it on a good day. I went there for a black skinny belt and found a Michael Kors belt for $14.99. Nice, because I hate paying a lot of money for a belt. Next I needed a container for my puppy’s toys and I found one to match my living room. Check; that was off my list. I really should have left then because that’s all I had come to buy. But you know TJ Maxx is perfect for finding things that you never knew you needed, like a new brush for the puppy. And body scrub, I could always use that. Didn’t I just lose my small umbrella? I found another one to replace it. Hmmm…we could use another piece of luggage for our trip and how about I found matching luggage to my laptop bag that I bought online months ago? That was just spooky. TJ Maxx is like that; sometimes it’s a bust, but sometimes they have everything you need want didn’t know you needed, but had to have anyway.

Next door was Old Navy. Ugg, I hate that store. It has a certain smell when you walk in, you know? I think I identified it as rubber. It’s all those cheap flip-flops giving off fumes; they are on display now even though it’s freezing outside. I went in there because I needed some sweat pants for the drive to Disney World; I don’t really own any sweat pants except for cute Lucky Brand capris and it’s too cold to wear them. Old Navy, as usual, was a bust for me. The sweat pants were too big and too much money for how cheap they looked.

Gap, big brother to Old Navy, would have some sweat pants I thought. Since the puppy was at daycare and I had time to spare, I went to the mall, thinking that I would go straight to Gap and still make it home in time for lunch. Gap didn’t have sweats either, just yoga pants. I must say that I used to love Gap, but it has been rather disappointing to me the last few years. Just “meh”.

Ahhh, but there is one store that never disappoints me and that’s Anthropologie. I LOVE THAT STORE–the merchandise, the layout, the smells; it is truly a shopping paradise. It wasn’t crowded yet so I poked around and found a really cute necklace on sale; it will complete on of my Disney outfits perfectly.

A relatively new store to our mall is Madewell. I had low expectations, thinking that it was going to be like American Eagle or something similarly teen-booperish, but I was pleasantly surprised; it’s like a well-edited, more fashionable Gap. I didn’t buy anything this time, but I have bought a great-fitting tee from there. I’m really digging Madewell.

On the way to the mall my iPod car adaptor cassette tape died, so next I went to the Apple store. I think my husband feels the same way about the Apple store that I do about Anthropologie; he can stay in there forever just soaking up the atmosphere. I hung for a bit, longer than I usually would shopping alone, because I needed a new iPhone case. An Apple employee took great pleasure in helping me choose a new case, opening up the packages and actually putting them on my phone for my approval. It was a very pleasant experience.

By now it’s lunchtime and I am too hungry to go home to eat. The Corner Bakery is right across the hall, but I’ve been impressed by Panera Bread’s new menu, so I head there instead. I decide on the Fuji Apple Salad, but since there is a long line I look up the nutrition information while I wait. This is when I just love my iPhone even more than I normally do, which is pretty darn much. By taking a few minutes to look up that information, I was able to make a better choice of ordering the Asian Sesame Chicken Salad instead.

My last stop was J. Crew. I want to shop at J. Crew; their catalog models always look so freshly scrubbed and happy, but for a few exceptions the clothes really aren’t my style and I just need to quit fighting it. It’s like when I was a teenager in Minnesota wearing Izod sweaters and penny loafers; it wasn’t me then and it’s not me now. I bought a tee shirt yesterday, against my better judgement, and now I have to take it back because it looks hideous on me. I just need to stick with the shoes and accessories at J. Crew and leave the clothes to others. Ironically, Madewell, the new store that I like, is owned by the same company that owns J. Crew.

So all in all, despite the tee that I have to return to J. Crew and the sweat pants that I didn’t find, it was a good shopping day. I love when that happens!