Necessary Purchases

Today, I went shopping with two of my female friends from the department. We wore out our legs shopping, as we were all looking for specific clothing and housewares items. I'm quite pleased with my purchases, all of which I found to be entirely necessary, and thought I would blog them:

1. A lazy susan for our spices, from Capital Iron! Hooray! Seriously, we went to a zillion other stores, and just got blank stares when we asked for a lazy susan. You know, a turntable? But not the kind where you play records? Capital Iron, bless their hearts, had several. I chose one that was covered in rubber, so that the spices wouldn't slip. (However, Chris's initial response to seeing the spices on the lazy susan in the cupboard was to twirl them as hard as he could! That's when I told him never to do that again, and that it was his job to put all the spices back properly.)

2. Jeans! Dark blue jeans! (From the Gap.) Deeply discounted! And they fit! And they're comfortable! I was down to one pair of jeans, and so this is exciting. As you can observe.

3. Kitchen scissors for $2.50. I love Capital Iron.

4. (Drumroll please) A blazer! As in, a button-up jacket that I can wear to conferences. I can't believe that I've managed this far through grad school without one. We girls were joking that they should hand these out standard-issue to all the women when they enter graduate studies. I've tried to find such a jacket before (I've relied on a blazer-looking grey zip-up jacket, which is actually my dressy spring jacket, up until now), but they've all been too boxy and too expensive. Especially the latter. But this one called to me from across a crowded Reitmans, and I flew to its side and made it my own (after determining that it was half the price of other blazers I've seen). It's exactly what I was looking for: medium brown, dressy when I wear it with my nice dark brown dress pants and heels, but also good with jeans. I feel powerful when I wear it. I'm glad that I won't end up feeling silly while wearing a cardigan at a conference again. (Query: why blazers? And especially why blazers that aren't perfectly matched to our pants/skirts?)

(Unnecessary items I purchased: one bright red scarf from Jacob, and one tin of tea from Silk Road.)