financial shopping adventures

My new top (probably only for wearing around the house, but the message is apt),

and my surprisingly funky new messenger bag from Ikea of all places!

Oh the joys and joys and joys and joys of being independently financial again! I possibly went a little bit nuts, but it did feel good to have enough money to go nuts with.

The Supermarket Adventures were a little on the quick and dirty side... because I am suddenly so "time poor" in the evenings, the last thing I really want to do when I get home is start cooking and getting all involved in the kitchen, I can think of lots of other ways to spend my time, so I guess my shopping list was very on the lean side, and I didn't end up picking up all that much. Of course that means by about Thursday I'll have run out of ideas and produce to actually make myself anything, so we'll just have to wing it.

Where was I... oh yeah... because it wasn't an overly elaborate shopping trip, and we didn't go across the road to Coles and Woolies like we usually do, we got finished a lot sooner than usual. That did allow us to spend more time that usual in the Red Circle Boutique though, and I fudged about a bit looking for a new pair of sweatpants (there's nothing wrong with my current ones, except it would be nice to have a second pair so I could switch between them now and then), and while I decided against the pair I tried on (grey, I'm so not after grey sweatpants) I bought some new black "work socks" and a couple of pairs of Bonds Hipster Trunks (one in electric blue and one grey pair with one black and one white stripe).

Even after all that we still got back to my place about half an hour earlier than normal, which was good.

After the Ritual Unpacking of the Goodies, we headed down to Arndale (Ma wanted to look in Big W for something), wandered about a bit, I picked up a necklace (supposedly to wear to Stu's housewarming party tonight... more on that in a second... but I quite like it, so I think it might go into regular rotation) and found a couple of DVDs, an Alfred Hitchcock one for me and a couple of Tracy & Hepburn ones for Ma for Mother's Day (which she's actually not overly fussed on... Mother's Day, not the movies... but it was nice to be able to get her something anyway), plus the Sarcasm top pictured above... I probably wouldn't have gotten it, but it was cheap and fit pretty well... I think it's going to be a Sunday Top though, not something I would usually wear "out" anywhere.

Then we stopped off at the bottle shop at Arndale so I could pick up a bottle of wine for the aforementioned housewarming party... I ended up with a bottle of Brown Brothers 2007 Dolcetto & Syrah... I have no idea what it's going to be like, but I know that Mrs Stu likes sweet red wine, and the very cute boy in the bottle shop said it was a good wine, so who knows.

I'm not sure how this party is going to go... but then I wasn't sure about Stu's 40th Birthday dinner, and that one turned out okay... but because the house they've moved into is in Cork Street (Road, Terrace, Place, something anyway) and Mrs Stu decided they wanted a "theme" party, the invitation said "you must be wearing cork"... which, really, is just a big ol' pain in the ass... but after I ranted about it to Stu on the phone after I got the invite, I did come up with a plan... last weekend I bought a bottle of that non-alcoholic sparkling wine stuff (ie cheap, but something I like and would drink), complete with a cork in one of those metal cage thingies... and after ripping my hand to shreds trying to get the cork out on Wednesday (usually they're fine, but this bastard just would NOT come out of the bottle, and I didn't want to ruin the little wire cage thing), I popped the cork back in the cage and refasten it, and I'm going to pop it on the necklace I bought, so I have cork, but with "bling" (lame I know, but then, so is the whole "wear cork" directive).

Anyway after that we decided to head down to the beach, attempt some kite flying... sadly, when we got down to the beach (and I kind of ended up driving on auto-pilot and parked pretty much were I used to park when I was visiting Ludo and Lownee when they lived down by the beach... little out of the way sidestreet location) there was NO wind... well, technically that's not true... there was just enough wind to tease, but not enough to get Ma's little bird kite into the air, let alone my bigass stunt kite... so we farted around for maybe ten minutes, fifteen max, before we gave up and headed back to the car.

Next stop was Glenelg, which was a good plan, nice sunny day (if a little chilly in the shade), cashed-up yani, good for wandering around.

We ended up going into a bunch of little chi-chi-la-la type giftshops because I wanted to get Mrs Stu something giraffe related (she has a thing for giraffes similar to Ma's thing about seahorses, only Mrs Stu isn't as fussy about what they look like, whereas Ma only likes CERTAIN seahorses)... and eventually I found this really cute stained glass giraffe windchime thing, and not overly expensive either... so hopefully she doesn't already have one...

After we'd finished our wander up and down Jetty Road, we stopped off at Souvlaki Bros for lunch, which was really, really nice. Both Ma and I had the Grecian Steak Burger and it was very tasty, beautiful tender steak, tasty Mediterranean sauce. Definitely have to go there again, try some of their other things (like the Cypriot Yiros with the grilled haloumi cheese... mmmm)...

Next we decided to head down to Ikea... which could have been a very scary thing the day before Mother's Day, but actually it wasn't any more or less busy than any other Saturday afternoon. I wanted to get a replacement for the bowl I bought a couple of years back, and I found one fairly easily, but when I get it home and look at it next to the original bowl, the new one weighs a hell of a lot less and the sides aren't as thick... *waggles finger at Ikea* I don't know, cutting quality! Anyway I went a little nuts in Ikea... I ended up buying a bunch of stuff I didn't necessarily need, but was interesting...

Case in point is the Flört messenger bag I bought (pictured in the photo above... only $17)... we actually saw these pretty much as soon as we got to the top of the stairs when we arrived, and I ended up carrying the bag through the whole store (only to find that there was a truckload of them downstairs towards the end of the "maze")... but it was kind good that I carried the bag around, it kinda convinced me to buy it... after all, I got the groovy Caterpillar bag in Sydney, and I've been using that, but it's not as useful a work bag as I thought it might have been... a little too small and a little too prone to falling off my shoulder. But I loved the colours of the Flört bag... white isn't the most practical of colour for bags, and I could have gotten the red and grey version (continuing my ongoing obsession with scarlet), but I really liked the white and green mix (the green being the Swedish Ikea Green, which is the same as the icing on the scaryass Princess Cake)... and the design on the green kinda reminds me of like a circuit board.

I also grabbed one of those things that hangs over the arm of your sofa with the pockets for your remote controls and stuff (in good old Swedish Ikea Scarlet)... another Flört product (I dunno either, they have the same name, who knows how that works)... and a couple of little bitty Söt Barnslig stuffed toys (a pink hippo and a blue effelant) for Stu's kids, Trouble and Strife, just so they don't feel left out with the giving. Not sure who's getting what yet... maybe I'll hide them behind my back and make them pick a hand or something...

Ma got herself a new floorlamp (also in Swedish Ikea Scarlet) and we also grabbed a couple of big round placemats to use at Christmas... again, in the same scarlet.

Then it was a quick stop at the downstairs Ikea cafe thing for a slightly tasteless icecream and home again home again jiggity jig...

I have no plans to add up how much money I actually spent today... I know it will have been at least $100, but I can live with that...

And how I've got less than an hour to myself before I need to get organised for the party...

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