I hope everyone had a great night’s sleep. I’m so glad to finally be busy at work. The days go by so much faster when you are busy; at least mine do. I know I am blessed that in November and December when I don’t have much to do at work, I can pretty much do what I want to. I read, crochet, watch tv shows and movies on the computer. Anything I want to – I just have to be there. But, I would rather be busy and work hard 10 hours than just sit at the desk 8 hours.
Sometimes shopping with kids can be fun and sometimes it can be your worst nightmare. Whenever I carried my boys to a store with me, they were usually pretty good. When they were small, we had a Roses’ in the Outer Banks Mall; in fact that mall was called the Roses’ mall for many years. They were willing to go anywhere in the store with me I needed to go as long as we could check out the toy section before we left. Of course, like all other children, they wanted everything on the shelves. And, we usually managed to have 2 toys in the cart when we got to the checkout counter. I was always thankful for Match Box toys. They weren’t very expensive, therefore, I could afford them. TJ and Ray wore out the knees on many pairs of pants pushing those cars around. Legos was another great toy and they liked them too. Both of my boys had great imaginations and just created their own designs.
When they were young, it wasn’t hard to buy clothes for them. They really didn’t have much choice about what they wore. But, as they got older, I tried to let them pick out their own clothes. When they reached the teenage years, shopping became harder. They never liked anything I picked out; I didn’t have any taste at all. But the funny thing about that was, if I went shopping by myself and bought them something, it was always fine. The only thing I can remember that TJ really hated was the --- my mind is drawing a blank here. I can’t remember what the pants were called. But, here is the story…..the first year my boys attended Church camp, they had to have several pair of pants that weren’t shorts. They pants had to be to or below the knees. Marie Reed did a lot of sewing for all the kids back then and she made my boys several pairs each. TJ didn’t mind the pants themselves; but he hated all the designs in the materials. We picked material that was like the pants in the store and he didn’t have any choice but wear them, but he really didn’t like them. I am sure he will remember what they were called.
After TJ moved to Greenville, I usually visited him for the after Thanksgiving sales…better known as Black Friday. Whatever girl he was dating at the time would try to hang with me, but it was a hard job to keep up with me then. One particular Friday we were standing outside Goody’s waiting for the doors to open at 4:45 AM. TJ was drinking coffee and trying very hard to look cool. But, he wasn’t the only guy there. His girlfriend, I think it was Allison, stayed with us until about 9:00 and she had to leave to go to work. TJ and I went to Belks. They always had great sales. I had been given some early Christmas money and was trying to find me a few things both for work and Church. The big sale ended at 11:00. I had picked out a few things and every time I would come out of the dressing room so TJ could see it, he would give me a “thumbs down”. I finally asked him what was wrong with the clothes. His comment?...”they look like MOM clothes. You always buy MOM clothes”. I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. After all, I was a MOM. Then he explained it. He said I always bought t-shirts with the flowers, bears, dogs, etc. on the front; same thing for sweatshirts; I usually bought red or blue, etc. Then he asked me to let him pick out some things for me. Ok, I was game. We had the nicest clerk working with us and I just stayed in the dressing room, trying on everything he brought me and modeling it so he could see it and approve or disapprove. Just a few minutes before 11:00, I told him we had to stop because the sale stopped in just a few minutes. The clerk heard me and told me not to worry about it; she would ring everything up at the sale price, giving me all the discounts. We shopped until a little after 12:00. I ended up with several outfits that I would have never bought for myself, but loved every one of them. When we got to the counter to pay, I apologized to the clerk and thanked her for letting me have all the discounts. She said it was her pleasure and her next comment surprised me and thrilled me at the same time. She said, “I have had the best time watching your son pick out clothes for you that were both young looking and becoming. He obviously loves you and wants you to look good.” I came back home on Saturday, hung all my new clothes in the closet and just felt real good about myself. On Sunday I decided to wear what is called a pencil skirt. It’s very straight and supposedly very slimming. It was in a very soft purple color and I had a dark purple sweater to wear with it. I also wore my new black leather jacket. When I got to Church, I had gotten mud on my shoes and stepped into the bathroom to wipe them off. As I turned to come out of the bathroom, I noticed something I had not noticed in the dressing room the day before. The skirt was slit in the back to just above my knees; not bad, just not something I would have picked out. I was a little embarrassed but had to make the best of it. Believe it or not, no one noticed and I had several compliments on how nice I looked. That afternoon I called TJ and asked him if he had noticed that little detail. He laughed and said no, he just thought it looked nice on me. I have to say this – he didn’t pick out a single piece of MOM clothes.
One more shopping story and I’ll close out this email. We were shopping in Walmart in Elizabeth City on the way home from visiting my Mama. We didn’t have a Walmart or Kmart on the beach then. Naturally, we were in the toy section. This was the year that just about every toy had a button somewhere on it that, when pressed, would make the toy sing, dance, etc. TJ and Ray pressed a few of the buttons, but they would wait until that toy quit whatever it was doing before they would press the next button. I decided to start pressing buttons, but I didn’t wait for one to finish before I pressed another. I probably had 10 or so of those toys making some kind of noise. I looked around for TJ and Ray and they had gone off and left me. When I got up with them, several aisles away, I asked them what was wrong. Can you believe this? I had embarrassed them!!! TJ said he didn’t want anyone to know he was with me and Ray said “me too”.
I hope all of you have a great day. I know I will see some of you at Church tonight. Everyone stay safe. God Bless You.
Brenda
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