Saturday, January 25, 2014

any excuse to get out of town

I went to the local mall last weekend to waste some time walking around. The mall here is relatively small, and doesn't have a lot of the stores I usually purchase from or at least visit (no Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, J.Crew, H&M, or Forever 21) but at least they had a Gap...until now as they have shut it down. You can imagine my disappointment. Now we're using that as an excuse to get out of town and drive to Pittsburg to visit the much larger mall there. We went yesterday after a particularly boring healthcare management exam so that I could return this shirt and so my friend could return a few things at Nordstrom. After the returns, we stopped at all of the stores we don't have here.

Madewell Baseball Sweater
First up, Madewell. Maybe it's because I loved Kimmie's recent look with a baseball tee, or because this sweater looked so comfy, but I just wanted to try it on even though it's ridiculously expensive for what it is. It's cute, but not 2/3 of my monthly budget cute. Looking through the sales section, I was immediately drawn to this dress. I thought it would be great for an easy throw-on dress for school, but could be dressed up for special occasions too. My guy friend Travis disagreed, saying he could make me that dress from the fabric of his couch, but ya know, boys! They only had x-smalls left in store, but luckily they still have the lighter version online, so with their current 40% off promotion (use code BIG DEAL), it's currently on it's way to me. 

Next I made the boys patiently wait while I grabbed just about every piece available at Loft. I haven't been a big Loft person in the past because there wasn't one in our mall back home, but the more I'm exposed to their stuff, the more I like it, especially for school clothes. The striped blouse I bought on Cyber Monday is really one of my favorite shirts in my closet, so I was hoping I would have similar luck in store. This striped tee is adorable, and comes in pink, grey, and navy. I ended up going with the pink stripes because I don't have anything similar (I have plenty of white and black/navy), but I'm kind of wishing I had grabbed the grey too. The blouse on the right isn't currently on line. It kind of looks like a muted leopard print from far away, but is really is a little poppy flower pattern (it reminds me a lot of Audrey's polka dot blouse I love so much). The thing that I was most impressed about all of the shirts I tried on at Loft is that they were all long enough! Usually most blouses are too short on me and end up looking really boxy, so I was very happy that that wasn't the case here. I wish I had seen this shirt in the store - it's beautiful, and would have been super versatile. Loft is currently having a buy one, get one 50% off for all tops if you're interested!

I also ended up trying on these pants from Banana Republic because I thought the bright color and the print would have been fun, and they were 40% off (everything is currently online with code BRSNOW40), but they were horribly ill-fitting below my thighs - it just looked like I had flared pants on that were way way too short! We stopped at J.Crew, but they were turning over all of their inventory, so there wasn't much in the store. They are currently offering 40% off sale items online (with code BYEWINTER) and if I wasn't coming towards the end of the quarterly budget, this dress would be very very tempting. 

We finished the day off with this ridiculous-looking sandwich. It's a burger with coleslaw and french fries on it. SO GOOD. so healthy, right? ;)