Introductions

 I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and a fantastic long weekend! I enjoyed my break ....and therefore am ready to hit it this week! I'm starting things off with a big photo shoot for the book tomorrow, and I will also get cranking on some new furniture pieces as well. I have been painting a lot.....and hope to get more done that I can actually show you, over the next week or so.

To tide you over though, I want to introduce you to my new shoes! I haven't bought a new pair of shoes since my 14.99 sandals at the beginning of the Summer....and I am not a big purchaser of shoes usually....but the craziest thing happened this weekend that I must tell you about. When I find myself in Virginia, I do not miss a chance to head over to the Jcrew clearance store, and this trip was no different.....that is until we drove up to the store and there were cars everywhere! You could hardly find a place to park....and I immediately knew that I had happened upon the sample sale that they hold only a couple of times a year. It. Was. Crazy.

I only had about 40 minutes before I had to meet a friend for lunch, so I thought I would just pop in....but let me tell you...from the moment they handed me my humongo plastic bag, and price sheet I knew I was in trouble. It was a bit overwhelming to walk into the warehouse and see box after box of clothes, jewelry, accessories, shoes......so I went for what I was most interested in, {and that which I usually can't even come close to affording}, which is the shoes. It took me about 10 minutes to find these beauties, in a soft brown Italian leather

  .... I knew by the time I went to the sorting table, had my paper marked, and then waited in line to pay, they were the only thing I would be walking out with. I loved them, and decided to make them my one find....but secretly hoped i would be able to go back and shop with no time limit. Well, I did get to go back....and I headed straight for the shoes again! This time I found one...yes, one.... of these gray suede beauties

...but after searching, and searching....and searching for the mate....I told one of the workers {who had been helping me look} that I hated to give up, but I just was tired of looking. He was so very nice and told me to leave my number, and he would try to find it for me. I thought...."hmmm, I don't know how you are going to do that, but sure!"..... you know what? He called me the next day, and said that he had found the mate, and they were waiting for me at the register! Is that not the coolest thing? If you could have seen this warehouse..... all the people, boxes, clothes and craziness....I mean, I don't even know how he found that shoe...but he did, and I think he is awesome for going that extra mile for me.

You know the other cool thing about all this shoe nonsense? Each pair was only 40.00...yeah, that's right.....and at this very moment, the boots are on the Madewell website for 178.00 , and the heels are on sale for 79.99 {original price 228.00!}

Gotta love it!

xo,

Barb