The shopping outing

I wasn't sure if you were all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to hear how our outing went on Friday, but here's the lowdown:

We left Jim at home. I think he actually invited himself, because he looked like he was going to get into the car when DH was in the car but DD and I weren't in the car yet...but then he didn't come with. (July 1 is only a little over 2 weeks away--I NEVER imagined he'd be this tough to get rid of....but that's a different post)...

So we got in the car and went to the thrift shop. DH got a pair of Levis for $6.99 and a shirt for $3.49. I got a bunch of T-Shirts. A couple of them had writing on them, and I think about three didn't. (I'm not allowed to wear shirts with writing on them at work, so that's an important distinction.) I also got three paperbacks (I can't help myself) and my stuff came to about $20 also.

And then there was DD. I made a parenting error that day. See, she's 15, so I've been trying to give her some leeway with money when I can, so that she can get some practice prioritizing and figuring out if she has enough, and all that. So I gave her $25 and told her that she should use her calculator and pick out what she needed for camp. Since she had made a list before hand that included shorts, T shirts and flip-flops, I figured the toughest thing that would happen would be that she would find more clothes than she could afford and have to put some back. I thought it would be a good learning experience. Here's what really happened:

DD bought a bunch of stuff and real quick ran and checked out before I could see what she bought. She told me she tried on everything. I already at that point knew that wasn't the case, but I figured she was going to have to live with the consequences of her choices. On Saturday, as she was preparing to go into town with me, I got my first glimpse of what she had bought. A ladies pinstriped suit. About 6 sizes too small. She couldn't button the skirt. She could only button the top two buttons of the jacket. So much for trying things on. And it definitely wasn't "campy". Then I looked at her shoes. Not flip flops, but sandals with 3 inch wedge heels. We don't normally let her wear things like that, and she knew it. And not campy. So those were taken away. She wasn't happy with me. Then she put on this little camisole thing, which she knows that we don't allow also, and it turns out to be a little girls size, so it completely didn't fit. At this point, I decided to let her go ahead and wear it to town, where she was meeting a friend for a movie. Apparently the friend set her straight (as I figured) because DD came home, took that off and didn't try to bring it to camp. She bought no t shirts, no shorts. So the consequence of her trying to be sneaky, and lying about it, is that most of the clothes she chose got taken away, and the others she doesn't want to wear. And she has one pair of shorts for camp. I'd like to think she'd learn from this, but I thought she knew better in the first place. I know I learned from the experience, unfortunately....

Oh--and the pizza was fabulous!!! DH got stressed out because the pizza place was so crowded, but once he tasted the pizza it was ok....all in all it was a very nice night, despite DD's tricks, which were more normal (for her) than I'd like to admit.