Hubby's out of town for a week... and I went shopping

I took Billy to the airport yesterday. He's going to visit his family in Huntsville for a few days then out to Vegas to see a college buddy. It was a 6 AM flight, which meant getting up at 4 AM to go to the airport.

I decided to stay awake afterward to go shopping when JCPenneys opened. I had a Penny's gift card from cashing out some Discover Card cashback rewards, and a couple American Express gift cards we earned from our American Express Clear cashback rewards. I love free money. I tried a million things on that I mostly ended up hating, but came home with some great deals. My primary mission was the find a super-comfy, yet not completely dorky, travel outfit. I flew to Australia last time in my fabulous but skin-tight jeans from Brazil. That is so not happening again.

There's whole categories of clothing known as 'track suits' and 'loungewear' that I've never previously owned. I was determined, but couldn't bring myself to actually purchase an all-velour outfit. They were available in a dozen colors and 2 different styles. But I just couldn't do it. Head to toe Adidas was tempting, but was quickly ruled out by super-scratchy seams on the inside of the jacket.

My requirements were fairly straightforward. I needed a color-coordinated three-piece outfit: a sleeveless layer, a long-sleeved layer, and long pants. The sleeved layer had to open down the front and not have a hood (for comfort and ease of taking on and off in-flight). The shell had to have a self-contained bra or be designed in such a way that my bra straps would not be showing. The pants had to make my ass look good (this concession must be made so Billy doesn't wine about me buying new clothes).

I ended up with a torquoise shell and a torquoise/marine blue/gray pants and jacket. It's all super comfy, not trendy enough to make me look like one of those girls I can't stand, but still more presentable than just wearing pajamas.

A gal don't spend 4 hours in JCP and just come home with a track suit though! I got a new wallet ($5), couple of lovely necklaces (buy one, get one), a full-length black/white houndstooth plaid skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, a black blouse because I own maybe 1 shirt that would go with aforementioned skirt, a pair of denim capris (for $2!!!), plus a dress and a cardigan that I'm going to return. The dress is cute, but it turned out to be $30 when I looked at the receipt (more than I'd expected) and the cardigan just looks dumb - it was in my bag when I realized it was 1 PM and had to check out (or I wouldn't get my doorbuster deals) - I'd tried it on, but not seem myself in a mirror. I'll return them tomorrow afternoon. Free money spending spree over, I'm now back in spend-thrift mode and probably won't be able to convince myself to buy anything in their place. Except maybe a different dress or other fun summer clothes on better sale. Looks like we're heading back to Australia and Brazil - winter here means it's summer there!