shopping karma

I have always had incredible luck at getting good deals, but over the past year, every time Jocelyn and I step into a store, we have the most amazing shopping karma. It is like good deals are just waiting for us to appear.

Last night I headed to TJ Maxx (a deal haven) to see what they had in store for me. I kind of wandered around the sale racks and finally decided to just try on every cute dress I could find. Now, dresses are hard to find because (a) women have very different builds so finding a garment that fits both top and bottom is often a miracle, (b) I require my clothes to be extremely modest, so finding dresses with sleeves that I like is hard, (c) dresses can easily fall into the frumpy category, so you have to be careful.

My strategy was to pick up every dress that has some sort of realm of possibility and just see what happened. The result: an incredible find of a black satin dress, with a little bit of a vintage feel. A few of the dresses were completely bust, one was a slight possibility (but I didn't love it), and then we had one winner. Not bad.

Moving on, I tried the same strategy with jeans, which is an even harder item to buy. Again, women are built in so many shapes, that finding a jean that makes you look hot isn't easy. And when dealing with TJ, you don't get the normal selection of cuts and styles. It was pretty gruesome going through a few racks of jeans to find only four possibilities that (a) were likely to fit me, (b) were a wash that wasn't ugly, and (c) a style I was willing to wear. But as I pulled on the first pair, the denim fairies smiled upon me because this is the best pair of jeans I have bought in years.

Now I swear by The Gap's Long and Lean jeans; they fit so well over curves and make everyone look thinner. But these jeans were incredible! And the sinker: the pockets are embellished with a darker blue velvet design. I know it sounds dumb, but it looks (and feels) fantastic. I made my friend Kim feel the pockets when I tried them on. They also have one of the best washes I have ever seen on a jean, which we all know is almost as crucial as fit. No matter how well a jean fits, if I hate the shade of blue I won't buy it.

And to prove how awesome the karma was: bill total . . . . $30.00!