New acquisitions

I know you are just DYING to know what envy-inducing items I brought home with me from my much anticipated Downtown Shopping Spree and I don't disappoint!

I have a love affair going with what Cost Plus calls "stemware" and what I call "pretty sparkly wine glasses!" I started drinking cosmopolitans solely because I needed a reason to use my gorgeous martini glasses. (Also, cosmopolitans are PINK and there is nothing more fabulous than a pink drink in a martini glass garnished with a lime wedge and, if the drinker dares, a shocking-pink feather boa.) Upon being informed that one should only drink an Alsatian Gewurztraminer in a traditional Alsacian glass, I carted home a box of 6 engraved green-stemmed glasses from quaint and tiny Ribeauville to my grungy Seattle apartment. Glass-collector that I am, I was once even asked if two of my champagne flutes could make themselves available for an appearance during a wedding toast. What an honor! How often I indulge my passion depends largely on how much disposable income I have in my wallet (so, you can guess, not often), but, as I previously mentioned, I was out to spend my entire paycheck. So out I went to Cost Plus, a store I frequented daily when I used to work down the street. (Among the many ways my new job is saving me money, its great distance from Cost Plus must be at the top of the list.)

A few years ago Phillip bought me a set of cute yet functional wine glasses for my birthday AND a way cool wire rack that he so gallantly screwed in beneath my kitchen cabinets. Then we got married and moved in together and he has since gone about systematically breaking all of my lovely glasses. Thanks a lot, Phillip! But you know what glass breakage means? I GET TO BUY NEW ONES!

I bought a set of the red wine glasses which I think are very very pretty, even if a bit too narrow at the top for my tastes. But they are heavier and thicker and probably not as prone to shattering when Someone knocks them over in the sink. I was considering a wider more balloon-like glass at Pier 1 the other day, but, when I asked her opinion, my grandmother told me that it "looks like something [she'd] put ice cream in." Can't have THAT. It's embarrassing how easily swayed I am.

I also bought...

A rug. The Cost Plus website doesn't even have a picture of it, that's how boring this rug is. It is two feet by three feet and blue and it replaces the exact same rug I ruined last year by putting it in the dryer. There were blue fuzzies EVERYWHERE.

And that? Is IT. That is the full extent of my Downtown Shopping Spree purchases and not for lack of trying. We really tried to like some of those pointy shoes at Nordstrom and that red corduroy skirt at Ann Taylor, but they weren't working for us. Apparently there are only a million things to buy when you DON'T have money.