The Things I Struggle to Resist

Everyone has their thing. Some people are into cars. Other people are into their houses and decorating or cleaning them. Some people are into clothes or accessories. Some people love crafts. Some people enjoy hobbies and tools. That thing... your thing... is difficult to resist even when buying another item is an indulgence you really should resist. All of the other things are easy to resist, because you just aren't that into them.

For me, cars are just a way to get around. I don't much care what kind of car it is or how it is decorated or cleaned. I love our home, but home decorating and cleaning isn't really my strong point (just being honest here). Clothes are just something to wear. I want to be warm and to feel marginally attractive, but as long as I have two decent pairs of jeans and enough t-shirts, socks, and underwear to make it until the next wash day that's enough for me. Occasionally I will get into a craft of some kind (crosstitch, cricut, many educationally related craft projects), but those are usually relatively short lived.

My weaknesses are books (for myself and for the children). When I am going through a book phase I do the bare minimum on the blog and eat, breathe, and sleep books every moment I am not engaged in child care. The instant download of a new kindle book to my iPhone is dangerous and I will absorb one or two series (3-8 books) in a week. Fortunately, at that point, sanity returns and I put books aside for a while.

The library gets me through the summer months, but Scholastic book orders are dangerous to me during the school year. I have to struggle to get my monthly wish list for the kids down from $60 to a slightly more reasonable $20-$30.

And so that is why it surprised me that I fell in love with a jacket of all things at the mall this weekend. My parents had both children overnight (happiness and joy and much thanks). My husband and I went out for dinner and then headed to the mall to sit in a bookstore and enjoy some leisurely quiet time in public. I got distracted from our main goal (of some peaceful time) by a need to replace the jeans I had literally worn until they had holes in them. While shopping for jeans I discovered this amazing jacket. It was light and compact and fit me beautifully. The cuffs fell right at my wrist and the neck fit perfectly without being too long or short when zipped all the way up. And it was so warm. It was stuffed with goose down.

And I had been wanting a jacket. I only have a winter coat, but no jacket. For the past several years during a fall trip to a park, the rest of the family would pull on jackets and I'd struggle into a bulky long winter coat. Of course, this beautiful, warm, lightweight, perfectly fitting jacket was prohibitively expensive and so I reluctantly put it back on the rack. I went and found some jeans. I insisted that we pop back in and drool on the jacket some more on the way to the bookstore but then I put it out of mind.

As I sat in the bookstore browsing books on homeschooling (a story for another day) I vaguely noticed that my husband disappeared for a while and then came back. On our way out I asked him to grab my sweater from the bag the new jeans were in because the night was chilly. He reached in and pulled out the jacket. He has gone back and bought it for me while I was completely distracted at the bookstore.

And so, for once, I find myself in the odd position of being incredibly excited about having some new clothes. (And very thankful to both my parents for watching our children and my husband for being so thoughtful.)

So what is it that you struggle to resist? :-)