Honestly, Nate

I have too many clothes. My mom started telling me this when I was under 10 years old, and she could still (and did as we packed up to move last year) say it today. Instead of complaining/burning excess clothing in secret, Nate recently suggested that we find a small dresser to put in the other room. That way that cats could have reign over a book case we would move by the window in our front room. Win, Win, Win.


Two Saturdays ago, after a trip to the farmer's market, Nate, Alana and I stopped off at St. Vincent De Paul's. Having grown up in Utah, I kept thinking a local soup kitchen started selling second hand furniture...but the one in Toledo just sells furniture and clothes...and hopeless pieces of computers no one will ever use. Seriously, it was like a graveyard. Anyway, I found the dresser I wanted. It was beautiful: it was actual wood, the drawers opened, and it didn't smell weird. Alana attempted to negotiate with the "salesperson", but she quoted $35 and took off. She had better things to do...like tell people she didn't know how to run the credit card machine. Deciding we could talk someone else down a bit from her quote, we held off.


Nate stopped by the following Monday, in grubby clothes and with only a loose grasp on correct grammar (he wanted to see if that would help his cause), he asked a different woman to check out a dresser for him. "$65", she says. Refusing to go upstairs to look at said dresser, she insisted that her manager wouldn't let her sell them for less than that.
Nate: "I would like to speak with your manager"

Woman: "he's not here"

Nate: "when will he be back?"

Woman: "5:00pm"

Nate: "how late are you open today?"

Woman: "4:00pm"


A good time was had by all. Nate left, planning on returning on Friday, cause the woman said so. I think it was just a day of the week that she was familiar with, but whatever. Nate went back on Friday, dressed up and with improved grammar. He said he was there to pick up a dresser, some guys showed up, put the dresser in his car and said "okay, you're all set!". He hadn't paid yet. He sat in his car. He could drive away. He could give his wife not only a dresser, but a free dresser. He could spite that crazy woman. His obstacles: we were scheduled to go to the temple that night, he didn't want to rip off a thrift store, guilt. What happened: I got a non-free, non-overpriced dresser. And Nate is awesome. So is my dresser.

I'll meet you behind McDonald's...

I'm going to assume this is referring to fireworks?

In Our Lovely Deseret

I remember when shopping at the Deseret Industries (DI)* was really embarrassing. In my fifth grade class, someone was teased because they were seen shopping there (it now seems obvious to ask how the teaser was to be able to see the teased, but whatever).

While being an adult has some definite drawbacks, I now enjoy the (social) freedom to shop wherever I want; with pride, even. Last week during my visit back to Utah, I made an impressive 2 appearances to the same DI location within a 4 day span. The first day I shopped with Ruth (my sister) and my mom. I followed my mom over to the book section and found all the church books anyone could want (or didn't want, in this case). I found some great biographies on some of the prophets, but my prize find was a copy of President Benson's biography. It's written by Sheri Dew and signed by the prophet himself, so it's not only valuable (to me), but also well written. I surfaced from the book selection with an armful of (heavy) books; maybe Ruth's raised eyebrows didn't say "you realize that a heavy baggage fee is $50, right", but they should have. I found a few great items of clothing, but we had to leave to get to a family party.

Not completely satisfied, I called Ruth the next day and asked if she was up for another visit to DI. I was in luck (or being indulged), so we returned and were in rare form. I found all sorts of work/play clothes without (much of) the guilt of a regular shopping trip. After announcing my total to Ruth's husband, Matt, he asked if they gave me the keys to the store. I've been wearing DI clothes for a week and have felt totally stylish, but my carefree DI spending reminded me of diet advice I've heard: just because you are eating low-fat cookies doesn't mean you should eat the whole box. I won't feel guilty. My box of cookies was a lot less expensive than most and I successfully avoided a heavy baggage fee by carrying on about 40lbs on my back while wearing a bad outfit. I earned my bargains.

*Goodwill or Salvation Army equivalent