These feet were made for.....

...... walking and running and jumping and oh so many more things! And they did all thru our holiday. They went to the beach, to catch fish, to the park, they rode wild rides and fun rides and "too scary for me" rides at Disney. They travelled on four aeroplanes and fidgeted many hours in Grandaddy's truck. The best things about these feet is that they were, oh so comfortably, housed in a pair of gratefully received hand me downs from Rowan.

Having examined my summer wardrobe, that is my "it is going to be warm rather than a typical Scottish summer" wardrobe, and found it distinctly lacking, I found myself drawn to rows of very attractive looking clothes in a clothes store. I was rescued by Susan who dug thru her wardrobe and loaned me some great things to take with me.

Our little girl came home with a whole bag of hand me downs from Shelbie, crazy I know to have a transatlantic hand me down relationship, but a year apart in age and exactly the same build and colour, it is just ideal and we are grateful!

And you may remember my having been upset about wearing a hole in the knees of my favourite jeans? I wondered how in the world I would ever replace them without reneging on my challenge of avoiding clothes stores. One word... Goodwill, specifically Goodwill in Athens. This is a charity that exists to create employment opportunities for people. The money they make in their charity stores gets ploughed into that. Well this charity shop is the size of a supermarket and full of great stuff. Yep, you have to hunt through an amount of not so great stuff. But two pairs of jeans, five dollars each and one (a never worn pair from the Gap) then I was a happy bunny. I also learned that I could so easily develop a thing for shoes. That took me a bit by surprise. The fact that I have a thing for plates did not. Thankfully, the whole suitcase thing pushed me into good sense and no plate purchasing. And I have found charity shops that actually do white, racks of white. I have listened for a year to Beth telling me about how I need to see this place and she was so right!

Our Aunty Bethie also let us know about Plato's Closet. This is not a charity shop. It is a chain of stores where you sell your not wanted clothes to them and they then sell them on. The secret is that they will not buy your tat only the good stuff so you have a store full of pretty good gear and a store that you would not be embarrassed to be inside, in fact it has a real upbeat feel to the place. I picked up some good things in there. One of which I will be wearing to a wedding next week. Please do not be telling anyone the dress cost $8 and the cardigan is borrowed from Susan. You just cannot go without a cardigan over here!!

The result of all this borrowing, hand me downs, second hand purchasing and a generous Grandma who took the kids on a most wonderful shopping spree in Osh Kosh B'gosh, meant we went out with a bag and a half of our stuff and came home with five!!