Sunday Shopping Trip

I was in a bit of a funk today since it is the last day of my vacation time. It is back to work tomorrow 🙁 I took the opportunity to go out shopping though. I needed to return 2 pairs of heels and 2 pairs of boots to Payless. They were online purchases that just did not fit right. I have still yet to find a pair of riding boots that work “just right.” The heels were purchases I made while preparing for the Holiday Party I went to a few weeks back. Neither pair of heels fit right and I ended up buying a new pair at the store about 90 minutes before the party was supposed to start! It was a bit of a funny sight I imagine.. me walking in with 2 boxes of heels and a giant cardboard box containing two huge boxes for tall boots. My feet are not entirely small you see.. 😉

Anyhow, the girl that works at my local Payless was nice as usual even though I was bringing in a haul of returns. I got my return receipt and browsed the aisles a bit. I did not see anything that caught my eye so I went on to my next stop DSW. At DSW (pictured above), I was returning a pair of men’s dress boots. I had purchased those to wear to my daughter’s concert that was a few weeks back (had to be in boy mode for that). However, the weather was unusually nice so I just wore a nice pair of shoes that I still have. These particular boots were a lot of money and since I likely will be full time soon I don’t really want to hold onto them. I decided to shop around at DSW after I finished my return. I found a purse that was 70% off of the sale price of $29.95. The purse in the last photo is mine now and it only cost me $8.95. It is sitting next to the purse I have been using which is really more of a fancy clutch bag. The clutch bag is something I bought for only $5 during my very first time shopping as myself at Goodwill many months ago. It really is too small for everyday use even though I love it 🙂

After DSW, I went to World Market to look at mirrors for my apartment. I struck out on finding a deal there, but came home with 3 bags of my favorite popcorn (Toasted Sesame and Seaweed Artisan Popcorn) and some cute wine glass tags. Finally, I needed some odds and ends for the apartment (an HDMI cable, finish dishwasher tabs, and Almond Milk) so the perfect place to go was Meijer. As I walked into Meijer, the greeter ended up having to help me get a cart. They were stuck together and I was fighting with it. The chivalrous greeter came to my aid 😉

To tally everything up that was 4 cashier interactions, two employee interactions (such as “are you finding everything ok”), and probably something like 60 people that definitely saw me, without a single negative thing happening.

As I mentioned before my ID and my credit/debit cards all still have my male name so there were plenty of things that could have gone wrong, but I was treated with respect and kindness at each stop. The cashier at DSW even confirmed my savings club membership by saying my male first name out loud after I entered in my phone number and I just said “Yep that’s me” with a smile.

This is getting easier and easier to just be myself 🙂 I still have my moments where I need to take a deep breath when about to push a cart down a crowded aisle, etc – but really it does get easier!

-Ariana

p.s. My outfit was a bit more sheer than the photos show. I actually love that top. It does not come off as “grey” as it does in the pics. I am wearing a black cami underneath it because it is so sheer in reality.  😉