Spent the afternoon at the WEM with drummer R and mcpyper. Was a lot of fun shopping with other women – even if the Saturday crowds did freak me out a little. I rarely go to the WEM. Maybe 2x a year if that. So I definitely don’t know my way around the mazes (phases) at all. Good thing drummer R aquired a map and knew how to read it.

First stop was Sears. We found great shoes in the clearance area and I found a nice light green sweater set that was also on sale. I also picked up a grey jacket to pair with black or grey pants for my upcoming interviews. I’m kicking myself a little because I’d found a really nice brown suit at Sears about 5 months ago and decided against buying it at the time because I couldn’t think of enough reasons for wearing it to justify the price. Of course, now that I’m looking for a suit I can’t find anything as classic or in my size.

A little while later I picked up a really nice brown suit at Laura’s. It was on the clearance rack and I would never have looked at it twice if it wasn’t on sale. 230$ is well above my budget but at 40$ it was a great buy. It’s still cold enough to wear a lot of winter weight clothes but since all the spring stock is arriving all the winter stuff is being heavily marked down. Not so good for shop owners but very good for me.

The suit is too big to wear until I have it tailored to fit me properly. They didn’t have it in petit which means I had to buy the “normal people” size instead of my actual “short, stumpy” size. There’s at least an extra foot in length at the bottom of the pants that need to be cut off before they’ll fit me properly. The body of the jacket fits well but the arms are also a bit long and will need to be taken up. Once these alterations are made it should fit great and make a solid addition to my “interview collection”.

Now at least I don’t have to wear the same black suit to every interview. I always hesitate when it comes to pulling it out of the closet because it’s the classic cut suit I bought for my dad’s funeral. Aside from the black being a bit severe for interviews, it’s a timeless suit that just carries a bit too much emotional baggage. They say clothes can help set the mood so perhaps these two new outfits will give me an added boost of confidence.

Once past the interview phase I’m sure I can go back to my normal work outfits of dress pants and blouses. Wouldn’t life be so much easier if we could just interview in whatever the standard office dress code was? It would certainly be easier on my pocket book and closet!

Hope everyone else found whatever they were looking for today.

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