Back before the boys were born, when I was young and stupid, I loved dressing up for work. I had some nice stuff, and I suppose I had some stuff that my sister would make fun of me for wearing. After the boys were born, though, the nice clothes slowly filtered out of my closet and into the bags and boxes headed for Goodwill.

Some of it no longer fit, some of it was way out of style, and some of it just never got worn anymore (see above, re: giving birth to boys…), so what was the point of keeping it around? When I started working at school this fall, I had some pangs of regret over things that had been lost, but only slight pangs, because hey: I was required to go shopping, baby.

And while I don’t love shopping, I do have a store I love: Waterloo got a brand new Dress Barn this summer. And they send me 40% off coupons on a regular basis. I *have* to use them. Just think of all the money I’m saving!

I was feeling especially adorable in the outfit I wore today, and I tried to take a picture of myself, but alas, I have nothing I’m willing to share: blurry, weird expressions, toothpaste spatters on the mirror…nothing quite turned out.

You’ll just have to imagine me wearing this jacket…

…with a white pleated shell underneath, a narrow black skirt (with pleats at the bottom, like this grey one. Only black…), white tights and black patent leather Mary Jane pumps.

One of my coworkers is also a fan of Dress Barn,  and the other day was wearing a necklace from a recent shopping trip. One of our students complimented her on it, wondering where it was from. The poor young lady had to work really hard to control her look of horror when Patty told her it was from Dress Barn.

Patty forestalled any potential foot-in-mouth-syndrome and just said “Yeah, it’s the old lady store. You’d never find anything there, but us old ladies like it…”

Patty is just a few years older than me, and I’m increasingly aware that us late-30/early-40-somethings are not OLD.

As far as these teenagers concerned, though? We are ancient. Decrepit. Practically in the grave. Which is funny, because they think it means we no longer remember what it is like to be a teenager, and that we are too stupid to understand exactly what nonsense they are trying to pull…

Sorry my dears, we’ve been there, done that, have a gigantic stack of t-shirts to prove it…

Except some of us are now feeling pretty spiffy wearing our fancy red jackets instead of those ratty old t-shirts…

(I have to laugh: my grammar checker does not approve of the word “LADY” suggesting that it is “bias language.” Huh?)