I caved.

Last Friday I was in the Downtown LA Fashion District to reload on some jewelry supplies (much cheaper than getting it at Michael's, that's for sure). It happened to be the last Friday of the month, which also meant there were sample sales going on.

As I said before, I've lost my appetite for buying clothes. I'm having a great time working with stuff in my closet, so the only thing I was looking for was a good black or white crewneck t-shirt to replace the ones that wore out. The one I got from the LA Made sample sale last year was great--the fit is perfect, it hasn't gotten all stretched out after numerous washes, and it doesn't pill like crazy in the way that cheap t-shirts do. Too bad I got one in a bright teal color instead of something sane, but I'm definitely getting a lot of return on my $7. I was hoping that maybe I'd find something nice like that again this time.

I didn't find what I was looking for, and I was proud of not caring about any of the cute clothes I saw. Of course, my resolve had to fail at the last stop. I went to the Tarina Tarantino showroom to look for Hello Kitty stuff for my sister. She loves my big honkin' Hello Kitty ring, so I know that she'd want one for herself if I found one. I walked in there for this:

$20 for this thing, but my sister will pay me back. I should have left it well alone, but I also walked out with this for myself:

Somewhere down the road I'll probably say that it's $10 well spent, because this is one nice flat hair flower that's good for everyday wear (for me anyway) or for special occasions. Besides, it won't fall off when I go dancing (I have a couple of bulkier hair flowers that won't stay on when I'm bouncing around). Finding appropriate hair clips is actually difficult for me, since my hair is fine and tend to slip out of clips a lot, but when I do manage to secure my hair, my scalp hurts and my hair just doesn't look good bunched up. The lever-style clip manages to keep my hair back and looking decent.

There are lots of reasons why this clip isn't a completely frivolous purchase (though it is just a little), but none of those reasons excuse my lack of discipline. Having lapsed, I'll be staying out of stores for a while. Let's see if I can go a full 2 months without shopping this time. I used to be able to do that...what happened? Back then, I didn't care about fashion or shopping, but it's not necessary to buy things in order to become fashionable. I'm not the type of person who has to run out and buy something every week, so I don't have a shopping problem in that sense, but I do tend to buy little things here and there. No matter how I try to rationalize, that is a problem when I'm tight on cash. I'd like eliminate the potential "snowball" effect before it even has a chance to develop.