From time to time an occasion arises that allows me to trade in my official Mom uniform complete with Sergeant-like silver stripes of snot across my shoulder for a nice dress. The latest such occasion is our thirteenth wedding anniversary.
Months ago we bid on a package at a silent auction for dinner at La Caille and a one night stay at a bed and breakfast. I was tired of my other dresses and set out to find something fun, flirty and fabulous! I scoured the stores in Ogden, Salt Lake, and even a few in Spring, Texas but came up with nothing. None of them were quite right. Too matronly. Too ruffely. Too purpely. Too whatevery. So I turned my search away from the brick and mortar stores to the click and order stores. What did we do before the days of amazon.com, zappos.com, and in this case, Nordstrom.com?! I fell in love with two dresses on Nordstrom.com. The problem? Too pricey. But I ordered them anyway. Why not? I figured there would ultimately be something unflattering about those as well, but at least I would have tried.
The UPS man delivered the dresses to my doorstep right on schedule. I excitedly tried them on and found them to be too. . .perfect! And still too pricey. Now my problem was that I loved them both. I was leaning toward a hot red number, but it was (gulp) twice as much as I originally set out to spend. Almost three times as much when you added in the new shoes and earrings I naturally had to buy.
I tried those dresses on at least ten different times. Each time I tried to find a flaw, but I couldn’t. The fabric was gorgeous, hung beautifully and hugged my curves just right. I decided to keep one of them, and then mom-guilt set in like the plague. In the past few weeks we had dropped hundreds of dollars on the little people in our household for soccer, swimming lessons, and birthday party reservations without any hesitation. When it came to splurging on myself, however, all I could hear was Sergeant Snot Stripes' voice in my head. “What do you think you’re doing soldier? That’s not a good idea! Run, I SAY RUN to your closet and return both of those dresses immediately!!”
I e-mailed a friend for advice and she told me she was actually kind of proud of me for spoiling myself. She didn’t think I did it nearly enough. Those words resonated in my head for a while until they finally drowned out the barking of Sergeant Snot Stripes. I decided to keep the red dress. It wasn’t like keeping it would prevent us from paying any bills and I could always pick up a few more articles to offset the expense.
I did just that. I wrote countless articles on energy efficient light bulbs—CFLs and LEDs and halogens, oh my!—to pay for the dress. So it was only fitting that when Andy saw me he sucked in his breath and said, “Wow! You really light up the room in that dress.”
Oh, wait. That’s what Andy (played by Hugh Jackman) said in the movie version of my life. In reality what he said was, “Hey cutie pie. How’s my little Senora?” Not quite the reaction I was going for. What can I say? I love the retard! We’re retarded for each other.
This brings me back to the reason for the new dress: our thirteenth anniversary. We dated for four years before we were married, which means that we have officially been a couple for HALF of our lives! We’ve had many adventures over the years; definitely a cause for celebration. A guilt-free celebration worthy of the dress. Here's to lucky thirteen!
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| Our desert at La Caille came complete with fireworks! |
