For every beginning, there is an end.

Ahh! Just a few more minutes and it'll be over!!! (this required three exclamations) I've gotten so used to saying "No!" to myself, whenever I got the urge to buy something from a regular retail store. You do something for a whole year, and it'll get to be one heck of a habit.

I've got this weird sad feeling, I feel like I'm saying good-bye or something.

Just the other day, Grandma Jenny was commenting on the change in my shopping habits (she's a long time thrift store shopper). I used to hate going to thrift stores, as matter of fact I hated the word "thrift". Though it wasn't always like that either. When I was really little, when my Dad was going to college and we lived in the student family housing, at the rec. office they had a "free box" that my sisters and I loved to dig and crawl through. I also remember, when I was 9 or 10 years old, going to the Salvation Army and looking through the shoes and having no problem with it. But then something happened...Ugh!...I turned 13 and was now a teenager. My priorities got so messed up. I'd somehow gotten the idea, that if I went to, or was even in the parking lot of a thrift store, I was "uncool". I used to give my mom the hardest time about it. "Whew!" sure am glad I got over that. And I hope that when I'm 40 years old, I don't look back and cringe at the ideas I have now! Why do some of the things that I did, or thought, when I was younger, and at the time seemed perfectly reasonable, have to seem so ridiculous now??? Though, I suppose it would be worse, if those things still seemed reasonable......that'd be pretty sad.

And you know, now that it's all over, I'm not sure that I could go back to shopping at the mall or Target, etc. I don't think I could just go to the store and buy a shirt, it would probably bother me to no end that any other girl could walk in and buy that exact same shirt. I don't want to wear what they think is going to sell. That's for anyone who wants to be "in style". Not me, I want to wear what I think is neat or funky, and be making the styles....or....at least....not dressing like everyone else.....Goodness, what did I do to myself?

Though, I do plan, as soon as I can get to town, on buying a pair of jeans. I have only one and my legs get cold in cropped pants and skirts. It's terribly difficult to find a pair that are long enough at the mall, let alone a thrift store. I've lost count of the number of pairs I've tried on, and over this entire year I've only found one that fit! What's a girl to do?! Though I was out somewhere the other day, and I noticed that a very high percentage of the people mulling around were wearing jeans. And I thought "maybe I should just wear skirts", I don't want to look like everyone else! Now, I don't think I'll go that far, but I should think two pairs would be enough.

The challenge may be over, but Used Couture is not. I plan on shopping at thrift stores, altering and making my own clothes as long as I have two hands to do it with.