Today I faced a beast.  I faced a beast called Dress Shopping.  That is right,  I faced Dress Shopping and I slayed Dress Shopping.  For those who are unfamiliar with how one goes about slaying Dress Shopping, it is important that you know that a slaying is different than a victory.  When one finds an appropriate style of dress in appropriate colors, with appropriate amounts of skin showing, at an appropriate (or in my case cheap) price, that is a victory.  A victory is very good because it means that Dress Shopping the Beast will disappear. The problem with victory is that while Dress Shopping the Beast disappears, its friends Shoes, Hair, and Makeup come to seek vengeance for their fallen comrade.  A slaying of the Dress Shopping Beast means a victory over it, and all of its friends.  (Side note: I'm really impressed if you made it through that giant metaphor).

When I dress shop (and I am much like most women), I meticulously comb through rack after rack of discount dresses and gather as many as look even remotely appropriate (and attractive of course).  This is round one. In round two I take my approximately 32 dresses (this is not a hyperbole--there were actually 32 of them today) to the fitting room where I try them on in groups of 8 (4 of them).  In each of those groups of eight there is a winning dress that makes it to round three.  Along the way photographic text messages are sent to various important parties for their input (ah, technology).  The four winning dresses from round two are then compared to each other in round three, and the fairest dress of them all is the one that gets to go to the ball (or in this case the Sunday evening outdoor wedding).  Finding a dress is then followed by visits to three different stores to find matching shoes.  Today this whole process took approximately four hours.  I tried on 32 dresses in the hopes that one of them would work.  I spent four hours finding and purchasing just two items.

Today I slayed the Beast and in doing so, realized how much life is like dress shopping. When we have goals in mind for ourselves (like buying a cheap but perfect dress), sometimes we have to attempt that goal many, many, times (32) to reach that goal, and sometimes it takes a really long time (4 hours).  But ultimately, at least in my opinion, it's worth it because we end up where we need to be, whether that's with an accomplished goal (a sexy red dress and adorable sandals), or somewhere else much better (can you imagine if my budget had been unlimited?).  It's not simple, but it's not supposed to be.  I appreciate my sexy red dress so much more because I worked so hard to find it and because I know it was the best dress that Ross Dress for Less (yes, that's really the name of the store) had to offer.

The good news: On occasion reaching goals isn't so hard.  It only took me 2 minutes today to find perfect red lipstick matching nail polish.

Keep on thinking,
Josie