New Hat and an Apology to Barb

It all started with just a brief pop in to one of my favorite Langley shops, The Cottage.  They have super cute clothes and have been a motivation for me losing weight.  Having finally gotten down to normal store sizes, but not yet willing to spend money on clothes in a 'between' size, I decided to just quickly stop in to see what they had for some further motivation.  I wasn't even going to take my purse in since I didn't plan to spend any money.

Then I remembered I was out of wine and needed my weekly bottle for my nightly glass of wine.  I can pretty much make a bottle of wine last the whole week if I have just one small glass per night.  So I grabbed my purse with the intention of hitting the grocery store across the street after I was through looking around The Cottage.

First I found a cute little peasant blouse on sale from $28 to $19.  I mean, who can resist that?  Plus it was something I could wear for a long time, even as I continue to lose weight.  The owner of the store has a collection of very cute summery straw hats that she had out on spring display.  After assuring me she did not want to sell any of them, they were just for spring display, I was almost ready to pay for the blouse and scoot out the door when I saw another hat, the cutest one in the store!   I could tell she was getting a little annoyed with my incessant pestering, "Is this hat for sale?," "How about this one?," "Not this one either?"

So I very cautiously inquired, "I don't suppose that one's for sale?," and lo and behold, she said it was!  (This is why it pays to keep asking.)  Not even daring to hope it was a hat I could afford, I got it off the shelf to try on.  Right away I knew it was out of my price range when I saw the Daria Wheatley label, and sure enough, it was $250!  Luckily, it did not fit my big head, not even close.  The owner said one of the nice things about Daria Wheatley is she makes her hats adjustable and showed me how to make it larger.  It fit perfectly.  Oh dear.  Sooooo cute!  Sooooo out of my price range.  To be honest, even $25 would be out of my price range at the moment.

I told the owner I loved it, could not afford it, but maybe I would save up for it.  (Or win the lottery.)  She said she was willing to lower the price since she had had it for a very long time and felt it was time for the hat to find a good home.  I'm thinking, "You could lower the price to just about anything and I still wouldn't be able to afford it," when she offered it for $50.  !!!   How could I not buy this hat?  It was obviously meant to be mine and had just been waiting in her shop all these years, unnoticed by everyone, including me, until the very moment when I was thinking how much I needed an Easter bonnet.

I purchased the hat and ran home with it to admire myself in the mirror for quite some time before ransacking my closet for something to wear it with.  I will have to make do with beige slacks and a light blue sweater.  I have one dress that it would look smashing with (the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner) but it's still way too small and plus is quite out of style, not to mention too youthful for my current advanced age.  Perhaps one day I'll give the dress and the hat away to some deserving young girl, but in the meantime, the hat is mine and I can't wait to wear it on Easter!

So that is the new hat part of my story, and you're probably wondering about the apology to Barb.  Well, after buying the peasant blouse and the hat, I could definitely not afford to go across the street for my weekly bottle of wine.  I figured the hat was going to cost me 5 weeks of wine.  But I've gone 5 weeks without wine many times and I was willing to trade wine for cute hat.  And, in fact, I did make it through Friday night just fine with no wine.

But then this afternoon I was rummaging around in the pantry for something and stumbled upon a forgotten bottle of wine I had purchased after a wine tasting at the local wine store and put away to enjoy with my friend Barb the next time she came to visit.  And I just could not resist.

So I'm sorry, Barb, that you're not here to enjoy the wine with me or admire me in my new hat.  Neither is near as much fun without you, but I must draw pleasure where I can.  And you can bet I'm toasting you with each sip I take.  Happy Easter!