Shopaholic

It's a good news, bad news thing. US shopping just can't be beat, at least not when coming from the uber-expensive island of Singapore. My mission was simple: to buy enough summer clothing to get us through another year away and stock up on the items that are either extremely expensive or unavailable in Singapore. With one week left in our trip, I hope we have bought enough because at this point, I'm not entirely certain we can fit everything in our bags.

We knew we would want to buy plenty during our visit so we started setting aside money for our retail extravaganza several months ago and I'm confident we shattered our budget sometime around my second trip to Nordstrom. Taking three girls shopping in that shoe department is dangerous.

I will admit I like to shop, but this ongoing shopping expedition has been anything but leisurely and carefree. Everywhere I go I feel like I'm trying to find as much as possible in a small window of time. I didn't want to buy too much when we first arrived until I had seen the selection at several stores, which made sense but then I felt the need to make another round later. Our trip to Tulsa and Hideaway Lake felt especially relaxing to me because I took a week off from retail madness. 

Today the entire family strolled through Costco and bought more than a cart's worth of goodies. I saved the receipt just in case we can't figure out how to transport all the maple syrup we purchased or the two huge jugs of hand soap. Other items tossed in the cart included yellow mustard, BBQ sauce, toothpaste, shampoo, Bounce dryer sheets, vitamins, Ziploc bags, women's shave gel and razors. Sadly I can't even remember all the other miscellaneous items in our garage right now but I'm sure they're vital to our household. ;)

I couldn't help but compare the enormous Costco load with the big trip we made there before moving to Singapore. Some items were the same but I didn't buy huge quantities of diapers and wipes this time, since I have faith we'll be done with those in the next few months. We definitely bought more food this trip because it's nice to buy 4 pounds of Velveeta (important during NFL playoffs) for less than we would spend for 1 package in Singapore. 

After several mall and Target runs, we have a nice stash of goodies to take back to our Asian home next week. I relish the prices of everything here and I'm sure I bought a few things I really didn't need at all simply because they were so inexpensive. I was a little disappointed in the swimsuit selection and I couldn't find some shoes I wanted but I managed to survive just fine for the past 18 months so I can probably find something suitable back in Asia.

In the meantime, our final week in Southlake will consist of tying up loose ends with our house, running last-minute errands and utilizing Brian's packing skills to transport everything 10,000 miles and arrive intact. After spending a month back at home, I'm confident that if I miss Singapore life when we move back for good, my spirits will be lifted as soon as I go shopping!