Fashion Xanax
If I seem a little stressed in the next couple of months, I have a good excuse: we are going to try and sell our house. I say “try”, because this is one of those housing markets when upon saying “I’m going to put my house on the market” the universal response is, “Well, good luck with that.”
We’re staying in the area- after seeing all those pictures from Colorado this weekend I think it’s safe to say I am actually quite content here in San Diego, thanks- and the decision is one that has more to do with commutes and schools than anything else. Now, the last time we sold a house was in 2004, and as you probably know, the market was a little different back then. You could put a ramshackle log cabin on the market in 2004 and it would be sold for a ridiculous bucket of money back then. Our place sold in 10 days, to the second person who saw it. Ah, to be back in 2004 again.
Now, buyers are a little pickier. And the prospect of trying to keep a house in showable condition for possibly months, with two messy kids and a really rowdy Golden who would love nothing more than to go nuts each and every time someone comes by, has me in apoplectic fits. Worse than when I was taking the boards, worse than when I was pregnant. I have NO idea how I’m going to do it.
But I have a point here, and my point is: this is how we found ourselves at the mall on Saturday looking at little knick knacks, because my husband decided potential buyers would be impressed by more candles in the house. Now, I am ambivalent about that kind of stuff to begin with, and all I could think while we were wandering through the store was “It won’t matter, there’s no way the house is going to sell and then we’re going to be stuck in this house forever WITH A BUNCH OF EXTRA CANDLES TO HAVE TO STORE” and then I got even more stressed out and couldn’t concentrate.
And as it turns out, Pottery Barn is right next to an Anthropologie, and after about 10 minutes of wandering about Pottery Barn I had it and said I needed to go next door. That’s right, I left my husband to his own devices to decorate the house so I could go look at clothes. He has good taste, and besides, I wasn’t being any help at that point anyway. I needed the calming shabby chic influence of Anthro to calm my nerves.
And look! Look what I found!
I was told by someone in the know that if I were going to be wandering around Westminster next week, I should have a blazer, you know, to make my jeans look more professional. And this is a blazer with bees all over it. I fell instantaneously in love. My nerves were soothed. Because animals on clothing make me happy.
And because I needed to do something more constructive than trolling the net looking at the depressingly paltry numbers that houses in our neighborhood have been selling for, I decided to spend the afternoon pursuing a more enjoyable avocation, looking to see if there are any other cute, non-scary animal clothing items out there. Because there was a lot of this for sale at the cat show:
And I needed to update my wishlist with more Non-Unfortunate Items of Animalistic Fashion.
I’m kind of torn on these shoes. They aren’t my style, but I think I could appreciate them on the right person in the right outfit. Something about the old school tapestry pattern combined with the crazy platform is…evocative, let’s say.
Better. A muted doggie pattern on a navy dress. See? We can be subtle in our proclamation of puppy love!
This tapestry shoe bothers me less for some reason. The Mary-Janes balance out the tapestry pattern a little better, I think. I would wear those, under certain circumstances.
And last but not least, who could resist a Bambi dress? Minus the whole “your mom got shot, sorry about that” element, everyone loves Bambi. Well, at least I do.
So all I need to do is envelop myself in soothing happy animal prints and then I won’t be so stressed when the realtors come and do those annoying things they do, like show up unannounced while you’re in the shower and insist on taking people through the place. Or I can just strap on those huge cat boots and kick them out. Win-win.
