Weekending- Summer break week 11 and sales tax free holiday

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday.

School in our district starts in mid August so the first week of August was the last week that wasn't the week before school starts. In many ways it felt like the last true week of break. I feel like the week before school starts is filled with thoughts and activities that are new school year related. It's like the mental break of summer is already over. So we tried to cherish the first week of August and the last week before the week before school. 

The week was fine for the most part. Had a couple of not great things happen. One of our vehicles made contact with a rock and now I have to deal with getting the car fixed. Never fun! And I spent one evening with a family member at the ER. All ended up ok but it was definitely not fun. 

I need to give a shout out to the weather. We had rain a couple of times and some moderate temperatures when it wasn't raining. Our grass looks almost as lush as it did in the height of its verdancy in the spring. It looks like we'll get about fifty tomatoes if the tomato plants keep flourishing as they've been doing with a great combination of rain and lots of sunshine when it wasn't raining. 

The first weekend of August is Ohio's sales tax free holiday so we had that over the weekend. It's the seventh or eighth year that Ohio has had this tax holiday and every year for the past seven (or eight) years we have taken advantage of it.  It's only for shoes/ clothes not over $75 and for school supplies that individually aren't over $20. Anything that's over $20 for a school supply item or $75 for clothing/ shoes is taxed. It's a great incentive to not buy overly expensive back to school items ;).

This is a picture of the girls from several years ago. It was taken in early August and it looks like they're wearing new clothes (though the shoes are mine- not sure why they have them on...) so it could have been after we'd been tax free shopping.

We always start shopping on Friday and this Friday was no exception. Abby didn't work this day so as soon as Alyssa got home from cross country practice and showered, we hit the road. We decided to go to a nearby lifestyle shopping center. Alyssa really wanted to go to Dillard's to look for a hoco dress as hoco is early this year. I just hoped she found a dress she liked that was under $75, lol. She tried on about 15 dresses and found one. About 75% of the dresses were less than $75 so that worked out well (she didn't care for any of the expensive dresses which was even better yet ;)). 

We shopped, had lunch and shopped some more. We stopped at Kohl's on our way home and were going to make another stop but we were all so tired from shopping that we decided to head home. We did some online shopping at home. 

I was proud of myself for ordering off the Skinnylicious menu at Cheesecake Factory for lunch- all the bread that Alyssa and I consumed likely negated my healthier lunch choice but, oh well! We don't eat there often and the bread is so good!

Love seeing receipts like these:

Lululemon sells previiously worn LL items on its website now. Called Like New on the site, it's a place to find gently used items. While it's kinda gross to buy pre owned work out clothes, it's also kinda gross to pay full Lululemon prices, so it's pick your poison if you like LL yet don't like their full retail prices. "Intimates" are not available on the pre worn site so it's pretty much clothing and bags that are available. I feel like LL would not sell pre worn items that aren't in good shape so I thought it was a safe bet to order through them. I placed an order and then later in the weekend decided to look at the regular portion of the site.  I found some really good deals on the sale page so I placed another order. (Online sales are also exempt from sales tax so long as the individual item is less than $75.)

Saturday, the four of us went to a mall that's not too far away but it's not the mall that's closest to us. It's a bit of a bigger mall with more dining options nearby (we planned to eat an early dinner after shopping). The mall has a furniture store in it so Donnie and I went to look at that while the girls went to American Eagle. We had been wanting a new couch for some time now but had never done anything about it beyond looking online to see what style we might want. We took a look around and found a couch that we like and that was priced right so we bought it! Donnie is so much more decisive than I am. I sort of wanted to look at more places or rather I felt like we should look at more places but Donnie convinced me that we should get this one since we both liked it. It was the quickest we have ever done major furniture shopping... We ordered a new rug for our family room and will have to get a new coffee table. So much change for one room in the house but I'm sure it will be worth it. 

Here she is!

We found more good deals at the mall. If a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down, a little bit of new clothes will surely help the beginning of a new school year go down ;). The girls are set on clothes for a long time. We had a good dinner out and ended the day on a high note.

Sunday entailed yet more shopping 😏. I am officially all shopped out. I don't want to see a store or look online at anything for a long time. I'm glad that we did the shopping that we did and got so much without paying sales tax but I was tired by the end of the weekend.

Speaking of being tired, the cross country team did a two mile time trial at the high school Saturday morning. It was good to see cross country parent friends and to see Alyssa running again. She's put so much time and effort into training- seeing her have the energy to sprint the last fifty feet or so gave me the chills. I could not do that if my life depended on it (and I run regularly!).  She has a preseason meet coming up soon that I look forward to watching.