Mini Challenge End!

I want to apologize for this being such a crappy challenge. LOL Thanks so much to those of you who have bothered to do it. I promise the next one will be loads better. :)

Shopping for me in SL is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. For a while, it was almost ALL I did in SL. Log in, check notices, start my rounds of gift getting, and usually spend some money in stores where the gifts rocked. But as I watched my inventory grow higher and higher, I started to get scared. Why was I shopping SO MUCH?! When would I stop?!

I'm not a shopper in my RL. Oh, there are some things that I can't seem to resist buying - like scented lotions and flavored lip glosses. But clothes and things like that, I don't really shop for. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I hate the way everything looks on me. In SL, I don't have that problem. :)

One store that has definitely contributed to my ever-growing inventory is M&R Cupcakes, or back in the day, <3Cupcakes. I stumbled into this store in early January when I was still living on $5L a day because of some freebies. It was not a $5L day. LOL I ended up purchasing a $100L skin from there, which I stayed in until March because it was just very ME, with the neutral lip and smokey eyes. Since that first day, the store has gone from this cute little boutique to this huge store that is now a combination of both Mimi Coral's and Rosemary Galbraith's talents.




One thing that I love about this store, and something that I'm glad has never been given up despite the many changes, is that this is just a heaven of cute, flirty, little dresses. And the BEST part, at least for me, is that they're all sized small! If you were in a real world shopping mall, this would be the store that all the slender petite girls shopped at and you pass by thinking "Anorexic wenches..." Ok, so maybe it would be the store I would say that about. ;)




I can't say how many times that I've had some event or somewhere to go and I think "OMG, need a dress!" This store is the first one I hit up because not only are the dresses unbelievably cute, but they are so affordable!! There used to be more sales than there appear to be now, but the group gifts are often wonderful and well worth the $250L enrollment fee. Lucky for me, I've been in the group since January, and it's one of the few I've never ever taken off my list. :)

I do find that my shopping has slowed down as of late. Part of this has to do with my *gulp* 30,000+ inventory, but part of it has to do with the fact that it's taking bigger and better things to catch my eye these days. [Such as the Zaara jeans!] There have been days in the past couple of weeks where I don't shop at all - and that includes picking up gifts. My group is usually buzzing with sales and hunt information and talking about clothing and shoes and hair, but I find myself thinking, "Is it any different than anything else?" Lately I have been purchasing more prefab houses and landscaping items than anything fashion related. The notices that come out in FashCon show me items that either I already have, or are just a big mess and I wouldn't pick up even if they were free. [Seriously, can we have some kind of regulation on who gets into FashCon? Or can I just start slapping textures on system shirts and get myself in there?] I never read fashion blogs unless they're written by friends. I do most of my shopping on SLExchange or OnRez.

I don't know that I could go a week without shopping in SL. But I know that I don't HAVE to constantly shop. Unless it's a limited time item...I no longer compulsively need to add to my inventory just for the sake of having things.