Howdy, y’all!

Sorry, I suddenly feel the need to talk more Southern now because… Lilly Pulitzer for Target? Have you guys heard about this craziness?

For all those of you living under a rock (hee hee), the Lilly Pulitzer for Target collection debuted on Sunday, and the lines outside rivaled (or surpassed) Black Friday. Racks cleared in minutes. Items up on eBay for 4 times the price the same day. It was nuts.

I’ll be honest: I’m not into LP. I like bright, fun summer colors and prints, and I’ve seen some stuff that’s cute, but by no means am I a brand follower. I was talking to my sister-in-law Saturday night and she mentioned that she was heading to our local Target at 6:30am to stand in line for this event. I thought that was a little nuts… but at the same time, I was intrigued, simply because I get super anxious/frantic over bargains and also things that other people are passionate about. As much as I would love to turn up my nose and sneer that I don’t care and it’s all pointless (which let’s be honest, it is)… I started getting a little excited and told her I was going to join in.

I went with the intention of getting flip flops, and I did. One bonus of being pregnant at the moment is that I knew none of the summer clothes would fit anyway, and Lord only knows what size I’ll be next year. So, I did manage to duck underneath the mass of clamboring women and grab the flip flops I wanted, plus score a sun hat and a really cute dress and hat for Molly. I grabbed a straw bag just because I could, then stood there for like 20 minutes debating it even though I knew I didn’t REALLY want it, I just wanted it because everyone else wanted it. I kept saying to myself, “Pretend you are alone and no one else wants this bag and Lilly Pulitzer is a mere figment of the imagination. Are you buying the bag?” The answer, of course, was no and I did finally put it back (well, actually, I handed it to the amped up woman standing next to me who saw me gesture towards the empty rack and asked in a loud voice, “DO YOU NOT WANT THE BAG?” before eagerly snatching it up for herself. I’m telling you – this whole thing was just absurd.)

Anyway. So then Sunday we went to look for a house even though we’re totally not ready to buy a house. I can’t remember if I’ve blogged about this before – I compose all these posts in my head and can never keep track of which ones actually make it to publish status and which ones stay trapped in my imagination forever.

Here’s the reality: if there was some profession where I could just look at houses day in and day out and somehow make money doing it, I swear I’d be a millionaire (and don’t say realtor, because I don’t want to sell them or deal with people… I just want to LOOK at them). I am obsessed with looking at houses. Obsessed. Some people spend all of their free time on Facebook… I spend mine on realtor.com. It’s by far the most used app on my phone. At any given moment, I could recite the specs, list prices, and quirks of every single house for sale in my town without having to think about it.

I’m not sure why this is. It might actually be related to the whole Lilly Pulitzer bandwagon thing – I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out on a bargain. But more than that I just love house hunting. In elementary school I used to check floor plan books out of the library – all the time – and read them for fun, dreaming of my future home. I was an odd child.

The truth is, our current house is in our desired town, but it’s on the way outskirts and it’s not in our desired school district. We got it for a really good price and I have every confidence that we will make a profit on the sale, especially with the upgrades we’ve done. When we bought it, there were multiple offers and it sold in 3 days flat. That just proves to me that we underpaid, and if anything, the market has gotten better since then. But there’s that pesky school district problem and Molly’s just getting older…. I don’t know. In a perfect world we would send her to private school, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford that. Unless they invent the “looking at houses” career, in which case I will be making more money than I know how to spend.

We’re friends with our realtor and he’s very well acquainted with my particular type of crazy, so he took us to see the house despite the fact that 1) ours isn’t on the market and is nowhere near ready to go on the market and 2) it was clearly overpriced. We arrived at the showing and there was another couple there looking at it… and during the showing (during which the homeowner followed us around and was offended when I asked if there was hardwood under the carpet, probably because there wasn’t) no fewer than 3 more couples showed up. It made me feel that familiar anxiety over wanting to get something everyone else wanted even though I didn’t even want the thing that much.

The three of us (Eric, our realtor, and me) eventually declared the house “janky” and left it to the rest of those couples to battle out. I have no doubt they’ll have multiple offers in no time. It was very telling, though. Everyone wants that school district and 4 bedrooms. When we really do find “the one,” we need to be better prepared to act quickly.

So then later on I got a really awesome message from an old friend. I’ll relay it below.

I mean, how freaking cool is that? I’m an internet sensation! (Haha, hardly). But truly, this is why I do this. Because if I can inspire and offer hope to just one person – just one – then it’s totally worth putting it all out there and potentially making a fool of myself.

Hope you’re all having a fantastic Monday. If anyone else has any Lilly for Target stories, please share, so I don’t feel like the only materialistic psychopath around here. :)