Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Tired of Shopping?!?

Dare I say it? I am officially tired of shopping. I am worn out from having to think so much! Last night marked the end of our ~3 month shopping spree that we have been on and, as out of character as it is for me, I was happy to make that final purchase decision.

I have always thought it would be fun to be able to completely furnish a house from scratch and all at the same time. You know, so things look like they belong together and everything comes from the same decade and what not. Eric and I, like millions of college students and young adults before us, had quite the hodge-podge of furnishings back in the USA. When we combined households, we realized that neither one of us had actually picked out any of the furniture we owned. Although we had paid money for a few things, it was all bought used. So when it came time to move to Brasil we decided it would be rather ridiculous to move all our hand-me-down furniture to a different continent. We needed some nice furniture anyway (no offense to all the things people have given us over the years!), so why not take advantage.

But here's the thing: we got here with nothing! (Okay, we did pack the inflatable love seat, but other than that...) So over the course of the last couple months, we have bought a stove, refrigerator, washing machine, a bed for our room, a bed for the guest bedroom, night stands, a dresser, a sofa, a television, a dining room table, and geez it took us forever to pick out dining room chairs (finally ordered yesterday-yea!), and then, last night, we made the big car decision. We probably over analyze way too much, but I am so tired of making our budget, reviewing our budget, editing our budget, trying to decide if we should spend the extra money for these really awesome chairs or do we buy the cheaper ones to get us by for a few years, are we going to sell this in Brasil or will we move it back to the US, should we go modern or more rustic, which fabric do we want on this, and good grief at the spreadsheet we had to create last night to decide whether it would be more economical to buy the 1.4 L car and load it up with options or to order the 1.8 L one that came with more options standard (because you know we had to look at list price, our purchase price, depreciation and resale value, operating cost differences, and so much more-yeah, I'm totally serious here, it felt like I was sitting back in my Engineering Decision Making class. I mean, thank goodness that we aren't financing because then we'd have a whole other set of considerations to factor in there! I'm very thankful for Excel-it wouldn't have be fun by hand, I can tell you that much.) It felt so good to get our dining room chairs ordered yesterday and make the car decision. We visited no less than 35 different stores over the course of about 8 different shopping days looking for chairs and we've been debating over the car for at least a month. I've always thought I was a pretty decisive person, but holy cow, these last couple months have had my head spinning and I felt like I couldn't even process all the options anymore to make a decision! (And did I mention that we had to throw Christmas shopping in to the whole mix of the last couple months???)

So it is official people . . . I am all shopped out!

Oooohhh wait, I still haven't bought my Brasilian china. Hmmmm, okay, I guess maybe I can shop a little more. (But only because I'm a good wife and don't want my hubby to have to eat off paper plates anymore. You're welcome dear.) ;)

2 comments:

Amanda said...

It is surprising the things people say these days! You,tired of shopping? As I was reading I was thinkg "Yeah right, she will be over this in 48 hours" and then you ended with the whole china thing and you proved me wrong!
Seriously though, I got a pounding headache just reading all the decisions you all had to make.
Keep posting girl, you always make me laugh!

Anonymous said...

So we need to see your car. 1.8 liters? You must be compensating for something with such a large engine.