What does a bin of Legos have to do with it?

Besides clothes, the other thing I have a lot of in my house is Legos. Star Wars, Bionicles, just plain bricks. You name 'em, I got 'em.

My family spent the better part of last weekend rearranging furniture and assembling shelves from IKEA to store our evergrowing collection.

Why are you talking about Legos? I thought this blog was about shopping.

Yes. And no.

It's actually about not-shopping. But what it's really about is everything that we are truly looking for in the perfect sandals/jeans/bathing suit.

Since Christmas (I know, it's May), my living room has been shamefully strewn with toys. Not because we are lazy and don't make our kids pick up after themselves. It is because we are hoarders. Every birthday and holiday, my boys receive dozens of new toys. Their eyes light up as they unwrap each one. But after a few days, many of them are ignored. Some are broken. Some just never worked the way the package promised. Still, if I ask my kids to give some away, they swear they still like EVERY SINGLE ONE... and they might want to play with them again someday.

Do you get what I'm driving at?

The one kind of toy I won't pressure them to give up are Legos.

I love seeing bins full of them.The colors, the shapes, the sizes. The different ways they can be mixed and matched. The potential they represent.

Sort of like a pile of t-shirts in every color. Jeans organized from darkest to lightest.

Enough lipglosses to wear a different color every day of the week.

Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Sometimes, when I want new clothes, what I really want is:

change

possibility

creativity

potential

beauty

If we look around, there is beauty all around us.

It's May! I have gone four months without buying a single stitch of clothing. Okay, I did buy those lipglosses above at Costco. Technically it's not clothes, but you know what lipgloss is really good for? Making the slope really slippery.

Next month is my birthday. I need to ponder what that means in terms of a gift to myself...

Giving it up for Lent

This isn't the first time I've made a conscious effort to not shop. For the past three years, I've been in the practice of giving something up for the 40 days of Lent. The traditional no-meat on Friday thing isn't quite my style. I prefer to choose to forgo things that are really near and dear to my soul. Coffee... chocolate... and yes, even clothes shopping.

That's what I did the first time I tried this Lenten practice. (I'm an all-or-nothing girl) One the one hand, it sounded extremely frivolous. So frivolous that I was embarassed to tell anyone my plan. But it made perfect sense.

At first, I found myself wandering around the mall, admiring window displays. One particular outfit at the Gap caught my attention. They had this rack of Liberty print floral shirts, paired with matching pastel cardigans. I am a sucker for anything that resembles an Easter egg, although that particular palette is not especially flattering on me. I obsessed about that outfit, stopping by the store several times to admire it and think up ways to justify its purchase. After a few days, I realized that I already owned a blouse with little yellow flowers on it, and that I could wear it with a lemon colored cardigan, also from my closet. I wore that combination obsessively for a few weeks. Until I realized that Easter egg shades really aren't very flattering on me!

By the end of those 40 days, I was jonesing to buy clothes. I have to admit that in the month afterwards, I  more than made up for any money I saved during that time. But it taught me a valuable lesson: as hard as it is to give up something I think I can't live without... it can be done. The time I would have spent wandering the malls or clicking on shopping sites, I spent doing some serious journaling, introspection and writing. That experience was the catalyst that started me on the path I'm travelling down now.

If you observe Lent, what is your practice?

I know what I'm going to buy next

I'd love to come over and watch Friends, but I've got tickets to Pearl Jam

You'd never guess this from my performance on the slopes, but I actually lived in a ski town for  a couple years during my early twenties. But if you need want to take a trip back in time to... oh, the mid-nineties, you just need to take a look at my snowboarding get-up.

Before Super G and the entire Olympic women's snowboarding team was even born, I was an O.G.: Original Gromm-ette. I had the super baggy pants, the oversized jacket, with the waterproof butt-flap (really don't know how else to explain that awkward long part in the back).

Then along came my colicky first child. Then my second child. My snowboard and boots were sold to a friend during a garage cleaning session, but I kept the outfit. Why? They still fit, and our family often goes to Tahoe over the holidays, and I need to wear something.

In the last few years, we have been venturing on the hill again, taking our boys sledding and skiing. We spent this past weekend up to our knees in fresh powder that never turned to Sierra cement. Only, I felt like the Michelin Man, bogged down with extranneous fabric and pants that make that awful swooshing sound as I walked.

But I am proud of myself for keeping this snowboarding ensemble. The pants were purchased for around $50 at a ski store in Idaho, and the jacket was under $100 from the Columbia outlet. And I have worn them for FIFTEEN YEARS. I'd say I got my money's worth!

So, come January 1, 2012, I'm going to buy myself some new snow clothes.

Missing Out on Chinese New Year

This week, most of Asia — and many other people around the world — will be welcoming in The Year of the Rabbit.  Traditionally, Chinese New Year is celebrated with lots of food, parades and firecrackers, money envelopes, and red clothing. Preferably, new red clothing.

Not that I grew up participating in this tradition of new clothes each New Year. During my Midwestern 1970's childhood, we really didn't do much to celebrate Lunar New Year, except for a few red and gold paper symbols being taped on the kitchen cabinets, and perhaps driving into Chicago for a Taiwanese community banquet. Which is not to say that shopping is not deeply engrained in my heritage.

Some of my clearest memories from early childhood involve going to Sears or JC Penney for back-to-school shopping. Garanimals — with their animal hang tags showing you which striped turtlenecks match which corduroy pants —if I was lucky.