Lay off the Lilly

I feel like I need to make a small amendment to my last post. No sooner did I talk about being more frugal, living more simply, clearing out my closet, etc…when I came across this on my facebook page.

Splash of Pink - Lilly Pulitzer

 

If there are two things I find hard to resist:

1. A Warehouse Sale

2. Lilly Pulitzer

Put them together!? It’s like crack.

Ok, ok, obviously I’ve never done crack. Please. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette.  

Let me set the scene: It was 7am on Friday morning and I was getting started on my hubby’s bday dinner celebration. We already had one dinner for him on his actual birthday, but he’s the type that likes to have a week-long extravaganza. Yes, even at 36. SO, I had half of a homemade chocolate birthday cake leftover, and I decided to make cake pops out of it. I heard you can only make them out of box cake mix and store bought frosting, but I’m here to say my friends, that they were AMAZING with the scratch cake and frosting. Decadent, really. And what a great way to repurpose leftover cake! (Leftover cake. Is that an oxymoron?)

Anyway, I had a whole morning planned of baking, running errands, getting ready for company later. That’s when I did a quick Facebook check and saw the post about the Lilly Warehouse Sale…15 minutes from my house. I’ve seen posts about their Warehouse sales before, but they are always at the Lilly headquarters in PA (near my old college stomping grounds). That’s a good 4 and a half hours away. One of my HS besties, Cathy, lives down there now and is always inviting me to go, but the timing has just never worked out. This one was so close I could taste it.

My hubby is fully aware of my obsession…and my daughter’s obsession too. She’s been able to spot a Lilly dress or bathing suit out of a crowd since she was 4. It’s really quite impressive. We each have maybe 5 or 6 Lilly pieces, all that I’ve gotten on sale in different boutiques or on Ebay. I refuse to pay full price, because, the prices are just ridiculous.

Matching Lilly Dresses for my brother's wedding weekend in Newport, RI. My mom bought Charlotte's at Lord and Taylor, and I found mine randomly at the In The Pink store in Boston. It was on the clearance rack.  Originally 178, then marked down to 80, with an additional 50% off! That's my kind of bargain.

So I sent him a text.

Me: “Hey, there’s a Lilly Warehouse Sale going on today in Glastonbury. I shouldn’t go, right?”

I wasn’t sure what his response was going to be. I imagined something like “But it’s MY birthday week…we should be focusing all the gifts on ME.”

Jeff: “You should go. Please don’t go crazy.”  (He's a keeper!)

So I dragged my little man, and off we went. Stopped at Munson’s candy store for some swedish fish to occupy him while I made a mad dash thru the sale. I grabbed a bunch of stuff, tried it all on in one of those shared dressing rooms. You know the kind... a big open area behind some flimsy curtain. (Never been a fan of those. And not sure the other ladies were fond of a 2 year old boy running around them while they were basically…well..naked)

I could’ve bought the whole store, but I settled on 3 things: A maxi dress, flip flops, and cute top for work.

The prices were insanely cheap. All 3 things were less expensive than the original price of the dress alone. And I will wear those pieces until there are holes in them. Literally. One of my favorite green Lilly shirts has a little hole forming under the sleeve. I got it during the Midnight Madness sale. That’s the one when I went to bed, and set my alarm for 3am to capitalize on the first few hours of the online sale.  Wow. Reading that back to myself seems a little extreme. Or crazy. Or extremely crazy. I’m sensing an intervention if my hubby reads this post. I think I better lay off the Lilly for a little while.

Closet purging resumes tomorrow....