ValApparel

Good morning fellow fashionistas.

My plan this week was to do all the things I don’t have time to do in my normal working week, catch up on some reading, do some BLOGGING, look through the wardrobe with a view to a mini ‘cull’ and watch whatever I want to watch (some eating of junk included…what???? I cant exercise, my ankle is still painful). So far, so good, I finished one book and started another, I have a couple of documentaries and films I want to watch and am working my way through the Christmas chocolates, still a LONG way to go there. What I am trying not to do is on-line shop. I seriously have more clothes, jewellery and bags etc, than there are days in the year and sometimes, I do sit back and look at everything I have and feel pretty disgusted with myself. I don’t know how many times I have cleared the wardrobe out and yet, it still isn’t any smaller – might be something to do with the constant buying. The internet and it’s algorithms don’t help matters, they decide for me and you, what you/I would like, and plant that seed and before you/ I know it…….. it’s bought and anyway, how can they possibly know when you/I want when we/ I don’t, for most of the time??????!!!!.

At this time of year, on-line retailers hone in on the fact that there is a lull in the festivities, they know people are vegging out at home, eating chocolates and leftover turkey, the shops are too busy to go out to, there isn’t much on at cinema, they taunt us with fantastic SALES, dangling that carrot in front of us, before we have even finished our Christmas shopping, let alone Christmas dinner. It’s just too easy now to shop from home, to pick up our devices and go on-line (I was the saddo sitting with 20 items in my ZARA basket on Christmas day, waiting for 9pm to come around to then decide what I was going to buy (the APP sale started at 9pm), thankfully by 9.10pm, most of the items were already out of stock and I came away with a belt, which was what I had originally went on-line for anyway.

I have always joked about how useless I am with ‘IT’ and that all I needed to know was how to ‘add to basket’ and ‘proceed to checkout’, and I was being serious. I recently read that this act of ‘proceeding to checkout’, allegedly, activates dopamine receptors in the brain, resulting in sensations of reward and pleasure (sadly, there is also the after effect of remorse, when you receive said delivery, realising maybe drinking that bottle of wine whilst shopping, wasn’t the best idea, as what you have bought, is as Alan Sugar would say, a load of old ‘toot’.

So, with this in mind, I am going to try and get my kicks elsewhere and keep telling myself ‘its only a bargain if I need it’ (this is of course after I was online yesterday buying ‘necessities’) . I can’t promise I won’t buy anything that isn’t required but I am going to have a bloody good try!!!!

Enjoy being you xx