The Emerald Beauty

With C's Graduation comes the Grad Party. I've known about this "Party" since C was in his first year. I saw/heard other fourth years at the time talk and prep for it. It all seemed so stressful and not that fun to me. We are "home bodies" as some call it, we just like to stay at home and be with each other. We don't go out and "party". We're old :) and we get tired and want to go to bed early-ish. So this whole stay up all night to celebrate C graduating Dental School seemed kind of daunting a little, to me anyway.

I knew I had to find a nice cocktail dress and get all fancied up. I can't remember the last time I got "fancied up". I knew it would take time and money to find a dress and shoes and whatever else we women have to do to get fancied up. So really I was not way excited to get to that point in his school where I had to worry about the whole process in getting ready for the Grad Party, this stuff is just not my thing I guess. Maybe some day I'll get into it all.

Now, to clarify, I'm not saying I don't like to get fancied up. What girl doesn't like to wear lots of make-up and a pretty dress and high heels and feel beautiful? We all like that, it's fun. I just don't like the process it takes to get to that point. The shopping the shelling out of lots of money for one night, you get the point. I'm not a fashionista, I'm not a shopper, I'm cheap most of the time :)

The only other thing about this party that I'm excited for, besides getting prettied up, is a romantic-ish night out with my hubby with no kids! If you call watching his classmates get totally wasted romantic? But, no kids allowed, that's the fun part for me.

Anyway...

C has been paying "Class dues" since he started School and about 95% of all that money he's paid for dues go towards this Grad Party. At the party we'll enjoy nice appetizers and a fancy dinner and music and dancing but most of the money will go towards an open bar, lovely! (We don't drink, as most of you know) So we'll be ordering juice, Sprite and virgin whatever we can and we'll still not get our money's worth, oh well.

About two years ago I was out shopping with my sister Kim when she and her husband came through town and stayed with us for a night or two. We were in a store called Charlotte Russe and we were hitting the sale racks because we're both "Poor student Families" and that's what we do, hit the sale racks.

Out of the corner of my eye I see emerald green in a silky fabric. For those of you who know me, know Green is ME. So I investigated and found it to be a lovely looking emerald green, to the knee, and almost modest cocktail dress. My heart raced as I realized it was in my size. Then I check the tag thinking it's going to be way out of my range I'm sure. Price crossed out, after price crossed out, the final sale price read $8.00! You read that right EIGHT dollars! What? That could not be right. So I tried on the emerald beauty and it fit perfect and I loved it. I bring it up to the cashier thinking I totally read it wrong and they are going to read off some high price. BUT nope, eight dollars plus tax was what I forked over for this Beauty of a dress. It was on sale, on sale, on the clearance rack that was also on clearance apparently. I bought it thinking "What in the heck am I going to wear this for? I don't go to Cocktail parties ever. We don't hit the local bars or go out to really fancy restaurants ever. What the heck am I going to wear this dress for?" But I didn't care that I had no reason to buy it or wear it because it was only Eight dollars. Then I remembered "Oh yeah Graduation Party!" Yay, I had a reason to wear it.....in two years!

I worried that I might not get back to that size after baby number three, but luckily I have reached my goal and that goal was to be able to fit into that dress comfortably and I can!

So you want to see my eight dollar emerald beauty?
Okay so my Mom asked to see pictures of my outfit so this post is for her mostly but I had to tell the story of how I came to own this dress.

Anyway here it is....The pictures don't do it justice, that's how it goes though.
My favorite part is that little sash across the waist, very cute.

Since it has no sleeves and since I have chosen to wear only modest clothing I knew I'd need a shrug to go with it. After just a couple of shopping trips and few stores I found this nice simple shrug that was just what I wanted to cover me up but still show off my dress.

It's very simple but just what I was looking for.

All of a sudden I felt a reason to get new shoes for the event. Tall, cute, black shoes, yep that's what I needed.

Hmm this all of a sudden became kind of fun to me. Spending money on myself, it's kinda fun.

Thanks to my sister who told me about this amazing website with tons of shoes for %50 or more on clearance, I got these beauties.

Simple yet elegant.I needed tall shoes as I am almost a foot shorter than my husband, four inch heels will only scratch off a tiny bit of our gap.

Then the jewelry.....that was a challenge. I don't really ever wear jewelry but I was informed you can't go with out jewelry for an event like this! Sorry, I didn't know. So with some help from my friends I found a nice necklace to go with the dress and I'm sure I'll just wear studs of some sort in my ears (Pearls probably) I'm not a huge ear ring wearing type of person, they hurt my ears after just a couple of hours. And maybe I'll sport a bracelet as well, we'll see.

The whole outfit....Pictures of me in the outfit will just have to wait until the actual evening of the event.

The hardest part about this shopping spree for myself was the fact that I forked over more money (although it was not very much money) for my shoes and necklace (each individually) than I paid for my dress AND shrug together. I had a hard time with that, but that is just me.

Dress: $8 + tax
Shrug: $10 + tax
Total for the two= $18 + tax NOT BAD AT ALL!

Shoes: just under $30 after tax and shipping
necklace: $25 + tax

That's just over $75 for the whole thing. I'm not sure you can even get a dress for that price any more?! I'm proud of my bargain of a deal on that dress and really the whole get-up. I love it when I get the most for my money! It's a good feeling.

There ya go Mom (and sisters and who ever has asked to see the dress) there it is, my bargain of a deal, my emerald beauty.