Free.99

When I left work on Friday, I officially had no plans for the weekend. In fact, I was tentatively planning to do nothing. Don't judge me. I think laying around time is very important. Blame it on the RA, blame it on inherent laziness (no, Jamie Foxx, don't blame it on the Goose), but I like having time to just hang out in my apartment, take a nap, catch up on my DVR, perhaps even tidy the place up. I did just that on Friday evening -- catching up on the DVR, at least.

On Saturday, I met my friend, Laura, at the farmers' market (one of the last outdoors ones of the season). We got there with 3 hours to spare before it closed so we decided that it made more sense to have a mimosa and some breakfast and THEN shop the market. Five jumbo mimosas and a $5 breakfast later, we missed most of the good stuff at the market, but very much enjoyed ourselves and our conversation at the bar. From there, we decided that we should stroll down to Macy's to see an event with Clinton Kelly, of What Not to Wear fame, that Andrea, my friend and Laura's sister, was overseeing. On our walk, we also did Laura's tour of free stuff on Michigan Ave. A stop at Williams Sonoma for some snickerdoodle bread samples. On to the Ghirardelli store for a sample piece of chocolate. She noted that if I signed up for texts from Foodlife (a fantastic food court in the Water Tower building), I would be in free food for weeks, cookies, slices of pizza, etc.

We finally made it to Macy's just in time to see the tail end of Clinton Kelly's presentation. He seems like a really great guy and did a wonderful job making women over. Just for walking in, we were given a key that could possibly open a box of Lancome products from which we could choose any product we'd like. Laura and I received the exact same key so we just kind of assumed we weren't getting any free stuff. I should have known better given the overall cost theme -- Free.99 -- of our afternoon. We both walked away some wonderful Lancome moisturizer.

From there, we did a little browsing, looking for new bedding. Missy met us after a trying afternoon and we decided a drink was required. Macy's Walnut Room now has a wine bar. So, we sat ourselves down, enjoyed some sparkling wine "tours" and a cheese plate while we vented. We were good enough customers, apparently, that we received a free cheese plate on our next visit. Loves me some free. From there, we made a quick trip over to another store so that Missy could get her Halloween costume.

Some nine hours after leaving for the farmers' market, I returned home. It was a really unexpectedly wonderful day. But, a dirty one -- I wasn't planning on being gone so long so I hadn't showered before leaving. And, thankfully, Clinton Kelly did not catch sight of me because I'm pretty sure he would have had some tweaks to my ensemble (again, farmers' market-intended, not shopping and sipping).