Birthday Gift

It’s my birthday this weekend (yay!). It would have been a really great birthday present if the Canucks had won the Stanley Cup last night, but alas it was not to be.

Normally every year I buy myself a birthday gift. Usually it’s a new outfit. The whole idea of buying a new outfit for my birthday is probably a hold over from when I was a kid. Birthdays, Christmas, and occasionally Easter meant new clothes. When I moved out on my own I just carried on with the tradition on my own. This year though I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Normally I spend enough time in stores and reading fashion magazines that I’ll have a good idea what I want, then I’ll go to the stores and get it. Right now though, I don’t. I’ve spent relatively little time in malls lately, and my magazine reading is skewed more to the finance side of things right now (Money Sense anyone?)

That’s not to say I don’t want anything. I have a list of needs/wants going in my phone, in no real particular order. So mixed in with the expensive yoga pants, make up and cute shoes are ear plugs, work boots, recycling bins and stair noses for my renovation. I’m finding it’s made it a lot easier for me to say no to the frivolous stuff when the serious stuff is staring me in the face right along side it. I’d love a cute pair of peep toe heels to replace the ones that broke last year, but I’d also like more than just sub flooring on my stair case.

Maybe it’s just a case of growing up or shifting priorities. I don’t know. I’m not going to say my interest in clothing is fading with time, because frankly that isn’t true. I LOVE clothes, especially pretty clothes. It’s just that now I have more than clothes to pay for. Maybe if I had been working those last 2 months rather than job searching I would feel differently about this, I don’t know.

I am going to be buying some clothing over the next few days, but they’re needs rather than wants. I’m getting a new pair of work boots (my back is getting sore wearing my current ones), and a pair of bike shorts for that 200km charity bike ride I’m doing in a week and a half. I don’t consider those birthday related, I consider those life related. A couple shops have birthday freebies, like free body wash from Sephora (sweet, I was out of body wash), so I’ll be all over them.

I may get myself something small this weekend, I may not. Either way, it will be something useful that I actually love, not just clothing for the sake of buying clothing. I’m glad that I’m getting close to outgrowing that phase, I wasn’t really looking forward to getting more hangers.

Do you treat yourself on your birthday, or do you consider it just another day?

Suggested Reading: Will We Live This Way For Ever?