Kate's Point of View

Sunday I had the day to myself and I used the time wisely. I accomplished some household chores, went shopping, are popcorn for dinner and watched too much Law and Order SVU and Cold Case. My life is super exciting, no?

I strive to have some stress reliever that sounds cool, but for now my most effective one is retail therapy. I love browsing through clothing racks looking for the best deal. Sunday was so successful. Scary successful. First I hit up Gabirel Brothers, a renegade discount clothing store, and left with a skirt, pair of jeans, shirt and a pair of shoes. Not bad! Then I went to TJ Maxx, a more upscale discount clothing store (particularly in comparison). My plan was to go to all of the clearance racks and then only look at regularly priced items afterwards. Unfortunately, I struck gold on the clearance racks. All but one thing I tried on fit! The thing is, everything was such a good deal that it was easy to rationalize buying it…

I can’t give myself permission to regularly partake in such successful shopping trips, but there is something nice about trying on clothes and seeing yourself in the dressing room mirror and thinking you look good. We all need that sometimes.

I liked this sweater so much I bought it in two colors. This picture isn’t great but you get the idea. It is makes it very clear that I need to clean my mirror!

This is the detailing on a tank top I bought – it’s dressy but can be worn casually, which makes it perfect.

Judged by a lot of my friends, the way I spent my Saturday was drool-worthy. Wonder Boy and I toured the Cincinnati Reds Great American Ballpark. We got to walk through the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum and see all sorts of Johnny Bench memorabilia. Did you know he could hold seven baseballs in his hands at once? Or that the Reds used to sponsor a basketball team for its players? Pete Rose was pretty hot in his 70s short sports shorts!

Walking around the stadium was a pretty cool experience. I don’t make many games, but I try to support the team. Growing up we used to go to baseball games all of the time. I have very fond memories of frosty malts, frozen lemonade and nachos with funacho cheese. Pretty much the reason I used to enjoy hitting up baseball games was the food. Now I’ve expanded my interests – it the food and the beer. I have yet to try out the contraption that fills your beer glass from the bottom, but I intend to. It sort of blows my mind. I digress. Most of my Reds memories are at the old Riverfront Stadium and I hear a lot from family about Crosley Field. It was cool learning about how elements of those two stadiums were incorporated into Great American Ballpark. There are as few areas of the stadium that I always assumed were crazy expensive to go to for a game. Turns out they are reasonable, so I may be checking them out.

The highlights of the tour were:

• Seeing how the fancy people live and sitting in some Diamond Seats. We also got to walk through the restaurant were Diamond Seat ticketholders can eat and watch the Reds players walk to batting practice or to the dugout. The whole setup is pretty cushy. Wonder Boy pointed out in a not very subtle manner that some Diamond rickets would make a fabulous birthday gift. He knows what our budget limit is for gifts so at least pointed out that it would be an ideal gift for a milestone birthday. I’m pretty sure that soon I’ll be hearing what a huge milestone 37 is…
• Hands down the coolest thing during our stadium tour was walking out onto the field (not on the grass though, because the was rule number 1 for the tour) and going into the dugout. I got to sit where Barry Larkin once sat. Swoon.
• We got to go to the visiting team dugout as well. I noted that no one was interested in sitting where those players sit during games. It was still cool, though.