January 15th, 2019

A shopping miracle has occurred!  And I apologize but to tell this story properly, I have to back up a little bit.

As those of you who know me already are well aware, I am short.  I don't mind being short.  Which is a good thing because there isn't much I can do about it.  But the fact of the matter is, at 5'2", I am short.  Which can make clothes shopping tricky.  To further complicate matters, the majority of my height is in my legs.  For a short girl, I have very long legs.  From shoulder to hip, however, I am especially short.  So I'm not only short, but disproportionately short.  Makes shopping even trickier.  Then, just to go for the trifecta of Pain-in-the-Arse clothing shopping, I am kind of busty.  This may be more information about me than you ever needed but it's just another fact.  Whenever I buy a button up blouse, I have to buy at least one size larger than I actually wear, just to avoid the doggone gap-osis issue around the buttons.

Soooo buying something as simple as a sweat jacket, while a seemingly simple task, becomes instead a journey akin to seeking the holy grail.  Ok, I am exaggerating. But I seriously I have been looking for a sweat jacket that comes even close to fitting me for a few years now.  Seriously.

I used to have one that I really loved. The previous one was, no surprise, blue.  It was probably ten years ago.  I remember it very well.   I wasn't looking for a sweat jacket specifically.  But I was at work and freezing cold.  Clearly I did not dress warmly enough that day. So on my lunch I decided that I was run across the street to Target and see if I could find a sweater or a jacket to wear.  Naturally I perused the clearance rack first.  And lo and behold, I found a blue sweat jacket for 5 bucks!  Woohoo! My kind price.  I was both warm and happy for the rest of the day.  And actually I really liked that jacket.  It was maybe a teensy bit big but not horribly so and I wore it literally to death.  One day it came out of the dryer with not only cuffs that looked as if a dog had been chewing on them, but also a broken zipper.  Sadly, I tossed it out and  I haven't owned a sweat jacket since then.  But not for lack of trying!

I own two sweat shirts and one fleece, all of which I wear and like. But they are all of the pull-over variety.  Which is fine.  It works.   But a pull over is not nearly as convenient as a zippy front one.  And for whatever reason, I just plain prefer a zip front sweat jacket.

So I have looked  and I have tried on and I have not purchased over and over again.  I keep ending up borrowing one of Tim's sweat jackets which look ridiculous on me but they are warm and I took solace in just knowing that it wasn't my jacket.  It was a borrowed jacket and somehow that made wearing one that didn't fit, okay in my weirdo brain.

But I think it was always on my radar.  Way way way in the back where I wasn't paying any real attention lurked the memo ...Need Zippy Front Sweat Jacket.

Okay, You are now up to speed on the background.  Last Friday I wrote about my shopping for tops that were not-blue.  Well, while I was there I also found this sweat jacket.  Wow!  Jackpot!

I was in the petite section which is right next to the kids section (this comes into play later).  And as I patiently stood there  scooting hangers down from right to left with my own strict instructions to discard anything blue in mind, suddenly this jacket was there.  Now first of all, the section I was looking in, was specifically for ladies tops. Not jackets. So that's odd.  And then the little plastic doo-dad around the top of the hanger which indicates section (men's women's children's etc.) and size says it's from the kids department so it's on the wrong rack.  And it also says, size XL.  Which honest to goodness is not the size I normally wear.  I'm usually a small or medium, honest!

But because it was Not-Blue, the colours caught my eye.  Actually, the very first thought that went through my head was, "This is in the wrong section"  the second thought was, "This is not blue"  the third thought was, "I think this might fit me!".  So I tried it on totally ignoring the XL tag.  And sonovagun It fits near perfectly.  The sleeves are the tiniest bit long but I rolled them back about a half a cuff and it was perfect. Not too long. Not too tight.  Not too loose. Abso-freakin-lutely perfect!  Wow!

So in truth, I came home last week from my Not-blue shopping mission with not just 3 not-blue tops but also one awesome sweat jacket!  I have to admit, these are not colours I normally wear. But I do not care.  It looks good with jeans. It's comfy. It's warm. It has a zippy front. 

How very odd that after all this time, I find exactly what I was looking for because someone put it in the wrong place.  Now there is some pretty awesome serendipity.