Target is bad

Bad, bad, bad... for me. I had to go to Target after work today to get a baby shower gift for a friend's shower on Saturday. Shopping for a gift for someone else's baby really isn't my favorite activity but I try to stay on the utility aisles, you know, diapers, wipes, the boring stuff, and stay away from the aisles with the adorable, "I love my mommy" bibs. I told myself that I was going to Target on a mission and that I needed to try not to wander. Well, you guessed it.... I wandered.

Let me start my story by filling you in on my new mission for this week. I'm trying to cut back on caffeine. I usually only drink one travel sized mug of coffee a day on the way to work. But, being that I have to get up at the Devil's hour (actual time 5:30am) I sometimes need a little more than a travel mug to get me going. Recently my coffee pots have been getting more and more full. What started at the 4 cup level has somehow creeped to the 8 cup level. I've been having a cup while I get ready for work, then taking my travel mug in the car with me. The other day I started thinking that I was having too much so I had the brilliant idea to stop drinking coffee and switch over to green tea. Yeah, not exactly the same "pick me up" as I'm used to.

I was especially tired this morning. I went to bed at 8:30 last night (!!!!!) and woke up still exhausted. I smudged on some eyeliner to try to camouflage the bags and dark circles and dragged my tired ass to work. I was half asleep the whole day. By the time 4:00 rolled around I had a lack of caffeine headache and regular old end-of-day exhaustion. I figured since I was going to Target anyway, I would get a chai tea latte at Starbucks. I know myself and know that I absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, drink a coffee at 4:00 in the afternoon and expect to sleep anytime before 2am. It just doesn't happen. I can't drink a soda with dinner because it keeps me awake. But, I thought a tea would be ok. Tea can't have nearly as much caffeine as a coffee, right? Wrong... almost. I have discovered, through a pretty simple check of the nutrition info on starbucks.com, that a chai latte only has 50mg of caffeine less than a caramel latte. So, needless to say, I'm pretty awake right now.

I'm getting completely off topic though. So, I'm in Target, I'm drinking my glorious chai tea latte, a soothing wave of warm black tea with spicy flavors is pulsing through me, and the aisles of new displays are welcoming me in. I'm intoxicated with shopping endorphins, everything I see just keeps getting cuter and cuter, bad Tricia is hitting good Tricia over the head with a new purse telling her that she needs to buy, buy, buy! Every rack of clothes is like a splendid surprise. I spent a while responsibly sizing up every item and how it would work perfectly into my current wardrobe, telling myself that I had to have it.

I decided my best bet would be to do what I came to Target to do and then I could come back and look at stuff for me. So, off to the baby department I went. I spent a while analyzing the registry and picked out my gifts and somehow ended up in the home section. This is where things really got crazy. I guess the best way to describe my time in the home section is to tell you that I want to redecorate my whole house... again. Well, ok, maybe not my whole house but at least my master bedroom, office, and guest room... and some pictures for the kitchen, and the family room... and maybe some pillows for the family room... and some new towels for the guest bathroom. Oh yeah, and then I need decorations for Halloween... and then Joe's family will be here for Thanksgiving so I have to get decorations for that. You ses my dilemma?

I was on information overload. I picked out like 5 bedding sets for my master bedroom. They are all completely different and, of course, would need Joe's stamp of approval before I could bring one home. I'm leaning towards a "greige" theme. Its a combination of grey and beige that is totally awesome and pretty and can be accessorized in lots of different ways. Out of all the redecorating that I did in my head today, that will probably be the first project to get done.

I am very proud of myself overall though. After all the oohing and ahhing over everything in Target, I managed to walk out with only what I went in to get in the first place, a baby shower gift. I can't say that there won't be return trips to pick up some of the "must-haves" from today but at least I suppressed my urge to buy for one day.

I have a very exciting weekend coming up. Joe and I are going to see Joel McHale (The Soup) tomorrow night at the Hard Rock Live. We think he's hilarious and are really excited to see him do stand up. I'll give you all the details at some point over the weekend. Enjoy!!