something stressful

I tried to get every fashion blogger cliche into this last picture, can you count them?
pictures taken by the lovely Elisabeth from Imma Walking Fashion Crime

Alright, so. There are some pictures of me in an outfit. Because I love clothes. And because I finally found someone willing to take my picture. This is by no means an announcement of fashion blogging. It's more of an announcement to say, "I broke out my fancy camera and recruited a friend, and this is what happened!" And it's an announcement to say, I can fashion blog if I want to.

Now I will segway into something much more serious.

Years ago, the most stressful store I ever set foot in was Walmart. I'm serious. I got serious headaches going in there, and often found myself sweating, and completely losing my mind. You know, walking into Walmart to buy some milk, and walking out with a cake mix and nothing else. That kind of thing. It was a burden in my life, that luckily I didn't have to bear very often when I lived at home with my family. When I got to Logan, I quickly realized that as a college student, Walmart was a necessity. About three years into school, I got over my anxiety, and became a Walmart pro. (begrudgingly. I'm a grocery store snob. Harmon's all the way.)

Now I have found another kind of store that stresses me out to almost the level of those early days in Walmart.

CRAFT STORES

Oh good heavens. 

I walk in, and immediately feel shockingly out of place. I feel like everyone is staring at me like, "what is she doing here? She's not a crafter!" They can tell! Just by looking at me! They see the way I am overwhelmed. They cannot believe I would dare set foot in the store. 

I head to the left, quickly, with what I hope looks like a purposeful face. I have no idea where I'm going. I need glitter! I need ribbon! Where oh where? Possibly around this corner? NO! That is full of Christmas decorations. Why are the Christmas floral arrangements half off? Am I already too late to buy Christmas decorations!? How did I not know? Why am I such a failure!

Finally, in a haze I walk up to the register, barely aware of the things I'm holding in my hands. Did I get what I wanted? I'm not sure where any of this stuff came from! The last 10 minutes of my life are a blank! I picture the cash register girl eyeing me up and down (that way girls do), knowing that I have no clue what I'm doing. She'll glance at my ingredients for the perfect craft and scoff! Scoff! She's done harder things than that before. She even owns her own glue gun! She might ask me what I'm making! She might want me to explain where I got the idea! How do I tell her I got it from pinterest without sounding so cliche??!?!

But you know what really happened? 

She looked at my stuff and said, "I should buy those! They smell so good!"

p.s. do any of you have stress stores? tell me it's a real thing.