How do you do it?

Yesterday, mid morning, mid workshop. Sun shining through the windows of the shop, defying forecasts. Eight women, busily making cards. We're having a very sociable time. Nothing like a big table and some crafting to make you feel like a chat. A relative newcomer to the world of Thursday workshops is Willpower Woman. She's lost three and half stone and still refuses cakes biscuits and sweets without so much as looking up. No fuss, no showing off. So unlike me - I'm full of admiration.

Last week, Willpower Woman and I spent a good couple of hours chatting over coffee while I was *cough* being a shopkeeper. Naturally, when she left, she had a bag with some craft shopping in it. Bling, I seem to remember, and ribbon, for sure. So yesterday I asked her if she'd managed to add the new stash to the existing work desk collection without it bein

g noticed. She laughed and indeed confirmed that she'd felt pretty clever in sneaking the bag past Mike. Well, that set everyone off in turn, about how they deal with their purchases - as in, how the bag physically gets across the threshold of the house and into stash central. Isn't it amazing, and funny, how our guilt manifests itself! Some leave the bag in the car until the other half goes out or at the least, upstairs. Some transfer it into a familiar shopping bag and breeze in with it, all front and pretence.....stroll casually past the partner and then leggit to the desk. No doubt that it seems not to be truly un-returnable until it's safely stashed - or added to the general work on the desk top. Then ownership can begin. I suspect this is more about the feeling that if it's on the desk it kinda just gets 'absorbed' into the general 'stuff' and can't be told apart as new or not - unless you're the one that has just acquired it of course!

Mr Dunnit seems utterly immune to my matter-of-fact approach

to this dilemma. I front it out - just walk past him and dump the bag on my desk...almost daring him to say something. He never does. There are moments when I feel guilty about the amount I shop (wouldn't be blogging about it otherwise, probably!). I can' logicalise' this for you though dear interweb......I shouldn't feel guilty; after all, I'm not spending any money that isn't mine and we're not going without food or shoes because of my habit. It's because he DOESN'T complain that I feel guilty - it would seem (in my head) that I should have the opportunity to raise my voice and make my point about my financial independence. *more coughing*. So it's his fault. And still he smiles; he knows that he's twisting the guilt knife when he says that it makes him happy if I'm happy. And he knows I know. Which is why he does it. He thinks it's funny. Which is probably how (or why) we're still together. Someone want to logicalise that one for me?!!

Thanks for asking about the Manga costume, I promise to show it when Miss D gets back from convention with the promised kerjillion pics...I'm not really one to miss a showing off opportunity, now am I?! And if you're reading this and booked into the 2 Scrap Ladies Card Marathon tomorrow - go to bed, it's an early start!