I hereby declare 2016 the year of the low-buy

Hello, internet! Long time no blog.

Where have I been? Doing a lot of traveling. I took Young Master Buxom off for his sophomore year in Boston, and the following week, drove Miss Buxom for a post-graduate year at Interlochen in way-the-hell-up-there Michigan.

Then, just when I thought that with the younguns out of the house I could finally Do Something About It, Mr. Buxom announced that we should try living in the city for a while. I am the biggest feminist who ever feministed (for a housewife, anyway) but decided that after 18 years of the commuter train, he deserved a break. Because a couple of times in my life, I lived within walking distance of my job, and it was awesome. If Mr. Buxom wants to walk to work and back, have at it, say I.

Therefore, whenever I head to the gym or get my hair colored or decide to Do Something About the House, I'm the one who commutes. Which is fine, but eats up a bit of time.

I've also traveled back to Massachusetts and Michigan for parents' weekend visits, and been to Dallas and New York (where I had the joy of visiting with blackbird.)

Then there was Thanksgiving, and more traveling. We drove to New Hampshire, picked up our children (one from the airport, one from his dorm) and proceeded to celebrate. We also had a last minute shopping trip to J. Crew because Mr. Buxom didn't pack a suit but had to do a last minute trip to D.C. as well as Austin. So I drove the airport Buxoms to the airport and the dorm Buxom to the dorm and then drove back to Chicago by myself.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THE GLAMOUR OF IT ALL.

So now I begin my 11th year of blogging absolutely and totally pushing 60, back on Weight Watchers, up to my eyeballs in recently purchased makeup and skincare as well as clothes that are too tight, hence the Weight Watchers.

Which leads me to my title. That's quite enough shopping. I mean, yes, I intend to participate in Christmas, but that's it. I am drowning in stuff. Most of it extremely nice and lovingly selected and gloated over, but still.

Confession time: Between Birchbox, GWPs, Beauty Event bags, and the samples Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Sephora throw into every order, I have managed to fill one of these:

with innumerable teensy- or deluxe-sized samples of high-end skincare, makeup, hair care, body care, and fragrance products. Some of them might change my life, but who's going to know when they're just sitting there.

So. No more buying for quite a while. And I hereby declare Sample Saturdays for skincare and Sample Sunday for makeup. (Sure, the people at church might be surprised when I show up looking like a clown, but hey! Church isn't for the saved, church is for the people in need of salvation, amirate?)