I eat with the “boys” at lunch each day. But tonight, I went out with the “girls” for a pre-Christmas shopping spree. Last week, the Special Ed teacher invited all the ladies out for a day of shopping and fine dining. And I can’t pass up either of those, or a chance to hang out with my co-workers (I have a lot of cool co-workers). Turns out five of us were able to go tonight and at 3:15pm we left the school and met at the Little Professor Book Store.

I got a peppermint steamer at the Winan’s coffee shop which is attached to the bookstore, then perused the books. I found some possible gift ideas for folks on my list and even found one for me. But I was a good girl and didn’t buy anything (yet). Next was the Hallmark store, where I purchased two CDs of Christmas music, an ornament (Santa & Rudolph from the Rankin/Bass production), and some candles and a holder. We then headed off to a little gift shop in Troy, which turns out isn’t open on Mondays. No matter, we had plenty of shops to check out in Tipp City.

The first stop in Tipp City was fun to look at, but I didn’t buy anything. I bought some Hot Pepper Peach Preserves from the next place. (Both places were several shops all in one store – rather cool.) One of our party had to go off to feed her little one, but the rest of us headed to the toy store in Tipp and I FINALLY found a proper dark_pheonix proxy! It’s a little penguin (that moves, even). She’s got a hat & scarf (so a bit warm for an Aussie at this time of year) but is perfect for travel. She’s got a yellow bill and feet, too. (I’ll get a photo later.) We then checked out a clothing store that was going out of business. (It had some interesting clothes selections – though none of us fancied buying the leather pants that were on sale.)

We moved on back to Troy to La Piazza, an Italian restaurant, where the fifth member of our party caught up with us after feeding her son. There was a wait for our table, so I bought everyone a round of drinks. Amaretto sour for me, wines for the other girls. They were eventually ready for us, so we got to our table and eventually got our food. (I ordered manicotti stuffed with cheese – yum!) We talked and talked and talked and by 9:30pm, we were ready to leave. I was really impressed because we didn’t talk about school until we were walking across the street towards the restaurant. That’s very impressive for a group of teachers!

We really enjoyed the evening out and have decided we’ll need to do this from time to time. A little retail therapy between co-workers is a good thing. 🙂