Today's My Birthday: Vera Bradley & Nordstrom

I went to see my family on Saturday to celebrate my birthday a day earlier. Although Sept 30th is my birthday, because I'm so bogged down with studies for my classes - I have lots of reading to finish up, and I have a presentation to do in my Communication Activism class on Tuesday - I am using today to hunker down and focus on my studies. So I sacrificed Saturday to hang with my family. After all, it's been a month since I last saw them and my baby nephew. They had some wickedly delicious chocolate cake for me - after they all took a slice, they expected me to take the rest of the cake home with me. Oh no! I kindly took two large slices, but I left that evil thang with them! LOL!

I got $100 in cash and as I left to go home, I made a pit stop at Somerset Collection in Troy to find ways to spend my birthday money. The two places that got my business was Vera Bradley and Nordstrom. I have always known about Vera Bradley, and seen many people with  her lovely purses and handbags and accessories, but I never walked into the store. That changed on Saturday when I pranced in there and looked around. I honed in on their 'Hipster' selection, and not knowing at the time that that style was their #1 best seller, something about it really appealed to me. They had several color styles, but now that it's the Fall season, I wanted something darker, and this is what I picked out:

According to my saleslady, the Hipster style is the #1 seller.

And she said that the design I selected was very popular too!

Isn't it lovely? I go up to the register and I'm helped by a very nice lady. She asked me if I wanted a purse from the back stock and I said yes. However when she came back, she informed me that the one off the shelf was their last one in stock. Bingo! She was explaining to me how the Hipster style was their best seller so I did a smart thing in picking it out for my first VB purchase. She then collected all my demographic information so that I can get on their mailing list and have Birthday coupons mailed to me next year. Tah dah! That's when I told her that Sunday is my birthday! She wished me a HB, and then said she would take off the $20 for my Happy Birthday discount. Fuck yeah! A $60 purse now cost $40. Yeah!!! I love surprise discounts!

Then I walked over to Nordstrom; I needed a new yoga top and some leggings. I got a purple colored sport top from Zella, and I bought some leggings from Hue in heather gray. So I'm all set and done with my usual buying spread throughout September. I splurge in this month, when I can, on a few 'wants' because the other 11 months, I really don't treat myself. So when this day is over, it'll be October, and it'll be back to the regular routine of life. I had great customer service experience at both Vera Bradley and Nordstrom, I can't visit there often, but because of my shopping experiences at both, I'll make sure to visit them again as soon as I can.