shopping

I went shopping this week........in my closet and storage boxes. About 3 years ago I took a number of things out of my closet as i kept trying to put them on for work and they would be too small. I also moved some things to the end of the work rack. Now I have other things that are smaller in the back but these were the clothes that I had been wearing and now they didn't fit. It was after my kitty died and I fell off the weight loss wagon and just started to eat junk again and just kept going and gaining.  There were brief periods of loss but they were followed by gains until this past oct when I finally got my head straightened out about my food.  Unfortunately a lot of this weight gain is in my abdomen and less is coming off from there so that even though I now weigh less than I did 5 years ago some things don't fit yet....but lots and lots do. So i now have more pants and tops to wear to work this spring and summer than for the last 3 years. i have also bought a bunch of inexpensive tops at walmart that are a little too tight still so that I will have to work on getting into them in the next month or so. 
Size is a very interesting thing. The clothes that fit vary in size from XL to 3X and from 16 to 24. The shirts that are still too tight from walmart are an 2X and yet many XLs fit in more expensive tops from Saks and Niemans.  In other words I can wear a top in size 16 if I pay $150. but need a 3X if I pay $7.  Once when I generally wore 8's I tried on an outfit that I thought was too old looking from me at a store that I shopped in.....it was also more than I wanted to spend but it fit fine in a 4......at the time I remember thinking that some woman would probably pay extra just so they could say that they wore a 4.  I'll settle for the 7 dollar 3X right now as I plan to be giving it away in a few months, but it's really nice to have more clothes to wear without spending a lot.