1.5 hours to kill without spending any money?

I had something @ 6:30 this evening in N.E. Portland. Most of the time getting out of the city and into this area is a real nightmare. If I'm lucky I have just about half an hour to kill and am happy to get where I am going and read my book and relax for a little while and transition from "Work Laura" into "My Time Laura" where I focus on things that are important to me past earning a pay check.

Today traffic was a dream. I'm talking across town in less then half an hour kind of dream. So there I am driving around PDX with 1.5 hours to kill in an area that I don't really want to sit in my car alone for that long, and an unwillingness to spend any money to entertain myself. Normally I would go into a Starbucks and read my book, or go into a local store and look around. I thought about going into the Asian market, but I did say I would not go to the market at all until the end of the month, and I know I would have ended up buying something wonderful to cook with. I settled for a Ross store. I figured I would just look at the fall items, and get an idea of how much serving trays cost as I would like to get one. I have to admit there were several things that I wanted to get. A set of 6 seahawks tumblers, and they had a beautiful section of white plates and serving dishes, pitchers and jugs that looked so pretty it made me want start collecting pretty white things. I picked them up, handled them, looked at their prices....and set them down. I looked at shoes and saw a pair that I really liked, but didn't need.

I walked out not spending a dime, even though I wanted to! Oh boy did I want to. But I got a sense of serious satisfaction out of not spending the money. Because we are getting so close to the end of this project, the temptation is high to end the process early- so I went ahead and paid the money I saved onto my credit card. After all, I can't spend money I don't have. All in all I think that was the wise choice for me, as I think my will power is waiving. I can't wait to decide what I am going to adapt in to our regular budget.