Shop the Ward

The third ward is one of the fashionable areas in Milwaukee. I know that's not saying much since the only other fashionable area of the city is about 3 miles northeast known as the east side. Such creative titles. Anyway, I headed to the third ward to meet my daughters for some Black Friday shopping and a nice lunch.

The difference between the third ward shops and the awful mall and department store throngs is that the sales begin at 9am, none of the hordes of lifeless zombies getting up in the middle of the night to get a free widget that is worthless in the first place. We casually went from store to store where there were plenty of sales making our quality purchases reasonable. The clerks were friendly, in fact we were offered a Mimosa and homemade coffee cake at Broadway Paper. Most other stores offered hot coffee or some delicious little snack. It was relaxing, not hurried and a lot of fun plus the sun was shining and the air was crisp, a lovey late fall day in Wisconsin.

Jen's friend owns a shop called Freckle Face, a beautiful children's store. We spent more time in there than most stores. We purchased some cute things for the new baby. It was hard to choose with all the beautiful clothes and cute toys to pick from. I bought the environmentally, reusable diapers, Jen bought some trendy little girly clothes. My favorite shop was Anthropologie. It was filled with quality housewares and clothing, it reminded me of an upscale Urban Outfitters. I could have purchased kitchen gadgets and trinkets by the basket full but I refrained. I don't really need anything - less is more is generally my motto but it sure was tempting.

We ended our shopping at the Milwaukee Public Market enjoying a margarita and tacos at Margarita Paradise. This was the best Black Friday because it was with my girls.