Places to Shop in Edmonton

This is a repeat of a post from July 2012 but I thought you'd like to read it.

I thought some of you would like to know about good places to shop in Edmonton.  I like shopping so I'm quite knowledgeable about it.  Right now, the end of July is a really good time to buy summer clothes and other things.  Two places that keep marking things down are Dots and Winners, but every store in the city has sales because they need to make space for their winter stock.
The best places to shop in EdmontonI am going to share my favourite shopping places. Everybody likes to get a good deal and I do too.

 winners.ca

There are several Winners and Home Sense stores in Edmonton. Winners has clothing for the whole family and Home Sense has household items.
One thing I like about this store is that the prices get marked down and down and down. There is always a clearance section. There will be a big sale in January because the store wants to make room for Spring clothing. The clothing is of average quality and there are Petite sizes (for short women) and Plus sizes ( for women who take larger than size 14 or 44).
There is also clothing for men and children. You can often buy children’s toys and books for a very low price.
I regularly buy kids books, pants, tops and underwear at Winners. I have also bought purses, suitcases,shoes and boots. If you check carefully you can find very interesting socks and tights.

‍Dotsstores.ca

There are two Dots stores in Edmonton. 11825 - 105 Ave. and #300, 3414 Gateway Blvd. corner of 34th and Gateway Blvd. (Behind Second Cup)
Dots has mostly women’s clothing but also some men’s clothing and sometimes there is children’s clothing. Much of the clothing is of very good quality. Dots carries a lot of clothing from Europe and is probably from one year ago but still very nice. You have to be prepared to spend time looking through the racks which are very crowded. Their prices also go down and down. Every year I buy several tops and maybe some pants and skirts sometimes for $2 or $5.

‍Value Village

Everybody knows that this is a second hand store where people donate their used clothing and other items. There are several Valu Village stores in Edmonton. I go about once a week to look for yarn and now for toys. Sometimes you find a lot and sometimes you don’t find anything.
There is yarn regularly because people often buy yarn and then never use it. I have bought good quality balls of yarn for about $1 each. One time I bought 2 large balls for $4 each, but they would cost about $35 in the shop.
I look for toys for my granddaughters especially plastic toys you can wash easily.
They also have a lot of small appliances such as coffee makers, hair dryers etc. You can buy them and clean them up at home.
There are several similar stores in Edmonton – Salvation Army and Goodwill are two of them.

‍Reitman's

I also shop at Reitman’s because they have an excellent Petite section for short women. Their clothing is good for women who have had children and aren’t very thin like the models in many stores. The prices are fairly cheap and the quality is average. There is also Plus clothing for women larger than size 14.

‍H&M

This store is quite new in Canada and there are stores all over the world. I think Madonna designs some of the clothes. There are clothes for women, men and babies and children. The children’s clothes are very very cute. You have to be careful about the women’s clothing. Some is only for very young women but some is for anyone. The quality is quite cheap but if you want something new and fashionable, this is a good place.

XS Cargo(pronounced Excess Cargo)‍

This store has many things for your home including a lot of electronics. Men love this store. I have bought a grill for meat, cordless phones, cell phone covers there. There are also some toys. The prices are very good because the electroncs are refurbished. This means that someone returned them to the store or factory to be repaired and they are perfect when you buy them.

‍Shoe Warehouse http://www.shoewarehouse.ca/promotions/default.cfm

This store is located in the basement of Kingsway Garden Mall. It is very big and has a wide variety of shoes and boots for the whole family. There is a clearance section and sometimes the shoes in this section are marked down 50% again. For example I bought a pair of black leather boots last year and they cost only $25!! Many of the shoes are leather and the original price is over $150.

Our Beautiful River Valley

As you know, I go walking on Sundays and its usually in the river valley.  Here are a couple more pictures of Edmonton's beautiful river valley taken on June 16, 2013.
The second picture looks like you could be in the country instead of the middle of Edmonton.

Edmonton



Are we in the city or the county?



Here is a picture taken near my son's in-laws place in Norris Point NFLD.  It's right outside their door.  The scenery is beautiful and so is the baby.



We Love Our Routines, Community and more gardening

This week has been a bit different for the students in room 205. The other teacher, Lorna has been sick so I taught mornings and the students had independent learning in the afternoons for 2 days, then will be having a sub for a week.  We all like our routines and don't like it when they are disrupted and I'm like everybody else. But we carry on and try to learn from our experiences.

Some people may think there is less of a sense of community in Canada then in other countries and I partly agree.  A sense of community is when you are part of a group, neighbourhood, ethnic group etc.  Each of our classes is a community and having a sense of community is when we enjoy a joke together, when we have a pot luck, when people in class enjoy time together owns help each other.  Our LINC program at the Westmount Campus is a community.  The student centre is alive with talking and laughing in many languages and students really miss this sense of community when they are finished here.  Hend and Hessam, who run the cafeteria were students here about 10 years ago and missed our community.  when they had an opportunity to come back to run the cafeteria, one of the pros was that they again became part of our community.
I had a very interesting and nice community experience this week on my crescent ( street).  we have been living here for about 15 years and know a few neighbours.
When we leave our house, we go into our attached garage, open the door with a remote control, and drive away.  our neighbours do the same so we don't have much chance to talk to each other.
Its  a bit different in the summertime because people are outdoors.  Quite a few people on our block are retired and so they are home during the day.
When we recently had work done on our driveway, many people stopped by to admire it, talk to other neighbours and ask the young man doing the work for his business card.  My son came over and he talked to a couple of the neighbours.  this may be 'your normal' but it's unusual in many areas with big houses and very busy people.
On Friday, my son was in the garage doing something with the tires on his motorcycle.  It was nice and the garage door was open.  he needed a tool to take the tire off but didn't have the right one.  My husband asked a neighbour if he had one.  He didn't but asked another guy on the street.  then he came over and helped my son.  this was all happening on Friday when many people are at work.  I really liked the feeling of community.

I planted some plants on Friday and bought some more to plant. It was a nice day, not to hot, not too cold.  Tomorrow I'm going walking and then to someone's house for a potluck lunch..
I hope everybody has/had a nice weekend.