My Secret Obsession

Ok, so you know how lots of women have obsessions over shoes, or makeup, or purses? They love shopping for them, and have tons of them, closets full even...That's not me. I can't stand shoe shopping, I do like buying purses but I limit myself to things on sale and about one new one per year, which is reasonable, I think. And I don't really wear makeup - maybe twice a year if lucky.
What I love, love, love to shop for and buy is ............
WINTER OUTERWEAR.
Ok, I know, that sounds totally crazy and stupid. Ridiculous really. But I just do, I don't know why. Now, I don't go overboard. It's not like everyone in my house has four or five coats each or anything, really, only one or two (in the adults case, 'cause, we don't grow out of our coats!) But I do spend a lot more time than necessary online window shopping for all the latest and coolest outfits. I love dressing my boys up in coordinating outerwear (I don't mean with each other, although that would be cute, I mean with themselves.) I just need them to be matching, which is stupid, because they don't care if they're matching, at least not yet, anyway. But I love having the hat and gloves match the coat, and even better, the boots (although this is much harder to accomplish.)
So here are the brands I have bought in the past and that I would recommend to any newbie parents. For boots, I buy Sorels. I've never had any problems with them, they are warm, waterproof (with some extra help from a waterproofing spray I use, although they do claim to be waterproof on their own) and they last at least two winter seasons (which, around these parts is the equivalent to about 12 months or so, depending on how early the snow falls). I also like that the liner is removable which a) helps with sizing as you can pull it out, have your child try the liner on and you can actually feel where their toes are, and b) you can pull it out to dry out the boots faster, which inevitably get wet from snow falling inside them.
For coats/snowsuits I have had success with Please Mum, a Canadian company and one of my favourite stores to shop for the boys in, Woodland, which is a brand sold in Bonnie Togs, Osh Kosh (but their sizes don't go past six here in Canada for some weird reason) and I always buy Columbia for myself. I haven't yet bought the boys a Columbia jacket, as it's just a little too pricey, but for me, I know my jacket is going to get several years' use.
As for accessories, I like Kombi, Columbia, Please Mum, and I've also bought online from http://www.llbean.com which is also where I do my online browsing/dreaming, as well as http://www.landsend.com .
So that's my weird obsession. Last night, we were out doing some back-to-school shopping, and some stores actually had winter coats coming out on the racks. Yikes! I know! I don't even want to think about winter, but a very small part of me was starting to feel those first tingles of excitement about the upcoming shopping expeditions I would get to have...
Well, I guess every woman's gotta have a vice...