Month: March 2010

Fashion Friday: Edition but wait, there’s more!

Since several of you asked yesterday about which self tanner I use, I guess I should start by talking about self tanners. Because, let’s be honest, no matter what your dermatologist tells you, everything looks better with a tan. Sadly, everything doesn’t look better with wrinkles and skin cancer, so that leaves the self tanner option.

I know there are some expensive products on the market and I’m sure they are lovely and smell like pina coladas being served poolside by a cabana boy named Pablo. However, most of those are more than I’m willing to pay for a tan in a bottle unless I start selling my plasma as a side business to earn extra cash.

My go to self tanner is Neutrogena Build-A-Tan. I like the option of the gradual tan instead of just waking up VERY TAN one morning It allows me to regulate my color. I apply it two days in a row and then usually skip a day or two to make sure I don’t end up looking like the love child of Diana Ross and George Hamilton.

This year I’ve also decided to shake it up a bit and have been using Jergens Natural Glow Firming lotion on my legs. If it actually works then there’s a good chance that I might just start bathing in it every day for the rest of my life. I’m not sure that any actual firming is going on because if it was that easy then Jillian Michaels would be living on the street looking for a job, but it’s a scientific fact that a tan can hide a multitude of sins and the claims of firming make me feel better even it’s just a placebo effect.

As a bonus, I’m going to give you some self tanner advice from someone who has made some critical errors. Exfoliation is key. You’ve got to use the loofah to get rid of dead skin if you want a smooth, even finish. Also, put a little Vaseline or regular lotion on your knees, elbows, and ankles to avoid the dreaded dirty knees syndrome caused by the tanner caking around the drier skin on your knees. And, finally, sometimes you have to kiss some self tanner frogs to find your golden prince. My skin tends to be a little more olive, so what works for me may not work for you.

I have never been more thankful for a bit of faux tan than I was yesterday when I put on my black sleeveless dress to wear to the fashion show. My arms really aren’t summer ready and I mentally prepared myself that no matter what the day might bring I needed to avoid placing my arms directly by my sides at all time. Always crook your elbow. Always. Because it makes your arms look skinnier and doesn’t look awkward or unnatural at all. It just looks like you’re doing the robot.

The good news from the fashion show was that all the trends I mentioned last week were featured. I’m relieved that I don’t have to issue any sort of fashion retraction. Now that I’m armed with a wealth of knowledge, I’ll share the other five trends for Spring and Summer.

1. White

This applies to everything from the white shirt to the white jean. I’m a huge fan of the white shirt in all forms. However, I don’t really understand why everyone insists on making their white shirts so thin that you’re forced to wear another layer under it. I live in South Texas. I cannot wear two shirts all summer long without becoming angry and irritable.

That being said, I would make an exception for this Nanette Lepore Javanese blouse.

In the words of Stevie Wonder, isn’t she lovely? Too bad she’s so dang expensive.

Fortunately, there are less expensive alternatives. This pintucked tunic top is really cute and so is this floral applique v-neck tee. I also love this Heritage silk tiered blouse and this square neck crochet cami.

As for white jeans, I realize they aren’t for everyone but I found a really great pair last summer. The key to white jeans is that you can’t really go cheap. If you’re going to wear white on your bottom half and are over the age of fifteen, then you need to pay a little extra for a great fit. I love these bootcut white jeans by Citizens of Humanity.

Keep in mind that you can wear them with a longer tunic style top to eliminate your entire rear view being an expanse of white.

Of course if you have young children or, like me, can’t get through a meal without spilling something on yourself, you may want to skip the white trend altogether.

2. Safari/Tribal influences

Remember back when Banana Republic stores used to be designed to resemble the set of Land of the Lost? This is kind of like that. But please stay away from the sleestaks.

You can do anything from a beaded v-neck dress to a simple linen shirtdress.

It can also take on a bohemian look like this tunic.

I also like this tunic from Boden.

I’m sure there’s a lot of other stuff out there but it seems like a lot of work to find it right now.

3. The dress

There are a million different dress options right now. And that’s only a slight exaggeration.

This little silk solid tie-neck dress looks just like Spring to me.

But there are casual dresses, shirt dresses, floral dresses, and June Cleaver dresses.

If elected, I promise that there will be a dress in every pot.

4. Big, bold jewelry

The beautiful thing about jewelry, I mean other than the jewelry itself, is that you can find trendy, stylish pieces at any price point. There is nothing that can add a little pop to something tired and old in your closet like some great new accessories.

This turquoise statement necklace + me = True love 4ever.

But there are so many great pieces of jewelry to choose from. It’s an abundance of faux riches.

5. Delicate and lacy

There are so many gorgeous feminine things out there right now. I wish I could give them all a good home.

I’m especially in love with this lace dolman top.

But there’s only so much plasma one person can sell.

That’s it for Spring Trends. In fact, I’m so tired that I may be done with Fashion Fridays FOREVER.

Or at least until next week.

Y’all have a good Friday.

For a discussion about stripes for Spring, you can go visit Jo-Lynne at Musings of a Housewife.

P.S. I also wanted to make sure that y’all know there is a group of Compassion bloggers in Kenya this week. I particularly loved this post from day one of the trip written by Ryan.
You’re going to need some caffeine to get through this

And here I thought I was on the cutting edge of culinary exploration with the graham crackers and Duncan Hines frosting. So much for my plans to write a bestselling cookbook detailing all the ways the graham can be used as a dessert item. Everyone already knows. I guess I’ll have to resort to Plan B and do something totally unique like maybe design a type of disposable towel made out of paper that can be used in your kitchen.

I’m not sure what I’ve done this week, but I’m positive that it hasn’t been anything very exciting because I’m sitting here for the second day in a row trying to figure out what on earth to write about. Too bad I don’t have a picture of some crackers with some cheese so I could tell you about the great new snack I just discovered.

Instead I will just continue to compose the most boring sequence of paragraphs in the free world.

Most of Monday was spent chauffeuring (it just took me about nine tries to spell that word) P around because he had to put his truck in the shop. We enjoy putting the truck in the shop on a regular basis since there’s really no other way we like to spend money than to fix transmissions and wonky front end alignment. It’s so much better than a new pair of shoes or a cute top.

After we dropped the truck off, we decided to go eat some breakfast. P took me to a little place on the edge of downtown where bars on the windows indicated that there were most likely some excellent huevos rancheros with homemade tortillas in our future and possibly being witnesses to a homicide. I like my eggs with a side of danger. And a spicy ranchero sauce.

On Tuesday…look, I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea what we did on Tuesday. I’m sitting here racking my brain trying to remember. Oh, it just came to me because I remember the great pajama debate of 2010. It was National Reading Day and Caroline was supposed to wear pajamas to school and bring some books, a blanket and a breakfast item to share with the class. (Actually I don’t know if it was a national thing or not. I think that’s what the note said, but it may have just been a State Reading Day or Caroline’s Classroom Reading Day. Or maybe I was wrong about the whole thing and sent my child to school in her pajamas for no reason.)

I’d already told her that I’d eat lunch with her on Tuesday, so I showed up at 10:40 (I still can’t get over the late morning lunch time) with a Wacky Pack from Sonic and some mozzarella cheese sticks. It was totally worth the trip because she took one bite of the burger and ate half a french fry. I did manage to find out from the lunch table conversation that all her friends think some boy named Cal is cute. They pointed him out to me, but I didn’t really see what was so appealing about someone who’s barely four feet tall and gnaws on his peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the four teeth he has left in his mouth.

Yesterday morning I had Bible study and then had to make a trip to the grocery store because we were completely out of graham crackers and canned frosting which placed us smack dab in the territory of dire straits. We got our money for nothing and our chicks for free. (I’m sorry. Dire straits took me there.)

By the time I unloaded the groceries and made enough room in the refrigerator for all the Jello Pudding Snacks, it was about time to go pick up Caroline from school. I’d promised her that I’d take her to get a pedicure because she received an award at school for academic excellence and nothing says keep up the hard work like a fresh pedi with some sassy flowers painted on your big toe.

And while we were there, I decided I should probably go ahead and get a pedicure for myself. I mean, I’m the one who has accumulated several or a hundred more gray hairs throughout this school year from the homework alone. Because why does a person insist on drawing nine apples on the ground when the instructions clearly state that you’re supposed to draw some of the apples on the tree and some of the apples on the ground to make a total of nine apples?

“But I don’t want any apples on the tree. I like them on the ground.”

“That’s fine, but the instructions specifically state that SOME need to be on the ground and SOME need to be on the tree.”

“I don’t like them on the tree.”

“Well, then you’re not going to like second grade because in second grade it becomes REALLY IMPORTANT that you follow all the instructions.”

(I don’t even know if that’s true. Second grade could be a complete mutiny of all societal rules for all I know. It’s been thirty-one years since I’ve had any second grade experience.)

“Okay. I’ll draw some on the tree even though I DON’T WANT TO.”

And that is why I felt that I deserved a fresh coat of OPI’s Ladies and Magenta-men on my toes.

I promise I didn’t just pick that color because I adore the name.

And, lastly, since I’ve already gone on way too long and may as well share the last detail of our uneventful week, I officially broke out the self-tanner this week. I’m invited to a luncheon/fashion show tomorrow and there’s a ninety percent chance that I’m wearing a sleeveless dress. (I’m hanging on to the 10% chance that something else will magically appear in my closet.) My arms are frighteningly pale and it just didn’t seem right to subject the public to such a spectacle.

Speaking of, I need to wrap this up and go pluck my eyebrows. I’d hate for someone to be distracted from all the beautiful clothes because the girl sitting across from them has a unibrow.
I call it redneck delight

You know it’s time to suck it up and go to the grocery store when this is what you serve your husband after he asks what’s for dessert.

Necessity and graham crackers really are the mother of invention.
The writing on the wall

Does anyone remember that I painted Caroline’s room at some point last summer?

Yeah, me neither.

I mean, I knew I painted the room but I couldn’t really remember when it actually happened. Fortunately I have a blog that has taken the place of my long term memory and I was able to find the post where I wrote about painting her room a delightful, if very bright, shade of dancing green.

Too bad the blog couldn’t remind me that yesterday was school picture day before I sent her to school in a huge, oversized tie-dyed t-shirt that she made in Brownies. My little first grade hippy.

Most of the room has been finished for some time now, but Caroline announced early on in the room redecorating process that she’d like to have her monogram painted over her bed. I think we all know that brought me much untold joy and made me wonder if it would be too much to have my own monogram painted over my bed.

So last fall I told P that we needed to figure out how to paint Caroline’s monogram above her bed. I was envisioning some scenario that involved me needing to buy some stencils at Michaels and I was afraid. I was very afraid. But P looked at me and announced, “Shorty can do it”.

I was a little skeptical. Shorty works for P in the landscaping business. You want some geraniums planted? Shorty’s your man. Have a fence that needs to be built? Shorty can do it. Monogramming? Seemed doubtful.

But P pointed out that Shorty paints his name on all his jackets and hats. He doesn’t even own a pair of work gloves that don’t have a fancy “SHORTY” drawn out in some kind of calligraphy. And he spent some downtime on a job site last summer inscribing “El P Landscaping” on all of P’s work tools.

So, yes, Shorty is an artist. Although I’m not sure he paints things as much as he tags things with his name. I felt there might be a 50/50 chance that her wall could end up with SHORTY scrawled across it. And while she is short right now, she’s only six and chances are good that she’ll continue to grow.

I bought the Razzleberry paint I wanted to use for the monogram along with some paintbrushes and then had to wait another two months before Shorty finally had some time in his schedule to paint the wall. Finally, after months of anticipation, P called me in the middle of the day last week and asked, “Do you want Shorty to paint the wall tomorrow?”

Well, yeah.

Later that night, P and I talked about the monogram and I showed him the monogram on Caroline’s lunch box and explained that I wanted it to look JUST LIKE THIS. I should have known I was in trouble when I walked out the next morning and he was measuring the lunch box monogram with a ruler. So that it could be measured out on the wall. To scale.

Heaven help me.

I dropped Caroline off at school and came back home so we could measure it all out on the wall before Shorty began to paint and I knew I was in trouble when P began lamenting that he left his power leveler (I’m not sure that’s the right term) on the job site. But we pressed on. We marked where the center of the headboard was on the wall and he told me to measure out how tall I wanted the middle letter.

So I did.

But then he asked me how I determined that’s how tall the middle letter should be and I answered, “I don’t know. It just feels right.”

The next ten minutes were filled with pencil marks and rulers and drawing straight lines across the wall. I didn’t like how small the C was going to be, but then he said it was to scale. So I wanted to change the whole thing and couldn’t really base my decision on anything more substantive than “because I want to”.

It’s hard to remember exactly where it all went really south, but if memory serves it was sometime right after I was holding the measuring tape and he asked, “Does that look like it measures 32 5/8?”

And I responded, “Let me answer that by asking you this, how long have we been married?”

I am the same woman who has to ask him what 3/4 cups plus 3/4 cups equals when I’m doubling a recipe. Why on earth would I know anything about some 5/8? If the education system had really wanted me to hold on to a knowledge of fractions then they should have never thrown Geometry and Algebra II in the mix.

P looked at me and questioned, “How is Shorty going to know how to paint this if it’s not measured out?”

I just assumed he’d do it like I do all my home improvement projects. It’s a little method I like to call eyeballing it.

But thanks to P, Shorty had some very specific parameters. Which was probably for the best. I showed him the lunch box to make sure that he knew what I wanted and then we left him as he went to work.

Four hours later, I returned home to this.

Seriously. How cute is that? I feel that Shorty is wasting his gift and should start a side business monogramming people’s fences and decks or something.

I also have to add that the furniture in Caroline’s room belonged to my Me-Ma. Words really can’t express how happy I am that it’s in her room because it was such a part of my childhood. I just knew she must be rich to have such beautiful bedroom furniture.

In fact, before it got delivered I was worried that the bedposts might be too tall for Caroline’s room and hit the ceiling fan. I had to laugh when it arrived and was so much smaller than what I remembered. Like so many memories of my grandparents, it was huge in my mind.

Here’s another view of the room.

I’d had those letters in her nursery when she was a baby, but I switched out the pale yellow ribbon in favor of the hot pink.

And then this is my favorite piece of all.

I spent hours as a little girl and an awkward adolescent and a college student sitting at that little chair looking in that mirror as I tried on all of Me-Ma’s jewelry and makeup while she sat with me and listened to all my stories. I never could have imagined a day that it would end up in my own little girl’s room while she looks in that mirror and tries on makeup and pretends she’s a princess.

It makes me smile every time I think about it.

You may also notice the bulletin board on the closet door. I found it at TJ Maxx and was so excited because it was the perfect shade of hot pink. However, when I went to hang it, I discovered that her closet door was too thin for me to hang it with nails so I asked P if we could just hang it with some of those 3M sticky hook things.

I believe his exact words were “We can try it but if it doesn’t work and the bulletin board falls, it could be catastrophic.”

Which caused me to laugh hysterically for the next fifteen minutes because catastrophic seemed like a stretch.

But it served as confirmation that we really aren’t meant to do a lot of home improvement projects together. As if the whole “32 5/8” incident wasn’t reason enough.

**Edited to add that the wall color is Dancing Green by Sherwin Williams and the monogram is Razzleberry by Benjamin Moore**
It was Polly in the living room with her shoe

I’d planned to write a long post about our weekend, but then I realized that it was basically one long non-event and there’s only so much you can say about nothing. Although I tend to manage pretty well most days. But Little Women is on the Soap Channel right now and I’m powerless to resist the charm of Jo and Laurie. Best of all, P is already in bed so I don’t have to worry about him repeatedly asking why Jo and Ashley don’t just get married and then I have to explain that Ashley is from Gone With The Wind and tell him he means Laurie and then he continues to call him Ashley and ask if Beth has already died until I just hand him the remote and tell him to turn it back to Uncle Ted. Not that we’ve played out that exact scenario before.

My point is that I may keep this brief so I can watch the end of Little Women for the 400th time. Or I may not keep it brief if I come up with something to say. I like to keep my options open.

The bike rodeo was Friday. Caroline woke up a little stressed about the possibility that she might knock over a cone and so we had a big talk about how she just needed to do her best. She also decided to wear her favorite leggings with purple stars so she’d coordinate with her bike and her new helmet. As a woman who once wore a leopard print top to the zoo, I was so proud of her attention to detail.

Is it just me or does that picture bring to mind the scene from The Rainbow Connection where Kermit the Frog is riding his bike through the swamp? I’m not sure when her legs got so long, but here’s hoping the warm weather gets here before I have to invest in more jeans that she’ll outgrow in two weeks.

She completed the entire course without a mistake and never cracked a smile. She had the eye of the tiger, man. The eye of the tiger. So now it’s time to take off the training wheels and start preparing for next year. Just as soon as I find the sedatives.

On Saturday, P took her to the ranch for the day which meant I found myself with an entire day to myself. I was giddy with the freedom and proceeded to spend the next five hours cleaning my house from top to bottom. That sentence would make my twenty-year-old self so sad for my thirty-eight-year-old self.

I vacuumed and scrubbed and dusted and sustained a possible Tilex fumes chemical burn to my lungs and throat, but the house is spotless. Sadly, both my yoga pants and my vacuum sustained career-ending injuries. I’m still not sure exactly what happened to my yoga pants but they now have perfect tiger-striped bleach stains on both thighs. It’s a grievous loss because it’s a real struggle to find a good pair of yoga pants that fit both my circumference and my height. So maybe I’ll just wear them with their tiger stripes, call them weight-lifting pants and start working out at Gold’s Gym.

As for the vacuum, I blame Polly Pockets and her diminutive shoes and handbags of evil. She killed the vacuum as plain as if she’d pulled out a tiny handgun and shot it.

So by Saturday evening I needed a new pair of yoga pants and a vacuum. What is the point in trying to save money by not having a maid if it’s going to cost me hundreds of dollars in yoga pants and vacuum cleaners?

That’s what I thought.

So how was your weekend?