out of my closet

Oh, if only I had Susan Wagner’s style! Believe me, I am trying. This past August I celebrated the loss of weight and inches thanks to my shredding and running by purging my closet. It was then, inspired by Susan’s own working closet posts that I resolved to stick to simple, classic and clean lines. It’s a work in progress but I’m working on it…working on it as best as I can with the limited Big Top budget.

Here is where I whine just a little that unemployment and underemployment sucks. It sucks big time!

The new holiday J. Crew catalogue arrived with its Shoe of the Month Club. How it taunts me. So does the opening of the new H&M store in a mall close by. Which brings me back to the above paragraph of whine once more.

But before the whine overcomes me completely in a pathetic self-pity wallow, I find myself looking to Susan’s challenge this month of thirty days of The Working Closet. Susan writes:

From the beginning, the idea was to replace traditional fashion media with an interactive community, one composed of women who were wearing a variety of sizes and shopping at a range of places. And while we defined ourselves as “working” women, we were pretty liberal about what constituted work:

The rationale is simple: seeing what other women are wearing to work (even if your office doubles as your kitchen table and your boss is still wearing diapers or napping every day) can inspire our own wardrobe choices. Fashion magazines are a wonderful source of information, but only if you’re planning to replace your entire closet every season. Seeing what other working moms are doing with that black skirt from five years ago and the ubiquitous jean jacket can actually be far more useful.

It seems that this is just the inspiration that I need while I try to restrain my shopping and shop from my own closet. So the past twenty days or so I have been shopping from my closet, planning and putting together my daily ensemble, taking my picture and posting it to the Working Closet Flickr Pool. It has been fun, just as Susan predicted. The advice, ideas and compliments only encourage me and reinforce my goal to keep my look simple, classic and clean Juggling has never been so stylish and classy!

bring it on

Call me crazy but I can’t wait for the real cool, crisp-ness of Fall and Winter to come this way here in the Central Valley. Yes, that means the fog and the wind and the rain (that we so desperately need). But I am ready. I have boots and turtleneck sweaters that I want/need to wear. So today I say bring it on.

In two or three months, I’m sure I’ll be saying something else. Then you may remind me of today’s post.

short cuts again

Grew my short ‘do from last year out and decided…Meh! I want to get out of the shower and shake my hair and go. I want to avoid the need for heat styling tools that just don’t go well with my hot flashes.  I want something a little less heavy on my head and around my face.  I want people to see my face…okay see my glasses THEN see my face.
:::me waving hello to those freaky weird people that search the interwebs for girls with thick glasses:::

Hello short and sassy again.

Of course now I can see clearly that I am in desperate need of an eyebrow wax. Of course that means that everyone else can see that too.

Meanwhile Holly is waiting word from the state cosmetology board for her date to take her boards and then to get her license so I imagine that might mean this could possibly be my last freebie. I’m going to enjoy it. Thanks Holly!

a love note for adjustable waist pants

I am the mother of extremely skinny children. The kind that gets the grandparents and older aunties worried over the fact that clearly these string-bean children are malnourished. Never mind the fact that there mother was once a bean pole herself with toothpick-wide arms and legs…really….I was too…once…a long time ago. Okay, fine, a very, very, very long time ago in a land called Oakdale, Pennsylvania. Blame it on the genetics, blame it on the breast-feeding and the fact that something had to be wrong with my breastmilk. Blame it on my good cooking or blame it on the fact that I don’t cook much and let my kids eat birthday cake on Christmas morning. Whatever the reason, my kids were/are skinny people which, it would seem, is unusual in these United States.

Not only am I the mother of skinny children but I am also the mother who can’t sew. No, I didn’t say I won’t sew…er, won’t try to sew…no, I said I can’t sew. My mother was a professional seamstress who actually designed wedding and prom gowns and one very special Christening gown and yet I can barely manage to hem up a pair of pants. Okay, I can’t hem up a pair of pants…not at all. In my fantasy world, I am so good at other things it really didn’t matter that I couldn’t sew. Bill certainly didn’t think this skill was necessary when he was looking for a girlfriend/wife. Home Ec was never my thing and Mom didn’t seem to that I needed to know how to hem up a skirt or take in a pair of pants. That was what she did and she could do it before one Virginia Slims cigarette dangling from her lip burned out down to the filter. Teaching me how just might take a pack, or two.

So as Holly,  Zoë, Abby and Jodie grew out of their little Carters it was clear that even the slim sized jeans and pants were just too baggy for them. Thank goodness leggings were all the rage in the late 80’s and 90’s but ignore the fact that spandex and lycra leggings on my girls remained just as baggy as the super slim-sized jeans. They were that underfed. I tried to take in the waists of their pants sewing them by hand and it showed. Thankfully puberty set in and although the girls remain rather slim, they have filled out enough that redneck, ball cap wearing men will ogle them in spite of my open glare stabbing them between their eyes.

But, oh happy day, children’s clothing designers woke up and realized that there are virtually no “regular” children out there, rather more chubby and rail thin ones. Parents are desperate to find pants that fit their children no matter their shape and size. Some parents, okay, this parent can’t sew. I love you children’s clothes designers who saw the need and created the adjustable waist pants. You guys are absolutely awesome! My son might have a size 3T waist but he gets to wear boys sized 5 slim Levis with the adjustable waistbands hitched up the very last button and look good….no thanks to his lame mama who still doesn’t know how to sew.

assessing the shredding

Five months ago I signed on to what has become a cult-like, interweb phenomena known as the Shredheads. As I have chronicled a number of times, I did it for numerous reasons, not including materiaal for blog posts and reasons to pose in tight fitting exercise clothes and swimsuits that I willingly post online. But why not, I ask? I am thrilled with the results. The obvious is the weight and inches lost, the increased energy and motivation, the improved mood and waning depression. But it also has resulted in others I’m acquainted with in real life and online also becoming shredheads and gargling their hearts. You can’t believe how it inspires me knowing that I am not the only one sweating like a pig as one of Jillian’s bitches. One is my girl and Central Valley neighbor, Jenn. Oh, and good Lord is she ever rocking the shred, dropping the weight and inches and just looking hot all around. MY hubs has joined me and, naturally, because he is a man, the weight and inches is just melting off of him.

As the shredding has continues, we shredhead under the direction and inspiration of our Shredheads Mistress, Kristen and our Shredheads Manservant, Bill, have mixed up and evolved our workouts with Yoga, more cardio, couch to 5K training, and for some of us, the begining of training for what we affectionately refer to as the Tiarathon, or my 48th birthday party…better known as Disneyworld’s Princess Half-Marathon. That’s right, I am running-walking-running and will be running a half-marathon wearing a tiara meant for a princess like me!

But that is not all in the shredheads movement. This month we are getting to know one another a little better pairing up into Shred Buddies teams based on common workouts. It’s all in an interest to keep the shredding going, to keep us motivated and get to know each other just a little bit better. I am pleased to introduce my Shred Buddy and fellow redhead, Sarah Lena. If youy are looking for a blogger whose writing is real and real funny, you gotta check this girl out. I know I’m enjoying digging through her archives. Yeah, Sarah, that’s me stirring up things over there.

One last and very recent benefit of this whole shredding thing of mine is I am finally motivated to clean out my closet…that mess jammed with clothes stuffed on hangers, piled high on shelves and in baskets on the floor. It was rumored to be a walk in closet nearly as big as one of the kids’ bedrooms but it has been hard to tell with all the crap I was compelled to hang on to. But shredding resulted in a lot of the clothes I wore all the time to, well, not fit. It also prompted me to take a good, hard look at how I dress and what style did I have…what indeed.

So this last week I began what ended up being a job that would take several days where I closely examined and tried on every blessed article of clothing stuffed into that closet of mine. It became a trek down memory lane of “I remember that dress!” and “Good God! Whatever possessed me to buy/wear that thing?”.  I had to be cruel sometimes forcing myself to toss hopelessly stretched, faded or beyond repair articles as well as take a hard line in not hanging on to the “fat” clothes. Trash bags were filled and boxes for charity were packed and labeled. The only things that remained were clothes that fit and fit well including three new dresses compliments of the Christmas gift card from Bill to New York and Company and a recent trip to Banana Republic. It looks so much emptier…at least my half of the closet.  The temptation, if I had the funds, would be to fill it up again but I am resisting with the help of a stifled cash flow. For now I am sticking to simple, classic with clean lines befitting the simple, classic and fit person I am and want to be.

she got it from her granny!

If you ever wondered where in the world could a baby so beautiful and perfect as Miss Hazel Faye could get white, trailer trash roots from all you have to do is look no further than her Gma. Usually I can disguise it fairly well but some days it is just impossible to hide.

With my bra strap hanging out from a “beater” undershirt the only thing refined and classy about this is the bra and the undershirt are both black! OMG, they match!!! I often joke about how I worked so hard to get out of the trailer park and how I was certain my kids would drag me kicking and screaming back into it but it would seem that in reality I never really left. It’s true! You can take the girl out of the trailer park but the trailer park never really leaves the girl…at least in my case.

Still I have to say that thanks to shredding and running with the shredhead cult and the nasty-I-wouldn’t-wish-it-on-anyone-EVER meningitis weight loss plan, I do rock the “beater”.

daily Hazel #154

To celebrate the first day of Spring, Hazel rocked a pretty new hat that her Gma bought her.

in between miserable

According to Forbes Magazine, Stockton is the second most miserable city to live in and Modesto ranks eighth. Now since I live a fifteen minute’s drive from Stockton to the north and Modesto to the south, that would mean we are sandwiched in between miserable! Thanks, Forbes! More dark and gloomy news is what we all need right now.

Would that be why I am clinically depressed?

I don’t think so.

I mean, really, would we be better off living back in the Bay Area? …Bill would likely still be unemployed for a little over a year now since his business is in the Bay Area. I would most likely still be getting cut from work since NICU patient census is significantly down in the Bay Area as well. We wouldn’t own a home because we could never afford a home in the Bay Area six years ago when we left so how could we possibly afford one there now? And it goes on and on…

But, thanks to Bobbi Brown and the Today Show there is good news today. There is a way to brighten up things. All I need is a little sparkle, shimmer and shine on my eyelids and my cheeks and a touch of pink on my lips. Instantly I will appear (and feel) brighter. How could I possibly feel like I am living in between miserable when I look like a twelve year old girl?

a new look

Time to change it up a little.

Holly suggested a new ‘do for me.

So, what do you think?

I’m thinking I need to clean my mirror.

and speaking of red…

More than anything I NEED these for my birthday next month. My darling husband says he doesn’t read my blog, but if he did he would see this and know that this is what I want/covet/desire for birthday #47.