Tuesday blues...

Well that is just disappointing that my last two posts are not formatted the way they should be. I was email blogging and I didn't think that it would make a difference but I guess in the long run it did.

I just don't feel like blogging. I'm just stuck again and it is making it hard to do anything or want to do anything.

I love watching Extreme Couponing.

love ya!

Dwelling...

Last time I talked about not caring about Abercrombie & Fitch's desire to cater to the small and popular, today I found out those comments CEO Mike Jeffries made date back all the way to a 2006 interview according to this Shine article.

Give the man a break! I don't really remember any kind of fuss being made back then. That would be like pulling out the yearbook at your 20 year reunion to get mad about a snide comment someone wrote about you. Give it a rest people. We want to shame companies who cater to small people for not catering to larger sizes, yet we don't shame companies that specialize in large sizes and not small sizes? That would be like getting mad at a maternity store for not having regular clothes. It makes me sad to see that the world or really the US get so mad about this. 

I'm not even sure that I can say I'm glad to see that more people are accepting their bodies. Is this really about being fat or thin? Popular or unpopular? Or is this just people who are unhappy to be unhappy?

I don't think that he should have to apologize. You shouldn't have to apologize for having a target audience. That is just good business practice to have an audience and cater to them. Television networks do this and no one seems to complain about that. 

I'm sure for as long as there have been businesses there have been a group of people who felt like they were being left out. Stand out from the crowd be your own person. Stop dwelling on being different from the crowd. 

love ya!

Rainy day blahs...

I have a terrible case of the blahs coupled with 'I don't wanna' which makes it difficult to function at work. The only thing that is keeping me moving is Pandora. 

So this means I've been reading a lot of online 'news' articles because it seems that the tops stories this week are about Kardashians, Cleveland or Boston. The other thing that I've come across is the latest debacle over clothing sizes, this time at Abercrombie and Fitch and their refusal to make large clothing options for women because they cater to the popular kids. To counter what CEO Mike Jeffries had to say a petition has been started. I really want to gloss over the details because unless you are living under a rock you should have heard about this already. (36000+ hits on a Google news search).

I am not a small girl by any means and I have been painfully aware of this since I was in fifth grade and one of 4 people in my classroom that weighed over 100 pounds. Yes it was mortifying to be ten and not really be aware of size like that. I still can see my fifth grade yearbook picture clearly in my head without even knowing when the last time I saw it was. I carry a lot of weight in my face even now you can tell if I've been neglecting to hydrate by how puffy my cheeks are.  My hair is pulled back in a pony tail and the collar on my tshirt is very close fitting on my neck, the shirt itself was probably pushing the limits for size. As you look at the entire page of faces mine pops out immediately, maybe it is large or maybe they tightened in too much on my face but it looks terrible to me.

That really wasn't where I meant to take this post but we'll call that background for my feelings. Pretty much for a long time there have been things that I've know without a doubt that I can't wear or will not look good. Even at 14, 5'4" and 125 pounds I thought that I was huge. I was in a size eight jeans and hated everything about my body. I carry the majority of my weight between my belly button and my knees so buying jeans is a terrible experience. I will probably wear Old Navy jeans until I die because they fit. 

Personally I don't want buy clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch even if they came in my size. I'm okay with not being able to wear their clothes. There are a lot of places that I'm okay with the fact that I can't wear them. What I'm not okay with is going to plain jane stores like Wal-Mart or Target that are supposed to cater to everyone and not being able to find clothes. It is worse to go into one of these stores and see racks and racks or extra-small and small clothing and even more racks of those sizes in clearance. The even bigger kicker to me is when you ask why there is a disproportionate amount of small clothing they will tell you that there isn't the need for that many larger sizes. I really wanted to pull out the have you seen the people who shop here? Have you seen the website 'people of Wal-Mart? Have you looked at your fellow employees? Now I'm not calling anyone fat here but when a smaller person can shop anywhere why would they shop at Wal-Mart. 

From what I see at Target they have larger clothes more during the summer and between fall and spring semesters. Being in a college town I'm sure that has to do with the freshman 15 more than anything. I've been to other Targets and had no problem finding clothes that would fit me on the clearance rack. The thing I hate the most about Target clothes is when you find a style of shirt that you like and want to buy in multiple colors that is when I've had the most problems. My favorite basic white tee is from the clearance rack at Target where I bought four or five. I wish though that it didn't look so terrible when I wear a nude colored bra underneath it, you would think that I had a black bra on. I know better than that too. (Well now I do.)

I've had a long day and this is starting to ramble a long. I have to call it quits for today. 

I don't care if some clothing stores refuse to sell larger sizes, because usually their clothes run small anyway. They will find a way to alienate those who wear larger sizes by making their clothes smaller. The whole that a size eight is not always a size eight, some times it is a six or a ten or heaven forbid it could be a four, and you find yourself stuck in a dress in the dressing room crying and praying that you can unzip it on your own without destroying it. There will always be a way for manufacturers to get around what society wants. Bend the rules. Give people what they want but not what they ask for just to appease them. We're all just mindless sheep to these companies and they will bend to pressure but still do what they want.

love ya!

The joys of home...

I've been absent for the last few weeks because of well...buying a house. So it is still crazy in this house. It is nice to finally be able to truly nest. I mean I nested a little bit in the apartment but it just never felt right. It was hard to put things on the walls because I didn't want to fill nail holes. It would be really nice to get my eating schedule back on track because when we were moving it would be almost eight before I would eat just because we were trying to use all of the light that we could to get our stuff out of the apartment that didn't have any electricity, which meant that it didn't have air. Anyone who has been to Texas in late April knows that it is not okay to not have electricity especially when there is a storm line pushing through the area. That also made it difficult to move because we were moving in the backs of pickups and the last thing you want to deal with is a truck full of stuff when the sky opens up.

The first night that we moved the main goal was some clothes and the bed. And for awhile that was all I cared about, food, shower, bed. It was not well planned out because on the last trip to the apartment I was grabbing towels and soap and deodorant. In a mad dash because I was so sweaty the collar on my tshirt was starting to irritate me.

This past week has been a lot of fun. We had some plumbing problems that involved backing up of the toilet into the bathtub and the washer all over the floor. Luckily the nasty water was contained to the tub and the water out of the washer was clean.

The worst part of it was not having any food and not having time to go get any. We couldn't find the box with the food not that there was much of that to start with. Then when we did we were short of basics, milk, bread, eggs that kinda stuff. Tuesday after almost a week in the house living on sandwiches we finally made it to the store. Then we went Wednesday night because we had to take my mom who is recovering from back surgery. She hasn't really been to the store to buy for my two brothers who will be home for the summer in just a few days since January.

It is nice to just be able to sit down and take a deep breath and relax which we still haven't done. We got all the boxes off the front porch yesterday in part because there were 35-40 mile per hour gusts of winds yesterday and I was sick of going into the neighbor's yard to get the boxes. I left the packing peanuts all over the place. It is nice to have a blue trash can that I can put my bags in and once a week drag it to the end of the driveway and leave it for someone else. That was the worst part of the apartment having to walk all the way to the other end of the complex to take the trash. We never went that way which never really made it convenient to take it. ( I know excuses excuses)

I think that I'm going to go scramble up some eggs and have a delicious sandwich.

love ya!

30 before 30...Clara and Mr. Tiffany

I know that I should have been spending more of this week of vacation reading on my list but there have been more things that I've worked on. I am getting close to the end of another novel on my list and I have to check and see if I've written about another book that wasn't on the list but that I read nonetheless because I was taken by the cover. Yes I was that childish that I read the book because of the cover, but really can you help yourself?

source

I couldn't help but purchase it when I saw it sitting there on the shelf at Barnes&Noble. This book is a lovely story about the beautiful Tiffany lamps that many people have in their homes, it focuses on Clara and her creative drive in the studio of Mr. Tiffany. 

At the turn of the century there was fine line when it came to women and their place at home and at work. If you think the job market is tight now, imagine what is was like when there were few places women could work and even fewer that would hire married women. There are three relationships that are in this book, Clara and her girls, Clara and the residents of her boarding house, and then finally Clara and Mr. Tiffany.

Clara is the head of her department working with several younger women to cut and make the famous Tiffany stained glass windows. She is the mother figure in this relationship showing these girls what they need to do and how to do it. She talks them through relationship problems and fights almost tooth and nail at some points to keep her department growing and helping these girls. Over time some of the individual relationships are fleshed out more and you see that Clara wants to help change the working situations of women. She talks with the girls about what will happen if they get married, telling them that she cannot keep them in her employment if they are married.

Clara is a widow living in a boarding house in New York which was considered proper for the time. There are many colorful characters that help her move through a range of emotions that some times threaten to beat Clara down before her prime. They are her family and she loves them and I suggest keep a piece of papers with their names on it and some way for you to remember who they are, because these relationships are terribly complex. I take that back a little there are quite a few male characters and at times the pace of the novel makes it hard to keep up.

The final relationship is between Clara and Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany, her boss. He has a fiery temper and wild ideas, truly a man ahead of his time but passionate about beautiful things. This is the relationship that causes Clara the most heartbreak as she is given artistic freedom in her department and then shot down later because of the extravagance in her designs. They are the perfect work spouses for each other.

I really don't want to ruin the relationships and how they play out but they are beautiful in their own ways. This book is full of beauty that you have to imagine and heartbreak that everyone understands.

Please for the love of pretty book covers read this. I can only imagine how beautiful this movie would be if they ever made it into one.

love ya!

So many thoughts...

There are just so many different things going through my mind and I really haven't had a chance to get on here with having internet problems and packing up my apartment. Of course the only time that I think about what I would like to write is usually when it is too late to get on the internet or after I have drained the battery on my mifi. Right now I actually have no idea where my mifi is just that I have hardly any signal from it.

I guess that means that I really shouldn't be on here if I can't even remember from one night to the next what I want to write about. I do know that there will be posts in the coming months about getting into the house and making it a home, because no matter how hard you try an apartment is a house, a place to stay; an apartment is just not home no matter how you slice it. I have a few pictures that were part of the appraisal but until we sign the papers I'm not going to be put anything online.

I know that we will have to paint in some of the rooms but that isn't anything that will happen before we move in. I know that the 'bonus' room will have great potential. I'm thinking some kelly green paint on the top half of the wall to complement the brown paneling because if you pull down the paneling there will be demo but then much more than painting. A chair rail and then green on top because I think that kelly green and dark brown will look good together.

I will have a kitchen with cabinets and I will be able to change my mind in. Open the stove and fridge at the same time.

love ya!

Happy Easter!

Sorry that it has been so long since I've been on here. Working on a lot of different things like not going totally batshit crazy. We're in the middle of packing up our apartment and getting ready to move into our first house. I know that I should be far more excited about it but it kind of a pain in the but right now. Waiting on an appraisal and then sign the papers so that we can move in. Little bit more space and a backyard, that has really been the biggest thing to have our own backyard for just a pup to  stay in. When I have some pictures maybe I will post them.

By the way Happy Easter!

love ya!