I’ve been on twitter a good bit today, and I keep seeing mentions of the word “meme”. I think this term must be pretty specific to the fashion industry, simply because I have never heard of it. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I do read a lot of books and I know a lot of words-and I’d never heard of this one.
So I went to good old Wikipedia, and this is what I found out:
A meme (pron.: /ˈmiːm/; meem)[1] is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.

I think I would be right in saying that a meme might be a popular catch phrase, and/or a word that represents a popular cultural trend.
I think “I can hazs cheeseburger?” would be a meme. The one used in the fashion reference was, “It’s called fashion, look it up.” Others were: twitter account “Angiesrightleg” and a blog titled “your ll bean boyfriend”.I think where Suri spent the holidays might be a meme, and something about $100 twinkies might work too.:)

I’ve been living with the piles of jewelry, chewbeads, and chewelry on my dresser for months now. I do plan on getting a jewelry armoire, but I just haven’t decided to spend the money on it yet. and now, with Christmas around the corner, I have found a temporary solution.

First, I hung some plastic hooks in my closet. There I hang several strands of faux pearls, seashell necklaces, etc. I have those sorted into various colors, including my leather necklaces and my ribbon necklaces. I bought some pretty organizer boxes from A.C.Moore. I went there to get a painting framed and happened to see them. The ones I’m talking about are the decorative hat boxes and other shapes in that style. I’ll use those for the chewbeads and the other chewelry. Those are plastic and won’t tangle, so there is no danger of their being damaged by storing them in a box.

I do have a nice, small jewelry box which I use for my good jewelry. I keep my mother’s rings and other fine jewelry in that box. But because I do have a fair amount of costume jewelry and casual beads, etc., I do need a way to organize them. And that is where this project comes in!

I got this idea while I was shopping, a time of inspiration for me! I was picking up a painting at AC Moore, and next to the framing desk was a stack of frame trays. I’m not sure what to call them, they are the kind of trays that have a picture frame in the tray part, with handles on the sides.

As I was waiting for my turn to pick up my painting, I flipped through some 9×12 prints, and I saw some pretty prints of high fashion dresses, with “couture” printed across the bottom. They were pre-matted in a nice off-white color. I like the prints, but I knew they would not go with the plan I have for my room.

We are, hopefully, in the home we are going to stay in, for a good long time at least. So I am trying to showcase the art I love on my walls. It is an investment, but I am slowly purchasing artist copies of fine art pieces I love.

But I really liked those fashion prints too. When I noticed the frames, I thought of the perfect solution. I would buy the prints and the trays, but the prints into the trays, and keep those on top of my dresser to hold any loose jewelry. The trays would be a kind of catch-all, but they would also be very decorative.

The project was incredibly simple. The only tricky part was that the prints were approximately 1/2 in too big for the frames. So I had to use a box cutter and trim them. Here are the step-by-step pics:

The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.”—Yves Saint Laurent

I am pretty sure there are apps that give you ideas on how to put together outfits, but I haven’t been able to figure them out yet. It doesn’t help that I have a Galaxy Stellar phone. Apparently this type of phone is notorious for not having enough memory, even when it should have enough memory.
In the meantime, my family room has been overrun with fashion magazines for months now. Each one has countless post-it tabs marking every page I like, or loved, or needed to find and buy immediately. The problem is, these magazines keep piling up, and until now I had no idea what to do with them.
Unfortunately, my closet is also full of pieces I don’t know what to do with. I have built a pretty good wardrobe, but beyond the immediate outfit combinations I don’t know what to do with my clothes. I have no idea how to combine them to make new outfits or how to use them to build a personal style.
So I came up with this solution: I bought a 3-ring notebook, tab dividers, and several packs of page protectors. I put the pictures in the page protectors, and arranged them in individual categories, like designer pages, jackets, layering, florals, etc. Now, I can flip through the notebook and get ideas for new outfits. For instance, I noticed today that you actually can wear a delicate pink peplum blouse with grey slacks and a grey cardigan. It’s still in style, and I won’t look too much like an old lady, as long as I wear it with a pair of fabulous shoes!

Yesterday afternoon, online fashion magazine The Cut posted “The Apocalypse Shopping Spree”. Interestingly enough, I have not been able to get the slideshow to work. I have looked up a few of the products listed in the intro, just to find out why they made it into this article.
La Mer lotion is listed first, and here is why: “Pure diamond powder and polished sea quartz instantly lift away dull cells to reveal a fresh new surface.” I’d love to try it, but it’s $110.00 for 6.7 ounces. Maybe they’ll send me a sample?
Other items included men’s croc skin accessories, fur, and lingerie. I really don’t understand why anyone would want croc skin accessories. Sounds gross to me! When it comes to fur, I like faux fur but I am absolutely opposed to real fur. Lingerie, on the other hand, would be just fine with me. I can’t afford more lingerie, but again, I am open to gifts.
My question to The Cut is this: if we could buy all this stuff, would we have time to use it?
Seriously, I get that the whole thing is tongue in cheek. But to be honest, it makes me nervous. I love a good reason to shop, but I’ll be happy when Saturday comes around. Then I can focus on a real worry: how am I going to buy groceries in January?
By the way, I’d love some La Mer for Christmas!

Earlier this fall I made the huge desicion to get my hair cut. This is the most embarrassing beauty admission of my life. When I moved out of my mother’s house, I promised myself I would never get my hair cut again. I said that because I have naturally curly hair, but my mother hated it. She told me she always wanted a little girl with long straight hair. Imagine getting that message from your mother! So my decision to have long hair was my statement of independence. Years later, people started telling me they loved my hair, and I couldn’t believe it. Could it be that I did have pretty hair after all?
Over time I started thinking maybe I did. But one barrier still remained-my hair needed to be cut. I trimmed it myself a few times over the years, but I couldn’t trust anyone else to do it. I was afraid the person would cut off all my hair like they had when I was little. It was an irrational fear, but a real one just the same.
So getting my hair cut was a huge decision. I knew that to complete my fashionista look I had to get my hair cut. I wanted it trimmed, just cut enough to be healthy with no split ends.
So my son and I each got our hair cut by Mary at Lala’s salon in Colonial Beach. My son had chosen the Captain America look from the movie, and Mary did a fabulous job. He went first, and then it was my turn. I bit my tongue when she pointed out all my dead ends, and quietly panicked while she cut. But it turned out beautifully!
My hair is healthy now, with a simple, easy shape. I no longer have to struggle to style my hair! It falls into place and looks great!
So what does this mean for my personal journey? One childhood trauma exorcised! And I won’t count how many I have to go!!!!!

watching “my shopping addiction” on Oxygen. I don’t have the massive amount of debt that these women have, but that’s just because I am too poor to get credit cards with limits that high. But I do get the whole compulsive shopping complex. Shopping does make me feel better. Like many of these women, I learned my shopping habit from my mother. She would often go shopping the day she got paid and buy lots of pretty things she couldn’t afford. I remember one Christmas we had no heat. My mother had bought presents but she hadn’t bought oil for the furnace. I remember being mad about it, and thinking that she should have had more sense than that. I thought she should have taken better care of us. But I’m a mom now and I’ve done the same type of things. And I hate myself for doing it. What does that have to do with shopping? That reckless spending is a telltale sign of addiction.
My favorite thing about shopping is just that: spending wantonly, with no thought of expense. I don’t want to have to think about it. I want to lose touch with reality. The dumb thing is that my spending does not make me prettier, or more stylish. In the end, smart, stylish people would not put themselves in this position. My feverish struggle to buy enough new clothes to look like someone stylish and smart is pointless. The person I wish I could be would not do the things I do.
Right now, my Christmas shopping has brought me to a place where I can’t go shopping for a week. And that bothers me! Go a week without shopping? What’s the big deal? We have everything we need! Plenty of healthy food, and also plenty of snacks and soda. We have all the paper products we need. Honestly I do not need to even go to a store for at least a week.
So my question is, why am I so sad? Why does shopping matter so much?
It shouldn’t. But it does, and I need to change it.