What Not To Wear

Does it seem strange that my Time Out can leave me almost as tired as I was before the Time Out??  I must admit that there is a difference between exhaustion due to an overwhelming amount of responsibility at home and exhaustion because I stayed up past midnight every night with my friend, Julie.  

My trip to Tampa was a ton of fun.  Julie is a busy mom so I got to tag along as we ran errands, practiced and planned the Bridging ceremony for her Brownie troop, did homework with kids....you know the drill.  The Bridging thing was all new to me and I'm proud to say that little girls can be as hard to manage as little boys!  Whew!!  I got to just stand back and observe which was a nice change.  Except that I was in charge of the punch and snack table after the ceremony.......always an interesting job!  I would also like to mention that doing homework with kids that are not your own is incredibly less frustrating than working with your own kids.  A lot less eye rolling, heavy sighing, slumping in the chair......maybe I need to start a program where we rotate our kids around for homework help.  It would save us all a lot of grief!

On Thursday night, we went to a charity event benefiting United Way.  Clinton Kelly from What Not To Wear was going to be speaking.  Picking out an outfit for any event can be stressful. Picking out an outfit when the threat of being put into a room with 360 degree mirrors so you can see for yourself how awful it is, is even more stressful!  It was a great night and he was incredibly funny.  I was amazed that there were actually women who stood up during the question segment, and asked if he liked what they were trying to accomplish with their outfits.

Never in a million years could you convince me that standing there while 500 people PLUS Clinton Kelly analyze your outfit, would be a good idea.  One of the women got pulled on stage so we could all clearly see how bad the color choice of her blouse was for her skin and how much better her jacket would fit if altered.  Yikes!!

I did talk to Clinton after the event just so I could get his take on the incredible lack of options for women over 5'9".  He told me he didn't even know what to tell me and that the worst show they've ever done was with a woman that was 6 feet tall because they couldn't find anything to fit her.  There is nothing out there!!!  Lots online, very little actually in the stores.  Never mind that the petite girls get entire sections of stores........heck, they get ENTIRE stores dedicated to them.  It's wrong......I'm just saying!  We all have our challenges.......mine is the never ending search for pants with more than a 32" inseam.  

And yes, I do know about the Tall Girl Store.  Just wondering who came up with that name.....couldn't think of anything cuter like Reaching For The Stars Store or Better Weather Up Here Store??  We don't call the petite stores Short Girl Stores.......geesh!! 

I know my more vertically challenged friends complain about having to have things altered.  No sympathy here.....at least you can take extra fabric off the bottom.  My only option is to have a 2 inch strip of fabric sewn onto the bottom of my pants and I haven't done something like that since the 80's when I went to college and it was cute to have the same fabric of your top match the fabric on the bottom of your pants.....with a chunky wooden necklace of some kind and matching bow in your hair.  

Getting off of my soap box now and putting it away for another day!   I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Julie, Jane, and Me.  The "92" paddle was for the silent auction.  Let's just say

that my paddle never saw the light of day.  When $10 is your limit in a crowd like

that, it's just better to not even pull the thing out.  There was one sweet lady who

was the winning bid on a trip to the Isle of Capri for $12,000.....except she thought 

she was getting it for $1,200 until they went to collect her check.  Oops!!!

Me explaining to Clinton my concerns about discrimination

in the clothing department.