What I Wore to Play the Drums In

I play the drums at my church and when I do I find it best to wear pants or shorts. I've done a really long skirt when I played the D'Jembe once. Anyway, I don't want it to hinder me from being Jazzy and expressive. So, this week I wore my favorite jeans. Lauren Ralph Lauren Straight Leg. I also wore this Gap shirt I found at the Cookie Jar Resale shop for $1 and the navy blue tie someone gave me as a hand- me- down. The shoes I bought with a Christmas gift card at DSW and they are such cute, brown delightfulness!

What I Wore to Cook Dinner In

Yes, I am digging the Supergirl colors and the red lipstick. Hey, I am a Super Woman, A Super Mom, and a Super Wife! 

I am hoping for colder weather so I wore a sweater, but the reality was that it wasn't that cold so I wore shorts to counteract (and it looked cute.)

 I was loving this outfit enough to cook dinner in it.

I love my red shorts which I actually purchased at Forever 21 for about $15. I don't like to admit I shop there sometimes because I am 31 years old, but there can be good finds! The blue sweater you have seen already and I have had it for probably 5 or 6 years. 

 Getting some writing in

 Waiting for the fish to bake

Checking it out!

What I Wore for Halloween

I love wearing costumes and costume parties usually only come around once a year. I was so indecisive this year (mostly because I couldn't find the materials needed for the Berenstain Bears or the Three Amigos) that I didn't know what I was going to end up being. The idea mostly stemmed from racking my brain as to what I already owned. I owned the blue sweater and the red skirt and the boots. I had some red linen on hand to make a cape, I could print out the Supergirl logo, and I also had some yellow material that I hot glued onto an existing belt. I volumized my hair, put on some red lipstick and was ready to fly.

What I Wore to the Theater

Last week I went to see the production of To Kill a Mockingbird at Baytown Little Theater. The dress is from Dilliard's. The cropped jacket I bought long again for standard black and white hairdresser dress code. My hair I wanted to be soft and vintage vibe-ish. A Secretary Bow is definitely one of my newest favorite looks.

What I Wore: 1980's Redone

 I have a lot fun with outfits. I don't know that I have ever been considered fashionable. In fact, I've wore some weird things, especially as a teenager, but I owned my looks! I've always been a fan of thrift stores even when it was not by choice (as a kid) that I shopped there. This particular look is a dress I found at Goodwill for $8. It is from the 1980's so I counteracted it with sleek hair. I put an elastic belt mid-waist and completed it with black heels (Nine West found at The Cookie Jar Resale for $6). It has pockets which is a total score! 

What I Wore to Display An Art Piece

I think I am going to start a new section called What I Wore to this blog. I hope to make it regular but it might be a bit sporadic after all. I find fashion fun. By no means do I know a lot about it, but I like it. I think it should reflect your personality, be comfortable, appropriate, and presentable (in good condition). In fact, that reminds me of a post I wrote  for my Loveshine365 blog (devoted to my etsy.com store).

I made this skirt from some fabric that I could not pass up at Hancock Fabrics and paired it with white spaghetti strap, red cardigan (thrift store $5) and some dandy red heels.

I wore it last week to display an art piece that I created for a local church here in Baytown, St. Mark's Methodist. 

Fashism

Before you comment on my misspelling of the political ideology "Fascism" let me assure you that this blog post is not dedicated to discussing that radical form of government. Instead, this post is about a new website I found called Fashism.com Interesting choice of a name, though, if you do consider the dictates and power of fashion and compare it to the ideas of Fascism.

Anyway! This site is interesting; it taps into the whole narcissistic side of people- which is a side I think we all have. The original intention of the site was also a good one but I am not sure, after my experience, that it reaches its goal. Which as stated on Fashism.com is "...not to punish you for dressing poorly, but to make you dress better." The problem is that you have to have a bunch of people who have good taste and who mean well for it to really work. Let me tell you about the site, the creator's intention, and then I will tell you about my experience with the site.

Fashism is a site where you can go to upload pictures of different outfits that you are thinking of wearing and ask other people's opinion about it. You post the picture and then title it with a question. For example: "What necklace should I wear with this?" or "Does this outfit look good for a concert?" or "Should I buy this dress?" You can even post two or three looks side by side and ask people to rate which one looks better. Kind of makes you feel like a celebrity, "Who wore it better?" After you have uploaded your picture and your question, other people who have a Fashism.com account can look at your photo, click on "Love it" or "Hate it" and then make a comment. The comments are supposed to be helpful. For example "I would wear a white belt with that instead of a brown one" or "Maybe tuck the shirt in" or "Lose the jacket and it would look much better." Next to the photo you have uploaded there is a black circle that shows the percentage of people who "loved it" and below the photo are all the comments or suggestions.

The creator of the site is Brooke Moreland, who said she had the idea for it "after walking out of the dressing room looking for her husband’s opinion and found an empty couch." She figured there must be some way to use the internet to solve this problem. The site even has guidelines for users. "Comment Guidelines: Please only constructive comments. You don’t have to like everything, but the goal here is to help people look their very best, not to make fun of poor sartorial choices. Again, no hateful or obscene speech will be tolerated. We reserve the right to revoke your site privileges if you engage in such behavior."


I have to say that when I found out about the site and started looking through it, I found it addictive. I skimmed the different looks that had been posted recently (the twelve most recent uploads are displayed at the top of the page) and glanced at some of the comments that were left. I decided that I would sign up for an account and have some fun with it. I found out as soon as I uploaded my first look how addictive this could be. I had to stop myself from constantly refreshing to see what my new rating was. I was also sort of testing out the site. The first picture I posted was a cute outfit (and I know it is) except that the mittens I was wearing were not. They weren't bad, but they weren't fashionable. I asked "Different mittens next year?" People were fairly helpful, except the first guy who said "You'll have to cause those need to be burned! Not a good look." He did not leave any sort of edifying comment. Everyone else suggested what I could do instead. That was the main reason I posted what I did because I wanted to check out how people responded.


Next I uploaded a picture of my face and asked them "What do you think of the makeup and hair?" I purposely picked a picture that I know has a good look. Before I relied on this site too heavily for fashion advice, I needed to finish this experiment. This picture had only a 47 percent rating of people loving it. However, the comments were disparate with the rating. My 47 percent rating had comments like this: "I think your make-up and hair are stunning! Your look has a very fresh, vintage feel to it. Make-up close to your natural skin tone is the way to go:D" and "I find it classic and beautiful. Perfect example of makeup that enhances beauty rather than beautiful makeup." and "Very cute! You look fresh and natural." The only suggestion was that I should perhaps put on a little more mascara. I found it odd that the rating and comments were so disparate. If they hated it so much, why didn't anyone help me out? That is what the site is supposed to be for.

In the end, for me, I don’t think it will help much when it comes to picking out my outfits, but I do find it a rather fascinating social experiment. For example, I have noticed that “Love it” percentages are higher when the person posts a picture of a model wearing an outfit rather than themselves. Of course, there could be variables. Is the model just inevitably going to make the outfit look better? Is it because someone in the fashion industry dressed the model up? Or is it just because we gravitate to the beauty of the person and picture and it skews the view of the outfit? Does it make us less truthful or more truthful? Do pictures of an ugly person get rated better than pictures of a pretty person? We are supposed to be looking at the clothes and how they suit that person. I think I will try a few more experiments and one of them will be to actually ask about an outfit I am trying to decide on. Maybe that will change my view. But I wonder how many people are actually trying to make a fashion choice and how many want affirmation that they are, indeed, a pretty person? Facebook is mainly your friends, Hot or Not is for people desperate for dates anyway (almost everyone is at least a “9”), maybe Fashism is confirmation that you are pretty or ugly or plain. Or maybe people just want fashion advice.


NOTE: One thing I must add, though, they do have a blog where special fashion experts will examine looks you post and comment on them via a live webcast. That's pretty cool and they supply comments that really help out. Haven't done it yet myself, but I intend to.

Yo mama

Yo mama so fat she goes to a restaurant, looks at the menu and says "okay!"

I think people have put "yo daddy" jokes out there, but I have never heard a single one used. I'd like to say that they use "yo mama" because it gets people riled up because they honor their momma but I don't think so.  Usually, "yo mama" jokes are for fun and all parties laugh-it's a joke.

I don't like to blow innocent things out of proportion, yet I think that 'yo mama' jokes are a part of and stem from disrespect in general of women. I have a big problem with the fact that most 'yo mama' jokes begin with "yo mama is so fat..." because women have been socialized to think that if they cannot have attributes that make them 'like a man' and able to survive in that world then the only option they have left or their only asset is their body. Therefore, their body is where they put all of their effort and the assessment others make of their body is where they receive their worth.

This week at camp, we had quite a few twelve and thirteen year old girls and at least a handful were overly concerned with their body and appearance. I began to cringe at every 'yo mama' joke and heard a lot of stuff that I hope I would have noticed whether they were there or not. These girls made comments about their weight and getting too fat. Most did not want to be seen without foundation on. A girl made comments like "when my mom was my age she was skinny like me and then she got fat." It sounds like this girl was a parrot of her mom and the phrase had been said more than once. The same mom reprimanded her daughter when she saw her eat two sno cones and cotton candy at camp. She asked her "do you KNOW how many CALORIES you just ate?" One girl had purposely not brought her swimsuit and only one pair of shorts. I was so happy and proud of her when she started wearing her shorts and even when she wore her jeans she rolled them up. I told her that God thought she was absolutely beautiful and that the staff at camp did too. I hope one day she notices the absolutely stunning smile she has. The one I started to see more of as camp progressed.

In Timothy there is a passage that tells women not to be overly concerned with braiding their hair or what they wear and I don't think it is necessarily because women are overly vain but rather because doing so will take your focus off of God and also because God knows that we need to know that there is more to us than just our appearance no matter what the world throws at us or what men say without thought (and with plenty of thought as well).

I hate when a woman is broken down by her looks-piece by piece. I hate that when a women gets up to speak she is looked at first and then, perhaps, listened to. Most likely, the crowd that heard her will talk as much about the way she looks as the way she speaks. Not so with a male speaker. The same with a female athlete, her physical ability is not so interesting as her physical appearance. If she is slim then you would think that is enough, however, she could be "too muscular." If she isn't slim, and didn't perform well, it's probably because she's "a cow." I've heard it, I've heard it from guys I know really well too. It is so prevalent and so accepted. If you have a problem with it then you are too sensitive and you are laughed off. If you are a guy and don't participate, you are looked at sideways-that is, if you are already cool. If you aren't cool and don't participate, you are a nerd or effeminate. At the least you are just left out which nobody in their right mind wants.

I even remember some girls in my youth group asking some of the guys what their favorite part of a girls body was. I had never ever thought that way and I felt like a whole chicken prepared, cut up, and ready to be barbecued. This one liked legs the best, breast was the best meat, thighs were his taste. I had never noticed each part of my body so acutely before then.

I'm sorry but I don't believe that 'men are just made that way.' I think that excuse is meted out too often, from mens mouths, from the pulpit and, often, with a sigh or laugh, from women's mouths. I believe that we were all born with a sin nature and that people may tend toward certain sins than others (because of genetics, gender, nuture, or decisions). But I believe there is not excuse for men to act this way, for women to act this way, or for daughters and sons to be raised where this is acceptable.

Disguise

The day before Halloween I am pondering Halloween. More accurately I am thinking about costumes. My family did not celebrate Halloween and our church had no alternative to Halloween. I am not sure why. But I miss that I missed out on the chance to plan out a costume every year and show my creation off to a bunch of people. It sounds fun. I am still uncomfortable with celebrating Halloween, but I would love to go a costume party. I think you are never too grown up for one.
Costumes and grown-ups are funny. When we are children we are so blunt and confident and love dressing in costumes for parties, Halloween, playtime...bedtime. The older we get the more we walk on eggshells and the less confident we become. We think dressing in costumes is for children and silly. But grown-ups change disguises many times every day. It is not just different responsibilities we take on, it is a whole new persona we have created for that "role." We are "Mom," "Socialite," "Wife," "Boss," and "Good Friend." It is tiring.
Another disguise applicable to women only is a disguise called "makeup." They like to wear this disguise everyday and not leave the house without it. I do not mind this disguise if it is because it is a fun disguise, but when it is worn every day it is like the child who never wants to take his Superman PJ's off. Better it is like a pacifier that a child sucks. It is security because the woman believes that there is something in her face that she has to "make up" for. When men wear it every day because they feel they have to I may consider it.