Clinton and Stacie - What Not to Wear, GoodWill Style!

I don't know about you but I love to watch TLC's What Not to Wear hosted by Clinton Kelly and Stacy London.

The show airs on Tuesday nights at 9pm. I've watched it probably since the very beginning. The show has not changed much in the many years they have been on air.

A loved one or close friends nominates someone they think needs a little fashion makeover. Clinton and Stacy's TV crew take secret footage for a while before they accost the poor victim, usually in some very public place surrounded by strangers and friends alike and then proceed to tell the poor victim that not only do they not have any fashion sense, but that everyone but they know it and that they have secret video footage proving it.

Now you would think the poor victim would cry, or run away, or punch Clinton or Stacy in the nose...but they don't. You know why? Because the poor victim is offered a credit card with $5,000 and a trip to New York City to get a makeover and whole new wardrobe, courtesy of TLC!!! Now would you punch Clinton or Stacy if they offered you that? Heck no! You would take them up on their offer in a heartbeat.

Oh....but there is a catch. You have to bring your whole wardrobe to New York with you and what Clinton and Stacy says goes...GOES! Into a big trash can. (It's actually donated to charity.) And...the victim also has to choose 3 of their favorite outfits and enter the 360 mirror. The mirror that shows everything...GOOD or BAD in 360!You know...like those 3-way mirrors in women's fitting rooms but better! Some of those poor woman are shocked when they see what they look like from behind. And while you're in the dreaded 360 you also have to put up with Clinton and Stacy critique of your outfit. Ouch! Sometimes even I cringe.

Allow me to get off subject here for a moment for an observation/pet peeve. Do you know that you have hair on the back of your head? You do? Ok...I do too. So when I do my hair in the morning I make sure to curl, comb, straighten, hairspray the back (depending on the look I'm going for that day). But...tell me this. Have you ever come across someone that looks pretty decent from the front and then they pass you or they turn around and the back of their head looks like it hasn't seen a brush EVER? And it's not one of those messy looks popular now, it's just that they didn't even bother with the back. Geesh...c'mon people!

Ok...whew! I got that out of my system. Anyway, I was talking about What Not to Wear and what the show is about and how much I love it. For those of you who have never seen an episode here's a brief clip of one of their most recent shows. This woman drove me crazy! (What's up with her mouth?)



So now that you know a bit about the show, let me get to the point of this post! My point it that it's easy to come up with an awesome wardrobe when you have $5,000 and a map of all the trendiest stores in New York City and two fashion stylists like Stacy and Clinton. But how about Stacy and Clinton doing a show where they show us regular folk how to dress using clothing from the places we shop, like Wal-mart? Target? TJ Maxx? Ross? Sears? JC Penneys? Or Goodwill *gasp*! I know. Can you imagine how far $5,000 would go in a Goodwill Store? You could almost buy the store!

I would volunteer for that show. I bet Stacy and Clinton couldn't outfit me in two days at a Goodwill! But it would be fun to try.

Oh...by the way. I once gave myself an imaginary $5,000 credit card and proceeded to spend it online pretending I was on What Not to Wear and it's HARD. It's hard to spend $5,000...try it and see.

Store-bought Dresses of my Youth or (What a Selfish Child Was I?)

I was reading a super funny blog today that I’ve been reading for a couple of days now. See I’m anal and when I read one I like I have to go way back to the very first posting they wrote to find out why they started blogging and then continue on to the present in an attempt to get to know them better before I just start up reading in the very middle of their lives. I’m kind of just as anal about movies because I can’t just start watching one in the middle and I can’t miss any words, so if I can’t rewind them to hear every single word then I just won’t watch it.

Anyway, more about my OCD later, for right now I was reading this. The writer, Tammy writes, “When I was a little girl, I remember my mom going to great pains to make birthday cakes for my sister and me. By most reasonable standards, they were whimsical and delicious. Birthdays were one of the only times I was allowed to have sugar, so I should have been grateful. Instead, I was pissed. The cake didn’t look at all like the ones at the grocery store, or the ones at every other birthday party I attended. I felt cheated.”

It brought back memories of my childhood and the dresses that my mom would sew with so much love and detail for me and my sister. Sometimes she would sew the same exact dress for herself too and we would all go to church matching. It seems so sweet and loving and mommyish to me now. But back then I was pissed! I didn’t want home made dresses; I wanted the store-bought dresses my cousin Elpedia wore. I felt cheated!

Elpedia was blessed (I thought) with a mom who bought her beautiful, girlish, pink, chiffon and satin dresses with ribbons and lace, while I wore stupid cotton frocks that tied in the back and matched my little sister. I wanted “vestidos de la tienda”.

How selfish and childish were we when we were children, or was it just me that was selfish? I guess that’s why they called us children isn’t it? Now I see that my dresses were made by my mom’s loving hands, created in her head and heart by her love for us. No store bought dress could ever compete with that.

My daughter April was fortunate to have received many of these "labors of love" from my mom. I have pictures and pictures of her in dresses made by my mom, but what I don't have is a stinking scanner! I did take the first picture below by taking a picture with my camera of a picture hanging on my wall. April is the oldest grandchild (she's 27 now) and she's wearing a red velvet Christmas dress made for her by her Nana. April was probably about 2 in this picture.

The next picture is of the youngest and probably last grandchild my mom will ever have, Melissa. Melissa is also blessed to have received home-made, love-made dresses from Nana such as the Dora the Explorer sundress she's wearing that her daddy is trying to fluff up for the picture. My mom was not only talented but she's in the swing of things and knows who Dora the Explorer is, plus she thinks Melissa looks like Dora. Oh...and the chili pepper curtains you see to the right in Melissa's pictures were also made by my mom, because you just can't find chili pepper curtains and she's the Queen of the Chili Colorado!

And the girls in the family weren't the only ones to benefit from my mom's love and talent for sewing. In the next picture is my son Jim, her oldest grandson who is now 23. She sewed this Babe Ruth costume for him for a play at school where he had to be, what else? Babe Ruth. He still remembers this costume and I'm sure I have it tucked away somewhere in a box, as I do many other things, but that's a whole different OCD/packrat story for later.

Tee Shirts I Like

I saw a tee shirt the other day while watching an episode of House and I haven't been able to find the one he had which was just a picture of the country of Africa with a peace sign on the top of the country. While looking for it though, I found these that I thought were pretty funny, click on them to see them larger.


This one reminds me of my youth, remember the Coke song? I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a coke and keep it company.

Ahhhh, the good ol days. But this one made me laugh because it would be nice to teach the world to think. I know many a time while driving I get cut off by some idiot and I say to myself, "What were you thinking?"











This one I would wear, because I'm such a rebel! Yeah right! It's just cute because it's so true.
















I like this one because all the grand kids call my mom Nana, and she's just as good for all of us as Milk is.

As long as we "got Nana" all is good in our World.

And this one doesn't need any explanation, I grew two people. Ironman and Spiderman, I'd like to see you try that one!

















This is a good one considering the current state of affairs with gas prices. I can't believe here in Kern County in 2008 we're paying $4.45 for a gallon of GAS...who would of thought that?

When I started driving back in 1975 gas was 96 cents a gallon! I swear!














And this one is just a little bit cruder, but same message about highway robbery!
















This is so me! I'm the Queen of Sarcasm. I don't
mean to be, but I'm so good at it!















I love this one, because I love shoes. I used to have a gazillion shoes and I was always buying more, but now that I live in poverty as a home owner...alas, I don't buy new shoes anymore.

But don't shoes make us feel great? I mean you can try on blouses, jeans and pants and feel like a big stuffed pig depending on the style, but shoes always make you feel skinny!










Hahaha, haven't we all experienced this one? I know I have at my last job. It felt, no, no...it was HELL!















And I just don't get tee shirts like these. I think they're very derogatory towards women, just like that show Bridezilla was. It's the world trying to have us believe that women don't really care who they marry, the point of the game is to get someone to marry you. I don't know if I like this one, but it is cute and that was the point of this post, not to be politically correct, just cute.












One of Lisa's favorite sayings.


















Do you remember these guys? Yep, the Archies! That's Veronica, Archie and Betty. I loved these comic books. They were the greatest. They were he closest thing we had back then to Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears and some of these other celebrities.

I always wanted to be Veronica, she always dressed so well and had such shiny, straight hair.










This was too funny, it reminds me of a tee shirt Isaac wears that says something about the voices in his head, I can't remember the exact saying, something like I do what the voices in my head tell me.















I've always said this saying because I love books. In one episode of my favorite show, Two and a Half Men, Alan has this breakdown in a bookstore and he freaks out. He starts to just grab books and talk about the authors and how he's going to read this one and that one, and on and on.

When I retire, all I want to do is spend my days reading.







Ok, these next few tee shirts, I'm not going to do a play by play on. All I'll say is that this year I'm turning 50. Mentally I didn't age gracefully. I'm just not where I thought I would be at age 50, but as the tee shirt above says...it is what it is...so cry and you cry alone, laugh and the world laughs with you, especially if they're all laughing at you :-)
Enjoy!