Saturday, August 31, 2019

Jelly Jam Glam: Fancy Foot Quirk

Grapes and watermelon: Macy's; Snow cone, rainbow, and peach: Zulily

Flip flop goes my heart whenever I see a choice pair of sandals.  So, it was somersault city when I caught sight of Katy Perry's new geli (not jelly; it says so on the box) collection.  I bought a bunch and have been wearing them all summer.  Not only do they go with everything, they're super comfy, and I got them cheap.  What more could a woman want?  You may recall my post about the yellow ones on the Fourth of July.  They were my first pair and are still my favorite.  Nevertheless, I couldn't resist featuring all five pairs in their almost all edible (unless you include the rainbow on account of the Skittles slogan) glory.  The fruity ones are even scented!  When the husband was carting them in after our vacation, he said they smelled like fruit punch.  What a sweet way to mask summer swamp foot.  Good job, Katy!

This post wouldn't be complete without some shots of one of the boxes.  How cool is this design?  It's so '80s-'90s modern arty.  Not unlike the one on the Kohl's credit card.  (Although, ironically, you can't buy these there. :) 


Add that iconic cyclops eye and you've got a real closet cutie.


So here's to fresh steps and fresh footwear.

Scratch (ing post) that first part; no need to plug kitty litter.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Car Stars and Raised Bars: Let's Hear it for Team Tangerine


I have two posts with "orange you glad" in the title.  Which, in my opinion, is two too many.  Today I'm making up for it by subbing in tangerines.  Plus a whole orchard -- or perhaps I should say body shop -- full of color in this Gear Cred charm bracelet and earrings.  


Gear Cred Earrings

Granted, these charmers aren't the kind of thing that you'd normally see on a lady mechanic -- at least not while she's working.  She wouldn't want to get them wrapped around the axle or lose them under the hood or whatever.  But what she wears when hitting the town is fair game . . . not to mention her business.  

Just like whom Charlize Theron as Charlotte Field dates is her business.

See what I did there?

I'd so wanted to see Long Shot in the theater.  Theron as super serious Secretary of State and Seth Rogen as her goofy speech writer presented a premise ripe for ridiculousness and hilarious hijinks.    But I guess most people didn't agree, because Long Shot was booted off the marquee within two weeks.  No matter.  It was just the thing to tune into On Demand for some late night crafting.  Now, it wasn't as funny as I'd anticipated -- but it was more romantic than I'd hoped to expect.  You see, Charlotte's always on team underdog, both when lobbying to save the environment and -- yes friends, this is where is gets sappy -- for the happiness of her heart.  And Rogen's Fred, a neon windbreaker-wearing, freshly unemployed journalist who speaks before he thinks, is about as downtrodden as they come.  Still, he has a superpower: getting Charlotte to reconnect with that idealistic sixteen-year-old he once knew.  Which is no small task considering that she's a presidential hopeful whose every word and eye twitch are dissected.  

Do these star-crossed lovers face challenges?  For sure.  Does Charlotte's right-hand woman hate Fred?  Like Guy Fieri hates low cal dressing.  Is it weird that Charlotte used to babysit Fred?  As weird as Guy Fieri eating low cal dressing.  (Fieri, by the way, makes a quasi-cameo as a dating don't.)  Do Charlotte and Fred find a way around it all and steal each other's hearts as well as those of the American people?

I think you know the answer to that one.  

That said, here's to strong women.  The kind who fix cars and run countries and fight for love found in unlikely places.  

And who buy orange juice instead of squeezing it.

Although for the record, if given the choice between rebuilding a carburetor, climbing Capitol Hill, or eking out some OJ, I'd reach for the juicer.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Ceramics Class Pass: Steer into the Grid



Top: Pink Republic, Kohl's
Dress: Xhilaration, Target
Shoes: Shoe Carnival
Bag: T-Shirt & Jeans, Kohl's
Bag charms: Staples
Sunglasses: JCPenney
Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon

So, first things first about this Bull as a China Shop Necklace. 1) It's a steer, not a bull (I can tell because a bull would never consent to become an accessory), and 2) one floral pattern does not a china shop make.  In other words, this entire pun is built on a lie.  Still, there's a message in it.  As in, don't ever let anyone tell you that all good crafts don't start with castration.

I was never a big fan of ceramics class.  For one thing, I didn't like the clay.  I hated working with the cold, wet sludge, coaxing it into coils that looked like dead snakes or a gargoyle's innards just to make some boring tchkoke.  But I like the look of finished ceramics, especially those wrought by a hand much more skilled than mine.  Maybe that's why I was drawn to this steer head.  Sure, it's not exactly ceramic, but some kind of synthetic enamel fused in a factory.  Yet it still has a homespun charm that's just glam enough to be interesting.  I guess that's why I made it the star of this here rhinestone necklace -- then posted it on the blog.  Which is as sure an act of, ahem, steering into the skid that the hook-me-to-the-grid-forever Internet has to offer.  And that's no bull.

I knew I could ram a real pun in there.     

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Outer Banks Thanks: Sparky Spark and the Funny Bunch


The husband and I don't take many vacations.  Partly because most of our disposable income goes toward ice cream and stickers.  Partly because it's a hassle.  Whoever said, "You know what would be relaxing?  Packing up all your stuff, driving to another state, and then unpacking it and setting it up again in a tiny room with a bed that may or may not make it impossible for you to move your neck the next morning," clearly did not think things through.  Add the beach element and you've got a whole new mess of stress in relaxation's clothing.

"Hang on there, Tote Trove Lady," you may be thinking.  "Are you saying that you don't like the beach?"  Not exactly.  Sure, it's lovely and tranquil and sometimes enchanted.  But still, it requires vigilance.  You know those pictures of people napping on the surf that are supposed to be restful?  When I see them, all I can think is, OMG, wake up, the sun is roasting your flesh like a rotisserie chicken!  Look alive and reapply your SPF 80!  This is also, by the way, how I feel about those pictures of babies all curled up with dogs.  Not that the babies need sunscreen.  But that their mamas better scoop them up before they become Lassie's dinner.  Never underestimate the power of vigilance.  Or vigilantes. 

But I digress.  

Despite my misgivings, when my parents invited the husband and me to join them and my sister, brother-in-law, and adorable two-year-old nephew (because I'm one of those aunties who thinks he hung the moon) in the Outer Banks for a week, we packed our arsenal of UV protection.  The husband had been there once to go fishing and warned me, "It's different, not like our beaches."  On our first day there, I knew he was right.  The coast was covered with coarse, orange sand, whereas Jersey sand is sugary fine.  Also, the air didn't smell like salt, and there wasn't a seagull in sight.  Yet even more of a culture shock was that the shops -- because yes, the appeal of any place to me and mine ultimately comes down to the availability of retail outlets -- were few and far between.  There were no neon-lit boardwalks or quaint downtown streets like at home, and you had to drive to get anywhere.  Still, we were excited.  We had the sun and each other.  And all the shrimp we could eat.

And I, of course, had my outfits.

Remember when your grandparents would make you look at their vacation slides on a projector?  Well, the rest of this is like that minus the popcorn.  Unless you want to make it yourself; far be it from me to get between you and your Orville Redenbacher.  Or, for that matter, you and your Orville Wright.


Kitty Hawk may be the birthplace of aviation, but New Bern is the birthplace of Allie and Noah.  No, I didn't go to New Bern, North Carolina, the setting of The Notebook and many other beloved Nicholas Sparks novels.  But I did go to Kill Devil Hills, which just happened to have a street named New Bern.


What's more, on the way to the Hatteras lighthouse, the husband stopped by this structure.  If it looks familiar, then that's because it's the house from the movie version of Nights in Rodanthe.  If it doesn't look familiar, then that's because it's been cleaned up and moved from its original, super-remote location.  Talk about a labor of love.  Who says that romance is dead?  


Certainly not me and my hat.  



Speaking of hats . . . this is the Hatteras lighthouse.  The guide made it sound like it would be impossible to climb, and for a millisecond I worried that my exercise-averse self might have a heart attack if I tried.  But then I remembered that the guide was just a public servant on a power trip and that he had to make it sound scary as a disclaimer in case of lawsuits.  So up I went, and it was fine.  A couple of other people freaked out once we got inside, though.  I think they were afraid of heights.


The husband suggested that one day we get up to see the sun rise.  Now, like Mindy Kaling (as she says in one of her books), I was pretty sure that I could live my entire life without ever seeing such a phenomenon.  I worship sleep; on weekends, I don't stir until noon.  Still . . . I was curious.  And I figured it was the least I could do for the husband after making him take all these pictures.  So I set an alarm, then set out for the docks.  And I have to admit that the sun bursting through the darkness was nothing short of amazing, all orange and purple and like a Disney cartoon, only better (I was wearing a Little Mermaid tee at the time).  And it was all the more awesome because I got to go back to bed once it was over.


 A lot of the shops and restaurants in the Outer Banks have horse sculptures out front.  This picture was taken outside an art gallery.


When we went inside, the woman behind the counter saw my shirt and exclaimed, "Who doesn't love the Jetsons?"  I guess I wasn't responsive enough because she went on to say, "If you come to North Carolina, you have to talk to people."  I nodded and said that the husband had shown me a YouTube video about introverting in the South.  There was some poor woman trying to read on a park bench, and total strangers kept plunking themselves down next to her to talk about the weather.  I'm always that woman, even on my own turf in New Jersey.  But I didn't say this to the gallery lady.  When she asked where we were from, the husband gave his stock reply: outside Atlantic City.  This inspired her to launch into a story about how she once helped her daughter move to New York and how she could never live there.  You heard it here first; in the South, New Jerseyans = New Yorkers.  Even Southern New Jerseyans.  (Somehow, I don't think New Yorkers would agree.)  Not that it's news that people in different parts of the country have ideas about each other.  Myself included.  For all I know, the gallery lady's loquaciousness might have not been a southern thing; she might have been just as chatty had she hailed from Wisconsin.  But in the end it didn't matter.  Because either way she was nice and, like the rest of us, just doing her best.  That said, I ended up buying this framed fabric flamingo:


And admiring (but not buying) this house:


Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . this horse was parked outside a breakfast joint called Stack 'Em High Pancakes.  I didn't see it at first, but he's holding down a pile of flapjacks!


And these fish were swimming upstream while we enjoyed breakfast.


It was fins, fins, and more fins during our rainy day at the aquarium.  Even if this pic is just plants, plants, and more plants.


This room was like an underwater disco.  How cool are these black-lit jellyfish?


Once the rain cleared, it was back into the oven to surf a wave,


sit on a tree,


 and zoom in on my zany barrettes.  Because, like cheddar, they make everything better!

   

But wait.  There's more.  Highlights, that is:

- My nephew 1) singing "People are Strange" (by The Doors, Aunt Tracy!), "Zombie," and his ABCs and 2) saying that my watermelon sandals were "so juicy" and that his new Mrs. Potato Head was "so cute."

- Going to The Bird Store with the husband.  He picked out a duck decoy and I got this tile:


- Browsing Belk's department store.  At the height of "Sex and the City" mania, they had a Kristin Davis line because she's from North Carolina.

- I said it before, but I'll say it again: the shrimp!

Surprise, surprise, the beach didn't make the cut-off.  I spent most of my time there under a canopy, wearing a hat, swaddled in a towel, and dousing myself hourly with Neutrogena dry-touch sun block.  I couldn't help but feel like Mary Anne in Baby Sitters Club book #8, Boy-Crazy Stacey, except I didn't wear zinc oxide on my nose.  (Stacey, of course, had no such anxieties and got as tan as a turkey.)  The few times I ventured out, my sister quipped, "You're out of your tent, and you don't look happy about it."

Word.  We're not the funny bunch for nothing.  

Which leads me to the number one best thing about this trip: family togetherness.  Because beneath my aloof exterior beats a heart that loves to be with my loved ones. They're my favorite people, my only people, and I couldn't imagine being without them.  So thanks to them all for such a good time.  

There's no one I'd rather roast with.  

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Red and Yellow: Turn up the Meat

 Candie's, Kohl's

The hamburger meat, that is. They say that McDonald's decor is red and yellow because the colors are so garish that they force people to choke down their Big Macs and leave in a flash. Which 1) is insulting to red and yellow and 2) isn't the worst of the Mickey D's conspiracy theories out there. (Worm burgers, I'm looking at you.) Anyway, here's a little poem about this dynamic duo:

Red and yellow, yellow and red
Partners for life of the heart and the head.
Punchy and playful,
They radiate cheer
And make fast food faster
With "Get out of here!"

Red and yellow may bring down the hammer. But they also bring home the happy. The color of bacon and eggs, cherries and lemons, bandannas and daisies, and of course, ketchup and mustard, these proud primaries are as natural as they are striking. And without the calming influence of their sapphire sister, they flame out in a fiery frenzy. Like a sunset. Or, you know. A fire.

So, I was pretty psyched to snap some pics of my new red and yellow dresses. Here I am in the red one (and a new blue necklace!) in my mustard chair. Does this mean that I have to buy a red chair to lounge in while I model the mustard frock?

Only if I can find something that looks like Ronald McDonald's big red shoes.

Or, better yet, his wig.


Indigo Glow Necklace