Double Florals

Last week I wore double florals for the first time to work on Wednesday, and then my car broke down. Which means that I now consider double florals to be bad luck.

Also the broken car threw off the end of my week.

The car is already 16 years old, I’ve been driving it for 8. I’m not saying I want the car to die, but I’m preparing for it to die… by browsing for a new car. Like a very old, very sick pet who’s quality of life has really fallen. Maybe it is time? I’m thinking Prius C? Go ahead and judge my decisions now. But tiny car, major MPG, probably won’t need to be replaced for MANY more years. And I have a big ole’ chunk of change in my savings account with no defined purpose…

1920s Photobooth Props

We are planning a 1920s gangster/flapper murder mystery party for Curly-haired-boy’s birthday. (Everyone is really excited.) I’ve been looking for an excuse to printout/make a couple of the photobooth props from ‘Oh Happy Day‘. So I took this chance and we printed a couple of her props out which I supplemented with some gangster themed items that I drew myself. A couple bottles of illegal booze, a gangster fedora, a couple flapper facinators, some flapper lips, a tommy gun. I will be taking them to a REAL party next weekend (a week from Saturday), but for now decided to have a mini photo party by myself.

After my ‘practice shoot’ Ian-dog asked to get in on the fun. This is he.

Really he is just asking ‘Come on! What do I have to do to get those treats in your hand?’

Click here to download the parts above that I made. Check out the Oh Happy Day website to view instructions on making them/download the props that she has there.

 

Double Your Fun

I snagged this dress from the sale rack at Target for a couple bucks and wore it to work on Friday and then out to the ‘clubs’ that evening. I wanted to show off my ‘restyling’. For work I tried to keep it classy with a little undershirt and chunky necklace (to neutralize any cleavage), and some flats.

For the bar that evening I put on my very favorite tallest ‘karaoke shoes’. And got ready to dance the night away. I know, this one isn’t exactly a big swing. But I always love how much ‘cooler’ I feel in a pair of good heels compared to plain flats.

We’ve had a lot going on at the casa de Cline lately. So I’ve been a little absent from the internet. Sometimes even when I have time to blog it seemed important to make a little other things a priority. Like the boyfriend, reading fantasy novels, taking naps, and realizing that my brunette roots are REALLY obvious, so I’ll be stopping to get some pick-me-up dye on the way home form work today.

I Language vs. You Language

I ordered this top (dress) from Modcloth a couple of months ago and even though I love the pattern & the cutout on the back I literally cannot wear it as a dress because the skirt part does not fit me.

I am pretty much totally happy with the way I look. I love my curvy bits, and my freckles, and my short legs, and my funky short hair.

But still I find plenty of things that don’t fit me, or aren’t flattering, or are just plain weird.

In college I took a business writing class. The professor went into specifics about ‘I language statements vs. you language statements’.

You Language

“Your joke wasn’t funny.’

I Language

“I don’t think that was funny.”

‘You language’ puts the blame on the receiver, and can easily be interpreted as an attack.  So you shouldn’t use in business writing (or arguments with your spouse).

When I am in the dressing room it’s easy to fall into those familiar “I language statements’

‘I am to fat for this dress’

‘My hips are to big for this’.

The truth is that the dress isn’t right. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with me, or with you. We are not at fault when an inanimate object doesn’t look good on us. It’s weird that I still use these statements because the clothing doesn’t have feelings, I won’t disappoint a skirt when I tell it ‘Things just aren’t working out’, there’s no reason to say to a dress ‘It’s not you, it’s me’.

I think ‘you language’ belongs in the dressing room. Lately when I step into a dressing room I’ve been practicing my ‘you language’ statements like.

‘This skirt is to small.’

‘This top doesn’t suit me.’

‘This dress is not proportioned correctly.’

Which is exactly the problem I ran into with this Modcloth dress, the top fits me well but the bottom will not pull over my hips, because my hips are wonderful and this dress is to not proportioned to fit my body type.

Special Feature: What Loren Found in the Trash

I don’t know that I’ve exclusively said it here, but I am a ‘dumpster diver’. I’ve never climbed into an real dumpster but I have pulled LOADS of things out of other people’s trash, cleaned them up, and brought them into my home. Today I’m going to tell you about one of those things.

This painting was lying on my neighbor’s front lawn with some other obvious ‘art rejects’. I grabbed it quickly on a whim, because I think canvas art is almost always cool. And I didn’t want my neighbors to notice me going through my neighbors trash, because apparently I live in constant fear of what casual acquaintances  think, but will tell the entire internet about my ‘gross’ habits.

I know that it is a painting of someone else’s children but I think it’s pretty firmly in the class of ‘cool portrait art’, curly-haired-boy says that it is CREEPY.And now every time he passes by it he makes an over the top ‘surprised’ noise and yells about how weird they are.

So I threatened to paint over it so that only their eyes & smiles were left…

Or tell everyone that it was a portrait of us when we were kids. And when they asked why Kent is so much smaller than me I’ll say that I’m the blonde ones and he is the brunette.

So naturally to settle this argument I turned to the internet. Portrait of strangers’ children. Creepy? Awesome? Awesomely creepy? Creepily Awesome?

YOU TELL US!