Purple Rain

While reading the always awesome and ever inspiring blog of my best friend Chelsea I made a long over-due realization about myself.  

This inspiring blog was about the very urgent need that comes over many a stylish lady this time of year to inject a sudden and severe shot of color into one's wardrobe.  As I nodded along to her appreciation for the color green (always a beautiful choice), I let my mind wander to my winter closet.  Like many, I live in the staples of greys and blacks during these bleak winter months.  The neutrals.  My neutrals.  **The brown earth-toney neutrals really don't make as frequent an appearance and therefore I consider them slightly less than neutral in my personal wardrobe.  Black and Grey securely hold that rank.  

My realization is not 

that black and grey outrank brown- but that a new color has pulled itself into the rank of "neutral."

Purple.  Wonderful, beautiful, dramatic purple.  

Typically, I go through color phases.  There was a very long Orange and Red phase... which led to just a Red phase, which made a quick turn into a Navy phase which morphed into a Blue phase that became a Blue OR Green phase and has landed me squarely into what has become pretty long Purple phase.

Over the last couple years my collection of purple items has grown into an enormous pile of plum: coat, hat, gloves (FYI: the previous three are NOT worn together.  Even I have a limit), purses (note the plural...), sweaters (plural), shirts (dress & casual), pens, post its, jewelry and soon to be my dining room paint color.  And I love it.  I did resist the urge to purchase purple glasses frames... they was really no desire... which means that I haven't gone COMPLETELY off the deep end.  

Over the last few weeks many people have made comments about my purple obsession and while I usually take a lot of pride in it I had a couple moments of "uh oh" recently.

1. Several people at work made shocked comments about my curly hair (it's naturally wavy, I straighten it most days to reduce frizz, for some reason no one at the office remembers that I have wavy hair and they always act surprised) while only one person made a comment about my new glasses (I wear contacts 99% of the time.  No one cares when I show up in glasses).  While commenting on my curly hair (for the second time in 15 minutes) a co-worker and my boss mentioned that I wore purple EVERYDAY this week.  **Let's interject here that the following colors were worn this week:

Monday: Charcoal and Navy plaid pencil skirt with grey sweater, grey tights and grey heels.

Tuesday: Black with geographic purple print wrap dress over black tights and black shooties.

Wednesday: Black cords, black shoes and green sweater.

Thursday: Grey pants, purple ruffle sweater and grey heels

Friday: Denim and burgundy/purple sweater with brown boots.

Ok.  Yes there is lots of purple.  But NOT everyday.

2. While walking through a crowd of people carrying a purple post-it note... I overheard a co-worker say, "the purple starts there."  ????

3. While shopping with a very good friend she put her foot down and said I was not allowed to buy another purple shirt.

4. Reading Chelsea's blog about neutrals vs. colors and immediately thinking of purple as my staple.

These are only a couple moments, but it is enough to realize that purple is a neutral.  MY neutral.  I have no choice but to embrace it.  I love it.  It suits me.  It's beautiful and classy.  It's dramatic.  And the financial investment of my current collection is enough to remind me that I can't give it up any time soon!!  

Play the Hostess!

My husband and I enjoy hosting people at our home, whether it be for a dinner, an evening of games or for an overnight visit.  We like to play host(ess).  

If for nothing else, it is a fabulous excuse to clean the house.  I love a clean house.  I used to say that there was nothing better than a well swept stage.  This is when I spent more time in a theatre than in my own home.  Now I have adapted this phrase a bit: There is nothing better than a well vacuumed floor.  ...or a well swept floo

r (naturally, this depends on the type of flooring you are attempting to clean).  

I am contemplating the most efficient way to clean my house in the next two days without it looking like I tried too hard.  Now, why on earth would I not want to clean so well that my home looks sparkling?  

My parents are coming to visit!  

My wonderful parents live about 11+ hours from my husband and I and we don't get to see them often enough.  While I would love to scrub the floors, dust everything in sight and somehow remove 3 cat's worth of fur... I know that my parents (my mother, mostly) would get irritated that I worked so hard after 18 years of trashing their home.  So, while I am catching up on episode's of Grey's from 3 season's ago and trying to write this quickly enough that I'll have time to paint my nails I am also wondering what in my house I should leave messy.  

I may just have to suck it up and clean the whole thing.  Or at least power clean the whole thing... let's be real.  I still have to go to work, the grocery store, the eye doctor and who knows how many other places.  

Here's to the Swiffer, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and the giant 10" long lint roller... my power tools.  

Let the cleaning, shopping, cooking, scheduling, shuttling, laundering and general pre-hosting games begin!  I may complain... but deep down inside (it's really not that deep, either) I love it!

Bottoms Up!

I like trends.  Really, I do.  If nothing else, they offer us wonderful opportunities to look at old photos of ourselves and laugh that, "oh my goodness, what was I thinking" laugh.  I have a particular picture of myself as a pre-teen in what I can only describe as a "Blossom" hat.  Remember Blossom?

My hat looked strikingly like the one in the lower right-hand image.  I wish I had that photo to share with you, however it is safely kept from the public eye at my parent's house!  This is a trend that many of us (I hope I wasn't the only one) got wrapped up in and fortunately, we all got out of it!

A trend that has lasted a few season's longer than expected is that of the leggings.  Around for a second time (or maybe the third?  the fourth?), leggings have seemed to find a happy place in many a celebrity's heart and therefore in the hearts of those that want to dress like a celebrity (I include myself in this category.  Kelly Ripa, anyone?).  Personally, I enjoy the occasional legging.  

Earlier today, my husband, nephew, bro-in-law, a friend and I went tubing at a lovely mountain resort.  Prior to venturing out into the snow, we grabbed some lunch at the lodge.  And here is where I saw the most unfortunate use of leggings that I have seen in a very very long time.  

You know when you stretch jersey (the material, not the state or the cow) it gets really thin - so thin that you can see through it.  If you did not realize this, please take this opportunity to file this  information away for future use.  Well, unfortunately, there was a woman who decided to wear leggings on the "slopes" and for whatever reason, took her snow pants off in the lodge.  Her tunic was really just a long shirt - not really intended for wear as a dress.  This image was special enough - but when said women bent over the fire to warm up her soaking wet gloves... the entire lodge got a sneak peak at her white underwear.  

*sigh*

Ladies.  It is not vanity that causes us to check out our butts from every angle in dressing rooms.  It is also not vanity that causes us to double check these vantage points at home every time we choose to wear any particular item of clothing.  It is a precaution.  It is a necessity.  Be sure that your clothes are not see through.  

So go ahead - check out your butt.  I encourage everyone to check out their butt at any chance they may get.  For the sake of those of us around you - check it out.

Curtain up!

Though I adore reading, I have never considered myself a writer. I do think, however, that if I dedicated a bit of time to the task, I could be a cracker-jack editor (please stop counting errors... I have not yet dedicated the time). Very often I find myself critiquing other's writings, though not to judge the content - usually just the grammar.  

I live in an area that has, what seems to be, an enormous dictionary of "localese."  One of these tendencies is the elimination of the "to be" verb.  Instead of saying, "These clothes need to be washed."  I often hear, "These clothes need washed."  

This drives me crazy.

I guess what I am trying to say is that while I would not normally consider myself a writer, I am intrigued by writing a blog (the inspiration comes from my best friend who has been writing a blog - I love it).

I hope to also use this blog as a way to be more mindful of the interesting moments in my life and to be able to share them with you.  

So, curtain up - let the drama begin!