hmm - pondering fashion and plunging necklines

I recently listened to Hugo Jacemet on the radio.  He has written books on men's fashion including a book just on men's shoes. So when I flipped on the radio in my car and hear him introduced on a fun program I enjoy on my ride home, I thought it would be a completely frivolous conversation.  I may have rolled my eyes over this 1st world fashion expert while thoughts of conflict in Iran and Australia on fire fluttered through my head, but I decided to listen anyway - maybe it would be a good distraction.

At some point in the conversation Mr. Jacemet said something to this effect:

A man in a tailored suit is not looking to pick a fight.

A man in a tailored suit is not looking to pick a fight.  Hmm.  So our dress does matter.  Mr. Jacemet does not advocate that men should always be in tailored suits, but he does bemoan the casual look that has completely overtaken everything.

I recently witnessed a situation that went like this.  A class is just beginning instruction when a student tries to slip a muffin out of her bag - a no-no at the computers.  The teacher corrects her, and another student stands up and states, "This is why I can't be in here!" She then proceeds to march out of the room causing one teacher to chase her down while the other continues the lesson.  What does this have to do with our fashion conscious friend?  The student who marched out of the room was wearing pajama pants- basically, simple plaid pull on pants.  Did she arrive at school that morning to work?  I am going with Mr. Jacemet and will say no she did not.

The dress code is a constant battle. This is a school that faced an all out attack from parents over it, and teachers who don't enforce it make the job harder for everyone else.  In the end the dress code was loosened, and I think a message is being sent that maybe we aren't at school to work.  The teachers are.  The teachers have a dress code.  The men all wear ties, and the women are to dress according to a standard that is level with men in ties.  Not all schools.have this.  One of teachers has expressed embarrassment over attending an after school meeting among peers dressed as she would to clean her house.  It makes for some interesting thoughts especially when some schools are putting young men in jackets and ties to motivate them.

So, would a girl dressed up for school pick a fight?  Would a boy?  Would there be something in their brains that says their appearance is important and they have a job to do?

It reminds me of a social media conversation I once had with a friend.  He questioned why the public schools pay more per student than he paid for his children to attend a small, private school?  He stated that he was no homework nazi, but his school outperformed public schools on a smaller budget.  I shared my thoughts including:

• his children's teachers weren't making a living wage
• the school could turn away students who would not be successful
• they did not provide transportation or special education for those who need it

But don't miss this.  I also pointed out that he did not have to be a "homework nazi" to impress upon his kids that school was important and reminded him that:

• They were fed.
• probably expected to be in bed at a reasonable time
• expected to be at school on time and attend unless they were sick
• dressed in clean, appropriate clothing for school

These things all say, this is important.

I see the point of comfortable clothes.  I hear the argument of varying budgets.  I think that we all want to be mindful of each other and expect our students to work at school. What if this simple thing of dressing modestly, maybe even dressed up a bit would make a difference?  It won't fix everything, but it could be a start.

Now about those necklines - I am once again looking for a formal dress for Julia's upcoming dance.  Plunging necklines seem to be the style.  She doesn't care for them, and many of them are not truly plunging- they have flesh-colored fabric or mesh in that gap.  I think it looks weird in pictures and detracts from the effort exerted to do the hair and makeup, so I say no to the plunging neckline.  You would think that in 2020, it wouldn't be so hard to find a pretty dress with an appropriate neckline that doesn't look matronly.  GRR

Starting a new year

Starting a New Year

So here we are at the start of a new year.

Looking back on the past 10 years...
Two of my kids survived their teen years and all that comes with them; first jobs, high school graduation, first dates, learning to drive, etc.  Maybe Andy and I are the survivors on this one.
They've wrestled through shaken faith and come out strong.

All the kids went from little to not so little, and their interests changed over time.  Kids will surprise you in their pursuits, but looking back you can sometimes see that the trajectory was always there.

Our friends become mothers-in-laws and fathers-in-laws, and they became grandparents.  We saw marriages end and friends face widowhood.  We celebrated our friends as they hit big decade birthdays.

Our silver anniversary came and went.

We enjoyed some great vacations. Saw NYC for the first and thus far only time. Rested and refreshed on beautiful beaches. Tubed on the Little Pigeon River. Hiked a few trails.

During the course of the last ten years, we lost. Both my parents are now secure beyond the veil. My grandma by the lake and a brother in law too.  Other ties have been severed.  New ones have been formed.

I got myself addicted to "This is Us." lol
IKEA may have won a bit of my heart in the last ten years too.


The years piled up quickly, and I found myself sitting in an office this summer looking over the numbers for my projected retirement. Just a couple of months before the year ended, I started the final required year of employment for full retirement - not that I plan to retire in a year.

Andy went from days to nights to days and worked with a few departments and ended the year in a new position.

We both gained pounds, wrinkles and gray hairs.

My van made it through all the years though it looks pretty beat up.  Our roof was replaced, and the rest of the house, well it's tired and worn.  Some places just need paint.  Others need to be stripped bare to the bones and then restored with new flooring and/or drywall.  Pipes still leak.

We filled our house with family to ring in the new year.  I hope everyone had fun.  Andy and I pondered the night when it was all said and done and didn't feel confident that it was a good party, but we got a kick out of the nieces and nephews. Ira and Regan were here sans parents.  They may have had too much sugar to celebrate. I don't think I took a single picture.

Since starting the new year, I've lost. The sapphire from the ring Andy gave me probably 15 years ago that I've worn daily since. 10,000 pictures or so that were stored on our old computer. It gave up the day I tried to back them up to an external hard drive.  It wasn't the backing up that killed the computer.  I never even got the hard drive plugged in.  I simply opened the picture file, and it died.  I can't even let myself consider what images may not be backed up elsewhere because of failed memory cards and flash drives.

Even still, I started the year hopeful.  Two of my kids are on track to receive bachelor's degrees in a few months.  I am trying the Everyday app to work on building good habits one day at a time.  Once again I have started the year making a thankful list day by day.  So bring on the Roaring Twenties - may they roar with blessings, hope, joy, and laughter- lots of laughter.

Christmas Break Life Hacks

We are enjoying a low-key, chill break here in our household.  Savannah had the week off work, and it has been nice having her home, but I wouldn't really call it a break.  She has worked daily on her portfolio and polishing her grad school applications.

Today we saw the final installment in the Star Wars movies.  The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was Star Wars.  I remember being intrigued by the whole theater experience but not the movie so much.  I think my parents must have really wanted to see it but had no sitter. I ended up loving the movie and saw all but one of the nine main films in theaters.  So much has changed since then. I never would have guessed that someday I would watch the last of the movies on a 3 story screen in a recliner.  Nor would I have imagined that I would one day attend a church where the service is shown on screens that are probably as big as, if not bigger than, that original screen where I was first introduced to the only sci-fi I like.

Every year we have a household Santa who brings us a Star Wars gadget of some sort.  We now have a toaster that imprints R2D2 on your toast and a waffle maker that makes waffles in the shape of Darth Vader's head.  It's a fun little tradition.  I think our other gadget was an air popper.

Our movie fun today was followed by catching our Wildcats defeat their state rivals in basketball.  Woot! Woot!

Aside from the Christmas break fun, I have been working on some little life hacks.  In case you have the same problem, I will share them here.

Heavy, breakable ornaments:  The football jersey ornament of Zach's that broke last year did not break because it was not secured well to the tree.  It broke simply because the ribbon holding it on the tree came undone and slipped off.  We have somehow accumulated many breakable ornaments.  While wandering through Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, I found clips to hold ornaments to the branches.  I decided to give them a try.  While securing our ornaments with the clips, I came up with an idea to stop the possible loss because a ribbon loses its security - zip ties.  I have worked my way through our breakable ornaments (at least the ones we put on the tree this year) and have secured them with the clips and zip ties so that treasured keepsakes have a bit more security.

The zip tie is not necessary on some of the ornaments as the clip is enough.  This ornament does not have a  hole that is small enough to slip the clip through thus making the zip tie necessary.

slippery pillow cases: This is not a problem for everyone in the family, but my pillow case slides a third or more of the way off of my pillow every. single. night.  It drives me crazy.  I don't have fancy, slippery pillows or cases, but this still happens.  I looked into zippered cases, but it is hard enough to find regular, quality pillow cases that match the bedding without adding a zipper to the requirements. Yesterday, I finally broke down and sewed a two-inch velcro set into two pillow cases, so that I can lock my pillow in its case.   It worked! Fortunately, this is not a problem for anyone but me in this household, so I shouldn't have to do this for every pillow case.

Now I need to work on the stench in my van.  UGH!  When we were rear-ended months ago in a hit and run, we were able to track down the other driver because we got the license plate number.  Of course he ran because he had no insurance.  I figured the damage was mostly cosmetic, and because I didn't want to take the hit to my insurance rates, we didn't get it fixed.  Turns out I was wrong.  The back of the van fills with water every time it rains.  That water, of course, turns stagnant and causes the van to really smell.  Of course nothing can be stored in the back of the van now either.  UGH!  So I have to find an easy way to dispel the stench and get rid of the water quickly.  My charcoal bag isn't cutting it.  I am afraid that I will have to buy one of those expensive, custom trunk liners.

So my next Christmas break project will be to figure out the van situation and then fix a kitchen cabinet.  Julia wants to paint, but I am not so sure we will get to that one as we may be hosting family for New Year's.

Family Pics 2019

After we failed to get good family pics at the beach this summer, I was determined to make fall pictures happen.  Fall pics of families are typically my favorites, and I can't recall ever doing them before.  I knew it would be a challenge with Zach working nights and doing school while Savannah doesn't even live in town. The best date we could get was in early November, and after a dry summer in an area where fall foliage only lasts about a minute anyway, this was going to be tough.  I used to have professional individual photos made yearly of the kids and then didn't buy school pictures.  When our favorite photographer retired, we were already struggling to afford him, and I had already moved on to a new favorite, but I've neglected to follow that tradition with Wyatt and Julia, so it was important to me to get some good individual photos of them.  The arrival of better phone cameras and my own purchase of a decent camera also curtailed all the pro pics, but I just can't capture my family like a pro.

Of course I am critical of photos.  I don't like the way I look, wish I'd been on the other side of the photos (my better side), but I can't stop aging.  Wyatt was not particularly cooperative.  He wasn't that way on purpose, but big smiles on him cause him to appear to have closed eyes.  I've really had to blow some up to make sure his eyes are actually open.  That being said, the colors worked even better than I expected.  The setting was great, and of course we love the photographer.

We actually liked the unedited version of this photo better.

I think I thought turning my head slightly would be a better look for me, but the one photo where I didn't do that his so much better, but it is not a good one of the rest of the crew. Lesson learned.

So it was a chilly morning.  Our photographer warned us that we had to keep warm because we would look cold in the pictures if we were cold.  Savannah struggled the most because her nose turns red when she gets cold, but we don't have any Rudolph pics, and he said that he doesn't remember editing that out.

photos by Derrick Dixon Photography

May your heart be light...

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas...

From our house to yours - May your blessings be big and your burdens light in the coming year!

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. - Ephesians 3:16 NIV

Just a side note - our Christmas cards are primarily virtual this year.

December is for...

a birthday

We celebrated our birthday man-child a bit late so that Savannah could join us.  We used to celebrate early so that our family who consists of many who work more during this season could be there and to give a little more time between a birthday celebration and Christmas. As you will see, pretty much everyone made it this year...so, success!

The flu has struck.  Kinsley (right) was the first to go down.

This guy had me cracking up and feeling the loss that we don't get to see Mom and Dad react to him. He shared with us a story about how he was holding a girl's hand at school.  Another kid tried to chop their arms apart, but Isaac raised his finger and used those fantastic eyelashes and in a very proper accent ordered, "Don't cut our love!"  Hysterical

As I type this, Ira is fighting through double whammy of flu and strep.  It hurts my heart that he might miss the family Christmas celebration tonight.  I would have moved the celebration to this weekend, but Jonathan says we should all go on with it.

Then there's this girl who went down second with the flu.

Surrounded by his fan club

 On Wyatt's actual birthday (which always happens during finals week), we celebrated at home with his favorite Chinese meal and strawberry rhubarb pie.  He's been trying for months to fix his Switch controller, so we replaced it.  I asked the gamers in the family for help with choosing a new controller and chose what I thought was a good one, but Wyatt wanted the game cube style controller like he had before.  He opted to keep the new one and seems to like it, but he did still have time to add the other one to a Christmas wish list.

So December = a family birthday party, finals, more finals, and did I say finals?  Then there's that other major holy day :)

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Christmas season found me in a funk this year.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was working on a family project and was tiring of the process.  I couldn't decorate until said project was complete, and by the time it was complete, I saw no point.  I learned a lesson in this that I hope to remember.

While Christmas always seems to be a challenging time to find the quiet and peace that we all crave, failing to decorate did not change that.  What I found was that when I wasn't preparing my home, I was also neglecting to prepare my heart for this beautiful season.

So last night - yep December 15th- Andy and Julia picked up a tree.  It is drier than a fresh tree should be, and we are trimming it tonight.  It's a smallish tree compared to some of our past selections.  I doubt we will even put half the ornaments on it.  A few shopping trips this weekend combined with pulling out the decorations lightened my heart, and here we are.

I stopped to take a break and let the kids take over.  I jumped on the computer to order a replacement for the ornament that Zach received his senior year.  It broke last year, and the company was sold out when I tried to replace it.  They have upgraded to a newer option with personalization on the front and back, so I added his nickname and the highlights of his senior season and then jumped on the blog.

It's yucky outside here - really yucky, but Christmas music is piping through the kitchen and two of the kids and Andy are in there trimming the tree and chatting about this week's finals. Zach is resting and preparing for another night shift, and I am hoping Savannah fought her way through three essays and a review today and has a clear enough head to prepare for the rest of her finals which take place tomorrow.  While I would love to have her home on Wednesday, I think she should just go ahead and sleep through Friday.  She's had it rough, but the end is in sight.

 My heart is lighter.

PS. And the tree skirt wasn't on the tree for three hours before the little dog peed on it.  UGH! Welcome to the Grizwald's Christmas.