In the past, people who don’t believe in wearing real fur might sport faux fur in order to keep up with the
fashion times. But this year, we’re seeing fashion designers use both and I think it’s kind of epic. Whether you wear real fur or faux fur, just make sure you own it when you walk into a room! It’s all about the look and the attitude.

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

At the opposite end of the spectrum, boys are still sportin’ the super low rider baggy jeans — belt under the bum and the pants crotch at the knees. How hot is that?!? Ugh! To make matters worse, they wear t-shirts that are reminiscent of 80s t-shirt dresses. I don’t know where they find these shirts, but they’re LONG and skinny. The shirts tend to fall all the way at the knees (hence the 80s dress reference). I’m sorry guys, but when was the last time you found a girl wearing the equivalent of a potato sack (or rather 20 lbs of clothes that bunch, gather and cover every inch of her) and thought she was hot. If you can identify with this statement, then I’m assuming that you only thought her face was hot because the rest of her was missing. Which is exactly how we feel when we see guys running around in mounds of clothes. Blech! It’s not flattering or cute, it’s just lame.

Really, I think the Beastie Boys said it best when singing about the perils of living with parents (at least that’s my take on the song)…

"Get outta this house if thats the clothes you’re gonna wear!!!!
I’ll kick you outta my home if you dont CUT THAT HAIR!!"

I can just imagine how many households go through that same routine on a daily/weekly basis based on what their boys are sportin’. I don’t want to come off as a fuddy duddy, but in my opinion, find something cute or flattering to wear guys. Who/what are you trying to attract?!? I’m confused, but then again, I’m not in the target market. (Thank goodness!) However, I am rest assured that the Beastie Boys parents would agree with me on all this.

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Funktified trends (IMO)…

high-waisted pants/jeans
skinny jeans with anything but boots
plastic jewelry
sandals with socks
shoulder pads
turtlenecks
clashing prints & patterns
bubble skirts & dresses
pajamas in public
Terrycloth clothing
ankle high boots worn
with skirts/dresses
super low waisted jeans that expose more than you want to see
acid washed jeans (let’s leave these in the 80s)

So, there you have it…my random list of 13 trends. They don’t call 13 an unlucky number for nothing, right?!? Are there any trends that put you in a funk? Chime in and let us know!

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

In a time filled with electronic data and multitudes of input begging for our attention everyday, some people may enjoy communications of an older form (or an "old school" way) instead. My snail mailbox is wrought with bills, credit card inquiries and TONS of junk mail! I personally think it’s exciting to find a handwritten letter or card waiting for me at the end of the day. It’s a welcome change to the typical junk that greets me everyday but Sundays and holidays.

Handwritten letters have that extra touch of personalization and love, if you will. Someone sat down and personally wrote a letter by hand to you and only you. They didn’t type a blanket email that was sent to 57 people, right? Instead, they wrote something just for you on special stationery and perhaps with a favorite pen.

It’s funny (as in weird, not ha ha), I can sit down and write a letter to someone (typically my Grandma), put it in an envelope, address it and stamp it, but many times it doesn’t make it off my desk into the mailbox right away. I’m even worse with mailing packages, so we won’t even go there. I’m getting better about mailing snail mail, but I haven’t figured out how to bring myself to send a package. Does that even make sense? I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

Anyway, I’m getting on a personal campaign to purchase and use stationery AND to actually mail letters much more often than I currently do. Who knows, I may motivate myself enough to mail the Christmas, birthday and Mother’s Day presents that are sitting on my desk too. Wow, that’s pretty embarrassing to admit! But now it’s out there, so hopefully that will incentivize me to take them down to the post office. (Sometimes I really amaze myself.)

Anyway, I received some really cute, high quality samples of personalized notecards, photo notepad paper, and calling cards from Couture Invito. They’ve inspired this personal campaign of mine with their super cute paper products! They even create custom photo jewelry and soda/wine labels and more! Color me sold. ) Now I’m trying to decide which photo I want to upload for my first photo notepad.

Happy Writing/Searching/Shopping,
Payton

It seems like time passes by faster the older and busier you get. It’s kinda crazy! I remember chatting about this very subject several years ago with my Dad and Grandpa. My Dad reinforced my fears that time felt like it passed faster than usual. My Grandpa assured me that it would continue to speed past me at faster rates every year. He was in his late 80s when we had this discussion and he told me that each month felt more like one day to him. Scary!

I used to think it was lack of caring, but I can definitely appreciate how people get stuck in certain fashion fads or stuck in a decade, if you will. If time passes by faster with each passing year, you might wake up and be in a new decade, right? Thank goodness for magazines and fashion blogs! Shopping frequently helps keep you up to date as well. But imagine the poor souls that stay at home all the time and don’t go shopping. How would they ever keep up?

If you can’t keep up with fashion, how would you ever keep up to date with hair and makeup? They seem like such subtle things, right? But really, think about it, in the 70s it was all about blue eyeshadow and long, straight hair or oversized afros. In the 80s, it was all about multi-colored eyeshadows (lots of colors at one time) and big permed hair with big poofy bangs! What was big in the 90s? Man, I lived it but I don’t remember anything really distinctive besides grunge (not a look I went for, BTW). Makeup and hair moved toward a more natural look for most of us though. You get the idea, right? 

If you are stuck in a particular decade or if you’re looking for a costume, you can probably find what you’re looking for here:

70s blouses

70s bell bottom pants

80s sweaters

80s pants

90s jackets

90s flare pants

So, am I the only one who feels like time keeps on slippin’? It’s kind of freaking me out to be perfectly honest. I just can’t keep up with the days, the weeks, and the months. Before I know it, I won’t be able to keep up with the years! Good grief!

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

In Loving Memory of My Dad,
Payton

Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that she no longer owned any CDs and I guess it’s normal to replace the old with the new, right? I mean, CDs took the place of casette tapes. Thank goodness for that! Cassette tapes were cool when they worked properly and you could record your own mixes and all, but what about when the tape player ate them. Eeee gads! That was heart breaking! Of course, you can make your own mixes on CD and then they get scratched up. That’s fun. I guess nothing’s fool proof or perfect, right?

Before CDs, we had vinyl records. I didn’t own many, but I did have a few when I was young. I used to hate the sound of the needle scratching the record. It was like nails on a chalk board (not exactly music to your ears). Prior to that, people relied on 8-Tracks for their listening pleasure. I have never used an 8-Track, but from what I understand you could listen to the album straight through or you could skip around randomly, but you couldn’t control where you’d land in the album. I guess it was a bit like using the "random" selector on your CD player.

Before the 8-Track, there were reel-to-reel tapes. I remember my Dad had one of these when I was growing up. It just sat on a shelf and collected dust. I thought it was for movies, but I found out later that it was for music.

The point of all this is that technology is always changing and the new stuff pushes out the old in order to give you a better experience. I know people who have extensive vinyl collections that have not been updated to today’s technology. I don’t know that they ever will be, but it will be interesting to see what happens to those collections as technology marches on. I wonder what will come next? Any ideas???

Happy Listening/Searching/Shopping,

Payton

If you need to be discreet (as in, you don’t want your boss to know), you could play a round or two of desktop dodgeball. It’s not as rough as the real game, but it is pretty fun to knock all the little people over. Get a co-worker involved and it’s doubly fun!

If you like the concept of dodgeball, but think it’s too silly then try mini bowling instead. You can knock pins over instead of little cartoon kids.

Do you prefer quieter games? Then you might like the mini desktop sandbox. This is also a good thing to play with when you’re stumped or need to change your pace so you can be more productive while writing or working on project.

Or, you might opt for a good "old fashioned" Rubik’s Cube. They’re all the rage again like they were in the ’80s! It’s something that’s easy to work on for a few minutes or a few hours, depending on how determined you are to solve it.

I guess now would be a good time to make a note to myself to buy my boss a desktop toy to try to balance out all the toys I have on my desk.

Happy Playing/Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Easter marks the start of Spring when all the beautiful flowers bloom and animals give birth to Spring litters. It sounds so Disney-like, but it is typically a beautiful time of year. Easter Sunday is a religious holiday for many, but the younger set tend to be focused on the Easter Bunny, Easter baskets full of candy and toys, and Easter egg hunts.

When I was 10 years old, my Grandma started conducting very elaborate Easter egg hunts.  She would  set it up as a scavenger hunt with crazy clues that had us kids running all over her 36 acres of land. Each clue would bring you to an egg, along with another clue. There were also randomly hidden eggs that weren’t tied to clues. I think she did that to throw us off a bit. Anyway, the clues would get increasingly more difficult as we go closer to the end. At the end of the hunt, we’d find the final clue to our Easter baskets. It was great fun!

I really enjoyed the hunt, but the real treat was finding the basket full of goodies. I could care less about jelly beans; I used to throw them at my step-brother. All I cared about was the chocolate!  Grandma knew that I didn’t waste time with the hollow bunnies. I was all about the solid chocolate! Okay, I still am, let’s be real. Regardless, the baskets were full of sweets and fun little toys to play with that kept us occupied until dinner was served.

Dinner was always an elaborate multi-course affair with enough food to food to feed an army! The food was top notch and Grandma always provided several desserts. Needless to say, Easter at Grandma’s was always a favorite of mine.

Happy Easter,
Payton

Whether you realize it or not, just about every family has at least one tradition for Christmas. For
my family, like many…cooking and eating is a big part of holiday traditions. My Dad would always kick off the Christmas season by baking lots of cookies and candies and yummy delights. Through the years, it became imperative (to us) that he make Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without these yummy treats!

In addition, my Dad would host dinner on Christmas Eve, something big and fancy with multiple courses. We’d all dress up in fancy holiday clothes and act really proper for the evening.  We’d all swear that we wouldn’t discuss politics, religion or any controversial topics, but we always did anyway. We’d also talk about the new year to come and what we wanted to focus on.

When I was young, my Dad would dash out and do all his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. He would carefully separate out my step-Mom’s presents and leave those in the car to wrap later. He would then sneak the other gifts in the backdoor and hide them in his room where my step-Mom would do most of the wrapping while my Dad got back to cooking. It was a crazy scheme, but it worked! As we got older, my Dad started shopping earlier because the crazy Christmas Eve dash really stressed out my step-Mom.

If my step-Grandma was around for dinner, she would start us off with a prayer and would then recite The Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. This may seem perfectly normal for many households, but we’re not Spanish speakers, so it was a bit quirky (and we love Grandma for it). After dessert, it was time for the spoon hanging contest. This is something that Grandma started long ago at Thanksgiving actually. It’s weird, but funny…we’d all lick our spoons and hang them from our noses to see who’s would hang the longest. There were no prizes for this incredible talent, just some strange entertainment value after a very large meal.

After dinner we would each open one gift as a preview for the next morning’s chaos. And trust me, it was always chaos! The number of presents that were piled under and around the tree was amazing. The mess that ensued from everyone opening gifts was unbelievable! We couldn’t even find most of our gifts through all the mess. Afterwards, Dad would always make an amazing brunch of Eggs Benedict and a bunch of side dishes. And then we’d spend the rest of the day playing with our new toys and games.

So, that’s pretty much my family’s tradition…what’s yours?!? Is it similar or different from mine? I’d love to hear about it.

Happy Holidays,
Payton