Author Archives: glass-halffull

You Can’t Afford the Fancy Dress/Top/Skirt

Posted in Fill Up Your Cup by

Yes, its a drag. But let’s be serious, I have expensive tastes, and there’s a good chance that no matter how successful I am, I might not ever be able to buy all of the fancy things I want. Furs? Jewels? Probably not. But sometimes you need to feel a little extravagant on a tiny budget.

You’ve got options.

Buy the darn thing already, keep the tag on and well tucked in (you don’t want to have a romantic comedy moment when someone “helping” you rips the tag off), take really good care of it and return the next day. Not saying I’ve done this. Not saying I haven’t.

Rummage around in your closet- chances are there are two things in there, things you don’t want anymore and things you forgot you had. Take the things you don’t want, and set up a swap with some friends to get rid of things they don’t want. New to you is almost as much fun as new to the world. Then take those things you forgot about and see what you can do with them.

Add a belt? Pair it with a different color? Reinvent what you’ve already got.

Mr. Winkle

Posted in Cute Things by

Boo’s cuteness from last week is surpassed only by one dog, and that is Mr. Winkle. I have been borderline obsessed with his calendars for years. Take a little pup, dress him up, and I’m yours, especially when his tongue is a little too long for his mouth. While his website leaves a little to be desired, his calendars will not disappoint. Or check out his books for hours of saying aww.

The Male-Female Color Divide

Posted in Wild Cards by

I have had so many conversations with men that have gotten down right confusing. Typically, we’re both trying to describe the same item, or they’ve walked in on a discussion with my girlfriends about clothing/fashion/shoes. The trouble is crossing the male/female color barrier, and people, this diagram makes it a lot more easy to understand why. The conversation usually goes something like this:

  • Guy: Are you talking about that orange shirt that guy is wearing?
  • Me: Yea, we’re talking about how coral is so in right now, but can’t decide if he’s pulling it off or not.
  • Guy: Coral? Like the seashell? People are wearing that now?
  • Me: Coral….the color…..
  • Guy: You mean orange? We’re talking about that guy right…his shirt is orange.
  • Me: No, it’s coral.

After this back and forth, usually the guy ends up claiming color blindness, which until seeing this picture made me feel a little bad for the poor soul that can’t see thee whole rainbow of colors in the world. Now, I understand that they may be capable of perceiving the visual difference in hues, but simply don’t grasp the need to give a different name to it. Coral is orange. Magenta and Fuschia, well, they’re both just pink.

I’ve noticed the same thing goes for shoes. Wedges, stilettos, platforms: those are all heels. As for the rest, if you can put it on your foot and walk around it in, it’s a shoe. I think it all stems from the limiting fashion choices for men. Shortsleeves or long (think about it- have you ever seen cap sleeves or ¾ length tops for men??), buttons or no buttons (no frills, peplums, or attached belts to worry about here), dress pants or jeans. There are even more clothing items to choose from for women, dresses, skirts, slips, undergarments, while men are mostly confined to jacket, top and bottom.

Their sizes are even easier to understand, only reflecting their straight measurements rather than some arbitrary number from 0-14. As women, we have developed a complex vocabulary to understand the vast array of fashion choices presented to us.  Our ability to understand the nuances of colors is only one example of a world of small distinctions we make in day to day life. And guys? They just don’t get it.

When You Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

Posted in Fill Up Your Cup by

You’re cranky. EVERYTHING is pissing you off: the lady on the subway sleeping when you want to be sitting + reading a magazine, the chipper guy in front of you in line at Starbucks, the sunshine that is SO BRIGHT its hurting your eyes. We all have those days, where no matter what happens its not going to turn your mood around.

When I have days like that, I need a little perspective to put my problems back into a normal scale. Here are some things you can try:

  • Follow Oprah’s advice:
    • Make a list of things you’re grateful for in your life
    • That includes little things like warm socks
    •  That includes big stuff like an awesome sister
  • Google the median income of the place you live
    • In the U.S., it’s around $45,000
    • Chances are you don’t know how well off you really are
  • Download the Thankful For app to your smart phone
    • Read some quotes
    • View the public timeline
    • Repeat
  • Go grab a glass of water from that tap.
    • Did you know that 884 million people (about 3x the population of the U.S.) can’t do that?
    •  Because they don’t have access to clean water?
  • Use the restroom and flush the toilet.
    • 2.5 billion people don’t have access to hygenic public sanitation systems
    • More people have a mobile phone than have a toilet

If you’re reading this, it means you’re part of the roughly 30% of the world population with access to the internet. Now don’t you’re problems seem a little smaller?

Food Photos

Posted in Wild Cards by

What you see here is a pizza that I ate with friends oh, about three weeks ago now. Why do I have a picture of this pizza, and not the friends I am eating it with, you might ask? Well, that my friend, is a very valid question. At the time, it seemed very important to photograph the meal. Granted, this was the first pizza of the year at the first open weekend of a famous pizzeria in my home town. I was having a great Easter weekend at home, and the pizza looked absolutely delicious. And still, in the past I’ve never felt the compulsion to take pictures of things I’ve eaten, or was about to eat—unless it involved a birthday cake with my name on it.

There is a strange epidemic of people posting pictures of the food  they’re about to consume that all began with food bloggers, and seems to have spread to the general populace. First there were the recipe bloggers. They would create delicious creations, and artistically depict the process from cooking through finished product along with instructions, lists of ingredients, and so on. It was the 21st generation’s take on the cookbook- the food blogger depicting the steps to make a particular dish. With the proliferation of recipe blogs in every niche from healthy to baking to savory dishes, the number of food pictures on the internet has increased.

Then somewhere along the line food photography made a jump. Fashion bloggers who don’t post recipes, but post daily outfit pictures started including an instagram section of pictures from their weekends, including fancy desserts shared among friends. Then people who don’t even blog began to upload pictures of their dinner to their facebook feeds. Now, oddly enough, when I see a delicious meal set before me, one of the things that occurs to me is, maybe I should take a photo?

I’m still not really sure when this came about. Maybe it’s the simple fact that everyone has a smart phone, which makes a camera and posting ability accessible at all times, so the number of photos posted in general has increased. But really, have we reached the point of oversharing, that everyone needs to know everything we put in our mouths? Are people even interested? And, are we interrupting our quality time spent savoring desserts to whip out our phones and capture the moment to share with anyone we know? There’s something about the presence of smart phones at every dinner that makes this seem more and more appealing.

http://www.getkempt.com/the-code/the-phone-stack.php