I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I know I did! My Thanksgiving this year was jam packed. We celebrated Thanksgiving on both Wednesday and Thursday, went Black Friday shopping late Thursday night into early Friday Morning (yes, I was crazy enough to go). I slept Friday during the day for four hours, woke up and went back to bed at 9pm for another 10 hours (I love sleep…zzz). I volunteered Saturday morning for Women Helping Women (more about that later), and spent the rest of the weekend cleaning and trying to rest before the next stretch of breakless work weeks.
Black Friday
Black Friday was nuts! About as nutty as the people who get up that early to go I suppose. I didn’t anticipate having to go to Walmart this year but my mother-in-law needed to go and my husband wanted a few games for the PS3, Battlfield 3 and Batman Arkham City (yes, I’d totally play video games if I had the time). While we were in line for the games we heard the crowd start to erupt as 10pm approached and they unwrapped the sale items. By the time we got to the display the crowd had completely demolished the entire display and torn it to the ground. My poor mother-in-law was pushed to the ground over in her area! Over the weekend more reports came in about the Black Friday madness. I heard one woman was arrested for using pepper spray while another person was stabbed. Can you guess where most of these types of incidents happened? Yep, that’s right, Walmart. Personally, I try to avoid that place as much as possible but now I’m definitely avoiding it on Black Friday no matter what insanely cheap deal they have going on, I fear for my life! (not really, but kinda) Plus! What a waste of my precious sleep time! Ironically, we got the same games for a dollar more at Best Buy and when I called ahead to see if they still had them they even offered to hold them for me! Yeah, I’ll pay the dollar more to avoid a potential stabbing lol. Seriously Walmart? Seriously?!
Women Helping Women and Men 2 Work
I began volunteering for an organization called Women Helping Women who “empowers low-income individuals to attain economic self-sufficiency through employment success.” Recently they opened a new chapter called Men 2 Work to help men with the same. WHW receives clothing donations at various locations across Orange County reserving the business wear to give away to those in need of professional clothing for employment purposes. People in need are referred to the organization and then receive advice on interview appropriate attire and image consulting. They also offer job placement assistance, educational workshops, and computer training. All the other non-business wear clothes get sorted into either Goodwill donations or to sell at the WHW boutique called Deja New which is open every Saturday from 9am to 1pm or you can host your own personal shopping party with 10-12 of your friends. The quality of clothes and the fact that you can get your hands on DESIGNER CLOTHES at a fraction of the cost is one of many reasons I became a volunteer! Once a month they have a Saturday Sale where they slash their prices even more! Many of the donations WHW receives have never been worn and still have tags on them. You can rest assured the money you spend at Deja New goes towards a good cause. The boutique makes it possible for them to give away clothes and fund their other programs for those that really need them. As a volunteer I get to personal shop for and give style advice to shoppers at Deja New, Image Consulting at WHW and the best of all is sorting through the donations and being the first to see some of the gems of clothing they have coming through their doors! Please visit their website at http://www.whw.org/ for their addresses to their locations in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, CA. And if you’re free on December 16th from 11am to 3pm check out their open house!
Nail Art
Ok so I’ve never been a mani-pedi type of girl because I always figured I could just do it myself rather than paying someone and I never could bring myself to get acrylics because I get freaked out by what they do to your real nails. As I get older and don’t have as much time on my hands I find it difficult to keep up with making sure they are polished. I’ve been seeing a lot of really cool nail art lately in the style blogs I read and some are so simple to do, it makes me want to do my nails. I just needed the right tools. I mentioned it this weekend to my mother-in-law and she handed me all of her little nail art tools and polishes! Score! Now I have some thin brushes and a nail art stamper! I tried it out and it’s not easy but once you get the hang of it you can do some really cool stuff. I’m sure it would be more fun to practice on your friends but since my weekend was so busy I decided to just try a simple stamp with a top coat of clear to quickly test it out. Not bad for a first try…
Stop Staring! Wins Trade-Dress Suit
I’ve talked about Stop Staring! clothing before in previous posts and I own a few of their fit-me-like-a-glove dresses. So I was a little shocked to learn they were in a Trade-Dress law suit with Bettie Page Clothing, which is another big name in the world of rockabilly and vintage re-makes. Apparently, Stop Staring! sued on the basis that the two brands websites were too similar confusing customers and they won the suit and were awarded $500,000! Read about all the juice here.
100 Years of Style
I saw this cute video showcasing the various fashion styles over the last century. It’s too cute not to share not to mention the time it must have taken to do this film in all of those amazing outfits!
How was your weekend? 🙂