Food for Thought-K

            In a country ravaged by obesity, obsessed with fitness, and plagued by teenage girls’ low self-esteem, food is so much more than just nutrition in America.   Food is the best friend, the worst enemy, the prize and the competition all in one package.  People associate feelings, memories, and people with a certain dish.  We gather together as families for it, bond with significant others while eating it, and eat it when you feel like you’re all alone.  It’s hard to believe something so simple can mean so many different things to different people. 

            Like any teenage girls, I have spent high school and my first year of college in a love hate relationship with food.  I love to eat it and hate that I can’t eat endless amounts without becoming another number in the obesity statistics thrown around America.  I make poor, emotionally driven choices to indulge in ice cream and avoid spinach like it’s my job.  I grab a chocolate bar on a bad day and bake when I’m excited.  The idea that for some people, being thin means avoiding the endorphins that come from eating really great comfort food is a totally foreign concept to me. 

Courtesy of www.verybestbaking.com

            Call me crazy, but food is a sign that the people around you care enough about you to keep you alive.  Cooking your best friend’s favorite meal isn’t just a sign you care about their mood, but also shows you care about their health and wellbeing. Yes, it’s true that today the rich are thin and can afford healthier food, but it is a natural instinct to want someone who looks healthy and sturdy.  No one looks frailer than a sad teenage girls, and a batch of stick-to-your-ribs chocolate chip cookies will fix that right up!  Soon, the healthy, happy glow is back in her face and she’s ready to fight the bear of the problem that made her sad to begin with.

            For most of the US, food is not something people worry about for physical health.  Instead, we have replaced it with a medicine for emotional health.  J.K. Rowling had it right.  When Dementors suck your soul out a little, chocolate immediately warms you up and brings some happiness back into you.  Sometimes, life sucks, and you just need to cheer up and a hug is great, but just not getting it done.  It may be how we’re raised, but I’m just fine living in a world where people are happy when they are eating things they love and feel better when people they care about take care of them.  

Courtesy http://harrypotter.wikia.com/

            It gets me pretty annoyed when people say obesity is caused by emotional connections with food.  Yes, some people eat their feelings an over indulge, causing them to be bigger than America’s ideal.  The real problem in our country is the quality of the food available to the less fortunate.  Soup kitchens and food banks are amazing, but fast food chains that offer $5 fat-fests are what’s killing the children today.  Instead of offering healthy, inexpensive food in open settings, people grab their kids and take them to an inexpensive fast food place where vegetables are thin and hidden between layers of cheese on a burger.  The meat is cooked beyond recognition.  Even the healthier options are doused in dressing or dips or bacon bit toppings. 

            We should be teaching our kids to eat their vegetables first and eat produce that tastes like produce.  We should be encouraging people to use food to feel good, but teach them that a little goes a long way.  We should be learning how to cook healthy foods for ourselves in schools, because our health is as important as calculus when we get to the real world.  I love food, but I love myself, too.  It’s important to me that I take care of myself and I occasionally slip healthy things in.  As I’ve grown, I’ve learned to love the freshness of an apple and the density of whole wheat bread versus the squishiness of white.  Not everything has to be healthy, but not everything can be unhealthy either.  

            Throwing around words like “real” and “fresh” and “all natural” have fooled the United States into believing it’s okay to chow down on fast food for three meals a day.  And then, at the other end of the spectrum are the people who will sacrifice taste and joy in food for tight muscles and a flat stomach.  Both situations create voids in life.  We just need to find the happy medium.  Have our (fruit) cake and eat it, too.

Wake Me Up Before September Ends -K

            For those of us who cherish fashion in any way,  the dread of going back to school is overcome by one thing: the excitement of the September Issue.  When I was younger, I would flip through page after page of advertisements dividing my thoughts between wondering where the articles went and amazement at the beauty of the clothes on the pages I was flipping through.  My mom and I would pour over Vogue and Elle, occasionally she’d stop and point out her favorite clothes and shoes.  The older I got the more I understood her fascination, and the more I recognized the names in the pages.  Last year, I even fell in love for the first time with a pair of high heels.  They were part of the military chic taking over Aldo shoes and I had to wit until September to get them and I adore them to this day.

Photo Courtesy of aldoshoes.com

            To honor the pinnacle of the fashion year, I’m giving my two cents on the trends I’m seeing and where I’m see my dream pieces. 

            First, I’ll start with the more realistic (at least for me), and this fall that is the Banana Republic Mad Men collection.  Mad Men is the kind of show you could watch on mute just to see the clothes.  When so many guys in my generation can’t wait to get out of their tie and break free of “boring” suits, the handsome gents from Mad Men dress like, well, men.  Aside from that, the women on the show display their personalities in the no nonsense cut that Banana Republic has nailed.  The prices may be steeper than BR’s usual prices, but they are way less expensive than well maintained vintage and is slightly updated with modern flair like pocketed dresses.  If only I had a job where I could show these pieces off….

            Next on the love list is the “it” colors for this season. Dark teal, plum, and silver: are you kidding me!?  I admit, I’m very biased, these colors compliment my skin tone well and I’m not looking beyond that, but the richness of the colors instantly bring images of awesome color blocking and cool knit combinations into my mind.  Granted, I’m not so crazy about taupe as a neutral, but I can deal. 

            Part of why this fall is going to be so rocking is the refusal of all fall trends to be bulky.  Instead of the usual heavy knits (though I do love them!), this fall is flaunting even more of those beautiful sheer polka dots and lace that can be layered and paired up with some of the more heavy duty material.  I’m jealous of the beautiful sheer polka dots, since let’s be real: no one can pull them off in real life, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be on the lookout for awesome lace detailing with enough bulk to keep me warm back at school!

            A trend I’m absolutely not loving, no matter how cool it looks on the runway?  Tribal prints!  Though I admit many runway shows are not ready-to-wear, I at least see potential in the trends they inspire.  To me, no one is able to blend prints and crazy colors as well as the designers who make them.  Calling out Missoni for Target on this one!  The clothes look absolutely rockin’ in the ads, but you can be I am not going to look as chic and put together if I try and slap on a pair of crazy patterned slacks.  I appreciate what the brand is, and some of the purses would stand out from the crowd just enough, but I am going to shy away from any print that has more colors than I can name on the color wheel. 

            Fashion is a person experience, and I appreciate that some people think Vogue and Elle are not pinnacles of style, and I will agree wholeheartedly.  You could not open a fashion magazine a day in your life and still understand dress beautifully, ignoring trends completely.  What I find so inspiring about the thousand or so pages I’ve flipped through this year is not the trends themselves, but the work everyone has put forth in the hopes that women will see their art and want to take it home and wear it.   Fashion is all about women inspiring designers inspiring women.  Magazines are just a medium through which a cycle of fashion feeding can occur.  If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the documentary about Anna Wintor (aptly titled The September Issue).  If that can’t make you appreciate the hard work poured into these pages, nothing will.

In Defense of Female Friendship- K

            Fourteen years ago, my mother introduced me to a curly haired fellow kindergartener, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Aside from family, A is the most long term relationship I have ever been in.  When we were younger, we sold lemonade on the corner and as we got older, we went on double dates.  We’ve certainly had ups and downs, but we are family now, and I can’t imagine the kind of love/hate competitive fremenyship seen on all my summer guilty pleasure TV.

The world paints the female friendship as one of jealousy, secrets, and the occasional slumber party bonding night.  Girls in the media are constantly worried about their best friends stealing their boyfriend, or talking behind each other’s back when one gets a little moody.  The picture that’s painted here is ugly and a madly skewed.  Instead of the constant mean girls fighting and dramatic fights over a badly phrased couple of words, women should be writing women who love their friends unconditionally, no matter what boys flick through life.

            On TV, gossip and shopping replace most meaningful conversation and just hanging out.  I admit, I shop and gossip with my friends. I do it more than I probably should.  But last night, I was sitting with A, making wall art for our dorm rooms and realized that friendship is about arts and crafts time at 19 years old and flipping through old magazines and not talking about anything in particular. After 14 years of friendship, we still miss each other after a week and talk on the phone when we’re apart. 

            To me, that’s what friendship should be.  TV should show girls calling their best friend and laughing about nothing.  So often, romantic relationships take center stage in the media.  People fall in love, get married, and have babies.  Love is what motivates us to grow up and be better people, according to television.  I can’t dispute the power of a cute text from a boy I like to make my day a little brighter.  I presume the majority of the world feels the same  (replacing the text sender with the gender/sexual orientation appropriate word). 

            Other people must know the truth that the media isn’t telling us about girl friendships.  Today, it’s all mean girls and cyber bullying on the news.  Every girl seems to be a victim of being friends with girls who are petty and driven by competition for popularity.  I know what friendship really should be, though.  Friendship is Rory and Lorelai and Rory and Lane, who may fight and fade in and out of friendship, but they realize friendship is more than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF-VMHzMhI4&feature=related

(Note that finding this link sent me on a Gilmore Girls youtube clip marathon.)

            Gilmore Girls is the prime example of friendship over men.  Rory, after all, doesn’t even end up with anyone, which she can only really do because her friendships with her mother, Paris, and Lane have given her the support she needs to realize she is better than settling her career aspirations to get married.  Best friends are long term.  There is a reason people say they want to marry the person who becomes their best friends.  

Strong female leads (and women in general) create strong friendships that work beyond reason.  There are no better examples (to me) than Brennan and Angela from “Bones”.  One is an artist and moved by emotion, while one is a scientist and moved by rationality.  Despite this, they work.  They are close without being the same person and loving the same men.  Like every combination, they play off of each other and make their counterpart stronger.

I would like to make a call to all of the women out there who are out there just as annoyed as I am about how we are portrayed in television.  I am asking to stop giving people stuff to write episodes about.  I want women to demand shows where women hang out with people the like.   In real life, mean girls exist, and girls have to deal with them.  Unlike TV, we don’t give them the power whenever they want.  Finally, I want to cheer for friendships and enjoy seeing scenes between girls as much as I want to rewatch scenes of relationships.

What's up? -K

So I spent last week at the beach, meaning I have had NO time to make anything.  Because of this, I have decided to flip this blog because it’s my blog and I’ll write what I want.

Entertainment is something we all adore, and given my unemployment this summer, it’s something I’ve been contemplating quite a bit these last few weeks.  During the school year, relaxation and spending times with friends are of course some of the best parts of my day and week.  I enjoy the downtime and love getting time out from doing all that super fun homework.  In the summer, however, it’s so much about the relaxation that I have started to take the usual kinds of entertainment for granted.  I’ve thought so much about the goods and bads of all of these things I thought I’d share them with the blogosphere.

First is the ever-important Internet.  I love the Internet.  After all, where can you find such funny, inspiring, informative things all at the drag and click of a mouse pad?  Nowhere, that’s where!  I have tons of sites to check on, laugh at, and enjoy daily.  The past week without Internet taught me something important about myself, though.  I am terribly dependant on my Internet routine.  I get up in the morning and check a few sites, check Hulu for my guilty pleasure TV shows (more on that later) and maybe Stumble on a few things.  Then I feel like I can start my day.  At the end of the day, I hop on Netflix, get on Skype, and check my sites again.  Usually, in the middle I am on FaceBook sometime.  I’ve grown dependant and a little obsessed.  So Internet goal for the rest of the summer? Cutting down.

Next is television, the easiest way of being entertained.  My TV has hundreds of channels to surf through, and even if nothing is on there are onDemand shows at my fingertips.  There is always something to watch.  I am incredibly spoiled in that respect.  Who doesn’t love spending the day catching up on terribly insane TV?  I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t like to veg out a little.  After a week of slow days, on the other hand, I start to feel kind of dull and dirty.  My clothes feel overly heavy and everything just sits.  I’m not an exercise girl, but even I wanted to go out on a jog or something to get over the repetition of the commercial breaks. That beings said, I’m keeping my TV night routine.  I still love summer reruns!

Okay, so the two obvious boredom busters are discussed, now it’s time to get to my favorite: reading.  I choose purses based on their book fitting ability, and the summer has always been a good time to fly through the stuff I don’t get to read at school.  This summer, I’ve stepped out of the cheesedoodle books (all fluff, no content) into more intense and adult novels.  Summer is the perfect time to lose yourself in another era.  Unfortunately, reading is so lonely!  You rarely get to chat about books, unless you are in a book club, and so it’s not the way to spend a summer.  Lucky me, I’m on the quarter system, so once everyone leaves and it is just me, I don’t have to feel guilty about blowing friends off for a good read!

I’ve been so pumped this summer to spend some time at home with my family and myself detoxing from a crazy (and crazy fun) year at college.  I am loving how I get to do what I want all day.  On the other hand, summer is all about stretching your boundaries and what you don’t get to do while you’re busy working at school.  The eternal battle is between just relaxing and making memories at home.  There are a million other ways to have fun in the summer (hanging outside, with friends, minigolf, shopping), but these three ways seem to be my go to answers to the question: What do I do now?

The Necklaces-K

If I had thought ahead, I would have taken a million pictures of the process of my making the necklaces.  That is, if I had thought ahead.  But I probably would have had way less fun and not changed techniques so much between necklaces.  On A’s necklace (the blue one), I tried to make it girly using bows and matching colors.  I wanted to counteract the industrialness of the nuts and chain I used in the necklace.  With my necklace, it was more about the pop of color than the way the ribbons look. 

            That being said, I had a blast with my first DIY project!  I went to the local craft store (not the fabric store) and looked around for what must have been half an hour trying to find stuff to make the necklaces.  The nuts and chains are from a brand called Industrial Chic (examples of their stuff is here: http://www.michaels.com/Industrial-Chic%E2%84%A2/products-beads-collections-industrialchic,default,sc.html, but I would recommend looking at your store for more options) , and the ribbon is just a yard each of four different colors.  The width doesn’t really matter, if your fingers are nibble enough.  I decided what I wanted to do and played around with different ways to do it.  Trust me, I know it’s vague, but the best way to make things your own is to realize what you want on your jewelry.  I didn’t have a plan, which made things harder when it came time for my own necklace.

            The whole price tag for the two necklaces was less than $20.  At most stores, a similar necklace would be upwards of $25.  Sure, there are some frayed ribbons, but if it unravels, it only costs $0.70 to replace and you know exactly how to fix it! The necklaces took under an hour to make, although I was sitting in front of the TV tinkering with them for a total of three hours.  Although I love the feel and look of DIY stuff, I didn’t want random frayed ribbon edges hanging out.  In the end, I turned A’s ends into bows and tucked my ends into other parts of the necklace.  It took awhile to figure out, but in the end it looked much cleaner.

            Of course, the best part of any DIY (or so I assume, as this was my first real one) is taking your piece out for a spin.  A and I wore them the same day, at a barbeque her family threw, so I was lucky enough to see them both in action.  Because of the strong colors, I would recommend wearing the cool, but neutral outfit. A rocks out a black and white jumper (jealous!) and I bounced around in a black ballerina-esque dress.  If you have more chill colors, wear more out there clothes, but I like statement pieces to shine (especially when I put so much work into them!!). 

            I am going to attempt to be slightly more adventurous in my next foray into DIY.  I am going to accent an old school sweater I have into something I might actually wear now.  I love the shape and size of the sweater, but with the super fantastic school initials and the dull navy blue color, I can’t seem to find anything to wear it.  I have a slight idea what I plan to do with it, but am open to suggestions, if anyone has any.  So they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have two for you here.  These are the necklaces.  Again, A’s is the blue and mine is the purple and green.  Enjoy and have fun making your own!

DIM- K

            This month, I chose to Do-It-Myself.  This should come as a surprise to anyone who has ever seen me attempt to make craft like things.  I can appreciate crafts and hand made objects, but my ability to create such objects myself, even when presented with step by step, no frills, so-easy-a-kindergartener-could-do-it instructions. 

            In order to begin my quest into craftdom, I visited my local library.  And then I paid a visit to the bookstore, then two craft stores in my town.  None of these three places had what I needed (not that I could quite put my finger on what I needed…).  I wanted a book that wasn’t kitschy, wasn’t filled with over complex or kindergarten material, and could help me in my quest for summer projects.  I couldn’t find a single book that fit that description to a T.  Perhaps I was being overly picky, but hey, I’m a new comer, I don’t need a specialized book on collage or jewelry (as cool as that may be). 

            I got home and continued my search on the world wide web.  Since most of the thing I plan on making will probably be from much cooler, more specific DIY blogs and websites, I’ll spare the details here (but I’ll link the site if you are interested in making some of the stuff for yourself).  I won’t tell you HOW to make it, but I can sure let you know what I did to make it more personal.

            The idea of DIY is that not only is it kind of a cool thought.  Taking something that used to be one thing and transforming it into a pillow, a blanket, or a corkboard is pretty awesome.  Things with past lives are so much more interesting to look at and think about.  Think about vintage jewelry and clothes.  Those pieces have seen so much, it’s amazing to think about stories they lived through. DIY is kind of like that.  Taking pictures, old clothes, and random baubles and giving them a new life and function gives the thing you are making (and maybe gifting) more depth.

            I plan on fully appreciating everything I make this month.  In high school, I left my last (mandatory) art class to the second semester of my senior year.  I was never the biggest person for creating.  Hopefully the things I make this month will inspire me to take stuff I don’t use or wear anymore and breath some life into them.

So what am I going to make this month?  Good question.  I will strive for 3 items, and we’ll see how well I do.  Item one will be made out of my old tee shirts.  I’ve always thought of making a blanket or quilt out of them, but I’m not sure I have enough shirts for it.  In my web travels, I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to do with old, soft cloth that’ll give my dorm room a little oomph.  My second item will (I think) be some kind of clothing piece.  I could try some cool ideas for tie-dying ad revamping, and it’s always fun to get kind of messy.  I’m going to try and push to make something I might actually WEAR.  No random tee shirt I never take out of my drawer.  If I’m not excited to put it on, it is not worth the time and effort I am taking into making it.  The last thing I want to make is a cool piece of jewelry.  I accidentally left almost all of my jewelry at school (I think) and desperately need something to spruce up my summer outfits.  That should be simple, considering the number of jewelry making books available in every nook of the craft stores. 

So now I’ve outlined the month, and I have to search for cool things to do myself to keep me busy and my mom (Hi, Mom!) from going crazy with me just hanging around the house all day.  If anyone knows of any crafty things, feel free to send them my way in the comment section!

You Know What They Say About All Good Things -K

Harry Potter was my childhood.  When I think of the books, movies, and toys I needed (not just wanted), most of them are Harry Potter related.   I waited in line for the last book, and I’ve gotten tickets for both of the book 7 movies.  It is nearly impossible to believe that the era is almost at an end.  My kids, my grandkids even, might know what the series is.  They might read them, just like we’ve read C. S. Lewis and they might even like them.  But after this weekend, the magic and energy every Harry Potter fan experienced will be gone.

            Call me dramatic if you will, but I have been caught up in the phenomenon.  I collected the collectables, I played the board games, and I even read the websites.  Nothing was enough.  I could not get enough of the new material.  Going into the movie this weekend, even though I know what happens, it becomes real up on the screen.  I knew kids who thought Hogwarts would send them an owl on their 11^th birthday.  Those kids have grown up.  They are in high school (hopefully not watching Twilight) and though they might still be fans, they stopped thinking one day they’d be learning from Professor Flitwick.

            For just a night, I want to believe magic is real and that Hagrid exists.  Evil can be defeated by a 17 year old boy and his awesome friends.  For a night, we should be those kids who were so excited we stayed up all night with a flashlight under the covers reading those books (no? Just me? Really? Moving on then…).  Harry Potter was new, and fun, and as I got older, so did the characters and they grew up just like me.  J.K. Rowling made me want to read and know all the little details that made those books so interesting and intricate. 

            I am obsessed, but not like I used to be.  Staying on the phone for hours just quizzing friends on the smallest details (Hermione’s eye color?) was the height of my day when I was younger.  I haven’t been so excited about that kind of stuff in years.  I haven’t wanted to stay up all night to read, or known about a book weeks before you could even pre-order it.  Was it the book, or was it just how kids are and as you grow up, things like that fade away? 

            I don’t want my excitement to fade away with my years.  The depressing thought that I might never be as excited for a movie as I am for this movie is astounding.  I was bouncing up and down the day the first movie came out and haven’t missed out on an opening weekend since.  The anticipation right when the lights dim, the deep breath everyone takes when the lightning bolt like name pops up on the screen- I can’t imagine never wanting to see a movie so much that I hold my breath beforehand.

            I hope everyone has something in their lives that has been so exciting and obsessive as Harry Potter has been for so many people.  The idea might be silly (a book series making me so excited), but sometimes it’s the light and fluffy things that give you the biggest rush.  Beating the Angry Birds level and seeing a new movie with an actress you really love can be the most fun part of the day. 

Everyone needs to go into this weekend believing in the magic of a group of people so excited by a story, so inspired that they’ve spent 11 years of their lives watching and reading.  They should appreciate the people who spent years and years of their lives trying to figure out what was going on in J.K. Rowling’s head.  This weekend, the last movie comes out and Harry Potter will slowly fade away into another amazing series, but to our generation, it wasn’t just a series.  For many of us, it was the first chapter book we read by ourselves, our first brush with magic, and the first time we were left wanting more.