Roses Are Red

May 9, 2011

Roses are red, my love, violets are blu - u - u - e 

                                                                              -- Bobby Vinton

                                                                          -- Jim Reeves

The ladies at EveryBody EveryWear picked florals for this month's challenge. I didn't have any floral arrangements to wear, but luckily my daughter came through with a skirt that she let me borrow. Once again, I hoisted it up, and wore the skirt as a shirt (that is fast becoming a habit with me).

 shirt -- New York & Company (borrowed)

skirt -- Express

cardigan -- Old Navy

shoes -- Thom McKan (Kmart)

You can't really see the print on my top, but it was a bed of roses.

A long long time ago on graduation day 

You handed me your book I signed this way 

Roses are red my love violets are blue

sugar is sweet my love but not as sweet as you

We dated through high-school and when the big day came
I wrote into your book next to my name 

Roses are red my love violets are blue 

Sugar is sweet my love but not as sweet as you

Then I went far away and you found someone new
I read your letter dear and I wrote back to you 

Roses are red my love violets are blue
Sugar is sweet my love 

Good luck may God bless you
Is that your little girl she looks a lot like you
Some day some boy will write in her book too

Roses are red my love violets are blue Sugar is sweet my love but not as sweet as you

This song is pretty appropo for me -- I have my first of three graduation ceremonies (in three weeks, no less) to attend this Friday. My oldest daughter is graduating from pharmacy school! Woo hoo! Proud Mommy here. 

Some fun rose facts:

• On October 7, 1986, President Reagan signed legislation making the rose the official National Floral emblem of the United States. It's also the state flower of Georgia, Iowa, New York, North Dakota, and the District of Columbia.
• George Washington was the first to breed roses in the United States.
  
• Over 1.2 billion roses (4.67 roses per person) (where are mine?!) were purchased in the United States in 1994. The most popular rose holidays are Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas.  
• The rose is native to the United States. The oldest fossilized imprint of the rose was left on a slate deposit found in Florissant, Colorado. It is estimated to be 35 million years old.  
• Almost 900 acres of greenhouses are dedicated to the production of fresh-cut roses in the United States One acre of greenhouse rose production is valued at about one million dollars, which includes the value of the plants, greenhouse structure and land.  
• About 60% of the roses grown in the United States are produced in California.
• Rose hips contain more Vitamin C than any other fruit or vegetable.
• Mythology says that roses grew thorns when Cupid accidentally shot an arrow into a rose garden.

And here's a picture of the real thing -- my kids gave me this rose bush for Mother's Day several years ago. It still blooms every year.

I always save the rose petals from any roses that were given to me. This year, I want to try and make beads out of the petals. It seems like it's a relatively easy process -- just takes time. There are a lot of on-line tutorials for making them -- basically it seems like you just collect them, grind them, and boil them (you boil them a bunch of times over several days). Apparently, they last for a long time though if made right. Click here to see one version on eHow.

Who did you get your first roses from?

Now head on over to EveryBody EveryWear to see how everybody else styled their florals. I'm looking forward to seeing the colors.

Is She A ...?

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Is she a nurse? Is she selling ice cream? No! She's taking part in the Bloggers Do It Better interpretation of the White-Out spring trend (wow, was that a mouthful, or what?).

tank -- BVD (Kmart)

cardigan -- Croft & Barrow (thrifted)

pants -- Real Straight by Gap

boots -- (DSW)

I don't know about this look -- I really don't. I like the idea of it, and I like it on other women, but I don't think that I like it on me. Done right, it looks sophisticated and elegant. Done wrong? Hmmm .... Suffice it to say that I don't think I'm looking very sophisticated or elegant in these shots. Maybe my top needed to be more flowy or silky or something ...And maybe heels instead of boots would have been a bit better.

Actually, I just realized who I look like! I look like Mr. Clean!

Now I'm disappointed that I didn't think of that before! I could have worn a t-shirt, and a hoop in one ear. And what a great Halloween costume this could be. Do you remember the Mr. Clean jingle?

Chorus	Mr. Clean gets rid of dirt and grime And grease in just a minute Mr. Clean will clean your whole house And everything that's in it
Verse 1	Floors, doors, walls, halls White sidewall tires and old golfballs Sinks, stoves, bathtubs he'll do He'll even help clean laundry, too.
Verse 2	Can he clean a kitchen sink? Quicker than a wink. Can he clean a window sash? Faster than a flash. Can he clean a dirty mirror? He'll make it bright and clearer. Can he clean a diamond ring? Mr. Clean cleans anything.

And what about the commercial?

I did have fun trying this spring trend, and it was definitely not something I would have tried before I became a fashion troll! What do you think I could have done differently?

Other interesting "white" things include:

• The Woman in White is a book by Wilkie Collins, which was first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be one of the first mystery novels.
• White balance is arguably, one of the most important settings on a digital camera. Adjusting this setting ensures that the white colors you see also appear white in your pictures.
• White dwarfs are the corpses of stars. They are stars that have used up all their fuel and lack the temperature and pressure to continue fusion in their core. They are very small and very faint, so they are hard to detect. 
• The White Mountains are a mountain range in New Hampshire -- they are thought to be the most rugged mountains in New England. 
• The White House is the only home of a head of state that is open to the public, free of charge. Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its name in 1901.
• Wite-Out was used in the olden days to correct typing mistakes. 
• An item that creates more trouble than it's worth is called a white elephant. 

 What did I miss? 

Now head on over to Pretty, Sparkly, and Shiny to see how other Bloggers Did White-Out Better!

The Three Rs

Friday, April 22, 2011

My first job out of college was tramping around landfills in the state of New Jersey to see if the ground water was contaminated. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least -- to see not only the mountains and mountains of garbage but also the perfectly good stuff that people threw out, which then became garbage. I think that's when my passion for the environment became a full-fledged commitment. So in keeping with the spirit of Earth Day and the 3Rs of the environment (reduce, reuse, recycle), I'm reusing some pictures in this post.

dress -- Mossimo (Target)

cardigan -- Old Navy 

boots -- Nomad (thrifted) 
necklace -- JCPenney

I first posted these pictures on January 11 of this year. (Click here to see these pictures in their original post. I didn't include this fun snappy narrative along with it, so you're really better off just staying here.)

Back in January, I thought I was being so brave by wearing this outfit to work -- those big honking boots and then the statement necklace were really different from my usual style. What were people going to say? And what were they going to think? (and why do I get so unglued about what people think? does it really matter that much?) Now, my boots and necklace seem kind of mundane, and I don't blink an eye about wearing them.

Reusing pictures wasn't the only way that I celebrated Earth Day though. It was cold, and instead of turning on the heat, I built a fire. I saved oil, and got exercise by feeding that darn fire. It was hungry, and I had to keep getting up for food.

I rode my bike instead of taking a car -- great exercise.

I composted my orange peels instead of throwing them away.

I recycle and reuse as many things as I can. If  I don't know how to reuse something, then I save it and scour the eco blogs to try and find a way to use them. (I'm still trying to find something cool to make from all the bread tabs that I've been saving -- anybody have any ideas?).

Over the years, I've found all sorts of ways to use things that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. Here's a bag that my mom made from juice packs.

And a pillow that she made out of clothing labels. It's a little bit beat up, but I still love it a lot. My mom saved labels for a long time, and whenever she found one that reflected something that was of interest to me,
it went into my pillow pile. 

Coasters made from record albums, circuit boards, and magazines.

 Frames made from bicycle chains.

Environmentalists often get a bad rap or are ridiculed for some of the things they do (I once stopped eating yogurt because I couldn't figure out what to do with all the containers!) but taking care of the world we live in is something that I believe we should all embrace -- to me, it's no different than taking care of your home or your body.

I know that I can be somewhat obsessive about this issue, but the good thing about the 3Rs is that you don't have to do it all to make a difference. I mean, I read one article that said you could save your nail clippings and use them for a pot scrubber. I decided that that had way too much of an ewwwww factor for me, and mine go in the garbage. Find one thing that you're comfortable with doing and incorporate it into your lifestyle.

• A 15-year-old tree makes about 700 paper grocery bags. A busy supermarket can use them all in under an hour!
• Enough wood and paper is thrown away each year to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.
• Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year and requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. 
• An estimated 80 million Hershey's kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space (almost 40 football fields). All that foil is recyclable. 
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours -- the equivalent of one-half gallon of gasoline.
• Each person produces, on average, 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day or almost a ton of trash per year.

 

What did you do in honor of Earth Day?