I’ve had a lot of questions from you folks as of recent that aren’t fashion related…
Will you help me with my wardrobe/find me a dress for an event/go shopping with me?
I used to do virtual wardrobe consultations… but then I had a baby. I don’t have the time to commit to this in a quality manner so have stopped all wardrobe and shopping consultations or personal shopping trips. There are so many talented and qualified folk out there who do this as a profession, check out Yelp for your area,
Style for Hire, or if you’re in the DC area send me an email and I can provide you with names of those who do it in this city and do it in a way I admire and respect.
Will you help me with my blog/be my mentor/help me become a stylist?
I so want to help you, but I don’t have the time to give you the quality advice and support you deserve. Many of you are starting your own blogs so I will from time to time offer some basic blogging advice on here
(one will go live tomorrow), but I can’t offer individual consultations.
I don’t like your use of swear words on this blog.
Each week I receive at least one email telling me that I have offended someone. I can write what I find to be the most benign and pleasant post and yet can still hit and nerve or hurt someone. I really care about you readers, and I want this site to be helpful to all and not exclude or offend but I found over the past year I worried more about offending than being authentic. I wiped out all profanities, and tried to consider all types of people in all sorts of situations before posting. You can’t believe how many times I wrote on emotion, saved as draft, then came back the next day and deleted the whole thing because I feared it would offend or be misconstrued. I often think about those posts, and how what I wrote may have helped some, but it wasn’t shared because I was so scared, and because I didn’t want the flack. I sacrificed my voice and this blog to try to appeal to everyone.
You can’t please all the people all the time, and when you try you can go mad or go vanilla. I don’t want to go crazy over a blog, and I don’t want to lose my voice. I swear in real life, and sometimes I say things that are politically incorrect. I don’t plan on swearing on a regular basis, and you won’t find me using profanity in advice posts, but sometimes life gives you four-letter word moments, and I’ve decided to be real again on this blog, and with it there may be some profanity.
What happened to your baby blog?
I don’t have a baby anymore, I have an independent and unique small person living in my house who doesn’t even know there was a blog about her. In the past year the blog became less about her and more about me as a mother, but there are still the archives. Also, as the blog became more about me, I ended up using it as a place to rant about things, especially the blogosphere. It seems that some folks who don’t seem to like me or my daughter very much found the blog and started writing very mean things about us on it. It was a good wake-up call; at first I was going to have it open but password protected but decided I would rant less if I didn’t have the place to rant so I decided to shut it down all together.
I know it was a good resource for cloth diapering and all that; I’d like to have those posts open but when digging through the archives I saw that the cloth diapering and BLW posts were still too personal. I recommend checking out the
Eco Friendly Family and
Cloth Diapering boards on
The Bump where I first found out all my cloth diapering information and I am happy to answer specific questions you may have!
How do you take your pictures?
My husband takes my pictures. He uses a Canon 5D with… some lens that is beige and black and fancy looking. We take the pictures before I head for work, he takes about 12 shots, hands me the memory card and I edit the photos on my lunch hour. I use
PicMonkey for editing my photos because it’s quick, easy, and cheap
(I don’t know how to use Photoshop).
What do you do for a living?
I work at a wonderful company in DC where I sit in front of one, sometimes two computers all day and spend a lot of time wearing a headset. I work with really great people who are passionate about what they do. My office dress code is business casual though some days I dress up more than that because I have meetings with clients.
What happened to that garment you used to wear and no longer wear?
Either I sold it on eBay, donated it because it went through some mishap, gave it to a friend because it no longer fit or felt wrong on me, or packed it in the attic because it just didn’t seem to fit my current personal style.
When I do post clothes on eBay, I share the link on Facebook. I no longer have a blog for selling my old clothes because I couldn’t keep up. With eBay, though I lose a percentage, I can just list when I have the time. So
follow me on Facebook if you are interested in buying my old clothes when I get around to it
(a couple times a year).
What is your monthly clothing budget?
To be completely transparent, it all has to do with how profitable the blog is. If I do well, I buy something or two off my list. I keep a ton of lists, lists calm me. I love writing in a five-subject notebook with a medium tip ball point pen, or an empty book with one of those very fine felt tipped pens. I have notebooks and journals all over the house and even one in my purse. Anyway… I make lists of what I need to fill holes in my closet, things I see that I want, wish lists. And after I pay the bills and cover blog costs and put some away for Emerson’s future fund, I may buy a new pair of shoes or a dress or maybe just a new Revlon lipstick. However, before the blog made money, I did about 7-8% of my income towards wardrobe, hair, and beauty products.
What size do you wear?
I am 5’3”, have a 36DD chest, and usually wear a large or 12. For jackets, I usually do petite so it fits right at the small of my back, but that means I sometimes need to go up to a 14. For NYDJ jeans, I do a 10; petite if I want to wear them with flats or low shoes, regular for heels. For all other jeans I am usually a 12 and need that sweet spot between petite and regular to fit both my rise and length which is why I own few jeans that I like that aren’t NYDJ. I wear an 8 shoe and if it comes in wide, I’ll choose that
(I can’t wear most sandals or strappy shoes unless they come in wide). Random size thing, but my left ring finger is an 8 and every other one
(except my pinkies) are bigger, which is why I rarely wear any other rings. That and I have metal allergies…
Where do you buy Emerson’s clothes?
When Gap/Old Navy have their 30% off promotions, I go online and stock up on sale stuff in Emerson’s next size. I have a Rubbermaid tub in her closet with larger sizes and clearance scores I find. My community also runs a twice-yearly kid stuff swap, where parents bring clothes their children no longer fit into and swap for larger sizes
(or smaller if they had another baby). My mom buys Emerson some super cute clothes and my sister has become Emerson’s personal stylist for holidays and events that warrant big frothy dresses. As for shoes, I buy most of them on eBay, where I can find new or like-new shoes for great prices.
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