Fashion Quest--Part II

The silver cami that I ordered to go under my mother's beaded top came and looks pretty good.  Now I need to get her to try everything on together.  Usually she would be happily modeling her finery for me, but she's sick right now.  I'm saying prayers that she recovers in time for the wedding, which is just over a week away!

A week or so after we had perused catalogs and Web sites, I spent the greater part of a Thursday reconnoitering the plus-size stores.  There are three in a row at a nearby mall, so I checked out everything that was remotely appropriate for a wedding.  This was not a shopping trip.  It was data collection, which would be collated with catalog and on-line finds and decisions made from there.  I found the navy pants for my mother at Catherine's.  (However, even the petite length needed to be hemmed for her.)  She would need another top for the New Year's Eve wedding, so I kept any eye out for something suitable.  She wanted a little more glitz for the second wedding--but still not gaudy!?!?  But once I found the dressy navy pants, my mind switched to my favorite subject--ME!

I haven't been that
skinny since I was six.

One of the newest trends in women's clothing is the uneven hemline.  Handkerchief hemlines are big again, also.  For myself, I was thinking of a duster with one of those hemlines.  In Catherine's, I found a grey tunic-length top.  They called it a cardigan, but it wasn't at all like a sweater.  Maybe a jacket--but that implies a certain level of heaviness to it, at least in my mind.  So I call it a duster, even though it's not that long.  Anyway, I really liked it right from the start--even though it didn't have either of the the new hemlines.  But this was only a recon trip, so I went next door to Lane Bryant.

Lane Bryant had camis in all kinds of colors and fabrics!  The display took my breath away!  But as I hunted through the dressy clothes, it became apparent that the store didn't have what I wanted.  I went through the racks twice, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.  Oh, they had some nice tops, but not what my mother and I had discussed.  But, I would definitely keep them in mind for the camis.

Next up was Dress Barn Women.   For my outfit, I was thinking of something along the lines of palazzo pants.  I found the perfect pants at Dress Barn.  Palazzo pants with two layers of fabric!  Underneath is solid black; the top layer is shear black.  Very dressy and very chic!  Then, something caught my eye from the small shoe section they have.  Kind of silver, but darker.  Like pewter!  They were beautiful!  Not really wild, but definitely not something my practical, conservative self would have chosen.  For me, they are somewhat outre.  I didn't buy them that day, but I can't wait until the next posting to show them off:

My part-ay shoes!

By the time I looked through Dress Barn, I was pretty sure of what the main part of my outfit would be.  I would get two different tank tops or camis to wear underneath to have a different look.  But I still didn't buy anything!  I took a last look around for the second top for my mother, still didn't see anything that really caught my eye, then made my way back to Lane Bryant.  Even though the cami display was lovely, I decided I wanted more substantial tops for underneath the duster.  The duster doesn't button or zipper, so it'll hang open to show the blouse underneath.  Then I went back through Catherine's one more time, where I looked at the duster again.  It has pewter diamond-shaped studs running down each side of the front.  I knew those pewter shoes would be perfect.

I went home with my mind full of possibilities, yet I was fairly sure of what I would get.  It seemed like angels had led me to these beautiful clothes and shoes!  The plan was to bring my mother back with me on Saturday so she could see everything for herself.  And to look through the dressy clothes for her second top.

Up next:  Taking my mother shopping--a lesson in patience!

Fashion Quest--Part I

The first wedding (I'm invited to) for this fall/winter season is in less than two weeks.  Some people would wait until the day before to plan what to wear.  Others (like me) need or want to plan in advance.  For me, the planning in advance is both a need and a want.  I need to because I only get paid once a month.  I want to because my OCD causes me to panic if I'm not prepared well in advance.  But, no panic attacks for me!  At least not in regards to what to wear to the wedding.

It's not enough to just worry about myself.  I have to help my mother, too.  About six weeks ago, we sat down with plus-size catalogs and my laptop to get an idea of what was out there for this fall.  It quickly hit home that, for my mother, we were going to have to plan her outfits around her shoes.

My mother loves these shoes.

Shoes? you ask.  Well, you would until I tell you that my mother has horrible terrible nasty bad feet.  First, she has tophaceous gout.  Gout is a form of arthritis.  Tophi are nodular masses of uric acid crystals.  I was going to put a picture of it here, but, trust me, it isn't pretty.  Second, my mother's feet have always been wide.  She could never get shoes at Sears or Penney's.  She always had to go to special shoe stores (before wide-widths became standard in most stores).  Third, she has sprained her ankles more times than I care to count, which has left her ankles somewhat . . . misshapen.  All of this means that my mother's shoes are difficult to find and very expensive.  Since she had a fairly dressy pair of navy blue MaryJanes, we had to work with those.

After a few days of perusing catalogs and surfing the net, we decided that, for mom, she would get a dressy pair of navy pants and then different tops for each wedding.  My mother's style is rather oxymoronic.  She loves sparkles and froufrous and embellishments, but doesn't want anything gaudy.  ?!?!  The first top turned out to be relatively easy to find.  She found, in Roaman's catalog, a grey beaded top and was awestruck.
It was rather pricey, but I told her to be patient.  I get two or three emails a week from Roaman's and others with discount codes.  Once my mother makes up her mind, however, she does not want to wait!  (And you wondered how I got to be the way I am?)  Fortunately for both of us, that very evening I received an email for 40% off one item.  Wow!  I'd been hoping for 30% off and expecting 25% off, but this was great.  I didn't even bother with the intercom.  I ran down the stairs and burst into her bedroom.  Well, okay, I hurried down the stairs and carefully pushed her bedroom door open.  I had to mute the TV first, which entailed a search for the remote-control, which had gotten tangled in her blanket and buried under some books.  I told her the good news and her eyes lit up!  "Go order it!" she demanded.  I realized at that point that I should have waited to tell her because I still had a week before I got paid.  I assured her the coupon would still be good and it wasn't likely that the top would be out of stock in a week's time.  It was one of the loooongest weeks of my life!  That last week or so before I get paid is always a killer.  This time I could have cheerfully committed murder.  My mother fretted and fussed the whole week.  I'm surprised she didn't make me wait up the night before payday to wait for the direct deposit to show up in the bank.  But I did make sure I ordered it before I went down to breakfast!

The ordeal was NOT over at that point.  Every day she asked if the package from Roaman's came.  "Not yet" became my mantra.  I didn't even point out to her that it didn't ship until four days later.  It arrived two days after shipping, though, so she had it in less than a week.  It is very pretty:

I found a short necklace at Fashion Bug that has pewter and blood-red beads.  That'll give her some color by her face.  There was some upset when she realized that the V-neck showed more of her bypass scar than she would like.  This prompted a whole 'nother search for a cami or tank that would go under it without looking tacky.  I found a silver shell in some obscure mail-order store that (fingers crossed) should look very nice with it, hide her scar and look great with the pewter-and-red beaded necklace.  Now we are waiting for that to arrive!

Note:  This narrative will take a few postings to tell.  I will show parts of the outfits as we go along and then post pictures of us in all our finery.

Brain Sprain

I have Bipolar Disorder.  I am not ashamed of that, nor do I believe there is any stigma associated with it.  I know some people are still afraid of mental illness.  Technically, Bipolar is a Mood Disorder, not a Cognitive Disorder.  But I didn't start out with Bipolar.  After a number of events, which I'll get into another time, 12 years ago I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety.

Please note:  This is a very simplistic description!  I would not even call it Bipolar 101.  More like Bipolar prep.  I've boiled it down a whole lot and you lose quite a bit when you do that.

There is physical proof that these disorders are not imaginary.

Further, there are electrochemical impulses in the brain which have been proven to be associated with Depression.

First, a neuron (brain cell) receives an electrical impulse.  That first impulse is triggered by something happening to us.  Perhaps a physical threat or life-changing news.  Then, the neuron sends a chemical message to the next neuron.  The messenger (neurotransmitter) could be seratonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine, each of which has a known relationship to depression.  We'll use seratonin for this example because I have pictures for.  The seratonin takes the message through the gap (synapse), between neurons to the receiving neuron.  The receiver takes the message, sending the seratonin back into the synapse.  Some of the seratonin will be taken back into the first neuron. That is called reuptake.  And that seems to be where the trouble is.  Medications such as Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, etc., are Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

The medication blocks the passage that would allow the seratonin to get back into the first neuron.  This has been proven to relieve depression in many people.

It doesn't work for everyone with a Depressive Disorder, but it works for a lot.  And there are other types of antidepressants, too, that work for other people.


This is all taking place in the Limbic System area of the brain.  The Limbic system regulates emotions, physical and sexual drives and the stress response, among other things.  The transmitting of those "messages" is called impulse.  These impulses are about 1/5000 of a second.  Very difficult to catch as it happens.  But there are results of these impulses and that's what scientists look at.

Depression is just one-half, well more like 45%, of what constitutes Bipolar Disorder.  Another 45% is the manic side.  But just putting all this together gave me a headache.  We'll look at the other parts of Bipolar, and how someone ends up there, another time.

Blind Driving

Just a little joke between . . . well, me and myself.  That's how I feel driving at night.  The glare of oncoming lights reduces my vision.  I can't see well in the dark.  What does that leave?  Not much.  There are a few well-lit streets that have those softer-toned bulbs in them that I don't mind driving on at night.  And I can manage just fine in my own neighborhood.  Beyond that, it gets hairy.

My trepidation has increased exponentially with each invite I receive to an evening activity.  This Tuesday night, I have a friend's husband's 50th birthday party to go to.  It'll still be light when I go, but it'll be dark coming home.  Ditto for my nephew's wedding on October 8th, which is on a Friday, and, of course, at night.  The major stomach-wrencher will be my niece's wedding on New Year's Eve.  That's also a Friday and, being December 31st, it will be dark when we go there, as well as coming home.  In addition, it's New Year's Eve.  Half the drivers on the roads will be buzzing, if not outright drunk.  Did I mention the wedding will be in the north-west suburbs of Chicago?  On New Year's Eve!  For those of you who've been living under a rock and have no clue what the weather is like during a Chicagoland winter, we could have three feet of snow!  Of course, it could also be 60 degrees, but that's not likely.  It could also be raining, which could change to sleet.

Am I being pessimistic?  Possibly.  Oh, all right, probably.  But I would rather be prepared for the worst and have things turn out better than expected, than to plan for the best and have things turn out worse than expected.  Make sense?  Well, it does to me.  And, while I am a born-again Christian, I still firmly believe in jinxes and superstition.  So, I'll knock wood, avoid walking under any ladders and beware of black cats.  Oh, wait.  I live with a black cat.  Well, technically, she's a deep coffee-brown that just looks black.  Yeah, that works.  Whew!

If it was just me going, I would crash at my sister's place (which just happens to be five minutes from where the 12/31 wedding will be) afterward.  But, of course, I'll have my mother with me.  There are no bedrooms on the ground floor of my sister's townhouse and I can't expect my mother to sleep on the sofa with her bad back.

Maybe I can talk my daughter into going to her cousin's wedding that night.  She could drive.  Pfft.  Convince my hedonistic, 23-year-old daughter to give up New Year's Eve parties for a family wedding?  Not anywhere near bloody likely!  Maybe I could pay her to drive us . . .  Well, heck, if I'm going to pay someone, I could hire a limo!

Hey, maybe I'm on to something there!  A limo!  Or, at the very least, a cab.  That way I could have champagne, too!  I like champagne.  I would not be exaggerating to say that I love champagne.  I wonder how much a cab from Justice, IL to Lisle, IL would cost?  On New Year's Eve?  Oh sh--, I mean, darn!  We'd really have to tip the drivers bigtime!  There is free limo service to the nearby Hilton, but we don't have money for hotel rooms.  Or even one room.  So we probably can't afford a cab, either.  Oh well, it was a good idea.  I really hate being lower middle-class with upper middle-class (or maybe lower upper-class) relatives.  But that's a gripe for another day.

So, I'll just focus on one day at a time.  Tomorrow or Tuesday, I need to find a gift--in my price range--for a guy who is turning 50 and is also upper middle-class.  I'm thinking a nice card and an herbal alternative to Viagra.  That would be a joke.  A gag-gift, you know?  Fine, I'll just pick up a generic version of Geritol.
Party-poopers.