Life Could Be A Dream(sicle), Sh Boom Sh Boom

Hi to all my gal pals,

Don’t you love the orange bubble wrap?! I took a short hiatus to get my house ready to put on to the market. My sister Vicki, our friend Rick and I have been working furiously to get it looking like a brand new house and to start packing up my things. I also have been working to get the yard ready and doing some contract work in between. I am sure many of you can relate to what I am about to say. I really was so busy I wasn’t taking great care of myself so the first day I got to relax (3 days ago) I got terribly sick. It is like your body says “OK, I will give you a pass while you are doing all those things you absolutely need to get done but the minute you are done, you will suffer the consequences of your actions”.

A couple of months ago I was out with the “Keystone Girls” (my neighborhood childhood friends) and asked them if they remembered the ice cream truck that used to come down the street. For all my gal pals who grew up in the 50’s you will know what I am talking about. We would hear the bell ringing and run into the house to get money from our moms. I asked if they remembered how much a Dreamsicle cost at that time. I thought it was a nickel, someone else thought it was a dime and the rest just couldn’t remember. For those of you with good memories (there are fewer and fewer of women our age with good memories) who remember how much a Dreamsicle cost in the late 50’s, let me know how much they cost. Anyway, for those of you who don’t know what a Dreamsicle was, it was vanilla ice cream in the center with a coating of orange ice cream on the outside. These days I am not as particular about my ice cream selection. I just love ice cream! It is my favorite dessert but I love it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. When I was raising my kids, we would occasionally go to Baskin Robins for dinner. It is the best midnight snack! As Aunty Acid would say “If we’re not meant to have midnight snacks, why is there a light in the refrigerator?”. However, she also said “Do you ever get up in the morning, look in the mirror and think “THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!” Unfortunately ice cream has a few unwanted calories but who is thinking about that when you are choosing from 31 different flavors.

Thinking about Dreamsicles, I love the combination of white and orange and I wear the color combination during the warm weather. There is something special about the color orange. I recently went into my contract job and the administrative assistant had a beautiful bouquet of flowers on her desk. The colors of fushia, yellow and green were gorgeous but my eye kept getting drawn to the orange roses. Orange is a standout color so if you want to stand out, that is the color to wear. I use white as a base color so the orange can take center stage. I have a lot of white pants and capris (or pedal pushers as we called them while growing up). As I was deciding what to showcase in this blog and was thinking about pulling out the white pants and capris it got me thinking, why do we have to wait until Memorial Day to wear them? It was always a fashion rule that you don’t wear white pants until then. So with a little research I found out that if you were part of the elite crowd in the 1900’s and could afford to leave your homes during the summer months (end of May to beginning of Sept.) for the sea or the mountains, you would wear white in the oppressive heat. But when the summer was over and elite went back home, white clothes had no place in their real life wardrobes so the cutoff for white clothes became Labor Day. I think this is a silly rule and I have never been part of the elite crowd so I usually break out the whites in March and wear them until it gets cold. Besides, my fashion style is whatever fits me.

So how do I connect this topic to my garden? Easy! I love this tree that grows up in the middle of my deck. It stands just outside the French doors of my bedroom and gives me privacy from anyone driving or walking down the street on the other side of my neighbors house. It is a Sargenti Crab Tree with conical branching at the base and when in full bloom, it looks like a vanilla ice cream cone. In the spring and fall it can be a little messy on the deck but it is beautiful with it’s mass of white flowers and red crab apples that look like little berries. This picture was taken the day after Mother’s Day this year.

So let’s get started with my Dreamsicle outfits.

In the background you are seeing 28 of my 32 flower pins. I love how they look with my outfits. This is not how I store them but I wanted you to see them so I pinned them to a couple of my scarves. They usually sit on the hutch of my dresser and become part of the decor in my flowery bedroom.

The top I am wearing is made of 100 percent polyester. It has a ribbed look and when you crush it, it springs back to its original shape. It is made by Bala Bala and they have several pieces made from this material. The pieces together are a light as a feather. In the spring and summer I like to wear two piece sets like this because I get so cold in air conditioning and like the option to wear it as two pieces or just the sleeveless top. When choosing a shorter top, make sure it is loose and hits just below the belly to give a false appearance of a smaller belly. These white pants are a little dressier than most of my white pants and I am wearing them with one inch sandals. The earrings are drop pearls that match the pearls in the necklace. Because I have such a long neck, I like to double up this necklace so that one strand goes around my neck. the metal in the necklace is gold so I am wearing a gold watch and a white bracelet to match the white of the pearls.

Just as I think every woman should have a little black dress, I also think they should have a little white dress. Because I have been working so hard on my house and the weather up here in Chicagoland has been so rainy and cool, I don’t have a tan on my legs yet but white outfits always look good against a tan body. It has no waistline so it looks good on any shape. I am wearing it with white flat sandals and dressed it up with a few accessories so I can wear it just about anywhere. I have paired it with a beautiful orange scarf and with gold accessories. I have a separate picture of the earrings and the mandarin garnet necklace so you can see the details in both.

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For those of us with a little belly (Ha! Who am I kidding?) the layered look is the greatest thing since ice cream. It allows us to wear the short jackets that we love and hide our belly at the same time. Here I am wearing white jeans and a white T-shirt with 2 inch cork wedge sandals that have a few gold studs on the straps. My accessories are all gold because the fake zippers on the jacket are gold. The jacket has wavy lines of gray, yellow and white. My gold accessories are the serpentine gold necklace and a gold colored collar necklace. I’ve taken a picture of the earrings and oversized ring so you can see how I match the straight lines of the zipper and the straight lines of the earrings and ring.

Well that is it for today. I have lost 10 pounds since last November. Why is it that when you lose weight the belly fat doesn’t seem to go away? Well, there is not much I can do about that and I can’t afford liposuction. That reminds me of my favorite Aunty Acid saying “Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves for we will never cease to be amused”. I hope to have my next blog completed in three weeks. Until then, remember:

God loves you and so do I.