Beauty Is In The “Eye (let)” Of The Beholder

Hi to all my Gal Pals,

I agree that getting old is not for sissies or as Aunty Acid would say “I spent my entire childhood wishing to be older……and now I’m here? Well, this crap sucks!”. I am really beginning to realize that it is not for tightly budgeted seniors either. The longer I live the more expensive my body gets. It is kind of like deciding between investing more money into an aging car or can you afford to buy a new one. Since I can’t buy a new body, I find I am dumping more and more money into the aging model I got. How much money are we putting into beauty products to get wrinkle free skin that don’t really work? When I asked my dermatologist if there was a cream to help with my wrinkles she just chuckled (not a good sign) then told me she could recommend a good plastic surgeon because the only thing that will help me is a little snip here and a little snip there. Well, those LITTLE snips will cost BIG money. Like $15,000 in big money. I told her I couldn’t afford that kind of money because I am trying to figure out how to pay $15,000 for teeth implants. It seems that those root canals that I got in my 20’s are as decrepit as the rest of my body parts. Like I have this kind of money! Aunty Acid and I have the same financial situation which can be described as “If burglars broke into my house and searched for money, I’d just laugh and search with them”. To top it all off my body is shrinking. My height was 5’9” so I always had to buy “tall” pants which now need to go to the seamstress because I have lost one and a half inches. It cost me $14 each time I have the seamstress raise the hem of my pants. Let me add this up. All together it would cost me over $1000 to hem all my pants. I could start a Go Fund Me page but even I wouldn’t contribute to my vanity. I could pray that I win the lottery but my luck is best explained by Aunty Acid who says “I have the luck of a person who gets hit by a car, sees a bright light, only to be hit by another car”. Oh, well, thank you for giving me this platform to complain. I always try to find the positive and I have adopted a mantra that I saw on a T- shirt, “No matter how bad it gets, I’m always rich at the dollar store”.

The focus of my fashion in today’s blog is “eyelet”. If you have looked at any of the current retail advertisements you will have noticed that eyelet materials are trending. Eyelet is a fabric type with numerous little embroidered holes woven in for decorative purposes. Most eyelet patterns are typically floral motifs or abstract geometric compositions. Some eyelet fabrics are more hole than fabric, with motif designs that are either enormous and bold or delicate and lacy. Records from the past indicate that the eyelet pattern was originally used in Scotland sometime during the 1700s. It soon became popular across Europe because it was more long-lasting than the traditional “bone lace”.

You know I like to connect some element of garden design with fashion design. Well, the following picture reminds me of the eyelet pattern.

Just as the floral motifs are used to decorate our clothes, the same design is used to decorate our gardens. Even though I live in a townhouse I have several metallic yard decorations surrounding the perimeter of my place. This one looks very similar to the fashions I will be wearing in this blog. You have heard me say that yard decorations are the jewelry of the garden. They enhance the plants in the landscape.

OK, let the fashion show begin.

This outfit is perfect for all those cool evenings we have been having in the Chicagoland area. You could wear it for a rooftop dinner, a summer evening boat ride or in one of our freezing movie theaters. The jacket has a beautiful eyelet pattern throughout and it looks lovely with the eyelet patterned blouse. The holes of the eyelet blouse are embroidered with an off white thread. I am wearing my white denim jeans and silver sandals that match my silver jewelry seen below.

The picture makes my silver jewelry look a little tarnished because of the lighting but you can see in the picture above they are really very shiny. I like to wear silver jewelry with white outfits and gold with black outfits. The chain of the necklace can be removed to leave a lovely brooch that is 3 inches in diameter. I like the necklace, butterfly ring and heart earrings with this outfit because the holes in the metal go perfectly with the holes in the material. I just bought this ornate cuff bracelet at Canal Days craft show in Lockport for a very good price.

I don’t have many articles of clothing that are blue because I didn’t think I looked good in blue but I get compliments every time I wear the color so I bought this top. It was on sale at Talbots and because I am on their list of clients I got a $20 off coupon. The eyelet sleeves make it a little fancier so even though I am wearing sneakers I am able to dress it up to go out to dinner with family or I can dress it down to party with friends at a BBQ. By the way, the sneakers are made of eyelet material.

The four strand necklace is made up of tiny silver beads, larger powder blue beads, bluish-gray beads and faux pearls. I matched it with real pearl earrings that I combined with faux diamond jackets. The watch is gold and silver so I was able to wear rings with bands that were gold or silver. The silver ring has a tiny pearl and the other has a tiny piece of cut glass. The gold ring has a beautiful band that has tiny holes in it to go along with the fashion theme. The synthetic pale blue stone in the gold ring looks so real that the jeweler thought it might be blue topaz until he was able to better inspect it.

This top has very large eyelet holes so I am wearing a sleeveless white top underneath. It looks great with my white denim crops and , believe it or not, I happened to be wearing a pair of shoes with holes punched out of the leather to create a beautiful eyelet pattern.

The jewelry I have chosen are all made of materials of light or dark cocoa brown. I hope you can see the beautiful design on the watch with the little faux diamonds. In one of my past blogs I told you I attended a used jewelry sale at our local library. I got this gorgeous watch for a whopping $2. The bracelet and matching ring were hand crafted by a Michigan artisan. The other ring has a beautiful silver band with a Smokey brown topaz. The necklace and matching earrings were bought at a craft show in South Haven, Michigan for $10. How could I pass up such a deal!

Well, as far as my weight, here is the story morning glory. I just went for another thyroid test and I am still hyperthyroid. Because of this, I managed to lose 2 pounds during the month of June even though I am indulging in desserts.`Once again my doctor is adjusting my meds but I am wondering, do I want to adjust my meds or do I want to keep taking the dosage I’m currently on until after my vacation in August? I don’t feel great while being hyperthyroid but I don’t feel terrible either. If I go ahead and take the new adjusted dosage I will have to cut back on all those wonderful summer indulgences and increase my exercise so I maintain this weight until weigh-in in November in order to make my liver doctor happy. Other than my one to two mile walk in the morning I am not highly motivated to exercise. I can relate to my friend Aunty Acid who said “I did a couple of laps around the gym today. Next time I’m thinking about parking my car and actually going in”.

I will let you know my med decision next month. Until then, remember, God loves you and so do I.