Dot Dot Dot

Dot Dot Dot by sweetestwhimsy featuring platform high heels

What They Wear: 2012 Back to School

What They Wear: 2012 Back to School by sweetestwhimsy featuring Roxy backpacks

Stuff I Bought & Stuff I Like

Stuff I Bought & Stuff I Like by sweetestwhimsy featuring a wrap skirt

How do you wear your Brahmin? To the Opera

How do you wear your Brahmin? To the Opera by sweetestwhimsy

Plaid Stallions

Getting sick always sucks. But being sick during the holidays really sucks. So unfair. I wish I could have a do-over for the two weeks I was "out" (and still officially not 100% yet). All the things I didn't get to do, the friends I didn't get to see. Oh well, enough complaining. My blog's been calling out to me, begging to be updated, but I've ignored it because, you guessed it, I've been feeling sick lately!

Today's post was going to be a rant about some aspect of volunteerism in the parenting sphere, but then I changed my mind because that would just depress us all. Saving that for later! haha

Instead, I guarantee that I will bring a smile to everyone's faces (who is actually reading this). Everyone, I present the blog I go to whenever I need an honest-to-goodness laugh: The Plaid Stallions. Both the blog and the website are seriously fall-out-of-your-chair and pee-in-your-pants funny if you were a child of the Seventies. If you weren't, then it might be mildly amusing or even downright confusing. But if you lived it, you will love it!

I think if I were a male with a little more time on my hands (ok, alot more time) then I could have dreamed up this website. As it is, I have been obsessed with catalogs since I was a child. Obsessed. Apparently, so was the owner of Plaid Stallions. The only difference is that he kept alot of his catalogs and keeps finding more, and I don't have any of mine because my Mom threw them away.

The website name is Plaid Stallions: Rambling and Reflections on 70s Pop Culture. Plaid Stallions, in it's own words, is "mocking the seventies a catalog page at a time." Seventies toys, fashions, housewares, Halloween costumes, etc. are all there in living catalog color and even some vintage TV commercials. The blog is a daily feast of 70s gems such as:


and this:

(For more 70s "fashion" commentary, see my earlier post about this on my other blog.)

It's not always cheesy fun though. Sometimes I just have to smile really big when I see the toys from my childhood so lovingly revered:

I LOVED THIS TOY! I still have it, my girls play with it, and the elevator still works!

Received excitedly some of this for Christmas, either 1977 or 1978, only to have my Mom give it to the neighbor's child when we moved away. Still mourning the loss 30 years later.

And some days I even feel sad (again) about the toys I desperately wanted but never could convince my Mom to buy:

Barbie Airplane, as seen briefly at a birthday party in the mid-70s and always wanted, even now!

This website and blog brings back memories of pretty much my entire 70s life-- what my parents wore, what my brother and I played with for a whole decade, what we watched on TV, the colors and textures of the world around me.

It's Never What We Think It Is

On the last day of 2008, one more disappointment pertinent to this blog: one of my favorite blogs, Mrs. O, is a fake. The New York Times has found them out. Mrs. O is not simply a blog by a well-informed, well-researched fashion-obsessed fan. It's a marketing tool for a global advertising agency, BBH, written by one of its employees.

I think I might have to remove Mrs. O from my faves list. Knowing it's just another piece of the marketing puzzle makes it not so clever anymore. I feel duped. At least I hadn't gone to Target yet for the oh-so-enthusiastically reviewed Thakoon pieces!

But I still heart Mrs. Obama, if not Mrs. O.

Jezebel

Some of the YA books reviewed recently by Fine Lines on Jezebel (photo from Jezebel.com)

The name Jezebel usually conjures up images of wicked women. It's a provocative name. It's also the name of a website that I absolutely love and can't get enough of. An old friend, Sarah, got me hooked on this site when she recommended it in September.

Jezebel's tagline is: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing. It's a bit like People Magazine for the feminist/liberal/thinking gal. And once I start browsing on their website, I can't stop! Because there's so much to read and catch up on, even if I visit daily. In the past 24 hours, for example, there have been 62 posts on Jezebel's site.

My favorite feature on Jezebel is Fine Lines. Each week, they review classic Young Adult books (circa 1970s and 1980s) from an adult female feminist perspective, and since I must be pretty close in age to the author (probably a bit older), these are the same books I grew up with and adored.

I hope everyone I know visits Jezebel, particularly if you were a hopeless library geek like I was in the 80s and want to revisit some favorite reads from back then. Like its name, its content is provocative, strong, assertive. Hussy!