Pining for the Fjords

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts (the one about – spoiler alert – the ugly sweater), I don’t really enjoy shopping.  Pretty much the only time I go shopping is when I visit my best friend Toni (or vice versa) or when Mom gives me a Macy’s gift card for Christmas/birthday.  Trust me – this doesn’t upset me; in fact, I can think of roughly 1 million other things that sound better on any given day.*  I’m pretty sure the only reason I can tolerate it with Toni is the fact that it allows us to spend time together, which is something we (sadly) don’t have as much chance to do these days, living across the entire country from each other and whatnot. Here’s a gratuitous picture of my god-daughter, Juliet, and I.  She belongs to Toni, so posting a picture of her here is technically related to the content of this post.  Either way, she’s totally cute, so if you have a problem with a picture of her, you might be a horrible person.  Just sayin’. Okay - focus, Olsen.  So, wh

A buddy of mine at work, Charity, recently told me about a neat online personal shopping service called Stitch Fix (more on that later).  When I described the idea to Chris, his immediate reaction was, “do they have one for guys?”  He’s metro, that one. In doing some research, I ran across a few sites that will allow you to fill out a style profile with your measurements, preferences, budget, etc, and using a frequency you set, the stylist will pick out clothing for you and drop it in the mail.  The site we tried is called Bombfell; apparently, the founder’s naming logic is that if a good-looking woman is a “bombshell,” the male equivalent is a “bombfellow,” hence “bombfell.”  Yeah, I have doubts about that, and I can see you do, too.  I mean, clearly . Anywhoo, the style profile seemed pretty comprehensive; you fill out a ton of measurements (ideally, while your wife is watching Project Runway.   Scratch that - trying to watch Project Runway ), and you pick sample brands tha

I’m not a huge fan of shopping for clothes, so when I bring a new item into my closet and cut off the tags, I toss the tiny plastic bag containing any extra buttons/beads/thread into the cosmetics caddy that sits next to my sink.  Every now and then, I’ll clean these items out of the caddy to place them in a better location, something more out of the way or closer to the sewing kit, in case they are ever needed. Since the electric toothbrush has a full two-minute brushing cycle to go through (no cheating there, unless you want to stop early and risk slinging used toothpaste and little bits of mouth across the bathroom.  Yum!), I often stand at my sink and look around, waiting for something interesting to entertain me while I kill 120 seconds.  The other day, I was unthinkingly picking through the caddy, when I stumbled across this pack: How beautiful!  Look at that emerald green – so shiny!  And, wait.  Is that a small, white sequin?  What amazing article of clothing did t

I’ve been thinking about sharing some ideas and recent experiences lately, and I remembered – it occurred to me Thursday night around 1am – that I have a blog!  Holy crap!  Judging by the date of my last post (feel free to scroll down to see that horror), I seem to have completely forgotten about this little dude, leaving him all alone, floating around in cyberspace, totally unloved.  That’s no bueno.  I’ve also been thinking about my writing skills lately and how I’m not…really…using…them.  Like at all.  Sure, I write emails at work all day long, but in terms of actual writing?  Even something like a blog post?  Nada.  Judging by the major award* I won in college for writing, I should probably keep this skill polished up, and what better way to do it than by sharing things here. October coincides with a time of the year that only became important to me around four years ago, when Mom was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.  Before that point, I remember seeing the whole wor