Monday, August 29, 2011

Wearing White After Labor Day


My friend, Dorothy, and I were walking down the aisle at work when we ran into two other coworkers.  Ms. Paulette was decked out in her usual attire--all purple everything.  The lady that was with her, whose name I don't know, had on an all white outfit.  Dorothy told the lady in white that she looked nice and she responded, "Thanks.  I figured I'd go ahead and wear it one last time."  I smiled and nodded but I was thinking, huh?  The outfit didn't look like it was too little and about to burst at the seams so what was she talking about.

As Dorothy and I walked away, it finally dawned on me what the lady in white meant.  The Labor Day weekend is fast approaching and she wanted to wear her outfit before it became taboo to do so.

For the rest of the day I wondered about the "don't wear white after Labor Day" tradition.  I even asked some of my other co-workers what the big deal was.  I mean I had heard about it all my life but I didn't take it very seriously.  Heck my grandmother forbade me to wear red because she said it was the devil or Jezebel-like or something.  (She would smack me with her cane if she could see this red fro on my head, but I digress...)

I asked Sandra, who sits in the cubicle across from me, her opinion about the issue.  She said that since they make white winter clothes, including a leather white skirt set that a friend of hers has, she didn't see anything wrong with wearing white or pastels during the fall and winter months.

Three other female coworkers said that they didn't know where the tradition originated but they were always taught that it was safe to wear off-white, cream, and winter white (whatever that means), just not plain white.

I sat down and continued to work but the notion wouldn't stop nagging at me until I made up my mind to write this blog post.

Last year, I asked a young lady on Twitter about this "no white" thing.  I can't remember her exact words but I do remember feeling kind of dumb and backwoods-ish after she finished her spiel.

Sandra told me to just Google it so I did and found a number of sites that gave me a lot more info than I bargained for.  It talked about people wearing white during the summer to keep cool but not in the winter because it wouldn't keep them warm enough.  They also mentioned that they didn't want to mess up their white duds during the rainy and sometimes muddy months.  As I continued to read, I happened across another reason.  Back in the day, early 20th century, middle and upper class people used the "rule" to differentiate themselves from the poor underprivileged souls who weren't worthy of being in their hoity-toity presence if they didn't know about the only wearing white between the beginning of spring and Labor Day thing-a-ma-jig.  This had to do with knowing which fork goes with which dish too but I don't get that either. *shrug*

This all sounds like a bunch of bull... spit to me.

Personally, I wear any color at any time as long as its clean and not so tight I have to hold my breath most of the day to keep from bursting it wide open.  But hey, that's me.

What are your views?

Are you for or against wearing white after Labor Day?

Saturday, August 13, 2011

What I've Been Up To

Yes, I know, I haven't blogged for a while.  Please believe that I have not just been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.  Before my addiction to social media, I was a very avid crafter.  From crochet, to cross-stitch to working with foam sheets to scrapbooking, I never had a dull moment.  Most recently, I took an interest in jewelry making.  I have a few videos dedicated to it on my YouTube channel (click the "I love YouTube" button to the left). 

Until the last few months, I wasn't that into jewelry but a coworker of mine began selling beaded bracelets and earrings.  I became one of her most loyal customers until I requested something that she didn't have time to produce--hoop earrings.  Having been patient for several weeks I decided to buy some wire, tools and beads and made my own earrings.


After I made that first pair I went crazy making earrings to match the clothes in my closet.  Then I thought, "Hey, I need some bracelets to match all of these earrings."


Now I never set out to start a business but I seem to be heading in that direction.  Everything I wear to work, I get one or two or ten people that want the same or a similar item.  So far I've only been making custom jewerly that the customers request but I'm probably going to start doing a feature item a week where I make at least six of one items to see how many people will buy it.. 

One thing I'm going to have to learn is to not give everyone credit.  I try to do POD (pay on delivery) but some folks don't pay when I deliver.  Yeah, I know everybody's money is funny, but I don't have the money to make stuff for free.  I mean if it was for advertising purposes, and the person referred a few people to me, I could give them a free item every so often.  Otherwise, I need my money honey.

To avoid not receiving payment, I'll just let people know when I have their items and tell them I'll deliver it whenever they are ready for it.  People with common sense know that means, "have my money ready".  I'll see how this jewelry making thing pans out over the next couple of months.

I plan to start making hats and scarves again for the winter.  The last time I did that was maybe 6 or 7 years ago.  I stopped because I was working two jobs and got overwhelmed with orders.  Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with the demands this time.

Whew!!!

I promise I haven't completely stopped writing.  Sometimes I have to live a little bit to have something to write about.  Stay tuned.