I'm a Stylish Blogger!

I'd like to thank Therese, my favorite Aussie, over at the Aussie Coffee Shop for the nomination for this award. She is one of the sweetest and supportive bloggers out there! (other Stylish Blogger Award nominees)

Besides being a nice pat on the back, part of the purpose of these blog awards is to foster a sense of community among blog writers and to introduce our readers to some other worthwhile blogs, so in return, I am nominating some blogs I think you'd enjoy:

Adoro at Adoro te Devote, 

Ellen at Love that Max, 

Sheila at To Love Honor and Vacuum, 

Hallie at Betty Beguiles, 

and even though he is a guy among the gals in this list, Jeff at The Catholic Foodie

To fulfill the requirements of the award, I have to tell you seven random things about myself, so this is a bit like a 7 Quick Takes Friday post in lieu of my usual Monday fare.

1. I love coffee because the taste of creamy, sweet coffee belongs to memory and my grandfather. My Pawpaw used to reward me for extra good behavior with his "big people only" candy--coffee flavored nips. Every cup brings him back for a brief moment, and I still feel like a very good big girl whenever I hold my mug of joe. That's the way to start a morning, I tell you. Thanks, Pawpaw!

2. Although we've long known that my cousins, aunts and uncles all spell my Pawpaw's name as PaPa, my banch of the family tree is sticking to including the "w"s. My brother and I heard the "w"s in the heavy Texan accents of my cousins, so we've always written it that way. Even if everyone else thinks we're silly, it's our kind of silly.

3. I haven't worn contacts since my 20s because they are a little uncomfortable and my laziness out performs my vanity in the comfort department. I don't think it is a virtue either.

4. If I'm ever over at your house and skip dessert, it's not because I am a strong willed calorie counter, it's just that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. No virtues here, either.

5. I don't have one favorite color. Different colors catch my attention from day to day. My husband is the same way, so one of the discussions we frequently have is, "What was your favorite color today?" There's always a story attached to the day's favorite.

6. I like debate and I love clarity, but after a certain point of "here's where the line is drawn between us" I'm not going to stand on my side of it and shout. I can be very passionate about my beliefs as well as extremely saddened by what I consider someone else's serious and grievous errors and still coexist. That's what manners are for. More importantly, that's what prayer is for.

7. At the end of a demanding day, the last thing I want musically is a simple phrase repeatedly endlessly and ever more passionately. Modern music in my worn out ears sounds like yet another form of nagging and whining. I may be getting old, but I'm putting that radio in a time out!

Splinters: The Nature of Time

Because I'm of a teacherly bent, my talent is to make complexities simple while pointing down the path to further study. The larger the subject, the more imperfectly it can be rendered simply, Teaching being such a frustrating science. It has been 10 years since God used His Holy 2 x 4 to get my attention, and I'm still unpacking the experience. While talking about everyday matters, I'm suddenly waxing philosophical. My husband likes to call these weird little insights of mine splinters. 



The best way to begin this little insight from my conversion is to assert, imperfectly, that it is almost as if our souls once had clear senses in the same way we have bodily senses like sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. As a friend of mine once put it, "Before The Fall, our souls had eyes." With Original Sin, those senses of the soul became damaged beyond repair. Perhaps in our soul's roiling paroxysms of shame and horror at the advent of personal sins, we each damage these senses further. But it is a mercy of God that we can no longer know the lacerations we unleash upon ourselves and upon reality and the world with the slightest of our sins. We are now numbed to the consequences of sin, thank God.

All of that aside, for a moment, because I could get lost in such essential tangents and never take us down road I intended to take.

One of those senses that is damaged, or muddied up, by sin is our sense of time. Although we live in the Eternal Now, because there is no other time but Now, we perceive now as a continually shifting moment. We feel as if we a slipping from this now to the next now, when in reality it is all one. Part of the damage is our perception of our past and future. Instead of it being integrated into our present, we see each as distinct and somehow fixed. We can dimly see the error of this by our understanding of our ability to affect the future by our choices now, but it is harder to see how dynamic our past also is. Those of us who have gone through experiences like a conversion, which radically changes one's perspective, know that perspective has an immense effect on memory--our only access to the past remaining to us. Radical changes of perspective radically effect history by the explosion of insight into past situations. Such explosions flood our past with new color and light which essentially change that experience for us.

All of time can be reduced to Now. Now is all that matters because Now is all that there is. You are here now, reading this, and somehow you are experiencing every now that you will ever experience in this same moment. That is the nature of Eternity, which we will understand more perfectly when our souls are healed after our slip through death into the perfection of the Eternally Present. When the eyes of our souls are finally healed by the Touch of God at the end of our brief perception of our earthly now, we will see and experience this now so much more perfectly. So, if you can follow me into the end of a prayer while carrying such an insight, you will see that our earthly life hinges upon two moments eternally: Now, and the other vitally important moment when we surrender, ultimately and for all time, to God. How we surrender at our final earthly now that intertwined gift of life and love He has entreasured us with determines how we will perceive our eternal now: eternity itself.

How impossible it is to wrest from language spiritual truth! My frustration has reached it's limits, so I will quit with this now in the hopes that a window has opened upon reality by the briefest brush against the pane. I wish to express to you that it is no mistake that one of the sweetest prayers is an appeal to the sweetest of created beings to pray for us at the most essential moments of our existence: now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
Wresting Truth from Language is akin to this.

7 Quick Takes

1 - I am working on very few hours of sleep due to my mother running to the hospital last night. My father took her in before midnight and they got back after three. She is doing just fine now. It turns out that all the mysterious and scary symptoms she was experiencing were very treatable, though Emergency Room worthy. What a relief!

2 - P.S. to #1 above...Pardon the typos or rambling incoherency. Today, and today only, I can blame it all on the lack of sleep.

Image source: http://thesavannahsoapco.com/wash-dry-fold

3 - My main focus today is to write this post, finish the homeschool week, and make sure my parents stay asleep as long as possible. I shall do this without grumbling (if I'm doing it right) and while folding laundry. I did very little laundry while laid up with the rib, so the Laundry Monster needs some taming.

4 - I have an idea for a brand new blog--which may wind up being a page on this blog since I have made the Garden purposefully broad. I'm going to go ahead and create it so that nobody steals my cool name, but I'm not going to work on it until the focus of it comes more into focus. I'll keep you posted on how that is going to work out.

5 - After tossing out a fleece (see Gideon) regarding blogging, I am being answered in the affirmative to continue blogging. Now that my personal ego is out of the way (all the goodies I wanted from blogging have long been outweighed by the grind of producing posts), it seems that I am being called to practice the discipline it will take to make blogging a part of my vocation as a wife and mother. I had thought blogging was all about fulfilling my personal interests of writing and socializing, it turns out blogging is more about me working out my salvation (Philippians 2:12--14) through my primary vocation. I think that because I use my posts as a way to remind myself of what I know I should do but often don't, it is more vital to vocation than I had thought. Now the trick shall be to keep at this without allowing it to interfere with my duties. Can we say 4:00 a.m.? Oh, yes we can! No grumbling allowed (Philippians 2:14).

6 - Part of the Catholic celebration of All Saint's Day and All Souls Day is praying for the people who have died. If you are of the Protestant persuasion, the non-Christian persuasion, or the semi-catechised Catholic persuasion and have questions about the Catholic understanding of life, death and the afterlife, this is an excellent time of year to ask. The Catholic Blogosphere is gearing up towards November 1 and November 2 and, in fact, the entire month of November should have plenty to offer in that regard. Feel free to ask away!

A picture of an elaborate All Souls Day remembrance.

7 - I should seriously get going, so I am going to leave you with the guilt-ridden thought that I took exactly 40 minutes out of my duties today to write this. This is better than my 3 hour average, though. It must have been inspired.

 

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday 

over at Conversion Diary.com

The Wardrobe Project: The Hourglass

The outfit that looks best on your Hourglass will look like you, balanced!
It will have structure, a waist, and equal proportions top and bottom.
Check out Betty Beguiles for affordable personal shopping
and for her sponsors who carry dresses just like these!

If you are an hourglass shape, your figure is undeniably feminine. Hourglass figures are balanced top and bottom with lovely broad shoulders and feminine hips and in between the two is a tiny waist! God has blessed you with both symmetry and abundance. Your job will be to be sure that your powerful assets do not overpower!

One of the ways to do this is to compliment your curves without adding bulk. Speaking of bulk, this article is going to be the lengthiest of all the pieces because you, our Hourglass, have been blessed both top and bottom and so we have more to work with!

Dos

The shirt's lines gently taper in at the waist.
The open neckline draws the eye away from the bosom.
The 3/4 length sleeve (with a little rolling) hits her at the waist!

1. Show off your waist! You can belt it or wrap it, but don't ever overlook it. Clothes that don't have a waist will fall straight from your broad shoulders to your broad hips and make you look...broad, but you aren't! Your shirts should allow plenty of room for your upper endowments and then taper down to fit you through the waist. You should see darts or other structural elements or the cut should show the curve.

A curvy girl Don't!
You are not boxy and so you won't fit in the box!

2. Choose fabrics of a medium weight. Fabrics that cling or are flowy will emphasize every bump and lump. Fabrics that are too stiff (like leather) will add bulk. Fabrics of the right weight will hold their shape and compliment your curves, flowing over them and taming them, rather than emphasizing them.  

3. Do be kind! Google "hourglass body shapes" and you will come up with pictures of cleavage (both sorts) and words like "ideal shape" and "perfection." Your body shape can be voluptuous and attention grabbing. Men, other than your husband, need to be able to think of things other than your body parts, so if men have to struggle not to look at something you are emphasizing, you need to be polite enough to reconsider your choices.

The Hourglass has a small waist with
balanced hips and shoulders.

Special Notes on Tops (including yours)

1. Fit the bosom, tailor the waist. You may have to go up a size or two (even three) in order to get a shirt to properly fit you through the bosom. When that is fitted, then you can take in the waist with darts or a belt. This is especially true of buttoned shirts. Neither the fabric nor the buttons should strain when you move your arms around. To check the fit of a shirt, lift your arms over your head, hold them out to the side and twist at the waist to see how the shirt moves. If there is any puckering, excessive riding up, or any straining of the fabric or seams this is not a good fit for you. Try the next size up. This is true of jackets and dresses as well. Unless you are handy with the needle and thread, you are going to have to find a good seamstress who can take in your tops and bottoms for you. Tailoring is going to be a vital part of your wardrobe budget.

2. Watch the lines in knits and patterns. Fabric without much pattern or with large, bold patterns will flow more seamlessly over your hills and valleys; however, lines and lettering are going to emphasize all the curves by getting partially hidden in some spots and stretched out of shape in others. If people are having trouble making eye contact with you, it may be they are trying to figure out what your shirt is saying!

Drink Iced Tea!

Non-wonky Translation: Drink Iced Tea!

4. Give them a break. Hourglass and Apple shapes have a longer line between the neck and the bosom than all the other shapes. Break that line! Wherever there is a break in the outfit, a spot where the item ends or the color pattern changes dramatically, your eye tends to be drawn there. Use that tendency to play down thetendency of the eye to follow the lines of an outfit which visually break only at the dramatic curve of your bosom. Draw the eye away by using the natural "break" of a neckline. For this same reason, be sure your necklaces fall well within the neckline. 

Image Source: http://preview.tinyurl.com/42ks5pr
All of these necklines will work well on an Hourglass shape, although
the Jewel and Boat and Turtleneck (not shown) necklines will tend to emphasize a larger bust
and so should be used for layering and not as a stand alone shirt.

5. Bend over in front of a mirror. This should be something you do before every top or dress purchase and before leaving the house, so that any exposure issues can be taken care of by you before someone else has to point out the problem. Modesty panels and layering with a tank top can help.

If it is too hot for layering, consider a modesty panel.
It attaches directly to your bra.

Speaking of Tops: Your Bra

(No Boys Allowed)

1. Structure and support. With an Hourglass figure, your bra is a vital element of your wardrobe. Like a shoe, it is a structural and supportive element, and nearly as complicated. A good bra will be barely noticeable during the day. A bad bra draws attention to itself by rubbing, binding, or riding up. There should be no gap between your body and your bra at any point, especially between the breasts. With a correctly fitted bra and good posture, the line of your bosom will fall about midway between your shoulder and elbow when your arms are down.

2. Get a fitting. If you have not been fitted in the last three years, go to a lingerie shop and have it done. Department stores may be great for prices but not necessarily for the level of customer service you need. Getting fitted for the right bra is a complicated process for any woman, but especially for a larger busted woman. You need more than average in a bra, so you need better than average service in finding the right one.

3. How many do I need? A woman needs 3 to 4 good bras, which should include at least one nude bra to wear under lighter fabrics and one black or brown bra to wear under darker fabrics. All bras should be hand washed and line dried as part of maintaining your investment.

4. It is an investment, so do not shy away from the price tag. For girls in the larger cup sizes, $30 to $40 is going to be the best minimum price you will find after shopping the sales! A cheap bra may look good in the checkbook, but it is going to look and feel bad on you.

Skirts and Pants

If this is sounding familiar, it's because you and The Pear share the blessing of the bum!

1. Balance the bottom at the bottom. When choosing pants, go for a mid to high rise to lessen the risk of muffin tops and exposing your underwear when sitting, and steer away from a tapered leg. Go for straight legs, boot cut, and flared bottoms as long as you can get them without dragging the hem on the ground. Following these tips will make your legs look long, but they won't draw unwanted attention to your hips. Decorations around the hem and on the leg seams are also very fun. 

Here, the sleeves end where they are just as wide as Maggie's hips, allowing for balance.
A Pear can use the scarf and earrings to add emphasis to the face.
An Hourglass would use this same outfit, but would move the
scarf up to wrap around her hair.
Notice, that the dress has gathers around the waist, slimming the waist. 

2. Skirt Shapes. A-lines, pencil skirts (be careful with the vavoom factor on these), and wrap skirts work well.

The clothes you wear should already have your hourglass shape.
You will need garments with tapers, tucks, and other structural elements.
Floppy will make you look sloppy.
(Yes, I know, the model is a Banana.)

3. Watch the hems! Be sure the hems of your shirts, jackets, or any items end somewhere other than the middle of your bum (or bosom). This will make it look bigger and draw the eye there. Also, be sure that the hem does not hit at the thickest part of your leg either.

4.  Fit the bum! Purchase your pants and skirts to fit very well through the bum. You can easily alter your waist yourself or spend a few dollars to have a seamstress take in an outfit. Consider alterations a necessary part of your charms and one of the hidden costs of your wardrobe, like dry cleaning (since you will be altering tops, adding pants into the mix won't be an added burden).

5. Try on everything! A fashion rule of thumb is to never buy anything without trying it on. Skirts can be tricky, because the look changes with different leg shapes. Your fabulous skirt might look mediocre on another Hourglass because of this. That's why we try everything on before purchasing!

You can rock that 50s vintage vibe!

So Go Shopping!

Most women have a few shopping habits to break--shopping for the shape they want rather than the shape they have. This leads to frustration and a feeling that "Nothing looks good on me!" It will take awhile to train your eye to spot the gems on the hangar. Don't give up and don't despair! If you keep picking up clothing for another shape, voice out loud who the item was designed for, "This would look fantastic on So-and-so! She's an Apple," then hang it up and move on to an item designed for you.

Nothing breeds success like success. Go have a fun morning with a friend! Take this list, $25, a digital camera (so you can more easily analyze your silhouette in an outfit), and a friend and hit a quality used clothing store (one that only racks gently used items and sorts women's clothing by size) and search for one complete outfit or one fantastic item. Try on items that follow these rules then analyze what looks good and what does not to find out why you love or hate it. Talk over each item and what it does to add or detract from your graces. Giggle when it looks awful! Remember, if clothing doesn't look good--it's the fault of the clothes, not you! God has blessed you, so go bless yourself with a very good time!

For further tips and updates see my Pinterest Board: Hourglass Fashion.

-------------

Not Your Shape?

Find Your Shape!

Hourglass

Banana

Apple

Pear

Do I really care about style?

Tomorrow's installment of the Wardrobe Project is not going to hit the blogosphere on time. I dislocated or broke a rib and have had to take Advil, a medicine with a previously undocumented side effect: generating unclear and verbose blog posts. Meanwhile, I have readied this portion of the project--a look at my attitudes toward the body and the adorning of it. 

If you had asked me even as little as a year ago if I really cared about style and dressing well, I would have given you a mixed answer. For years I cared enough to sometimes flip through a magazine, to try to put an outfit together once in awhile, but I didn't care enough to put any kind of real effort into it. Forget about accessorizing (I'm still working on that). A few years before that? Meh, if it was cheap, it fit, didn't make me look fat, and wasn't too terribly ugly, I'd wear it.

All of that has changed. I do care. I see the importance and am willing to put forth the effort. To understand the change in my outlook, I need to take you on a little journey. I will also need to tell you that my husband and I have discussed sharing this aspect of our lives with you to help those of you in your own hopeless moments find some hope.

Three years ago this November, I was lying on a hospital bed with a raging MRSA infection that had mysteriously made it into my bloodstream, bowels, and urinary tract. I was in indescribable pain which the morphine dulled just enough to allow me enough breathing room to think. My systems were shutting down. I was quarantined. Visitors to my room had to be gloved, slippered and gowned to prevent the spread of infection. My children were not allowed to visit.

After two weeks of increasing illness, on a Thursday morning before the end of her shift, one of the nurses came in and asked, with tears in her eyes, if I shouldn't send my husband to collect the end of life paperwork he was going to need. Looking into her eyes I knew she felt enough of a connection with me after the last few nights together as she watched and encouraged me while I fought to stay ahead of the pain. I didn't have to ask her to bring the pictures of my children. She went to the counter and brought them over before she left me to cry over them by myself.

My baby was not even four months old.

When my husband returned, we talked over things for a bit, then he left on his errand to get the paperwork. While he was gone two things happened. He turned around halfway there, knowing he wouldn't need the papers, and my unrelenting pain changed from eating me to just hurting me. It still hurt horribly, but I was no longer teetering on the edge of screaming. Something had given way in me. I was going to live.

When my husband came back again this time we both said simultaneously, "You won't need those papers," and "You won't be needing those papers." Then he smiled and said, "You are going to make it." He held my hand as I fell asleep.The blood tests taken that afternoon revealed that the infection had simply disappeared. The infectious disease doctor visited with us late the next day to tell us he was no longer needed on the case after 24 hours of  being MRSA free. He shook his head and said, "I've never seen anything like this." I was still sick enough that it took me another three days before I'd recovered my health enough to be released from the hospital.

Real Life Isn't What You'd Expect
If this were like a Lifetime Movie, you'd expect an experience like this to bring a couple closer. What it did for us was emphasize how we'd not learned to pull together. When I came home, both my husband and I were exhausted by the whole ordeal, so we both checked out, each expecting the other partner to take up the slack.

It wasn't good. My husband's work schedule was such that he spent a lot of time alone at home--time he filled at the computer. My slow recovery meant that I was not meeting his expectations with the children or the house upkeep. I sank into a depression yet somehow found the energy to argue with him constantly over my disappointments and his shortcomings, while valiantly overlooking my own.

Here's the connection with fashion. My husband wanted, among other things, for me to dress nicely and be pretty for him. I, on the other hand, had an unhealthy disdain for things of the body and expected "better" of my husband. To sum it up, we both had unrealistic and selfish expectations of our marriage. We both wanted our own needs met without consideration of the other's. We were both heading for a marital trainwreck. The brush with mortality merely opened up the throttle.

Next week: The Trainwreck

7 Quick Takes

1 - "Don't pick up a pooping cat!" After the emergency load of laundry and all the scraping, the washing, and the smelling, this is the bit of wisdom my 5 year old daughter took from her recent decision that the cat must play with her RIGHT NOW, even though it looked a little busy at the moment.

2 - I started my 7 Quick Takes with the above story because I feel exactly like someone who has picked up a pooping cat. I broke or sprained a rib this week and can't move or breathe without being tempted to wax scatological.

3 - Speaking of, I have a story to share that I think of every time I am in pain and it never fails to make me smile. Our old Parish Priest had a prison ministry. He often admonished us to follow the example of the imprisoned men who daily struggled to live Godly lives in adverse circumstances. One of the things he worked on with them was the habit of profanity, since he was an ex-Navy man and he struggled with this himself. He had made such inroads in this area that one honor farm inmate, upon having his foot stomped on by a horse had called out, "Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to suffer!" instead of the usual jailhouse fare. Father shared that story with everyone. Some time later, he was opening a window in the rectory and it came down and broke his hand. He got to the prison later that week and was telling the story of his bandaged and gruesome looking hand. The men asked him what he had said, hoping for similar inspiring words. "Well," said Father, "It certainly wasn't 'Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to suffer!'"

4 - Speaking of priests, I heard an excellent homily today. He was commenting on divisiveness and split loyalties. He gave us the image of the torn temple veil. "We tend to focus on the torn sides of the veil, of the fact that the veil is no longer together instead of what is revealed behind the division--The Holy of Holies, God, Himself." Because the hydrocodone is kicking in, I am unable to recreate his words well. Just the basic idea that God is there when all else is swept away including our attachment to broken things, even ones that appear whole.

5 - I had to buy coats to get us through until our house is ready. The kids have tons of coats, but that box was packed in the middle of the heatwave and the chaos of suddenly finding a buyer for the Ugly Yellow Trailer. It's buried and unlabeled, like almost all of my belongings at the moment. Who knew that a month later we would still be in temporary housing, but needing coats and jackets after such a long and miserably hot summer. Thank you, God, that even endless droughts can be broken.

6 - We have purchased our first antique! Well it's only the first if you are not counting the house. We got a working and restored O'Keefe Merrit stove for about what a new stove would cost. Here's a picture of one that looks like ours but belongs to someone else who is selling theirs and has better access to a camera than we do at the moment.

7 - Feeling rather antique myself at the moment, I will sign off. Have a happy weekend everyone!

 

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday 

over at Conversion Diary.com

I have good news and bad news...

The good news is that Hallie Lord (Betty Beguiles) and I communicated via Twitter and I am not the blogger who is riffing her blog. The bad news is that I am not the blogger who is riffing her blog because if I were that blogger it would be fixed or stopped by now. Since it isn't me stepping on toes, I can only hope, like any other Betty Beguiles fan, that all this will resolve quickly. If it was me, I would do everything I could to differentiate what I am trying to do from what she is doing and if that wasn't possible, I'd pull the series.

Here's why: for me, blogging is a hobby. For her, blogging is income. Hallie Lord is a freelance writer and author. She makes her living writing and the quality of our two blogs reflect that very clearly. She's like a fine wine and I'm like Diet Dr. Pepper. When it comes to fashion, we are Macys versus Kmart (okay, maybe Dollar General). I am not competition for her on any level and would love to send any of my 59 regular readers interested in style and fashion her way by pointing out the impressive quality of both her work and her carefully chosen advertisers. That's likely not all of the 59 of you because it's a rare day that any given post gets 59 views (I should probably put the regular in regular readers in quotes). All those 59 "regular" readers who know me, tolerate me for what I am--basically, a weird Catholic momblogger with goats and some wide ranging interests that hit some of you here, some of you there. One of those interest is currently seeing beauty through a Catholic lens and its role in my duties as a wife and woman. Weird, yes, but as I am well aware, I'm weird.

That said, there were enough similarities now that I've had some discussions with others who have pointed them out (yeah, I know, duh, but if you could get in my head you'd realize why it wasn't so obvious to me) that I will be making some changes, one of which is stating overtly where we're headed with all this. I will also point readers directly to Hallie Lord's blog (Betty Beguiles) throughout the series of posts here. Check out her advertisers (there won't be a direct link to them because when we bypass her blog to look at them, she loses the reference and the revenue), very high quality stuff!

The Wardrobe Project: Shop For Your Pear Shape

This simple dress uses color to frame this woman's face and draw the eye upwards.

If you are a pear shape, you have a lovely womanly figure. You are one lucky lady! You get to wear scarves, beautiful big earrings, hats, brooches, and anklets. Your collars can be exploding with ruffles and you get to sport sleeves as puffy and shoulders as padded as you like. Keep in mind one simple rule for dressing: God has already emphasized your bum, so you don't have to. Use your clothes to emphasize everything else.

Use the lines of an outfit and your accessories to draw the eye upwards towards the waist and face (your assets), downwards towards your feet and ankles (more assets), and away from the bum and hips. Some clothing rules of thumb to keep in mind: patterns, textures, spots of color, rosettes and other embellishments draw the eye; muted colors tone down an area.

Dos

This outfit has a lot of pro-pear features.
The hemline has added bulk to balance the bum.
The waist is nicely highlighted.
You would want to take up the sleeves a bit
so that they visually point to the waist and not the hips.
Also, try a bold earring or necklace to draw the eye up.

1. You are the Queen of Accessories! To emphasize your face, your get to use your best and favorite colors, attention grabbing scarves and brooches, patterns in the material, hats, large earrings, jewelry of almost any sort, ruffles, and other details. Your goal is to balance your exciting hips with visual excitement on your upper half. This means you will be accenting your upper body so that your face is the crowning jewel of every outfit!

2. Mute the bum and hips. You will look best if the darker colors and solid colors in your outfit are placed here. Avoid shine or bulk here, so leather and satin are both top options only. The lines of your clothes need to flow seamlessly and visually over you at your widest point, so choose weightier fabrics for your lower half which will allow an item to retain its shape as it flows over your curves. Knits and light weight fabrics will cling and emphasize, so save those fabrics for your tops. End your shirts and jackets above or below your widest spot. You can even wear a tunic, if carefully chosen in a weightier, nonclinging fabric in a neutral color.

3. Emphasize the waist. Pears have a waist! You can belt it, wrap it, and end a jacket here. Wherever there is a break in the outfit, a spot where the item ends or the color pattern changes dramatically, your eye tends to be drawn there. Your waist is a good spot to put a break. Speaking of breaks, be sure to watch your sleeves. When your arms are down, they should end, or break, so that they visually "point" to a lovely spot. If they do end up breaking right at your more voluptuous spots, roll them up! Another tip, when you are getting a dress, see if the waist has slight gathering on either side of the waist. This will be to your advantage as it will make you look slimmer.

 Our lovely model and guest blogger, Maggie
(underage so we are careful with her identity)
demonstrates how to do some of these Dos.

The bright colors jump out and grab your attention.
The scarf adds emphasis to her face making her bust and shoulders more balanced.
Notice her sleeves are rolled up so that they hit her waist level.   

4. Balance the bottom at the bottom. When choosing pants, go for a mid to high rise to lessen the risk of muffin tops and exposing your underwear when sitting, and steer away from a tapered leg. Go for straight legs, boot cut, and flared bottoms as long as you can get them without dragging the hem on the ground. Following these tips will make your legs look long, but they won't draw unwanted attention to your hips. Decorations around the hem and on the leg seams are also very fun. 

Here, the sleeves end where they are just as wide as Maggie's hips, allowing for balance.
The scarf and earrings add emphasis to the face.
Notice, that the dress has gathers around the waist, slimming the waist. 

The structure of this skirt hides an ample bum in the folds
while showing off the waist.

5. Dresses. What better way to dress up than to wear dresses? Here are some tips for making you look just like a queen. The skirt should not end in the middle of the calf; it needs to either be longer or shorter where the calf muscle tapers. Be careful when going shorter! Don't go any shorter than right above the knee, and don't stop at the ankle unless you are wearing boots. Most women look best when the skirt ends just above the knee and when the skirt ends at the floor length. If the skirt is long, Pears can get away with a lots of ruffles around the hem. (This makes us Southern Belles very happy.)    

Ruffled hems!

Accessories will help you draw the eye where you want it!
To draw the eye away from the bum, try a pop of color in your shoe.
To draw it up, think earrings!

The End

1. Be sure the hems of your shirts, jackets, or any items end somewhere other than the middle of your bum. This will make it look bigger and draw the eye there. You will be drawing the eye away from your beautiful face.

2. The most important fit for you is the bum. Purchase your pants and skirts to fit very well through the bum. You can easily alter your waist yourself or spend a few dollars to have a seamstress take in an outfit. Consider alterations a necessary part of your charms and one of the hidden costs of your wardrobe, like dry cleaning (your curvy cousins, the hourglasses, will be doing this, too).

3. A fashion rule of thumb is to never buy anything without trying it on. Skirts can be tricky, because the look changes with different leg shapes. Your fabulous skirt might look mediocre on another Pearl because of this. That's why we try everything on before purchasing! Try to get a back view. If you can, have someone take a digital picture of your back view when you come out of the dressing room so you can see instantly the impression you leave behind in a potential purchase.

So Go Shopping!

Most women have a few shopping habits to break--shopping for the shape they want rather than the shape they have. This leads to frustration and a feeling that "Nothing looks good on me!" It will take awhile to train your eye to spot the gems on the hangar. Don't give up and don't despair! If you keep picking up clothing for another shape, voice out loud who the item was designed for, "This would look fantastic on So-and-so! She's an Apple," then hang it up and move on to an item designed for you.

Nothing breeds success like success. Go have a fun morning with a friend! Take this list, $25, a digital camera, and a friend and hit a quality used clothing store (one that only racks gently used items and sorts women's clothing by size) and search for one complete outfit or one fantastic item. Try on items that follow these rules then analyze what looks good and what does not to find out why you love or hate it. Talk over each item and what it does to add or detract from your graces. Giggle when it looks awful! Remember, if clothing doesn't look good--it's the fault of the clothes, not you! God has blessed you, so go bless yourself with a very good time!

For further tips and updates see my Pinterest Board: Pear Shape Fashion.

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Not Your Shape?

Find Your Shape!

Hourglass

Banana

Apple

Pear

Because it's Monday...

...and I need more coffee...

I know I should post today

and I am so not in the mood to write anything, but I've been working on not doing what I want to do. It's a spiritual exercise. Anything I want to do that isn't the best? Not doing it.

I want to sit on my butt and roam around Facebook or Plurk, catch up on the blog posts, enjoy a popcorn feeding frenzy and shut off my brain awhile. That's not the best way to spend the Sunday.

So instead I will share a strange little moment from Church with you. We've got our little choir. Those who follow the blog regularly know that I'm the director and it's made up of two families and sometimes (well, just the once, actually) my sister and her husband. We sit in the back, sing a capella, and wrestle with wee Martins. We have some fine musicians and excellent singers amongst us and every once in awhile we really nail a song. We sound like a choir not sitting in the back trying to sing around the slings and shoelaces of outraged children. Sometimes we sound heavenly.

Today was the day. We had a song end in the wrong spot of the Liturgy, so we chanted "O Radiant Light, O Son Divine." Chant is what we do best when we do our best. Today we managed it. As the beautiful song, beautifully rendered, ended, my husband and I looked across the aisle at the same moment and saw what God had done. Staring at us was a woman, wiping her eyes and crying.

Her heart was opened wide by the song. I don't know how I knew it and how my husband knew it, but we knew. He nodded his head at me and, without thinking it through, I went and sat next to her. (I asked first.)

She scootched. We sat. No big deal. She cried a little. I cried a little, too. At the Sign of Peace I had to go back to the choir pew for the logistics of being in position for Communion and the Communion Hymn. When I went to shake her hand to say, "Peace be with you," we hugged instead and she whispered, "Thank you!" in my ear.

I don't know, exactly, what happened there. I didn't even catch her name, but I'm glad of it, whatever it was.

And now that my 20 minutes of me time is up and I spent it with you. We sat. You read. No big deal. I hope something happened here, too.