Ghost Whisperer Fashion- "Do Over"

SO thinks I'm insane for my uncanny ability to identify a designer's (or store's) pieces when the characters on my favorite TV shows wear them. I think I'm just fashion savvy. Here's the awesome Nanette Lepore jacket worn by Melinda in the opening scenes of last night's Ghost Whisperer episode, "Do Over."

Fall inspiration

I can't get enough of anything in shades of gold-mustard-deep-sunshine-yellow this fall.

Fall inspirations by Blooming Wildflowers featuring J Crew

Monday Musings: This explains so much- on personalities

Usually, I'm the first to dismiss personality tests as hogwash and inane psycho-babble (which is probably why I only made it two weeks as a psychology major). But in light of some recent personal issues, I decided to (at the encouragement of a very smart individual) check out the The Enneagram Institute and figure out my personality type as it relates to a certain other person's personality type (ahem...D).

And, I have to admit, I was really surprised by my results. Not only would I have not pegged myself for the result I got, but my result describes me to perfection. Not one word, not one sentence is off- it's 100% me. Seriously. When has that ever happened with a personality test?

Here's what the good ole Enneagram Institute had to say about me (after I took the free quiz.)

The short version:
I am The Enthusiast (otherwise known as Type 7)- my comments are in italic:

Sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. (yes, yes, yes, yes) Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over- extended, scattered, and undisciplined. (Me? Scattered and over-extended??? OK. Yeah.) They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. (Maybe that's why I keep changing my hair color and really, really, really want to move- it's an adventure!) They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness. (Really?) :-)

At their Best: they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.(Focus, focus, focus.)

* Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain (gawd, yes)
* Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs
fulfilled

Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain. (If you could describe me in one sentence, this is probably it.)

When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), scattered Sevens suddenly become perfectionistic and critical at One. (yes and yes) However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), gluttonous, scattered Sevens become more focused and fascinated by life, like healthy Fives. (see image above)

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And here's the long version (if you think you're a Type 7, keep reading, it's fascinatingly spot-on). And again, my comments are in italic.

Type Seven Overview
We have named this personality type The Enthusiast because Sevens are enthusiastic about almost everything that catches their attention. They approach life with curiosity, optimism, and a sense of adventure, like “kids in a candy store” who look at the world in wide-eyed, rapt anticipation of all the good things they are about to experience. They are bold and vivacious, pursuing what they want in life with a cheerful determination. They have a quality best described by the Yiddish word “chutzpah”—a kind of brash “nerviness.”

Although Sevens are in the Thinking Center, this is not immediately apparent because they tend to be extremely practical and engaged in a multitude of projects at any given time. Their thinking is anticipatory: they foresee events and generate ideas “on the fly,” favoring activities that stimulate their minds—which in turn generate more things to do and think about. Sevens are not necessarily intellectual or studious by any standard definition, although they are often intelligent and can be widely read and highly verbal. Their minds move rapidly from one idea to the next, making Sevens gifted at brainstorming and synthesizing information. Sevens are exhilarated by the rush of ideas and by the pleasure of being spontaneous, preferring broad overviews and the excitement of the initial stages of the creative process to probing a single topic in depth.

Which is why I probably like generating ideas, but would prefer someone else to carry them out. Once I dream up the idea, I'm off and running to dream up the next one and the next one and the next one. Implementing all of them would take 5 lifetimes. And then some.

This also explains my current career in marketing where I generate concepts and strategies, but also my absolute disdain for actually having to write the copy for the concepts and strategies I generate.

Sevens are frequently endowed with quick, agile minds, and can be exceptionally fast learners. This is true both of their ability to absorb information (language, facts, and procedures) and their ability to learn new manual skills—they tend to have excellent mind-body coordination, and manual dexterity (typewriting, piano playing, tennis). All of this can combine to make a Seven into the quintessential "Renaissance person."

So this explains why I have 4 (5?) blogs in the works, launched 2 jewelry lines, freelance in copywriting and graphic design and decided to take on grad school? Varied interests? Most definitely. And also why when I'm finished with my current grad school program, I want to take on more. And why I have a million ideas running through my head.

I'm not crazy. I'm just a Seven.

I think I should make a t-shirt that says that with picture of the Enneagram at the beginning of this post. Oh...another idea. Anyone want to actually implement that one for me? :-)

Ironically, Sevens' wide-ranging curiosity and ability to learn quickly can also create problems for them. Because they are able to pick up many different skills with relative ease, it becomes more difficult for them to decide what to do with themselves. As a result, they also do not always value their abilities as they would if they had to struggle to gain them. When Sevens are more balanced however, their versatility, curiosity, and ability to learn can lead them to extraordinary achievement.

Yes. It's a blessing a curse. All you have to do is read back through my blog to see how scattered I can be. But, I can also be extraordinary. If I can just focus. Focus, focus, focus.

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It goes on, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that this is the most accurate assessment of my personality I've ever seen- positives, negatives, everything (and my Type 7-ness is probably the real reason I only made it two weeks as a psychology major...and only two years as musical theatre/vocal performance...and finally graduated with a degree in magazine journalism- did someone say scattered with a wide-range of interests?). You can find the rest of it here.

And while you're there, take you're own quiz and find out your type, too. You might learn something. I know I did.

Swoon! Nanette Lepore Fall 2009

I'll take one of each, thanks.






View the entire Nanette Lepore fall 2009 RTW collection here.

First shoes of fall and other news

So, California is on pause. Big fat boohiss. But if I don't move away from the suburban wasteland soon, I'm going to shrivel up and die. DIE!

Painfully, slowly. Suburbanly.

Or I'll just start wearing ill-fitting khakis with equally ill-fitting polo shirts and clunky old shoes.

And it scares the bejesus out of me. For realz.

Moving soon is a necessity. Like breathing. And sushi. And non-clunky shoes.

And we definitely need to move west. Even if it's just a little bit. Like Pittsburgh. Or a little further. Like Denver. Those seem to be the two cities up for bidding right now. Of course, if a job in San Diego or San Francisco lands in my lap, I'll happily skippity-skip right past the 'Burgh and the Mile High City and head straight for the Pacific (okay, I'll stop just short of the Pacific like, say, downtown San Diego or La Jolla). So yeah, I need a marketing (e-marketing/copywriting) job and D needs a gig as an inside sales manager. Feel free to pass along any leads you stumble across.

But until we bust out of the wasteland, I needed to buy something to keep me from turning into a frumpster. (Didn't someone suggest I buy a pair of shoes for every month I'm stuck here? Well, I'm listening.)

I give you, darling readers, my first fall 2009 purchase:


Aerosoles Egg Roll bootie

White Party OOTD

I'm a little late posting this since it was from Friday night, but I've had quite a weekend (and I don't mean that it was a particularly good one). It seems that life has again, intervened in my plans and the California timeline is (again) up in the air because of some personal issues. I'm hugely disappointed and feeling very down and defeated.

But at least I looked cute at the white party I attended on Friday night:

Weekend Polyvore- Ghost Whisperer Style

I think Melinda Gordon's wardrobe on Ghost Whisperer is at least half the reason I keep watching the show (because let's face it, that Jim's spirit jumping into Sam's body storyline in Season 4 was just plain weird). I'd love to raid Melinda Gordon's closet (and her store while I'm at it).

Here's my Ghost Whisperer-inspired Polyvore set.

Ghost Whisperer Style by Blooming Wildflowers featuring J Crew

OOTD(s)- it's been a while

Here are two-one from yesterday at work, the other is a future OOTD (for sometime this weekend perhaps- it definitely needs some jewelry). You can see more of my OOTDs on my Chictopia page.

And yes, my hair is a darker shade of red. I'm still working on finding the perfect red for me- I think it's somewhere in between the last, lighter shade and this shade.

Swoon! Love! Pretty, romantic dress with rosettes. ROSETTES!

I need this adorable Kensie dress in my life. Such pretty fall colors. I think I shall add it to Polyvore and create a set around it.

Did I mention the rosettes? Rosettes! Oh, and ruffles! Love!

PS- It's from one of my new favorite online boutiques, Urban Minx.

Epic FAIL- Why I'm never staying in a Trump hotel again (and why you shouldn't either)

I travel frequently and therefore, deal with lots of hotels and hotel staff. My recent weekend experience at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City was, by far, the worst experience I've ever had (and I once stayed in a hotel that had a water pipe burst on the 5th floor and flood all the floors below it down to the lobby). This was worse than that.

Why?

Because the staff at the Trump Plaza seems to be confused about proper customer service. It took us three hours to check in and it wasn't because there was a line.

Annette, Katrina and I were extremely happy when we arrived for our girls' weekend in Atlantic City well within the proper check-in time after making excellent time driving to the beach. Unfortunately, the time we saved avoiding traffic was siphoned away during our check-in process.

According to the first person at the check-in desk who helped us, there was some sort of mis-communication between Orbitz and the hotel because when we arrived, the hotel did not have a record of my reservation, despite the fact that I booked it a week and a half prior to our arrival. I pulled up the Orbitz e-mail confirmation on my iPhone and it still wasn't good enough. So, I called Orbitz and after 20 minutes on hold listening to Canon in D, I finally got through to “Ethan” in India and asked him to re-fax my reservation. He did and so I thought our ordeal was nearly over.

Wrong!

The re-faxed confirmation with the original date also wasn't good enough for the hotel reservation supervisor. She refused to confirm our reservation and had the (now second) person who was helping us tell us the hotel was fully booked. But since people were coming in off the street and booking rooms and others were upgrading to better ones, I was reasonably sure that the reservation supervisor was full of poo. So there we stood, just wanting the room we had already paid for. (And in the meantime, the first person who had helped us returned from her hour-long break, which she went on while I was on hold with Orbitz, and couldn't believe we were still there. Yeah.)

Finally, after two hours of battling with Orbitz and the front desk staff, and the front desk staff trying to move us to the Trump Marina, the front desk supervisor finally came out to help us. He had us fax our confirmation (again- which meant more time on the phone with Orbitz) directly to him to bypass the reservation supervisor. Shockingly, he managed to get us a room in the "fully booked" hotel (now three hours after we began the check-in process). So, obviously there were rooms available, but apparently, if there is mis-communication between Orbitz and Trump Plaza, it is the customer's fault and they are fully punished for it in the form of terrible customer service and wasted time.

Our stay didn’t improve much after check-in since this customer service confusion thing extended well beyond the shiny, marble top check-in desk.

Moral of the story- don’t stay at any Trump facility ever.

Sorry, Donald, you’re fired.

Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton style (with a nice slice of Johnny Depp)

Yesssssssssss.

March 5, 2010. Don't be late for this very important date.