Passion for Fashion?

My little granddaughter is quite the fashion queen. Not yet four years old and she's pretty adept at determining what apparel she wants to wear to school or for special occasions -like church -or just lazing and lolling around the house. She's already heavy duty into playing with Barbie and Bratz dolls, also watching videos of the Bratz girls. She can name each one of her dolls too -knows which character is which. Thanks to a couple who are friends of her Dad's and whose daughter had a fairly extensive collection of Barbie and Bratz dolls, along with lots and lots of items of clothing for those dolls - like three drawers full -that they passed on to Maya, she will play for hours on end, taking clothes off the dolls, selecting another outfit and then, she brings the doll and the outfit to whichever of us happens to be nearby, holding them out to us with instructions to help her dress the doll. She knows what accessories go with each outfit too but she just hasn't quite got the hang of actually putting them on the doll.

I used to have a relatively decent wardrobe - back in the day when I could find things that fit me without too much problem. Translated that simply means when I weighed a lot less than I do today. Back then, when I worked in an office, I had to have dresses, skirts, sweaters, blouses, nice shoes to go with them too. Had to dress the part of a "professional" ya know.

For relaxation though, I always leaned towards jeans and nice knit shirts -or shorts in the summer and tank tops. In the early-to-mid-eighties, I started to take an interest in tee shirts though -particularly ones with some type of message on them. Sure I had a couple that just had the name of a place I'd visited - like Atlantic City or Conneaut Lake Park, or that indicated my preference in certain teams too -most definitely these included some Washington Redskins stuff and no self-respecting resident of central Pennsylvania would ever think of going with out some kind of nice tee shirt that mentioned Penn State University!

Back then though, I found two particular tee shirts that I really liked for the message on them -such as they were. One had a cartoon of a little old lady with her leg lifted up over a hand blow dryer and said simply "Save Electricity!" while the other had no picture, just a saying -"Live long enough to be a problem to your kids!" My real favorite of those two by far and away was the one with instructions to become a problem to one's kids. Yep, in my opinion, turn-about certainly was fair play.

Over the years, my wardrobe requirements have changed. No longer working where I need the "dress-up" type clothes, no longer even going many places for that matter where there is a need to wear good clothes, since the bulk of my time is now spent at home, my attire is almost exclusively shorts, jeans, sweatpants and either a tee shirt or sweatshirt top -depending on the temperature and weather conditions.

I have a few solid color tees and or tank tops but not that many of those. Nowadays, I gravitate almost exclusively towards tees with a decal motif or some astute text on the top. Oh, I still have a couple staple Penn State tees and sweatshirts, sure. That tradition holds true for me.
I also now have a royal blue tee and a bright red one as well with wording on commemorating family reunions I have attended on my Dad's side of the family. Miss Maya also has a red tee that matches mine as well as the one her mother has so we can go out all dressed to advertise, as it were, The Hill Family lineage, don't 'cha know.

I still have one tee left that isn't all holes and rags from my last visit to Conneaut Lake Park too - a place my kids and I always managed to go visit for at least two weekends each summer - time spent with wonderful old truck driver friend of mine whose CB handle was "Old Granddad." And that was really what he seemed to be to my kids as he treated them the same as he did his own grandchildren.

Last year, I treated myself to a new tee shirt -one with "Grumpy" from the seven dwarfs on it that said "Don't annoy me, I'm already Grumpy" simply because I knew my kids would agree that it was really ME!

Now my kids -especially my son -like tee shirts with a message too but generally theirs indicate a preference for a type of music or a specific band or artist. However, back in August while shopping for something for my son for his birthday, I found three tee shirts that I thought he might appreciate primarily because he really does have a good, but a bit goofy at times, sense of humor. One said "I smile constantly because then people think I know what I'm doing" and one of the other two had a drawing of a guy by a gasoline pump that said just "Got gas" -a very appropriate message for him to sport, if you know what I mean.

The third shirt I bought and debated if I should give it to him or not. Eventually, I decided not to pass it on to him because I feared he might actually take the darned thing seriously. Instead, I thought I'd keep it for myself.

The slogan on it? "You are in the presence of GENIUS."

And judging by the reaction I got when I wore it today while on an errand to the grocery store, apparently several others thought it was better suited for me too!

And your thoughts are? Oh come on, feel free to take your best shots at me. I can handle it, no problem.

No comments would have to be construed as a vote that you agree with me, ya see!