Organizing my closet by color makes me happier than it probably should.

Song title: The Color Of Love by Boyz II Men

The other day, I came to an embarrassing realization.

I am an addict.

Maybe I should back up and start at the beginning. Or, at least, the beginning of my epiphany.

You see, about two weeks ago, a little website called Groupon (maybe you’ve heard of it) had a deal for another little business called Old Navy. Since I am a mom and my clothes are far more likely to see the inside of a bouncy house place than, well, any place hip or chic, I am quite the fan of $8 tee shirts.

So, obviously, when a Groupon came around giving you $20 of Old Navy credit for only $10, naturally I bought…four. Dammit, make that five.

((looks away sheepishly))

During the last few weeks, I’ve gone in to Old Navy (ON for the hip crowd) to buy a little this, a little that, some more of this… But it wasn’t until I finally unpacked all the shopping bags and hung up the clothes that I noticed a phenomenon occurring in my closet.

If you can’t tell, that’s roughly 24 different tank tops. Most of them are different colors or with/without embellishments.

But that’s not even all of them. It is laundry day…

My name is Mom to Bee and I am addicted to tank tops.

I won’t lie. I want even more of them. And I secretly want flip flops to match each one.

And I will defend my obsession to the end. I mean, they can be pajama tops, layered together or with shirts, sweaters and/or cardigans.

Damn, that’s a lot of layering

And they prepare me to be a wife beater so there’s that.

What more could you ask for?

Song title: Fully Tanked by MV & EE

Yesterday it was raining.

So I grabbed my new hooded jacket and went about my day, dropping Bee off at preschool, sitting around the house doing absolutely nothing, picking Bee up at preschool…

While waiting for her class to be dismissed, I even struck up a conversation with a cute mom of one of the girls in Bee’s class. I was so proud of myself for making a new connection and being social.

To celebrate not making lunch at home, I took both kids out to Red Robin for lunch.

After we were done eating, I was looking over my new coat when I saw this:

That’s right. I had been wearing a bejeweled Jesus pin all morning and didn’t even notice it.

I’ll give you two guesses as to who was behind this hilarious little prank.

Surprise! It was EVERYONE I KNOW! Apparently, Sissy spotted the pin at the Glitter Sale, Arla-Shay bought it and then pinned it on my coat, only after asking Mr. Bee’s permission. So pretty much every single person I called to say “Guess what I just found on my coat?!” responded with “Heh heh, yeah I was waiting for you to find that…”

Now I just have to wait and see if my new mom friend noticed the pin and thinks I’m the kind of person who would *purposefully* wear a pin praising the Lord.

Jesus must certainly be the reason for the season because I can’t seem to escape his holiness lately…

Now if I could only figure out how to steal that license plate and attach it to Arla’s car…

Song title: Praise the Lord by O’Yaba

Well, ladies and gentleman, it’s that time of year again…

Time for the Seattle Goodwill’s Glitter Sale!

Except that the sale was really the weekend before last.

What? You thought I was gonna warn you ahead of time so you could steal some cool designer clothes out of my fatty, sweaty fingers? Amateur.

Sissy, Arla and I decided that this year, we meant business. So we began our Sale Extravaganza fourteen hours before the doors opened with a Pre-Glitter Sale Sleepover.

Besides just wanting to escape our families (meow meow since the sleepover was at my house!), we also needed to construct our uniforms for this year’s sale.

Oh yes. You read that correctly. We wanted to match. And by “match” I mean “wear some hideously ugly tee shirts depicting our undying love for all things Glitter Sale…ish.”

So out came the matching hot pink tee shirts, the iron-on decals (homemade! Jealous?) and rhinestones. And puffy paints. You can’t forget the puffy paints.

In fact, I’m pretty sure Sissy’s technique was to layer on as many puffy paints as she could to distract from…all the different layers of puffy paints. I’m not saying it worked.

Oh, and did I mention that we all had on hot pink feathery hair clips?

And then there was our names on the back…

Song title: Pink and Glitter by Tori Amos

So you could probably guess that we sort of stood out a bit. We initially thought that not that many people would notice because surely we would be in the very front of the line. I mean, we were planning on waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning and being in line by 5:30 at the latest.

Reality struck and we didn’t end up there until ten after 6…

And there were ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE in front of us.

What the what?!

I guess some stupid blogger warned people to get there at 6 in the morning. Seriously, was this chick smoking crack?! Why in the world would you warn people?!?!

Sigh.

Eventually, the line looked more like this:

It was roughly five seconds after taking this photo that we realized, “Oh shit. The media is here. What if we are caught on television with these hideous outfits on?!?!”

Wow. It’s a good thing that no one does anything embarrassing like SAYING FUCK ON LIVE TELEVISION to get this clip on YouTube…

Well, maybe no one noticed?

Son of a…

Next time, we’ll discuss all our finds and why we always run in to people who don’t seem to understand that we’re trying on disgusting dresses as a joke.

Song title: Pink and Glitter by Tori Amos

Since I know that tens of you are on the edge of your seat, waiting for my recap of the 2010 Goodwill Glitter Sale, here is a little bloggie amuse bouche to wet your appetite…

In case you aren’t paying attention, I’d like to play the “Identify the Things That Don’t Belong” photo game.

From left to right…

1. Our hot pink feathered hair clips

2. The larger-than-life pearly pink butterflies super-glued to our matching hot pink tee shirts

3. The bedazzling of said hot pink tee shirts

4. The puffy paints on and around said bedazzling of said hot pink tee shirts

Finally, you receive bonus points if you identified the woman behind us giving us what we are calling “bitch face”.

Didn’t see it? Here’s a close up…

I figure that the woman either (1) is supremely jealous of our clear awesomeness, (2) can smell the Porta-Potties, or (3) heard me saying “I will cut the bitch that tries to get between me and a sequin” and thought it was a direct threat.

Honestly, it’s probably (4) all of the above, because, really, who wouldn’t be jealous of all that fabulousness?

::crickets::

Song title: Teaser by Tommy Bolin

Today is the big day!

I’ve been dying to tell you all about the newest addition to the Bee family and now I finally can!!

It was kind of weird at first, figuring that I hadn’t been in for a while. The place was absolutely packed but everyone is always so welcoming.

After waiting for what seemed like an ETERNITY, we finally found exactly what we were looking for!

But before I make the big announcement, I wanted to show you the best photo of our new little addition…

Isn’t she precious?!

I swear that color is so pink it makes my estrogen soar. And I’m pretty sure that if I bring it in to a room of ladies that our cycles will sync almost immediately.

Let’s just say, I love her.

I mean, it.

Oh, and for those of you diligent enough to be following along with this silly post…

Houston, we have a penis!!

I know, pretty impressive junk, huh ladies? We’ll be taking play date requests starting in July for the Fall 2010 Season. Start buying your low cut onesies for your little ones now.

Song title: Announcement by Townes Van Zandt

Despite, or maybe because of, all our fantastic purchases on the first day of the Goodwill Glitter Sale, Sissy and I decided to brave the crowds again for Day Two of the Glitter Sale.

Can I just point out that I not only woke up on a Saturday morning at the butt crack of dawn, but I did it the next day as well? I should be getting a medal or something. A trophy maybe. Like one of those little ones with a bowler on it (I’m not picky).

Anywho and whatnot, like I said before, Sissy and I ain’t amateurs so on Day Two we brought reinforcements in the form of my friend, who I’ll call Arla-Shay for the sake of anonymity.

When you see the photos below, you’ll understand why I use pseudonyms on the blog. Trust me.

So Sissy, Arla-Shay and I got to Goodwill at 6:30 and hunkered down for 2+ hours of  “tap, tap, place backs” and vague physical threats to other people in line with us.

Comforters and folding chairs are my friends.

The awesome part was, while the items weren’t as super fantabulous as Saturday’s had been, this time we weren’t #73 and #74 in line either! We were actually #2, 3 and 4 on Day Two! Wooo Hooo! Eat my dust suckers!

Don't ask me why that woman in front of us is leaning so far away. We didn't stink *that* bad.

After looking over every. single. item in the store about five million times (and finding a kick ass shiny brooch/pin thingy that said “Jesus” really big on it, which I promptly forgot about when it was time to pay for all your items. I will find you again Jesus Pin. You complete me.), the three of us headed to the Dress Section.

Now, the Dress Section is largely comprised of wedding gowns, prom dresses and bridesmaids dresses with maybe a few cocktail dresses thrown in for good measure.

However, all of these dresses appeared to be made in 1982.

Seriously.

As you could probably guess, after finding a few dresses that made us vomit in our mouths (individually, that is. We weren’t vomiting in each other’s mouths because that’s just unsanitary), it quickly became a contest of who could find the most disgusting dress and try it on.

See, I plan on having a Christmas party in about a month and once we decided that it might have to have a theme (working title: Formal Festivus Glitter Prom), our game of finding disgusting dresses to try on over our four layers of clothing (which worked really well) turned in to a quest to find a trio of horrid gowns that would be Formal Festivus Glitter Prom appropriate. Because there will be a strict dress code. And hopefully a balloon arch.

I think that chick behind Arla-Shay is ferociously jealous of her fabulousness.

I’m convinced that Arla-Shay was purposely moving her head at light speed in order to not be clearly photographed wearing this sparkly, heavily shoulder-padded number (Shoulder pads quickly became Priority #1 in our dress choices).

Which is better: the back of the dress or that woman's floral embroidered jean jacket?

The sexy backless-ness quickly became another High Priority Detail.

The hills are alive with the sound of music...

It’s really hard to tell in this photo of Sissy, but this dress was a total freakish combination of Jasmine from Aladdin and Maria from the Sound of Music. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was made from some really horrible curtains.

This *had* to have been someone's '80's bridesmaids dress, right?

I have something so shameful to admit. While it’s obviously horrible (it has puffy lace sleeves, for Christ’s sake), we couldn’t help but kind of love this dress. It was totally flattering (it probably helped that I needed like 12 people to help zip it up) and the color was really pretty in person.

I feel like I should turn in my unofficial Wannabe Fashionista card for admitting to that previous statements. Let’s all just pretend it never happened, okay?

As if this wasn't gorgeous enough, check out that off-the-shoulder awesomeness!

I’m starting to notice that large floral embroidered jean jacket lady is in almost every photo with us. It’s starting to really creep me out…

Now, I’m sure this will slightly ruin the surprise for some, but I simply couldn’t hold a photo of this beauty back.

Oh sweet beady and sequiny goodness. Just look at those sleeves!

You will have to wait for a holiday party recap to see this piece of Goodwill Glitter Gold on me, though…

How’s that for a cliffhanger?

Song title: Glitter in the Air by P!nk

Please excuse the photo-heavy post. When you find crap smoking numbers like these, pictures speak louder than words. Even my words.

Long time readers (because this blog is so old) know that Sissy and I have a family tradition of shopping, a lot, during the holiday season. Last year, we found out about this crazy shopportunity called The Glitter Sale which is held in the huge Seattle/Dearborn branch of the Goodwill.

So here’s the run down: Every year, the Goodwill collects a whole bunch of clothes from lovely donations. Throughout the year, they pull all the clothes with designer labels, things that maybe vintage pieces and (literally) every single thing that has a sequin and/or bead on it (more about that later). Then, in November, they hold The Glitter Sale, where all of these awesome clothes are sold. At Goodwill Prices.

Last year, Sissy and I found a Juicy Couture purse (retail: $100ish) for $3.99. And a pretty bridesmaid/cocktail dress (retail: $170) for $7.99.

But that was child’s play compared to this year.

Sissy and I meant bidness this year, so we woke up at the butt crack of dawn (that’s 5 a.m. to you civilians) on Saturday. This was against a strongly held belief, nay, life philosophy, I have of never, ever waking up before 7 o’clock. I mean, it was still DARK outside, for Christ’s sake! The horror.

Oh, and did I mention that the bank near my house said it was 28 degrees outside that morning. That would have probably freaked me out if it weren’t for the 25 Xanax I took to prevent any urban pooping issues (trademark!)

When we arrived at the Goodwill store, it was 6:30 (doors opened at 9) and we were already 73 people back in line! By the time the doors opened, the line was down the building and out toward the street (much like last year).

It always amazes Sissy and I to see people pulling in to the parking lot right before the doors open.

Fucking amateurs.

After spending last year sitting on the hard ground, Sissy and I were much better prepared with chairs, blankets, hot coffee and brass knuckles this year. Don’t be fooled by our sweet demeanor, though. We meant business this year…

You think I’m joking? We made friends with the ladies in line with us (like we do every year – we are pretty delightful), but by the time the line started moving all bets were off. I told those old broads that I wasn’t above kneeing them in the vagina. And also showed them how I planned on breaking the noses of anyone who tried to cut in line in front of us.

We had a solid strategy this year, which of course went out the window the second we heard that they had changed the sale room’s layout. Once we found out where the designer and vintage stuff would be located, we followed our plan of misinforming all the other people in line to the layout. Muuuahahahaha! Suckers.

When the doors opened, we made a mad dash to the designer rack through the mad throngs of people (I know it’s not PC, but it REALLY sucks to be behind women using walkers – I’m not joking – in a situation like this!). And holy hand grenades, you won’t believe what we found!

They have something for everyone at the Glitter Sale…

Always dreamt of being a madator but never had the right apparel?

I'm pretty sure that a Muppet was the inspiration for this lovely jacket.

Okay, I really didn’t purchase those two disgusting pieces (even though they are full of awesomesauce). But I did buy these…

New, with tags, Vera Wang cocktail dress. Retail: $325. Glitter price: $15

Diane Von Furstenberg cocktail dress. Retail: roughly eight bajillion dollars. Glitter price: $25.

Look at this detail!

Calvin Klein Blazer. Retail: $100+? Glitter price: $10

I also got a beautiful Nicole Miller ball gown for $150 (I thought it was only $50 because apparently I never learned how to read) and a GORGEOUS black BCBG cocktail dress that I will be returning. I was going to eBay them, but I don’t want to risk losing the money. mwmw.

But that’s not all, people.

I got shoes. Lots and lots of shoes.

BCBG Heels. Retail: $150+ Glitter price: $15

Random gold shoes to go with my gold dress. Glitter price: $10

COACH kitten heel flip flops. Retail: $90+ Glitter sale: $25

And the piece de resistance…

…wait for it…

…wait for it…

…because I should make this post even longer…

Marc Jacobs pumps. Retail: research says upwards of $700-$1000 (wtf, right?)

(Marc Jacobs detail) Glitter price: $150

So in the end, for just these items (because I bought a couple more un-blog-worthy items) I spent about $250 for pieces that are worth roughly $2000!!! Crazy, right?!

If you’re lucky, I’ll remind you all next year when Glitter Sale Mania begins.

But hold on tight to your vaginas, because I’m not above kneeing you in yours after I stomp on your foot and right before I break your nose.

Consider yourselves warned.

You’re welcome.

Tomorrow’s Post: How my two bestest friends aided in me purchasing what could be the most hysterical dress ever. The photos are so full of the awesome that you will definitely pee yourself (and/or others). Guaranteed or your money back.

Song title: Glitter in the Air by P!nk

I love planning things.

Weddings, parties, and even especially vacations.

“Well, of course,” you say. “Everyone plans their own vacations.”

Um, yeah. Not as much as I do.

See, for the last week, I have been kind of freaking out because I haven’t completely planned my entire wardrobe for next week’s trip to Vegas. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve planned plenty…

That’s right. That’s my Excel spreadsheet of the clothes I am planning to wear on vacation.

Just so you know how super crazy I am, the spreadsheet not only includes a general packing list, which luggage I’ll be taking with me and each day’s outfits, it outlines exactly what we’re doing each day and the three, oh yeah, THREE outfits I need each day. Not including pajamas.

Over-thinking things just a bit? Yeah, I’d say so.

But because I’m totally obsessed with it, I’ve decided to use the blog to chronicle what I plan on wearing each day (or at least the super cute outfits I’ll be wearing, because who really cares about the stupid pool outfits).

So the first day I’ve themed as a “Legally Blonde goes to Vegas” travel day. For some reason, I really like dressing up to go on a short plane trip. Somehow, it just makes me feel more special to walk through the airport sporting a super fab outfit.

The second night we’re in town, we’ll be hitting the clubs. We’re having a special night in honor of the Bachelorette where each girl wears a little animal print. This is the outfit that has been giving me a special kind of ulcer. I originally got a zebra print tank top, but realized that it was just too plain and I am an Epic Fail when it comes to accessorizing. Needless to say, if anyone here in the Hive has any suggestions, I am more than open to them!

My Bad Kitty Accessories

Despite the hours (seriously, people, HOURS) of searching for something to wear, I’ve finally decided on this:

I know I still need some accessories…maybe a big chunky black necklace? Or big gold hoops and a long, hoopie gold necklace? And then do I wear the black accessories or these?

The final evening will be the cutest with the help of Sissy’s personal styling (well, the cute plaid dress is hers, too!). I borrowed this dress from her and then ended up finding it (on sale, SCORE!) and buying one for myself, too! Isn’t it so cute?

There you have it. My way over-thought wardrobe for Vegas. Factoring in the casual outfits for mid-day, pool outfits, purses to match each outfit and the normal day-to-day supplies, I’m pretty sure I’ll need some help getting through the airport…

Did I mention that I’ll only be there for 4 days?

PS: This post was WAY too much fun to create. Sigh. I need help.

Song title: The Master Plan by Dream Warriors

As my friends can attest to, Mr. Bee decided to let himself go during the last month. So much so, that during a recent birthday fiesta, many of my friends didn’t even recognize him! He seriously looked like the Uni-bomber or something!!

Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself!!

But after countless hours of nagging, he finally got a much needed hair cut and shaved that German Shepherd off his face.

I am hoping that all the compliments he got after the Extreme Head Makeover will keep him on the stylish side of things. If he resorts back to Mountain Man, I may have to let him get a glimpse of me without all the hours of spackling and manipulation that goes in to crafting this: