LOVE IT: Pretty/Modest Blog

Former bride and now good friend, Jennifer B. has started a blog called Pretty/Modest where she shares her web finds of fabulous one-of-a-kind handmade crafts, clothes, jewelry, etc. She's as much of an Etsy and Flickr addict as I am and has a love for old hollywood glamour and classic cars. Her quest for finding pretty and modest things is grounded in her Christian beliefs, but I think women of any religion can relate to the idea of wanting to be pretty and attractive while wearing clothing that isn't overly revealing.

I was surprised how my tastes in clothing changed pretty dramatically when I got married- I'm definitely more in tune with modesty now than I ever was before. I look at some girls who are just putting everything they have out there for all to see and it makes me think.... why should a guy try to woo you when you're giving him (and everyone else) the show for free? But with the same breath- I'm no angel. I look back at my past and have to admit that I was a lot like "that girl" for a while and to be honest, I didn't know HOW to respect myself or how to harness the power of my personal beauty, and I definitely didn't realize that I was "giving away" so much in just the way I dressed and how that affected the perception people had of me and how they treated me. I did know that it brought me a lot of attention, but in retrospect, it was a lot of unwanted attention.



"Be a creature unlike any other." was rule #1 in The Rules and it was one of the things that really changed the way I viewed myself and how I handled myself around men. I was a supervisor at B. Dalton Bookstore when I first heard of the book and it was quite the rave on a few different talk shows, so I thought I'd check it out. It seemed to say all of those things that I probably should have known before dating, but were never really brought to my attention. Some of the rules seem pretty harsh or unrealistic, but I was amazed how quickly my life started changing once I follwed them. I don't think I have a lot of blog readers that would benefit from reading "The Rules" at this point in their life (especially not if they've already met the man of their dreams), but I'm guessing you may have a friend or two who seems to constantly get her heart broken by men and just doesn't know what she's doing wrong... that's the kind of girl who needs "The Rules". But I digress...



I found out this weekend that one of my favorite stores, NY&Co- the only store in the local Honey Creek Mall that gave me some small hope of fashion redemption- has officially closed. The Macy's here is farrrrrr from what you would expect of a Macy's and it makes me wonder if they forgot to bring the new clothing along with the new sign, because there's a fashion tragedy happening here which is most definitely not something Macy's would want to feature in their catalogs. We also don't have a Target in Terre Haute, which would at least be the affordable fashion this town is looking for, but upon inquiring if Target would be opening a store in this three-college town, they basically said they had no interest in opening a store here. So... my closest fashion refuge is Plainfield, IN but it still doesn't have anything ultra fun like an Anthropologie or Urban Outfitters. Thank goodness for blogs like I am fashion and domino so that I can at least see what's really going on outside of this Walmart monopoly I live in. (There ARE good things about Terre Haute.. but fashion is not one of them.)