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What is it about Tape?

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So this morning I’m off to the post office to mail off my singles to the radio stations and it was raining out side so some of the envelopes got wet. I approach the counter to proceed with my transaction and little Asian clerk notices the rain dropped covered envelopes.  She began to lecture to me about placing clear tape to cover the labels to secure them when it rains so that they stay on.  Of course, I smiled and in my mind I began to make justifications as to why I didn’t tape the labels down myself. Okay, so here’s my thought on this, please just walk with me on this, thinking about your earlier years of life, your siblings as you were growing up and maybe your own children.

I’m standing at the counter thinking about the gazillion of times that I’ve looked for tape, my tape dispenser, scotch roll of tape, duck tape, printed duck tape, color tape, clear box tape, sticky two sided tape or just any tape.  I can’t seem to ever find tape when I need it because….. it’s on my daughter’s wall as trimmings, they’ve taped their pens, pencils, posters, awards, pictures, desk, binders, backpacks, books, glasses, purses, string lights, student I.Ds and God knows what else. Check this out, my daughter even taped her shoe boxes to the wall!!! What in the world????????  To this day figure I can’t figure out why do children need and use so much tape. What is the deal with tape and why is it so fascinating to see how much and where they can use tape.  Now, I’m very happy to report that I’ve never had a situation in which they’ve taped each other, but I’m pretty sure there are tons of stories out there.  The thing now is that tape is so colorful and animated so it’s fun for kids and cringing to parents because of all of the crazy things I’ve seen taped up, repaired or some what, decorated and personalized with all kinds of tape.

Woohhhh sahhhhhh!

All of this was crossing my mind while the clerk was lecturing. So you know as being a mom with many wonderful stories my response to the clerk was ” I can never find any tape, my tape dispenser is always missing and I just didn’t have any kind of tape. Once I finished my short justification, I simply thanked her because I had another issue, I needed $2.74 worth of stamps on 25 envelopes that already had $2.36 worth of stamps on them.  So she had the fun time of figuring that one out!!

Early Days

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I remember being a little girl and always playing with my dolls and creating this imaginary perfect world of make believe.  My first dollhouse was only one story because at that time the family of dolls l loved the most were the Sunshine Family (Caucasian) and the Happy Family (African American). They had big round eyes and pug noses and were just smiling all the time. It’s funny because even when I created a problem for the family, the dolls continued to smile. Well, I guess I could never change that. The family had a four room home and a cute what I call a “car-truck”.  It was a truck that had no top with a car look. Man, it  was just so much fun to play with. Of course I had Barbie, Ken, Dusty and others.  But my favorite were those families because they both had little babies and big round eyes and pug noses, too.  I created a perfect family because much of my life my family was perfect even when I saw the dark sides. I love to reminisce because it allows me to appreciate my early years, my parents and my family. Everything around me was creative, out of the box and bold. These are some values that helped shaped me to who I am and what I am to this day. As a child it was no color, no separation, life was good and perfect, I was allowed to create and express my creation. I’m so glad my parents allow that and never shut me down, or told me to stop dreaming. I remember being free, free to be me. Now, I am still here, still allow to be free, never told to stop dreaming and creating! I am grateful for my wonderful parents, teachers, mentors and friends that accepted me in my many creations, ways and uniqueness. So what were your “Early Days” like?

Deja vu!

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I’m sitting here waiting for my girls to get their nails done after school and work and I can’t wait to get home. The only thing is I’m not done with all of my motherly duties. I never thought that I would ever sew again but to my surprise it’s reality. But this art of sewing started when I was young.

I’ve always loved fashion and design since I was like 7 or 8 years old. I would cut out pictures of runway models, designer apparels and the latest fashion trend to put in my fashion scrap book. I would collect new pics every week consistently.

I loved everything about fashion, I knew I wanted to be a designer or even a model!!!!! My mother taught me to sew from patterns and simple mending things! As I grew older I wanted to design and learn how to model. All of this was going on at the same time I was in school band learning to play the saxophone. I was a busy bee!!!! I kept my dream alive with the help of my parents. My mother enrolled me in modeling school when I was 14 and I learned how to model, apply makeup and the skills of becoming a model, commercial and acting. This was the best experience of my life! My mother truly sacrificed for me! I carried my knowledge with me everywhere and applied it to everything. In college I majored in music and fashion merchandising!! I was so excited!! However, music began to become extremely challenging so I switched my major to fashion and minored in music. By the way, I picked music back up years later and earned my degree in it. So in college I literally was sewing and making my clothes almost daily !! I would walk to “Piggly Wiggly” and find fabrics to make things. I had fabric that I bought at home as well.

Moving forward I haven’t sewn or designed since 1993!!! I’ve wondered would I ever sew again and if I did then how ? How would I have time ? Do I still have it? Would it come out right ?

Well, the answer is YES!!!!!!! I’m sewing my daughter’s dress for her dance that’s in 2 days!!!!
So far so good!! It’s kinda exciting because it’s like déjà vu totally!!! I remember when my mother taught me! My two daughters are both learning to sew at the same time !! What a life!!!