Today, A Star Was Born.

Well, not really. But I had a lot of fun today on the set of Great Day St. Louis. Before last week's email from the producer, I had never heard of the show. I had to research and watch a few segments on their web site before agreeing to come on. It seemed harmless enough and a great opportunity to promote City Thistle as well as Etsy in general. 

Seeing as how I'd been out of town for two weeks and would only have 4 days at home to prepare for the show, I was a nervous wreck. Honestly y'all. I was the type of student who had mental breakdowns in the girls bathroom before my high school exams. Yes, I can be dramatic and I do dream of working along side Kristen Wiig on SNL someday, but really, I'm shy. A few minutes before going on, I could feel my pits start to sweat and my chest turn red. I told myself "Oh, just do it!". It all turned out fine with only 25 ums (really? that many? ummm....wow.) and 7 exactly's. I'd say I did pretty darn good.

Ok, so behind the scenes, here's the stuff you would have never known was going on just before the show began:

My little spot was squished between the turtle D.J. and the Italian/Mexican chef. 

The D.J. played horrible music during set up while the chef chopped.....you guessed it: ONIONS. Blah! I felt like they were ganging up on me.

My mouth was like a desert but I didn't want to mess up my lip stick. Ok, it was tinted chap stick. But still!

During set up, I dropped chalk all over the floor, breaking it into a million pieces and getting chalk everywhere.

Matt (the host) and other people working on the show kept touching my glasses which messed up the chalkboard writing. I kept having to re-do everything and felt like such a neat freak.

Finally, I decided to re-hydrate, and since the bridezillas bride models took up the entire bathroom, I used the reflection of the fake oven to put on my tinted chap stick.

I had two big fears for the day. 1. That I would, you know.....toot on camera. I get gassy when I'm nervous! and 2. That I would say um too much. Thankfully, only one of those things happened, 25 times! (see above)

All of this was happening while the host Matt loafed around chatting it up. He was super nice, though. When the show started, I almost yelled out "OH cheesy D.J., thank you for playing Michael Jackson! My 3 yr old son is probably dancing right now!".

All in all, it was a busy yet entertaining morning. I learned a lot and had a great time. Meeting new people and making new connections is always fun for me.

Friday Featured Etsy Shop-Valentine's Day

City Thistle is hitting the big time, y'all. This morning, sometime between 10-11am central time, I will be chatting it up with the hosts of Great Day St. Louis! I've never seen the show, but I think it's similar to Wake Up San Francisco (Full House fans, I know you're out there!). Anwways, you can go to their website to watch it live. I will take the camera with me and post about it later, complete with a link to my particular segment.

And now, for our Featured Friday Etsy Shop, I have a great treasury for you, just in time for Valentine's Day shopping. Think outside the box this year!

'Red Hot' by feltjar

Vintage industrial ... AnnaLouVintage $26.99	Premier Prints Lips... Modernality2 $19.95	red bird airplant h... SASSYspaces $35.00	Sale 20% Love Art W... LaBerge $28.00
Arabia Finland Fine... blueflowervint... $110.00	Peace Sign Macrame ... meltemsem $28.00	word sign wooden s... OldNewAgain $45.00	Valentine Hot Red C... natalya1905 $17.50
Blown Glass Vase Ce... AvolieGlass $115.00	Vintage Tablecloth ... BlueRoseRetro $19.00	Zany Retro Glass Cu... YAOKi $49.00	Vintage American To... CityThistle $42.00
Vintage Red Dress- ... Yesterdayand2d... $65.00	vintage tool box st... RecycleBuyVint... $200.00	Red Underwood Golde... BrooklynRetro $425.00	vintage 70s skirt, ... hemlines $28.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

TV Births

One of my current favorite shows recently featured a woman giving birth. It's not surprising but I came away with this question: Why is it that TV is completely incapable of portraying childbirth in an accurate way?

In Up All Night's episode about Reagan giving birth to her third child:

1. They leave for the hospital WAY too early. Reagan hasn't had any contractions that we know of and she is chatting a lot about a headband. She should have stayed at work, kept busy and waited a few hours until contractions were, at the very least, five minutes apart.

2. While at the hospital, they learn that their doctor is delivering tripplets and will not be able to deliver their baby that day. Reagan tries to tell the alternate cute male doctor that he cannot deliver their baby because he is too attractive. Two things are wrong with this scene (besides the fact that when it comes time, Reagan is NOT going to care how cute her doc is):

A. Their female doctor would have had plenty of time to deliver triplets (it most likely would have been a c-section, lasting an hour tops) and get to Reagan 7 hours later.

B. During this entire conversation, she does not have any contractions. Again, she is not far enough along to be at the hospital.

3. At 7pm, you finally see Reagan contracting. She's yelling and obviously in pain. Chris continues to ask if she wants an epidural, but she refuses. By 7:10pm, she is relaxed and happy, insinuating that Reagan did end up with an epidural. Even if she had already been given a bag of fluids and the anesthesiologist was there in the room ready to go, it would have taken longer than 10 minutes to administer the epidural and longer for it to take effect.

4. Immediately following the epidural, Reagan begins pushing. By 11:29pm, the doctor tells her that "pushing isn't working". Most doctors wouldn't allow a woman to push for more than 4 hours in the hospital.

5. The doctor announces that the baby is too big. He recommends a c-section, but when Reagan objects, he says it's an emergency. Baby is born at 12:37am. It just would not have taken the team an hour and 8 minutes to perform a c-section, especially in an emergency situation where the epidural has already been given.

6. The last scene is sweet, but also unrealistic. It seems to be morning. Reagan is still wearing her headband from the birth but is bright eyed and sitting straight up. After major abdominal surgery, she'd be lucky to be in a semi-reclined position but would definitely be drowsy.

There you have it. Do NOT look to tv shows for your childbirth education needs. Maybe someday, someone in the television business will portray birth the way it really is. Until then, read books!! Have any of you seen it done well? I'd love to know about it!

Kid's Shows

I have an incredible little boy. He's almost three and has the vocabulary of a five year old. Even his grammar is impressive! He's artistic, athletic and can do a 25 piece puzzle in less time it takes most kids to open the box. Like I said, he's incredible. He's also sensitive, in every meaning of the word. We've all seen how he can turn on the emotion at the drop of a hat. His little heart is so fragile that I worry about him when I'm not around. He does not have thick skin.

One of the ways I've chosen to protect him is by limiting his tv intake. Don't get me wrong-we've had days where Eli has stared at a screen longer than I'd like to admit, especially when Laz was a newborn. As parents, we definitely need to keep track of time spent in front of a screen, but my biggest concern is what flashes on that screen.

So many of the popular kid shows and movies are way too involved for children under 4. Yet, we let them watch whatever comes on, including commercials! They have bossy characters with intense plot lines and it just drives me nuts! Some people think I am strict, and maybe I am. I just don't want Elijah to be stressed out about some made up story line while also learning bossy phrases. I've got enough going on without having to undo some serious negative behavioral patterns. I'm sure you're all dying to know which shows I am talking about. In an attempt to keep my friends and not offend anyone, I won't mention the ones I hate.

But, what do I approve of?

Shaun the Sheep-Hilarious claymation without words. We've been loving this show for a while and it never gets old, for the kids or the parents!

Kipper the Dog-This show has very few characters and backdrops. The simplicity of it gives the show a calming affect. Oh, and the music is awesome.

Pingu-Again, claymation without words. I really think these types of shows are great for teaching kids social skills. They learn how to interpret facial expressions and see that our actions really do speak louder than words.

Harold and the Purple Crayon-Modeled after the popular book, this 1 season long show is beautifully done. It's very imaginative and the music is awesome!

All of these shows can be found on either Netflix instant play or hulu.com except for Harold. It used to be on Netflix but not anymore. I bought the DVD and it's been sooooo worth it.

There you have it. My kid show favs. Just because it's been deemed "educational" does not make it safe. Know what you're getting into before exposing your kid to just anything.

Laughing out loud

I rarely laugh out loud when I'm watching something by myself, but this week's episode of Modern Family really got me.Even though the families on this show are very different from my own, they always do something that reminds me of my mom, dad or my siblings. It took me a while to catch on to this show, but now, I am hooked!

Face Lift

Design Star's winner Emily Henderson came up with an incredible new idea for her own HGTV design show. On Secrets from a Stylist, Emily looks at an individual's personal style to create a room that reflects that style by doing what she calls a "style diagnostic". I think it makes sense that a person's wardrobe and their house would be similar in style, but that's usually not the case. Emily is able to draw out the style in a person and apply it to their home. That's essentially what I tried to do with the blog.

Some people are black and white. Others tend to see more of the gray area in between. I am completely both, living in the middle of the middle. I see the world in black and white. That's not to say that I don't think life is complicated. I hate generalizing about anything because I strongly believe that each situation is completely different. This new look is an expression of how I feel: mostly black and white with gray all over.

EWWWWW gross!

I love to hate this commercial. Anyone want to guess why??

Watch out-glee fan here

Yes, I'm a fan of glee. I watch it every Wednesday after it airs on Hulu. I started watching it because it reminds me of my own show choir days in high school. I love to sing and dance! I also think Jane Lynch is hilarious.

I find it funny that after last weeks' raunchy Brittany Spears episode, they decide to focus on God. The characters each have conflicting beliefs and because they are restricted from singing about God himself, they turn to songs about faith, or rather losing your faith. Even though I didn't love the content of this episode, I think it was their strongest musically. With songs from R.E.M. and The Beatles, this episode had me singing along. The best part was definitely when Mercedes belts out a gospel version of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters".

It's too bad the show ended with Joan Osborne's "One of us". Any ideas of what it meant when Finn finally eats the "grilled cheesus" he had been carrying around all week??