Found Not Lost

Here’s another word that has worked its way into the vernacular, phat! It’s not an insult when you are called phat, it means you are hip, stylish and fashionable. There is a whole culture around being phat, but before babyphat came along, it was mostly geared towards men. With BabyPhat, the sassy, stylish girls of the hip hop trend can shine through.

Baby Phat Jeans are only a part of the variety of fashionable items at babyphat.com. BabyPhat is the brainchild of former fashion model turned mogul, Kimora Lee Simmons who is also married to the father of hip hop, Russel Simmons. I like babyPhat because it caters to real women. Not everyone is size 0 and they celebrate that. They even have a section just for plus sizes. Most importantly, they just make a girl feel sexy and luxurious without breaking the bank.

I said TGIF!! in an email today, and one of my friends actually emailed back to ask what TGIF is. LOL!

Okay, if you belong in that club, TGIF stands for Thank Goodness/God It’s Friday. Now I don’t know for sure which came first, the slogan or the restaurant, but its now stuck in the American vernacular.

So to all working slobs like me, TGIF!

I’ve already mentioned that I have teenage girls, so you know that another popular subject in our house after fashion is skin care. I try to discourage the girls from wearing make up at their age yet. I believe not only is it unattractive, teens are just naturally pretty, it can also wreak havoc on their skin.

Acne.com is a great resource for teens where they can find information on how to take good care of their complexion and when they do have skin problems, how to take care of them. One of the products the girls and I have used is Proactiv. You’ve probably seen their infomercials on TV, and if you have been a skeptic like me just because it’s another infomercial, I can tell you that Proactiv works. We are a big fan of this product because it is light on your skin, it doesn’t put that greasy coating on it like some other products. I like the three step process to clean your skin. It not only works in clearing up blemishes and keeping our skin radiant, it also sets a good skin care ritual for the girls that I hope they will carry with them as they grow older.

Now I am the last person to encourage vanity, but I think good hygiene and proper skin care is quite different from putting great importance on how they look. This is more of a healthy living issue.

Avid readers have been raving about the Amazon Kindle since before the holiday season last year. I heard how it was fetching three times its retail prize on ebay because people were snapping them up for Christmas. Kindle is a wireless reader where you can download books, newspapers, magazines and blogs and you can take it anywhere, the doctor’s office, in line at the post office, etc. and read at your leisure and comfort without having to lug books and magazines and what have you.

I haven’t seen one yet, but most reviews claim that the display is crisp, clear and easy to read without any annoying glare. The best thing is, Amazon pays for the Kindle’s wireless connectivity so you don’t have to find a hot spot to gain access to books online or blogs. The Kindle store has a huge library of just about every book on Amazon’s inventory and you can by them for a mere $9.99; which, if you buy books often, you would know that that is a bargain especially for newly released and best selling books.

I want one!!!

Fashion has never been an issue before I had teenagers. At least, I tried not to make it an issue when the girls were younger. But now that they are teenagers and are developing their own tastes and individuality, it now matters what kind of jeans they are wearing and where they got them from.

RocaWear is one of the ‘hip’ labels among kids today. They espouse the lifestyle and design fashionable among young people these days, but for a parent like me, they also mean well made, high quality apparel and reasonably priced. Roca Wear Jeans, for example, are the height of the hip-hop fashion so popular with kids today. Rocawear appeals to a broad range of customers because of their hip urban design and attention to detail. Yes, when it comes to clothes, teens do pay attention to details.

Actually, “should you get your kid a cell phone?” is not the right question anymore, it is now almost a necessity that kids should have their own cell phones. Now the more pertinent question is probably “what kind of cell phone should you get them?”

When the girls were smaller, I swore I would not raise them to be reliant on cell phones and other gadgets. But as they got old and our lives got busier, the more I realized how important it was that we are able to get in touch with each other when we need to. I investigated several cell phone providers, a variety of calling plans, and they were all exorbitant! At least for my little budget, it is. It would have taken a chunk into my monthly budget for me to sign up the whole family for one of those plans.

We found solution with Tracfones. I think they are a perfect plan when you don’t intend to use your phones a lot. And we didn’t these phones are only meant for emergencies and quick checks. They are not supposed to stay on them for hours gossiping with their friends. I don’t have a monthly bill to maintain, we replenish their time as needed, and on the times when they have lapses in judgment (it has happened) and used up their alloted minutes too soon, they go on a wait mode until mom is ready to buy them more time, or they can buy it themselves with their own money. This way, they learn really fast to budget their calling time.