If you are a Jewish female like me, chances are you were raised going into the communal dressing room at a Loehmann's Store. 

Loehmann's was the place I bought my first suit for my first day working at a law firm.   Loehmann's was where I  bought a whole sweater wardrobe for my honeymoon. Loehmman's was the place that I would go to buy designer dresses for parties at discount prices while getting the honest opinions of half-naked old ladies trying on sportswear. (They never lied).

Over the years,  I spent (and saved) plenty of money there buying really good luxury shoes, handbags and clothing. It was never easy (you really had to pick through the racks) but most of the time the work paid off and great bargains were had.

Loehmann's is going out of business forever.  According to The Wall Street Journal, The store is closing its 39 U.S. stores after unsuccessfully finding a buyer. They were in business since 1921.
They cited stiff competition from big discounters like Marshall's/TJ Maxx and outlet malls. I guess there is only so much actual discount designer supply to go around. 

I won't be heading over there for their going out of business sale. I hate those kinds of sales, they always seem depressing to me. People picking through the bones of a now dead store while workers who are about to lose their jobs are supposed be friendly and helpful.

You  won't see my tears because I'll be wearing my Tory Burch Sunglasses that I snagged at Loehmann's for $34.99 (retail price $200)! 

R.I.P. Loehmann's! 

Going through the baby photos...

     Generally when one throws a Bar Mitzvah party for her child, there is a slide show to prepare. At some parties, there is a slide show of the guest of honor at various ages with family and friends which plays in the background.  At other Bar Mitzvahs, the parents stop the party all together, turn down the lights and show a long chronological montage of the Bar mitzvah boy from birth to present day. 
     My preference is to have it playing as background art because who really wants to watch 15 minutes of photos from the life of a 13 year old other than the parents and grandparents of said child? This is what I did at my first son's party. This was an easy way to do it as I did not have to edit the photos to songs or cut out any photos. The slide show played during the party and honored my son without boring anyone to death. 
     For my youngest son's upcoming big event, we are going on a family cruise, so unless I can convince Royal Caribbean to play photos of my son on the close circuit televisions in every single one of the 2730 cabins on the ship, I'm not doing a slide show.  This is quite a burden lifted as I have 11,000 photos on my trusty mac and hundreds more in albums and boxes from the pre-digital camera age.
     That being said, I made a personalized photo album from Shutterfly featuring about 20 photos of my son at various ages.  It is a hard cover bound book. I  kept the pages around the photos white and will bring it on the trip and let everyone sign it with well wishes for him. 

     My blog is supposed to be anonymous but no one would recognize this guy today. He is almost as tall as me and his blond hair is now curly and brown.

   The big challenge was narrowing it down to around 20 photos of my son. It was like  Sophie's choice. Especially when it came to Halloween costume photos. Infant in a dog suit (in). Superman with muscles (out). 7 year old elvis complete with white jumpsuit and wig (in of course!).  I got so frustrated last week that I just gave up. How can I pack 13 years of cuteness into one little album.

  

     I promised myself that I would cross this off of my list this weekend so I hunkered down and finished it. My husband was mad that I did not give him final approval before I ordered it but I saw a tear in his eye when I showed him the proof online.

    One down, 7000 more things to do before the big day. Wish me luck that I will get it all done without needing to color out my gray more than once before the trip!

Snag a Husband as fast as you can?

This photo has nothing to do with the topic of my blog today. I snapped during my walk on the beach this am and was more interesting that any photo that I could come up with for my topic! 

Princeton University Alumna Susan Patton is urging current female students of her alma matter to find a husband on campus before they graduate.  Patton, who graduated in 1977, wrote a letter to the campus newspaper trying to remind women on campus that their male counterparts are smart, ivy league men who are going to leave campus and marry women in the outside world who are young and less intelligent than Princeton Students. 

You can read the entire letter here, but in summary, her advice to the daughters that she never had is that in addition to the MBA or whatever degree they are seeking, they should also seek an MRS degree while still in the ivy league environment. "you will never again be surround by the concentration of men who are worthy of you".

Her reasoning is that there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than the Princeton female students.  She goes on to state that men have a much more unlimited stock of women to choose from and many men marry beneath them in terms of intelligence or education, especially if the woman is pretty.  In addition, men don't have the biological constraints in terms of find a mate to have children with.

I heard Patton speak on a radio show this morning and while I want to hate her advice (especially because it seems so snobby and because she has sons), it is quite practical if you really think about it.

I goofed around all during my college days. I went to a great Univesity but it was not Ivy Leaque. The boys that I met and dated were not serious, nor was I. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to experience life. I wanted to go to law school so I did not even think about snagging a husband during those days.

When my sorority sisters would announce their engagements, in the surprise, secret, dramatic ways that sororities do this, I was never jealous. In fact, it seemed ridiculous to me. We were too young. We had stuff to do. Through Facebook, I've kept in touch with many of these girls and just about all of them who got engaged during undergrad are now in their mid 40's and divorced.

I will say, however, that once I went to Law School, I looked around and was amazed but the plethora of single, smart, soon-to-be successful men. I really enjoy hanging out with smart people so I loved this.  I started to think, wow, if you want to be a lawyer's wife, this is the place to be. I even thought that I should write to the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and suggest Law School to women looking for a rich (or soon to be) husband.  

I was in Law School to snag a law degree and not a husband.  I began to think that a lawyer -lawyer marriage might involve a lot of arguing as this is what lawyers are trained to do and the fellow students were not as attractive as I first thought once I spent a million hours with them. 

 I did happen to meet my husband during law school. He was the non-lawyer friend of some fellow students.  

As the mother of two teenaged sons, I don't know if I would be terribly excited for them to  ge
t married in their early 20's.  I think that the craziness of one's 20's is best acted out at the time rather than squeeze out later when they are middle aged.  But as we all know, I barely have any control at this point. I'm sure that they won't care what I think by then.

What do you think of Susan Patton's advice? I'd love to hear your opinions.

GIVEAWAY for South Floridians!!!

The taste of Grove is Miami's original family-friendly food festival. Me and my clan are going to eat, drink, rock and stroll.

The festival was nice enough to give me a four pack of tickets to giveaway to one of my lucky readers. Leave a comment if you want to win. Tell your friends. I will hold a drawing of all entries on Fiday April 5th at 11:30 p.m. so leave your  comments by then.

Even if you don't win, the tickets are only 10 bucks for adults and 5 dollars per kidlet so it is totally affordable.