Happy St. Patrick's Day

I started my day with a green smoothie and yesterday's Wall Street Journal. I love the Saturday paper's Off Duty section, but never have time to read it on Saturday. Then on Sunday mornings I have a newspaper marathon with WSJ and NY Times Style and Business sections while eating brunch. Next I'm off doing household stuff, laundry, groceries, mattress shopping (anyone have experience of Tempurpedic?) and so goes the precious Sunday...

Tried and True

It's been a long winter, and the wait for spring is getting longer and longer... But the good news is that this cold weather has given me ample opportunity to wear my fur west. It has been a lifesaver!

In the hopes of the spring eventually arriving, I've been adding a little color to my outfits with my HM pink and purple leopard scarf and my purple Miu Miu bag. They go very nicely together!

Grown-Up Clothes

In addition to Prada, I loved Hermes for the Fall 2013. It is also a very grown up and sophisticated collection. I guess we know now where my taste is at. No skimpy shorts or midriff baring tops for me. I like to wear real clothes that cover me and my imperfections. But of course I don't want to cover up and be boring. Which is why these clothes are so great. They are beautiful, exciting, and interesting. Here are some of my top picks from Hermes:

Go Suvi!

Prada Love

I haven't always loved Prada's collections, but the fall 2013 show was full of pieces that I am totally crazy about. Not bad for a house that makes 58% of its profits with bags. These clothes are very grown up, sophisticated, strong, and wearable (which can be a negative too, if you belong to the camp that believes that these big houses should be showing us art, not wearability - but that is a completely different discussion). 

Anyhow, I think next fall we'll be seeing a lot of fast fashion dresses, skirts and even coats with the asymmetrical cut a la Prada. I know I am going to have get one! I also love the vertical thick stripe and the voluminous skirt suit... If I could afford it, I would just buy all of these outfits, but since I can't, my biggest hope is that Zara will rip off these styles and will have them in stores next summer. Pretty Please!

Happy Women's Day

Today we woke up to a winter wonderland, again. Not too excited about the snow as I was hoping for lovely spring weather instead. The mini vacation is officially cancelled, after teetering on the edge all week, and we have a weekend with no plans. (Yay! I need it!)

At some point I will brave the snow and go get some flowers and cup cakes for my lovely ladies to celebrate the women's day (and maybe a bottle of bubbly for me and the nanny). There is still much to do in the world to make women more empowered and with equal rights. But in this household women rule :-) so let's enjoy and celebrate that!

Yesterday's weather was crappy too, so I worked from home. Hubby took me out to lunch, though, and I wore my usual casual. The fur vest is getting lots of use. As are my all weather Uggs. So warm. So comfy. Will repeat today!

Empowering & Fulfilling

One of the things that I had promised myself that I would do more, once my little ones were a bit more independent, was to find ways to help out with my community and some charities. Being of service is an important part of life, it fulfills you, and empowers you. It's also a part of being a role model and growing as a leader. However, it's been hard to find the time, and too easy to keep your head down and be busy with jobs, responsibilities, families, and focused in solving our own problems. I've always made small monetary gifts to charities I support, based on whatever budget was available at the time, but felt like I wanted to do a bit more. I am taking baby steps towards fulfilling that promise, volunteering for small projects at the groups I belong in.

One project led me to get to know the Empower Nepali Girls Foundation. What a wonderful organization it is. ENG supports schooling for at-risk Nepalese girls, from rural villages, who have the biggest risk for being pulled out of school for work and helping the family to scrape together a living, or worse, being sold into domestic or sex slavery. ENG provides each girl $125 per year, which pays for tuition, uniform, school supplies, etc. and gives girls (and their families) guidance, counseling, emotional support. The goal is to change the culture to appreciate girls, and to educate future leaders, teachers, and doctors, i.e. empower women to rise above their circumstances to make a positive difference.

Of course, as a mother of three girls, who have the access to the best educational resources, as a career woman with an MBA degree, and as a person from a country where quality education is everyone's birth right, I can't think of a better cause to support. If you are interested in donating to ENG, please know that the foundation functions on a very tiny overhead, and almost all the work is being done by volunteers. This means that the donation actually goes to the girls, not to further fundraising efforts or supporting some huge bureaucracy. You can make donations via the Empower Nepali Girls web site. 

Empower Nepali Girls

Plan B

This is what happened Friday evening: I was going to get ready for a Fundraising event that I had helped organize, to benefit education for Nepalese girls (more about the great ENG organization later). I had planned an outfit in advance to go with the Nepalese theme. However, the chosen dress wouldn't zip up. It was one of those garments that magically shrunk while hanging in the closet. Needless to say, I was quite upset and came dangerously close to having a major temper tantrum and ruining the evening..however, my daughters were part of this event, and my oldest was really looking forward to it because she was bringing the BFF along. So I had to quickly snap out of the depression/tantrum, not let it get hold, and come up with a different outfit, i.e., plan B, and then proceed to enjoy the evening. I am proud to say I did it. I guess this is the benefit of age. You can handle wardrobe malfunctions with grace..and can will yourself to get through small personal disasters without the whole world collapsing.. Anyhoo, here's what I wore: BR dress, Saks shirt, HM necklace, Nine West shoes.