Seeing the Slope

I have talked about my Columbia clothing in the past and how great it was skiing.  I can say as a person that wears glasses, that skiing can be difficult at times.  Wearing glasses and goggles becomes cumbersome.  If my glasses didn't fog up underneath the goggles, the goggles did on their own.

I did get contacts and that seemed to help greatly.  However, if you are a skier, you know the frustration of when you put your goggles up on your hat, or down around your neck and then later replace them around your eyes, the goggles have fogged up.  You wipe them or try to air dry them as best you can and then you end up with streaks of water droplets down them.  This is not the best situation when skiing. So I turned to sunglasses and ended up with a pair of Oakley Hijinx.

If you know anything about Oakley, you know you are talking style.  These glasses I found highly durable and greatly helped with my dilemma.  They didn't fog up on me while wearing them.  The are close enough to my face to make the wind a minimal factor to drying my contacts as I race down the mountain.  They allowed extreme ease to seeing the terrain even with the sun glaring down the snow.  They seemed to complete what I needed to enjoy my trips.  For any avid skier, they are worth checking out if you run into the same issue I did with wearing goggles.

The Age of the Brand

I remember rather fondly when fashion as a teenager started to matter to me.  I still enjoyed the hand me downs from my cousin as what was purchased by my aunt was always fashionable.  I never had to worry about wearing out of style clothes.  One item that could never be handed down was shoes though.  I still remember going to Tom McAn shoe stores and getting my bargain shoes with my mother. Around age twelve, I began to loath going there. The shoes would be a cheap imitation of a better known brand.  They would fall apart rather easy or if they didn't I seemed to grow out of them quick enough.  Kids can be so cruel at school at times based on what you wore and I can remember ridicule from more than one other student based on my footwear.  It was nothing I could really control but it stuck with me.


One day while wearing these shoes at a friends house I happened to be swinging in a tire swing while he mowed his lawn.  I fell out of the swing while he passed me and he ran over my foot with the riding mower.  I can say I was extremely lucky I didn't loose my foot as the blade cut the sole off leaving my sock exposed.  The excuse to this day that my mother believes is that I got it caught on a barbed wire fence around my friend's property.  I explained to my mother the need to buy better shoes that would hold up to her tough son.  She obliged her son's wishes.

So when my son asked for a pair of osiris shoes, I felt the need to comply so my son didn't feel out of place or feel the need to have to make up an excuse if something occurred to his generic brand shoes.  I still buy the generic shoes from the local Wal-mart or any other store that sells them. It allows my son to help with the yard work or walk in the river as we fish.  I know he feels great though when he can go into school in the latest fashion.

And speaking of walking in the river, my friend decided to go river rafting recently down the Leigh River.  She is never short on footwear as it clutters her closet, back porch and bedroom.  I still can't understand the need of so many shoes especially when two pairs of high heels look almost exactly the same.  So when she told me she needed chacos, a type of sandal, to go rafting, I was rather perplexed.  She has easily half a dozen sandals.  Once again getting the "right foot wear", as she says, for the job matters.  And let's not forget the right brand.

Overall I have to understand this.  I have owned four pairs of different types of boots depending on what I am doing.  What you buy, including its brand, does matter in the end.  As I have grown older, it has mattered less to me what the brand was as long as the quality matched the hype.  I have to say for my son and my friend, their choices were good ones.  My son is happy and my friend enjoyed her trip.

A cute rain hat to keep my hair dry in style

Guest post written by Kimberlee Royal

When I look up the weather forecast in the mornings and see that it's going to be even the least bit rainy, I lose all urge to fix my hair. I know that it's going to be a hat day. But, I can't exactly wear hats to the office, so I decided to finally find a hat that I could wear on the way to the office in the rain without messing up my hair for the whole work day.

I went online to find a better solution for a rainy day hat than my regular old baseball cap and when I was in the middle of my search, I ran across a www.wildbluedeals.com/. I looked through it a little bit and after I did that I decided to order one of the internet packages that I found on there.
I found all kinds of rain hats, but decided to go with one that's supposed to be non-static. It also matched my umbrella that I keep in my laptop bag for work, making it perfect.

Timed Right

One of the long time standing things I have owned since my childhood has been a watch.  It was like the coming of manhood when I could read time on an analog face. Granted I was six at the time when I got my first watch with Kermit the Frog behind the arms with green leather band, but I felt like a man back then.  To this day, a watch compliments a wardrobe.  I have many watches to suit different occasions but the one I wear on a daily basis is my Timex Expedition.

What makes this watch so great is its durable construction.  It has a metal exterior holding in a glass face that doesn’t seem to scratch.  I have worn it underwater without issue and it seems to take any beating I can give it, including home repair. The one negative part about the watch’s construction always seems to be the band.  No matter the type of band that I have gotten for this watch, be it Velcro, leather or plastic, the band deteriorates on a yearly basis practically.  This is the one spot on the construction of what is actually a very good watch.  It is easily replaced at any local discount store but the quality of the replacement tends not to be any better.  I take it as part of the maintenance of such a good time piece.

Overall it is a very reliable brand that I have used since my teen years.  My everyday watch needs to be able to go through lots of different scenarios and trials of life.  This is a standard of my daily life.  I never lose time when I wear one.