Sweatshirt Alert: JCP on TV

Last Wednesday, I was watching American Housewife when Taylor (Meg Donnelly) entered the Otto kitchen wearing a retro gray, purple, and turquoise color block Arizona Jeans sweatshirt from JCPenney.  "Hey, that's my shirt!" I exclaimed.  The husband looked up from his phone dubiously.  "If you don't believe me, I'll show you!" I sputtered with all the righteous indignation of a third-grader in the '90s whose Yo! MTV Raps trading card collection is being called into question.  ("You don't have LL Cool J and Dr. Dre!"  "Do too!")  Then I raced upstairs to grab the sweatshirt.  When I returned, the husband nodded, then restarted the show, paused it, and took this pic without me even having to ask.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  The husband is a prince among men.

This isn't the first time I've seen one of my garments on the small screen.  The Middle's Sue Heck had a pair of my Target pajamas, and The Goldbergs' Erica wore my L'Amour by Nannette Lepore crop top, also from JCPenney.  I guess ABC likes JCP, that mecca for middle class shoppers, even when it's on life support.  Later during the Housewife episode, Greg (Diedrich Bader) took the thread a step further when chiding wife Katie (Katy Mixon) about one of her stunts:

"I had to take all those tops back to JCPenney and explain why there were no tags and why they smelled like deodorant."

It wasn't so long ago that Mixon was doing JCP commercials with Splitting Up Together's Jenna Fischer, then after that show got cancelled, Single Parents' Leighton Meester.  Then Parents was canned too.  Will Housewife, which has bounced around timeslots for years and was, this season, forced to recast spooky and snarky youngest child Anna-Kat (easily my favorite Otto), fare better than these sacked sitcoms and their preferred yet doomed department store?

Only time and ratings will tell.  In the meantime, I'm going to wear this sweatshirt like it's 1990-something.  And reminisce about my troll collection.

Because I never owned a single Yo! MTV Raps card.  That was the neighborhood kids and my sister.

Flannel Panel: Paul Bunyan Funions

So, Kohl's

The panel has spoken: this holiday season, it's time to take flannel off the naughty list.  I know, I know.  I once declared that I'd never wear this alley cat of fabrics.  But as The Biebs once said, never say never.  (Ew.  I can't believe that I just used the "B" word.  I'm changing my pop princess reference to Taylor Swift, `a la "We Are Never Getting Back Together."  And yes, I just referred to The Biebs as a princess.)  Because flannel doesn't have to be manly or make you look like you lost a fight with a shredder.  It can be feminine and retro and sweet -- like an ad for cotton candy or tampons.  These red and pink plaids fall in that glam camp (glamp?), so naturally I had to have them.  They just looked so crisp and cozy, yet light enough to layer under a sweatshirt or sweater.  Speaking of which, for a minute, I considered calling this post "Sweatshirts: Not Just for Sweating" or, better yet, "Lemonade Lumberjack."  But those applied only to the red shirt.  Which seemed unfair and journalistically unsound, the pink one being my favorite.  

Flannel also sort of says ski lodge.  Which I find appealing despite (or perhaps because of) never having visited one.  And, of course, it also says Christmas.  Just like in that J. C. Penney's commercial with "American Housewife's" Katy Mixon and "Single Parents's" Leighton Meester:

Mixon: "I secretly love the holidays."

Meester: "Me too!  Just look at all this adorable holiday nonsense.  (Nuzzles white furry jacket).  So cozy."

Mixon (grabs rhinestone knit cap).  "I very much want this for the holidays!  (To Meester.)  Santa is always listening."

Meester (spots buffalo plaid flannel PJ bottoms and matching Wild One tee, then looks heavenward) "I want this!"

Then the two take a selfie while Meester utters JCP's current catchphrase: "It's the little things."

Because all roads lead back to JCP -- and TV.  Even if my local Penney's is now a Shopper's World.  

So yeah, flannel.  I've decided it's bitchin'.  

But I still and always will despise Funions.

Brie TV

Every Hot Dog Has its Play Necklace

Top: Wet Seal
Skirt (a dress!): Modcloth
Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily
Bag: Nordstrom

Belt: Marshalls 

 Oh What an Oval Necklace

Sweater: Wild Fable, Target

Skirt: Amazon

Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily

Bag: City Streets, J. C. Penney's

Scarf: A. C. Moore

Sunglasses: Target

Gnome: Target

Four Feathered Friends Necklace

Dress: Candie's, Kohl's
Top: Vylette, Kohl's
Shoes: Worthington, J. C. Penney's
Bag: Lily Bloom, J. C. Penney's
Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon
Red bangle: B Fabulous
Yellow bangle: Silver Linings
Lime bracelet: Cloud Nine
Purple bracelet: Etsy

Um, Brie TV?!  Yeah, Brie, that fancy cheese baked with honey and candied walnuts and other gourmet gooeyness.  As opposed to something more basic and chemical-choked.  Like spray cheese.  But we'll get to that.  

If you're thinking that there's something different about these pictures, then you're right:

Outfit #1

I used the Windows photo editor to draw on the dress, which is something I've never done.  The peplum got lost in the light, and I thought, I have a fix for that!  One tangerine line later, and this ruffle was ready to rumba.  

Outfit #2

The off thing here is the gnome.  The outfit needed something else.  Why not let that something be a small man dressed in pastels?  

Outfit #3

This one doesn't have anything weird going on.  But it does boast the only brand-new piece in this post, namely the lime turtleneck.  

Which is no small thing.  Because new clothes mean good times.  

If there's a baby shower you don't want to go to or a test you don't want to take, then wearing something fresh off the rack makes you feel better.  Or, at the very least, distracts you by giving you something cool to look at.  "The Big Bang Theory's" Penny said it best: "You know, sometimes when I'm feeling all stressed out about something, I go out and buy a cute top or a fun skirt, and I have a whole new outlook on life."  Of course, then Sheldon said, "Don't you eventually realize you're the same stressed-out person in a cute top or a fun skirt?", forcing Penny to deadpan, "Yeah, that's when I buy shoes."  

Oh, Sheldon.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: TV has so much to teach us.  On the cheeseboard of life lessons -- for yes, there is a cheeseboard -- it's the aforementioned and beloved Brie.  

See?  I told you we'd get there.  

A couple of weeks ago, I heard this golden nugget (or maybe I should say artisanal cheese curd) on "Single Parents."  Miggy (Jake Choi) starts temping at Angie's (Leighton Meester's) office and, to Angie's horror, likes it.

Angie: "What about the small talk?"

Miggy: "I love it!  Small talk is the busy work of conversation."

Busy work and small talk appeal to Miggy because he doesn't have to think about them.  They're so empty that they're effortless, and that, of course, is the joke.  But Angie has no time for such nonsense.  To her, weather chitchat is a tedious pretense requiring energy better spent on emailing exes.  The takeaway?  Some people are not people people.  

Even soap operas have wisdom.  Take "One Life to Live."  Despite being a show that I've never watched, it has a name that all but bludgeons us with a reminder of how precious time is.  Not unlike "Days of Our Lives" (I missed this one too; I was a "Guiding Light" fan).  Everything I know about "Days" I know from "Friends."  Specifically, that it made Joey spout off a deep thought after watching it for his audition.  It was something about how the characters on the soap are living the days of their lives while he and the rest of the Central Perkers are living the days of their lives.  Anything that makes Joey think about something other than sex and sandwiches is worth its weight in cliffhangers.

Not so smug are we now, Learning Channel?