All Things Fashionating by tracy mausser

Relief Aid for Hurricane Sandy Victims in NJ       Ok, enough whining on my end.  Despite all the devastation on the East Coast, it is now time to pick myself up by bootstraps and move on.  Since all my friends and family back on the Jersey Shore are already doing so, I think need to do it as well.  But, being able to lend a helping hand has made this possible for me and made me feel so good in the process.   My friend Lisa Pedersen shared a post from another Jersey girl on Facebook.  Laurie Banach Wisniewski, who lives in Redondo Beach but originally hails from Toms River, NJ, spearheaded a Hurricane Sandy relief effort for New Jersey.  Laurie's husband owns a trucking company and the goal was to fill the tractor trailer with provisions for one of the areas hardest hit -- Laurie's own Toms River.   I did not even see the post until I was at my son's soccer game on Saturday afternoon; I ...

Great Adventure's Wild Safari Growing up Jersey, the theme park du jour of the shore was Six Flags Great Adventure.   Unlike the other 18 Six Flag parks nationwide, Great Adventure stood apart from the rest because it has the largest drive-thru safari outside of Africa. According to an article in The Star-Ledger newspaper, Six Flags Great Adventure announced on Aug. 20, 2012 that they would stop letting guests use their own cars for tours of the animal sanctuary, ending a tradition that began almost 40 years ago. The article reported that park spokeswoman Kristin Siebeneicher said, “We are discontinuing allowing cars to drive through Wild Safari at the end of the 2012 season.” She also said the park is closing for the season on Sept. 30, 2012, a month earlier than scheduled. According to a recent article in The Star-Ledger , Six Flags announced today that it would be revamping the Wild Safari to Safari Off Road Adventure.    Park visitor...

Tanning Mom from NJ: Not me! No joke – as I have posted before – growing up Jersey, my BFF Dina and I would tan out in front of her house. We would slather on baby oil and wrap tin foil around a piece of cardboard which we would hold up to our faces. I would be so burnt that I was ill. Lucky or unlucky me, the East Coast sun is only strong for a few months each year.   In those instances, I could be found working extremely hard trying to keep my fair skin berry brown by visiting the tanning salon á la Jersey Shore; however, I was not as nearly as bad as that "Tanning Mom from NJ." It is no surprise that I kept up the practice of tanning in a salon upon moving to Southern California where it is warm and sunny almost 360 days of the year.   At the time, my hubby played professional volleyball so I was at the beach almost every weekend.   Working full-time during the week didn’t afford me the opportunity to keep up with my tanning, so Cop-A-Tan was my Antich...

Even for Southern California standards, we have had a relatively mild winter so far.  Our daytime temperatures have been in the high 70s to low 80s over the past few weeks. Despite the warm days, we do tend to have desert-like temperatures at night.  Meaning that – even if it does get to be 80 degrees during the day – it can go as low as the 30s or 40s during the night. Last Thursday, it had been so warm that I put Shane to bed in some sleep shorts and a t-shirt.  Unfortunately, Jason and I forgot to set our heat at a low temperature in case it got cold – which it did – so our little man woke up in the wee hours frozen like an ice cube. He climbed into bed with us and I nearly shouted as his frozen toes burrowed into mine.  Within a few minutes, he was toasty warm and back to sleep; however, it made me remember some cold days of my youth. When I was little, the country was suffering from the energy crisis.  The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exp...