Life size Barbie proportions

Posted by random olio

I was a Barbie girl. I did not really play with dolls, or horses (except My Little Pony), or cars, or trains. I played with Barbies. I had about 12 of them (not sure if that is normal or not). I had a light pink Barbie corvette, a townhouse with an elevator that went up and down with a string pulley (it was the 80’s). I had the Barbie salon where you could use wash their hair, and color it using special “markers” that washed out later. They do not tell you that you can color Barbie’s hair, but you should never cut it (Barbie will never look the same again). I had exercise Barbie, ballroom Barbie, wedding Barbie and wedding Ken, I had bikini Barbie (she got the haircut), and a slew of others I do not remember. All of these were gifts given over many birthdays, and they were dearly loved.

I was reminded of my Barbie memories after a conversation at work yesterday that originated from superheros dimensions to Barbie dimensions. We then found the following article about if Barbie was life-size what would she actually look like. (For those of you that do not click the link you are missing out, it is quite shocking). The article explains that Barbie would be 5 foot 9 inches, weight 110 pounds, wear a size 3 shoe, a 39″ bust, 18″ waist, and 33″ hips. Gulp. So if you still have not clicked the link, do so now.

What is funny about my experience with Barbies (for those of you with young little girls) is I think playing with them got a lot of the girly stuff out of my system. I have a lot of friends that purposely ban Barbie and other toys that do not lead to positive images of women. Then those are the only toys they want. I do not know what I’ll do when I have kids. There is a part of me that thinks that I will feel the same way, that it will just be a yuck feeling I will have about any toys that do not lead to a positive, strong view of women. Having said all that, I loved playing with my Barbies and would beg my sister to play with me. Now I am starting to think that being all girly when I was young has meant I am not as girly now. So maybe it was not such a bad thing.

Regardless of if I got it out of my system, did I know at that age that Barbie was not anatomically correct? Probably not. However, I do think Mattel should fix Barbie so that she is more normal/true to real woman size. Convincing Mattel should not be that hard right? Ha.

Have a great weekend! Hope the sun is shining..

EmpowHER Blogger Network

Posted by random olio

I recently became affiliated with the EmpowHER Blogger Network. EmpowHER is a Social Health Community for Women. I highly recommend taking a moment to explore their website. You will find many women bloggers writing about women’s issues, health and wellness, exercise, eating, weight, etc. While there are lots of pages of things I might not be as interested about (on diseases, or not so happy topics) I am sure that many folks find the resources on the website helpful to them. I wanted to share their website for those of you that might be interested, as I follow their exercise and eating healthy topics.

Exercise and healthy eating is NOW important to me, but it has not always been. I grew up in Indiana, where I might have mentioned in a past blog post that corn should have been listed as the state vegetable. There is a small amusement park/area in Indiana called: Indiana Beach. They have a tagline of: “There is more than corn in Indiana.” I am not sure I believe them! Well, truth be told, I grew up hating my vegetables. It took at least until I was twenty-five years old and married before I would start to enjoy eating any vegetable (thank you, hubby for making them so yummy). I started to enjoy vegetables because of how he prepared them, and also because living in Oregon there are a vast variety of vegetables that grow local and are fresh and easily accessible to obtain, especially with our many farmers markets.

Lots of things have happened in my life since my vegetable breakthrough, I will not go into those now, but I will tell you that what has resulted from all those things is an excitement for eating healthy and for consistent exercise. Friends that knew me from a younger age are still shocked at my transformation with food. I now willingly ask for vegetables at restaurants, crave them, and know that they are benefiting my health. Changing my diet has changed my mood, my energy level, and driven me to be motivated to stay in shape and be healthy. As I have changed my diet, I have also gotten into running. I try to run at least 6 days a week, it has been a great stress release from the day. The other idea on my list to try is boxing, this article about women boxing workouts on the EmpowHER site has inspired me to see where I can start boxing in my area. Here is another good article from their website on 5 Ways to Exercise Everyday.

Take a moment to explore their website!

Are you the scary customer?

Posted by random olio

I cannot say I am always the nicest customer. After working in customer service for so long I have a shorter fuse. I know what it takes and now have high expectations for what a customer experience should look like. These days my husband makes the calls pertaining to our accounts. He has a lot more patience than I do, and I often am – well to put it nicely a bit too blunt over the phone.

I recently finished reading: Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail by Caitlin Kelly. It is a good memoir of Caitlin’s experience working in retail between 2007 and 2009. She is a freelance writer, who needed income during the economic downturn, and she chose to work at The North Face store near her home in New York City. Her job paid between $9-11 an hour with no commission or benefits (since she worked part-time). She was also provided a uniform for her job (many retail jobs do not provide this for free). Her book was a reminder to me to watch how I might treat retail workers, whether at the mall, grocery store, boutique, etc. Caitlin is a journalist so she already had experience working with strangers and the public, asking questions, and connecting with them. I loved her fresh approach to how she interacted with her customers. We could stand to remember this when dealing with our co-workers, family, and friends.

“I lived for these moments. Retail, at its rare best, allows total strangers to quickly connect and converse meaningfully. It’s really, often, about trust, the merchandise and the sales floor merely the means through which two people, however briefly, can slow down long enough to discover and enjoy common ground. It wasn’t an accident that after a twenty-minute conversation with me someone would easily spend $400, or much more. That person had received my careful, individual, and undivided attention, a rarity in any store. A rarity anywhere, really.” page 86

Throughout her book she shares how the corporate offices did all they could to cut back on their sales staff to save money. The less they paid their sales associates, the more profit they made. The less associates they had on each shift, the higher their profits. Many had little to no training, and no thanks or gratitude from management or the head corporate offices. Associates were constantly on their feet, in sometimes horribly ventilated storefronts, with short breaks, annoying music, and irate, rude, and aggressive customers. This all leads to extremely high turnover. By the end of Caitlin’s 2 year stint at The North Face she says the following:

“Now, though, I also carefully and consistently thanked anyone doing a service job well, from grocery baggers to gas station attendants. I viscerally appreciated how grim it could be, how little many customers thought of them, and how hard and poorly paid was the work.” page 205

I vow to curb my frustration, whether with the store, retail worker, or with something in my own life, and not take it out on the individual working in the store or over the phone that day. If we were all to do that, we could make a change in how retail workers experience customers. They do not deserve our frustrations, anger, or scorn. Often, the retail worker has no control over the issues we may have with their company. Much of the time, store management and corporate headquarters do not want to hear the complaints or comments their sales force has heard from customers. The best way to communicate issues that might be widespread between many stores is to contact the corporate offices to voice your concerns.

Are you like me? Do you need to think again about how you are treating retail workers?

Money Club or Book Club?

Posted by random olio

Is it bad that I am intrigued by the idea of getting together with others and instead of having a book club (which of course would be great too) having a Money Club? Is it me, or do I feel that most others would not enjoy it? Is it because money is such a taboo topic among so many of us? I do not think a Money Club would necessarily need to be just women, but then maybe it would make women feel more empowered if it was just women. In any case, I am curious, if a monthly Money Club get-together is something folks would go to?

I got the idea from a LearnVest Daily email newsletter. I wish I had come up with the idea. I did not know the idea had been around for a long time. After doing a Google search I found quite a few websites that give details on how to start a Money Club. Regardless, I think it is something I might try to start. We all need to be more liberated about money issues, debt, talking to our spouses about our checking accounts, spending needs, etc. The above link shares steps for starting your own money club.

It is possible your Money Club might start out and be a bit uncomfortable. I think it is because of how little we talk with others about money, but it is so needed. I know plenty of individuals that are freaked out to even look at their checkbook so they just resist doing so and as a result do not know how much money they have to their name, or if their bank is hemorrhaging their accounts with unwanted and unnecessary fees. Others may not know what their joint income is and whether or not they have an emergency fund (maybe their spouse takes care of all of it and they never talk about it). A Money Club could help shed light on their current financial state, and if they are on track for retirement, are they financially prepared for the loss of spouse, or the loss of income. Or maybe it is about sharing resources, ideas, and encouragement for individuals wherever they are in their financial experience.

Financial conversations may not be something that you care about, and it may bore you to death, but it is as necessary as attending to many of our basic needs. Maybe I should start a virtual Money Club via phone or online if there are not enough interested individuals in my local area. So if an ETF or a living will leave you with a blank look on your face, maybe a Money Club is a great way to learn more, have fun, and get to know others while helping you to feel at peace about your financial future.

I am off to ponder this idea further.

Engagement rings as downpayment?

Posted by random olio

I just started reading “All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know about Getting and Spending” by Laura Vanderkam. I am intrigued by quite a few ideas I have read so far, so I have a feeling I might end up writing about this book over the next few days. For those of you that may not know me, I am avidly interested in personal finance. I believe that as we grow up we do not learn about personal finance unless our family teaches us, or we specifically take classes in college, or some other random way. Most of us wind up learning about it by default, and even at that we do not feel completely confident about what we really know regarding finance.

The premise of this book is that even with all the money in the world most of us would still not be happy. The author explains how we can use money as a tool to creatively set ourselves up to do the things we want to do in life. Because I am passionate about money issues and women issues I found the following ideas interesting about engagement rings. The average couple spends $5000 on an engagement ring. My husband and I quasi eloped. We told folks before we left to get married, had a send off party, but went to sun and sand just the two of us, with the officiant, photographer, and videographer as our witnesses. Based on how we got married, I have an interest and intrigue for big and small weddings and how folks decide to get married. With that I have always been fascinated by the engagement process. We did not have a formal engagement, or an engagement ring, our experience was all very non traditional. In her book, Laura talks about how men in the 1930’s would propose to women and then have a string of fiancees. To protect women multiple states added laws that allowed women to sue for breach of promise, meaning that men had expensive consequences when proposing to multiple women. I am shocked (and a bit in awe) that women had very few rights at the time, and yet they could sue a man for breach of promise. This is the background Laura shares:

“Then in 1935, a legislator from Indiana sponsored a bill abolishing broken engagement as a reason to sue for damages. Other jurisdictions followed, which soon raised a question: if a woman couldn’t sue, what could she do to protect herself? One solution would be to demand a large transfer of capital as part of an engagement. That would make any prospective grooms think twice about seducing a woman under false pretenses. The most efficient way to do this would be for the man to give his beloved money. Money can be used for anything, and so this method would at least let the woman do something useful with it, like go to school or start a business. But genteel folks have always found cash a bit tacky in proper situations, so that didn’t catch on. Fortuitously, at the same time brides were looking for something expensive yet respectable to secure their honor, the diamond industry faced a glut of the precious stones and needed some way to move them. Seeing an opportunity, the DeBeers company staged one of the first national marketing campaigns to boost diamond sales. Its advertising agency got Hollywood stars to wear conspicuous rings, and movies soon featured engagement scenes involving diamonds. Within just three decades the diamond engagement ring was welded into the culture, almost universally accepted…” page 18-19

So our current day engagement ring came about from women finding an expensive way to secure their honor. Does that mean if the man breaks off an engagement then the woman keeps the ring, but if a woman breaks an engagement she has to return the ring to the man? It made me start to think: is the cost and purchase of an engagement ring still necessary? Is it the most fiscally responsible way for a groom (or a couple) to spend their money before starting their life together?

Food for thought.