I Quit!

I said it and I did it. Friday was my last day of work at a public accounting firm. I woke up at 5:30 Friday morning in anticipation....I was like a kid on Christmas morning. The day was good and passed very quickly. It seemed very surreal to me though, especially as I was saying goodbye to all my coworkers (whom I enjoyed dearly) and started to realize that I would never be sitting in that cube or chatting with those people again. I started to get anxious about the new life I'd chosen for myself - a life without this place that I'd been a part of for the past three years. Not that I loved it here, but it was secure. Not that it was fulfilling, but it was comfortable. It had become who I was for these years, and I realized that I was actually leaving my identity behind. An identity that I never embraced, true, but nevertheless it had become the biggest single component of my life. I identified myself through my job and spent most of my time at that office and with those people. As I walked to my car Friday afternoon with the office at my back and looking out through my mind's eye with my future stretching before me fresh and clean, I felt like I was being reborn.

Not to say that it was all a bad experience. I did know deep-down that public accounting was ill-suited for me even when I chose to accept the job. However, I feel that these 3 years have been a productive experience for me. I certainly squeezed every benefit out of my job that I could. I have come away with a resume boasting three years of public accounting experience and a promotion to the next level as well as my CPA (paid for by the firm) which ensures that I will get in to almost any accounting job I want. And I do have the skills to go along with the resume; my time at this firm definitely honed those. In addition, I did a lot of growing up as a person. Being out in the "real world" and the "working world" opened my eyes to the way some of the world is, things I had never seen in my relatively sheltered experience. I encountered so many different people, personalities, situations; all a wealth of information for me to sift through, keeping the wheat and throwing out the chaff.

And now, I am looking forward.

Pajama Pants

Some truths in life are absolute, and this is one of them: tall women cannot buy pajama pants from a store. Believe me, I've tried, but there's no fudging this rule. Even if you are lucky enough to find a store-bought pair that falls past your ankles, your luck will turn right around the first time you put them through the clothes dryer (or maybe I just have the unluckiest clothes dryer ever).

I'd completely given up pajama pants by the time I was 16; there was just no hope for it. Then one day the thought occurred to me, 'why don't I just make my own?' It was a perfect solution. Could there be a simpler item of clothing to make than pajama pants? You cut out two long rectangles and sew them together. I went to Walmart and bought the simplest pant pattern I could find. It wasn't even designed specifically for pajamas; it was just a straight, wide-leg, elastic waist pattern (fashions of the 90s you know). I spent quite a bit of time in the fabric section agonizing over the important decision of which fabric I should use. Flannel of course, but there were so many cute patterns! I finally selected a Blue's Clues pattern - yes, I am only mildly ashamed to admit that I liked to watch that show at my age. I decided to buy some backup fabric too, in order to try out the first draft of sewing. That way if I screwed something up, I hadn't wasted my good fabric. I did in fact make a practice version of the pants, and afterwards realized that I needn't have worried. It would be impossible for anyone over the age of 10 to screw up this pant pattern. It was just so simple! Cut, sew, thread the elastic.

But the best part was, I could make them as long as I wanted. Of course the pattern itself didn't allow for a 37-inch inseam. I think it only went to 30 inches. No problem. I just grabbed my handy-dandy ruler, and extended out the ends as far as I wanted. When I finished the product, I had the intense satisfaction of having pajama pant legs that extended almost to the floor, covering my ankles and heels and keeping them toasty warm.

I highly recommend this method to any tall women out there. It is simple and cheap. I can't remember at all how much the pattern costs, but it's not that expensive plus it is reusable. A couple yards of fabric and some elastic is $10 to $15. I always use flannel. Time to make, for cut, sew and finish is approx. 5 hours, so labor costs......well, it is a labor of love. I have made several pairs since, moving to the much more sophisticated smiley-face pattern, and most recently cute teddy bears.

Pajama pants....problem solved!

My Favorite Tall Clothing Store

I was first introduced to it as a naive 17-year-old. I came to Chicago in my innocence and discovered the activity, the hustle-and-bustle of city life, and.....the Tall Girl shop. An actual store that I could go in and buy jeans that fit my long legs? What had I been missing all my life? I'd been subsisting on "tall" jeans from JCPenney and pants from the Long Elegant Legs catalog (which is also a great resource for tall women's clothing, but catalog shopping is too much of a hassle for me.) I remember that first night that I walked around the store in several different pairs of jeans just to get the sensation of wearing pants that dragged the ground.

I went home and got on the internet to discover the whereabouts of the rest of these precious stores. Unfortunately, they were only located in select cities in the North, such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle. And I lived in Arkansas. Fortunately for me, my brother lived in Chicago, so every year for the next 8 years I would make my yearly pilgrimage up north to visit family and to shop at Tall Girl. There I would spend obscene amounts of money buying all the pairs of pants that I would wear until they wore out the next year and I made my next pilgrimage.

So I had a routine that served me well, and I didn't think things could get any better. Until a few months ago when a tall friend informed me that Tall Girl had opened up a new store in a totally new locale....none other than sunny Dallas, TX! Which is not 3 hours from where I live! All of a sudden a world of possibilities opened up. I imagined a world where I could go shopping anytime I wanted, without the obstacle of a $700 plane ticket. I daydreamed of taking weekend jaunts to the City to do a little shopping.

Well folks, the dream finally came true when I went to Dallas for New Year's. And I'm looking forward to many more happy shopping trips.

New Year's Resolutions

A fresh new year, new start, new resolutions......

I don't think I'm feeling the "fresh new year" vibe, because I didn't even remember yesterday that it was New Year's Eve. However, I do have a list of goals for the coming year. Now is as good a time as any to formalize them.

My New Year's Resolutions:
Learn yoga
Take a vacation to Hawaii
Learn piano-tuning
Eat healthier


What are yours?

At the Airport

I was flying home last week after visiting family for Christmas. Waiting in line to board the airplane, I asked about some information from a fellow passenger, who happened to be a tall young gentleman. He answered me with a much friendlier smile than the question warranted, and I could tell that he was obviously appreciative of seeing a female of his stature. He got in line behind me.

"Hi."
(Hi? hmm, he must be interested). "Hi."
"You know, you are very-"
"No, don't say it. Don't say it!" (I was feeling a little playful)
"....Beautiful. You thought I was going to say tall, didn't you?"

Ha! Not a bad pickup line actually, but I wasn't swooned.

Tall Girls with Short Hair

Woohoo, I got my hair cut....just in time for winter, hehe. It was short before, but now it is shorter.


The irony of it is that I adore long hair. I just love the images of young maidens with their long tresses blowing wildly about them in the breeze.....but the fact of the matter is that I look better with short hair. Every couple years I forget this fact and try to grow it out long, but then the sight of it shocks me back into reality. Oh well. On the plus side, it is a lot easier to manage. :)

Tall Equality

As a tall girl, people ask me all the time about my height. Apparently, it is very unusual for a female to be so tall. But what about tall guys? Is it unusual for them to be so tall too? Do they get all the questions like I do? I often wonder about this. My educated guess is that for guys of my height (6'3") people probably don't think anything of them being that tall. However, for extremely tall guys (6'8" and above) maybe it is a different story. Any tall guys out there feel free to weigh in on this.