How To Make An Old Coat Fabulous

Lately I’ve been more interested in preserving the things that I already own rather than looking forward to buying new things. Maybe it comes naturally now that I am settling down and life has less hanging questions than it used to. I finally know who I am and what I like, so I’m not interested in disposable fashion anymore. Plus, it’s better for the environment too. I’ll keep my clothes for more than a year, thank you very much.

But that doesn’t mean that I want to wear the same outfits all the time. In fact, I’m getting more experimental with my clothing than ever before. Here’s the thing:

You don’t have to buy new accessories and clothing to make yourself feel good as the seasons change, but you do need to put a little effort into updating your staple pieces.

That’s what I did this weekend with navy Kenneth Cole Reaction medium weight trench coat that I have. 

Here’s how I made an old coat fabulous:

I went to the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market on 39th street and bought a variety of abalone shell buttons for $2 each. It was ok that they were not uniform. I wanted each button to have its own character. 

Here’s what the coat looked like before:

Navy on navy = mad boring! Luckily, it was an easy fix.

I removed the old navy buttons and sewed the new shiny buttons onto the jacket. I also had to sew up three rips in the lining of the jacket, so I mended them.

Now my jacket is a statement piece that goes well with a colors, and the shells reflect the blue in my eyes. 

Don’t mind the obligatory sunglasses indoors photo - I just had to do it once I discovered that my Oliver Peoples sunglasses go really well with the new buttons. I wish Chris could been around to take the pics of my jacket, but he’s traveling, so I had to do them good ole’ Myspace style - remember that? 

Anyhow … 

For $10 and 30 minutes of work (yep, I’m trying to get back those sewing skills that I haven’t used in almost 20 years) I have a jacket that looks like new! 

The I-SKE Framework For Experiencing Art

Experiencing art is scary for many people who aren’t formerly trained in the arts. Go to any gallery or museum and observe the observers. Most people will be pretending to “get” the art so that they don’t seem stupid or uncultured. Spend one afternoon at The Met in New York City at the height of tourist season on a Saturday, and you’ll see what I mean. Middle aged men and women in tennis shoes shuffle from room to room on a guided tour and nod their heads in agreement with the tour guide, even if they feel like everyone sees something that they don’t. 

The biggest problem is not that untrained viewers don’t have the capacity to fully understand the works. The real issue is that they don’t allow themselves to break free of their anxiety about art. This anxiety prevents them from experiencing the work at all, thus fueling a cycle of misunderstanding and fear. 

What beginning art observers need is a framework through which to experience art. 

In his introduction to the book he co-edited Aesthetic Science: Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience, Arthur P. Shimamura offers a framework called the I-SKE framework. This stands for the artist’s intention and the beholder’s three mental states: sensation, knowledge, and emotion.

Here is the model as an image:

Shimamura is a Professor of Psychology and faculty member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He argues that although one or two of the SKE components may be emphasized more than others, the fullest aesthetic experiences heighten all three components. Although many studies have focused on the emotional response to aesthetics, Shimamura proposes that knowledge plays an important role too. “Only a few investigators have considered the ways in which knowledge drives our art experience,” he writes. 

“Knowldege” in the I-SKE framework doesn’t mean that beholders have to know about the historical context of the work, or the biography of the artist. Knowledge in this model is the cognitive judgement that the brain makes about content, technique, medium, and scale. Beholders gain knowledge by asking themselves: is this work big or small? What is it made out of? Why? What is the position of the work in the room? What are some of the subjects in the artwork? If you could make a up a story about what is happening in the art, what would it be? 

Anyone can have meaningful aesthetic experiences if they just relax and follow the I-SKE framework. 

Why I Opened My First (Adult)* Savings Account

I suck at saving money. Most Americans do too. According to a 2009 TNS Global Survey, half of Americans answered that they could not come up with $2,000 in 30 days time if they had to. That’s shocking for many people in the tech community who view $2,000 as throw around money for yet another Apple product. 

Now, I could definitely come up with $2,000 in 30 days if I had to. But a few years ago when I graduated from college and entered the workforce at the height of the global economic crisis, there is no way I could come up with even half of that. 

The post-college years were hard on my ego and on my wallet. Between working 60+ weeks for a startup and trying to allocate what little money I had to spend on weekend nights out to blow off some steam, there was no way that opening a savings account ever crossed my mind. After all, the only thing that I thought about saving for was a dinner splurge or a new dress. I never had enough money to meet the account opening requirements anyway. 

Aside: Before I continue with the story, I have to tell you that at the same time in my life, I became obsessed with accumulating books. I was and still will always be a bibliophile, but at this point in my life it was obsessive. I was dreaming of building a house with a library in a distant alternate future that I imagined for myself, and I of course needed books to put in it. So, I started adding to my hundreds of books that I already owned stemming from my college literature and philosophy classes. Too bad I only had a cinder block and wood bookcase to put them on. 

When I did have a few hours off in the mornings, I started to go to local thrift stores to peruse the book sections. While I would see most young women my age filtering about in the aisles looking for vintage dresses and  leather bomber jackets for 80’s night at a local club, I was there for one reason: books. 

No one loves books anymore, mostly because very few people read. This was pre-Kindle and pre-iPad, so the massive accumulation of unwanted books in thrift stores couldn’t be attributed to e-readers. The books were there because someone died, or the books were unloved. Some were dog-eared and underlined in the first few chapters, and then the pages became pristine toward the middle of the book. In what others tossed aside, I found value. 

Not only did I find early editions of books that probably came from someone’s recently empty grandparents’ house, I also found contemporary books that were probably given as birthday gifts and donated within a few months of receiving them. Once I even found a signed copy of a book written by a  local food writer. The book was address to his “darling Julie, the greatest inspiration”. I guess that relationship didn’t work out. 

Even better, most of the books were priced at $1.00 for hardcover and .50 for softcovers. This meant that spending the equivalent of two beers worth of money on books each week was enough to feed my habit. Often, I bought a variety of newish hardcover nonfiction books and classic philosophy books. Although the bookshelves were crowded with self help books (and mostly for women), I never bought any of them. I did, however, look at them. It made me smirk a little to think that someone at some time had purchased a book written by Suzanne Somors, or Steve Harvey, or  Jessica Simpson. 

But then.  I found myself reaching for a book about women and money by … Suzie Orman. 

You know who she is - the blond bobbed finger pointing money guru who urges people that they “can’t afford it!” whenever they try to buy something that they really want. She was right. I couldn’t even afford my book habit as I had $0 in savings. 

I was a 23 year old picking over used books in a rural Maine thrift store with my spare change. Seriously.

So I reached for the book. 

And I opened it up. 

And I found a crisp $50 bill stuck in front of the first page of the chapter about saving money. 

On the bill, someone had written neatly in pen along the side of the bill:

“Use this to open your savings account.”

I slammed the book shut and turned around to make sure that a store employee hadn’t spotted the bill in the book. Maybe they would try to take it from me. After all, I had just secured myself at least 10 beers by picking up that book. They might want to take the $50 and give it to charity, or something. I was not about the have that happen. I’d like to think that time has made me more sensitive now. 

I brought the book up to the counter along with a few cashmere sweaters that I had liberated from the racks before bargain seeking housewives could find them first. I checked out, and no one noticed the bill inside the book as they shoved its sharp corners into the unfolded sweaters and tied them all into a plastic “thank you” bag.

I was home free! Beer for me and 9 of my closest friends! 

But on the drive back to my apartment, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I lived each day just to survive for the next day. I had no plans, and no savings to make plans happen anyway. As I looked at Suze Orman’s tan and determined face through the thin plastic bag on my passenger seat, I felt like she was shaming me from the cover of her book. If I spent that money on anything but a savings account, I would be the ultimate loser. 

Within the week, I had a brand new savings account with a measly $50 in it. To me, it felt like the beginning of something. I had no idea what I was saving for.

6 months later, I was around 200 books lighter thanks to a book resale store near my house, and I had my bags packed to move to Colorado with enough money to head west and start something new in my life. But that story is for another time. 

When I see Suze Orman on tv, she still freaks me out as her blonde helmet sways with rage when a caller admits that they have no savings account. I shouldn’t be scared of Suze because since the day that I opened that savings account, I’ve kept one. It’s not Suze who put the $50 dollars there anyway. To the person who did: thank you! I’ve passed it on and then some! 

*Note: I did have a savings account when I was a kid and my mother made me deposit half of my allowance into it every week. Going to the bank and getting my passbook stamped by the teller was supposed to make it fun, but the only fun that I had was when I withdrew all of it to spend at Disney World. I think we closed the account after that. Clearly, I didn’t learn any valuable money skills from this. At all. 

Hough Fat Kid Burgers

If you’re looking for an outstanding “FAT KID” burger recipe this summer, look no further. I was hesitant to share this family secret but I am curious as to what others could do building off of it.  This recipe makes close to 20 1lb burgers depending on how big you make each one.  

• 7 lbs of 85% lean burger meat.  Trust me you need the fat, do not get the extra lean kind.
• 4 spicy italian pork sausages. 
• 3 diced jalapeños.
• 1 diced red onion.
• 3/4 stick of Irish Gold garlic herb butter.
• Plenty of garlic powder, and if you have fresh cut cloves toss them in too.
• A few pinches of sea salt.
• Plenty of ground pepper.
• 4 free range eggs.
• Shredded jalapeño jack cheese, the more the merrier.  
• 20oz can of Guinness. 

Mix all of that together until it’s a consistent near solid sticky bowl of meat, than start making patties.  Each of the burgers weighs in around 1lb or around the size of a fist. Lay each patty on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil and cover each of them with a thin layer of italian bread crumbs. Now you’re ready for the grill.  Depending on how well you like your burgers cooked, I usually keep them on the grill for a total of 6-8 minutes, flipping them for 3-4 minutes on each side.  Add 2 additional slices of jalapeño jack cheese on the second flip to kick it up a notch.   

Pairs well with Guinness!  

Hope you enjoy this recipe! If you take a stab at it or modify it, let me know how it goes.