Barbie is not for everybody.

As soon as I heard the news, I knew I wanted to write this post. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, but I figured it would come to me if I gave it some thought.

Mattel recently launched some new Barbie dolls with all new body types. There's a short one (for which I guess petite is the politically correct term), a tall one (tall is still okay, even though I prefer statuesque), and a curvy one. She's plump (definition: having a full, rounded shape). As a plump woman myself, I feel entitled to use that word to describe her. Be offended if you will.

[Sidenote - It's hard to tell what size this new curvy Barbie would be if she were a real woman, but considering that 12 or 14 is the average clothing size for women in the U.S., average might be a better descriptor for her. Just a thought.]

So far, I've seen a ton of news stories about the development of the newly sized Barbies. Some headlines include:

"Barbie's New Diverse Looks are Absolutely Necessary" - LA Times

"Barbie is Finally Available in Three New Body Types" - Gizmodo

"Barbie's Hips Don't Lie" - The Atlantic

"Barbie Finally Becomes a Real Woman" - The Guardian

It's impossible to go back in time and know how my seven-year-old self would have felt about these new Barbies. I'm sure I would have wanted them, but that's because I never met a Barbie (nor Barbie accessory) I didn't want in the 80s.

As a child, there was no toy or toy experience I loved more than Barbie. I am not, have never been, nor ever will be a "Barbie Hater." These are the ones who say that Barbie is a terrible role model for young girls, the ones who picked on her body (prior to the new shapes) saying her proportions were unrealistic, the ones who threw a fit because she said "Math was hard."

As an intelligent girl who spent many a school night stressed to the max and crying at my parents kitchen table while battling my math homework, I was relieved to hear that Barbie understood my pain. Math is hard sometimes. So are split infinitives and participle phrases. And learning a language you've never spoken before. And writing a critical analysis of a Rembrandt etching. And getting up in front of hundreds of people and giving a speech you've written. And working full-time while getting your master's degree. And being a grown up.

The issue is not whether things are hard, but whether we are equipped to do hard things. Life is filled with hard things. It's okay to say it. Saying something is hard doesn't mean you're weak.

Being different is hard. No matter if your particular flavor of different is visible on the outside or just something you keep secret in your heart. I've written about clubs I'll never belong to and how sometimes we all just want to fit in somewhere.

I think the new Barbie body shapes are less for the girls who are supposed to get the most joy from them and more for the rest of us, who want to feel better about the way things are now.

I only know what it was like to be a little girl with chubby cheeks and frizzy hair in 1989, when the world was a different place. When mailing a letter or making a long distance call meant something. And if you sat down to a delicious meal, you simply said a prayer and ate it, without taking a single photo of the plate. When walking down the street to the gas station for a box of candy cigarettes, or maybe going to the Dairy Queen for a Dilly bar was enough to make you feel like you'd had a really great day.

When my grandma would sit for hours and play Barbies with me. Like she didn't have anywhere else to be, or anyone else to talk to or text with (there was no texting, but you know what I mean). Like I was the only person in the world who mattered. And the world we created with my Barbie dolls was our own little world, where anything was possible.

I read that the impetus for Mattel's new Barbie dolls came from their poor sales over the past few years. And how this move was supposed to win back the love of millennial moms who want their daughters to have, as Time Magazine calls it, "more empowering toys."

Again, I can only speak from my experience, but Barbie empowered me more than any other toy I ever had. And that includes two microscopes, a myriad of art supplies, and lots of other 'educational' playthings.

Not only was my Barbie mayor of her town, but she also owned and operated a successful business. She was independently wealthy, but used her money only for good. She had a wonderful loving husband, Ken, who supported her emotionally and was always levelheaded even when she was the victim of a kidnapping plot (many of our Barbie storylines were inspired by the Guiding Light, which was my grandma's soap). And she had numerous meaningful friendships with other dolls who supported and celebrated her accomplishments, as she did for them.

Of course I thought my Barbie was beautiful, with her golden hair and bright blue eyes. But I never, ever thought for one second that I was supposed to look like her. Nor did I ever look at her pointed toes, straight plastic arms and jointed behind and think that my own body didn't measure up. She was just a doll, after all.

Have things gotten so mixed up that little girls look at everything around them for affirmation of what they should look like, be and do? And are we really so lacking of real live role models that a plastic doll would have earned such a key place in our culture?

As I read back over those last couple of sentences, I realized that this isn't limited just to little girls, but I suppose big girls do it too. How much worse will things get as we continue to strive for impossible standards that were never real in the first place.

I'm not even sure how little girls play with Barbies these days. Do they make up stories and act them out like I did 25 years ago? Or do they even care about any of that?

The one thing that does make me happy about the changes to Barbie are the new skin tones and hair styles. The first ever red-haired Barbie I saw was a special edition "Irish" lass, but for the most part my Barbies were all blonde. I'm glad that girls now can play with Barbies that have all different styles and looks.

Growing up, I enjoyed playing with all my toys. I had a doctor kit, which I liked to lug around as I bandaged up stuffed animals. But I didn't want to be a doctor. And as I mentioned earlier, I had microscopes which I enjoyed using to look at slides of water samples collected in the backyard. But having a job as a scientist didn't interest me that much either.

I didn't know it at the time, but I wanted to be a storyteller. A writer. Someone who creates other worlds, and for the characters in them, believes anything is possible. Maybe Barbie isn't for everyone. Maybe every little girl should be allowed to find the toys that bring them the most joy.

For me, Barbie provided a way to express my creativity and let my imagination run wild as I created characters and story lines for them to live out. And for that, I'll always be grateful. I don't care if Barbie is tall or short, skinny or fat, black or white, blonde or red-headed. Those aren't the things that determine how much you love people. I love Barbie because of all that she made possible. Good memories, and a childhood where I felt treasured and loved. Of course it's really my family who are to thank, but Barbie was the vehicle for some of it.

As I look at these faces, all these different Barbies with their new shapes and sizes, their new hair and skin tones, it makes me miss those simple childhood days of play and creating. These gals would have fit right in with my 1980s Barbie collection. I know my grandma and I would have enjoyed bringing them to life.

[All images via http://www.barbiemedia.com/]

Memories of College Days Gone By: Transportation Woes & Blinky

The other morning I found myself stuck behind a school bus while hurrying to a business meeting. It wasn't just any ordinary school bus. The bus I was stuck behind happened to be a University of Tennessee transit bus, one out of a fleet of many like it that zips around campus taking students to and from class or wherever glamorous places they happen to be going.

I found myself reminiscing about my own college days and feeling a tiny bit bitter because we didn't have such fancy (or reliable) transportation.

8 a.m. class on the other side of campus? Back then, it meant waking up extra early and hoofing it [a fancy term for walking]. Nowadays students probably have an app on their smartphones that alerts them to when the bus is coming so they don't have to spend even an extra minute waiting in the elements.

I'll never forget my cousin, who was older by six years, telling me about her first day of college experience. She got up early and put on a cute pair of sandals with her linen walking shorts (people, it was 1994). She said by the time she got to class, she was a disheveled mess complete with blisters, sweaty hair, and other war wounds.

I vowed never to experience this during my college days, but probably took it to the other extreme by wearing stretchy pants and t-shirts way too frequently. Once, while eating lunch with a group of girls from my sorority, a friend glanced my way and asked me, "Didn't you wear that shirt yesterday?"

Without missing a beat, my roommate piped up and said "Yeah, and she slept in it too." Not my finest fashion (or hygiene) moment.

But back to the issue of transportation. It kind of makes me feel like a grandma or grandpa with the proverbial story of walking to school up hill both ways in the snow. "In my day, there weren't any high falutin' buses. We had to walk to class (uphill both ways)."

The thing is, walking was good for us. I actually miss all the walking I did in college. And I enjoyed getting to walk with people, and talk to them while we walked. Nobody had his or her phone out because cellphones were for 'emergencies only' and mainly just used at night, when the free minutes kicked in.

[Another side note - My freshman year of college, I was the only person I knew with a laptop computer and I never once took it to class with me...that's what my spiral bound notebooks were for, duh.]

In so many ways, I'm grateful for what we didn't have back then. I'm grateful there was no social media, no Twitter or Facebook, no Instagram.

[As if! Our Blinky van was never this cool looking]

One thing we did have while I was in college that I doubt still exists on UT's campus is Blinky. Blinky was a 15-passenger Ford van with a blinking strobe light on the roof. This phantom cab of sorts made one wide continuous loop around campus after dark, picking up and dropping off mainly unaccompanied ladies and people on crutches so they wouldn't have to walk unsafely to their destinations. I spent many a night outside my dorm or the dorm of a friend, scanning the horizon for that dimly blinking light, hoping that Blinky was on its way. Blinky drivers really made the experience what it was too, some not speaking a word while others talked your head off, taking each curve on two wheels.

I know these are just silly stories. But there's more to it than that.

Each subsequent generation will have different experiences. And each will probably think they had it harder than the next one. And in some ways maybe that's true. But I know that kids today face different challenges. In many ways, I think it's harder now than ever before.

One day people who haven't even been born will teleport to their college classes and their parents will bemoan the way they used to have to ride only solar powered buses (the audacity!).

But for now, I'll reminisce about the way it was for me. And maybe you have some fond memories about the way things were in your experiences. I hope so!

College Memories: Nostalgia for Years Gone By

You know how when you're younger and you hear old people talk about how things have changed, and how they used to be and maybe how they long for things that once were. When we're young, we're so naive...we think "but it won't be like that for me."

Then you find yourself at 32 years old, shopping for tweezers to pluck a few errant chin hairs and are smacked right in the face with the reality of what those old people were talking about.

Tonight I stopped by the brand new Wal-Mart that just opened near the University of Tennessee. Classes haven't started yet, but there were a few random students and their parents shopping for rugs and lamps and such. I didn't really need anything (does this ever stop me from shopping?). But mostly I just wanted to check it out and see what all the hype was about.

It was really just your average Wal-Mart. But the fact that it's so easy to access from campus is sort of strange to me. Maybe it's because when I was in school, piling into a friend's car and making a late night trip to Wal-Mart was something of an adventure. Then, the closest one was at least a 15 minute ride away. Plenty of time for talking in the car, maybe listening to some awesomely bad music from the early 2000s.

Nobody told me how much I was supposed to enjoy those times while they were happening. I'm not sure who this wise person might have been, but at the time it was the farthest thing from my mind. Those four years flew by in a flash. From my first day of college when my parents and best friend left me crying on the front steps of Hess Hall (they were crying too) to the day I graduated with so many dear friends and family cheering me on.

I feel so grateful for those experiences and I certainly don't take them for granted. In a way, my time at college was extended because the fall after I graduated, I accepted a full-time job in the same department where I'd studied. I spent seven more years working for the university and also was able to get my graduate degree.

When I left that position a few years ago, the University had been where I spent almost every day of my life for eleven years.

What's more, I live less than one mile away from the place to this day. I've watched so many things change about the campus and the surrounding areas. Some for the better and some, I'm not so sure. I still don't know if this whole Wal-Mart thing is actually necessary.

Lots of beloved spots have shut down, with new ones (or parking lots) popping up in their places. I don't like to live in the past, but this time of year always makes me reminiscent for college days. When those students head to class in a few weeks, most won't think for one second about how one day they could be the chubby 32-year old buying tweezers while younger, cooler people who haven't even been born yet peruse rugs and lamps with their parents.

Do you ever find yourself looking back at memories of school days? Or maybe you hated school or have bad memories of that time. Be encouraged my friend...no matter what's behind, there's surely something better ahead!

Fashion Lessons from My Childhood: Wearing Boots with Dresses

[This post was sponsored by Country Outfitter. All opinions and adventures are my own.]

I've always loved fashion, particularly shoes. Maybe it's because a good pair of shoes can make you feel like you're going places. In particular, I love boots. Always have. Come to think of it, some of my life's most defining moments took place while I was wearing boots. Do you ever think about your past self? A younger you, who might have been a little bolder or a little less scared to try something new. When I think about my childhood self, so many of the memories that come to mind include vivid imagery of what I wore. 

I think there's something we can learn from our childhood selves. After all, isn't that who we've been all along? I'm looking back at some of my childhood fashion choices to hopefully gain a little wisdom from my younger self. 

My first pair of boots were pink cowgirl boots. Honestly, I was so young, I really don't remember wearing them. But they are simply fab. I like to think I took my first steps in them. Who's to say it isn't true?

Another pair of boots that I loved like crazy as a child were white leather ankle boots with fringe around the tops and round silver buckles. My aunt and uncle (who were just dating then), took 5-year old me to the county fair and of course, I wore my white boots paired with a denim mini-skirt [What is it about little girls wearing boots with dresses? So adorable!]

We were riding in my uncle's truck, which I'm sure he'd cleaned thoroughly to impress his date (who would later become my aunt). I was riding in the middle between them. Glancing down, my boots were so beautiful and if I kicked my feet just so, the fringe fluttered in the wind. 

"Kate, don't kick your feet, you'll knock open the ashtray," my uncle warned. 

I hated to disobey him, but my boots looked so pretty as the sunlight glimmered on the shiny silver buckles. What could it hurt to give my heels another little kick? My white leather boot-clad toe hit the truck's ashtray compartment, which practically exploded, blowing ashes all over my boots (and me). My uncle was not pleased. 

Lesson learned: Sometimes you should listen the first time. 

Then I was 12 and wanted my first real grown up pair of cowboy boots. I begged my grandpa to take me to a boot shop nearby to get some. As an only grandchild on that side of the family, I was used to getting my way. But real cowboy boots were expensive and my grandpa wasn't convinced. Finally, I wore him down. 

When we went to pick out a pair, I tried all sorts of brown and black options. Feeling like they just weren't special enough, I kept looking. Finally, I spotted the pair that I knew were the ones. Soft gray leather with colorful cut-outs on each side. And not just any cut-outs. Neon green cacti and bright blue coyotes howling at a neon yellow moon. It was the 90s. Neon was kind of a thing. What makes me sad about these boots is that my feet were still growing. The next summer, I outgrew them and never wore them again. But I'll never forget the feeling they gave me...even if it didn't last long. 

Lesson learned: Savor every moment and every experience...you never know when something great will fade into the past.

As I came into adolescence and the joys of being a teenager, I struggled to figure out who I wanted to be. Boots with dresses were a big part of my wardrobe. One day I'd wear a black velvet baby doll dress with black patent leather ankle boots a' la Cyndi Lauper. The next, I might find myself in a dress printed with farm animals paired with slip on Keds booties. My style (like my angsty teenage moods) was all across the board.

So you might be wondering what's the lesson to be learned here? We don't always figure everything out when we want to. But in time, life unfolds and good things will come from it. At 32, I'm still trying to figure out who I want to be. And I think that's a good thing.

Another hard life lesson I learned while wearing boots took place in college. My sorority was having a hoe-down themed date party and there was a guy I liked and I wanted him to accompany me. His name was Frank. Little did I know that Frank had a girlfriend on the side who also happened to live in the same dormitory as me.

I took him to the party and probably fawned all over him, acting a little too silly...the whole time not knowing that after the night was over he would be going back to the dorm room of another girl. When I found out I was mortified and pretty mad. I confronted him, but he wouldn't come clean. Not much came of it after that. He ended up staying with her and we parted ways.

But the lesson from the boots was this: Don't settle for someone who doesn't think you're amazing. There's no reason to play second fiddle or be with someone who'd rather be with someone else. 

Thankfully, memories of Frank have faded into the past. There's only one guy in my life now and I'm glad there's only one girl in his life: me.

Another great lesson learned from the Frank fiasco was how important it is to have great girlfriends in your life. My friend Jill had some particularly choice words for Frank the next time she saw him and it made me feel supported to know that someone was looking out for me.

When I look back at all these stories, it strikes me how often I've worn boots with dresses in my life. This fashion statement, with all its iconic southern style, sort of sums up for me what it means to be a woman.

Wearing a dress feels oh so feminine and lady-like, but the boots remind the world that there's a toughness too. Isn't that what being a woman is all about? Finding that perfect balance of strength and softness?

These are just a few of the many life lessons I've learned, and what I wore. Do you have any memorable shoes that made you feel like you were going places? Maybe you had a favorite pair of boots that you loved. How do you like to wear boots with dresses?