Cherry City Rain Set

I really wish they made this set for women. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.

Western Chief Cherry City Umbrella: $14.95

Western Chief Cherry City Kid's Rain Coat: $34.95

Western Chief Cherry City rain boots: $24.95

Bakugan Breakdown

The latest fad in the realm of toys are Bakugans. They have probably been around for awhile but we aren't early adopters.

Bakugans are little 'balls' that are magnetic and when you roll them, they open up and become monsters such as dragons, snakes, etc. They are pretty cool actually.



From what I understand there is a TV show that they originated from and the toys are part of a board game that only boys under 12 understand. If you have estrogen coursing through your veins, don't even bother trying to figure it out.










On the last day of school, I told my boys who are 6 and 8 that we would go to Toys R Us and get some. And of course, we got there and there were NONE left.



There were tears.



There was a 20 minute tantrum in the parking lot.



And that was just me. (No it was my 6 year old but ya'll know I am prone to tantrums myself when I lose my great John Mayer concert seats).



Apparently adults are into Bakugans as well as they have become collector's items. People buy up all of them and resell them on EBay. So there aren't any left for the poor little kids who want them. Thanks, people. Next time you get to deal with the kicking an screaming!!!



We actually lucked out and found some at another Toys R Us a few days later. The cashier was amazed there were any left and one of his fellow workers overheard him and went and grabbed up all the rest. See what I mean?



Looks like we lucked out. Now if we can just keep the dog from eating them....





Bloggin off for now

It's Raining Cats and Dogs from Head to Toe!

After months of planning, creating and lots of waiting, we finally have our first DLL Rainwear women's matching rain outfit!!!

The umbrella is auto open and covered with the same whimsical pattern of falling kitties and puppies on a rich navy background.


The coat, modeled below by our very own Tabitha, DLL's resident scary mannequin, is a soft waterproof polyurethane material with a thin nylon lining. The pattern is found on the inside of the hood, around the cuff straps and on the sash. The coat is mid-thigh in length with snap closures down the length of the coat and deep front pockets. The coat appears to be a much lighter navy in this photo than the boots. Although the colors aren't exactly the same due to the different materials used in each item (rubber VS polyurethane) they aren't as different as the pictures make them appear.





Raining Cats & Dogs Umbrella (on our website soon): $24.95





Women's Raining Cats & Dogs Rain Coat (on our website soon): $49.95





Women's Raining Cats and Dogs rain boots: $59.95

Next in the works for DLL Private label items are a clog in a very cute bohemian floral pattern, a toile boot and a matching coat and umbrella for the Feminista boots.

I'll continue to keep you posted on the progress...

Bloggin off for now.

The Dog Ate My Earphones

So I have written before about Holly Berry, our 7 month old Cocka-Poo (Cocker Spaniel and Poodle) puppy. She is definitely more Cocka than Poo. In case you missed my previous post about her, here she is.

When she was little, we would lock her up in a puppy pen when we left the house. Then she got too big for the pen and we would put her in the kitchen where she couldn’t get into trouble. I’d come home and she had simply slept the entire time I was away. Since she was such a good girl (totally potty trained to boot) I decided to see what would happen if I let her roam free while I was gone. Yea....I know. You can start laughing at me now.

For a month, she was awesome. Fantastic. Gooood dog!!

Then, last Friday.

It happened.

I came home to this:

Those would be my iPhone earphones...

Look familiar?

The remains...

They were on a table out of her line of site but she KNOWS I put them there so she jumped up on a chair, climbed on the table and proceeded to eat them like they were liver treats.

I am seriously beginning to believe the whole “the dog ate my homework” excuse. In fact, Holly has often eaten my work papers. And our tax paperwork. And the dirty tissues from the bathroom garbage can. She really likes paper products.

One of my friends told me that her mom used to say to her when she was younger, “Trust is like a bank account and you just made a BIG withdrawal.”

This is now where Ms. Holly “earphone eating” Berry now resides when we leave the house:

Back in Puppy Prison for YOU.

Off to Hawaii

Today we are off to Hawaii.

Swimsuits? Check.

Beach towel? Check.

Base tan to cover the scary white fat rolls? Check.

Sunscreen? Check.

Lots of good books? Check.

iPhone loaded with new tune-age? Check check!

$4,500 airline tickets? Fricken check.

Lunch and snacks for four? $#%^& check.

If they charge me $2 per soda or weigh me like a piece of baggage, I am gonna go all Kung Fu panda on their asses. Skadoosh!

(Notice I didn't say Prozac? Check.)?

Aloha....back after the 4th!!

The Netflix for Handbags

So I am sure about 95% of the female population has seen the new "Sex and the City" movie by now and some of you more than once.

Do you recall the part when Carrie and Louise from St. Louis meet and Carrie finds out Louise 'rents' her designer handbags?

Well....apparently this is a real thing!! Maybe everyone knows about this but me. Then again you are reading the blog of someone who buys cheap-o handbags from Target and Kohls. Nothing over $25. Yea, you read that right. Stopping laughing.

I was reading a magazine article my fellow (or should I say female) co-worker Jessica sent me. On the back was a section called Simply Shopping and right there in black and white was...

http://www.bagborroworsteal.com/ (totally love the name)

They are the company Louise 'rents' from in SATC. They actually mention their 'role' in SATC on their website. I can only imagine how much their business is booming right now!

They have handbags for all occasions:

• Clutches
• Evening Casual
• Evening Dressy
• Everyday
• Messenger
• Totes and Beach
• Vintage

There are even wait lists for some of the bags. It looks like they have at least 2800 different bags from my quick calculation.

I just looked at one of the vintage Hermes Berkin bags and the WEEKLY COST is $1,690 and the MONTHLY COST is $6000 for a Guest and $4800 for a Member.

O.

M.

G.

Sticking to my el cheapo handbags, thank you very much. That way when my Mentos spill and get all sticky in the bottom, I won't have to commit hare kare (I think that is how you spell it).

The funny thing is, their ad is right next to one for Gorilla Glue. The photo is a gorilla hand quite daintily holding a bottle of glue. Gorillas have kinda scary fingernails.... All I could imagine was one of those hairy gorilla hands desperately in need of a good mani holding a pricey designer bag.

I wish I had PhotoShop (and knew how to use it) so I could doctor that picture up and give the gorilla a nice french mani while holding the vintage Hermes. If anyone has those skills....send me the picture and I will post it!

Guard Dumb Dog

When we first got our new dog, Holly Berry, she was little. She was quiet. Well, that is officially over.

Now? She barks at everything.

I was just eating a yogurt, scraped out the yogurt cup with my spoon and she started barking.

Lord help me.

Trapped in Maintenance Hell

I am stuck at home all day waiting for Sears to show up to do a maintenance check on my washer and dryer. With the HUGE loads of kid's clothes I do weekly (I probably seriously overload the washer) and all the crap I find after I unload (rocks, toys, wrappers, bottle caps and other bits of flotsam and jetsam) I figured I had better get them out toot sweet to give my W/D a bit o' TLC.

Originally the Customer Service line said someone would be out between 8am-12n. The service person just called and said it would be more like 1-3pm.

Lucky for them I have no life (and am stocked with Mentos and chocolate and my laptop....am getting lots of future blogs done) and can sit around waiting....and waiting....and waiting.

and waiting.

But if they aren't here by 3pm, I'm gonna be a little annoyed.

Virtual Barbie Doll #3

Here is my latest addition of "Virtual Barbie". Today she is dressed in mostly black and white with a splash of green in between.

Totes Mini Black & White Daisy Umbrella: $16.00

Rainforest Meadow Green Rain Coat: $195.00

Kamik White Daisy rain boots: $54.95

Operation Experimentation Update #3

Yet another couple of weeks have gone by and those boots are still parked on my front porch. One of my friends made a comment that only I would ruin a perfectly good pair of $60 boots for an experiment.

The boots are getting stronger sun exposure for a longer period of time now as well as more exposure to heat since it has definitely warmed up. I took another close look at the boots today and the hairline fractures in the rubber is even more extreme.

Both boots made the same crackling sound as before (like crunching up tissue paper) when I pinched the rubber together. On the right boot, which has not been treated with the rubber conditioner, the cracks are much more severe. Unlike the last time I checked them, this time the thin fractures in the rubber can be seen even when I don't pinch the rubber together. Before, these cracks disappeared when I released my hold on the boot. Although this is true for the right boot, the left treated boot, it is now in considerably better shape than it's mate.




You can hopefully see in this picture that the right boot (on the left in this photo) has a kind of dull look to it whereas the other boot doesn't. This is a result of all the hairline cracks over the surface of this boot.

The hairline cracks run the full length of the boots as well as along part of the sides which have been exposed to the sun. The cracks make the pattern appear faded more on the untreated boot. The inner lining of both boots is beginning to pull away around the top front. Again the back of both boots remain undamaged as they haven't been exposed to any sun.

So I would say that although the rubber conditioner doesn't 100% prevent damage it does slow it down. (Again NO sun exposure is best). Had to throw that in there....

I wiped both boots down, applied yet one more coat (that makes 3) of the rubber conditioner to the left boot and left the pair in their offical spot on my front porch to take more UVA/UVB abuse.

More in the next installment...

BTW...if the sun does this to a pair of boots with minimal sun exposure, just think of what it is doing to your skin without any sunscreen. Just food for thought.....

Spooky Smokey Sky

Photo from Press TV

There are a lot of wildfires burning in Northern California right now. We just had a huge fire the end of May and now there is another burning not far from that original one. It is in the Santa Cruz hills in a town called Bonny Doon which is about 40 miles from me. Here is an interesting website that shows some photos: Firefighting News.

The fire is not close enough to be a threat to my neighborhood but the wind changed Friday evening and the smoke made the sky very ethereal. You couldn't smell it (the first fire you could smell the smoke) but it suddenly got quite dark (at 6pm..kinda freaky) and the next morning there was a fine dusting of ash all over the cars in our neighborhood. Here are a few photos although I am not sure they truly capture how creepy it was.

View south toward Santa Cruz from my front yard.

View west down my driveway. You can see where the smoke ends and the

blue sky begins in the distance.

This does not bode well for the summer (which isn't really even upon us for another 6 days). We could use some of the rain those poor Iowans are getting way too much of.

Photo from Southern Ledger

I sure hope all these natural disasters (fires, floods, earthquakes....) stop coming so fast and furious.

Mother Nature...sounds like she needs some chocolate to calm her down. Come on over, M.N. I just went to Target and am fully stocked. I'll hook you up.

I Am Artist...?

For about a year I have been taking glass blowing lessons with local glass artist, Tom Stanton, based out of Holy City, CA. (This link goes to Wikipedia---damn, they have everything in there--and Tom is mentioned in the last line. The top photo also shows a side view of his studio. BTW--I didn't know all that weird stuff about Holy City and it's founder. Yikes!)

Tom does some absolutely amazing work. He makes blown glass objects as well as stained glass. His most recent stained glass piece is phenomenal!! Not sure if you can tell from the photo but the redwood tree is 3 dimensional. He made 'bark' molds from plaster and put various shards of different colored glass in the molds and then heated them until everything fused together into a single piece.

Artist: Tom Stanton, Holy City Art Glass

I have always loved art, especially glass work, and happened to meet Tom while taking a class he was teaching. We became friends and he offered to give me lessons working with hot glass after a discussion we had about a glass bracelet I bought in Kauai and my glass 'paperweight' collection. My 'paperweight' sculptures have various fluid shapes and random colors. Amazingly, I really love it and am starting to get pretty good (after creating some pretty horrible stuff). Here is a picture of my most recent work:

Artist: Kristen Mealiffe (that was really cool to write!)

Unfortunately the camera doesn't do any of the work justice as you can't see all of the vibrant colors and the sparkling dichroic glass intertwined through the pieces. But they still look pretty freaking cool if I do say so myself especially considering the pictures were taken with my beloved iPhone.

To Russia, With Love

One of our customers, Nicolas T. of Paris, bought a couple pairs of rain boots for his Russian friend, Elena, for "Woman's Day". A day that celebrates women. Sounds like a GREAT idea to me. They were nice enough to share some wonderful photos.

This is Red Square, the most famous square in Moscow and the building is St. Basil's Cathedral. (Nicolas told me all of this. I don't claim to be anywhere near this cultural! But I am pretty sure they showed this building in the new Indiana Jones movie...) The packages would be the rain boots all the way from DLL Rainwear in Scotts Valley CA. We sure get around!

This is Elena Z. reading the card that came with her gifts.

Elena carrying her still wrapped parcels. She is looking pretty excited...

And here she is, wearing ALL of her boots and doing her happy dance!

Thanks Nicolas and Elena, for sharing (and shopping) with us. I just love our customers!

These are one of the pairs of boots Nicolas gave Elena:

Chooka's Heart & Bones

Getting Offended

I have mentioned before that I turned the big 4-0 in April. Apparently that must mean I am way more over the hill than I thought.

The other day I got my mail and there was a letter that had a tag line on the envelope:

"Almost 65?" (Ummmmmm....NO!)

And today, I got something from AARP (American Association of Retired Persons for you young whippersnappers).

O.

M.

G.

I know I am really bad at math but aren't I a good 25 years from being "AARP" or do they start hitting you up early to 'join the club'?

Anyone else start getting this stuff when you turned 40 or am I on some weird list?

If I get more of this stuff I am either going to be seriously offended or depressed. Not sure which yet. Still deciding...

OD'ed on Mentos

Was reading a book and having some Mentos. Next thing I know, the entire roll is gone.

Can you overdose on mint Mentos??

Anyone?

Anyone?

Seriously—This is True Puddle Stomping in Style!!

I found this really great quote online:

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.”

But I decided it needed a little modification to fit this fantastic photo taken by one of our customers:

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain in their new stylish rain boots.”

And rain coat. And umbrella. And tutu.

There. That’s much better.

Photo taken by customer, Melissa of TX. Property of DLL Rainwear.

Arielle is wearing a matching set by Hatley called Purrfect Cats.

You Are Formally Invited...

You are formally invited to attend…

The nuptials of Kristen
and her beloved iPhone
on this 10th day of June 2008
at dllrainwear.com/blogger.htm
where she will declare her
undying devotion
to no other cell phone.

Emailing, phone calling, texting, picture taking, calendar marking, alarm setting, GPSing, Internet surfing, music listening, stock checking, weather looking and YouTube watching immediately following.

Have I told you lately that I love my iPhone?? (OMG! I got an email the on July 11th the new 3G iPhone is coming out. Is bigamy with cell phones illegal)?

Coming Soon....Teva!

On Friday we met with Teva to look over their most recent line. They have a lot of really nice WATERPROOF leather and suade shoes for men, women and kids. These are for those of you who maybe don't feel like wearing your rain boots but do need a waterproof shoe. I am often in that situation so wear other shoes and regret it when they...and my feet...are all soggy.



BTW, they pronounce their name Teh-vah NOT Tee-vah. Also, their logo means "Friendship with Water". I think the rep said the symbol of the hand is Hopi Indian and they added the swirl to represent water. Just a little Jeopardy trivia for you.


Sadly I can't really show you any of the shoes we will be getting in stock as they are brand new for Fall. But let me just say, they are all very, very nice (they have two different styles of Mary Janes!!)



And waterproof.



And lightweight.



And I want about 6 different styles.



Bloggin off to go clean out my closet to make room for some Teva shoes....

Got Mentos

Went to Target.

Got a 6-pack (seriously!) of Mint flavored Mentos.

Breath...fresh.

Crisis...averted.

Oh No! I Am Out of Mentos!!

I have recently become addicted to the "Fresh Maker", aka Mentos. So has my husband. And my kids. And my neighbor's kids. Apparently I am a Mento pusher.

And I am out!! Better suit up and hit my Mento lab....

or maybe Target.

P.S. I just went to the Mento website (um, YEA, there is a website!) and they are going to make Mento GUM!!! With mouthwatering flavor. And a flip top lid.

Life is good.

Doesn't take much....

Virtual Barbie Outfit #2-Pretty in Pink

Here is another one of my outfit suggestions. Hope you like pink for this one!! You can basically do the same thing in green. I'll post that ensemble another day to show you.

Pasotti Pink Floral Umbrella

AU Pink Damask Rain Coat:

Chooka Degrade Fade Raspberry boots