Johnny Was Houston

#WORKFLOW

October 4, 2016luxorlivingandstyle 1 Comment

On top of the all of the hats that I wear…I also have this little side gig called a full time job. The stylists and managers that work with me are from a wide array of backgrounds and hear me when I tell you that each person brings their own personality with them in their handbag to work every day.

I am proud to say that we have a full time school teacher in our midst, who just enjoys the brand we represent, Johnny Was. We also have another part time stylist that works full time at a doctor’s office. There are others among us with college degrees or makeup artist backgrounds, or both. Whatever the case may be, we all basically feel like we live together. I guess that’s because we actually do. We spend 8 hours a day together which is probably more time than I see my husband.

On this day, I was trying to up the amp on a typical mandatory store meeting. The deal was that we would do a mini photo session before the meeting for fun.

There is a really cool blank white wall, outside our store in Highland Village, that bloggers come by weekly to use as a make shift “studio” because the lighting is perfect most any time of day. It’s like trying to herd cats, to get more than 3 people to look acceptable in a photo, but we had fun and it was something different to do.

I always tell young people that if you can do retail for any length of time, it will prepare you for absolutely anything the world has to throw at you in the future. No matter where you work in the future, there will be challenging personalities in the workplace. Integrity and basic sanity are my top two prerequisites for hiring. Insanity is far too disruptive in the workplace and you have to be able to get along in order to be relatively happy and productive at work. Integrity is everything. If a person is the most intelligent being on the planet yet holds no integrity…what good are they? Everything else can be taught, but I can’t force integrity into a person. That was your parent’s job.

In the past, I’ve gone through spells of being self employed and working from home. I actually missed being at a job and having work people. For the past year, these have been my work people. My days consist of making sure Fetus Randy’s mom doesn’t do any heavy lifting, sharing the joy in Haley’s engagement (and big ass ring) , wondering if Miranda’s cold is going to get us all sick, and blending everyone’s life together through holidays, birthdays, weddings, deaths, vacations etc and keeping it real about why we are all here and what we are expected to do. Oh, and hell no…you can’t be off every Saturday. Are you insane ?

The ladies all decided that it was OK for them to star in my blog. Well, as long as they looked good. I thought it would be fun to show a peek into who I spend my days with. This is our #workflow.

-SDS

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#undefined

August 22, 2016luxorlivingandstyle

I love doing makeup sessions. I really love taking photos for people. I have not ranted and vented much lately. I guess because I’ve been happy. Well, happy, busy and educating myself on world events. (OMG…do you realize everything going in in the universe right now?!?) Ugh, stressful!

I don’t want to quit my website, photography, makeup work or anything else I do that is fun…but I am spending a lot of time learning and studying in other areas. I find it amazing that there are very successful people in my world, that make a lot more money than I do and are seemingly more refined and accomplished, yet do not know or care anything about world affairs, government issues, do not have any idea who George Soros is and why they should care,what Brexit is and why it happened, what’s up with Putin or how the mainstream media candy coats reality at best, hides reality at worst and why we should care. I find that a majority of people are just zombies who do not want to be bothered with reality because it’s scary and inconvenient. If you don’t believe me, just ask someone who they are voting for and why…and most can’t articulate a real and meaningful answer with any depth or true knowledge of the facts they spew. Zombies I tell you!

Because of this, I am thinking of adding a news tab to the blog so that I can share things that I feel are interesting and important. If you don’t care, then don’t click on the news link! There are just so many interesting things going on that I’d like to share.

Back to the blog at hand…it’s titled #undefined. There’s a lot of reasons for this. This post stemmed from a long overdue photo shoot that TJ wanted. She also wanted a fun and glammy makeup lesson. I decided to do both, and combine the results for a mini blog. The dress is one she purchased from Johnny Was Houston, which is also the company that I currently work for…so we were hitting a lot of issues here. We are not really trying here to fit her into a defined fashion category or look here. Personality flavors any fashion and sometimes takes it around the corner and down the street from where the original concept was born. So with this session, we just let her own person shine through. Never mind that she had on a boho dress. You should wear a dress, it shouldn’t wear you.

I’d had kind of a weird and crappy week last week. Basically, a person tried to define me based on appearance alone. I realized that she wasn’t really judging my appearance, she was judging my appearance – and therefore my entire person, based on hers as being the guideline. This doesn’t work like that. My life is different than most women my age. I’m fun, burden free, artistic, love nail polish and hair products but the most important things about me are not visible. I am smart. I don’t need to appear smart. It’s not a concern of mine. I am deep, caring, I have integrity, am multifaceted and these things are not definable by appearance alone. I can carry on a semi intelligent conversation with anyone from anywhere in the world. That’s not any less true because I may do it in a fabulous shoe.

That being said, if I were seeking employment at the front desk of a brain surgeon’s office, I would surely take more of a simple approach in how I present myself to the universe. Friends and I have this conversation all the time. All. The. Time. Everyone wants to make more money, yet they dress and present themselves on the daily as if they make $19,000 per year and then want to wonder why better opportunities do not come. So I understand bending and blending with the masses, I just don’t have to.

I got that from my mom. My friend’s mom’s would be rude and ask, “Why is your mom always dressed up?” or “Why is she always fixed up?”… as if there was something wrong with it. They were trying to define her based on their own appearance and lack of daily effort. She didn’t work, she was fancy because she knew my dad liked it and she enjoyed fashion, the end.

Which brings us back to TJ…the woman in the photos. She is not a boho girl in the typical sense. She works out, and drinks healthy smoothies. She is independent. Single. Trying to grow a career and build her life. She’s not exactly black or white. She is an extremely nice person who tries to help people to a fault, always putting herself last. I’ve never met anyone who even almost resembles her. She is a bit of a cat lady though…there are three. Of course you would never know any of that if you never took the time to know her. Whoever she is going to end up becoming is not defined as of yet. Unspecified boundaries. Undefined possibilities.

-SDS

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