out of the blue...................

I sat down to write today, and was so overwhelmed by the lack of tolerance in this world, and I was so disgusted at the news, that I didn't want to write. Everything went out of my head, and I thought....who really reads my blogs, anyway.......


Well....then the mailman walked in...and handed me a letter from SimiValley, CA.....

It read,
THANK YOU....,me? yes, me. Laura McLinn, sat and wrote a letter to ME....she liked  my tribute to Lynn Dell-Cohen, she told me her thoughts on Joan Rivers, and most of all...she took the TIME out of her day to WRITE.....not email, not text...she wrote to me on paper!

Sometimes when you think your thoughts do not matter, there is always someone out there, an angel, that thinks that you do. I publicly would like to thank Laura for giving me encouragement. It's so nice to make friends across the miles.

Today the news is ripe with malicious headlines today. A young girl jumped off a bridge because her parent publicly shamed her by cutting off her hair. Clint Eastwood, one of my favorite actors, made a non funny joke about Caitlyn Jenner..there are escaped killers and a police officer run rampant at a pool party.....so many disappointments.  Sometimes I wish I had a rocket to mars.....but....can I wear heels there? I don't think so. But anyway...out of all the negativity...Laura McLinn gave me encouragement, which is what we should do for each other in this world. Today is National Best Friend Day....

Good friends lift you up, and Laura sure did her job today. And so I encourage people, especially all females out there. Encourage each other. Today and every day. Tolerance...even when you don't agree. Politics doesn't have to play a part in your friendship.  I wish everyone a day filled with joy and color.....a day filled with good friends to encourage and support...........and today I am blessed with Laura McLinn.........thank YOU, Laura.

" and so shines a good deed in this weary world"

Rose Ellen A Moore

www.rcmooreunique.com

1729 W Tilghman Street

Allentown PA 18104

www.rcmooreunique.com

In Memory of a Fashion Icon

There will be a million blogs written about Lynn Dell Cohen today. Her death is such a great sadness to me ....now there will be a little less color in this world...and a little less class......She was the epitome of glamour. She taught me to embrace who I was. She made me want to be a Grand Dame!!! I can't even say all the thoughts and feelings I have right now. All I know is, even though I didn't know her personally......I will miss her.

https://www.youtube.com/user/OFFBROADWAYEBOUTIQU

take a look at her video above

Her legacy to all of us.....to have some class. There is a way to handle yourself...to present yourself. There is a way to respect yourself......don't lose heart and give up when you get older. Life doesn't ever have to be finished until you take your last breath.

So ladies, dress every day. Love being a woman. Accentuate what is wonderful about yourself.  Accessorize yourself to the max and love it! Dress for the show of your life....so when the curtain drops and the crowd has memories of your performance, they will realize that they saw a hell of a show!

With loving gratitude to Lynn Dell Cohen............

RCMoore for the Unique
Millinery and Vintage shop
1729 W Tilghman Street
610-740-3820

www.rcmooreunique.com

Accentuate the Positive

On May 21st it will be my 53rd birthday.......... I won't lie about my age. I'm feeling pretty awesome that I got this far. But what I'm noticing is that there are struggles on a daily basis for things that used to come easy. Some of them are physical and some of them are emotional.

When I was a young girl of maybe 18 years old, I struggled with an eating disorder. I never ate, and when I did it was not nutritious, and if I ate something healthy and full of calories that were important to my body, I punished myself by not eating for days afterward. I never told anyone in my family, I just quietly didn't eat. My mother used to say to my dad, 'look Alex, she eats like a bird. '  I did....and I was proud of it for some weird reason. I struggled with self esteem, I wanted to be blonde, I wanted to be skinny and I wanted to be accepted.  When I got older, I struggled in my first marriage. I was miserable and unhappy with an abusive husband. I struggled to then raise my children alone. I struggled between balancing work and home. Every day, was a struggle.
     
Now, I have a beautiful life, but I still have my struggles although they are not as tragic or enormous as my struggles when I was younger. Now I struggle to get up from a kneeling position. I struggle to focus when I thread my needle on the sewing machine. I struggle to maintain self confidence in an aging body.  Even though I have my small struggles, I realize that they are not life threatening and I am grateful. It is hard to be negative when you are thanking God for all the blessings that you have. There is an old song from way back when, and the words are, " accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative......" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUmAbi0Vm4 )  I don't have time any more to focus on anything that isn't bringing joy to my life. In order to be happy, you need to focus on all the things that you have, instead of all the things that you WANT. Suddenly you realize that you have alot of things. Are you saying, 'she's nuts! I can't see! I can't walk! I can't I can't.......'   true, maybe you can't do some things, but I'm sure you can do SOME thing....so be thankful for speaking, if you can't see. Be thankful for singing if you can't walk.....focus on the wonderful things about yourself.  Start the morning with a prayer of thanks...and suddenly you realize how small your struggles are...........

1. AC-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

   Song by The Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby
2. You've got to accentuate the positive
   Eliminate the negative
   Latch on to the affirmative
   Don't mess with Mister In-Between

   You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
   Bring gloom down to the minimum
   Have faith or pandemonium
   Liable to walk upon the scene

   To illustrate his last remark
   Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
   What did they do
   Just when everything looked so dark

   Man, they said we better, accentuate the positive
   Eliminate the negative
   Latch on to the affirmative
   Don't mess with Mister In-Between
   No, do not mess with Mister In-Between
   Do you hear me?

   Oh, listen to me children and-a you will hear
   About the elininatin' of the negative
   And the accent on the positive
   And gather 'round me children if you're willin'
   And sit tight while I start reviewin'
   The… Full lyrics on Google Play
3. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Rose Ellen Moore
4. www.rcmooreunique.com
5. 1729 W Tilghman Street
6. Allentown, PA 18104
7. 610-740-3820 
8. https://www.facebook.com/rc.moore.7

people you meet in the NYC subway

My father always had a saying, 'if you look for the bad in a person you will see bad, if you look for the good, you will see good.'   Maybe that doesn't make sense to alot of you, but for me, I lived that. I love NYC....there's something that changes about me when I emerge out of the Holland Tunnel. Something comes over me, I'm home. I never grew up there....I have just a handful of my relatives living there, but for me I am home. Why? I never feel different, I never feel out of place. Because in a world of people that point the finger and stare, in NYC.....EVERYONE is different and EVERYONE just deals with it, tolerates it, and adjusts. The world would be so much better if everyone everywhere would do those things.

Many times I take the bus into NY and get off at Port Authority. Many times we drive in. It doesn't matter, as soon as I'm there I feel better about myself. I especially love the subway. People who ride taxis just don't know what they are missing!   Where else but on a NYC subway can you find a Russian woman and a Nigerian man who don't understand English , but they both speak Italian (why? I don't know) and luckily that is how we communicated. When you enter a subway the first thing that hits you is the smell of urine, and the sight of a homeless person or two huddled in a corner sleeping. You may hear some terrific music even better than  the famous singers we know today. Every one of your senses will be stimulated. And also, every one of your emotions. You will see lovers, you will see poor, you will see tired, hungry, young and old. It makes me humble, it makes me thankful, and it makes me wonder what it's like to walk in other peoples' shoes.

I though about writing this immediately after seeing Claudio Musajo's photograph of a young man and his child sleeping on the subway. ( https://www.facebook.com/claudio.musajo)   Riding a subway train is a lesson in life.  Just as life is a journey.  Look for the good and you will see good, look for the bad and you will see bad. No matter what you look for, it's all there, in the NYC subway.........

     

the following photos are courtsey of Claudio Musajo photographer

Happy Mother's Day

This weekend is mother's day. I don't always follow what society says and celebrate days because THEY SAY I have to. We should celebrate Christmas every day. We should celebrate mother's and father's day every day. Every day is a reason to celebrate, right?  Of course~  But this time, I must pay a tribute, because I feel that I have to share the pain and breakthrough that I experienced.

My mother.........I look like her. I idolized her. She wore big hats and had a fantastic sense of style. She also was very talented. She could touch anything and for whatever reason, it would work. Whatever outfit she put together, whatever decoupage artistic thing she would hang in the kitchen, ceramics? forget about it, she had that covered. Knitting, crocheting, sewing, designing, interior decorating....she had the gift. As far as solving a crossword puzzle or a cryptoquip, she was THE BOMB! My mother could grow an African Violet from a leaf....houseplants, macrame, ANYTHING......she was extremely gifted.

As I grew, I just trusted her that she knew exactly what I should do. She knew the best thing, she knew the right thing and I trusted her word as law.  As I got to be 17, 18, 19....we started to grow apart, because I had a thought and an opinion. I was growing and becoming an adult and our relationship was not growing. She still wanted to be in charge, unfortunately she can't be in charge of an adult when I had a husband and children.    Welll......my husband and I did not work out. He was abusive and out of respect for my children I will say no more...., neither marriage number 1 nor marriage number 2 worked out. I had 4 children and my mother was embarrassed,humiliated and PISSED that I didn't listen to her, and 'why oh why couldn't I be normal?'   Well, what is normal?  I was an eccentric person with a very different view of the world. I knew what I wanted in life, unfortunately I didn't have it with either partner. My mother and I started to fight all the time. She hated me. I was convinced.  Then when I had met my husband (yes, husband number 3...and three times is the charm!) my mother went ballistic! I really thought her head was going to pop off! 'what is everyone in Berwick gonna say?'  who really cared!  It was foreign to me that she would care about everyone in Berwick but not about me or my life or my feelings or the welfare of my children. She just wanted me to be normal.

So...we stopped talking. One day she did something so terrible to me, that I was devastated.  I literally stopped talking to her, and I ran away. I moved 60 miles away...it wasn't far enough. I started to have heart problems, I was hospitalized 3 times for a valve issue. I cried in my sleep. Nothing could fix or stop the pain I felt in my heart. For years my husband tried to compensate for the pain I felt from the loss of my mother in my life. Truthfully, I saw her in the mirror every day and I missed her. After 9 years, I returned to Berwick to see my mother. It was if I never left her. My message to all on this mother's day is this............................sometimes things are hard to forgive. But forgiveness is about YOU not anyone else. All my gifts that I have, every talent is from my mother. from my dad, I got my great sense of humor and wit, and from my mother I received all my talent as an artist. I am grateful I had the parents that I had. I am grateful to my mother. I wish her views on things would be different, but sometimes we have to agree to disagree. And the beauty of this is, she is here to see all of the wonderful things that she has created, now through me.  She can enjoy all the fruits of my labor, and she instilled them in me. So, thank you Ma........for my gifts. And my gift to you is showing you all the gifts you gave me.

Love, your daughter, Rose Ellen  

 Rose Ellen Moore

www.rcmooreunique.com

 My mother (Sophia) June, my grand daughter GinaRose and my son Ezio

My son Matthew, my mother Sophia (June) my son Ezio

me at 6 years old, my mother and my sister, Susan

my mother and I in 1997

OPINION

Everyone has an opinion about something. From our President of the United States, to our religions, and different events on the news.

This week there was an incident where a teen mother threw her baby off a bridge and then jumped herself in a murder/suicide attempt. EVERYONE had an opinion. ' she should be hung' they said,.....
she should go to jail for life...' they said....I watched as everyone condemned her for getting pregnant in the first place, why didn't she get an abortion? why didn't she...blah blah blah..................

The world has such hate.....the human race is the first one to point a finger, to blame and ridicule. Really, does everyone think this young woman hopped and skipped to the bridge to kill herself and her child? What kind of mental anguish was she in? of course she was not right...but what kind of society are we if we have no compassion? Why didn't she feel there was no where to turn?  Why is everyone assuming that she WANTED to be pregnant? was this a product of rape, incest, birth control failure.....why is everyone the judge but no one is the problem solver? Shame on us as a human race................

Facebook, instagram and other social media has made it easy for us to body shame, blame, force our opinions and talk some BIG TALK with anonymity being a shield to hide behind. Everyone's opinion on Baltimore and Freddy Gray has made me wonder what kind of people are we? or....maybe we are just animals...we would kill each other, just to make a point.

I am only 1 person of insignificance. I make hats, costumes, and things to make people feel good about themselves. In the grand scheme of things, I realize that there is nothing I can do as a woman, a person to make people realize how hateful a society we have become. All I can do is keep trying, keep thinking, maybe if I have tolerance and compassion....eventually it will catch on. Or maybe we will kill each other off by then........................

Rose Ellen A Moore

www.rcmooreunique.com

Tattoos............

Tattoos are a work of art. They are an outward expression of what you feel in your heart. I remember my grandfather's tattoo on his forearm. It always fascinated me. It was an optical illusion. A woman's face in a rose. If you looked at it one way it was a rose, the other way, it was her face. Whatever way you chose, it was so beautiful. I vowed to get one....so when I got older I did. TO THE DISGRACE OF MY FAMILY!

My mother tried to rub it off...she then announced that I was 'trash'. Someone in my family wrote an absolutely HORRIBLE letter about me on Myspace. At that time, that was the equivalent of Facebook....I was devastated. That 'letter' almost sent me to the ER with chest pain. My family really thought I was trash....my mother, my cousins, my aunts.......For awhile I sunk in a great depression...  They said, as I got older my tattoo would become ugly. It would sag as I would sag, and I would look disgraceful. Well...consider this blog my public FINGER to everyone  that said I was trash. To everyone that said I didn't have class....BYE FELICIA!  I love my tattoo....and I always will...I may enhance it this summer. But as I get older, I intend to live my life OUT LOUD!  Just like these mature folks are doing......

There are people that don't like tattoos...that's fine. There are people that really do.....and that's fine. But my whole point is, don't judge anyone based on what they look like, you have no idea...the BEST people are the colorful ones...

Rose Ellen Moore

www.rcmooreunique.com

610-740-3820

If I Had a Million Dollars...................

If I had a million dollars.............
what would I do with that?
Would I buy some boobs, inject my face
and have them suck out fat?

Would I have my old face lifted
put my eyebrows up so high?
Would I have my butt exploded
or have a thinner thigh?

If I had a million dollars,
I would spend it on my kids
What benefit would it be to them
If I had high eyelids?

If I had a million dollars
me and my hubby would go
off into the sunset
where there is not a flake of snow!

If I had a million dollars
it could feed people in need
that's what we should all do
and not be consumed by greed

If I had a million dollars
I would give it all away
You never know if you even
have another day

There are some people in this world
who want for more and more
They can have a million dollars
and still think like they're poor

So if I had a million dollars
I hope I still have friends
I hope the love I have
with my husband never ends

If I had a million dollars
it wouldn't change a thing
because I have more riches in my life
than just about anything


Rose Ellen Moore
4/10/2015
www.rcmooreunique.com

Mad Men Style...in Berwick PA!

I was watching Mad Men on TV the other night and I was chuckling to myself...' wow, I wore that, and that, and that................"     I remember thinking how cool I looked. I remember how I HATED the fact that my mother sewed us everything. I soooooooo wanted a 'store bought dress'.  I wish I could have taken that back. My mother was very good at what she did. We lived in a small town called Berwick PA....  Berwick was a tiny tiny town 3.2 square miles. that's it! The population in 1910 was around 5,000 people...in 1940 it ballooned to over 13,000 because of the influx of Europeans during WWII.   My family came to Berwick during that time. My mother's family from Italy, and my father's family from Hungary.  Being that our town was so small, we were lucky to have 2 department store that sold Shoes, Mens suits, women's childrens and teens clothing. But nothing was 'out of the ordinary' or 'like the magazines'. We had 1 block that was called 'downtown'....and that was it. If what you were looking for wasn't there, you were out of luck!

My mother would go to the grocery store, and purchase all the Vogue magazines. Harpers Bizarre, etc. and then, she would buy fabric at Newberry's ( a store down town) and make us dresses, just like Twiggy...hot pants, like Pam Greer. We always had the best. We just didn't know it. 

Now that I own a vintage/millinery, I see alot of the same styles I had back then. The great thing is, you can wear them now too. Classic styles are so beautiful and fashion just goes around and around. Here are a few of the things that we wore back then, and I have a version of them in my shop. Maybe the prints are alittle different, but the cuts are still the same. Hope you stop in and see us sometime!! We have the largest selection of vintage in the Lehigh Valley and a hat room where you can go deep into your fantasy world!!! 

Rose Ellen Moore

RCMoore for the Unique Millinery and Vintage Shop

1729 W Tilghman Street

Allentown PA  18104

610-740-3820

RCMoore for the Unique Individual, Because NO ONE is quite like YOU! 

WRINKLES! UGH!

This morning I was watching Good Morning America.... and among all the fun things they had on their show, there was one article that was troubling me......

7 Easy Ways to Prevent Wrinkles....  these were taken directly from the website:

https://gma.yahoo.com/pore-fection-7-easy-ways-prevent-wrinkles-105757566--abc-news-fashion-and-beauty.html

1. Avoid drinking through a straw. 

2. Limit frequent gum chewing. 

3. Always wear your sunglasses, even when it's cloudy. 

4. Try not to stretch your skin when applying or removing makeup. 

5. Limit consumption of refined sugar. 

6. Be aware of how much you’re looking down at your mobile devices. 

7. Try not to sleep on your side. 

Are you all done laughing yet?  I have news for everyone that believes this stuff. Here it is...ready?

THERE IS NO WAY TO PREVENT WRINKLES! NONE! NADA! NO WAY!!! Ok? so here's my beauty TIP of the day.....

ENJOY your life!!! Drink through a straw!!! Lots of them!!! drink shakes! lemonade! and an occasional Margharita!  Chew GUM! I enjoy Extra! it keeps my breath minty fresh so I can talk to my customers without them falling over! :) Make sure you can SEE! Your eyes will let you know when you need sunglasses. If it's cloudy and you can't see with sunglasses...don't worry about wrinkles, worry about a car accident!  Limit sugar but don't deny yourself an occasional piece of chocolate! Look up down and side ways...that's why God gave you a neck! Sleep in the crook of your lovers arm, sleep next to your dog or cat, sleep any way you want...but sleep WELL and DREAM of good things. This list is CRAP!   

Happy Easter and don't pay attention to the media! they just want you to put more money into Botox, and plastic surgery!   Learn to love yourself....wrinkles and all.  My wrinkles are where a smile has been.....and I hope to smile all the way to my grave. 

Love to all and Happy Easter!