I got a blouse at Buffalo Clothing Exchange this weekend that I’ve named my PTA Blouse. I don’t know why, but I tend to love clothes more if I give them a nickname or some kind of personality. I have a polka-dotted shirt dubbed The Galaxy Shirt because if you concentrate on it, it becomes mesmerizing, like space. I have another polka-dotted blouse I call The Claire because that’s the name written on the inside in ballpoint pen.

So the new blouse is the PTA Blouse. It spoke to me when I saw it on the rack. “Let’s roll up our sleeves and sell some baked goods, gals. We’ve got to raise money for the new gymnasium.” Or money for prom, the French club field trip or new textbooks. It has such a straight-forward, can-do attitude. This is not the blouse of a woman who wants to sit on the couch reading mags (like me). This is a woman who bakes 1100 brownies all morning, goes out and washes the car and then spends the afternoon running errands, picking up the kids and shuttling them wherever they need to go and then goes home to make spaghetti.

She’s a woman who also makes beautiful craft items that she sells from time to time, plays tennis, belongs to a book club and vacations every year in Florida. She’s not fancy or frilly but kinda feminine all the same.

I love PTA Blouse. What I don’t exactly love is the “Hey, its Sunday and I never showered look” I’ve got going on in this picture but PTA Blouse understands. There was just so much to do. One can’t be concerned with one’s hairdo when there are cookies to bake and meeting agendas to type.