Winona Dimeo-Ediger

When you’re helping people zip up dresses and watching their reactions to certain items of clothing, you start noticing patterns. Here are four of the phrases I hear most often in the dressing room, and how I wish — oh, how I wish! — I could respond.

12. Was someone just like, “I have a great idea: let’s shave part of a goat and then kind of ball up the hair and glue a pin on the back and call it a goat hair brooch”?

There are so many ways to be creative. There are no rules about who can create and how and when and why. In every incarnation, professional or amateur, shared or secret, creativity makes the world better.

Suffering from a severe case of the frumps? Not anymore.

When I felt a familiar wave of insecurity creeping up and threatening to mute my movements, I looked to you for inspiration, and I danced even bigger.

The side effects of weight loss are not—gasp!—all positive.

3. When you can’t see the end point, just keep going. About halfway into my blanket, I fell into this weird crocheting vortex where no matter how many new stitches I made, my blanket always looked exactly the same size. It felt like I was crocheting into a void. I got super frustrated and almost gave up multiple times, but instead, I just kept stitching.

I’ve always hated shopping for dresses in general (I’m seriously supposed to track down one garment that fits properly on my chest, waist, arms, and hips simultaneously?), and finding the right thing to wear to a wedding is always tricky (do they really mean casual?).

You might think that being on a budget means you can’t afford to dress like a super rich, fashion-forward celebrity, but girlfriend, you are wrong about that!

...canning stuff is the best. It makes you feel like a badass pioneer woman preparing for the Oregon Trail except in this scenario you’re making orange basil marmalade for brunches rather than sustenance and you have unlimited access to a shower.