If the judge thing does not work out....

About four years ago we had a lady named Alicia Richmond come and speak to our Young Women's group on fashion and how to dress trendy and cool, and still be modest. Alicia is a personal stylist with a really hip business called "Chic on a Shoestring." (chiconashoestring.com) I had never met Alicia prior to that evening, but I knew who she was from seeing her on local TV and hearing her on the radio. From the moment I met her that night I knew we were going to be friends....

Since then I have taken a trip with her to NYC in March 2008, modeled for her on Good Things Utah, and went to China with her last year. My latest venture to NYC was with Alicia.

In the 90's when all of us girls who were children from the 80's were wanting to get our "serious" college degrees so we could have those oh so important "power" jobs Alicia was a fashion design and merchandising major at BYU.

I will let you in on a little secret, I am jealous....truth be told I did not have the guts to major in fashion design and merchandising, (although I had the skills) because I was afraid I would not be taken seriously. My greatest fear in the late 80's and early 90's at BYU was that if I did not choose a serious major everyone would think I was only at BYU to bide my time until found my eternal companion, not really to get an education.

You see fashion design and merchandising was considered a fluffy major, like elementary education, or a family science or interior design, something girls who were only interested in getting married studied until being swept off their feet, and then putting their husbands through school. I simply could not be taken for fluff. I went to law school. No one ever accused any girl who went to law school of only being a BYU to get married. They took you seriously.

Now its not that I don't like being a lawyer/judge. I have an amazing job, and I have had an amazing career, with opportunities and experiences too numerous to mention. I am only saying that sometimes you wonder about the path not taken, and where you life would be if you had chosen a different path. To me Alicia represents that path. (Trust me she is NOT fluff at all, and has had equally amazing opportunities and experiences in her career. She is one of the coolest people I know.)

Part of her business is to host shopping tours. As part of these shopping tours, she takes you to her favorite stores and she styles the women who travel with her. She shops with you and helps you find clothing that will look good for your body type, and then helps you fit the clothing and select the accessories.

In addition to shopping tours, she does personal styling, helps people get rid of clothing in their closet that is out of style or does not look good on them. She also does a lot of public speaking about fashion, body types, body images and helping women, regardless of their size, feel good about their body and the clothing they wear.

Finally every week she has a fashion segment on a local daytime talk show called Good Things Utah.....

Well the producer of Good Things Utah sent Alicia to NYC with a video camera to record the trip and how to score great fashion finds while on vacation. Guess who got recruited to be the art director, and tape the segments? Yep that would be me. So when I was not wrangling nine year old girls, I was driving everyone nuts with the video camera taking shots that will hopefully be edited into a segment for Good Things Utah. You know what ? I liked it! It was really fun to think what shot might be good for the segment, or is the lighting ok, but mostly I was amazed at Alicia's ability to be so impromptu when I turned the camera on. I really will not know until the producer edits my video if I am any good at shooting video for TV, but honestly I watch enough TV, I know what goes into a segment. So you know if that whole judge thing does not work out, I might have a new career.....