Happy Friday!

Last night I modeled my MB's at a charity event for brain cancer at The Ram's Head. So fun! Today I'm riding, tomorrow I'm riding then I have the opening of The Landis Theater with Bernadette Peters. A graduation party at The Chelsea and Sunday a christening at The Union League. I have a super giveaway planned for while I'm in California with One Fabulous Mom in super secret meetings. I'm tired but excited just thinking about it. What are you doing this weekend?

Collars up!

SC

Happy Preppy Friday!

I'm crazed with busy-ness (And I detest busy people as I'm usually bored) but little bear has a doctors appointment today and Friday's are usually my mani day while nanny waits on me. So this going to be a bit quick.

Bethany over at Maryland Pink and Green is officially my new BFF. She interviewed me and is giving away a signed copy of my novel, Social Climbers.  Click on preppy to learn more. I hope you win! If not, go to AMAZON to purchase a copy.

I promise to do good deeds for Haiti but I'm too sad to gather my thoughts just yet. Don't look unkindly on me-SC promises to get involved. My heart aches for them. Please pray.

Have a blessed and beautiful day!

xoxo

SC

Preppy Mafia Giveaway!

SC has teamed up with The Preppy Princess for the official 2010 Giveaway!

You will win-

A copy of my novel, Social Climbers- The Preppy Bible

A Donovan Cutie Calendar

 

Lilly Pulitzer Stuck on you Post its-mark your fav page of the book

Enter to win-

Leave a comment. You must be a follower (1 entry)

Add Social Climbers to your blog roll (2 entries)

Become a fan on Facebook- click on preppy (2 entries)

Tweet this giveaway, don't forget to copy me (1 entry)@Bethdunn2

I love you BLENDS! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Winner will be chosen Friday January 1st and announced Saturday January 2nd

Best of luck!

On another note, The Official Preppy Mafia logo is being designed as I type. I can't wait to share it with you. People have told me (in a nice way) that all of the initials in my book are confusing. There is a dictionary in the beginning but I'm also having a book mark made so you can print it off of my website and put it in the book. That way you won't have to keep flipping to the front to remember that JM stands for J. McLaughlin or SC stands for Social Climber. Until that is ready below is my dictionary for Social Climbers!

DICTIONARY
AT - Already There. One who has social status and need not worry.
SC - Social Climber. One who aspires to be AT and has to do a lot to
get there.
NR - Nouveau Riche. One who was once an SC but now has a lot of
cash and can’t spend it properly.
WT - White Trash. I don’t think this one needs an explanation.
MC - Middle Class.
UB - Uber-Bitch.
DLG - Daddy’s Little Girl
JM - J. McLaughlin, the “It” store.
SS - Social Standing. One who has it, is an AT and does not give a f***.
IT - having it all- beauty, thinness, style, class, marriage & Money!

XOXO

SC

Merry Merry Preppy Christmas!

I hope everyone has a blessed and beautiful Christmas!

Merry Merry.

Be sure to check out this catalog if you are still looking!

spiritoftheseasoncatalog

This is the Dunn Family Christmas card!

I'm all about charity work. SC loves to give back so please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need copies of my book (just don't ask for 100, a few for a gift basket)

The Preppy Princess and I have something in store for 2010 so check back for tomorrow's give away!

Love to all of my BLENDS (blog friends-just learned that new term-cute).

xoxo

SC

Happy Preppy Tuesday!

4 Days left to enter my Sorority Give away! click here to enter!

And to celebrate I have another Preppy Post from Guest Blogger Queen Bee Swain. (Don't worry I have another surprise guest blogger later this week). I connect with her spirit and style so much. You can check out her blog here

I'm dying to know how the Queen decorates:

"Carolyn Roehm meets Cape Cod.  Lots of blue and white with lovingly-worn family and antique pieces.  There is nothing quite as crisp inviting as blue and white paired with pieces that have personal history.  It’s put-together and relaxed all at once and has a dash of personal history."

Seriously from these pictures you can tell how much she loves to read and all the personal family heirloom touches! PS I recognize ALL of those pink book covers. I had to run and look up Carolyne Roehm when I saw her answer.

 QBS adds:

"The mirror above the green bookshelf is from Nanny's patio furniture, the jug is from my other grandmother and a couple of the loving cups are from family.

The hutch is totally me- kind of Cape Cod Shabby Chic- found it at a junk store just after I graduated for $150.  

MoMo just about died when I painted the end table next to my bed white- I am highly pro-Gustavian influences in decor (Gustavian is Scandinavian traditional- white painted wooded furniture with a paired-down Louis XIV style).  MoMo is very anti-painting wooded furniture."

That is what I love about decorating. You can mix old, new, expensive and plain old practical. Throw in your favorite family photos, books and you are Chic in my world. Thank you QBS!

Happy Preppy Day to everyone and wear some fab pants and call me if anyone gives you a dirty look!

xoxo

SC

Preppy Guest Blog #2

Welcome to Preppy Wednesday!

Calling all you sorority girls--enter my giveaway
http://socialclimbers123.blogspot.com/2009/10/preppy-sorority-give-away.html

Today's guest blogger is Southern Living: Preppy Style! She is adorable and if you aren't reading her blog you must immediately!
http://jenniferdtrent.blogspot.com/

Check out her blog for a giveaway of my book!

We met in blog land and if we lived closer I know we'd just hang out and gab far more than our husbands would ever understand. SLPS is warm, wonderful, kind, friendly and albeit a true blue blood--a lovable one (just the way we like them in preppy blog land)!  After reading my novel, Social Climbers, she contacted me to discuss:

"I didn’t discover I was a WASP (on my maternal side) until about 4 years ago.  I had never heard the word, didn’t know what it meant and whenever it was discussed, I went with the flow as if I knew what everyone was talking about.

I am a WASP, I can track my ancestors back to the revolutionary war and England and am a member of the DAR.  I always knew I’d be a member, but never understood its significance.  I’m from a town of approximately 30,000 people in Kentucky.  There is not a “Main Line” as discussed in the book Social Climbers however, there is the “wrong and right side of the (railroad) tracks” (quite literally) and then there is the “UC (upper class) side of the tracks” where I am from.  I lived in the coveted OakTree Hills subdivision, went to a private, co-ed school with uniforms and played the violin.  I have traveled all over the world, went a small liberal arts private college of 900 students (not IVY of course) and now live in South Florida with my WASP husband (where I drove a luxury station-wagon at the age of 24).

 I was not a normal child by any means.  I was not popular (I played an instrument!) but I had my group of friends, including my then best friend Cara, who is also a WASP and our friends from other schools.  Cara dressed like a WASP but did not do anything remotely close to WASP behavior.  She looks the part but didn’t act the part.   This, I now realize, is part of the reason we drifted apart and haven’t spoken in years I also have realized in recent years that all the so-called popular kids in middle and high school were not WASPs, like me and never left to really experience the world.  With my high school friends, I played golf, attempted tennis (with a wooden racket), swam at the country club pool in which we associated, took violin lessons and studied for my private college entrance exams.  I traveled in the summers for music camps housed on college campuses and every February, I stayed in the ritzy Galt House hotel in Louisville for the annual music festival, where I was catered to with fine dining by college music scouts (none of them from my alma mater).  That was the extent of my high school days.    

My parents also do not hold true to the typical WASP behavior, well, in a way.  They are liberal democrats, unlike me.  But now that I think about it, they are very outdoorsy, enjoy the occasional wine and cheese party and have a custom made sailboat that was shipped here from England.  They do not dress WASPy however, they behave WASPy .

My husband and I have one daughter.  We nicknamed her Lallie (pronounced “lolly” like lollipop) and her name comes from her WASP family last and middle names.  She attends a private Montessori school at the age of two.  I had her birth announced in my alma mater’s monthly alumni newsletter, announced it in all the newspapers in which we’re associated and mailed out professional birth announcements to all our friends and family.  Her first birthday party included a guest list of over 75 people and she already has an assignment for etiquette school when she turns four-years old.  She is pure-bred WASP. 

I started reading Social Climbers a few days ago.  I’m about 60 pages along in the book.  *****

The other day, my husband was out playing golf in a tournament.  I am a working-mom, so I arrived home prior to picking up Lallie from school and was asked if I would like to join him and some other friends and wives at the clubhouse for drinks and appetizers (the country club in which we live).  I was wearing typical golf attire, a Lilly skort, Lilly polo top, a gingham pink sun visor, sunglasses, carrying my un-marked Coach bag and my Steven Bononnos, monogrammed none the less.  Husband brought me a glass of wine and I played socialite by talking with the mayor, a commissioner and a few other town big-wigs (I work in commercial real estate and my husband is an engineer, so we know our fair share of UC’s).  During a lull in conversation, I looked around and saw my wine glass, teetering in my hand near my lips, that’s always how I hold my wine glass (sometimes with my arms slightly cross with my elbow resting on my other hand).  I reviewed my outfit, looked around at the women who had come to me to say hello (not me to them) and make the double kiss-of-cheeks.  I notice my bag was checked, my husband brought me my drinks.  I realized right then and there, that I am a Social Climber myself.

This is very interesting to me.  I have never been the preppy type.  I was in behavior, just not dress.  Think of it this way:  My friend Cara, looked the part, but didn’t behave the part, I was the complete opposite – I behaved the part, but didn’t look the part.  I never dressed preppy until about 3 years ago, when I became pregnant with my daughter.  I started researching websites for adorable nursery items, tracked myself into other preppy websites and have since become a preppy dresser.  I make grosgrain ribbon topiaries (all preps must make something), I am involved in the DAR, Junior League and possibly my college sorority alumni.  I became involved in these not only because I want to “do good” but because I wanted to meet people and be social. 

I am a social climber (in some sense, as I’m not northeastern and didn’t do the Ivy League thing – but you know what I mean).  For the first time in my life, I am the most comfortable I’ve ever been, in my own skin and that to me, is a very good thing! 

~~~I found out later after writing this, after speaking with Beth Dunn and actually finishing the book, that I am not a Social Climber.  I have Social Status (if you need definitions, READ THE BOOK!)  The difference between myself and a Social Climber is basically this: I want to have fun, do “good” and socialize with good people, without stepping on the toes of others for the mere gain of social status.  I’m not in it for the status (I already have it) and I’m not a b*&#h (I hope!).  I’m in it for the fun and frankly, I can’t help how I was raised….as they all say “It is what it is!”****

Xoxo

Jennifer"

See! Isn't she just pure through and through?? And so honest. The thing I love most is that she is so content and happy being herself. How many of us would love to say the same thing!

I hope everyone has a beautiful day! I'm off to my local Lilly Pulitzer store which is gasp....closing! Devastation.

xoxo

SC

My First Preppy Guest Blogger

Happy Tuesday!

Don't forget to enter my Preppy Sorority Giveaway from yesterday (if you are not in a sorority keep reading, there are other chances to win).

I LOVE Queen Bee Swain. If I had a little sister I think it would be her. We first bonded over our love for the prep life. If you don't read her blog you are missing out! She is a fun, terrific writer and all around cute class act!
http://queenbeeswain.blogspot.com/

So without further ado I'll let her continue with my Preppy celebration:

Just look at this adorable golf picture, I think it says it all!

I caught up with QBS and my burning first question:

When did you first realize you were a preppy?

 

"Not until early June, 1997 when I found my mother’s copy of the Preppy Handbook.  I still remember that exact moment and subsequent obsession for the rest of the summer (although it never has really waned) with the book.  It should have struck me as odd that my childhood in a liberal university town comprised of golf and tennis in place of softball (we would laugh and honk at the kids playing on summer evenings as we went off to the CC to play a few holes and then go for a dip in the pool), ski trips to Taos, Pagosa Springs and Durango when all of the other kids got to go to Disney during Easter Break, a mother that wore fur-coats over her pj’s to return videos in the middle of a blizzard, watching my father play in the finals of the Men’s City golf championships, a grandmother who was a delegate for our state at many presidential RNCs, a home full of my mother’s side’s (the Southerners) antique silver and duck-motif everywhere applicable and lots of emphasis on manners, charm and noblesse oblige; but it didn’t.  I was already living the dream (saying this with my tongue-in-cheek) before I even knew what the dream was!  Thank goodness my mother had TOPH so I was officially able to understand what I “was.”

And thankfully she did! I told you she is cute. Check out her blog for a chance to win a copy of my novel Social Climbers.

xoxo

SC