Not just for sport or court, colorful shoes are hot topics!

It’s back to school and when that kid of yours picks up the chartreuse must-have high tops, don’t freak. Color is big. Last week, I posted my new lime-green kicks. They’re not just for the court. Yellow, pink and bright blue sneakers, flats and sandals are trendy and the cute leopard ballet flats are still in fashion. The photo at left is from TLC. Check out more colorful footwear at Seventeen Magazine.

Skinny jeans are staying — and in colorful patterns, leopard prints, paisleys and much more.

The 80s are back. I’m not sure if I’m glad or scared, but slightly puffed shoulders are returning for the younger set, and so are ruffles. In a fashion shoot for our September issue of Her Times, we dressed a model in a striped and ruffled blouse from The Limited. I had one just like it in the 80s. Tops are also sporting polka dots, prints, plaids and patchworks. It looks like someone raided my 1980s closet! Check out a cute jean jackets with puffed sleeves at Seventeen Magazine.

This utility jacket from Forever 21 is one of the hot trends — $24.80, and some fashionistas claim sleeveless blazers are in. In my day, we called those vests, and it’s nice to see them back. So are bomber jackets.

And houndstooth is still here – so hang on to your black and whites.

In other fashion news:

Penn State is putting names on the backs of their football uniforms breaking with a long-term tradition. I bring this up because I am a Penn State grad.

The Olympics featured some awesome clothing styles (but it would have been nice if they had all been made in the USA) for our athletes. Seeing Gabby Douglas in sparkling pink and Serena Williams in a sharp gray jacket was a surprise. Our red, white and blue was kind of hard to find among some of the U.S. team uniforms on occasion. But then again, it seemed all the international athletes wore a lot of color — not just their own country’s flag hues. There’s nothing wrong with color, but I had trouble picking out the Americans at times. My hubby pointed out tiny flags on sleeves and above the heart on some uniforms.

Enjoy you week in style!

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa.

AP photo

I’m just going to go ahead and admit this right here and now…my husband was right about something.

I know…I know…I never thought the day would come either, but, alas, the man proved me wrong and came through big time on Sunday when the “big game” (Steelers versus Bengals) was knocked off the local airwaves by the traveling Bills.

For weeks, the husband kept telling me some guy he works with told him he could watch any football game online for free.

I scoffed and snorted….yeah, right. And, we’ll probably be part of some class-action suit someday, too. Ever heard of Napster, big guy?

But…desperate times call for desperate measure (and maybe a bit of rule bending/breaking) so we surfed over to www.channelsurfing.net and they had all kinds of live streaming video — anything you could ever want to watch.

I still didn’t think we’d get to watch the game. Surely the NFL powers-that-be would have shut this site down already.

Nope. We watched the whole game Online Sunday afternoon on my laptop computer.

Sure, it was small and not the best resolution — when we chose the “full screen” mode it was really fuzzy — but it was better than radio or spending a beautiful day in some dark bar.

My husband got excited scrolling through the site at all the hockey games and other sporting events available for your FREE viewing pleasure. He’s going to have to fight me for the laptop though because I noticed the TLC channel — one of the things I actually miss about cable.