Obnoxious

I made a big mistake wearing these amazingly absurd gold shoes. I've spent 97% of the summer season in either my Chacos or barefoot. Because I don't leave the house often enough and I have no shame walking the dog in my finest loungewear.

Anyway, I wore this a few weeks ago to lunch out with a very pregnant girlfriend (who has since had a tiny little boy!) and it was a lovely 1.5 km walk to the nearby restaurant street through the lakeside park near our place. However, I forgot that while the squishy foot bed is heaven, the shoe is enclosed. Like, a for-real shoe. Which made dime-sized blisters on both heels. Ouchy and Oops.

Also, how adorable is Violet in this obnoxious citron romper? I got so lucky that a shopaholic friend is having a boy for baby 2 and I got all of her daughter's hand-me-down goodness.

Raising a Neckline

We have a joke about my upper half- "small but mighty." I have a little more going on now than I ever have before, but let's be really real. I will never have what could be termed a rack. Which means I don't fill stuff out. Which means I have the potential to show off a lot more camisole than I want to.

Enter my 3rd grade-level sewing skills.

I discovered a while back that 10 minutes with a needle and thread and stitching a few tiny pleats into the shoulders of lowcut pieces makes me like my shirts just a little better. While I appreciate the good work my camisoles are doing in keeping either wind off my back or functioning as a sweat barrier (depending on the season), they should always remain an undergarment, not a visual contrast to a v-neck.

< Nope. No black camisole, please.                 That's better. And visually simpler. >

 

Super easy fix! Flip inside out, gather 2-3 tiny pleats to the front side of the shoulder seam, throw a few stitches in across the trim to make sure it's secure, and that's it!

My other low-cut top quick fix? Throw a scarf on and hide it.

Gaaaah, I'm lazy.

Solo

I'm alllll alone today! It's Rob's first day of the school year, and he's off to meet 'n greet the first ever new class of students.

On the docket? As many girly movies online as I can find. I'm 45 minutes into Little Women. Yes, yes, yes.

Skirt: H&M...Blouse: thrifted...Belt: Target...Shoes: Chacos...Bag: Longchamp knockoff

A Halloween Link Up

Jeans: Gap Always Skinny...Sweater: F21...Cardigan: Gap Men's, shrunken...Scarf: Target...Boots: Biviel via Buffalo Exchange

It's a good day! Pleated Poppy's What I Wore Wednesday and Marionberry Style's Trend of the Month Challenge (Boots or Booties!). Worn during my weekend of working (yup, no days off this week just before Gala), I thought it would be fun to do a casual look for a link up. Even Boss Lady told me I was fashionable. So, that's a perk.

Hope you guys are having a good week. I've been missing this community, missing the interaction, missing the fun. A quick daily "hi and bye" with little time to read your blogs is the pits. Gotsta make the monies somehow, and for this one last week, it's a matter of diving in way over my head and making deadlines happen.

Until next week...

Messy

Skirt: Target...Tank: Target, thrifted...Cardigan: Target...Belt: Target...Necklace: Target...Shoes: Naturalizer...Bag: D&B via Buffalo Exchange

This was not a great look... Too contrasted, too stylized, too loud. Just because the colors are there, doesn't mean you should use them all to be matchy-matchy. But, I did indeed wear it all day, so here you all go. Holding myself accountable.

It's down to the final two weeks before the Gala... the auction is a wreck- stuff and information scattered, undocumented, verbal conversations only between the Chairs, none of whom are keeping track of the data... so we've got a lot of holes in our database. And I'm a little nervous! It will fall together, it always does, but c'mon! Fill out the dumb forms, turn them in like you're supposed to and follow, at least a little bit, the protocol we've set up. That way I have a fighting chance of answering your out-of-left-field questions about the status of an item. And don't get mad when I've never even heard of a new piece of art. If you don't tell me about it, I have no way of knowing! Shocker how that works, huh? I'm really not that worked up, but I think it's so funny how messy these events get.

KaPow. Zing. Gotcha. Kate, the little guy, smack talking the Chairs. I'm the worst.

How to Burn a DVD: a Non-Tutorial

Skirt: Target...Tank: Banana Republic, thrifted...Belt: thrifted...Shoes: Naturalizer...Bag: D&B via Buffalo Exchange...Shades: Coach via TJ Maxx...Necklace: Banana Republic

THREE patterns?! I'm crayzay.

So, my guy got home at a reasonable-ish hour last night (10:00 is reasonable, right?) and was in a foul mood, but he knew watching some classic How I Met Your Mother episodes, drinking a beer and eating a handful of potato chips would do his soul some good. I started to pull out Season One and found discs from Season Two haphazardly shoved in between the cases. He is notoriously awful at putting DVD's away, but this seemed like overkill- three discs from the wrong season shoved in there? Ridiculous. So I called him out on it, as sweetly as I could.

His reply? "No, we had to put those in there- remember, that was the season I made all flamey."

Oh, yeah.

Two years ago, we had one of those cute Ikea multi-tealight holders in front of the TV during wintertime, filled with cinnamon-y candles. We made sushi one evening and our family tradition is to watch HIMYM while eating it, so he tossed a disc in the DVD player, tossed the case onto the top of the media console, bustled back into the dining room to keep cutting and working. Yeah, you probably know the rest of the story... All of a sudden, the fire alarm went off, I ran into the living room to see a flaming dvd case oozing molten plastic all over the console, so I picked up a corner, flung it across the room, hollering for a towel to beat the flames out since I had on no shoes. Crisis averted, but I am now scarred on the top of my right big toe due to a pretty mean molten plastic drip burn.

And that is the story of how I got (yet another) major and exciting scar and how we lost the Season Two case. The funniest part is that my best friend tells me all the time that "He's so smart, but he would totally burn himself on the stove. It's a very specific smart." I don't agree totally- he makes a rockstar stir fry and toasts things with zero incident all the time, but this one really didn't help his case.

A Good Use of Time

Skirt: Target...Tank: J Crew Outlet...Cardigan: Target...Belt: thrifted...Bag: D&B via Buffalo Exchange...Shoes: J Jill via Buffalo Exchange

Oh, Target, you've dunnit again. This skirt is awesome. I even ordered two fall color online-only options (online shopping is my nemesis since so much fits so strangely, but ordering a duplicate... can do.) Who's pumped for stretchy skirt autumn dressing? (But, for now, let's enjoy the fact that I've worn a skirt for the first time in ages and managed to hide my hideous knee from view. Win-Win)

Also, guess who has a new (old) TV series to keep her company while her husband is studying like a madman? That would be me and it is a Bewitched Marathon over at the McClure house. It. Is. Awesome. I whet my appetite for 60's SitComs a few weeks ago, I found season two of Bewitched on Hulu and a link to some Gilligan's Island episodes (both of which, by the way, my Grandpa would record on VHS tapes for me and my sisters... even though he and Grandma lived out it the middle of the country in Southern Ohio and we lived in big-town Toledo, their satellite dish reception provided far more awesome television reruns than our bunny ears and basic TV). YouTube hooked me up with season after season of goodies, which mostly means I don't care nearly as much that my Guy has gone MIA.

Hope your Wednesday is lovely (and you had better be linking up with Pleated Poppy's What I Wore Wednesday, too!)

A College DIY

That moment when you realize it is, indeed, Friday- magical. I had a heckuva hard time making it through this week with a consistant smile on my face. I'm helping a friend of a friend with a Gallery event tomorrow from 3-8, but I just don't think it's even going to feel like a burden. And I spent major hours last night rifiling through my wardrobe and did some major sorting, so I don't have to do anything other than relax the rest of the weekend. My clothing isn't as thinned out as I'd like, but I am so fearful if I really do a harsh purge, I'll end up chucking some things I truly do like for the sake of Houston climate... and I'll wind up in the middle of the Colorado Rockies or North Dakota plains with no winter clothes after our next move. I'll cling to it for another year and re-evaluate after we know something a little more concrete about where we'll be next. Even knowing where my guy might get interviews will help.

And about this skirt: I dyed, stamped and prepared this fabric during my senior year of college while I was taking a fibers class and this skirt was my final project, meant to blend a more tribal print inspired by African stamped fabrics and a sleek, modern silhouette. My grandmother helped me read the pattern and piece it together, but the intention was to learn a few new techniques including stamp production and dye removal (the pattern was created by stamping a color removing agent). And it's a heavy weight single ply silk. Which never wrinkles. And is the perfect fabric for Houston humidity. Win.

Happy Friday, you all. Thanks for helping me make it through this grump of a week. I really do appreciate the positive nature of this online community!