Teenage Clothes

Yeah. I wore this to work — all day long, boots and all. How cute am I with the great big boots? LOL.

shirt — Coldwater Creek (can't remember ... older than dirt)

skirt — Her Majesty (thrifted)

boots — Kirkland Signature (Costco)

And I really did wear the boots all day long! It's been cold and rainy and slushy in Delaware, so I needed to wear something that would keep my feet from getting soaked while I slogged through the parking lot. (I get in so late that I end up having to park way out in jabip land ...)

Once I got into the building and up to my desk, I had planned on taking the boots off and wear these shoes. (I even carried them into work ... but then they sat in a bag under my desk all day long. Smack head.)

 

Anyway, the boots were just so warm and comfy that I couldn't resist keeping them on my feet (it's like wearing slippers!), and let me check ... Yep! They're still on. LOL.

 

I know  ... I know ... the mules / clogs / slides are not much better than the boots (fashion-forward style wise), but my shoe choices have to be very practical these days. I work in a huge building — in a manufacturing production plant, and my desk is at one end of the building. The people I work with are at opposite ends of the building. (Think of a T-shape ... I am at the base, and I have to constantly see the people at each end of the T during the course of the day.) And when I say my building is huge? I mean that I basically have to pack a survival kit before I set off to see them, so comfortable walking shoes are a must.

Besides the fact that my feet do not do all that well in extended walks in heels, I also have to go into the warehouse and into chemical labs, and 6-inch (okay, 1-inch) heels don't go over real well in those environments. You can't exactly jump out of the way of a forklift at a moment's notice in heels. Well, you could ... but the aftermath wouldn't look too pretty.

I was really happy with the way this came together. (very sorry about the crappy pictures — I really need to ramp up my camera skills because you can't see the colors at all!). The shirt is actually brown with black trim, the boots were brown, my tights were black, and then my skirt was mustard yellow with another kind of a brown. Anyway, the colors really worked well together. The bottom of the skirt is a really cool beaded fringe, which you can see better here.

I got a lot of compliments on this outfit. In fact, one of the older men in my office (I shouldn't say "older" because I'm probably older than he is) came up to me and told me that I looked like a teenager. I gasped, and looked at him horrified, and shrieked "OH NO!" in my old lady voice. He said, "No no no ... That was a compliment." LOL.

I can't think of anything too much worse than being an old lady who is making an obvious attempt of trying to look young. (Well, I can think of something much much worse — having an appraiser come through your house. But that's a story for another day.)

Mint Chocolate Chip

Yes. I regret wearing this outfit. (Can you tell by the pained expression on my face?) Seriously. I look like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream! If not that, maybe an Andes chocolate mint?

dress — Old Navy (Old Navy)

jacket —Gap (thrifted)

boots — Enzo Angiolini (thrifted)

In case you can't tell, I'm the one on the right (the yummy stuff is on the right ...) (and yeah, I'm wearing that jacket, again!)


This was another disastrous outfit, and in some respects it's worse than the one I wore here. Why is it worse? Because I actually did wear it to work. Ack! Too wrinkled. Too short. Too ... ACK! (fill in the blank) ... (I left the jacket on ALL day! and not because I was or afraid of forgetting it. See here. LOL.) To be fair to myself, I did get a fair number of compliments... but more than likely that was because I wore it on a gray and dreary day, and the colors were bright and cheery.

I'm not sure if this is salvageable, but I'm going to try — I just love the color! I think that if I wore it with heavier tights, I could get away with it being too short. Or maybe I just need to cut it off and wear it as more of a longer sweater?

What have you regretted wearing to work?

Back in My Day

I've always loved the flowing Indian-print cotton wrap skirts. They were really popular in the seventies when I was a kid (or, I should say, more of a kid than I am now). You know the skirts that I'm talking about — I think that back in the day we probably called them hippie style ...The one I'm wearing kind of reminds me of them.

shirt — Dia (can't remember ... it's older than dirt)

skirt — Belma (thrifted)

boots — Dansko (Dansko Factory Warehouse)

These days, I think these kind of skirts are part of a fashion style called boho chic. (I'm not quite sure what the difference between hippie and boho chic is ... but I don't think it matters too much — I like them no matter what the style is called.)

They came in lots of different colors, but I always gravitated toward the beige and black prints ... I probably had a half-dozen or more of them, and I probably still have a couple of them buried in some box in this house.

The biggest problem for me was that I loved them in theory but not in practice, meaning I couldn't figure out how to wear them ... the girls in my day typically wore them with "water buffalo hippie Jesus sandals," but my legs were too pale and too short to wear like that ...


As an aside ... Remember Jesus sandals? I had a pair (or two or three or more ...) of them as well, but unlike my hippie skirts, I wore my Jesus sandals nonstop (don't remember what I wore them with or even why I stopped wearing them — maybe my big toe just got too tuckered out trying to toe the line? Remember how you had to curl your big toe to kind of keep the sandal in the right spot?). I actually found two of my old pairs in a box earlier this year. I pulled them out to show them to my daughters, when I found out that they are back in vogue again!

Back to my hippie skirt ... This one isn't quite the same as the ones that I had and didn't wear (it has an elastic waist, for example — it's actually called an umbrella skirt), but it still brings me right back to those days! And this one is even better, because I figured out at least one way to wear it!

Linking up to Patti at Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday.

And I'm closing with a premonition ... I am crazy busy for the next week or so,
so my presence is probably going to be a bit spotty ...

Purses that Grow ...

"Why, why, why?," I ask. "What? What? What?" you say.

shirt — Lizwear Jeans by Liz Claiborne (thrifted)

pants — Chor (thrifted)

shoes — Sonoma (thrifted)

necklace — Santa shop (handcrafted)

purse — (thrifted)
watch — Citizen (gifted)

What on Earth am I talking about? I'm talking about how whenever I think I have this really snazzy outfit put together, it turns out to be a hot mess. A really hot mess ... (like yesterday's outfit, for example). Or, even worse? I end up falling flat on my face (like here). And then when I crawl, half-blind and half-dead, out of bed in the morning and just throw on whatever I can put my hands on ... the outfit works. How is that fair? I guess it works out in the long run. (or maybe even more than works out ... I crawl more than I run these days.)

I seriously took most of my pictures today looking down at my feet because I thought my face would be just way too scary to look at head on first thing in the morning. (I haven't been sleeping very well, and it caught up with me full force this morning!)

And then I looked at these pictures ... and I couldn't believe it! I was like, "WTF?!" I liked them! Even the ones that showed my face! It wasn't all that scary! LOL!
And another thing ... Why did my purse get bigger and bigger in each picture? It looks big enough to crawl inside and take a nap!

My watch is a Christmas present from my son, and it's just perfect for me — silver with gold accents. I love it!

Hopefully it will help make my minutes matter ...

Not to Work

No. I didn't wear this to work ...

jacket —Old Navy (thrifted)

shirt — Old Navy (Old Navy)

skirt — Moda (Victoria's Secrets)

boots — Chinese Laundry (DSW)

But I was thinking of it... (OMG! What *was* I thinking?!) If I did wear it to work, I would've been very visible ... a bit too visible, if you ask me. The boots were a little WAY too much, so I tried switching them out for my Danskos. Unfortunately, they didn't help. Something was really weird about the proportions or the colors (the tights and boots are too dark?). Something's wrong somewhere!

I was actually kind of bummed. Do you see the great big grin on my face? I was thinking it was this great outfit, and that I had nailed it. But it just didn't pan out. It didn't look the same in real life as it did in my head. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I actually do love rouched skirts and dresses. They are so totally forgiving, except for when you don't pull the rouching up, and it ends up giving you a saggy baggy b*tt ... Stay tuned to see what I ended up wearing to work.

Linking up to Patti at Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday. 

Three in a Row

Can it be? Is it true? Have I really posted three days in a row?! LOL. And yes, that's the same shirt that I was wearing in my pictures yesterday! But I didn't wear it to work two days in a row, pinky swear. (Note the use of the word "work" in that sentence.)

shirt — Tommy Hilfiger (thrifted)

pants — Hind (Women's Sports Specialty shop)

boots — Hayley (Faded Glory, thrifted)

I'm still super excited for my daughter, so I'm posting another picture with my pseudo Breton shirt. But look closely ... can you tell what's different about this outfit when compared to yesterday's? If you guessed my pants and my shoes footwear, then SCORE! LOL. Seriously speaking now, my pants are really glorified sweat pants, but they're super comfy so I wear them all the time (like even two days in a row! LOL).

I got this pair of rain boots (thrifted) a while ago, and I've been wanting to see what they would like. And now that I see them on, they look kind of silly. But I'm not giving up ... I'm sure I'll find a way to wear them.

I stayed up all night watching my daughter's plane as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean, using FlightAware — just amazing that we can do that. I could even watch her plane circle Charles de Gaulle Airport as it came in for a landing. I knew almost to the second when she was on the ground. And then it was just a matter of minutes before her status showed up on Facebook ... "Hello France, is it really 8:30 AM? — at Aéroport de Paris - CDG." Wow ... Technology is just so cool these days. She posting her experiences on Tumblr here, so I (the world) can see and hear about what she's doing.

Wish this picture was in focus ... Oh well, I'm posting it anyway.

And now it's off to bed so I can make my sleeping moments matter ...

Tears in My Eyes

When was the last time you burst into tears for something seemingly silly? I had it happen just a few minutes ago — I got a text from my youngest, saying that she had "Boarded!" I couldn't help but feel her excitement, got all choked up, and then burst into tears. But they were happy tears, not sad ones.

My daughter is on her way to Paris, where she'll be spending four glorious weeks, taking two classes — one in fashion photography and one in food photography. Doesn't that sound like a blast?!

shirt — Tommy Hilfiger (thrifted)

tee — French Dressing (CostCo)

pants — RockStar (Old Navy)

shoes — Blowfish (DSW)

magnetic bracelet — store in the mall / necklace — thrifted

In honor of her trip, I'm sporting my French Dressing tee and Breton stripes. Okay. So, it's not an honest-to-goodness real-live Breton shirt, but don't you think I should get some points for the black-and-white stripes?

I'm so excited for my daughter — I've always wanted to do something like this, so I will be living vicariously through her for the next month. She will even be there during Fashion Week, and take pictures! How cool is that? She will be sharing an apartment, near Notre Dame and Luxembourg Gardens, with her college roommate.

Sometimes I'm so jealous of kids who are growing up in today's world. They have the entire world at their fingertips, and girls? They just have so many opportunities, and they don't need to fight for them. (Well, they don't have to fight quite so hard anyway ... ) We still have lots to conquer, but I do see progress.

Today's thought for "making my minutes matter" is to figure out how I can make four weeks in Europe become my reality. Any ideas?

Out with the Old and In with the New ...

Here's hoping that this coming year will be healthier, happier, and more prosperous than the one we just closed the books on (or slammed the door shut, as the case may be). 

 tank -- French Dressing (Costco)

shirt — axcess (thrifted)

jacket — Old Navy (thrifted)

pants — RockStar (Old Navy)

shoes — Sonoma (thrifted)

necklace — thrifted

The holidays were bittersweet this year. It was hard to get into the spirit knowing that the families in Newtown, Connecticut, were struggling with unimaginable pain. The horror of what happened has given way to an overwhelming sadness and a fear that things will stay the same even as things change.

20 green stars and 6 white stars

We don't know what tomorrow, or even what the next minute, will bring. It's up to us to make the best of those minutes. That's what my New Year's resolution is – to make my minutes matter.

Happy 2013!