Sparkle Someone Else's Eyes

A sparkly shirt and sparkly shoes ...

Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, get away
American woman, listen what I say

This song was first released by The Guess Who in 1970, six years before I graduated from high school! And now that I have dated myself, I'll say it again — I am really old. But how on Earth did that happen?

shirt — Western Connection (thrifted)

pants — London Jean (Victoria's Secret)

belt — thrifted

necklace — Anne Dick (thrifted)

shoes — Dansko (Dansko Company Store)

earrings — DIY (and why exactly does do it yourself sound so much better than home made?!)

Believe it or not, this was a hard shirt to wear. I thought the spandex-like material would be super comfy, but the sparkles (which don't show up all that well) made the shirt feel really stiff. It fit nice, but it wasn't all that soft. (and on top of that I kept feeling like I was leaving sparkles on the ground behind me ... sort of like a Hansel and Gretel trail.)  And then the color was really odd ... it wasn't quite brown, but it wasn't quite green either, so I had a tough time trying to figure out what to wear it with.

Once I decided to wear it with my old faithful pants, I played off of the gold sparkles on the shirt and used the opportunity to wear some other gold-tone stuff (my belt and necklace) that I have but don't wear all that often (I kind of have this phobia about wearing gold these days). I got the belt at a thrift store the last time I visited my parents, and it was too cool for even my phobic self to pass up. I had to wear it home instead of stuffing it in my luggage (talk about setting off the metal detectors) because it was so heavy (a couple of pounds?!). I was pretty sure that it would have tripped the scales!

This isn't the best picture of it — you don't get the feeling of how heavy it is ... it's like a dead weight (but it is oh so very cool ...). You can see the sparkles in the shirt a bit better too ...

Pardon this interjection while I say that I love this next picture of me because I look skinny. How weird is that? Same day, same clothes, same everything ... so why do I look skinny in this picture and not in the others?!

Anyway, I have to say that the really REALLY cool thing about this outfit is the necklace. Yes. My necklace. I got it in a thrift store; it was in a big ziplock bag that was stuffed full of jewelry for some insanely low price. I didn't give it a second thought until I started writing this post, and then I did some research on it (yeah, I'm still a nerd ...). I noticed that it had a name on it ... Anne Dick, and that seemed worthy of a Google search.

Wouldn't you know ... this necklace was made by the third wife of Philip Dick, the science fiction writer? I read his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for one of my book groups  — the 5Bs ... the Bodacious Beer Boozing Book Bitches (and, yeah, I have the T-shirt — erm ... denim shirt — and I wear it proudly).

This next pictures isn't bad either ... LOL. Oh man. I guess I can be kind of vain sometimes, can't I?

Linking up to Bloggers Do Sequins Better, because I was a sparkly blogger today.

And since my shirt, my necklace, and my belt is thrifted I'm doing a double whammy and linking up to Meagan at Spunky Chateau, and her Thursdays is for Thrifters.

Back in the Saddle

Question: What does riding a horse and writing a blog have in common?

Horse:

© www.Copyright-free-photos.org.uk

Blog:

 

What could these two things possibly have in common? 

Give up? 

This expression,

"When you fall off the horse,
you have to get right back on."

sums it up for me.

If you don't get right back on,
it gets harder and harder. 

And that's kind of what's happening with me right now with my blog. I took, what was going to be, just a few days break. Those few days have stretched into more than a month, and now I'm finding it very hard to get back in the saddle. 

The first few days off were intentional -- my life had just gotten too crazy, and something had to give. I had to do two hours of mandatory overtime for a week or two in my 2 to10 job (I have a 2-to-10:30 pm job instead of a 9 to 5 job, which is a story for another day). I had also gotten four side jobs to do -- two dissertations to edit and two college textbooks that needed a light edit and a proofread. When it rains, it pours, right? I was just going to take a day or two off, and hey, bloggers do it all the time. 

But then on top of my work load, my kids were all graduating from school! Three graduations in three weeks -- how is that for timing? Yay! and hip, hip, hooray! First up was my oldest daughter and her boyfriend -- they graduated from pharmacy school.

Scottie and Jenny -- all smiles after earning their Doctor of Pharmacy degree

My son and his girlfriend graduated a week later. Erik earned a BS in mechanical engineering, with a concentration in aerospace engineering.

Erik's turn to be all smiles

His red, white, and blue sash is from doing a study abroad in France. My son's girlfriend, Jackie, earned her second (or is it her third?) degree -- she earned a BA in women's studies to add to her BA in anthropology and art history that she earned last year.

Jackie and Jenny at Erik's Graduation

I'm really bummed that I don't have a picture of Jackie in full regalia, but I wasn't able to take off of work to attend her ceremony -- that mandatory overtime thing again.

Last, but not least, my youngest daughter graduated from high school, and that event carried its own huge ball of freaking out emotions to contend with.

Wait! I have even more excuses!

Mother's Day and my birthday also were in that time period. I don't know about you, but days that are set aside to celebrate *me* never quite turn out the way that I had hoped for or envisioned. My oldest daughter and my son really outdid themselves this year though in making those days special. My youngest gave me flowers.

Along with all the emotional upheaval of three graduations and special days and the intense time suck that was work, we (as in the East Coast) had our first heat wave of the season. I don't know about you, but I don't have air conditioning. Not because I function better in the heat (snort!) or because I somehow sleep better with fresh air (double snort!) -- it's because I live in an old house. The installation expense coupled with the idea of losing what passes for closets in this house precludes air-conditioned comfort from becoming my reality. 

Instead I lose all semblance of being sane and rational, because trying to function in that kind of heat for extended periods and not being able to sleep is ... well, it's just not fun. I get snappy. I get edgy, I get frazzled, and yes, believe it or not -- 

I turn into a first-class, grade-A b*tch,
who whines incessantly.
(Yeah. Sweet li'l old me. Just ask anybody who knows me).

In addition to the miserableness that a heat wave wreaks on my sanity, it causes my yard to go completely out of control. I've been weeding and weeding, and my yard still looks like this (and this is just one small corner)

weeds, weeds, and more weeds and some ivy

As the Urban Dictionary says, "the excrement made physical contact with a hydro-electric powered oscillating air current distribution device." I rather like that way of saying the sh*t in my life hit the fan. 

The longer I stayed away, the harder it was to write another post ... I couldn't even bear to open Google Reader, I was just way too overwhelmed. Hope you all can forgive me for not stopping by and visiting. This doesn't begin to cover all of my angst and anxiety and guilt and emotional upheaval, but it's a start. Rest assured, my saga *will* continue ...

Oh, I almost forgot! Here's an outfit pic from Thursday, June 23, 2011 ...

Kari does matchy match.

tank -- Vassarette (KMart)
shirt -- MKM Designs (Marshalls)
pants -- Gap 1969 (Gap)
necklace -- thrifted
belt -- nautica (thrifted)
shoes -- Dansko Professional (Dansko outlet)

I was actually quite proud of this outfit. I like my white jeans a whole lot more in this "matchy-match" look than when I channeled Mr. Clean in the white-out challenge.

Why is being "matchy match" a fashion sin that is almost comparable to death?

Purple Plaid

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

sweater -- Jeanne Pierre (no clue where it came from)

pants -- no boundaries (again, no clue)

shoes -- Dansko

A year ago, if somebody had told me that I would be wearing purple plaid pants to work, I would have said, "No way -- you're crazy." Well, I did, and they're not -- crazy, that is. I may be, but that's a story for another day! I wore purple plaid pants to work today, and I am glad that I did, and I was very comfortable.*

One of the reasons for me doing this blog was so that I could weed through my wardrobe and figure out what to keep and what to get rid of, and to try out different ways of wearing my clothes. I was in such a rut -- always wearing the exact same thing, the exact same way. Well, with my purple plaid pants, I think I am definitely breaking out of that rut.

I must have tried on half a dozen different tops before I settled on this one -- I kept looking for something in red, but that just wasn't working. I tried gray -- but my gray tops were more like sweatshirts, and didn't go at all. Then I tried a black sweater and let it hang loose -- nope, that didn't work either. I finally just tucked the sweater in, and that I was ok with.

I think I'll keep the pants, but I'm going to be on the lookout for a different top for them ... a thrifting here I come.

*I had lost a ring that I wore on my thumb at work the day before. Somebody found it, and gave it to our receptionist. The receptionist was asking all the women, trying to find out whose ring it was -- and one of my co-workers said that it was probably mine. She told me that when she saw it was a thumb ring, she knew it had to be mine because I was about the only woman in the office who would wear one. I took that as a compliment. 

And now here's a close-up of my sparkly shoes ... How cool are they? I love, love, love them!