Ch-ch-Changes

Lots of changes lately, including this color change to my blog. Not sure yet what I think about it. It probably just needs to grow on me a bit.

As for me? I'm not sure that I've changed all that much. In fact, Here's something I wore a couple of weeks ago.

shirt — Trnka (warehouse sale)

pants — London Jean (Victoria's Secrets)

boots — Trumpet by Wanted (DSW)

And now look! Here's an outfit from over a year ago ...

Pretty much the same, huh?

I still gravitate to the same old same old that I always have ... I'm still the same old same old person I always was — part goofy, part nerdy, part silly, part serious, part cold ...

Brrrrr .... it's been cold this year

But yeah, I have changed ... it's all a part of growing up and growing older . 

Changes

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware
of what they're going through

 

I can't believe that David Bowie wrote Ch-ch-Changes in 1971! Geez, that was even before my time! (sort of, but not really ... I was in 7th or 8th grade ...)

Speaking of change ... What do you think of the new layout? I went from mustard yellow to pale blue. Is it too pale?

Linking up to Patti at Not Dead Yet Style because it's Monday ...

Visible Monday! 

A Heavy Heart

Bombings and shootings are starting to seem all too commonplace — and it's not just that, it's the way these horrific events are touching each and every one of our lives. I don't know. I just don't know. It's just overwhelming. I wore an old racing T-shirt to work today, and when I got home, I went out and ran 2 miles. It wasn't much, but it helped me deal with the sadness a little bit better.

a college campus, 

a meet and greet your representative,  

a movie theater,

a church,

a grammar school, 

and now the finish line of a road race. 

I wore an old racing T-shirt to work today, and when I got home, I went out and ran 2 miles. It wasn't much, but it helped me deal with the sadness a little bit better.

My daughter also ran today, and her words hit home for me, "Today I ran 3.25 miles. I ran because I could. I ran for those that couldn't. I ran for all of those killed and injured yesterday in Boston. I ran for all of those runners who worked so hard to get to Boston and did not get the chance to finish."

Image by Aaron Bouvier Design https://www.facebook.com/aaronbouvierdesign

Love and prayers go out to all who have been affected by these horrific and senseless acts of violence everywhere.

Brand New

I've got something that's brand new! Can you tell what it is?

shirt — Old Navy (Old Navy)

pants — Impressions Lifestyle (older than dirt, can't remember)

shoes — Thom Mcan (Kmart)

I'll give you a hint ... I'm not wearing it. But my somewhat conservative outfit should give you a clue as to what it is.

Give up? I got a brand new job! Woo Hoo! and Woot! Woot! And yes, I am over the moon!

Not only is it a job, but it's an amazing job. And not only is it an amazing job, but it's doing exactly what I want to be doing. And not only is it doing exactly what I want to be doing, but it's also good pay, great benefits, great people, and the office is close by. Really close by. 

I started on Monday, and it just feels right — like I'm where I belong. For this girl, who never felt like she fit in, this is the most wonderful feeling. I have been floating and grinning and beaming and dancing and skipping for the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I'm excited about it, but in case I didn't — I am excited and thrilled and ... well, I think you get the idea. LOL.

Linking up to Patti at Not Dead Yet Style, because I'M.NOT.DEAD.YET! Oh no, I'm NOT! I'm also linking up because it's Visible Monday, and my jumping around these past few days has made me very very visible.

 

Shopping for Labels

I have fallen in love with these polyester tunic tops. They are super comfortable, and they still look somewhat dressy — at least I think so ... YMMV. LOL. (I wore a similar one here, and look for a few more up in the coming days.)

shirt — Suzie in the City (thrifted)

sweater — Amanda Smith (thrifted)

pants — RockStar (Old Navy)

belt — (thrifted)

boots — Kirkland Signature (Costco)

It really is a tunic style, but I thought it looked much better tucked in, don't you?

It looks pretty dorky with it not tucked in! A completely different look.

One of the reason that I bought this top was because I loved its label (being comfy was an added plus!).

Not because it's a "name brand" — I don't much go in for those, but because I'm always on the lookout for cool labels.

So what was so special about this label? My mom's name is Suzie (short for Suzanne), and she was the one who got me hooked on saving clothing labels. She would make these pillows out of the ones she collected. Each pillow was unique and the labels she used would reflect the person she was making the pillow for. My pillow had a Crazy Horse label on it to commemorate the time I rode a crazy horse as a geology student on field camp.

Linking up to Patti at Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday, because it's almost Monday!

Happy Work Week everyone! Stay Visible!

True Love

No. I didn't find it ... I wore it, and on Valentine's Day no less. I kid you not. My cardigan was a case of True Love.

I'll say it again. True Love. On Valentine's Day. Snort.

shirt —Gap (thrifted)

cardigan — True Love (thrifted)

pants — London Jean (Victoria's Secrets)

boots — Hayley by Faded Glory (thrifted)

necklace — thrifted

I was trying for a monochromatic color look, and I wanted to do the red family because ... well, because it was Valentine's Day, of course! I pulled this cardigan out to wear, when I saw that the label read "True Love," I just had to wear it.

It wasn't a true monochrome look ... I should have switched out the black shirt for a bright pink one or a deep red.

Unfortunately, I don't work in the kind of place where I can play around with what I wear all that much. My goal, dress wise, is to look "conservative" so I tone down what I wear accordingly. It's kind of strange. I can wear jeans day in and day out, but a lot of chothing choices are simply out of the question.

I'm totally exhausted these days ... I've had parental health issues, I've been job interviewing, and I went through the most traumatic house appraisal ever, and then there has been work. Still no vacation or sick time, so if I take any time off, I have to make up by working 10- to 12-hour days. I seriously don't know if I am coming or going these days. Just trying to hold it together these days.

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

Wearing Lime Green

I've been trying to amp up my style a bit at work lately, and really, to just put a little more effort into what I wear. 

shirt — Old Navy (thrifted)

skirt — (thrifted)

boots — Chinese Laundry (DSW)

necklace — JC Penneys

This was a pretty straightforward outfit, but one that was still somewhat outside my comfort zone. Can you guess why? Hint ... it's not the length of my skirt (like here) or the height of my boots (like here).

Stumped? This time, it was the color of my shirt! You know, like the color of limes and Granny Smith apples? ... (Really wondering why my clothing choices these days remind me of food ...)


Lime green is definitely not a color that I typically wear. For one thing, it's a bit brighter than what I typically wear, especially during the mid-winter. And second, I always thought it was too much in the yellow family for a redhead. I'm thinking that I may have to revise that thinking.

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

you can't really hide 

when you're stuck inside

so look real keen and wear lime green! 

LOL. (It's dorky things like that that keeps me more visible than I want to be ...)

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.