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Life lately. I have a week and a half left of school, then I graduate. I also have that long left of one of my internships. This semester flew by. I think back to the first week and it really doesn't even seem that long ago.
I spent the weekend cleaning the house for spiders. I got a bite on my face and my eye socket bruised and swelled up. I'm allergic to spiders and I get bit frequently. I'm used to it. But on my face? That's enough. I spent Friday spraying the house with tea tree oil because I read they don't like the scent. I've begun getting Christmas decorations out. I've been listening to Christmas music for about 3 months now, but I can finally embrace the decorations and I've allowed myself to start watching the movies. Lately my life is full of bad Hallmark made-for-TV Christmas movies, hot chocolate, peppermint Joe-Joe's, and cuddling with boyfriend in the cold winter nights.
Life is beautiful. I'm trying to take things slow and to breathe. My undergrad career is almost over. I will savour the next two weeks - it's been a long journey and I've come so far. I spent part of my afternoon going through the blog and simplifying some of the tags I've used to organise posts. I got to look back at some blog posts from 2008, all the way back when I was 15. One can really change in five years.... I have some of my most embarrassing, awkward teenage phases blogged into the internet universe forever. But I enjoy looking back and laughing over what I was, feeling proud of what I have become. I have a deep connection to that 15, 16, 17 year old blogger. I'm not really her anymore, but she's a strong part of me, and I have a deep love for that person still. A love that I really didn't feel for myself at the time.
I already feel that so much change is in store for me in this coming year. But for now, I will sip my hot cocoa and appreciate all that I have in this moment.
I've had this vest since I was 16. Maybe even before that. I bought it thinking that it was so cool and like super rock'n'roll. I was so convinced that I'd probably wear it all the time and just be the coolest kid on campus - the sort of thing I usually tell myself. I don't think I've worn this vest since here, in 2010, back when I also apparently wanted a Spirit Hood. Oh, the times they are a changin'.
Anyways, the vest is one of those ones where you can turn it inside out and wear it also, so that's what I did here. It kind of reminds me of a Muppet and now I wish that it was neon blue or something cool like that so that I could really embrace the Muppet in me. Speaking of Muppets, I cannot wait to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol this season. And Mickey's Christmas Carol. I have so much homework to do today so I'm going to try to plow through it and reward myself with some Christmas cartoons afterwards. I'm like so grown up and stuff.
Got this new jacket from Land's End. It is this one here in case I'm such a winter style inspiration that you feel compelled to go buy your own. It's mega warm and I wore it around the office on Friday because it was sort of like being swaddled in a massive quilted blanket. Heaven! Also very convenient when wearing skirts and you don't want ice cold air getting up between your legs. And, red with a furry hood which is beautiful and very Christmas-y.
Enough about the coat. Land's End isn't even paying me for this long love letter or anything.
I'm wearing a faux leather jumper that I got from Sway Chic and which is fab. I wore it shopping the other day and a boy in the store completely stopped in his tracks to freak out over how great it is. See? I'm going places.
I made it a little more professional/bookish by wearing a button down under it cause you know I can never stop dressing for the office. It's like a sickness that is incurable. I must always dress like I'm moderately prepared for work. I belted it with a belt that came off some shorts from Nasty Gal so that the vest wasn't completely overpowering on my tiny frame. Oh, and Doc Martens because DUH.
I just realised that there's only two weeks of school left so life is wonderful and beautiful. I graduate from the twelfth (and then have a final after that, so, dumb) and then will be FREE. And unemployed. And crumbling under the weight of my student loans. But before those two weeks are up, I have two more papers to write and a big old project for my typography class because once upon a time I thought that it would be a really great, fun idea to take a typography class. As if I've ever enjoyed graphic design classes before.
Stay warm out there my friends! I've just about froze my bum off since it's like 18 degrees Fahrenheit out. Brrrrr! But soon there will be snow and it will be a winter wonderland and hot chocolate everyday! xx
p.s. I'd love to do a winter version of Summer of Sundresses. Any opinions on the type of fashion I should feature this time? I need creative input from you, the people who this is geared for!
Being an unpaid intern working in an office and within the court system requires me to dress a certain (boring) way. Gone are my days of ripped tights, cut off jeans, old flannel, and beat up boots. Now, these are the days of pencil skirts and loafers and freaking out that every small snag in my stocking will lead to an unsightly run that will ruin my credibility as a capable working girl.
When I started my first internship, working as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse, I found myself in court with a bunch of attorneys and judges and feeling rather unprofessional and childish in my full skirts and bad shoes. Both my mother and my sister work at Nordstrom and so they took me out shopping for some new clothes to wear! I love all of my new blazers and skirts and tailored pants, but I am starting to get the itch to wear fun things again.
When ANTHOM contacted me about being a blog sponsor, I looked through their collections and immediately said yes - they carry so many stunning pieces! I started perusing with the intention of seeing what they had in stock that would be office appropriate, but quickly snapped out of that mindset, realising that I am too quickly becoming boring career lady who stays in the office after 5 every day. So, with a clear mind, I thought about buying this dress (because it's beautiful, duh) but ended up with this hat. I know it will sound totally lame (and it is), but I saw that it was wool and that swayed me. The coming winter months are guaranteed to be chilly - Minnesota has a pretty good history of that - and so a wool hat that probably won't give me hat hair seemed like the perfect fit. (As a side note, I can attest that this hat indeed does not lend itself to unsightly hat hair - hooray!) I look freaking bad ass in it and have already gotten loads of compliments on it, including from the guy in class who always comes late and never says anything. The hat's style is also called The John Wayne so, you know, bad ass.
Besides my beautiful new hat courtesy of ANTHOM, I'm also wearing an H&M shirt from the second hand store, a Halogen brand skirt from Nordstrom (which is dry clean only, so, you know, THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE), and my new fave The Loft brand cardigan from the second hand shop.
I'm also wearing Cinderella of Boston shoes and Nordstrom brand tights. Lemme talk for a minute about Cinderella of Boston, though. Every time I say that I wear kid's size shoes, I am met with a room full of snickers. It's a bit irritating and it's like, "I'M SORRY I DON'T HAVE NORMAL PEOPLE FEET" but seriously, it's really difficult to find normal shoes that look professional. Most shoes in my size (a 2 and a half kids) light up or have Dora the Explorer on them. They're often pink and foam or animal print. Sometimes they squeak. Often they're adorned with little satin or velvet bows. None of these are things which I want on my precious baby feet, and even more so, none of these are things that I want to be wearing around an office where I'm trying to get people to take me seriously (which is already really difficult when you're only 20, are 5 feet tall, and have youthfully curly locks). Enter Cinderella of Boston. They're a shoe company that stocks quality, totally professional and chic shoes in small sizes. Here I'm wearing the Julie style which is totally beautiful and which, now that I own this hat, I wish I had in the purple colour, too.
Sorry about the clenched fists! It was freezing, damp, and windy out. Winter is just around the corner and the only thing making me tolerate the impending weather, besides the fact that it's impossible for me to move out of state right now, is the thought of snow. Beautiful, lush, heavenly snow!
p.s. There's no snow in the forecast for the next two weeks so that's lame, but, you know, this is Minnesota.
p.p.s. Even though I just hinted about Minnesota being lame, check out this awesome Buzzfeed article of 38 Things Minnesotans Are Too Nice To Brag About. (Hint: it includes Prince, Bob Dylan, Lucky Charms, Scotch Tape, Fitzgerald, and Betty Crocker. Did I tell you guys about the dream I had where I was the new Betty Crocker spokeswoman?)
I'm trying to grow my bangs out gracefully. I'm sort of trying to make them look like Elizabeth's. In fact, I'm trying to make my ENTIRE LIFE look like Elizabeth's. Starting with my kitchen and a fluffy puppy with a clever name.
Okay friends I'm off for the night! The Paradise is on in a little bit and it's the finale so I'm very anxious and also very sad. That show has been sustaining me through the week for more than a month now. It's my Sunday night tradition, that last little bit of uplifting entertainment before the 9 to 5 grind and homework. Gah, I love period pieces. xx
Dweeb. A word from my common vocabulary as a grade schooler has re-entered it in the past few months. I've cut out many more "nasty" words of name calling and, to fill this new void, have taken in some very silly, elementary ones instead. Dweeb is my favourite. I drop it constantly, mostly to my friends and usually to their faces.
Example: A few months ago, my boyfriend comes home and says to me, "I just did something really stupid." I got concerned and said something like, "Uhmm...okay...what?" And he replies by telling me that he bought a few packs of World of Warcraft trading cards at Target. Not as stupid as I was thinking it would be, but still stupid for a 25 year old boy to be buying something like that when it will take him two hours of work to pay it off. So, instead of saying something like, "You stupid fuck up, don't you realize that you're completely broke and can barely even pay to keep gas in your car!" I just said, "You dweeb." And that was that. Using the word dweeb allows me to comment on a situation without getting too passionately involved in the issue, and instead of casting someone off as a loser or a fuck up, they're just a dweeb. Everyone wins because seriously, who isn't a dweeb at least like 10% of the time?
I found the sweatshirt at Topshop when I was in London this past June. I was meeting up with my former pastor and had arrived to Saint Paul's Cathedral early. Luckily, there was a Topshop right across the street from the tube station, so that was great. In addition to that, Topshop was having a sale. It was like the stars had all aligned.
I'm really excited about this outfit because I'm wearing a new skirt that I yearned for for months and finally splurged on (it was on sale!). I found in on Nasty Gal and holy they have beautiful things! I want to buy everything but my income is limited to mostly professional clothes and, unfortunately, not many things on Nasty Gal are oriented towards the career girl.
BUT this skirt is an exception. Because I've wanted it for so long and because it was on sale. Like fate! It's a tad big but that's probably mostly because my waist is two inches smaller than usual, so really, everything is too big for me right now. I've belted it and it has that paper bag skirt appeal to it now. I'm so excited to wear it out! It's also probably the shortest skirt I've worn for like two years now, so, you know...that's something. (I'm not really sure where I was going with that.)
p.s. Gaining weight is ending up to be very very difficult! I'm slurping those protein smoothies like no other, but not putting on anything. Does anyone have any tips? I want all of my clothes - including this skirt! - to fit properly again!
I don't have so many photos today. Yesterday, when I took these, was mighty gusty and I was freezing. My teeth were chattering and in most of the photos I just look 100% miserable. I'm already working to transition my wardrobe to fall - I'm wearing a scarf every day, I make sure there's a pair of gloves in every bag, and I'm beginning to break out the boots and wool socks. These boots here are my total faves and so I'll break them out happily but for the other ones....eh, I'm not so sure yet.
Stay warm my friends! xx
November 5th - voting day! My second favourite day of the year, pretty much. That being said, I almost forgot about it until they mentioned it on the radio this morning. I got very excited and exclaimed, "Oh my! Is that today?! How joyous!" Or at least I would have, if my life was a fifties family sitcom. Either way, I was very excited and headed to the polls after class, my hands trembling as I clutched my ballot. It's not even like there's anything very important up for election this year - a few school board members and the mayor, who is pretty much a shoe in. But I just get so excited about voting, I cannot even hold it in! Plus, you get a sticker afterwards. I will do pretty much anything within my morals to get a free sticker.
As I was leaving the polls an older woman ran by me and completely tripped and somehow landed on her back, though she ripped the knees of her pants. It was very odd. She was carrying a bunch of things and didn't seem to be running towards or away from anything. And then she was very embarrassed about the whole thing and my attempts to help her up didn't really go anywhere as she sat on the sidewalk pretty much shooing me away. I still consider it my good deed of the day. That, and voting.
Jeez, I write a really boring blog sometimes. How do you write excitedly about how great it is to live in a democracy and to be able to vote for your leaders, without sounding like a 4th grader?
I will confess that this outfit is actually a few days old. I took these photos Sunday after church (my father took them for me, actually). Today was dark all day and now snow is blowing in. I could write excitedly about snow but I'd still sound like a fourth grader. My boyfriend is away at the moment so I've been writing him letters. I wrote him one on Monday and the entire 4 page thing ended up being about snow and winter and the Holidays. I can't help it - I get so excited and school girlish about snow! Remember last years' first big snow?? (p.s. that work boyfriend I talked about in that post? Now my real boy friend! A work boyfriend had never before turned into a real boyfriend, until Jesse. Awwwwww!)
Look at that! I got distracted talking about snow again! My purpose to this was to talk about my outfit, which I wore on Sunday. This dress is BB Dakota and I totally love it. It's wool, so it's super warm, and a beautiful deep burgundy colour. My mother bought it for me to wear to the office for my new internships. I have the best mum! Booties are Steve Madden, the cardigan is second hand from The Loft, and the jacket is Banana Republic, also second hand.
I'm working on growing out my bangs - what do you guys think? I'll be on the job hunt soon and want to look older and professional. I love my bangs but I think they make me look young, so I'm going to grow them out and see if that's any better. I've had bangs pretty much forever. Since I was around 2 till 10, and then I cut them again when I was 13, grew them out from there but then cut them back when I was 15. I've had bangs for the last five years! And most of my life! I'd like to see what I look like (as an adult) without them. But ugh, what a freakin' awful process.
I wanted to give a shout out to my new and continuing sponsors for November! ANTHOM is an awesomely curated online store based out of Washington D.C. They have some fab stuff and I'm very excited to be working with them! Susy of That Valencia Chick has an amazingly cute sense of style and puts her blog together very thoughtfully. And then Laila at Tape Parade is continuing! She goes on tons of adventures and captures really beautiful photos from all of them. Check all three out, you won't be disappointed!
Okay well I'm off to make cards for a couple of friends. The snow is starting to fall and my spirit is soaring! Oh shoot, I have homework. Well, that dampens my spirit a tad. But snow!!
Stay warm my friends xx
