Fashion Friday

I realize that I wear short skirts and tights almost exclusively (except for Fridays when I rock my dearly beloved jeans) and I was going to post a pants outfit these week. I've actually worn pants every day but one this week! But here's the deal: Monday and Wednesday I teach dance so I change into my dance clothes at work. That means if I want to do an outfit photo, I have to go do it during the day (that's a lot of work and potential weirdness-however, I might attempt it in the summer) or do it before work (like there's time). So, outfit photos have to land on Tuesday of Thursday. Because I am a planner, I take Tuesday shots every week in case something weird happens on Thursday. This week, I ended up being unintentionally super cute on Monday and had time in the morning(!) for JJ to take a picture of me at the bus stop (ba-bam!). However, when I looked at the picture, I had scrunchy eye morning face, and my bra strap showed, and my pants hung low enough that the top of my panties showed (story of my life, btw. this chick gots no hips) So anyway, Tuesday picture it is. The skirt is a repeat offender on Fashion Friday and probably my very favorite skirt that I own. It's randomly constructed with one pocket, a slit,buttons and a zipper, and pleats in the back. It's also a size 9. I'm usually a 5 and sometimes a 7, so I imagine any real size 9 who tried it on found it to be wayyy short. Hence my scoring it at Goodwill, but I digress... The rest of this outfit is also full of favorites. Red Tank Top: built in bra (although I doubled with real bra for work) and awesome fabric and cute little cleavage detail (If I could get my act together for good pictures, I'd show you). Green sweater with striped cuffs and hood (not shown. but awesome). I think this is my favorite sweater. I have come to love deep V's because they give room for additional shirt flair and I find them flattering to my linebacker-shouldered frame. Brown tights. Brown fake Fryes (love). and giant red, super light, earrings (love). Oh, and standard issue brown cowgirl belt (my name is on the back in case you can't guess) with old school Hesston buckle (that's a whole blog post in itself...stay tuned). I love this outfit. I'll wear it (and variations of it) again, inevitably.
I'm kind of upset about my ability to take good photos for this project. My goal was to use it as a tool to get better at tripod photos, and I'm realizing how hard that is. At the time of day I take these (sometimes with rain, sometimes sun, sometimes both), it's really hard to find the right place where both the tripod and I work. and then I have to look cute and thin, which is another matter entirely :) Trial and error, I learn something every week.

Like a record, baby...

Wanna learn some choreography?

You..
Look like...
you're lots...
of fun!
Ok, add hips and go!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekends are fun..

Fashion Friday

This week I knew the weather was going to be kind of crappy on Tuesday and wanted a good rainy day outfit. I picked blue and gray as my theme. I wish it would have been warm enough to do my photo outside because I would have liked the tights to show up more opaque, like they look in real life. They are a grayish blue and I like that they didn't match the gray or blue main pieces, but blended with both. The skort (ha ha, skort :)) is one I talked about before, but I think this is the first time I've had it in a photo. I love how long that I've loved it :) Also purchased back in my "new to Portland" days are these kick ass blue shoes. I remember buying them for $10 in Marshalls and being thrilled about them. The shirt is a little gem from Express that I picked up at goodwill and apparently it makes my boobs look huge! (PS: I think that's the camera angle, because I didn't feel that boobalicious all day...) The necklace is one of my mom's from the 70's. A note about the small hoops.. I love to wear big earrings every day but If I rock too many big ones in a row, my right ear objects and then I can't wear any earrings at all! To help combat that, i'm trying to do every other day with big earrings/little earrings... These hoops are my go-to little earrings and I do love them. To finish the outfit, I added Amy's bracelet, a silver flower barrette, and a blue scarf (and by scarf I mean the end of a piece of fabric I once used to make curtains... all my scarves have awesome origins :))

Bonus: I felt like a business-y Dallas Cowgirl.

Expressions...

The BBC photo theme of the week... I'd actually like to put together a cluster of photos with a range of expressions and hang it. maybe 7 or 9 pics in 4x6 or 5x7 frames hung closely together in a clump... This one would be included:
JJ took this of my mom and I talking at my brother's wedding reception. I love everything about it.

Wordless Wednesday

a walk around the yard...

tulip.
split.
ours.
getting ready.
knot.
beer.

Happy face

Sunny spring weather brought out smiles all around....

and.. pause....

Last weekend, I was at the end of a marathon of tasks and sat down and caught the end of Donnie Darko (which I love) and just about the time I calmed down and relaxed I was hit with the last scene, and this song. I have listened to it all week and it keeps stopping me. slowing my head down no matter what I'm doing. very few things do that and I'm embracing it. I'm honestly kind of happy to have it in my pocket for the next time i need it.

someday, I'll choreograph to it. not for tease and tone, but i'll do it.

Fashion Friday

Happy Friday, everybody! As I sit here in my jeans and count down the tasks until happy hour (email, meeting, project, meeting, jog, lunch, email, meeting,...), I am so happy about my job. I love, love, love it. This week was a busy one with meetings and people in from the field and I wanted to make sure I was comfy and stylish and still business-y each day. That means I defaulted to my trusted and dependable black a little more than I have been doing lately. It also means that I got to wear a lot of fun patterns. I was going to lay out all the different patterned pieces for this weeks photo, but I take very good care of my clothes and so everything was either already hung back up or in the laundry. I wore houndstooth, pinstripe, herringbone, tweed, and plaid! Here is my take on plaid this week. The shirt has a wide neck, perfect to showcase my necklace (that you can't even see in this pic) and is baggy, but still flattering. The skirt is a hand-me-down from Kim and I love it. To make it more feminine and fashion-y, I added the Flower Shoes. These, like so many pieces of my wardrobe, have a past. I saw Flower Shoes and fell in love with them and immediately purchased and wore them, but OMG, they were so uncomfortable. Since I couldn't physically wear them again, I decided to cut off the part of the shoe with the flower and then using a little rubber cement as back up, sewed them to a plain black pair of shoes that were more walk-worthy. To finish it all off, I added my standard little red hair ribbon (who could have know that a cut off dress hem would get so much use?), black earrings (not shown because my ears hurt), and my rockin' big black ring.

Holy Smokes!

I missed Wordless Wednesday! I even had a picture of the most wonderfully fragrant white lilac that I took on my way home from work on Tuesday. It was even already in Photobucket ready to upload. but work was so busy that I didn't even have time to do that! Normally, I have 1 or 2 meetings a day, yesterday I had 6, 3 of which I had to lead. In between them, I got an important project that had to be done as well! It was super busy. Awesomely enough, I got to work and immediately got 4 compliments on my skirt, so I felt confidently adorable all day long. (Sadly enough, I did not have time to photo it for Fashion friday) After the giant day of meetings, I had to go teach class. Once I made it home on the bus, I had to chef up some chicken and cook some rice for the remainder of the week's lunches. After that, I just wanted to curl up on the couch and have a scoop of ice cream and watch Glee. So that's what I did. No blogging for me.

So, in the interest of still giving you something awesome to look at, here's John and me on Sunday. We were riding our motorcycle through downtown when our friends at the wine bar flagged us down and we joined them for a little glass of wine and some snacks. We also met our new friend pictured below, Sophie Travels.

PS: I don't want it to go unsaid that I love my job :)

JJ does the DD

So I don't know if you've heard about this... JJ has been excited about it ever since it was just an idea on the interwebs. Now, Husband loves him some KFC and had high expectations. He picked me up from dance on the motorcycle and we wheeled through the drive-through on the way home. Awesomely enough, on our way to KFC, we passed a house with a chicken walking around the yard. (Trivia: it was a Buff Orpington Double Trivia: Whoa! Shannon knows way more about chickens than you thought! Go, Farm Girl!) I missed the photo op, but found the timing hilarious. Anyway, back to the sandwich... Here John is at home with his bag o' goodness and his glass of wine, what a fancy dinner.
The moment of truth....
He liked it! The official review is that he would have liked some lettuce on it and wished they had used thicker bacon. What he'd really like to try is the "good" version, made with awesome ingredients. I don't know if anyone wants to take that on.

PS: I totally had a bite. I liked it too. One bite was enough, but I can't say that it was gross, as so many are claiming.

PSS: Lots of people are complaining about this. It's unhealthy and expensive and not a good meal choice. Guess what folks? No one is claiming that it is. KFC did not introduce this with your health in mind. They did it so that people all over will try one and write about it on the internets.

Weekend Theme: Glitter

We took off Saturday morning for a walk to one of our favorite delicious breakfasts of mochas and the best scones ever. After our wonderful snack, we continued down Hawthorne and spent the morning shopping around and then landed at Bridgeport for lunch and pre-pedicure beers. We were both overdue and in the interest of being able to wear open toed shoes (for me) and so Gary won't make fun of him for his worn out polish (for John), we packed our flip flops and made it a goal. Awesomely enough, John was going to go be all metal and work at the club and it was pretty funny that his preparation included shopping and a pedi :) I tried out a new purple glitter paint that my mom had given me and John went for straight up gold with a glitter topcoat. I have to admit, I added the glitter topcoat to my purple once I saw how good his looked. I think I'm going to copy it next time. Here we are in our massage chairs catching up on Hollywood gossip and Cosmo sex tricks.
In our shopping travels, we passed the coolest purse in the world and because my metal, manly husband is also such a wonderful girlfriend, he agreed with the "must have" status of this hot pink glitter purse. Hot Pink. Glitter. The inside even has animal print. Here it is being all badass on the back of the bike.

Cute anecdote of the day

Every morning before work, I get up early and do 2 of the Jillian Michael 30 day shred workouts. Every morning, Little Black Kitty comes to lay on the floor where I am working out to supervise. When I lay down for situps, she comes over and does her cute little noiseless meow and reaches her paw out to pet me. I love that a cat that used to run away from us when we were 15 feet away now lays on the floor 2 feet from where I am doing my jumping jacks, completely unafraid. This morning, I was doing walk-out push ups. You touch your toes, walk your hands out into a plank, do a push up, and walk back. LBK was laying near where my hands landed and every time I walked out and placed my hand by her, she put her paw on top of it. ah, kitty love.

Fashion Friday

This was a hard week to be cute. My head and heart are ready for cute summer outfits but it was friggin' COLD! Last weekend at the coast, I scored a couple super soft, light sweaters from the BCBG outlet (love) and this is one of them. I really love this color, and was excited to come home to pair the new shirt with this hat. Also, I love to rock the ponytails. I dyed my hair over the weekend and JJ gave me a haircut (my husband cuts my hair, true story) so the ponytails were awesomely black and straight. The necklace is an old bracelet and choker set of my grandmas. It's always been one of my favorites. I thought I'd get more wear from it as an actual necklace rather than a choker, so I attached the bracelet and the choker together and put in a real clasp (in the olden days, clasps weren't always very good). I also converted her old matching clip earrings to pierced ones, although this day I chose to wear my labradorite earrings to go with my rings. My gray skirt is actually a skort (remember those!?) that I bought when I first moved to Portland. It was always a little big and I noticed when I took it out of the closet this time that I had put two little darts in the back last time I wore it. It's awesome to have clothes that I loved almost 15 years ago that I still love now.

Hotness....

This is the latest little show from the magic that is my Tease and Tone class. I love these girls and this class. I see some girls that are becoming new regulars and it makes me happy to watch them get better and more confident and start to talk more to the people around them and to me. and I love my die hard regulars who just roll with the punches and do whatever I say with determination and trust and also let me make jokes at their expense. Here are my favorite things about this particular video:
1. One of my favorite little dancers who had to stop coming because of a class conflict is back. When she came to class, I joked that the old dance sweatshirt I was wearing was as old as she is. She responded with "I'm 20 now!" I got the shirt at competition in 1990.
2. Anne-Marie was wearing the cutest outfit (she always wears a skirt and yesterday, she busted out some short shorts!) with purple tie legwarmers. She does a little strut into the video at the end to show off.
3. John's comment on YouTube: "your red and black crew should accompany you EVERYWHERE!" I totally agree.
and without further ado... Here we are dancing to "If Tha Mood" by Esthero

PS: If it is cut off (I don't know why that recently started happening, but you should see the whole thing because Carrie over there is pretty cute...) go here.

Wordless Wednesday

Helper

Last week I was working on a pasty order and as usual, Little Black Kitty was eager to help. First, she had to inspect all the supplies and then she sat down to supervise...
I put the paper down to catch all the little strings and cut off pieces for easy clean up.. The intent is not for it to be a kitty bed as I work.
Apparently, I am wrong.

Coast...

We took off for the coast this weekend to get some time together after a rather frantic two weeks. Besides my mom being in town, we had a little bit of a health scare. While everything is fine, it was tough to go through it and maintain calmness and normalcy when it was happening. We had probably the most beautiful drive to the coast we've ever experienced, with snow and fog in the air while spring colors started to show on the ground and in the trees. We made our way to the Rogue for beers and fun.. Here we are unposed and cute....

also posed and cute...

and presumably this is posed as well, but not as cute...

Fashion Friday

I'm straying from the typical self portrait after work photo to instead talk about another very important fashion focus...shopping! My partner in shopping crime, Steph (my mom), was in town last week for my birthday and we did our part to invade the resale shops around town and make sure there was room for new items to be put on the racks! On Saturday, JJ joined us on a trip down Hawthorne, where he took this picture after she purchased, and immediately donned, this snazzy belt..
On Sunday, we hit our favorite Goodwill, where Steph did not purchase this miniature shirt that she found in the "XL" section. That brings up a shopping tip. When shopping resale, especially in a Goodwill or Value Village, one must go through each size section. It is super common to find something that fits wonderfully in a section that does not typically reflect your size.
We try on practically everything in the store. When we walked in, we foolishly decided to share a cart. By the time we were going to the dressing room after perusing the shirt section, it was apparent that we would each need our own. After shopping, we met up with JJ for pizza and then went home and grabbed a couple glasses of wine and went up to my dressing room to introduce the new clothes to the old clothes and make outfits, some of which will grace the internets on future Fashion Fridays... stay tuned :)

Acknowledging the holiday

I have no tricks up my sleeve this year. I feel like any prank I pull may tempt fate to throw a curve ball into this perfection that is my current life. It does, however, seem like an appropriate time to follow up on this post from last year. I'm not even kidding when I say that I had people ask me for 6 months whatever happened with the Nebraska thing.

Dude!

Scroll through this. I'm all on the internet and shit. He said there were more than 800 submissions, so I'm pretty stoked to be in the top 12. Also, he changed my spelling for "realize". interesting.