Whatever Works

 

The first two weeks of the semester are always a disaster an adventure, and adding a family wedding on the west coast in between them does not -- spoiler alert -- make them any easier. But I have survived, nay thrived, and lived to tell the tale. I'm now sitting on my front porch, drinking a glass of wine, and basking in my glory. Or perhaps just basking in the humidity. I'll take what I can get.

Knowing that these few weeks were going to be mayhem, I made sure to take outfit photos every day before the semester started. I knew this would make it easier to maintain a semi-regular blog presence. I had no idea it would also help me get dressed every morning, but it did. When I woke up on Monday morning with a brain full of jet-lag and student meetings and syllabuses and no room for fashion, I simply copied one of the outfits I'd photographed a few weeks ago. On Tuesday, when the jet lag hadn't dissipated, I did the same. By Thursday, when I could no longer blame my foggy brain on jet lag, I'd run out of outfits for this week, so I reached further back to the archive and wore this beauty from early in August. It's like a "pin to present" or "make it work Monday" but so much easier because (1) I already have all the stuff and (2) I know how it "works" on me. (Don't worry, Erin, I'll actually copy someone other than myself for the next Make it Work Monday!)

I was delighted to wear this outfit not once but twice in the past few weeks. (I rarely see the same people day in and day out -- I mean, the freshman I teach just showed up two weeks ago!!!) My favorite part of the ensemble is that the two statement pieces, the necklace and the skirt, both came from Target and have held up incredibly well despite being purchased years ago and match each other perfectly and do so through two colors that I love, yellow and green. I felt like a pattern-and-color-and-bling matching ninja. Not really, but maybe someday!

necklace: Target [old] | skirt: Target [even older, not dissimilar] | tank: LOFT | cardigan: Target [this year's colors] | shoes: Banana Republic [exact -- limited sizes now, but I'm sure they'll restock soon!] | bag: J.Crew factory

Oldies but Goodies

This outfit is made up of items that have managed to escape my recent closet purge despite their advanced age. The blazer is actually the top half of a suit that I bought at a church thrift shop when I was still in college, the belt is a J.Crew outlet find from my first year out of school, and the shoes were saved by the miracle of superglue after one of the the fabric flowers unravelled. And all three of these items were purchased by my mother... thanks mom!

I wore this to bike to campus for an afternoon of reading.

blazer: Banana Republic [thrifted, probably circa late 1990s] | t-shirt: LOFT | belt: J.Crew outlet | jeans: Gap | flats: Target | giraffe charm: gift

Easy

This outfit is about as easy as it gets for summertime: a jersey dress, a tote bag, sandals. I added this yellow belt for a little color and wore my simplest jewelry: my rings and my everyday giraffe necklace.

I wore this for running errands and reading (while laying on the ground under a tree, an activity for which jersey dresses are particularly well-suited).

dress: Ellen Parker | belt: Old Navy | bag: V&A gift shop | sandals: Franco Sarto via DSW | giraffe charm: gift

Our Garden Party

I've read a lot of blog posts lately advising me what to wear to a garden party. While I have quite a bit of academic knowledge of garden parties -- reading lots of Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen will help with that -- I've never been invited to a garden party and don't imagine I will be anytime soon. I guess I don't know the right type of people.

With no invitations to garden parties forthcoming, my husband and I had our own little garden party at a botanical garden in the area. Since we were the only two attendees at our little garden party I didn't feel obligated to wear a white eyelet dress (which seems to be standard blogger style for garden parties). Instead, I wore my new favorite skirt, this time with a yellow tee, teal purse, and white flat sandals. This means I matched every color in the stripes and was able to trek through the marshy areas no problem.

I wore this on an adventure to a botanical garden and out to dinner.

dress (worn as skirt): Urban Outfitters | t-shirt: J.Crew | belt: Old Navy | shoes: Franco Sarto via DSW | bag: Francesca's

My New Favorite Skirt

My new favorite skirt....

...is a dress!

I have been wanting to try a midi skirt for a while (since I started dreaming about spring two months ago). My Evernote shopping list, which I have started using to keep me honest in my shopping adventures, I wrote "midi skirt, full, print, casual" and whiled away free minutes searching the interwebs for something that fit that description. But everything I found wasn't right... too tight, too formal, too made of polyester (which I've been trying to avoid), to expensive for a style I didn't even know if I would like.

But then, inspired by the insistence in this book (which I've been reading obsessively) that I can style a dress as a skirt and by the fact that I LOVE the bottom half this dress, which I bought on clearance from Urban Outfitters a few years ago even though the top half is less than flattering, I did something I never would have even considered: I made if into a skirt! The skirt is full, so I simply folded the top underneath and used a belt to smooth things out. And it's perfect! I love the colors, yellow, teal, and white against a navy. I love the bais cut, which means it moves beautifully. And it has pockets!

I wore this for a weekend trip with my husband's family. And plan to wear it every weekend hereafter.

dress (styled at skirt): Urban Outfitters | shirt: Banana Republic | sunglasses: LOFT | necklace: Fossil [thrifted] | belt: American Eagle [ancient] | shoes: Guess via T.J. Maxx