Trifecta Tuesday - Red Mini

I've been thinking about the blog lately, and what I can do to make it better.  One of my favorite things to see/read about on other blogs is remixes, or how to wear an item several ways.  With that in mind, I'm going to try to post each Tuesday about an item that I wear frequently, and the different ways I have worn it.  So, Tuesday Trifecta is born!  Blogger doesn't think Trifecta is a word, but I won't let that stop me. 

I think I got this skirt at the Gap Outlet in Sioux City, IA in 2008.  John and I had driven up to Minnesota to meet some friends for a Ben Folds Concert, and he was kind enough to stop and let me do some shopping.  I had a very similar red Gap skirt when I was in high school, and when it no longer fit, I was looking for a new one, so I was pretty excited to find this one.  I also had red shorts and red jeans in high school, but I haven't found suitable replacements so far.  I should add, I don't think it was particularly cool in the early 2000's to wear colored denim.     


Shirt: Kenneth Cole
Skirt: Gap
Shoes: Carlos Santana 

Here are 2 other ways I have worn this skirt recently:

And if you are really interested, here's a post I did back in February for the ABC Challenge I was participating in.  The prompt was "X3", so I showed 3 ways I wore my red skirt during the winter. 

Half a Decade

On Saturday, John and I celebrated 5 years of marriage!  If you have been hanging around the blog this week, you knew this was happening.  If you want to know how we spent the last several July 28ths, catch up here:

 2006,  2007,  2008,  2009,  2010,  2011

Anyway, for the big 5 year anniversary, we took a trip to St. Croix.  I tried to trick John into another vacation but he was to smart to fall for it, so on Saturday, we just hung around here.  We went to brunch and then had a lazy afternoon.  John got me a new iPod, so I was playing around getting it set up.  Then we went out for a nice dinner.   Here we are dressed up for dinner: 

At the restaurant, I asked John to take a few outfit photos, which proved more difficult than we expected.  The wind was not cooperating:  

 

We finally got a few good ones:  

We had a lovely dinner and then walked around the outdoor mall.  There was some live music, but I think we were a few decades younger than the intended demographic, so we didn't hang around too long.

On Sunday, we continued the anniversary festivities with Noodles&Company for lunch after church.  

Sunday evening, we went to see Weezer - one of our favorite bands!  I remember listening to the Blue album when it came out (many many years ago).  I thought Buddy Holly and Undone were the coolest songs ever.  It kind of blows my mind that 17 years later, I'm at a Weezer concert with my husband of 5 years, listening to them play those songs.  Ten-year-old Andi would never believe it!   

Anyway, I'd say it was a pretty successful anniversary.  Here's to many more years!

Top: Preston&York
Skirt and Belt: Limited
Necklace: inPink
Shoes: Steve Madden

Anniversary Week - 4 years!

2011 - Last year, we bought a house at the end of June, so we were in money-saving mode, so we decided to have another low-key anniversary.  If you haven't figured out the trend yet, we went to Noodles&Co on the 28th, which was a Thursday.  Then that weekend, we went to a local vineyard on Saturday, but didn't take many pictures.  For dinner, we dressed up and went out to one of my favorite restaurants.  We spent the rest of the weekend being lazy, because that was really all we wanted to do.  2011 was a pretty crazy summer for both of us at work, plus I had several trips out of town, and then we were busy getting packed up and moving.  It was pretty great to have the weekend to do nothing!

Which brings us to our 5th anniversary tomorrow.  I really can't believe how quickly the time has gone.  We will be celebrating 10 years before I know it!

Identity Crisis

This top is a skirt.  You might remember it from a lot of my other outfits.  I figured, if I can make dresses pretend to be skirts, why not make a skirt into a shirt.  I promise not to wear shirts as dresses - that would just be awkward. 

Top: Express shirt
Cardigan & Jeans: Old Navy
Shoes: Seychelles
Necklace: made by me

Linking up various places again today.

Anniversary Week - 3 years!

 

2010 - For our 3rd anniversary, we decided to keep it simple and just went out to dinner.  I was happy for an excuse to wear this dress.  Since it's white, I can't wear it to weddings, and I don't have a lot of other dressy events to attend in the summer.

For some reason, I was posing with the roses John got me.  This was a pretty good outfit picture, before I was even blogging my outfits!   

Calvin Klein dress, Mossimo shoes

Of course, on the 28th, we went to dinner at Noodles&Co!

I'm also guest posting for Amber, over at Obviously Obsessed.  She asked me to write about a favorite vacation, so I figured I would go along with my anniversary theme and write about our honeymoon to Jamaica.  Go check it out!

Anniversary week - 2 years!

2009 - For our second anniversary, we decided to take a very quick weekend trip over to Lincoln.  First, we spent that Saturday at a local vineyard.  It was really beautiful to walk around and just relax while tasting some of their wine options.

Then we headed to downtown Lincoln and checked into our hotel.  I worked at this hotel gift shop while I was in college, so it was kind of weird to be a guest there.  Then we got all dressed up and went out to dinner at Misty's, which is where we ate the night we got engaged.

After dinner, we went and saw one of the worst movies ever.  Then we walked around campus and the Haymarket, which is pretty empty in the summer.    

July 28th was a Tuesday in 2009, and it was the day before we were driving to Colorado for my family reunion.  My mom, sister and nieces were crashing at our place on their trip across America, so we all went to Noodles&Co.  

John also got me some really cool roses!  I'm sure they have a name, but I don't know it, so I'm sticking with "really cool".  

Primary Colors

These pictures are from a few weeks ago, but I never posted them.  Then I wore this exact outfit to church on Sunday, so it all works out.

These little red flats are a recent purchase from Target.  They were $7, so I just had to pick them up.  I am always on the lookout for fun flats.

I feel like the red shoes and yellow purse added some interest to my outfit.  This dress is quickly turning into my standby when I don't have very much time to get ready, or am feeling particularly uninspired. I love easy pieces like this!

Dress: Gap
Belt: Francesca's
Shoes: Target
Purse: Liz Claiborne, from Goodwill, refashioned
Necklace: gift

Anniversary Week - One Year

2008 - For our first anniversary, we spent the weekend in downtown Omaha.  We got all dressed up and went out to dinner at a fancy steakhouse and then walked around in the Old Market.  

The next day, we went to the zoo.  It happened to be one of the hottest days of the year, but we still had fun.  I may have been projecting my own feelings onto the animals, but don't these otters and rhinos seem like they are in love??

Our actual anniversary was on a Monday, so John sent me flowers at work, and then we had dinner at Noodles&Co and then had cake at home.  The idea of year old cake didn't sound appealing to me, so we had eaten our real cake topper on our one month-iversary.  For our first year, I just ordered a little cake from the same bakery, and got a bottle of our sparkling raspberry juice that we had used for our toasts.  Both were delicious!

Anniversary Week - Gettin' Hitched

Yesterday, I kicked off anniversary week with a little story of how John and I got together.  Fast forward one year, and we are Mr. and Mrs. Smith!  I've already shared some of our wedding pictures on the blog, so I'll just share one more of my favorites.  This was right after the ceremony, before we went to the reception.  I pretty much love this picture.  

Our ceremony was at 2, and only took about 15 minutes.  Our reception was also pretty low-key.  We just had food and cake and had fun talking to all our friends and relatives.  We were out of there by about 5pm and already knew where we were going for dinner:  

Originally, we thought we wouldn't get a chance to eat at the reception, so we'd go straight there in our wedding clothes, but we actually got some food at the reception, so we went to dinner later, in normal clothes.  I wonder what the staff and other patrons would have thought of us in our dress and tux.  It's become kind of a tradition for us to get Noodles and Company for our anniversary each year.  It's a pretty financially sustainable tradition!

Anniversary Week - How it started

This coming Saturday marks 5 years of wedded bliss for John and me.  I decided to be ridiculous and dedicate the week to all the July 28th celebrations of the past several years.  If you hate love, feel free to come back next week!  I think I will continue daily outfit posts, too, so you'll be getting a double dose of Smithiness each day.   

Let's just start at the beginning!  In the summer of 2006, I was living in Indianapolis.  John was living in Omaha.  After almost 2 years of being close friends, I think we both knew we should just give it up and get married.  Like a true gentleman, John decided he should come visit me for the weekend.

I picked him up at the airport, and we met my sister and nieces at Chick-fil-A for lunch.  We also went to Dick's Sporting Goods to get a frisbee.  I think we went to the park and threw the frisbee first, and then went to get sno cones (or did we throw the frisbee after?  My memory is fuzzy).  Sitting on the benches by the sno cone hut, John asked me to be his girlfriend and I happily accepted.  I think this picture was taken just before we had the talk. 

That evening, we went on our first official date:  dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and then bowling.  Our waiter was kind enough to snap a picture of us at dinner. 

Anyway, that was July 28th, 2006.  We spent the rest of the weekend exploring Indianapolis.  On Sunday, we went to church (where my dad just happened to be preaching about how to find your spouse) and then I had to send him back to Nebraska and spend a whole month in Indy.  Usually, I didn't want summer to end, but in 2006, I was ready to get back to college!   

If you are paying attention, you know we got married exactly one year later - but more on that tomorrow!

FBFF - Summer Reading List

On the beach in St. Croix

The FBFF theme for this week is reading.  I love to read and originally thought I would do book reviews on the blog every so often.  So far, this hasn't happened.  I don't think I am naturally talented at articulating why I liked or disliked a book.  My reviews would be like "awesome" or "boring" and that might get a little, well, boring.  (unlike my outfit posts, which are SUPER interesting). 

My goal is to read 50 books in 2012, and I am currently at 27.  Since May 1, I've finished 14 books.  I won't bore you with the full list, but here are some of my favorites:

• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - last summer, a friend told me to check out Neil Gaiman's books, and I was like "Neil Diamond writes books!?".  No, Gaiman with a G.  I've read 3 so far, and enjoyed all of them.  This one is my favorite. 
• The Cousins' War series by Philippa Gregory - for some reason, I had previously been under the impression that Philippa Gregory books were trashy romance novels pretending to be historical fiction.  I was wrong.  These books were really interesting, and well-written.  They cover the War of the Roses from the perspective of various women.  There are 3 books already out, and I'm excited for the next one to be published this fall. 
• How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer - really interesting book about how our brains make decisions.   
•  Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson - if you have read Jenny's blog at all, you know how hilarious she is.  DO NOT read this book if you are easily offended.   

Have you read anything interesting lately?  I'm always looking for suggestions of what to read next.
  

Deep Thoughts on Fro-Yo

A few weeks ago, I went to Red Mango with some co-workers.  It was my first time at one of the new (to Omaha), hip fro-yo places.  I wasn't sure I would like it, because I'm not a big fan of yogurt.  Turns out it was delicious.  Then I convinced John to swing by Peach Wave when we were running errands on a recent Saturday.  Also delicious.

We noticed that Orange Leaf just opened at the mall near our house, so on Tuesday night, we just had to go try it out.  This was my outfit of choice for a date to the fro-yo shop.  Turns out Orange Leaf is a pretty popular hangout spot for suburban teenagers, too.  At first, I thought this was weird, but then I remembered my friends and I used to hang out at Krispy Kreme (since it was open til midnight), so I really shouldn't be judging today's youth for their hangout spots.  I will continue to judge their outfit choices.  Seriously, put some clothes on!

Shirt: Gap
Shorts: American Eagle
Belt: TJ Maxx
Purse: Liz Claiborne (via Goodwill) - modified!
Shoes: Carlos Santana via DSW

Check out these linky parties!

Skirting the Issue

This skirt is a dress.  I bought it at H&M in 2007 over Memorial Day weekend when we were visiting my family in Indy.  If memory serves, it was about $15, and I have worn it so many times over the last 5 years.  I love it when "fast fashion" turns into a closet workhorse!  The last few times I have pulled it out of the closet, I've folded the top under and worn it as a skirt.  The top just doesn't fit quite right anymore, so I'm thinking about committing to the skirt and chopping the top off.  I think I am getting addicted to easy refashions!  Soon all my dresses will be chopped into skirts!   

Top: Gap
Belt: Francesca's
Skirt: H&M Dress
Shoes: Steve Madden
Sunglasses: mall kiosk

How to Confuse a Barista

If you ever want to confuse the baristas at Starbucks, just go in and order a venti skim milk.  They will look at you like you are completely crazy and then ask you approximately 7 questions clarifying what you want:  Coffee with milk?  Oh, just milk?  Steamed?  Iced?  Just milk?  Seriously?  How much do we charge for this?

Yes, some people just want a glass of milk in the morning!  I've decided I need to come up with a complicated way of ordering it, like "Venti Decaf Skinny Calcium Juice!"

In other news, I'm trying to be better about taking pictures outside.  It was just a tad sunny when we took these, so I had to shield my eyes and then look away.     


Cardigan: Gap
Dress: Old Navy
Belt: Urban Outfitters
Shoes: Target
Sunglasses: Fossil
Pearls: gift