Graphic Tee

I basically have ESP.  Exhibit A - I was already wearing this outfit on Friday when I read Bri's Third Thursday Threads announcement for "Dressed up tees" - brilliant!  There is no Exhibit B for my sixth sense, but I think I've proved my point.

This outfit was inspired by the fact that it was Friday, and I wanted to be comfortable, but I was also going to see Stomp after work, so I wanted to be a little bit fancy.  I think I achieved my goal, because this sparkly gold skirt always makes me feel fancy.  This is one of the Threadless tees I scored at Gap earlier in the summer for $2.50 and I've worn it a lot, but never on the blog.

Stomp was good, but not as good as I expected it to be.  There were some really cool moments, but it started to feel really repetitive.  It was like the same scene over and over but now they are using brooms, and now they are using matchboxes, and now trashcans.  I guess I just expected it more from it.  I was also really distracted by their outfits, because it was sort of like 1991 called and wanted their clothing back.

Have you seen Stomp?  What did you think?

I'm obviously linking up for Third Thursday Threads, as well as What I Wore to Work, Look What I Got, and Tres-Chic.

Tee and Skirt: Gap
Cardigan: Old Navy
Shoes: Target

Peer Pressure

Happy Monday!  The weekend went by too fast, but that's pretty standard.  It was a pretty low key weekend for me.  I spent most of Saturday reading, and then most of Sunday doing household tasks that I've been neglecting.

After seeing a million Instagrams about the Philip Lim for Target line, I decided to check it out during my grocery trip.  Apparently Omahans aren't as interested in these designer collaborations, because it didn't look picked over at all this afternoon.  Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed.  The half-embellished collars just look awkward to me, the leopard print is too orange, and the things I do like are too expensive.  There are a couple tops I will keep an eye out for, and maybe pick up if they appear in the clearance section.

The little blogging devil on my shoulder was telling me to buy one of the purses, because everyone else was doing it, but my practical side won out this time.  Let's be honest here, I've never spent $50 on a purse!

Did you check out the line?  Did you buy anything?

Dress: Target
Cardigan & Belt: Old Navy
Shoes: Target

Stripes Times Two - with My New Favorite Outfit

Happy Monday!  I'm so excited to introduce you all to Ginny from My New Favorite Outfit.  We are teaming up today to showcase stripes, which are apparently very trendy right now (are stripes ever not "in"?).   We both decided to style a striped dress - great minds think alike, right?! 

I love how she mixes neutrals together and then adds the fabulous green necklace for some color!  Seriously, if you aren't already reading her blog, you need to start.  Her style is fantastic and her thrift store finds are enviable.

Here are a few more pictures of my look.

What is your favorite way to wear stripes?

Dress: Gap
Belt: Chinese Laundry via TJ Maxx
Necklace: H&M
Shoes: Target

Blue Shoes Remix

 

Fact - I've always been a shoe person.  I blame this partially on the fact that I had to wear a uniform to school, so shoes were one of the only ways to express my fashion sense in my middle and high school years (and weird earrings, but we won't get into that).  The shoe section at Target pretty regularly has hidden treasures in the clearance section.  My favorite ones are these blue cap-toe flats.  I got them last year at the end of the summer.  I wear them a lot, so they were the obvious choice for the We Love Target - Shoes day.

Normally, I put an outfit together and then look at my shoe options and pick the best one.  This week, I was trying to start with the shoes and completely drew a blank on what to wear.  Then I remembered that Bri Marie has the same shoes, and decided to re-interpret her lace and cobalt look. My lace top isn't striped, so I improvised and put a striped tee underneath it.  I feel sort of like MacGyver. 

Here are TEN ways to rock some blue shoes:

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9

Striped shirt and skirt: Old Navy
Lace Shirt: H&M
Shoes: Target

Bad Drivers

I'm jumping back into Blog Every Day in May for today's topic: Rant about something. 

I try to keep it pretty positive around here, but since it's part of the challenge, I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to complain.  I've created a very crude drawing below to show you what I mean.  When I leave work, I turn right onto a road that has a median separating the southbound lane from the northbound lane.  Right where I turn out, there's an opening in the median (so I could turn left, if needed).  Pretend I'm the red line.  There are people who work in an office to the north (they are the yellow line) who think it is appropriate to turn south (into the northbound lane) and then cross over into the southbound lane at the gap in the median.  THIS IS NOT OKAY!      

I understand it's annoying that you can't turn left, but just take a right and flip a U-turn at the next opening.  You can't drive the wrong way, even if it's just really quick.  Every few weeks, I almost run into one of these people, because they come from the wrong direction/lane.  I'm not looking there when I go to turn right!  I always honk at them, and they sometimes flip me off (because I'm the jerk in this situation??).

I have a few (or maybe several) other traffic-related topics to rant about, but I'm sure no one wants to read that!

Shirt: Old Navy
Skirt: Sunny Leigh via Macy's
Cardigan: Urban Outfitters
Shoes: Target
Purse: thrifted

Mint Jeans Remix

These mint green skinny jeans are way more of a staple in my wardrobe than I ever would have expected.  I felt foolish when I bought them, but they were only $13, so I figured it would be okay if I only wore them a few times.  Now I feel like I need to remember to only wear them once per week. 

Here are 6 ways I have worn these over the last 4 months.  I'm sure they will continue to be worn throughout the spring and summer.  I might even try rolling them up a little to keep my ankles cool once the weather warms up!  

1/2/3/4/5/6

What other ways would you style mint jeans?  Any color combinations I should try? 

Outfit details:
Cardigan and Jeans: Gap
Tank Top: Old Navy
Shoes: Target

Linking up in a few places today:

• Inspired My Style - I take inspiration from other blogs and Pinterest quite a bit.  This outfit was actually inspired by one of my previous outfits.  I really love the mix of cobalt blue pieces, so I suspect I will wear this outfit again with different skirts or jeans.    
•  Style Link Up with Agi
• Friday Remix with AJ

Weekend Shenanigans

The weekend was so fun and busy that I didn't even have time to write a Monday blog post about it.  Our friend, Ben, came to visit for the weekend, so we were having crazy adventures all over Omaha, including, but not limited to:

• Lunch at a never-before-visited restaurant recommended by Urban Spoon.  "GoldeeZ" was set back in a shady-looking strip mall, and the menu featured sections such as "AppetiZers, PiZZa, SandwicheZ, and Soup&Salad."  I'm sort of offended on behalf of Soup & Salad.  Why not "Zoup & Zalad" or "SoupZ and SaladZ" to fit in with the other headings?  We may never know.  Ben has a Z in his last name, so I felt like John and I should pretend to be Zmiths, or SmithZ.
• Bowling - in which I broke 100 in both games!  I usually fall apart at the end, but I got two strikes in the 10th frame!  (I tried to ignore the fact that the children in the lane next to us were significantly better than me.  10yr old girl rolls a strike - Andi rolls a gutter.  The boy (probably 8 or so) congratulated me when I got my first spare.  They were very polite, and way too good at bowling!)
• Dinner at my favorite restaurant in town, including my favorite dessert. 
• Settlers of Catan - not one, but TWO games.  I'm not allowed to say who won both games, so you can come to your own conclusions there.  
• The first miniature golf of the season!  Sunday brought warmer weather and excessive wind, but mini-golf seemed like a great idea.  I was still in my church clothes, so I ran into some difficulty with my dress and scarf, but we had a great time.  I'm also not allowed to say who won at mini-golf.  Let's just say I managed to get a hole in one on a couple of the holes.  

When I learned that the weather was supposed to be nice again, I took advantage of the opportunity to wear my new favorite dress.  Since my church is pretty casual, I thought a denim jacket and flat shoes would make it less dressy.  I still felt like a very fancy lady.  And then I felt sort of overdressed for mini-golf.  

Dress: Banana Republic Outlet

Scarf: Calvin Klein

Jacket: Izod

Shoes: Target

Purse: Dooney and Bourke (gift)

  

Carbon Copy

It's been such a busy week with Christmas and being lazy, that I haven't had much time to upload and edit current pictures, so I'm glad I had these pictures on reserve. 

This outfit is from a couple weeks ago, when it was still somewhat reasonable to wear flats with no socks.  I wore a very similar outfit back in September.  Since my jeans are pretty much the same color as that skirt, it was a no brainer that I should recreate the look. 

I'm looking forward to another 4 day weekend!  I am hoping to get a lot of stuff done around the house, and then kick off 2013 with some motivation to be better at everything (but more on that later)!

Happy Friday! 

Cardigan and Jeans: Gap
Tank Top: Old Navy
Shoes: Target

Nerd Alert

It's time you all know the truth - I'm kind of a nerd.

Evidence that proves my guilt:

• I really enjoy reading books like this.
• My favorite board game is probably Scrabble, but I've learned not to play with friends, as they get really mad when I play words like "Qat" and "aitch". 
• I lived in the nerdery Honor's Dorm in college, so most of my friends are nerds, too. 
• One of my favorite teachers in high school always told us that we should marry "cute nerds."  I think I succeeded!  

The inspiration for this confession came from the recent discovery of the Merriam-Webster "Ask the Editor" video series.  I think these are so interesting!  You can learn all about "literally" and  dangling prepositions!  

You're welcome.  

Cardigan: Old Navy
Scarf: H&M
Shirt and Jeans: Gap
Shoes: Target

Sometimes in the Fall

I'm not sure when it happened, but the tree in our backyard decided it was definitely fall!  The leaves are much prettier than our mostly brown lawn.  The photo-shoot didn't last long before I was throwing leaves into the air.  I was just slightly concerned about the potential for spiders or other bugs that might be in the leaves.  I really didn't want to throw spiders into the air.

Cardigan, top, skirt: Gap
Shoes: Target
Bangles: Charming Charlie
Ring and necklaces: gifts from my parents

A Marketer's Dream

The giveaway is closed and the BIG WINNER is Conolley from Third Grade Rock Star.  This completely cracks me up, because I have known her in real life since for as long as I can remember.  I think we were probably friends as babies at our church.  What are the odds that she wins my first giveaway?  Congrats, Conolley!  Thanks to everyone else who entered and spread the word!

Do you all know about the Wrapp app?   My sister told me about it, and it's really quite nice.  You can give digital gift cards to your friends, via email.  There are quite a few free options, such as $5 to Gap that my sister and I have been giving to each other.  The problem is that I go into Gap with the idea that I don't need to spend much, just find something for close to $5 and basically get it for free.  Then I get into the store and end up in the dressing room with several items!  Then I decide that I should buy this fuchsia skirt, and end up spending more than $5.  I'm sure that is the whole plan for Gap to offer these $5 gift cards on Wrapp, and I fall for it every time!

Since my degree is in marketing, I usually don't fall for these tricks, but Gap is just trouble for me.  In my defense, isn't this skirt cute!?  I think I will wear it quite a bit year-round, so I think it's a decent investment.

Top: Old Navy
Skirt and Cardigan: Gap
Shoes: Target

The "Would Of" Epidemic

I have noticed a trend lately, but it's not a fashion trend.  It's an improper English trend.  People seem to think that saying "would of" is a legitimate word pairing.  I've seen it in Facebook statuses, blog posts, even in a book I was reading.  This is not a thing!  It's "would have" not "would of."

I also learned how to be popular with my Facebook friends: just make a status ranting about grammar!

Skirt & Cardigan: Old Navy
Top: I.N. Studio
Shoes: Target

Twinsies!

Extreme Close-Up of my belt

Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets super excited when I see another blogger wearing something I have.  I know that we all shop at the same places, so it's pretty likely, but I still think it is fun to see how someone else wears an item.  I recently saw Typhanie wearing this dress on her blog, and remembered that it was in my "need to iron" pile, so I dug it out.

Then, the first time I put these shoes on the blog, Bri Marie let me know that she has them too!  (And now I want a white lace top!)

Whenever my twin nieces see someone matching, they squeal "twinsies!" like total teenagers, so I figured I would channel them for my title.

Dress and Shoes: Target
Cardigan: Gap
Belt: TJ Maxx

I've Got the Blues

Don't worry!  I'm not sad; I'm just wearing a lot of blue.  I mean, I went to the grocery store(Target) on Saturday and just happened upon the clearance shoe section, and these adorable little blue cap-toe flats were calling my name.  Of course I had to plan my Sunday morning outfit around my new shoes.

Whenever someone says "I've got the Blues", this song immediately pops into my mind.  And then I want mac and cheese for dinner.  Does anyone else remember this commercial?  How adorable is this little girl?  Now think about the fact that she's probably about 22 now.  Feeling old yet?  Me too.

Dress and Cardigan: Gap
Belt: Francesca's
Shoes: Target