product review: Layerwear Basics

 shoes: cato brand. tube skirt: layerwear basics. shirt: gap. sash: from this shirt. bracelet: hawaii.

A few days ago, I got this tube skirt in the mail from the nice people at Layerwear Basics. It.Is.Awesome. The fabric is of super high quality and thick, and the seaming and finishes are flawless; I feel like it'll last forever.

And I hope it does, because it's a perfect layering skirt. Being a tube skirt, it's obviously tighter around my hips and waist, so I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing it with a shorter top. (You're welcome, Society-At-Large.) But I'm finding it to be a perfect balancing piece with longer tunic-style tops, especially flowy or more voluminous tops that work best paired with a smaller-scale bottom. Or a schoolboy blazer...wouldn't that be chic?

One thing about wearing this skirt is that, despite being fairly form-fitting (fine, let's be honest: "tight"), it's easy to move around in because it's stretchy. But, after walking my dog around the block in it (relatively brisk walking), I had to pull it down every block and a half or so. But I didn't have to do that just wearing it around the house; I'd reserve wearing this skirt for times that don't require a longer stride. Like jogging. Summary: Tube skirts aren't ideal for doubling as running skirts...

The waist of this skirt is fold-over...able (new word. use it in conversation this week to make yourself sound super smart.), which is nice for adjusting the skirt's length, which is in and of itself flattering and modest at the same time. Score. I can't wait until the weather cools off a bit to wear this with colored tights. Layerwear Basics offers this skirt (and other stuff) in a variety of colors, which is useful to coordinate it with whatever's already in your closet.

Below are some shirts I'd love to have and wear with this skirt. Some of these may or may not already be in my shopping carts across cyberworld. I'm click-happy awesome that way.

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So, in a nutshell: as long as you're not heading out for a hike or marathon, I'd absolutely recommend this skirt based on its top quality, fit, and style. Check out the other products at Layerwear Basics! 

Happy Thursday.

simple style...and a jazzy ride down memory lane

 shoes: cato brand. shorts: banana republic. shirt: j.crew. necklace: forever21. watch: citizen brand. pin: don't recall.

I play the piano. Did any of you know that? I used to be quite good. Not to brag [Editor's note: A preface which is unfailingly, 100%, and always followed by a statement of boast.], but I really was talented back in my teens. Won a few medals, one of which was of a golden hue.

Convinced? No? Dah well. Regardless, I had a few minutes to myself this afternoon and spent them running through some of my old music books on the piano.

(Sure, I had laundry and dishes and grocery shopping and cleaning and a zillion other things I should've been doing. But sometimes a girl feels like being rebellious. My internal rebel just happens to pound out classical music. A sohpisticated rule-breaker. Like how I envision Ms. Zeta-Jones to be.) (Because there are soooo many things she and I have in common...)

*ahem* ANYway. My piano teacher would always write the date I started learning songs at the top of the music page. I died today when I noticed one of them, on a very technical and challenging piece, was 1994. That, my dears, is SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.

I still think I'm like 18 years old, so you can understand my jaw-dropping flabbergastic...ness. So. Be kind to this old woman. I'll probably be that lady going 18 MPH on the freeway, like, tomorrow. Oooh, but want to know what else happens tomorrow? A major hair change. Something fitting for my newly discovered old age. Like a tight perm and a bluish tint. Maybe. You'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Wednesday, you young whippersnappers.

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an imposter

Shoes: cato brand. skirt: j.crew. shirt: gap.

I kind of wore this yesterday to church. I mean, once again, the photo's pieced together from old ones. Yesterday, I wore a super-chunk necklace instead of the turquoise one you see here, though, and my tweed jacket almost made it into the mix on top of the lavendar shirt. Until I remembered it was, like, 14,000 degrees outside...about half of what it was INside (broken a/c at church). Realizing that, Mr. Tweed was happy to stay home with his spectacles, reading the newspaper, sipping his iced raspberry lemonade. Pulp-free, natch.

This week I'm grateful for:  

- air conditioning.

- parents. Specifically, mine.

- cheerful children who listen to me and heed what I say with a smile and a response that goes along the lines of, "Mom, you're awesome and you always know best." (All I want is for them to be perfect...is that too much to ask?)

- when flooded basements can be dried out relatively quickly with minimal damage.

- and also, when basements DON'T flood. That's nice, too.

- my husband's cancelled business trip.

- the Internet. Is that a weird thing to be grateful for? So be it.

- fresh produce.

- ice cream.

- when I consume fresh produce and thereby, in my head, justify the heaping bowl-ful of ice cream. Ooops. But also...delish.

- improving my surroundings. And dreaming about more ways I can improve my surroundings. But having them be too expensive to actually carry out...so back to ye ol' dreaming board.

Happy Monday!

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a plaid skirt and a long-winded bit o' nothing

 shoes: cato brand. skirt: american eagle. belt: husband's. shirt: vintage/gift. bracelet: forever21. watch: target. earrings: hawaii.

I feel like I have nothing to say lately. 'Cept late at night, when my husband's trying to sleep, and I remember everything that ever happened to me...ever...and it comes bursting out of the dam we call my mouth. THEN I have stuff to say. And, lucky for him, it's suuuuper interesting and funny and insightful. Like play-by-plays of how each kid reacted at the dentist's, or how many packs of gum our toddler threw in the grocery cart, or how I finally lost that one toenail I knew I was going to lose.

As you can imagine, he's riveted to my every word during the course of such conversational fodder and probably bemoans the fact that in just a few short hours I'll run out of stuff to say and we'll have to go to sleep.

And if you can't see the sarcasmic slime oozing out from your computer screen, I just don't know what to tell you. Until 11 p.m., that is. Then I'll give you an earful.

Happy Friday!

Want this look? Shop for similar stuff below:

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a Jazzy ride down memory lane...

 shoes: cato brand. shorts: american eagle. shirt: j.crew. necklace: gift (downeast basics). bracelets: forever21. turquoise bracelet & earrings: hawaii.

I'm loving shorts with heels lately. Unfortch for me, I only have three pairs of shoes in this 30x30, and just one of them is heels. Are heels. Be heels. Whatever. FORtunately, though, these wedges go with any and everything I can throw at them. So they win. And I win. We all win.

Which reminds me...in college, I had two roommates who made up a card game called Pearls. The rules changed every time it was played, but it didn't matter because they the whole point of the game was to unexpectedly, at some point, throw the entire deck of cards up in the air and/or at the person's head and shout at him/her as loudly as possible, "YOU WIN! YOU WIN! YOU WIN!"

Maybe you had to be there. Actually, no, no you didn't. Because it was as entirely pointless as this description makes it seem. But ridiculously entertaining for those of us on the sidelines, seeing how baffled the unsuspecting victim participant became.

Speaking of...Know what else was baffling about college? The sheer number of amateur male acappella groups, 100% of whom specialized in busting out the song "Woooooah...for the longest time" whilst winking and grinning and expecting us females to swoon as though we hadn't heard that exact same song about 4 minutes ago in another dorm hall.

Ah, dorm halls. But that's another chapter for another day.

Happy Tuesday!

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does this mess make me look lazy?

 shoes: cato brand. skirt: don't recall. shirt: j.crew. necklace: gift (downeast basics). belt: thrifted (american eagle). bracelets: forever21.

This week I'm grateful for:

- getting some fabulous loot from The Body Shop from this adorable blogger's giveaway.
- laundry days that are filled with my workout clothes (because that means I worked out! every day! *faint*)

- campfires + nathan's hot dogs + marshmallows + some long roasting sticks + my little family x bug spray.

- a new math-games website that is so fun, I stayed up until 5:30 a.m. playing it because I couldn't quit. Yes, you read that right. 5 hecking 30. My husband was dying at me when he woke up...about 20 minutes after I called it a night.

- nature.

- automatic sprinklers.

- potty-trained kidlets...even (especially?) when they wander around our laid-back summertime house in nothing but panties. Cutest.Thing.Ever.

- a laid-back summertime house. Which is noticeably messier than our school-time house. But way funner. Because the freezer pops are plentiful and the bedtimes vague.

- kids who sing.

- dead mosquitos. Especially those swatted by my own hand. Makes me feel like I'm giving back to the universe, in my own small way.

- cortizone cream.

- playing and laughing with my husband and my children.

- when my son (who is hard to please at the dinner table these days) gives dinner a coveted "two thumbs up." Yesssssss.

Happy Sunday.

on math and other things to cry about

 shoes: cato brand. cropped pants: gap. shirt: j.crew. bracelet: downeast basics. earrings: hawaii.

I made my 6-year-old do some math this morning. He hates the pressure of being timed, though, so instead of doing it on a math website, I wrote out some problems for him to do on paper. (Bonus: He has to write out the answers, thereby making him practice penmanship as well. Boom goes the dynamite.)

He spent probably an hour complaining about how they're all too hard to do [Editor's note: They weren't.], how he didn't know any of the answers [Editor's note: He did.], how carnivores eat other herbivores and other smaller carnivores [Editor's note: Oh. Okay.], and how he would never ever get it finished in time to go to his friend's house [Editor's note: Seemed to be true.].

Then his sister got home from summer school and he did them all real quick.

Fast-foward to me, right now: I have exactly 13 minutes to be off the computer and start deep-cleaning my son's room while he's gone. Unfortunately, I, too, loathe "timed" assignments, especially when I've nothing of (a) value, (b) humor, or (c) interest to say. 

The best I can come up with? This: my skull is apparently the weirdest shape in humankind, because whenever I wear sashes as headbands, they slowly creep their way toward the back of my sideways-cone-shaped head and then fall off. Don't get me wrong--this headshape would be indisputably awesome for aerodynamicy, if I were an airplane. Less awesome, though, to be the object of "look-at-that-chick-with-a-ropey-thing-hanging-awkwardly-down-her-back-while-her-hair-frizzes-out-all-over."

Either way... Happy Thursday.

Want this look? Super simple, super great for summer. Click below...

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not to brag, but I'd be an AllStar de-motivational speaker.

shoes: cato brand. shorts: american eagle. shirt: vintage. jacket: gift (talbot's). watch: target. necklace & belt: forever21. earrings: hawaii.

When we first got married, my husband wanted to be an inventor. His two “best” ideas (ahem… debatable… but you didn’t hear it from me) were: (1) a toaster hooked up to a conveyor belt that would serve you toast in bed, and (2) a snow shovel that sent out a laser beam in front to semi-melt the snow before the shovel blade got to it.

Needless to say, he never quit his day job.

What can we all learn from this sad story? Merely this: sometimes you CAN’T be anything you want to be. I think it’s a disservice to teach kids otherwise. Take today's outfit, for example: my brain envisioned a sassy, slender, sophisticated ensemble when I put this together. What my camera envisions is a hot sloppy mess.

But here's the deal [Editor's note: Geesh, sounding a little defensive, aren't we? Why yes, yes we are]: It's lace day at Everybody, Everywhere. I neither own lots of lace nor like it in large quantities on me. So. What you see is a little lace trim on a lightweight cotton shirt and some crochet-lace peeptoe wedges. Balanced with some masculine tweed and random turquoise. And when I say "balanced," I of course mean "for some reason I dreamed last night that these would all work together. Right before I dreamed that my husband was frantically in charge of his work's Sub For Santa...in June."

Do with that information what you will.

Happy Tuesday.

Want this look? More power to you, I suppose... Click below.

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cross your eyes, then stare at my outfit. how many lines do you see?

 shoes: cato brand. skirt & bracelet: don't recall. shirt: thrifted. belt: husband's. so helpful, I know.

I love french toast. Like, really, love it. Preferred method: a bit of butter and some maple syrup atop a steaming piece of french toast. My older brothers used to strategize breakfast for maximum acceptable sugar consumption, floating their first french toast in a pool of syrup (we're talking the deep end of a pool here, people) and then powdered-sugaring the next one, which would also be treading syrup. 

Sugar overload? You betcha. (And you wonder why I can't kick my pnut m&m addiction...) Too much of a good thing? Probably. Makes my stomach hurt a little when I think about it now.

But that's kind of how I felt in this ensemble. The sugar particles of my french toast yesteryear became the lines/stripes/plaid overload of today's ensemble. (A beautiful and deep metaphor, right? Go ahead a wipe a tear...) 

Regardless, and on a fairly unrelated note, I think every woman needs a lacy/crocheted peeptoe wedge in her life. And, sure, a pound of pnut melt-in-your-mouths within arm's reach.

Happy Monday!

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keep a pastel skirt from floating away...

 shoes: ebay (cato brand). skirt: american eagle. jacket: kohl's. watch: target. bracelet: burntsiena designs. belt & necklace: forever21. undershirt & flower pin: downeast basics.

Happy Mothers Day! For today's photo shoot, and as part of her celebratory contribution, my 5-year-old wanted to decide on the poses and have me copy them for each shot. She tried to trick me and would switch it up at the last second. A delightful and entertaining time, even if the photos themselves didn't turn out the best (it's super dark and grey outside, so the lighting is...how shall I say...crappy in my house).

This week I'm grateful for:

- lindor chocolate truffles.

- and, on a related note, Mothers Day. Specifically for the kidlets that make the celebration personal for me. And for my own mama.

- rocking chairs.

- weeks when kids aren't sick.

- the magic of a pinata and the joy in the eyes of every kid reaping its pummel-induced bounty.

- the public library.

- my husband. He is a fabulous component of humankind.

- wearing a tank top on my jog!!! (translation: it was warm enough this week. finally!)

- references to King of Queens. That show = hilar.

- talking girl-talk over delicious cake with 2 of my closest girlfriends for "20 minutes." An hour (and a half?) later...

- non-nasty toothpaste.

- books. A glorious stack of endless books that bespeaks giddiness when I get a chance to read them.

Happy Sunday!

a pound of Easter chocolate in the hand is as good as 4 pounds on the scale...

 shoes: cato brand. tights: forever21. skirt & cardigan: j.crew. shirt: thrifted. belt: husband's. watch: target.

This week I'm grateful for:

- friends who not only care but who do stuff to show it.

- Easter candy.

- picking out the perfect gift for someone and knowing it's the perfect gift and then having it reaffirmed that it was, indeed, perfect. :)

- home design books and the millions, nay, trillions of new ideas floating around in my head.

- budget constraints. Which is a nice way of saying "we have no money to do the stuff I dream about." But without such constraints, I wouldn't have nearly as much fun planning it out in my head.

- (can you tell I'm stretching to be grateful for that last one?)

- people who are creative. I'm in awe of them.

- my husband. Who's awesome and funny and sweet and hard-working and who always lets me have the last bite.

- my kids. Who're sweet and fun and creative and enthusiastic and independently-minded...like when my 2-year-old responded, in her sweetest little voice, to an observation I was making at dinner: "mom....be ty-et [quiet]." Her timing was impeccable, her delivery spot-on, and the laughter response overwhelming.

- cheese and how it can be a perfect main course for kids' breakfast, lunch, OR dinner.

- the Easter holiday and all that it entails.

Happy Sunday.

mix & match...then realize it doesn't look cool...THEN realize "who cares? I'm too old to be cool anyway"

shoes: cato brand. pants & cardigan: gap. shirt: forever21. belt: pocket's. watch: citizen brand. flower brooch: don't recall. 

(Yes, I'm aware that these shoes today are all wrong for these pants...they put the cuff at an uncomfortably lame height. Buuuuut...meh. Whatchagonnado.)

Something reminded me today of my 5th grade school "talent" show. Some friends and I thought we were super good singers and not-too-shabby choreographers, so we performed not one but two numbers at our school's (soon-to-be non)talent show: "Barbara Ann" (beach boys) to give the audience some pep and "Greatest Love of All" (whitney houston) to deeply move them. (...and, yes, in case you're wondering, I do want to cry of embarrassment. Thanks for asking.)

Of course Surprisingly, we sucked. And even that's putting it mildly.

Post-performance, even my mother could hardly come up with words that were equally positive and true. I think she finally choked out something like "brave" and "you tried." We were the laughingstock.

You know how any publicity is supposed to be good publicity? Yeah, well, I found out that's a total lie when the news (a) centers around the fact that you and your four buddies are untalented, uncoordinated fools and (b) ushers in your junior high years.

Hmmm...Not sure how this glorious memory ties into my ensemble today. Other than I kind of feel like it's Mom-wear, and as a mom, I want my kids to skip their junior high/middle school years. I don't think I'm man enough to live through their emotional coming-of-ages, because look how adorable and confident they are at 4 years old:

 

(Her finale pose? Kills me.)

Happy Friday.

Want this look so you, too, can worry about your pre-pubescent kids' futures? Check it out:

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I'd never have made a good hippie...

shoes: cato brand. jeans & shirt: old navy. (Amendment: Crap. It's actually Downeast Outfitters. Sorry.) belt: forever21. bracelet: hawaii. flower clips: gift.

I don't usually style my tops to be poofier in the stomach area, mainly because I'm blessed with enough natural, ah, "poof" that I don't need/want to build upon it. It'd be like pouring extra sugar into those fun-dip packets, or putting marshmallows into already sugary cereal. Like, who would DO that, right? (*blush* ehhh...me, I guess. Poof-ified the stomach and fed my kids lucky charms for breakfast. Two for two. Awesome.)

Dah well. Inspired by E., I decided to flounce it up a bit today. But I wanted to keep myself from floating off (into the great white yonder), so I maintained a very structured leg-line. Add my favorite crochet-peeptoe-wedges (a trifecta of yumminess, if you ask me), a side braid with a hint of hippie in the flower pins, and a turquoise bracelet for contrast.

I wasn't sure about the bracelet, to be honest. The shirt is bold enough, I don't know if a contrast was actually necessary. But red + turquoise just happens to be one of my favorite color combos, so I ran with it today. Which would be awesome if I did, in fact, run. With anything, anywhere. Unfortunately, the closest thing I've done to that these past few months has been to plod to the cupboard for a cadbury mini egg or eight. (Whereupon, I stop and gasp for about an hour to restock ye ol' oxygen supply... C'mon, spring. This girl needs to exercise!)

Happy Monday.

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