Slouchy hat, crisp shirt

It's Friday, I work at an arts school, and I haven't worn a beanie to work since December! Sacrilege! I gotta take advantage of the casual dress code for the rest of you schmoes stuck in corporate wear.

Hat - thrifted newstock Target

Blouse - thrifted vintage Gant

Jeans - Gap

Shoes - Madeline

Hat and shirt detail...

It's alllllllmost the weekend and I've got a job interview for a summer job at a golf club on Saturday. Here's hoping they're decently cool and won't refuse to hire me just because I've got a few visible tattoos... a seahorse on my forearm does not hinder my ability to make you a vodka tonic but you never know with these country club types! Ugh, have I mentioned how much I hate applying for jobs? Especially ones like this where you can't just email a resume and cover letter. You have to fill out their specific application, with like a pen, what??? Is this the 1800s? Let me quick go get my feather and ink pot.

I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel.

That title is a line from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (which Nate and I watched on Valentine's Day for some reason?) And somehow, whenever I wear polka dots, I think of that line from the movie.

Hair scarf - thrifted
Cardigan - Old Navy
Dress - thrifted and shortened My Michelle, (remix post about the dress here, one additional wearing here)
Sandals - Juicy Couture

The polka dots and hair scarf combo is giving off a bit of an old-school pin-up vibe, which seems totally wrong as I'm going to work with children. But whatever. Some days I just look like a very covered-up pin-up.

Little boxes

Whew! I am exhausted! I spent all of Friday night and allllllll day Saturday helping Nate and his two roommates move. In the rain. I have lived in my condo for 7? 8? years, so I forgot how much it sucks to move. And clean the old place. Regardless, it is done! Here's Nate and I having a celebratory beer on the roof of the new house, when we finally finished Saturday night:

Sunday we went to a Twins game, which was amazing! Being able to sit down for a few hours, unable to unpack and worry about house stuff was awesome. And they won, so it was extra amazing! 

Today:

Necklace - thrifted

Sweater - J.Crew

Pants - thrifted Isaac Mizrahi for Target

Shoes - Chinese Laundry

A honeybee and a lion

Now that it's spring, it's time to start giving up my Saturday nights again, working the photo booth for weddings:

Dress - thrifted vintage (no tags)
Belt - thrifted
Sandals - Charles David

Today it's freezing here (it was snowing a tiny bit this morning) and I'm pretending that I live somewhere warmer... A little boy at my school already told me "You look like you belong in the jungle." I'm hoping he was referring more to the hat than to my wild mane, but who knows?

Hat - thrifted new stock Target
Shirt - thrifted little boys Cherokee
Bangles - thrifted
Pants - Target
Shoes - Colin Stuart

Hipster sailor

Hey dudes, sorry I disappeared yet again but I headed off to Lake Geneva, WI to visit the fam and check on my bro. He's healing very well! He got all his stitches out already and is up and moving (with the help of a walker). Amazed. Anyway, I'm on spring break and spending the day going to some thrift stores and riding my bike! Which apparently calls for a hipster sailor outfit.

Hat - some hippie store in CO after I lost my hat snowboarding in the woods :(

Sweater - J.Crew outlet

Shorts - Jenny Han
Sandals - London Underground

I'll be back with random updates in a day or two, and then I might go on an impromptu vacation with Nate! 

Safety orange

Right before Thanksgiving, Nate and I randomly woke up super early on a Saturday. I needed to buy a turkey so it could defrost by Thursday so we ran to the grocery store at like 6:30am. I bought a turkey and this hat, which was $2. Is this a MN thing? You can buy a safety orange (also called blaze orange, hunter orange, vivid orange or Omaha orange) hat everywhere, even the grocery store. For your last minute hunting needs.

Hat - from a grocery store
Jean jacket - thrifted Wax Jeans
Dress - Lauren Conrad
Watch - Billabong
Sandals - Nine West Vintage America Collection

Whenever I wear knit hats, I feel very 1990s. I tried to mix it up though, and wear a fancier dress and wedges instead of a babydoll dress and combat boots, but still keeping a bit of a '90s grunge vibe. What can I say? As someone who graduated high school in 1999, the '90s were kinda my formative years/glory days, so I'll always appreciate the aesthetic.

Black-n-blue

Hat - thrifted
Oxford - thrifted little boys Cherokee
Vest - thrifted (no tags)
Mickey Mouse necklace - little boutique in Seoul, Korea
Jeans - Gap
Heels - Simply Vera

I had a pretty relaxing weekend. I went to the American Swedish Institute on Saturday with Nate, my mom (who is in town visiting), my sister and her baby (who thankfully behaved/slept the whole time). I'd never been there before and it was really neat, especially seeing the hundreds of Dala horses. I also played several trivia games, watched Crazy, Stupid Love and tried a bunch of new, fancy beers. I watched a bit of the Oscars but since I haven't really seen any of the movies, I got bored pretty fast. Though I'm excited to look at all the dresses today!

Captain Polkadots

Hair scarf - thrifted

Blouse - thrifted Kenneth Cole Reaction

Cardigan - Old Navy
Necklace - thrifted

Cropped pants - Marni (secondhand from The Garment District in Boston)

Shoes - Rampage

When I found this Kenneth Cole blouse at a thrift store last year, I almost didn't buy it. It's super thin, so it's sheer, which I thought would make it hard to wear. But it's proved to be quite versatile, I love the little pop of graphic polka dots it can add to an outfit. And because it's so thin, it layers awesome. (As always you can click on the photos to go to my flickr if you want the outfit details.)

I had another awesome weekend. I went to a first birthday party (adorable!), watched two movies (Drive and 50/50), went out for sushi and burgers, played Trivial Pursuit, and ventured over to St Paul to see a local band. Not too shabby!

Pretend pants

I never wear leggings. Well not never, just rarely. And I usually just wear them under a dress vs. pretending like they are real pants:

  

But I decided to try the leggings as pants thing today, because these are exceptionally thick leggings, so they feel like pants. And because I always like the look on other people but then forget to try it. I still don't know if I'm a fan of the look on me. Or maybe I'd like it with a much longer sweater, because while I assure you this one covers my butt, that's about it.

Sweater - Sparrow

Shirt - thrifted vintage Surrey

Pants - Gap

Boots - Rockport

You can't see it but I'm also wearing this awesome Star Trek watch:

I found it for $3 at a thrift store a while ago but the battery was dead. I finally got around to ordering a bunch of watch batteries for all the dead ones I've got laying around. What can I say?  I like what I like and I apparently love clocks and watches.

I'm not Veronika (or Betty, for that matter)

Whenever I wear a suede skirt, I think of Veronika from Tick Tock Vintage... probably due to outfits like this and this and this!

Headband - tie from the shirt

Shirt - thrifted Juster Woman

Necklace - thrifted

Skirt - thrifted vintage

Brown tights - ?

Shoes - Michael Kors

I've got the day off tomorrow (it's a teacher development day but since I'm not a teacher I get the day off)! I'm excited to go to some estate sales, talk to a tattoo artist, and then go hang out with my nephew, Henrik. My mom is in town for a few days, pulling grandma babysitting duty because my sister's husband is a pilot and out of town flying for a few days and my sister just went back to work as an interior designer after her maternity leave. I'll also try to leave you another edition of "Story Time" tomorrow, which I've been meaning to do forever. So come back tomorrow to watch me ramble about the time I ran down a mugger and got my purse back!

Middle aged lady swag

 Sweater - thrifted Izod Lacoste

Orange necklace - Kohl's

Yellow "necklace" - Seoul Folk Flea Market

T-shirt - Target

Skirt - thrifted vintage (no tags) 

Tights - ???

Shoes - Linea Paolo

Today's hair adventure... my "mouse hair" (which is what the girls at my previous school used to call it... because they said it made me look like Minnie Mouse? IDK.) I basically just throw my hair up in a pile on top of my head and stab it with bobby pins until none of it is falling down anymore. I've done it once before on the blog, but don't do it very often because I feel like it makes me look younger.

After the monochromatic outfit yesterday, I apparently decided to dress like an exploded box of crayons today. This outfit already prompted the following conversation at work:


"Miss Christine, you the only old, errr, not old... how old are you?"
"Thirty." 
"You the only middle-aged lady I know who dresses with swag... 'cept my momma." 

Um, thanks for the back-handed compliment 13 year old girl. Volunteering at the food shelf last night was awesome. I got to make up boxes of food for people to take home after they went to a soup kitchen. A meal there and a meal to-go is the idea. It was hard trying to put a variety of things in the box, that could still go together as a meal... like if you gave them noodles, you had to find a sauce and a veggie and maybe a fruit or some cereal for the next day, etc. It was fun though and we got enough done to feed over 4,000 people. Yay!

 Yes, I volunteered with a group from a local brewery (and makers of my favorite beer!)

Gimme a "B"

Even though this is just a cardigan, not a letter sweater, it has that vibe to it... so between that and the headband, I feel excessively preppy today! 

Necklace - belonged to my great-gma
Cardigan - thrifted vintage Tarni
T-shirt - Target
Seagull pins - thrifted
Jeans - Gap
Boots - Seychelles

I used to wear this necklace every single day, for years in high school. It belonged to my great grandma, who we all called "Grandma B". For some reason, in middle school, I thought she was really cool and wanted to go visit her all the time with my mom. We would always stop at an apple orchard on the way to her retirement community and buy apple cider donuts to eat with her (I still want to cry like every time I eat one.) When she died, I got to pick a few of her things to keep. This necklace is my favorite! It's five pieces of jade on a tiny chain. I used to call it "the pickle necklace." Now I'm too paranoid I'll lose or break it, so I keep it hung up in my bathroom so I still see it all the time, but only wear it once in a while.

Red-y, Steady, Go

Sweater - thrifted vintage (no tags)
Pin - thrifted
Dress - thrifted D.B.Y.
Tights - Target
Boots - Seychelles

 

Why yes, I am wearing my hair different today... sort of a low side-bun situation.

I am not one for new year's resolutions but I decided I should make one concerning my hair. I've been growing it out for almost three years (I still get it trimmed and layered), so I could do more things with it and wear more fun hats! But I don't. I don't do it. I just throw it up everyday to keep it out of my face, out of my way, and away from all the vomit and lice in my office (I work in the health office of a school, if you're new here.) 

So, let's check in on the hair! Also, watch me age! And go from pale to tan and back again three times!

March and July of 2009:

May and October of 2010: 

March and November of 2011:

So! My goal is to wear my hair in a different way at least once a week (on the blog, I wear my hair down fairly often on the weekends to give it a break from being up and because, hey, no lice or vomit around!) So, look for more braids, hats, fascinators, wearing it down, wearing it straight, who knows! My first new year's resolution in the 30 years of my existence and it's a pretty easy one... I can't fail! Week 1/52 = success!

I even added a tag, called "Adventures in hair" so I can remember all the different ways I've worn it!