Fin.

I've been meaning to write this for months, but the more time that went by, the less motivated I was to actually do it. It just seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to say...


I think I'm done blogging. 

I had a great time here for years. And I needed it. When I started this blog, I was working with juvenile delinquents and I hated it. I had a boyfriend of three years and I hated it. I dumped him and he turned violent and I had to stop seeing a lot of my "friends" in order to get away from the situation permanently. Blogging was a fun escape that helped me when I felt unmoored. During my 5+ years of writing here and photographing myself, I found a job I look forward to doing every day and the love of my life, Nate. We're trying to start a family and have been painstakingly restoring our 1941 home.

I started focusing on other things (like our neverending battle with 1960s wallpaper) and suddenly months had gone by without blogging. There are times I miss it, but mostly I don't. Blogging has become this other... thing. A thing about affiliate links and sponsorships and all I wanted was someone to appreciate my wacky vintage dress. I can't say for 100% certain that I'm gone forever. I loved having a record of my life here since I previously never had the discipline to write in a journal or keep track of much. But for now, I'm happy away from this space. 

I still wear clothes (and believe me some of them are as weird as ever) but it's been nice not to focus on it as much. I've been wearing more flats. And more things that I can get paint on. And it's been great. 

If you want to check up on me and see too many photos of our dog and our home projects, you can follow me on instagram here (I finally had to get a smart phone when my golden oldie stopped working.) Thank you all for your kind comments over the years, they really did get me through a rough period in my life and for that I will always love the blogging community.

Psst, I can't post without some photos so here's a few shots of our renovations:

The dining room before we bought the house... my dad said "looks like all you're missing is the casket"... it did give off a funeral home vibe.

What we found under that terrible carpet (well, after a lot of scraping, washing, and waxing)! Look at the inlayed wood border! 

The living room had the same blue carpet (as did the stairs and hallways upstairs)... here's what we found under that carpet:

And how it looks now: 

We juuuuuuust finished ripping down the wallpaper out of our 23x13 foot living room and painted it "Toy Tank Green" - I'm so thrilled but don't have any other shots of the living room put together yet.

Our retro kitchen (the stove, cupboards, countertops, and tiled wall were original to the home so we're leaving them!) We painted the walls black and still need to replace the vinyl floors, but so far I love it!

Also, Marla Hooch Olson would like to say hello:

And I'm about six months late on this:

Otherwise, here's a few highlights:

Seeing THE REPLACEMENTS, Wayne's World Halloween (Garth & Stacy aka Psycho Hose Beast)

A very cold Vikings game, the MN Twins home opener:

Fin. Probably?

Black on black

On Friday each grade at my school was assigned a color to wear for Spirit Week. I chose to dress in black, like the 3rd graders (both because it's easy and because the 3rd graders this year are the biggest bunch of hypochondriacs I've ever met so I feel like I'm a part of their class.)

Vest - thrifted Express

T-shirt - Threadless

Cropped pants - thrifted NY & Co.

Wedges - Ralph Lauren

Friday night Nate and I made pizza from scratch then went and watched hockey and had a few beers with a friend. Saturday Nate had to work at the photo booth all day and I had to waitress in the evening. I started stenciling our little entryway (we painted it black a few weeks ago and I cut out the rose stencil myself.) So far so good!

I'll show you it again once it's finished (if I ever have a night off to work on it again!)

Sunday I had to waitress the Mother's Day brunch all day, then called my mom, then Nate and I sat by the pool and played cards for a while since it was not raining for once.

Monday... more black.

Glasses - thrifted vintage American Optical (lenses replaced)

Shirt - thrifted Target sample

Skirt - Future Paradise

Wedges - Ralph Lauren

My hazy lung

Sorry dudes, I've got walking pneumonia. Remember when I was sick 13 days ago? Well I never really got better and it turned worse all of a sudden. No biggie, at least it's only in my right lung this time, so old lefty is keeping me oxygenated. As awesome as it would be to put up a picture of me in my PJs, I'm not gonna, so here is the dapper gent who lives on my fireplace (along with my vintage Girl Scout issued binoculars.) I should be back Wednesday (thank you antibiotics!). In the mean time I'm spending a few days in bed, wincing every time I breathe. It's phenomenal. Toodles!

Chuck it

After posting that picture of Aunt Lily from Pushing Daisies yesterday, I decided to do a bit of a "lonely tourist Charlotte Charles", "Dead Girl", "Chuck" inspired outfit...

Since she usually wears only one or two colors at a time... I went for red. Because it is fall and I never wear red.

Headband - ? Target?
Shirt - vintage via eBay
Skirt - thrifted Ann Taylor Loft
Shoes - Tracy Reese

Neckline detail, skirt detail, and shoe shot:

While digging around for a red top to wear with this red skirt, I got annoyed with the state of my sweaters and cardigans and very dramatically yanked them all down. Four hours later, my room was spectacularly organized (well, the big long closet is) and now I have this to come home to:

The other side has all the blacks, whites, greys, and browns, but those pictures wouldn't be as fun! I'm a realist. I know I will slowly destroy it's glory and it will return to it's natural state of chaos and anarchy soon... but for now, it makes me excited to dress in layers and even a little okay with the next 7 months of darkness and snow. Guh, this headband is killing me. It's squeezing all the juice out of my brain meat.

Duck, Duck, Cute!

Monday... aka the first day summer school... aka the start of my "grueling" four hour days!

I think if I had to pick one "go-to" dress, this would be it! It just makes me feel good on days I can't deal with the closet monster... although this dress did get me in trouble one day. I was in a very backwoods antique store in Wisconsin with the boy when a huge bug flew at me! I started freaking out when it flew down my dress! I grabbed the zipper and just yanked! So there I was, dress unzipped below my belly button and excitedly brushing at my collarbone and screaming! I flicked the bug off and looked up to see the old half-toothless owner and another male shopper just staring at me in the aisle. Yeah, time to zip up and go.

Cardigan - thrifted

Dress - thrifted

Shoes - Unisa

Tuesday...

Another easy "go-to" dress!

Dress - vintage via www.santokivintage.etsy.com

Bangles - thrifted

Shoes - thrifted Nine West

In other exciting news... I opened a new etsy shop! The Roof is on Fire - Vintage Homegoods and Hand-screened Art! My poor little condo is just too stuffed with amazing little cute things, so it's time to let a few of them find new homes! Plus I'm starting a line of hand screenprinted art! So far I just have one listed, but will add more once I get more canvas! Plus I can do custom colors to match your decor! Yay for cute, unique, pretty, rad, cheap, awesome, fun home things!

Fine and Dandy - a very special shorts suit

Yesterday, on The Cohabitating Closet I was inspired by an outfit featuring an exceptionally rad shorts suit (and the photos of Angus Young just cemented the idea in my brain!) She said she was inspired by E. from Academichic who was discussing shorts suits. So, it's like a game of telephone, trickling down the internet! Want to play? Go put on a blazer and shorts! For my interpretation I put on a pretty voluminous silk top with silk roses at the neckline to make it a bit more feminine. I'm totally going to do this again though, and really play up the schoolboy aspect. I love the look!

 Blazer - thrifted little boys tux jacket from a rental place

Shirt - Cynthia Rowley (which I should have taken a detail shot of, guh...)

Shorts - thrifted The Limited

Bangles - all thrifted

Shoes - Jessica Simpson

A few days ago, reader Emily asked for a few shots of the photos going up my stairs. They were kinda hard to get pictures of, just because of the stairway, but here you go!

In college I took a photography class. No, not a digital photography class. A film and noxious chemicals photography class, and this was my final project. It is 25 photographs of circles, cut down into squares and mounted in black. It was originally displayed in the gallery so the images were arranged in a 5 x 5 square. The photos are of: the end of a railing with the anarchy symbol graffitied on, a fisheye mirror, a waffle iron, an ashtray full of cigarettes, a clothes dryer, a garbage can bottom, a basement grate, a cat's eye from a bar's logo, the head portion of a bike rack shaped like a person, a sign written in French telling you not to park blocking the door, a piece of wood patching a hole on an old door, a stripped mattress spring, a part of a gas line, the center of a sunflower, the speaker end of an old payphone, a round boombox, a bowl of cheerios, a decorative tin plate, a drainpipe full of dead leaves, a sink drain, a burner on a stove, the fan on a lawnmower, a record, and the top of a lantern.

I totally wish I had access to a dark room, developing photos is so rad.

an uncharacteristically black outfit and a million pictures of one side of my living room

I'm exhausted so let's make this quick... I had a few bad and realistic dreams last night that creeped me out and I just kept waking up all night being a scaredy spaz... then all day I just had this weird feeling and I had to remember it was just the dream lingering and nothing bad really happened. Annoying.

Glasses - thrifted vintage American Optical, lenses replaced

T-shirt - Target

Dress - Free People

Shoes - Target

On the plus side, I finally finished my living room wall. It used to have the b & w pictures from the stairs on it, then I put them on the stairs like 1.5 years ago and just randomly stuck up art on the living room wall as I got it. So last weekend I spent a lot of time laying it out and doing calculations so it would look properly and etc... so here it is!

First here's some art close-ups... a lot of them are from 20x200, the big posters are educational posters from the '60s that a teacher at my school gave me, the b&w photos in the upper left were taken by me when I volunteered in a Dominican orphanage, the little sideburns post-it is an original by Marc Johns (my fave!), the bell was found in the basement of a house my friend was renting and her landlord told me I could have it, I drew the seahorse.

This metal rolling table is from a thrift store and I love it! I added the thrifted tray across the bars on the bottom for some additional space. The globe was also thrifted and was made in 1964 for blind people, you can feel all the lines of latitude and longitude and all the geographical features are raised. Neato!

Chess table is from Target, the old typewriter is from a thrift store and it works! However, for now I'm using it as an elaborate picture frame for a photo of me signing Megan and John's marriage certificate in Jamaica.

Ikea chair (my mom bought me two when I bought my condo like 5 years ago), I recovered the bottom cushion with upholstery fabric and added a different pillow than the plain white one that came on it.  The ram rug is from a garage sale, the girl was from Moracco and bought the rug in Tunisia, it cost me $1. Score!

While I'm at it, here is the corner of the fireplace, right next to the chair.  The porcelain cow head is thrifted, the antlers were a gift from the math teacher at my last job (he'd killed the deer himself when he was a little boy), the alarm was salvaged from an old elementary school, the clock I made out of a china plate in 6th grade, the yellow shelves are from an antique shop with my mom, the baseball is signed by Justin Morneau, the horse painting was thirfted, blah blah blah

Am I the only one who has so many problems photographing rooms... this all makes sense when you see it for real but it's so hard to capture in a logical way on camera...

kitchen wall and soooo many photos of me on the stairs

My day off has been awesome! Don't have an outfit photo today, because I changed like 30 times - I took 146 photos of myself (eep!) "modeling" stuff for my etsy... which took forever! Then ran 5 miles, then went to my first physical therapy session for my crazy ulnar nerve, which was better than I thought. I just made the best garlic basil mashed potatoes for dinner and now I'm going to go hang with the boy.

Last night, the kitchen fixing continued... I've had these photos just randomly stabbed up on my kitchen wall since I moved in, but have been wanting to do something "real" forever. So it went from this:

(two of my best friends own a traveling photo booth company, thus all the photo strips)

To this:

The Plymouth flag is from an antique shop, with my mom, I was going to sell it, but I just like it! The random framed $20 is from when I first started my t-shirt line, FutureLint and was photographing my friends wearing the shirts in the local sculpture garden. This girl came up and LOVED them and demanded I sell her two, right off my friend's backs... so I took one of the $20 and framed it, so I remember to believe in my silly little shirts. (corny, I know, and one day I'll probably get desperate and take that $20 and spend it, but so far it's been 3 years and it's still in the frame!)

All the crap in the middle is from thrift stores.

The sun on the right is from a thrift store in Hawaii when I was 18. Yes, I dragged my mom to a thrift store in Hawaii ten years ago, and found a cool old coconut sun! The wire was a sculpture one of my students made at my former job (where I worked with all the kids who got in fights and got kicked out of class and had in-school suspension.) He was so proud of his wire sculpture of himself, and then he got in a fight and smashed the sculpture in my office. I tried to get him to keep it but he wouldn't. I kept it as a reminder to think things over before letting your emotions do things you will regret. The three plaques in the middle are French awards for bird shows and dog shows.

Since it took so long to take all the photos, I'll be actually listing the stuff for my etsy tomorrow or Sunday.   Here's just some of the stuff:

Have a great weekend kids!