Work From Home 2: Electric Boogaloo

So, I ended up back working from my house on Friday. My loaner laptop died and it was sort of an undignified death. I ended up at home working on my desktop, which is fine since my new work laptop was coming in the mail anyway, so I was there to take the delivery.

It was kind of a comedy, in its own way. I drove to work, went through Starbucks (they have coconut milk now, so I am... probably gonna become even more of a regular because coconut milk), made it into the office, and went to turn my laptop on and... nothin'.

I tried a few fixes I know for similar problems I've had on other computers. Nothin'. Pulled out my phone and looked up some possible other solutions.

Nothin'.

So I turned around, went home, and logged on to work stuff here.

Now I feel like my nice pants are kind of wasted. Oh well.

They're from Duluth Trading Company, ponte knit, which means they look like dress pants and feel like lounge pants. Duluth is the king of secret pockets every place, so they have a nice little side pocket. They're women's pants, but actually have pockets big enough to store things in, which is a huge issue that women complain constantly about and people who make clothing just ignore.

They are the best pants.

THE BEST.

This sweater is from a company called Bear Creek, and it's a men's sweater. I buy one at Mast General each year around Christmas when they're on mega sale. I'm going to write a whole post on this at some point, but I prefer to buy men's T-shirts and sweaters sometimes because they actually acknowledge that human beings have torsos, which women's clothing often does not.

I love this sweater. It's warm but not too heavy, and the silver goes really well with basically anything I wear.

The tank top is just a cheapie Target tank. I buy tank tops from Target by the truckload, or at least I would if I could afford a truckload of tank tops. They sell them in a million colors and you can either buy the basic tank like this, or the "long and lean" Junior's tanks, which I prefer but often don't like the color choices.

I don't even need to tell you where these socks are from.

The shoes are Skechers, an older style I found on clearance at JCPenney when I was heavily pregnant and needed black shoes that were comfortable to stand on when my whole center of gravity had changed. I like them so much I've kept wearing them since.

One of my goals for this year (I really do need to write a post laying that out, don't I?) is also to get a really good, comfortable pair of basic black flats that are not tennis shoes. These are fine, but they're not exactly good for dressier stuff, are they?

That said: so so so so SO so so comfortable.

The scarf is from Lands End. I love Lands Ends' scarves, although they're a little pricy for what is essentially a rectangular piece of fabric someone spent 5.6 seconds hemming and then sent on its way. I usually wait for them to go on sale, or for a friends-and-family sale, and then snatch up two or three and call it a (happy) day.

This scarf was part of an exchange I did, and I deeply, deeply, deeply love it. Deeply.

Deeply love it.

It's the perfect teal color and I wear it all the time.

The outfit idea here was this outfit from Loft's Lou and Grey line, although the item I got the idea from is long since sold out.. I saw that when browsing one day and thought it looked perfect, and realized I could (kind of) recreate it. It's now become an outfit that is on constant winter rotation.

Outfit Details:
Sweater: Bear Creek, men's sweater, available here
Tank top: Target, similar here
Pants; Duluth Trading, still available here but selling out fast
Socks; SmartWool, Jovian Stripe, here
Shoes: Skechers, JCP, similar here
Scarf: Lands End, sold out but similar ideas here at Target
Hat: Urban Outfitters, here.

Too Dang Cold

So I grew up in Illinois.

In Illinois, it gets cold in the winter. Very, very cold.

When we moved to South Carolina, I was disappointed in the lack of chilly winters, because it really narrowed down the amount of time I was able to wear sweaters. I like sweaters, you see. I like warm and fuzzy knitted things and it's hard to pull off wearing cable-knit in 65 degree Decembers. Don't get me wrong, I still try, but even I acknowledge that I look ridiculous.

I try to embrace ridiculousness in all aspects of my life, fashion included.

In any case, every year I moan and groan about not being able to wear my sweaters enough. This year, South Carolina decided it was tired of hearing that nonsense and if I was going to complain so much, it would just give me what I wanted and see how I felt about that, then.

Well, South Carolina, I am actually super, super happy.

Blissful is how I feel.

Other than the logistics of having to keep the baby warm, I love a very cold day in South Carolina. I love the frigid cold, where it makes more sense to curl up under blankets than to wander outside. Oh, sure, I'll complain when my fingers fall off (I don't wear gloves) but secretly? I'm thrilled.

I'm thrilled because of the sheer fact that these days don't last for long. This isn't Illinois, where it goes on and on and on. This isn't our last year in Illinois specifically, where we lived in a hovel of a duplex with heat that only worked in fits and spurts and I once sent my mother a photo of me, sitting inside my own house, wearing two T-shirts, two sweaters, my winter coat, a hat and two scarves, and thick pajama pants worn over my jeans. Also two pairs of socks and THEN fuzzy slippers..

Again, that was inside the house, with the (baseboard, on an exterior wall under a window) heater running full blast.

So that kind of ruined me on winter for a while, until we moved to this magical green land where really cold days only last for a week or less and then suddenly it's 50 again and I'm running around in a T-shirt getting dirty looks from native southerners who are still wearing parkas.

Still, I especially love these cold days because it means I get to pull out my warmest clothing - stuff I really don't get to wear as much as I would like. Like this waffle-knit hooded top from Duluth Trading Company, which I wore into the office yesterday.

It is just the warmest shirt - it's two layers sewn together really well, so even the sleeves are super warm. The neckline is almost too high, but not quite, and the hood lets you sort of sink back into warmth if you need it.

Duluth Trading Company does what they call "Longtail T's", which are made a few inches longer than the industry standard. This is heaven for long-torsoed people like me, for whom basically all shirts forever are just too short and once they've been through the wash, become indecently so. I already own a metric ton of their elbow-sleeve T-shirts (expect to see those pop up here, um, a lot) and decided a couple of months ago to use a little bit of Christmas money to try out this waffle-knit top, too.

Then I wore it for two days straight after it came in, washed it, and wore it another two days straight over a weekend.

This infinity scarf was a gift from my friend Lauren, and another thing I don't get to wear as often as I would like. It's deeply warm and consists of my two favorite colors and another one that is in my top 5.

Guess which colors are which, I dare you.

I have about a million scarves, so if the weather is cold you can expect to see lots of them as well. I really do love handmade scarves - I have a few that friends have given me and I wear them constantly when it's even remotely appropriate and sometimes, even when it isn't. I have been known to be overheated in the pursuit of showing off new friend-gift scarves.

The hat is from Urban Outfitters, and it is the only thing I've ever bought from there, from the only time I have ever gone in. In January, Jason and I did an overnight trip up to Asheville, which is only about an hour and a half from where we live, if that. One of our friends was able to give us a great hotel room overnight and my in-laws kept the baby, so it was just the two of us, one of the best hotel rooms in Asheville, and Christmas money.

And Chai Pani. Every single one of you who reads this needs to promise me, promise me, that they will eat there if they visit Asheville. You must eat there.

Unfortunately, I did not plan for how cold Asheville was in early January, and ended up with incredibly cold ears walking around as the sun went down. We ducked into Urban Outfitters, which I discovered quickly to be Hipster Heaven and not altogether a place I have much interest in ever visiting again.

What they did have though?

Fuzzy hats. Fuzzy hats are apparently very in with the early-20's hipster crowd now, and that worked for me. This is the warmest hat and I love it and I even tried it on in the store, which readers of my personal blog will know is not something I normally do.

It's long enough to pull down over my ears, and it was the first thing I reached for yesterday morning, before anything else.

And finally, you've already seen these shoes. Get ready to see them very, very often. I'm not much of a shoes-person, and tend to rely on the same five or six pairs all the time forever. Right now it's these brown Privo flats.

And, of course, SmartWool socks.

Um.

You'll see those in basically any outfit post where I'm wearing socks.

I have plans for a couple of regular features - Tomboy Brands/Loves, where I talk about the clothing brands I like most or maybe individual clothing items I like the most. Which would you prefer to see? Budgeting Bloggers will be my other regular feature, although I won't be starting to track that sort of thing until March, which will be when I start giving myself a wardrobe budget again. I'm also going to do the occasional post about Style Bloggers I follow or find interesting. Some of them will probably be bloggers you already know about, hopefully some will not.

If there are any features you're interested in maybe seeing, let me know. I'm just getting this off the ground so if you have any ideas you want to share, now is the time, while I'm still fiddling around with ideas.

Outfit Details:
Waffle-knit hooded top: Duluth Trading Company, here.
Jeans: Old Navy, similar here.
Socks: SmartWool, available here at Duluth Trading Company.
Shoes: Privo by Clarks, some Privo can be found here on Amazon (thanks to my friend Jo for letting me know!)
Scarf: Made by my friend Lauren.
Hat: Urban Outfitters, here.

Work From Home: Iced In

When I left work yesterday afternoon, the ice was already building up. By this morning it looked like my driveway was made of snow - until, of course, you  made the terrible mistake of actually trying to leave. The whole thing was one large sheet of ice, and our front steps alone were a perilous journey.

My boss at my new job had mentioned yesterday that we might need to work from home, and that's what ended up happening. Since I had designated today as a Blog Post Outfit Day, and I'm still desperately trying to ensure no one knows how often I wear pajama pants when in my house, I went ahead and pulled something together.

Here is what I love about L.L. Bean's cable-knit sweaters - they are the most comfortable thing in the entire sweater world. They're thick, heavier-knit with New England winters in mind. I only own this single one, but that's only because in a place where I only wear a sweater like this maybe two or four times per winter I would feel kind of ridiculous with any more than that.

It doesn't mean I won't buy more later, mind you; just that I will have to get over feeling ridiculous first.

Cable-knit sweaters aren't particularly flattering on people like me - with a larger chest and a longer torso, I hit two Fashion Sins right off the bat. The hem hits along one of the widest parts of me, and much of the heavy cable design is focused on one of the other, um, larger parts of me.

I totally don't care.

When home watching training videos, working on assignments, and generally discovering where everything goes from here, I'm going to prioritize warmth first. There is nothing warmer than an L.L. Bean Sweater.

Well, let me rephrase that.

There is nothing warmer than thick SmartWool socks... but the sweater comes in a close second.

Outfit Details:
Sweater: L.L. Bean Coveside sweater, available in a few other colors
Jeans: Old Navy, here
Socks: SmartWool Saturnsphere
Boots: L.L. Bean, here
Turquoise undertank: Walmart or something? I don't know.

Work Outfits: The Uniform

I decided to start things off with what is basically the best example of my usual work outfit; jeans, tee, cardigan. This is my final day at this workplace, so I wanted to be very comfortable (you don't want to be both counting down minutes and also have tight jeans digging into your stomach, right?) but I said in my introductory post that if I wore it on a post day, you were gonna see it, so I kiiiiinda didn't want to start off super lazy right off the bat.

Seems like the wrong mood to set, you know?

Let's keep the yoga pants for an actual weekend day.

...

I'd like to take a moment, if no one minds, and quietly do a celebration dance as I realize this is my last day to work on Saturday. In my entire career history, it has never been a given that I could have Saturday off and for the last three years, it was a given that I wouldn't; any Saturday I managed to finagle was a beg, borrow, or steal situation. So I need this moment to sort of beam good Joining the Weekend World vibes out into the universe.

...

There. That feels better.

Yes, there will be bad bathroom selfies until I get my actual camera set up on a tripod and find a good lighting spot. Look, it's winter! It's cold and dark when I get dressed in the morning and the sun is mostly down by the time I get home! I am seriously not the kind of person who is going to take outfit photos while freezing my fingers off.

The cardigan here is a staple of mine - Target's Boyfriend Cardigan. I've even posted almost this exact same outfit when I was doing style posts over on my personal blog. I have them in about four colors - white, red, this mustard color, and navy. The upside is that they're insanely cheap. The downside is that they're cheap for a reason - the fit and the seams are all wonky, creating lumps where none exist. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have lots of lumps, but they're... really not where the photo would lead you to believe. The buttons are sewn on funny as well, leading them to look like they're pulling even when they're fitting perfectly or, in some cases, a little loose. They fade in the wash spectacularly quickly. They're basically see-through, so when worn over a striped tee-shirt like the one above, you can see the stripes right through the yellow in person.

One of my goals for this coming fall is to upgrade my cardigan collection. I want the same basic colors - red, white, mustard yellow, brick red/pumpkin orange/copper, and navy, but I'd like them to be thicker, better quality, and warmer.

Any brands you turn to for cardigans that fit that bill?

I have black and gray cardigans in this style from Lands End that I wear a lot - Lands End will show up a lot here - but I'd like an option that has this same kind of length as the boyfriend cardigan, and the Lands End cardigans are quite a bit shorter.

(By the way, this is a rant I have coming up, about how everything for women assumes we have the torsoes of small children why is that)

Did I just say cardigan too much?

Has the word lost all meaning?

I wear these shoes all. the. time.

They're Privo brand, which I don't think exists really anymore, a subsidiary of Clarks.  I bought these suckers probably seven or eight years ago. We used to live in southern Illinois and two of our friends lived just over the border in Missouri. One of them ran a shoe store and he sold this Privo brand and I fell in absolute head-over-heels love.

I had black shoes very similar to these as well that I bought during that time, but I finally wore the inside of the sole out completely and had to throw them out. These brown shoes have held together admirably, but you can see the finish starting to wear off on the fronts.

So another goal for this year is to replace my go-to brown flats. I need a darker brown color, something I can wear every day.

One more goal for the next year or so is to invest in more striped shirts, basic workhorses like this one from Loft. I wear this shirt all the time, and it's incredibly easy to dress up or down. I don't like flat black-and-white stripes on myself very much, but softer grays like this always seem to be cute.

I should make a list of these goals so I can keep track of them, huh? Since I need to add - find jeans that fit my legs better to that list as well. I buy pretty cheap jeans, just because in the last year or so my weight has changed a lot depending on what I'm doing. I went on a walking-and-eating-right kick and lost about 20 pounds, then got pregnant and, um, that progress is all gone now. I'm hoping to get back into being healthier this year, which... might lead my jeans size to change once again. So I've been buying Old Navy primarily, whatever's cheap. But I'd like to get into a size I'm a. comfortable staying at, and b. able to buy jeans that are less stretched-like-woah after 20 minutes of wear. Something shouldn't go from comfortable to nearly-falling-down in less than an hour of sitting and standing, you know?

Oh, and the headband is... well, remember one of my rules from my introductory post is "The hair does what it wants". Well, sometimes I'm very stupid and sleep on it instead of taking a shower in the morning like I should. On those days, I wear a headband to keep it in check. If I don't... strange things happen. Strange things indeed.

Cardigan: Target, here. The yellow isn't available, but it tends to come back every fall in some form.
Striped Boatneck Tee: Loft, but currently only available in black/white and gray/purple. Gift from my husband's family.
Jeans: Old Navy, here.
Shoes: Privo by Clarks, similar 'dressy or casual' brown flat here.
Socks: SmartWool. Always.
Necklace: Bought from the gift shop I ran here. Similar here on etsy.
Green Infinity Scarf: Christmas gift from my husband's family.

So this is kind of the introduction after the introduction, so to speak. An idea of what I'm probably wearing if I'm at work that day. This is actually a little more subdued than I normally am - I'm someone who basically loves colors and I do in fact own rainbow striped shoes. So we'll see where things go. I'm going to put together a list of goals, and maybe working on this blog, and looking at myself so honestly, will lead me to work harder on figuring fit and style out in a way to better suit my frame. My jeans are too baggy in the legs, I need better cardigans, and, um, not to sleep on my hair like that.

Welp.

Here we go, kids. Let's figure my clothing out together!

It's Kind of Like Style - An Introduction

There aren't a lot of style bloggers out there who embrace frumpiness. Everyone's competing to be the skinniest, to wear the highest, spike-iest heels, to have on the teeniest pants and cropped sweaters, to wear cardigans in July for 'fall preview' and strappy tank tops in March as they 'gear up for summer'. There are those expertly draped in vintage, all swooshy skirts and perfect sweater-sets, nipped-in waists and 50's prints.

But how many bloggers are there out in the world who embrace the fact that they don't like skirts unless they're wearing bike shorts underneath, for whom men's clothing is a lifesaver in a world of shirts that aren't long enough in the women's section? How many bloggers are there who blatantly stare at women in stiletto heels trying to figure out how they don't all clomp around like horses, who aren't much for skin showing, and have no idea what they'd do with a ruffle if one was presented to them?

I say... not enough.

I've decided to add myself to the list of personal style bloggers out there in the world, but with one caveat; you're not going to see me showing off anything I wouldn't actually wear out in the world, because I'm going to be doing exactly that - showing you exactly what I wear, good and bad, whether it's stylish or not. If a Yoga Pants Day falls on a day I plan to post? Well, get ready to learn all about them yoga pants.

I'm 28 going on 29, married, a new-ish mother to a baby who just turned six months old, and I'm about to start a new job. It seemed as good a time as any to challenge myself to really start watching my outfits, to see what I can do to get myself to work a little harder on being presentable.

I'm still going to be wearing bike shorts under all my skirts.

If you just accept that, we'll all be better off.

Not interested in outfits? Head over to Stress and Stars, my personal blog. There you'll see my actual life, cute photos of the baby, my pets, and any other random bits that come to mind. This space is going to be just for outfits, just to catalog what I'm wearing and to try to challenge myself to be a little more creative and up my game a little as I enter a new profession and start staring down 30, realizing I can't dress like a college student anymore.

A little bit more about me:

- I have been a tomboy my entire life. I was always more interested in playing in mud puddles and climbing trees than I was in wearing skirts or ruffly socks. I'm the third and last kid in my family, which means I spent most my childhood waving my arms around for attention.

- I am a trained artist, although it's become a hobby and not a profession. Thanks, College Degree!

- I have a dog and two cats, so while I'll do my best to lint-roll, at a certain point we just have to accept that I live in the House that Pet Hair Built.

- I live on coffee.

- I'm not particularly rollin' in the dough, so this blog will be as much as exercise in trying to make better use of the clothing I already own as it will be showcasing anything new that comes into my possession. I spend most of my clothing-money on our baby right now (what is it about giving birth that suddenly turns you into someone who can't leave the store without onesies, sippycups, or parenting books?) but I am still hoping this year will be a good year to revamp and work on embracing my tomboy style and discovering a way to, um, actually have style.

- The hair does what it wants. Critique the hair to your heart's content; it won't do you any good. I've tried changing it. It makes its own choices.

I'll start posting outfits beginning on Saturday. Expect a lot of selfies to start off with until I can get the hang of things. Beginning in March, I'll be joining up with Budgeting Bloggers and will be giving out my monthly clothing budget, how I did, what I bought, things like that. Don't expect to see lots of purchases right off the bat. This job shift will mean I will need to invest in a more quality wardrobe, but it also means we'll be able to sock more away in savings and that's what my focus is going to be. 

One thing that's always bothered me about bloggers is that style bloggers often become shopping bloggers- with no discernable personal style, just buying up whatever item or trend is "in", leading all of them to look exactly alike.

While I'm all up for outfit interpretation and taking on trends in your own way, don't expect to me looking exactly like the newest "Wear Now, Wear Later" outfit in InStyle. You can expect to see a lot of men's sweaters here. And probably way too much discussion on why I hate most shirts made for women.

So, hi! Feel free to leave me comments, talk to me about my outfits, give critiques, advice, or just chat about style/fashion related stuff with me here. I do ask you keep off the body-snark; while it's my goal to get myself back into better health this year, I'm not particularly worried about weight loss and will delete any comment about my appearance that I don't like. So nyah.

Basically, don't be a dick. 

As long as you can follow that one rule, we are going to get along just fine.