Going Local

I won't lie. I wore this outfit yesterday, too.

I was a pretty laid back day at work, and I didn't exactly get dirty, so I figured it wasn't a huge deal to throw it on again, today. It's going to be a laid back Saturday, too. We've got a baby fighting her teeth and an exciting new cold (either inspired by our return to daycare this week or the time we spent last weekend on planes to and from Texas for my brother's wedding). We have lunch plans with friends down at Local Taco, I haven't slept since 3:30 AM...

I have laundry to do...

look, not all bloggers live enviable lives of flitting about aimlessly in large cities buying, I don't know, fresh-cut flowers and caviar or whatever it is they're doing these days.

You know, I don't think I've ever actually eaten caviar.

I'm a terrible Frasier fan.

Easy is as easy does today. Just another variation on The Uniform: cardigan, tee, jeans, shoes.

The cardigan is from Target, of course, as most of my cardigans are. It's the closest to the right kind of mustard-color I'm always looking for in the fall, but which seems impossible to find both lightweight and affordable. Boden had the perfect one last fall, but it was way too heavyweight for South Carolina.

Ah, the travails of being a sweater-lover in the South.

 The jeans are Lands End.

I want to love them.

I want them to be perfect.

They are not perfect.

This saddens me.

 The jeans go from basically being a size too tight just after a wash-and-dry to being almost a size too big after about an hour of wear. They were kind of pricey jeans, so I'm thinking about sending them back, but the color and weight of them is just perfect. They need hemmed, too; hence the cuffs. I don't know. I love Lands End, but I have not been impressed with their jeans just yet. Sigh.

Life is hard.

The bracelet is a recycled leather belt piece I bought from the Downtown Farmers Market last year from a girl running a booth there. This T-shirt is really where the 'Going Local' shows up (um, other than the taco place we're eating later.)

This shirt is for PineBox designs. Ellison Brooks runs it; he's a local Greenville woodworker who makes the coolest Batman and Batgirl cutting board ever (and also built the counter system at one of my favorite local places, the Swamp Rabbit cafe & Grocery). I commissioned one for my brother's wedding and Ellison's wife Stephanie was able to drop it off right at my workplace, which was amazing. The cutting board was this gorgeous dark-toned wood and I was absurdly proud of myself for getting it for Bryan.

I'm probably going to get Jason and I one later this year.

In any case, I picked up one of PineBox's T-shirts while I was at it. All of the proceeds off the T-shirts go to Pendleton Place, a local charity that helps neglected and abused children and teens. I highly suggest you pick one up for yourself - they're supersoft and I am wearing this T-shirt basically all the time right now.

You can see what Ellison and PineBox Designs are up to on etsy, facebook, or instagram. He's a fun follow - I enjoy seeing what he's up to and what he's working on! Plus he's part of a network of some of us northern/northwestern Greenville locals kind of supporting each other... and I am all on supporting local business whenever I can!

(This post in no way sponsored, by the way. I just happen to think Ellison Brooks is a pretty cool dude.)

Outfit Details:
Cardigan: target, long since sold out but you can find similar stuff around... or just wait for fall.
T-shirt: PineBox Designs, here
Jeans: Lands End, here
Shoes: Old Navy, old, but they have them this year too
Bracelet: Farmers Market, don't remember name of vendor
Breast Cancer Pin: My mom is about to start her first round of chemo, so I'm wearing this pin on everything right now. She was supposed to start chemo Thursday, but her veins decided they didn't like that chemo drug and bam! allergic reaction. Because that's my mama. I've decided via the power of anxiety that it's because i wasn't wearing the pin, so I am now.
Red Face, Bizarre Hair: Thanks to steroids I'm taking for The Sinus Infection That Will Not Die.

P.S. I think my next post is going to be a Tomboy Rants about what it means to try and buy jeans as a plus-size woman whose legs are NOT ELEPHANT TRUNKS PEOPLE WHY ARE ALL THE LEGS ON JEANS SO GIGANTIC ARGH. Ahem. That it all.

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.

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!