from okay to fab

So, this morning I put on my black jeans with applique, a striped mens's style shirt, a black camisole, and this fabulous wide black lacy belt. The outfit looked okay (yes, this is another pair of pants that will fit better after I finish the Skinny Shorts challenge!), but not great. I have to go into work tonight, so I switched the jeans out for a lacy black pencil skirt. What a difference! I love it now!

Church Outfit

I like this dress, and this is a much better picture of it than the last time I wore it. I also LOVE these shoes - so cute and retro! And, I'm wearing a necklace that my sister, Erin, made for me.

You can see that my hair still has some waves/body from having it in pincurls the other night... I'm still loving those pincurls!

fit into your skinny shorts - FAIL

Yeah, this week I failed. Oh, well. I'm up half a pound from last week, but that still leaves me down a pound a half from the week before. I had my period this week, okay?! Cut me some slack! I'm back on slimfast now, it'll be okay. If I do (WHEN I do) get down to my college weight (-25 lbs from now) I'm going to chop my hair off into a pixie cut. I want it, look how freaking adorable I am with my hair all pinned up! But, I need to have the pixie body before I have the pixie cut.

I may have had a bottle of wine to drink tonight. You be the judge. But, seriously - I do look super cute with super-short hair, right? My only concern is that that I'm a bit too Rachel Maddow with short hair and glasses - I love her, but I hate being told I look like people.

pink!

Today I paired this black dress with pink fishnet tights, a pink cardigan, and a long necklace with pink, purple, and green beads. I liked this in theory, but I think the pink tights draw too much attention to my weird hugely-muscled calves. My hair still had great body and loose curls from doing pincurls the night before last!

curly curly curly

I did pincurls in my hair yesterday after taking a mid-afternoon shower, leaving them in until this morning and boy did they take! Check it out:




















My outfit today was pretty cool - I realize I'm starting to get into a rut of wearing black pants/skirt and my black shrug together a lot, so today I swapped out the shrug for a black poncho. I like it.

Fit Into Your Skinny Shorts challenge, week 1

Well, for an update... I lost two pounds! However, I'm guessing that this weekend I gained it all back so I'm going to have to be ultra-good all week to have continued improvement. (Too much good food and family time this weekend!)

This is the outfit I wore on Saturday to go out with my family and visit my Grandmother. I was in the mood to wear a long hippie skirt (this is an enwrapture skirt, I love them!) and then I added the top because it matched the purple in the skirt... and there was a very chilly breeze so I added the shrug. Probably the shrug was my least favorite part of the outfit, I think it looked better without - but it was just so darn chilly I couldn't go without! I also wore my wedge sandals again, I think they work better with shorter skirts, which I'll keep in mind for the future. I had washed my hair the night before and french braided it. I loved how this made my hair look when my hair was waist-length, but I'm not liking it as much with my hair the length it is now - I definitely prefer the look I get from sleeping in pincurls!

OMG, I have legs!

I am not a tall, leggy woman by any stretch. I'm 5'4" and am right between wearing petites (often a little too short) and regular pants (always a little too long). I have muscular legs, too... So, of course I've always wanted to have long slim legs. It may never happen for real, but wearing a short skirt and wedge/platform shoes does help give the illusion of it! I love this dress, and while these shoes are not particularly comfortable they do give me a lot of height and visually lengthen my legs so I like them a lot!

what a week!

I've been working on taxes all week and thus have been crazy-stressed and worried. I haven't been able to eat much this week, so I think my first week of the Fit Into Your Skinny Shorts challenge will be pretty successful. I just wish I'd lost weight by hitting the gym instead of the taxes.

I really liked this outfit! Maybe its because I wear black so much, but wearing white was kind of exciting today! I love the crisp white headband and the crisp white shirts and the kicky white sandals... I do wish that I didn't have such a huge melon head, though - I don't wear headbands as often as I'd like to because of it. I feel like it accentuates my giant forehead. But, other than that I liked the whole ensemble! And, my daughter wanted to join in the picture. Since she has a broken arm (the cast is behind me) she's wearing a hand-me-down button up shirt from my son with her cute little skirt.

Church Outfit and shorts that FIT!

This was my church outfit today, a J.Jill skirt (thrifted), a camisole style top (thrifted), my favorite Seychelles shoes (thrifted), and a long necklace that I don't have any idea where I got. I think they all worked together nicely.






















And by switching out the heels for sandals and the skirt for a pair of bermuda shorts, it transitioned nicely for the afternoon. These are Dockers shorts that I got at the thrift store last week. I needed a couple pairs of shorts to get me through till I can fit into all my skinny short again, and I'm alway struggling to find shorts that are modest but stylish. I'm not even crazy modest, but I do prefer to have some shorts that do not require me to shave my bikini line first, you know?! I usually go with mid-thigh length, but I decided to give this length a try... I'm not decided on if I like it or not yet.

Fit into Your Skinny SHORTS challenge

I participating in the Fit Into Your Skinny Pants challenge - but since we're coming up on summer I want to get back into my skinny shorts! Here are the before pics, and they aren't very flattering! It was freezing cold outside this morning, too, as you can probably tell from my body language and expression.

These shorts are from Old Navy and are a size 4. I love them so much I have them in two colors, and I'll be so happy to be wearing them again this summer!

I'm using www.fitday.com to track my calories in and out each day. I'm starting at 147.2 lbs, and I'd like to get back under 130 by June 1st. I'm setting up my exercise, too. I'm going to be really good about doing my HIIT walk/run with my dog at least 4-5 mornings a week, do my hardcore weightlifting 2-3 times a week, and try to do 3-4 other workouts: cycling, hiking, aerobics, yoga, etc.

Crazy!

My daughter sometimes comes up with wonderful crazy outfits - and today was an awesome one! She has a hand-me-down hawaiian shirt (she needs button up shirts right now to go over her cast), purple shorts, and a leotard skirt with sparkly butterflies on it. She picked it all out herself and of course I took her to church in it tonight - she got lots of compliments on the skirt!

Again, like it

Again, I like this, but I'm not IN LOVE with it by any means. This is one of my favorite tops - its from Old Navy. The skirt was thrifted and its... okay. I'm not sure if I think its not flattering or I just don't like the size I'm at right now. I rarely wear more than one necklace, but I went with two that both have hematite in them and liked the way it looked - especially with a black and gray outfit. You can see the second-day pincurl leftovers - lovely soft waves that give my hair lots of body!

My hair will look a bit different from now on - I've gone back to henna-ing it as of today. I did a henna color treatment on it and now its got very warm tones with red highlights in the sun. I love it! (I did it after the picture was taken, you'll hopefully be able to see a difference next time I post.)

Like it

I liked this outfit, I really like the red/black/white combo. The heels are super sexy, but the dress is modest enough that it balances out for work. I know its a little kitchy to have the red belt, shoes, necklace, and trim on the purse... but I still like it! To me, this looks very retro. The dress is from Fashion Bug (I replaced the belt, it was black), I made the purse, and the shoes were thrifted. Oh, and my sunglasses are prescription glasses - I LOVE having them!

OMG - Pincurls!

So, I totally, totally am in love with pincurls right now. I watched a youtube tutorial on how to do them last night and tried it out - with great results! First of all, I look freaking adorable with pincurls in! Last night I barely dampened my hair, put on a scarf, slept in them, went for a run in them this morning, then took them out. The curls loosened quite a bit during the day but were still looking great at about 7pm when my husband took picture of my outfit. Tonight I washed my hair and put them in when my hair was still damp, so I'm expecting an even better outcome tomorrow. I figure that the curls will probably last at least 2 days, my hair holds curl really, really well. It only takes me about 15 minutes to do pincurls all over my hair, too! I've been in a total hair funk the last few weeks, so this is just what I needed. One of my favorite things so far about the pincurl look is that the curls look really, really natural because there's slight variations in all of them. Most curlers give such a uniform look that its obviously artificial curls.

On to my outfit for today... I just stayed home and did housework today, so I didn't really dress up - but this was the first time I paired this tank with this skirt and it matched beautifully. I'm usually not one for pairing dark blue and black, but I think this works. I'm also not one to let my bra straps show, but it worked fine in this outfit, too, I think. Anyway, this outfit was comfy and perfect for doing light yardwork and housework today. And, of course, my hair looked fabulous!!

Happy Easter!

So, I haven't posted much because my daughter broke her arm last week. I've been alternately stressed, sad, and sleep-deprived since then. She's doing much better now, and I even took apart the plain blue sling they gave her and made her a pretty sling to match her green cast:


The kids' Easter outfits were purchased pre-break, so I was happy the dress still worked - it slid over the cast fine!

My outfit was not very exciting. I found this dress at a thrift store a few weeks ago, and I altered the white jacket - it used to fall strait and be boring, so I added the runching.