Catch-up

The past two evenings have been fuller than I was originally anticipating and tomorrow evening is already full with fun plans (yay! Pathfinder!). Which means I need to both finish the secret project AND write a blog post AND finish baking the brownies for a co-workers goodbye party tomorrow. So let’s play a little catch-up!

Monday, two of my co-workers and I got the brilliant idea that we should go boot shopping at DSW after work. Which meant I got to spend the afternoon talking about going to the mall and making lots of high school jokes. I meant to go shopping for winter friendly work friendly comfortable stylish shoes. But instead I found these two pairs on the clearance rack. The one on the right is a Tom knock-off by a brand called Cloud. It has a felt wool dark mossy green upper with a nice cushy footbed. I wore them all today and liked them quite a lot. The pair on the left are Dr. Scholls and represent my 3rd attempt to find comfortable casual/yet dressy brown flats. And it is still a bit early, but I think we may have a winner. With a comfortable foot bed with some actual support and a simple, yet elegant design, I am excited to give these a go.

So that was last night’s adventure. Tonight after work, I took advantage of some free movie passes that my work place mysteriously got in the mail and went to see Delivery Man with Vince Vaughn. While I think it helped that I went in with very low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of being an over the top raunchy comedy, Vaughn played more of a straight man and honestly seemed to wrestle with some real issues regarding being and adult and becoming a father. If it ends up on Netflix I think I can honestly recommend it for a good evening’s entertainment. Plus Robin from How I Met Your Mother and Andy from Parks and Rec are in it, which is two strikes in its favor.

Also in looking up that trailer, I discovered that this movie is apparently an almost frame for frame remake of a french movie called Starbuck. Seriously every seen in that trailer is identical to the movie I just saw. Hollywood is weird….

Day 7 – What I wore

It is late and I just got back from a marvelous evening of book club with the ladies, so I will keep this brief.  I only took one picture today and it was of my outfit. So here you go:

This outfit was fun because it incorporated several of my favorite things including this cardigan, my boots and these striped tights. Plus it was fun to try belting on the inner layer as opposed to outside which is what I do more frequently. Also how fun is it that you get to see how messy my room looks right now!…..sigh

Day 3 – What I wore today

Recently Jess wrote about using the Boden catalog as inspiration for different ways to pair clothing she already owned (instead of the intended use of getting people to buy MORE THINGS!). I liked her post so much, that I signed up to receive my very own catalog and was inspired last night to look through and found this outfit that I really liked.

From this outfit I liked the black shirt paired with the straight simple mossy green cardigan and also the attention grabbing round pendant paired with basic jeans. For my interpretation I didn’t have the basic black option, so I went with striped instead.  Then because I wanted to belt at the waist instead of the hips, I choose a chunkier black belt that had a larger attention grabbing buckle. Also I decided to make it a little more work-appropriate (which is funny cause I can get away with complete casual if I want too, it is the Northwest after all 🙂 )

At the end of the day, this was a great basic outfit for work that made good use of my green cardigan which I have found myself under-utilizing and was also quite comfortable.

Day 23 – Outfits

Here are three outfits I wore last week, as always click through to Flickr if you want the details and as a bonus, check out Alex’s new Viking look! 🙂

Last Wednesday

Last Saturday

Last Sunday (taken in my new apartment!)

Alex gets in touch with his Norwegian roots!

Day 17 – Guest Post Thursday

Today’s guest post is a pretty awesome one cause I get to introduce my friend Ruth.  While both of us moved away from Chicago this fall, we got to know each other during our 5 years of shared location, similar outlooks to handling social awkwardness, a mutual interest in exploring fashion in cheap thrifted ways, enjoyment of movies, coffee and occasionally a good bout of gossip {or as we like to call it, discussing community bonds}.

Hello Abby’s friends!

After years of casually discussing style with Abby and admiring her wardrobe and fashion sense, I’m excited and flattered that she asked if I’d be willing to write an outfit post.

Outfit: Thrifted cardigan, jeans, shoes; Shirt from sister, scarf old

I moved from Chicago a few months ago and in the midst of figuring out life in a new place with new activities (Grad school! Internship! Job!) I have discovered that the change in roles and social settings has resulted in reconfiguring how I wear clothes. I find myself often wearing unexpected or new outfits as I figure out who I am and where I fit now. This would be one of them. I wore this primary colored, striped outfit to class a few weeks ago and decided it’s the perfect outfit to wear while out with visiting friends. I love stripes in any form, especially when I can wear them with red loafers! An added plus: all the colors make the autumn and impending winter a little more bearable.

Day 15 – Outfit Tuesday

If you have been following my set posts, I am actually switching today’s topic with tomorrow.  Which, in all honesty, is mainly due to my recent re-discovery of the computer game Civilization.  Of course the last time I played it was back in high school and it was version 2 (and maybe 3 by the end of my obsession?) and I was fighting with my brothers for the computer time.  Now it is Civ 5 and I get to have super polite (Alex is way to nice to fight) conversations with my boyfriend to use his computer to play it.  Ah, the joy that comes from playing a computer game for 3-5 hours in a row!  I have to say I like getting to feel this nerdy again.

But yes, I did actually wear some clothes this past week and I have two outfits for you.  The first one I wore to church on Sunday and the dress (while you can’t see it super clearly) is a great example of why it is a good idea to go shopping with friends.  I would never have picked this dress off the rack, but Jess’s sharp eye saw its potential and I have loved it ever since.  Plus I always like finding a way to wear this cardigan because it is both snuggly warm and super comfortable.

My second outfit I wore today to work and it was inspired by the super awesome guest post written by my friend Ruth that you will all get to read on Thursday.  I recently purchased some leggings and tights from the online company We Love Colors and while I haven’t been too happy with a few of the tights (and probably will return them) I have really loved the leggings I got and this pair of tights.  Stripes are fun.

Day 9 – Outfits

Here is what I wore to work yesterday.  I wanted to look a tad more professional considering I had 4 meetings yesterday (of course 3 of those were webinars, but still).  The quick eyed of you may notice how this is my second time wearing that striped shirt in a week or so, which I think means my personal stylist wins again (that means you Jess!).

As always click through to Flickr if you care to note the details of the outfit (although big hint here, most of it came from a thrift store)

And as a special treat for you, because I have no shame, here is a video of my posing in front of mirror for 18 seconds (and yes, of course I listen to NPR in the morning, don’t you?).

Day 2: Outfits (or how I wear clothes most of the time)

Sunday

I wore this for a day of coffeeshops and reading.  Fortunately I was very productive with my Sunday and finally got the video of the Wilderness Wind 25th Anniversary Dinner completed, but as luck (and our rather shoddy internet) would have it I haven’t been able to get it uploaded to YouTube yet.  But I have to say I am decently pleased with what an iPod Touch and around 4 hours of editing can come up with.

Monday

I wore this on Monday to work, and as you can see it makes a pretty unconvincing costume. But seeing as I didn’t really dress up for my actual official Halloween party, this should come as little surprise. I had, of course, all the best intentions and unfortunately little of the time and energy part. Also it is good to note that due to the extreme ease it gives me, expect that most of these outfit pictures will be with the crappy resolution of my iPod Touch camera and not my fancy camera. As always, click through to Flickr if you want to see the details of each outfit.

So……(drumroll)……update on Job/Future location/Life in general!

For some reason, this draft (just the title) have been sitting here empty for close to a week.  I think having big news is sometimes a bit of a paralyzing force for me.  Like I have realized before, change is incredibly enticing for me, but the transitions needed to actually make them happen, often exhaust me.  But on to the good news…….I got offered an Americorp (VISTA program) in Seattle and I accepted it!!!!!  I will give more details of the position later, but I will say it takes me further into the tech/Information Science of my MLIS than I had anticipated back in January (which I find to be super exciting).  So as of mid-August I will be living and working in the fair (if slightly cloudy) city of Seattle.  I will be filling the recently emptied slot at Hedgehog house, home to both awesome friend David, boyfriend Alex, and two other equally lovely/hilarious housemates (who I shall not name because I don’t know wether to call them by their actual names or Katie’s clever pseudonyms).  Now my life is consumed by to-do lists, packing lists, empty boxes, storage containers, shredded old files, papers in need of recycling and all the huge spectrum of emotions that come from such a big life change.  Obviously the solution all of this lies in the following photo:

While I may not have my life entirely in order (yet!), I do finally have the summer haircut I have been hankering after for almost a year.  Seattle, here I come!

An update and some random/happy thoughts

Well earlier this week I finally got the news that I didn’t get the job. 😦  Obviously that isn’t the happy thought, but actually it really isn’t the end of the world.  I knew going into it that my chances of getting the job were low (not due to any lack of awesomeness on my part, but mainly due to the huge number of equally qualified folks applying to all the same jobs as me) and I was really glad to get the chance to get two more interview practice sessions in.  Sure, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but at the same time I never really thought I would actually get this job in the first place.  However the one thing that I have found to be a bit of a downer is that it is looking pretty likely that whatever happens next fall, I won’t be working at a school library.

But on to happier thoughts:

• Today is Friday! Bringing my countdown to summer down to a measly 7 days!  And while I knew that was coming up, I had managed to kind of forget all the awesome things that brings with it – sleeping in, unstructured days, beach time, lazy time, craft time, sitting on the porch swing sipping iced tea time, movie matinee times, etc.
• Summer also means a chance to really tackle my out of control to-read list.  I kind of have this half-way serious goal to read as many books this year as I did last, which might be quite hard unless I read about 10-15 picture books like I did for my children’s lit class last spring.  However my alternate goal is to just equal the same number of pages as I read last year and on that account I am doing okay, but a little behind.  But first on my perfect summer read list is Game of Thrones, which I keep hearing endlessly good things about and it has been way too long since I have read a really long involved fantasy series.  Plus this way when the first season of the TV show comes out on DVD I will be prepared.
• Last night while I was hanging out with Jess and Becca, while the later packed for her upcoming trip to India, I did some mental calculations and discovered that I own 17 cardigans (of which the majority are thrifted)!  I guess this is more a hilarious thought than a happy one, but I just find it so amusing.  Especially when you consider that a) 5 years ago I am pretty sure I owned maybe 1-2 cardigans, tops and b) I actually wear all of these pretty regularly c) could I be a more stereotypical librarian?.  In fact I think this collection would be worthy of its own unique post.   But for brief preview, here are 7 of them that have managed to already photograph: