Sunday Night: Boot Edition

On Friday afternoon, I went to pull out the tan riding boots I had worn all of last Fall/Winter/Spring, only to discover that something had managed to drip through both boots and caused a big stain.  Guess I should have reapplied that waterproofing spray!

In a state of delirium and grief, I passed DSW (err, saw DSW was only a block past the other errands I was running) and bought these babies.  And subsequently wore them every day this weekend.  Guess I found my new favorites!

Bandolino Clotida Two-Tone Riding Boot

That is all.  Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Mini Breakfast Sandwich

I'll be working from home for the next week because of some construction at my office.  I'm calling it Pajama Week.  Instead of getting up and commuting into the office this morning, I got to have a leisurely breakfast instead!  I decided to make myself a breakfast sandwich inspired by Panera's Mediterranean Egg White sandwich.  Super quick, super easy, and really delicious!

You could make this on a full size bagel instead, but that's way too much food for me!

Ingredients:

1 egg

Handful of spinach

Slice of tomato

1 TB olive oil

1 tsp. pesto (pre-make and store in the freezer)

2 slices mozzarella cheese

1 mini bagel

Put mini bagel into the toaster while you heat up a dollup of olive oil in a small skillet.  Add tomato and spinach and cook over medium heat until spinach turns dark green and tomato starts to soften and give off its juices.  Remove tomato and spinach from pan.  Crack egg into pan and fry or scramble, whatever you prefer.  Spread pesto over one side of bagel, layering spinach, tomato, egg, and cheese on top.  Pop creation into the toaster oven and toast on low until cheese melts.  Enjoy! 

Ensemble: Brights

So this outfit is actually from a while ago (according to the info bar, only August, but come on, it feels like a long time ago!) when it was still, you know, Summer.  Was it obnoxious to mix brights with prints with statement accessories? Never!

But was it obnoxious to also have hot pink toes, turquoise shoes, and a messy room?  Probably.

Skirt & Shirt - Loft, Bag - Express, Necklace - Ebay, Watch - NY&Co, Sandals - Payless, Belt - Who knows!

The first step is admitting you have a problem...

Today my roommate stacked up all of my magazines on the coffee table so she could do some sort of crazy exercise routine that involves a lot of leaping.

Yes, I read all of them. Cover to cover. I maaaaaay have a problem.

Final California

The last of my pics, from San Diego and Coronado

Their Way / My Way: Easy Updo

This past weekend I had another wedding to attend, so I thought I would try out the Twisted Updo from Kate at The Small Things Blog.  Kate was one of the first bloggers I ever followed, and I've been wanting to try out this style for a couple of months now.  As Kate pointed out in her post, this actually is a super easy style as long as you break it down into steps.

Step one is to lightly curl your hair.  Don't worry about locking in the curls like I did here, since you mostly just want volume and curled ends that won't stick straight out of the style.  Then section out your hair so that there are two front sections, from the top of your head to your ears, the crown, and the back of your hair.

Step two is to lightly tease hair at the crown, and then pin that hair into a small poof on the back of your head. Use two bobby pins crossed over one another to lock it in.

Step three is to lightly tease the bottom section of your hair and then pin up random sections.  Kate just pinned each piece once, leaving the ends out and loose.  I've always had some struggles with leaving my hair "undone" - my braids are always tight, my ponytails slicked back - so  I wanted a little more structure (and hold, for all of the kicking up my heels and whatnot).  I did the original lifting and pinning that she did, but then pinned most of the ends into the style as well.

The final step is to take the two front pieces and lightly twist them, and then pin them over the style.  Finish with a lot of hair spray.

Let me tell you, I got a lot of compliments on this hair (mostly from elderly attendees, who thought I looked "like Adele, but prettier").  People were surprised to hear that I had done it myself.  It took less than 10 minutes (minus the curling part) and held all night!

Funny story, this wedding was actually in the same location as the one I went to two weeks ago, so I thought I'd take the same picture in the same mirror in the bathroom.

It was a little chilly on Saturday, had to break out a coat!  And yes, I decided to go with the white patterned dress.  

Oh and a final sidebar: they used frames with childhood photos of the bride and groom for the table numbers.  So cute!

Sweater Weather

I got home from California on Friday and found that it had turned into Fall while I was away!  I was really excited to get dressed yesterday... until I went outside to run some errands (ahem... go shopping) and realized it was a lot colder than I thought.

My room was a little messy from unpacking, so I took this in my roommate's mirror.  I mean, no way Clair, I never use the mirror in your room.

Sweater - Old Navy, Tank - ?? (this is from high school), Jeans - Gap, Necklace - New York and Co, Belt - H&M, Comfiest Flats Ever - Payless

More California!

Huntington Beach, Angels game, drive through Orange County

Just a few pictures...

The boyfriend on Rodeo Drive: "Oh it's pronounced like Free Willy. The owners got a lot of inspiration from the movie."

Another Travelling Song

Hey everyone, I'm off to California for a week, and as soon as I get back it's time for another wedding.  But no need to fret, thanks to my handy phone, I'll be posting photos along the way.  And, when I get back, I have some fun Halloween posts coming your way!

California is the most powerful state in the nation.

Oh My, Kirna Zabete for Target!

I stumbled into Target today during my lunch break.  Always a mistake because I end up buying things I never knew I needed.  But today I really wanted everything because they just released their Kirna Zabete line of clothes and accessories.  I almost bought the whole line.  Here are a few of my favorites:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Seeing this, I appear to have an addiction to black...

Jewelry Dish

I'm obsessed with this cute little dish I got from the dollar section at Michael's - perfect for displaying some of my favorite earrings!

The Blogger's Dilemma

I bought this dress at the end of spring, thinking I would get plenty of use out of it during the summer.  Wrong.  It still has the tags on it.  I put it on a lot, but then decide it isn't quite right for whatever the occasion is.

Now the question is, is it appropriate to wear to a wedding?  I've seen several girls this summer (including a mother of the groom?!) wearing white patterned dresses to weddings.  What do you think, so good or no good?  Would you ever wear a white patterned dress to a wedding?

Dress - Kohls (Elle), Shoes - Calvin Klein 

Wedding Weekend Day 4: The Big Day

Sunday was finally the big day.  We stayed at The James in downtown Chicago, and let me tell you, we had a very odd room.  For example, instead of a door to the bathroom, there was a sliding panel with a circular, frosted glass window in the center.  Also, this reading nook in a dark corner of the room:

I knew it would be a pretty fancy wedding, so I went super fancy:

Dress - Ralph Lauren, Shoes - Calvin Klein, Bag - Michael Kors, Jewelry - gifts

People kept asking me if I had gotten my hair done, but it was actually a really simple updo I did myself.  I curled my hair, teased the crown a little, and then pulled it into a low pony, leaving small sections out on either side of my face.  I then wrapped each piece I left out around the ponytail, crossing one over the other, and secured with bobby pins.  This was a less than 5-min hairstyle (once my hair was already curled).

Was it obnoxious that I matched my lip color to my nails?  Probably.  Did I care?  Absolutely not.

Me with the best man ;)

Overall it was a great but exhausting weekend!  Let me tell you, I had a looooot of laundry to do last week ;) Now I'm starting to get excited for my trip to California next week, and mentally planning all of my outfits.  How early is too early to start packing?

Wedding Weekend Day 3: Sailing & Rehearsing

So day three meant sailing on Lake Michigan while Hurricane Issac blew through.  Someone (ahem) got a little seasick and had to spend the whole trip laying down, so I didn't manage to get any outfit pics.  I think everyone else had fun, except for the groom who got knocked down along with me.  Perhaps I should invest in some Dramamine next time...

After that I got a little recovery time while everyone else rehearsed, and then went to the rehearsal dinner.  I couldn't tell how dressy the dinner was going to be so I went with flats, but all of the other girls wore heels.  I was the one laughing later that night while the groom led us all over downtown trying to find a bar.

Dress - Bar III, shoes - Payless, bracelet - Tiffany's

I'm loving the peplum trend, super flattering, and allow you to eat a lot without any food babies ;)

On a sidebar, I like how my room gets progressively messier in each picture from the weekend.  My mom would be so proud.  The bag with the pink is for my sister's bachelorette party tonight!! 

Wedding Weekend Day 2: Cubs & Cocktails

Day 2 of the weekend was a Cubs game (they actually won!) and then a party later that night.  A bunch of my boyfriend's friends were staying with him for the weekend and I ended up staying there too despite not packing anything.  All weekend I was carrying around my outfits in my purse, and then running home periodically to grab new clothes.  Packing extremely light = a lot of repeated accessories.  You can't see it in this picture since the boyfriend didn't manage to get my shoes (silly boyfriend) but I'm wearing the same sandals as the day before as well as some other things.  

Dress and belt - H&M, Earrings - Francesca's (another purchase while I was supposed to be shopping for wedding jewelry, dun dun duunnnn)

It was Labor Day weekend, I wanted to get my white lacy dress in one more time!  Although I don't care about rules, so as long as it stays hot, this little baby will probably make another appearance.  

Dress - LC by Lauren Conrad, shoes and belt - New York and Company, necklace - Tiffany's

One of my college roommates was also in town that night, so I abandoned the group for a bit to meet up with her for dinner before heading out to the party.  I think she was really confused sitting in the other room while I snapped outfit pics ;)

No outfit links in this post!  See, my clothing addiction isn't that bad.  Maybe I should go shopping...

Wedding Weekend Day 1: Frontier

I now realize I didn't actually manage to get pictures of all of my outfits from this weekend.  Whoops!  Day one was just dinner with some people who came into town early.  But when I say "just dinner," I mean it involved eating a llama meatball.

We went to this place called Frontier, which is a dude haven.  Like, seriously, 90 percent of the patrons were guys.  This is probably because you can order an entire boar for dinner if you give them enough notice.  I made it on time despite my boyfriend forgetting to tell me the location for dinner had changed.  He was probably distracted by the boar.

I wanted to go cash, but still cute since I was meeting a bunch of the boyfriend's friends for the first time.  I ordered this dress from Ideeli, only open it up and realize it was from a boutique that is literally a block from my apartment.  I had been walking past their windows all summer lusting after it, yet still didn't manage to realize it was the same dress when I bought it.  Nice work, me.

It was hot and sweaty that day so I decided to rock the bang braid.  I really want to use the word "boomskies" right here, but that will only prove to my friends once more that I've been hanging out with the boy too much.

I'm also super loving this necklace I picked up from Francesca's last week while I was supposed to be shopping for wedding jewelry (whoops!).  It makes me feel like such a badass ;)

Dress - Vfish, Tank - Kohls, Necklace - Francesca's, Belt - Urban Outfitters, Sandals - Nine West

R to the O to the N and then I say, Swanson got swagger the size of Big Ben clock

New episodes of Parks and Rec on Netflix....

meanben

I had an intense wedding this weekend with activities every day, so I have a little blogging catch-up to do.  My friends requested pics of all of my outfits, so that'll be coming up this week!