To enter please leave a comment below telling me your favorite item/what you’d buy (I’m nosy and want to know!). This is open to those in the US only (sorry) and ends Friday, May 24.

Pants: Go Jane (similar, similar, similar)
Top: Loft, thrifted
Sandals: c/o Wanted 2010 (similar)
Necklace: gift from my mom (similar, similar)

Holy crap my skin is translucent! Wow. Look at those veins in my hand. Now I know why I usually get asked if I’m sick if I’m not wearing makeup. Ok, even if I am wearing makeup. Someone always thinks I’m ill because I’m just so pale. I’ve been waiting most of my adult life to reach that level of porcelain skin that many people seem to reach. I’m just reaching new levels of translucency. Pretty sure you’ll be able to see my organs through my stomach soon enough. Any other pale people feel the same?

Dress: Prabal Gurung for Target (exact)
Necklace: TJ Maxx (in gold)
Sandals: Steve Madden via DSW (similar)

Today was so nice out! Such a great change from the colder weather we’ve been having lately. I mean, look at my pale legs! This dress was a recent find. I liked it when it first came to Target, but I wasn’t about to spend almost $50 on it. Instead I found it on the clearance rack for just over $13 a couple weeks ago. That’s a price I can get on board with! I can’t explain why I’m leaning toward black and white lately, it’s really different for me, but I like it. Also, these shoes are fantastic. I can’t find the exact ones online, but they’re at DSW in this color (bone), tan and black. I want them in every color.

And, a happy anniversary to Joe. We’ve been married now for four years and together for just shy of nine. Thanks for putting up with the crazy!

Cardigan: Marshalls, c/o my mother (similar, similar, similar- awesome sleeve detail!)
Top: Gap (similar)
Pants: LOFT, last fall
Earrings: Muse, birthday gift (they’re fake druzy quartz)
Shoes: Toms (exact)

My mom has this sweater in white. Guess what we both wore today? Like mother, like daughter! Also, it was snowing today. SNOWING! I’m kind of excited and scared. Snow is awesome but snow at the end of April is scary, amiright? Global warming and all that.

We’ve discussed Loafy’s daredevil tendencies before, I believe. She walked back and forth on this railing the entire time I was taking photos. Crazy cat!

Pants: LOFT (similar, yet more expensive, versions found here and here)
Top: c/o Karen Kane circa 2011 (similar here and here- on sale!)
Shoes: Target (similar)
Earrings: Betsey Johnson (exact)

A few months ago I found these pants at LOFT for $5. Seriously! They’re honestly a tad large in the waist (and just a little too long!), so I know I need to take them in. But that means I need to dig my sewing machine out of storage, blah blah, more excuses here. I figure for the cheap price they were totally worth it to jump on the “polka dot everything” bandwagon. When they’re not popular in the next year or so, I’m not out a bunch of money. Sound like a win-win!

(Ruckus didn’t try to fight me when I held her. I suppose she’s become more affectionate as she ages.)

Tee: Gap body, thrifted (exact)
Pants: Old Navy (exact)
Cardigan: Nine West, Marshalls (similar)
Scarf: Calvin Klein, Marshalls
Earrings: Betsey Johnson, Nordstrom Rack
Shoes: Target (last fall, I think) (similar)

This outfit is basically step one in figuring out what the hell my “style” is. I like quirky things like the lightning bolt earrings (they remind me of Harry Potter!) and the colorful scarf. But I feel more subdued than I have previously. I’m thinking tees and flats are my new go-to and I’m OK with that! Totally off topic, but have you read Jen’s post about bras? I’ve been wearing the wrong size since I was 15 and never thought it was wrong! Turns out I was off by a band size AND two cup sizes. Amazing what a better fitting bra can do for your back problems and your clothes!

Over the past two years I’ve had quite a few of you inquire my whereabouts and make sure I was doing OK. I also promised to give you an explanation of what happened and why I stopped blogging.

My life has changed in many ways in a short amount of time. Most of you know that I lost my dad and subsequently started a new job. That job was a great learning experience, both personally and professionally. I stopped feeling the need to blog my outfits because the dress code there was very open and flexible. The CEO wore sweatpants, as did a handful of other employees. I’ve never been one to wear sweatpants to work and even though it was OK to do so there, I never did. However, I did end up with a uniform of sorts in the form of jeans, t-shirts and cardigans. So that’s what I wore nearly every day. At some point I decided that this type of outfit wasn’t worth documenting, because it wasn’t anything new or exciting. I figured that unless I was showing a variety of outfit types, I, along with readers, would get bored.

I was also faced with a coworker who would consistently question my sartorial choices and make fun of them, to my face, if she deemed them unworthy. For example, I do not wear matching socks very often. No one sees my socks and I always seem to get a hole in one sock, but not both. Rather than get rid of both socks, I keep the good one and wear it with another that doesn’t have a match. I don’t think it’s odd, but she did. I wore a pair of Halloween socks in April and she started informing me how it’s not Halloween and how stupid they looked. She did this in front of other coworkers and made me feel about three inches tall, because they’re socks, yet I felt embarrassed for wearing them. They didn’t affect my ability to do my job, but the fact that they impacted her life so much so that she had to tell me why I looked stupid made me begin to question why I wore them.

On another occasion, this coworker told me that I needed to make sure I “ didn’t look better” than her, as we were going on a presentation together, and I traditionally wear a suit for presentations. After this type of verbal harassment continued on a strangely consistent basis, I was in no mood to take photos of a mediocre outfit I had worn that day.

Around this same time Joe and I began house-hunting and packing up our belongings with the hopes of moving into our very own house before the end of 2012. Then, one week after my 27^th birthday, I went into work after putting an offer in on a house and I was told I was being laid off. You’d think with all my newly found free time I’d have time to blog again, right? Not exactly. Now I was wearing yoga pants along with my t-shirts and spending my time applying for new jobs, reading books and sorting out all the stuff Joe and I had hurriedly packed up to move into a house, which we obviously didn’t get because we lost my income.

And that brings us to today. I’m still looking for a full-time gig, and have been applying like a madman. I’d love to be able to showcase my style again, because it’s changed, as have I. I am not pairing insane color combinations together any longer, or wearing bright colors all the time. This week I’ve worn mostly black, grey and white, if you can believe it. My style has become less “WEAR ALL THE THINGS!” and has become much more “how can I look like an almost 30-year-old, while maintaining my sense of self and level of professionalism.” I’ve also started trying to maintain a master list of what I own, so I can choose better items to incorporate. Right now that lives on Pinterest, and is nowhere near an exhaustive list. I’m working on it. I have some plans and ideas to revive my wardrobe, my blog and myself. Hopefully I’ll begin to feel more like myself again, and more like myself than I have in the past two years.

This time we were determined to get in, arriving minutes after it opened. That was truly the key to getting in quickly and getting the ability to see everything. We stayed for about two hours, finally leaving to get a late breakfast.

There’s a special jellies exhibit, but it wasn’t as full as we both thought it would be. If we hadn’t had a Groupon we wouldn’t have paid the extra money to see them, although they were fun to photograph.

- Faded jeans
- Indigo dye (Rit, Dylon, etc.) You can easily find this in your local Joann’s or other fabric store. Or you can buy it online.
- Salt
- Sink, large pot, bucket
- Washer/dryer

These are the jeans I’m going to dye. I’ve had them for probably ten years. In that time they’ve faded a lot, to the point where I feel like I’m trying to look straight out of the 90s in them (faded thighs, anyone?). They still fit well and aren’t torn up at all, but I want them to look dark and less… high school-like.

To fix the problem I picked up some indigo dye, Dylon brand. It seems to be pretty similar to the Rit dye I’ve used before, except Dylon only has instructions for using a pot/sink instead of a washing machine like I’ve used in the past. It’s not totally different, but if you’re uneasy about using dye, here is what I did:

Start with clean jeans. If they’re dirty the dye won’t stick to the fabric (I mean DIRTY like covered in mud, etc. If you’ve worn them once and haven’t washed them yet, they’re probably just fine). Get the jeans wet. I tossed mine in the sink. You want them to be wet, not DRIPPING, but wet.

In the meantime, put your pot on the stove, with about 5-6 cups of warm-hot water in it, and turn on the burner. It seems little weird, but the hotter the water, the better.

Add 4 tablespoons of salt to the pot. (The salt helps the dye adhere to the fabric. You can skip this step if you want.)

Add the powered (or liquid) dye. Using a large spoon (or something else washable) stir the mixture.

At this point your water should be boiling or nearly boiling, and your jeans are still in the sink, wet. I know it sounds so strange to say “add the jeans to the boiling water” but that’s what you need to do.

Carefully add your jeans to the mixture, ensuring they are fully submerged. If they’re not, add a little more HOT water and mix.

You want to keep the jeans submerged for at least 10-15 minutes. If possible, you should stir them up and keep the dye moving around, otherwise you may end up with splotches. (This is the big difference between doing them in a pot and doing them in the washer. The washer will automatically agitate them).

After the 15 minute soak, you want to rinse the jeans. I poured the mixture out and put the jeans in the washing machine because our sink is white I didn’t want to chance staining the sink. Two rinse cycles and a dryer ride later and they look brand new again!

I can’t believe the change. I’ve since worn them and washed them again and haven’t seen any fading. I’m sure they’ll fade like they did before, but hopefully it takes another ten years (and I’m hoping I still fit into them in ten years).

Let me know if you have any questions and happy dyeing!

Now I spend nearly every day in yoga pants and t-shirts, another outfit that doesn’t need to be documented. By that reasoning, the very beginning and need for this blog had kind of ended. I don’t have any fun household DIYs or recipes to share. I don’t cook well, and I don’t think that’s something that’s very interesting to other people because of my lack of cooking skills (I do make rad mac and cheese, though).

I enjoyed blogging when I did it. I loved the community I felt, and still am in touch with many of those people to this day. I miss that part of blogging. I don’t miss feeling stressed out, wondering if I looked “blog worthy” or if I would have enough time and light to take my photos before the sun set.

Ugh.

So this is where I decide what I want to do. My whole reasoning behind wanting/needing an outlet for my outfits was because I of where I worked and that I wanted to be able to express myself in an outward way. Because that’s changed, I’m trying to decide the next phase of my life. I’m spending most of my time focused on finding a job and purging items I don’t need, in case that job takes me across the country. In order to fund this potential move, I am planning to have a blog sale of my nicer and vintage clothing items. Hopefully someone out there will love them as much as I did, but will be able to wear them more than I did.

(This isn’t a “hey I’m quitting blogging” post. It’s more of a “hey, I owe you all an explanation, but can’t get into it right now, and I’m working on coming back” post.)