Travelin' (wo)Man

I'm traveling today, but not for work.  I've made mention before how I feel about the travel clothes of the general public.  Usually I try to look a little more polished, but my flight leaves Minneapolis at 10pm and I get into Los Angeles at midnight, local time, so I'm going more for comfort.  Even so, I think it's quite possible to look put together and still be comfortable for a four-hour late-night flight!

Gray drapey cardigan - Worthington (JC Penney)
White Next Level v-neck T - LEN
Joe's Jeans (the ONLY pair of premium denim I own)
Black Nine West pointed-toe flats - DSW


When I was losing weight, I said that at the end of it all, when I met my goal, I would spend the money on a pair of premium denim jeans.  But when I got to that point, I realized that, hey, I'm fifty pounds lighter, but I'm still cheap as hell!  Luckily, Groupon came through with a deal at Nordstrom Rack and I ended up paying $50 for a pair of $100+ jeans.  They're not my usual (skinny) cut and they're the first pair of distressed jeans I've ever purchased, but they are suuuuper comfortable.  I haven't worn them much this winter because I live in my boots in the winter, but now that the snow is starting to melt, I can start wearing my flats again!

Two posts in one day?  It's getting cah-razy up in here.  But the truth of that matter is that I'm on call, but I have enough hours where Scheduling is probably not going to call me today or tomorrow.  And this basically leaves me plenty of time to go shopping.

And yes, I realize I went shopping yesterday.  I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but somewhere along the line, I started to REALLY like shopping.  And by that I mean, I like to go to stores and look around.  I like to try on things.  I rarely actually purchase anything, but I like the act of shopping.  So, when I'm bored and when I have other things I need to do (like clean my room) I go shopping.

I'm wearing two of the three items I purchased at the Mall of America yesterday.  Remember a few days ago I showed you those ridiculously loose size 8 pants from the Gap?  Well, the Gap at the MOA had them for $9 a pop.  So I bought two pairs in a size 6.  Could I have gone wiht a 4?  Maybe.  But  I didn't try any on.  The number of size 6 items in my closet has been steadily rising lately, which is awesome and weird at the same time.  Because there was once a time when the number 6 would have to be preceded by the number 1 in order to make it into my closet.  But  I digress.  These are boy fit pants.  I bought a pair of solid black and I couldn't resist the pair I'm wearing today.  They're a lovely charcoal gray w/ a black tuxedo stripe up the side.  They are super comfortable.  The cardigan was $10 at H&M and I really wanted to wear both today.  The pink tshirt is from Forever 21 & the heels are Quipid from a store in the skyway called LEN.

I call this outfit "Shopping on my Lunch Break" because I looked like all the other 9-to-5vers downtown who shop on their lunch breaks.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it's very me.  The other thing is that when I wear pants, I feel very masculine.  Which is why I don't wear pants very often.

Since I was out & about and since I've decided that maybe denim shorts are not the way to go this summer, while I was at Target I pulled a pair of olive green trouser shorts into the dressing room with me.  The other thing I've been thinking about this summer is a black & white striped top of some sort.  Target didn't have the black & white ones in my size, so I grabbed an olive green & gray shirt to try on for size.  Pretty sure I haven't been this color coordinated since my mom stopped dressing me.  You may also have noticed that I'm experimenting with tucking my shirts in.

 They were super comfortable & I think pretty flattering.  But again, they were $17.99 and I'm just not certain I will wear them enough to justify $18.  I definitely think I need to get some summer time heels though because damn, my legs look hot!

So, maybe you've noticed the bangs are swooping to the side again.  I am once again waffling about what to do about my hair.  I don't necessarily thing the straight across bangs were the most flattering look for my face.  But I think the side-swoopy bangs are boring on me.  I definitely need a haircut and I think maybe it's time to pay for an actual hair stylist with a few years of experience who might be able to look at my face and look at my style and help me come up with a hair cut that will be flattering to both.

Forever 27?

So here's the thing with Forever 21.  Besides, you know, the whole shoddy quality & bible verses printed on the bottom of the bags.  When I was young enough to get away with the super short hemlines, nothing in the store fit.  Now that I can fit into pretty much everything in the store, I feel like I'm too old for short hemlines. But, I persist in shopping there because sometimes I find awesome things like my feather blouse.

I stopped in yesterday to look at shorts.  And I'll just go ahead & get my old lady on and say "Jiminy Christmas!  All those shorts looked like denim underpants!"  Okay, now that that's out of the way.  I did find a couple of contenders, but one of my overwhelming personality traits is that I'm cheap.  And spending $17 on a pair of shorts seemed ridiculous.  Anyway, onto the pictures!  Sorry for the crappy quality, but Forever 21 dressing rooms are some of the most ill-lighted dressing rooms I've ever been in.

The tank top is too big for the shorts, which is a shame, b/c it was really cute, but they only had a small and a large and I thought the small would be too small, but it turned out the large was too large!  In the dressing room, I thought these shorts looked like a baggy diaper, but looking at the pictures now, I'm thinking maybe they weren't so bad.  I liked that they came with a little belt.  The picture is suuuuuper grainy, but they were a really  nice navy color.  They were short, but I don't think too short.  They might be worth a second look at some point in the future.

I also tried on a pair of pretty basic denim shorts, but they weren't really anything to write home about, so I'm not going to bother posting the crappy photo.  In this hunt for shorts that I've embarked on, I'm starting to realize that I'm not a huge fan of denim shorts on me.  I was much more excited about the navy shorts above than I was about the denim shorts that fit pretty well and met my criteria of NOT riding up into my lady parts.  So maybe I should focus my search on non-denim shorts.

Confession time:  I've been wearing my 2-week disposable contacts for at least a month at a time to try to stretch them out as long as humanly possible.  But!  I finally went for an eye exam last week and got a new prescription that actually allows me to SEE without squinting!  It's like seeing the whole world in hi-def for the first time!  It's amazing!  I've also ordered a new pair of glasses from Warby Parker and those should arrive in about a week.  My old glasses are about 2 prescriptions old, so I NEVER wear them.  So all this new vision-related goodness makes me super excited and I cannot wait to wear my super-nerdy glasses!

In addition to all the optometric awesomeness, I have a new outfit with a few pieces you haven't seen yet.  They're not old.  In fact, the jeans are about 5 years old at this point.  They're the very first skinny leg jeans I purchased when I was studying abroad in Florence, Italy.  This was when boot cut jeans were still all the rage in the States.  I was seeing all these Italian women wearing skinny leg jeans with the ankles kind of scrunched up & high heels, or they were tucking the jeans into cowboy boots.  Clearly, I still have lots of love for skinny leg jeans.

Perry Ellis blazer, thrifted from Savers
White tshirt from LEN
Gray skinny jeans from Zara
Gray Madden Girl Boots
Pink scarf from the market in Florence

I was a little uncertain about the gray boots with the gray jeans, but I was rather pleased with the end look.

And now for something completely different

First of all, to get to my blog in order to post new posts, I type "blogger.com" into my address bar.  But sometimes, I accidentally type "blooger.com" instead and that makes me giggle.

But what I actually want to talk about is related to style, but more on a level of classiness.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to fly with my favorite flight attendant again.  His name is Tom and he lives in Palos Verdes, California, but he is based out of Minneapolis.  He's VERY tan, goes in for LOTS of plastic surgery and is ALWAYS very neat & tidy.  None of that makes him my favorite flight attendant though.  He's my favorite flight attendant because he really enjoys his job.  You know that little adage of "work like you don't need the money"?  Well, Tom works as a flight attendant because it pays the property taxes on his very nice home in California.  His actual career is that of an architectural renderer.  But he loves flying.  He loves the passengers.  And because of that, he is an absolute doll to work with.

My industry is full of a lot of cranky people.  And sometimes, they have good reason to be cranky.  A lot of times, we have to get up early, work a long day, deal with awful rude customers, have just 9 hours for our layover and then get up to do it all over again.  But a lot of these flight attendants are cranky All The Time.  And they are the worst to work with.  They are the ones who bitch about the aircraft, who bitch about the passengers, who bitch about the company.  And the negativity just drains the energy right out of me.  I'm certainly not perfect and I definitely bitch about things from time to time, but in the grand scheme of things?  I love my job.  But it's hard to love my job when I work with the cranky old bags.  So it's like a breath of fresh air to work with someone like Tom.

And it makes me want to be the best little Flight Attendant Extraordinaire that I can be.  And I don't care if it sounds cheesy.  I'm passionate about good customer service.  I feel like we live in a world where we have all become so self-centered that it's a lovely surprise when people say "please" and "thank you" to me as I'm serving them in the aisle.  So I try my hardest to make my passengers feel welcome on my aircraft.  And it's wonderful to work with someone else who feels the same.

Shorts! With Special Guest: Rompers!

So, spending time sitting by the pool in Florida got me thinking about shorts.  But then I got back to Minneapolis where the sky was dumping a bunch more snow on the city.  Not exactly shorts weather.  However, I will not be deterred!  I braved the snow-ment that was falling and stopped into The Gap & Target.

 Pretty standard outfit for the shopping trip.  I bought the leopard print sweater at a Gap outlet years ago.  It's an XL which is probably a bit baggy, but it was the only thing I reneged on donating to charity.

Leopard print cardigan from The Gap
Skinny jeans from Express
Madden Girl Boots
Pink scarf from the market in Firenze.

As far as the shorts go, I feel like these were just an awkward cut all around.  They seemed a wee bit big around the waist, but then snug in the crotch area, then too big again in the leg openings.  I feel like these would bunch in the crotchal zone, which is precisely what I'm hoping to avoid.  They were a size 8 and maybe I could have gone to a size 6, but I think that would have been even more snug in the crotch.  Also, there was this weird up-flipping at the hem.  And they were $39 on sale.  No dice.


 Speaking of size 8s, apparently The Gap has bought into the whole vanity sizing thing whole hog.  I pulled these pants off the sale rack b/c they were $20 and I currently do not own any nice black pants.  People, these were a size 8!  Do you see how far I can pull them out?  I didn't care for them enough to searching for a size 6.  Not that I wouldn't very much enjoy being a size 6.  I think if I keep working at it, it's a definite possibility because my skinny jeans from Express are starting to be a bit too baggy after a few hours of wear once they've been dried.

The next stop was Target.  I think this is the first time a Target fitting room mirror has made me look less-than-svelte.  I think it was in part because the cardigan is an XL so there was a lot more material, but the real focus of this image is the denim underwear I'm sporting.  These came from the juniors' department and they were a size 9 and they were second-skin and I felt like my ass was hanging out the bottom.  Again, I wasn't feeling them enough to go look for another size.
 Something else I did try at Target was a romper.  Last summer, I was very intrigued by rompers, but was convinced I did NOT have the correct body type for them.  I grabbed one off the rack mostly just to prove a point of how unflattering rompers can be.  And I was somewhat surprised at how actually flattering this one was!  It was a size small and was maybe a bit snug around the waist/hip area, but for the most part, it was really cute!  I may have to go back on my anti-romper platform.  My only question (and this is actually a question I have fairly often) is that of shoes.

I stopped at Marshalls as well today and tried on a couple pairs of platform sandals.  And I guess that is the kind of shoe one wears with this look?  Or am I mistaken?  As far as style goes, shoes are the one aspect that I just cannot get a handle on.

Vacation!

Hello there, lovelies!  Sorry it's been a while.  I've been flying like a madwoman lately & in the middle of that, I went on a little vacation with my boyfriend, the Mister!  We flew from Minneapolis to Louisville, Kentucky, rented a car and spent 3 days checking out the Bourbon Trail.  We visited 7 different bourbon distilleries where we got to see various parts of the bourbon-making process, learn some history and best of all, taste lots and lots of yummy bourbon!  And the Mister was kind enough to snap two outfit photos for me!

 This is my Traveling outfit.  I am all about being comfy when I'm flying on my own time, and for me, comfy equals stretchy fabrics & lots of layers!

Pink scarf from the market in Florence, Italy

Gray cardigan from Target

Black jersey dress from Nordstrom Rack

Turquoise tights from somewhere

Black over-the-knee socks from Target

Gray Madden Girl boots which you've seen a hundred times already!

This was what I wore on our very first day.  I wasn't feeling 100% (I had a bit of a cold), but what can I say?  I don't even let illness keep me from trying to look cute!  This was also the outfit I wore to my second day of re-current training for work.  One of the other girls there complimented me saying, "Oh I could never pull that look off!"  And I started wondering if, when people say that, they really mean, "Oh I would never wear that!"

Thrifted black Perry Ellis Blazer

Vintage Yes concert tshirt from eBay

Purple ruffle-tiered skirt from the Gap

Black tights from Target

Gray Madden Girl boots (again)

Layovers!

I know I've mentioned before my "Layover Uniform" which is skinny jeans, a v-neck tshirt (usually white) and a long cardigan.  Well, I had a had a West Palm Beach layover the other day and I took a little bit of time to sit by the pool.  I feel awkward just walking down to the pool in my bathing suit, so I threw on my denim mini skirt over the bottoms & ended up not actually taking it off.  I sat outside for maybe 45 minutes & I've already got my first tanlines of the season!  I love you Florida!

The other outfit is my warm-weather workout uniform.  In addition to not blogging, I was also not working out due to aforementioned cold & vacation.  But I hopped back on the horse (or in this case, the treadmill) while I was in West Palm.  Maybe not the most stylish two outfit photos, but I'm trying to make up for lost time!

Shorts!

I haven't forgotten about shorts, but I haven't had much of a chance to do any shopping for them either.  But don't worry, lovies, I have some time off coming up and I'll be sure to have a bevy of shorts pics soon!

Who wears short shorts?

I have no new pictures for you today.  I had an outfit I would have loved to show you from last week, that I wore to training, but I never got around to taking a photo of it.  However, I'm sure you'll see it eventually, b/c I really liked the way it worked and I will likely wear it again.  I have a habit of making a habit of wearing the same things together over & over again.  I'm slooooowly working into the idea of re-mixing my wardrobe.

SHORTS

Instead, I want to talk about shorts.  Here's the deal.  I have gone pretty much every summer since I was a wee Skygirl without wearing shorts.  After puberty started, as my mother likes to put it, I bloomed.  And by that, I mean I started to get chubby.  And when you are a chubby girl, your thighs rub together when you walk.  I saw it referred to as "chub rub" the other day in Marie Claire and while the term made me cringe, it is entirely accurate.  And that brings me to my theory about wearing shorts.

I firmly believe one should not wear shorts that are any higher than where one's thighs stop touching when one walks.  Does that make sense?  Basically, I feel the hem should fall below the chub rub zone.  Because if it doesn't, then as one walks, and one's thighs touch, one's shorts start riding up into one's crotch.  And then one has to do that weird mid-walk leg shake to try to loosen it.  And I know I'm not the only one who does this because I witnessed a woman doing this in the airport last year and knew exactly what she was trying to accomplish.  P.S. It doesn't really work and it looks silly.

In the past, I relied on skirts & dresses in warmer months because while my thighs did rub together, it generally wasn't bad enough to cause chafing.  On particularly hot days, I'd apply a bit of deodorant to the inside of my thighs to keep them from sweating.  But this year, I am smaller than I've ever been (having dropped 50 pounds) so my thighs aren't touching when I walk, except at the very tip top.  And I'm not about to wear shorts THAT short.

So now begins the awful process of trial & error wherein I try on just about every pair of shorts I encounter until I find a pair that fits the way I want them to.  And yes, I will document it for you.

Sour Face McGillicutty

 I have a very bad habit of Not Smiling when I'm taking these outfit pictures.  This will sound conceited, but I get told very often that I have a nice smile.  But personally, I think it is only nice when it is genuine.  And for the most part, when I'm focusing on holding the camera steady, glancing at the view screen to make sure I haven't cut off my feet (AGAIN), my smile is not genuine.  And it tends to look like a grimace.  So I try to go for Neutral Face.

But I guess my Neutral Face looks sour too.  Ah well.  We work with what we're given, right?

I wore this on one of my many, many trips to Target.  My life outside of work is sadly unexciting.  I putz around the house, take care of any chores I need to do, get sick of being in the house & go to Target.  There is always something I need at Target.  Hand soap.  Toilet paper.  Eyeliner.  And getting out of the house gives me an excuse for getting a little gussied up.  Another good thing about going to Target is that I go to one that is downtown and is frequented by the 9-to-5ers, so outfits like this don't stand out too much.

This was another attempt to get out of my style rut.  I bought that dress for a rehearsal dinner at the end of last summer & haven't gotten much more wear out of it.  I was pretty pleased with the general look of the outfit, and I liked my hair.

Dress by Ya Los Angeles

Blazer by Perry Ellis (thrifted for $6!)

Turquoise tights from ??

Gray Madden Girl Boots

Hair courtesy of this tutorial:

http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2011/03/three-twisted-buns.html

Alive

Sometimes life gets the best of me.  I've mentioned before that I am a flight attendant, and as such, sometimes I disappear for days at a time.  My mother likes to leave me voicemails asking if I'm still alive.  I've been avoiding her lately because I've sent a surprise her way and I don't want to give it away!

Today is my day off and tomorrow I start the first of two days of annual recurrent training, where I have to show my proficiency in conducting emergency evacuations.  It's a nerve-wracking time of year because even though I know what I'm doing, having to actually do it in front of someone who is grading me gives me nervous butterflies.    But I'll do fine.  I get through it (usually with flying colors) every year.

It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't actually gotten dressed yet.  I've been sipping my coffee & reading blogs wearing a tshirt & workout shorts with uncombed hair.  It's very glamorous.  But I do have an outfit for you, from a few days ago!

 I like this picture even though I cut off my feet.  But I mean, really.  Y'all have seen those boots in EVERY outfit picture I've posted.  As much as I love those boots, even I'm getting sick of them.  I can't wait for Spring & Summer, when I can finally wear some other shoes.

I wore this to go to the Mall of America to meet a flight attendant friend for lunch.  We had a coupon!  Since I've lost the weight, I feel like I have a little more leeway on playing with volume in my outfits.  This shirt is pretty blousey, so I like to pair it with things that are a little more streamlined on the bottom half.



Feather blouse from Forever 21
Lace overlay mini skirt from Target
Black tights from Target
Gray Madden Girl Boots (again)


I still haven't quite finished all the Spring Cleaning I've been trying to do and I still have 7 garbage bags of clothes to donate that no one will come pick up. Every place I've called or emailed and said the same thing, "Ooh, sorry, we don't do pick-ups in that area."  It's really frustrating.  I just want to get rid of this stuff!