Pretty basic outfit for you today.  I bought this jacket when I was first losing weight.  It was on sale from Forever 21 and it didn't fit but Forever 21 has weird return rules, so I kept it.  It came with a little belt, but for some reason I am anti-belt and I shouldn't be.  I like the idea of a knit moto-jacket, but I'm not really sure it fits into my aesthetic.  Whatever my aesthetic is.  I signed up for Pinterest, but I haven't done anything with it yet because I don't know what to do with it.  But I think if I start pinning things, I can figure out what my style is and I'll be able to start building my wardrobe to suit it.

The scarf is one of those really thin floral print scarves that were huge two summers ago and I LOVE it.  I wear it all the time and I like how it softened up the look of the jacket.  I absolutely love my Joes Jeans.  Maybe it's because they were expensive, but they are the best-fitting, most comfy jeans I've owned in a long time.  I used to wear my ancient (5 year old) Express skinny jeans, but the rise hits me at an odd place on my hips, so they aren't really comfy.  But my Joes?  I could sleep in these puppies.  If only I wasn't such a cheapskate, I'd look into purchasing a pair of them in a skinny leg.

Floral print scarf & knit moto jacket - Forever 21; white v-neck tee - NextLevel; Joes Jeans - Nordstrom Rack; black Nine West flats - DSW

It's really hard to write a style blog when I've been on a trip for 5-days and in that trip, I wore exactly 1 dress, 1 tshirt & 1 workout outfit.  One of the thing that happens when one loses 50 pounds is that one drops several dress sizes.  And so all my uniform pieces were about 4 sizes too big.  I was told by a manager that I couldn't wear my uniforms if they were that ill-fitting and the most cost-effective solution was to buy one new uniform dress & just wear the hell out of it.  Which is what I did.

I've been wearing the same dress every time I go to work for months now.  Every night in the hotel, I either wash the whole dress in the sink or I wash out the collar & underarms if the layover is too short for the whole dress to drip-dry.  It's maybe a size too big and I'm getting so sick of it and it is starting to look like a bathrobe to me.  

When I started my job, I purchased my first set of uniforms.  Every paycheck, $25 was taken out until the entire $750 was paid off.  After that, the company re-issues a set every two years.  I am sitting on pins & needles waiting for my new set of uniform pieces to arrive.  Most of my flight attendant friends have already received theirs.  I cannot wait to have something to wear besides this one dress!

In other news, I've sprouted some muscles in my arms and I am fascinated by them.  I've never been one to have a lot of upper body strength and I still cannot do a single pull-up or do very many real push-ups (I do girlie on-my-knees push-ups if I do any), but I've been doing bicep curls & shoulder presses & tricep extensions for a few weeks now after my runs and I'm starting to see results!  I've also been working on my abs, doing 100 crunches & 50 reverse crunches after every run.  My tum is flatter than I think it's ever been!

Last summer, when I was in the thick of my weight loss, I decided that the summer of 2011 was going to be the summer that I finally rocked a bikini.  Having always been a bit of of a bigger girl, I've never worn one.  I've worn a tankini, but I've found that those are actually less flattering than even a normal two-piece.  I don't have much opportunity to wear a bathing suit anyway, but I ordered a bikini from Target and it is on its way to my house this week.  I'm still hesitant about wearing it in public, but I think the first step is owning it.  And then wearing it on a layover, somewhere I don't know anyone.

Crazy Cat Lady

So, I bought a new blouse that I am absolutely in love with.  To the point where I may or may not have worn it three times this weekend.  Including wearing it for like 24 hours and SLEEPING in it.  The sleeping in it part was not intentional.

One of the best perks of my job is that I fly for free.  This makes being in a long distance relationship with the mister possible.  Now, when I travel, I'm considered a non-revenue passenger.  And I only get on flights if there are no revenue passengers wanting to sit in those seats.  We have a system where I can look up flights, see how many seats are currently available for non-revs and look at the non-rev stand-by list.  I tend to be a cautious traveler because I don't like being stuck places.  However, getting in & out of Virginia lately has been a real bitch.  I guess it's Spring Break travel time?  I don't know.  All I know is that the flights have been oversold of late and when that happens, I ain't getting on.

Yesterday, I flew from Virginia to New York's JFK airport with no problem.  I wanted to fly through JFK b/c it looked like there were about a dozen seats open on the flight.  JFK is, in my opinion, a terrible airport.  Or, at least, this particular terminal is.  And no one wanted to be helpful.  As a non-rev, I try to be accommodating and polite and I try not to hassle the gate agents, because they have their hands full with the revenue passengers.  But this led to me NOT getting on a flight that I thought I was getting on, which was the last  flight back to Minneapolis.  No good.  I tried to get on a flight to Atlanta, hoping I'd be able to make the last flight out of THERE to Minneapolis.  No good.  I'd checked my luggage, and it got to fly to Minneapolis without me.  And I was stranded in New York.  While the gate agents were not helpful AT ALL, the lovely people working at the Help Desks were fantastic.  They told me I'd have better luck trying to fly out of LaGuardia the next morning, went ahead and put me on the stand-by list for the first flight out and told me the cheapest way to get from one airport to the other.

Another benefit of my job, is that New York is a base for my airline so we have a crew lounge in LaGuardia.  Which is where I slept last night.  Curled up across two chairs in my beloved new blouse.  It was uncomfortable and I didn't sleep much, but it was worse this morning when flight attendants started showing up for work and I was still sleeping under my coat with mussed up hair and smudged eyeliner.  I felt really awkward about it, but I wasn't the only one who had slept in the lounge, so that helped a little.  I got onto my flight with no problem and my luggage was waiting for me in Minneapolis and I'm home now. So it all ended well after all!
 And!  I had a lot of time by myself at the boyfriend's apartment because he had to go back to work so I was cabbing it to the airport.  And I was able to take some more interesting outfit photos, better than the old camera-in-the-mirror snaps.

It should be pretty obvious why I refer to this as my Crazy Cat Lady Blouse.  I love the little cat print all over it!  I also love the drapey feel of it.  I definitely feel a lot freer to play with volume than I ever did when I was bigger.  When I bought the blouse, I definitely had the idea of wearing it with skinny jeans, but I wanted to look a little nicer for my flights, so I opted for my charcoal tuxedo pants.  They might be a little saggy around my bum, which might be something worth having a tailor fix (especially because I only paid $10 for them in the first place!) because I really like the style.

The bracelets and earrings are also recent acquisitions.  I've been trying to work more on accessorizing.  And I've also been trying to work gold-colored metals into my repertoire.  The close-up of my face demonstrates something else I need to work on and that is wearing lipstick.  I hardly ever do.  I'll wear lip balm and lip gloss, but lipstick just seems so fake to me, but I think it's because I don't wear flattering shades, which is something to ELSE to work on.  I am a work in progress.


Crazy Cat Lady Blouse - Nordstrom Rack; Tuxedo pants - The Gap; Black leather flats - Nine West; Bracelets & earrings - LEN

I haven't abandoned the blog.  I just haven't bothered putting together any outfits worth sharing.  My mom reads this blog and she told me I needed to stop wearing so many tshirts.  The only problem with that is that I don't actually own many tops that are NOT tshirts at the moment.  Besides.  The tshirts are comfortable.

But I am trying to build a better wardrobe.  It's a slow process.

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.