Decisions Decisions

I can’t help but wonder if I’m in the right career. I am currently working for an AHL hockey team, in a glorified sales position. The money is horrible, the hours are insane, but I get health benefits and I have a job straight out of college.

Then I realize I spend 60% of my day at work looking at design blogs, magazines, and websites. That can’t be normal right?

I troll Craigslist like its my job finding free/cheap things that I imagine myself purchasing and making over. I don’t own my own house, I don’t even rent. Right now I live with my boyfriend and his Mom. She’s getting older and can’t live on her own. She’s also certifiably insane, opposed to change, and thinks I’m out to get her. Awesome.

So the only idea I keep coming back to over and over again is saving up some money, buying some of these crazy pieces, re-purposing them, and selling them off. Etsy store? Craigslist? I don’t really care, but I want projects. I want to buy a hideous dresser and make it into something fabulous. I want to take that ugly free side of the road lamp, spray paint it with some high gloss paint toss a new lampshade on top and find a happy home for it.

The issue here is how I convince people (my family, the boy, his mom) that I’m not crazy. How do I successfully set up an etsy store where people want to buy the junk I’ve refinished/repurposed. There are some great finds at thrift stores that beg to come home with me, but I have no room or reason for. I found this beautiful sofa on Craigslist for free; I went to pick it up and discovered it wouldn’t fit in my SUV. This got me to wondering where I was going to put it anyways… Can’t put it at the boyfriends house, his mom will go crazy, plus she lets the dog destroy everything. The plan was to hold onto it until I saved up the money for re-upholstery (it was pretty hideous and worn out) but who really knows when that will be. And what’s the point when I have no-where to put it anyways?

So I sit at work every day and wonder if I should just do it, save up some money make some good smart purchases put the time and effort into re-doing them and work at the re-sale part. It’s amazing the inspiration I find on blogs all over the place. People out there work their boring day jobs and go home to their dream jobs that just haven’t taken off yet. This is my dream job, but is it realistic? Could I really make a living off re-purposing people’s used leftover furniture and accessories?

I’d need some storage space and work space to do all this. The boyfriend’s house has a garage that is used for storing crap… but it’d be awfully presumptuous for me to just assume I could take it over. His mom already thinks my goal is to get her kicked out of her house. What’s a girl to do?

I'm back(ish)

Jeepers, I’ve been lost in blog-land lately. I’ve been doing a whole ton of reading and no writing. I guess I wanted to start this more as a way to keep track of some great images and then I found pinterest.com and used that for filing. It began to be more work to put together whole posts with a story or a point when all I wanted to was access into this crazy world.

I’ve been dragged all over into things that interest me, starting with interior design and moving into some crazy craft blogs, some awesome make your own clothing blogs, really awesome wedding blogs, and so many more random blogs that I just adore.

I have a list in a word document that is 5 pages long. I’ve found stores and magazines; honestly the list just goes on and on. I’m not sure how to continue with this thing. It’d be so much fun to dedicate time to it, grab a whole pile of followers, and get famous, but honestly I have a regular day job from 9-6, a boyfriend, a crazy family, and I am an active person. I like to be out whenever possible. This greatly restricts my ability to sit down and write a post.

Blogging may not be the exact thing for me, but this is going to become my dumping ground for all things awesome. My pinterest site will probably become my primary way to post FABULOUS pictures, but I couldn’t help but want to share some of these sites. Check em out yo!

http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/
Fabulous Craft site

http://www.adventuresindressmaking.com/
Fabulous Clothing Crafting

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/
Her tag line is Fabulous, For Less and it’s true

Are you seeing any sort of Fabulous pattern here, I should pull out my Thesaurus maybe…

http://www.hotandhealthymom.com/
I’m not a Mom, but this site is inspiring and…well… fabulous

http://www.insidestoop.com/
She works for HGTV, she has great taste in music, and she’s (you guessed it) fabulous!

http://www.copycatchic.com/
Mostly furniture etc, but look at all those crazy designer items she finds elsewhere. That is fabulous

http://kendieveryday.blogspot.com/
She wears cute clothes, her husband takes photos, and I enjoy. Fab!

Craigslist is a girls best friend

Let me begin this by saying that this post should have gone up yesterday. I have now spent 2 days obsessively trying to find the reference picture I wanted to use for the very last Craigslist find on this entry. Make your way down there and we will discuss further…


Holy Moly Craigslist had a ton of stuff today! I don’t know why but it seems I can never find anything that jumps out at me, so either my eye is becoming better or people are just getting rid of all their good stuff. Here’s some eye candy for ya!

China hutch (Sorry it's sideways)

Those doors remind me of this:

Chairs Paint these bad boys a nice high gloss white and they are fab!

Lattice Rug PB
$600 from the store, $300 from Craigslist

Table
I feel like I’ve seen this idea (Drawer under the table) recently and I just can’t remember where. It was on someone’s blog, if it looks familiar help me out…

End tables $75 for the pair
They are just so cute. Love the Legs!

Slipper Chair Crate & Barrel
A steal at $35

Leather Throne Chair
I may actually call on this guy. $20, that’s unreal! He’s just missing 1 measly cushion

Pedestal Table $120 for table and 4 chairs

Over the couch mirror
I see this girl here with a nice coat of high gloss black paint. Yes? No?
I’m not the only one with mirror’s on my mind check this blog out!

And last, but certainly not least!

Exec Desk $299
Okay so this is my nemesis right now. Not the desk, which is gorgeous, but when I saw this one I instantly thought of another one I’ve seen recently on someone’s blog. They painted their desk white; it had cute brass accents, and also had a leather top to it. Also I believe it cost the buyer only $75, much better than the price of mine, but we aren’t all perfect. I cannot figure out for the life of me where I saw the original. I’ve spend 2 days looking obsessively through all the blogs I read (which is quite a few). Nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch. If you know the desk redo I’m talking about help me out. I’m now officially going crazy about it.

That being said, I’d paint this desk white, leave the handles, and ogle over that intricate woodwork pattern every single day.

Thank you Craigslist for giving a girl something fun to do during her boring desk job.

Laughing Later.

Okay so today I was going to post pretty pictures and play design freak. What is it they say about the best laid plans…?

Let’s start from the beginning.

If you go back I've talked about a wedding I’m in coming up, err holy cow, less than 2 weeks away now. Last night was the bachelor party. Boyfriend decided to go even though he is not a huge fan of the groom, $25 to buy a ticket to go to our local watering-hole is crazy, and he was tired. That’s right 3 reasons not to go, but he was a good sport.

He left the house around 7:30, I offered to drop him off and pick him up so he didn’t have to worry about driving, but he told me over and over again that he wasn’t staying long or drinking much.

Well as you could guess this is were the story goes awry, he stayed late and drank…. A LOT. At 12:30 I get a text message that asks where I am. I respond back “In bed” of course. It’s a work night and I’m a girl who needs my 9 hours of sleep. (That’s not a joke either, I NEED 9 hours of sleep)

5 minutes later… “Please come pick me up, I need a ride.”

Well let me just tell you, I’m more than glad to hop out of bed anytime for someone who has drank too much and needs a ride. Seriously. I’m known for doing it for many people. This was absolutely no problem, I even held my tongue on the “I told you so” I could have given him.

Fast Forward to 3 AM where boyfriend is still chatting, getting up every 5 minutes to pee, and sleeping the middle of our Full Size bed, on top of the covers. The on top of the covers pushed me right over the edge, I was cold and couldn’t possibly get under them the way he was situated. Plus he's 6 feet and change, I'm 5'2". There was no way I was moving him.

At this point I’m no longer laughing about the situation. I wasn’t laughing as I woke up at 8 am to go to work either. Still wasn’t laughing around Noon, when the exhaustion was really kicking in.

Now though, now I can laugh. He never gets drunk. He never is chatty. Boyfriend is very laid back and quiet. Drunk Boyfriend is basically the polar opposite. There was some funny stuff going on.

Like the falling down trying to get into bed, rolling out of bed and landing on the floor, the sad face as he told me he didn’t get a lap dance from the strippers and that he’d like to go back. I tried to let him know that the bar was closed, the party was over and the strippers had most likely gone home to their very nice penthouse apartments that they can afford based on their salary (or dorm rooms as they pay there way through college depending on the girl). He didn’t believe me and managed to get halfway out of the front door before I could corral him back to bed.

I managed to not yell, shout, or show my upsetness (that’s not even a real word) the whole time. I stayed quiet, smiled quietly and swallowed it because I knew after I took a good nap and heard about the night from his point of view, I’d laugh. The nap there being the key.

And boy am I laughing now. I have ammunition for a good long while. Sometimes it pays to just sit back and watch.

A song and a room!

I'm gonna try something new to keep me on top of posting. If I do Fabulous House Fridays and Song and Room Mondays maybe the rest of the week can fill itself in.

The Song and Room idea came to because of this song: Last Name by Carrie Underwood. For those of you who are not country music fans... what is wrong with you? haha! I kept picturing this girl's house in my head. First here's the lyrics. Click that link above for the actual song and video.

Last night I got served a little bit too much of that poison baby
Last night I did things I'm not proud of
And I got a little crazy
Last night I met a guy on the dance floor
And I let him call me baby

And I don't even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know his last name

We left the club right around three o'clock in the morning
His Pinto sitting there in the parking lot Well it should have been a warning
I had no clue what I was getting into
So I blame it on the Cuervo
Oh where did my manners go?

And I don't even know his last name
Oh, my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know his last name
Here we go...

Today I woke up thinkin' about Elvis somewhere in Vegas
I'm not sure how I got here
Or how this ring on my left hand just appeared out of nowhere
I gotta go
I take the chips and the Pinto and hit the road
They say what happens here stays here
All of this will disappear
There's just one little problem...

I don't even know my last name
Oh my mama would be so ashamed
It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned in,
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last name

What have I done
What have I done
What have I done
Oh, what have I done
I don't even know my last name

It turned into
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last

It started off "Hey cutie, where ya from?"
And then it turned into
"Oh no, what have I done?"
And I don't even know my last name

In my head the girl this song is about lives here.

You may recognize it from the 2003 movie Down With Love, starring Renée Zellweger.

The bathroom is a bit too naive and girly, but Ijust had to include the image

In the movie the main character lives in this beautiful bachelorette pad. In that song, I imagine that girl living in something just like this.

This place goes on my list of “If’s”. If I ever had my own place. If I could handle that much pink. If I lived in the city as a single girl. Then I would definitely want this place.

What do you think?

Fabulous House Friday

Today’s Pretty House comes to us from Jupiter, Florida.

For a cool $9,990,000 this baby can be yours.
This back yard view is stimply stunning.

Here is the backyard view from the house. Look at how cute that pool is, can you see the fountains?

Loving the black and white, with pops of orange. I also love how it opens right up to the the outside. The color theme stays the same outside, making the whole "room" seem larger. (Only thing I would change is the colors in that little dining area to the right). And look whats right on the other side of that dining area!

In my opinion the kitchen is the highlite of the house. Now that is a show stopper.

This floor reminds me of one I've seen before

This one here.

Holy wine cellar, I'm sure I could find something to put in there. (wink wink)

A perfectly masculine office. I could easily convert this bad boy into a library for myself. A nice cozy library.

So what do you think should I put a down payment on that baby? Would you?

Seasonal Decorating.... hmmm

I referred to this towards the end of my post the other day and felt it needed to be expanded on. It’s a phenomenon I just don’t understand…

Rooms that are a season?

If it were my house, it should be every season. I don’t want a room I can only go in during the Summer.

I live in New England. I don't think I'd go in this room in the dead of winter.

What about a Fall only room. (I’ve seen ton’s of these around lately)

Not one thats been passed around much, mostly because it was an ad for West Elm Quilts. It just says Fall to me. What if this was your room the Spring time?

Same goes for Winter and Spring.

This room just screams winter to me. I stole the image from thelennoxx.com awhile ago by my computer is having an issue finding the exact link right now.

Unless someday I’m uber rich and can literally have a home that has seasonal rooms (and honestly I don’t think I’d ever want a house that big anyways).

I understand small things like throw pillows, linens, accessories can make all the difference, but for us very average people do we really have the time and money to change our house with the seasons? I am seriously asking this as a question, I don’t own a house and wonder how people manage. Is this something people out there are doing?

Yes you've seen that before on this blog. Love the room so much. Comes from here.

In my opinion all that room needs is a quick change of the linen's and it's ready for any season.

This phenomenon almost feels like when my Mom used to decorate for Holidays? I always thought Halloween decorations were a little over the top, but maybe just Fall decorations makes more sense. And that leads me to a whole other issue…

This is not my mom's house, she never did anything quite that elegant. It came from here.

Do we then consider throw pillows and linens decorations?

I’m lost on this whole entire idea.

The Bear Hill blog has the new fall colors by Pantone and "suggests" that we should decorate with them accordingly. Considering they are always the new “it” colors would I really want to do this? I mean I don’t like the idea of all neutral all the time, but I don’t want to do a trendy color now that I will either be sick of or will be out of date by next year.

I love the idea of trendy colors, like the red pictured above, but in reality… is this a good idea?

So what do you all think about decorating for the season or even for a trend?

My $120 Lunch

So my new job is located in the city. Fabulous, love being in the city for at least part of the day.

Also fabulous, the mall (which I have a love/hate relationship with) is just a 5 minute walk away. The other day I ventured over ONLY to deposit a paycheck.
Well of course I walked the whole 5 minutes (I know it's not really that long) over to the bank in the mall, left my check at my desk, and managed to spend $120 in Gap. Yep, not only did I not deposit money I managed to spend it! Let me explain myself. Gap was having a jeans sale. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried Gap jeans, but they are probably my favorite things ever. Usually around $70, I buy 1 pair a year. I wear my jeans out from use so it’s just not worth spending over $100 each time, and you 7 for All Mankind fans will never convince me otherwise!

I bought 2 pairs of Jeans from gap for $70 total. That’s right $35 per pair. Awesome!
I’m on the short side so the Ankle length is almost perfect. It still manages to touch the ground in flip flops, do these companies think we are all 5’ 7”?

I also found this sweater at the front of the store on sale for $20. It matched my pants better than the shirt I had on that day did, so I figured I’d at least try it on. 10 minutes later I was in heaven. So I bought it in 3 different colors.

And my last purchase was this skirt I found in that blackhole they call the "sale rack" for $21. It was the only one of it’s kind and just happened to be in my size. It’s going to be a pain due to the constant ironing it will need, but I think overall it’ll be worth it.

I got it in a coraly reddish color that of course they only sell in stores; this means I can’t show it to you. It also means I’m pretty excited I found it in my size.

Just thought I would share my $120 lunch with you all. Tell me I’m not the only one who has those days?

P.S. For those of you counting I know that adds up to more than $120, I gave in and opened a Gap Credit Card to save a few extra bucks.

P.P.S. I love this room….

Found in Cabo San Lucas via House of Turquoise there is something just so absolutely perfect about it feeling summery and fresh, yet with a linen change it could be fall, winter, or spring. Love that. I'm getting really confused with all these images that are so "summer" or so "fall" if it's my house it'd better be every season, I live in that thing year round.

Not what I meant to post, but good nonetheless

I had this great idea to do a regular post on Fridays with some home’s for sale that boast beautiful interiors. I figured I’d just look through a couple of totally outrageously priced homes and voila, I’d have a post. Boy was I wrong. So I spent the entire morning and most of my afternoon on Sotheby’s. I began in the upper $25,000,000 range. Yes that’s right homes above the $25 million mark. They were so over the top it became not-fun. It was hard to even picture myself living in anything like that. I like my fantasies to have some small basis in reality.

(Or exterioirs as the case may be)

I redid my search for something below a measly $1 million. I know I know, it’s chump change, but there has to be something decent for that price right, hah!

(That's the very same house, sigh)

Well my only pre-requisites were that it be under $1 million, in the U.S., and near a beach. It returned 201 pages of results. No wonder I wasted my whole day looking at crazy houses. I managed to look through the first 15 pages of results before wondering what lay at the bottom of the barrel.

(This is the top of the barrel)

That is where my post idea took a total turn and we end up with this gem.

For $35,000 you can buy a condo in Hawaii. I repeat: For $35,000 you can buy a condo in Hawaii. How unreal is that? It’s located at the Kauai Beach Resort. It has partial ocean views.

It looks a little bit like a hotel room, but seriously, that is nothing to pay for ocean views in Hawaii. Plus you get a doorman and use of the exercise room and hot tub.
It’s currently listed as a short sale so hop on it!

Next Friday I promise pretty rooms in homes for sale.

Farewell Summer...

I’m already looking forward to fall, it is my very favorite season and totally satisfies my cozy homey cravings. From apple picking, to play-off baseball, to the first days of sweater wearing it just hits all the right spots for me. I’m trying to hold off on my enthusiasm for this Fall and the best way to do that is to hop online to check out summer sale items at my favorite retailers.

Love this 3 drink pitcher, not sure why I don’t have one yet, but I need it!

Orig. $149.90 Sale $99.90

Oh Neiman Marcus you kill me, now I know why I don’t have it yet… $100?

These get filed under my new obsession with Talbot’s

Orig. $39.50 Sale $13.29

Not only are these the most comfortable shorts ever, they come in great colors. Thank you Talbots for finally understand the word SALE…

Kate Spade= Love

Orig. $275 Sale $110

This bag is adorable and I’m not one of those crazy girls who can only use things for 1 season and then the next summer buy the newest trend. I love this bag and would save it for a summer present to myself next year. It is actually on sale. Awesome.

This is almost like a sale, but its mostly just smart shopping. Love the Summer Collection this year by Essie. $17 on their website $8.75 on Amazon.com

I’m a Pottery Barn girl at heart, so end of season sales get me every time. If I had a) tons of money and b) a house I’d be getting this stuff pronto. Although if I had tons of money maybe I’d already have gotten it at full price, you know just because I could.

Table Orig. $799.00 SALE $559.00
Long Bench Orig. $269.00 SALE $188.00
Short bench Orig. $249.00 SALE $174.00
Corner, no longer available (That’s fine I bought it earlier with all my extra money)
Set of 6 Chairs Orig. $1,074.00 SALE $699.00

Limited Time Offer! Receive 50% off an Outdoor Furniture Cover with a purchase from the Chesapeake Furniture Collection. Place qualifying furniture item(s) and outdoor cover(s) in your shopping cart. During checkout, enter promo code COVER.

Whale Tote
Not on sale, but that’s okay… it’s too cute to pass up. Clearly I’m no longer interested in sale stuff anyways, I’m rich now.

Medium $49
Mini $29

A personal summer essential, while I can’t find these on the Clarks website, I know they exist. Every year at the beginning of summer I go to a Clark’s outlet store and buy these sandals in every color I can find.

Usually around $30-$40 (but the first pair I ever bought I found at TJ Maxx for $25

So that’s it. Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall. Just wait until you see my favorite fall things!

Inspiration and Religion... deep stuff

I want to warn you, this post has nothing to do with design or style in the least. It’s a little bit more about inspiration. Inspiration in the sense that many people turn to religion when they are feeling down, stuck in a rut, or even at their happiest moments. This post is about my struggle with religion.

I’m not religious in the traditional sense I was raised in. My parents were both Catholic, my father was raised Irish Catholic. For those of you who don’t know what that means it includes saying the rosary every night before bed. Hitting your knees to pray at both morning and night, and basically having religion be a near punishment, with loads of guilt as the cherry on the sundae.

Growing up I was baptized and made my first communion, but that was where the train stopped. As my sister and I took up dancing, and later gymnastics for me, our days were consumed with being at each studio at certain times. Weekends were when competitions occurred and there was no time for Sunday morning church.

Around this time our priest passed away. Father Maha had been the reason my parents went to church, the fact that I still remember his name all these years later tells you just how important he was to our church attendance.

Our life became consumed, like so many, by sports, hobbies, and well… life.

Sometime in Elementary school during catechism class I had a light bulb pop on and raised my hand to ask a question. Now before I share what my question was let me just tell you that this question has been my issue with religion since that time. As I look back at myself as a cute little girl with my hand up in the air patiently waiting, I almost wish that light bulb had remained off. So here I’m sitting on the edge of my seat with my hand raised as high as it could go, totally anxious…

“If God created everything, then who created God?”

I thought this was a brilliant question. How come no one before me had asked this, there were no answers to this in any of our handbooks, worksheets, or even the bible. My teacher’s response was this…

“God just exists, your faith in him is what allows you to believe this.”

Now I’m sure it was phrased exactly this way, and if it was guaranteed my hand shot up in the air again to figure out what exactly she meant. I get the gist of it now, but still struggle with the answer.

I’m a scientific kind of gal. I like the tangible, prove-able, and many a CSI episode (I own season 1 on DVD). So this answer definitely didn’t satisfy my curiosity. I wish I could tell you I was the kind of child who instantly sat down to researching, but really I just sat in the car on my way home and asked my Mom why the nice lady teacher didn’t answer my question. My Mom’s response was much the same as my teacher’s and still I wasn’t satisfied. This was big stuff, maybe one of the first times I ever doubted that my parents knew everything and were always right.

Now 15-20 years later I still struggle with this. As a big reader, my Mom encourages me at least once a year to sit down with a bible again and read it. Even if I decide I’m not truly invested in the religion, she claims it’s a great story. I read The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas as a Junior in high school, it was required reading through my home school program (Side-note I was home-schooled for only my Junior year so that I could do gymnastics twice a day instead of just once, right). My parents saw the book on the list, knew what it was about and inwardly said Uht oh. This was probably going to be my biggest challenge due to my resistance to religion. To their surprise I read the book in 2 days flat. I credit this book with being the only reason I still ponder religion. It is a fabulous book and the writing was the kind that made me feel like I was in the story following the main character around.

Currently throughout my family it is a long running joke that I’m allergic to church. At my cousin’s confirmation this past Spring my Aunt teased me before walking into the church saying she wanted to be at least 10 steps behind me in case I burst into flame. In my family this was meant to be funny and not in any way offensive. Please don’t take it wrong. Funny, it most certainly was. I walked into church without any harm.

My sister was also recently Confirmed by the Catholic church. She was asked to be a sponsor by a friend of the family and needed to go through her own confirmation before being able to hold that position. As a 26 year old she had a different experience than I can recall my high school friends going through. Still I had my reservations.

I’m drawn to country music and the feeling of peace the artists all describe when singing about God/religion. Yet I’m baffled why I’ve never felt any draw by religion. I found this blog post today and thought, yes, perfect. I could never re-phrase it in the way she has, so just go read it. I love the feeling of peace I get when I enter a church, but was always slightly baffled at the ornate-ness and pompous feeling I get from the building and the service. Clearly my ambiguousness with religion is an ongoing part of my life.

I believe there is a higher power out there. Life isn’t all science it’s a bit magic, a bit hope, and even a bit faith. But I still struggle with God and the Catholic beliefs. Maybe it’s time to put on my big girl pants and look into religion again. Read the bible, look into other religions that follow my beliefs a bit closer, and do some good old inflection.

This post was mainly due to the blog post I linked to above. It gave me such a torn feeling. In some ways it’s so perfect and yet at the end of it all I question the existence of God himself. I am surprised that I ended up where I am now, thinking more about religion than ever before, tempted to go pick up a bible, and interested in the other religious beliefs out there.

Thanks for coming along for that ride.

Back from hiding

Hey all (although at this point I'm not sure I've got anyone left)

I know there is no excuse, but I got my first real job and have been too busy/exhausted to post. Lucky for me some parts of my new job include down time and internet access. This means not only have I been stockpiling images like it's my job (it's not), but I will hopefully be able to get into some sort of regular posting pattern.

In this economy I'm so grateful to have a job that even though it's not what I went to school for and it's pretty miserable it is nice to know that I will have some experience to throw on my resume. Plus now that I'm an adult (gasp) those insurance benefits really will come in handy when Dad kicks me off his.

I always wanted to work in sports and interned for 2 years with my local AHL hockey team, so when they called me specifically because someone had quit, I couldn't turn them down. I know the office, the employees, the bosses, and it's in my field. When I first graduated I had high hopes of not settling for anything less than a great job, oh how the mighty have fallen. I work 9-6 with an hour lunch break, making phone calls. It is technically a sales job, but its really more like a telemarketing job.

On to the positive side... I got to go shopping! Off I went to the mall. Every store I’m usually comfortable shopping in decided that this was the year of leggings with a long shirt, totally not work appropriate. (Or is it?)

Side Note~

My Aunt has worked at Talbots for as long as I can remember. When we used to go visit her at work the store was filled with “wealthy” old ladies. These ladies ranged from the elegant grandmothers, to the grumpy senile older crowd. The styles in the store catered to this.

A few years ago I went in to visit her again. My first reaction was excitement, I loved the clothes. My second reaction was OMG I have old lady taste. Laughing she told me it wasn’t me, they had tried to update the line and attract a younger crowd. Giant sigh of relief.

End Side Note~

I ended up heading over to Talbots to just say Hey, and again was surprised at how much I loved the clothes. I was even more surprised to see a giant 50% off sign in Clearance land. This made these clothes nearly affordable on my very small budget. After a quick Hello, she was busy helping out one of the more senile older ladies, it was off the clearance racks. My enthusiasm grew as I realized that the sale items were half off the already reduced price.

After 3 hours of picking out and trying on I knew why people were willing to pay extra for clothing from a nice store. Everything fit nicely, looked flattering, and was made of great quality. Here are some of the items I grabbed.

Flats in my favorite color, Kelly Green.

They gave my heels the largest blisters I've had in awhile, but were worth it!

A sweater to match.

I loved that sweater so much I got in a few other colors.

This Pink and Black too!

I was the girl in college who wore button downs with a cable knit sweater over. I wore them everywhere, one night I tried to wear it to the bar and my friends wouldn't allow it. The sweater set is my new version of that.

Brown Linen Pants, dry clean only… this is the official sign of big girl clothing

I also loooooove NY&Co city knit pants. They feel like sweats, but look like dress pants.

I bought three pairs when they were on the sale rack a couple years ago, but they were "long's" as a short girl I was prepared to have them hemmed in order to get them at just $10 a pair. For another $10 I paid to have them hemmed (with a cuff, a regular hem is just $5). $20 for pants that are the perfect length is unbeatable.

I also grabbed this shirt... Orange is my new favorite color!

These photo's all make it look like I wear lots of colors, but really it's usually a plain black, brown, etc colored pant with a cute shirt and a sweater. If I'm feeling lazy, it's just the sweater set.

Clearly I've had alot going on... like I said I stockpiled photo's. Just wait I even have idea's for future posts! That's all for now friends... I promise to be back!