Beards and beer

Robert's T-shirt. Truth.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Ever love a movie as a kid and then realize that it is really not okay? For me, that movie is "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." (Massive total spoiler alerts coming in case you want to watch it on your own.)

 And, okay, I still love this movie. It's so colorful and fun and it has cheesy musical numbers, and I adore cheesy musical numbers.

But it also has the following plot: Seven brothers who live way out in the country kidnap seven townie chicks because they want to marry them. (Wait. They just kidnap six because the oldest brother already married a townie chick who was fed up with the town.) Kidnapping is wrong! It's not right! The oldest brother's wife is super sassy and tells them they're crazy, but there's been an avalanche, and the girls are stuck in the country until spring. So the men get kicked out of the house and have to live in the barn, and then... everyone falls in love. It's very Beauty and the Beast/Stockholm Syndrome.

So when the snow melts, the townsmen come back to claim their girlfriends/sisters/daughters. And the girls don't want to go! They're in love. Then they all claim the wife's baby is their own. Then they all get married in a shotgun wedding for six. What is that about? How is that okay? 

It's not. It's not okay. And, yet, this movie is still all right by me. 

Style Icon: George Harrison

The quiet Beatle said a lot through his style.

What did he say? "Denim on denim is good." "Big hats are all right by me." "Buttons. Yes to buttons." And so on. (And the look is still so contemporary. I know people who could pass for George Harrison.)

Sappy

I'm going to take some pictures in my pretty first-day-of-school dress! Hey wait. What's that?

What is that?

What is going on here?

Uh uh. No this is not acceptable.

It's like it's raining, but there's not a cloud in the sky... It's sap?

It's sap. There are worse things than sap. I can handle sap dribbles. It's going to be okay.

 Anyway, this is my pretty first-day-of-school dress. It's not new, but it's fabulous. Fabulous. And guess what? My first day of school was fabulous too. Absolutely fabulous. I'm expecting it to be an excellent year!

P.S. Glasses are fixed! Yay!

Yellow wallpaper

We went to Virginia this weekend to visit Robert's grandmother and great-grandmother. Let me tell you this: Robert's grandmother has some a-mah-zing '70s wallpaper in her bathroom. It makes me so happy. Yellow and orange and flowered all over!

Loving Lately

Lately I've been loving...

1. Owls. They have maybe taken over my classroom.

2. The Dollar Store -- one stop shopping for the start of the school year! I bought all sorts of things, most importantly book bins for all those books I bought for my classroom this summer. School starts tomorrow! 

3. Tuna salad sandwiches complete with ginger dressing, carrots and lettuce. (Made by Robert who does most of the cooking in our house, which some find shocking, and I find awesome.)

4. Visiting my childhood home and seeing my old toys, which my parents have brought out for their grandchildren (my niece and nephew). That doll is named Isabella, and when I first got her, she was as tall as me! The big bear is named "Big Bear" and he belonged to my brother. I'm happy they're out to be enjoyed by a new generation of kids.

B&W

Black and white because this is a serious post about my serious feelings. 

I love these glasses so so much, but they were lopsided when I first got them, and then when the lopsided-ness was more or less (a little on the less side there) fixed, they hurt my left ear, and I am living a life that just can not handle left-ear pain right now, especially when that pain is pricey.

So what can I do? Return them? Pray they can fix them? Try to develop a left-ear callus so I can wear these suckers on the regular? I am filled with ennui like Henri, le chat noir. Black and white ennui. Filled with it. 

Style Icon: Barbra Streisand

Mod Barbra Streisand: The best Barbra Streisand.

 She is so sleek. She is so hip. And I really love that eyeliner.

Her whole thing back in the day was that she wasn't the typical beauty, and I love beautiful women who aren't typical. I also love '60s eye makeup. And so I love Mod Barbra Streisand.

Hello schoolteacher

The eclectic librarian is back! Goodbye summertime fun, hello schoolteacher! And hello purple thrifted sweater. 

This sweater wins at life. I love the ruffles and the color and the everything. That is what I love about this sweater.

I wore this outfit to TD training (I am a 3-5 teacher for gifted kids also known as "TD" (Talent and Development) students.), and I also wore it during my literacy training last summer. I'm pretty sure I might be wearing it once a week for the rest of 2013.

The evening before the training, I started watching "Top of the Lake" on Netflix Instant. It stars Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men, and its directed by Jane Campion who also directed "The Piano," which is a gorgeous, gorgeous movie. A word of advice: Don't start watching "Top of the Lake" the night before you have to wake up at a reasonable hour and think about important things.

"Top of the Lake" is so good -- tremendously involving and suspenseful and yet somehow also languid. It paints a (disturbing) portrait of a town and is totally addictive. All the characters are absolutely absorbing and complex. The mystery is so mysterious! Truth time: I had to skip many episodes to get to the finale or I wasn't going to fall asleep. So that's what I did. I watched the last episode and skipped many in the middle. Shame on me! Don't be like me! But do carve out some serious time for it if you have binge-TV-watching tendencies as I do with killer (as in good and also as in crime-solving murder mysteries) shows. "Top of the Lake"? Top notch. (Oh yeah. I went there.)

100 percent thrifted

Clothing-wise, this outfit is 100 percent thrifted, which is a pretty amazing thing considering the fact this outfit includes jeans. I never thrift jeans, but one day, I thrifted not one, but two pairs of jeans. It was an impressive and memorable day. This outfit features one of those pairs of jeans. 

I was pretty happy to find them. I don't even know why I decided to look at jeans that day as I never bother to since the sizes are all mixed up and hunting usually ends up unsuccessful.

Glad I did though! Jeans success. The top was also thrifted, and it's featured in this post. It's a good lazy Sunday top in my opinion. (And when the occasion arises, a good energetic Saturday top too!)

The purse was not thrifted, which makes my 100 percent thrifted claim a little shaky. 

But these shoes were thrifted! Funny fact: I bought my sister these shoes (you know, new and in her size) for Christmas from Target, and then I found another pair in my size at a thrift store about six months later. Now we have matching Dorothy shoes!

The purse is from Esty. It is my summertime purse. When fall comes around, I might bring back my giant Mary Poppins-esque bag, but I'm keeping this one around for now.

This shirt is obviously about these details around the collar there. Silvery embroidery is not normally my thing, but maybe "my thing" is changing because I'm all about this.

And you may have noticed that I'm wearing jeans in August in North Carolina, which begs the question: Am I a crazy person? Answer: Nope. The weather is being wacko, but I'm all about it because it's nice and cool and feels almost like fall. Fall is the best season of all! I can't wait for it to come in full force!

Loving lately

Lately I've been loving...

1. My husband wearing a bow tie. Loving it. (He wore it to The Lion King.)

2. Stealing said bow tie (Yes. It's a clip on. No judgment!) and clipping it to my dress. (Done in the comfort of my home after the performance, but I dig the pattern mixing!)

3. Clover

4. Setting up my classroom and getting ready for the school year. I am feeling really excited and positive.

5. Avocados. Oh yes.

6. Watching Breaking Pointe: Reality television about ballet? Why did I not already know about this? I am so addicted.



7. Watching dance documentaries to get my Breaking Pointe fix between Breaking Pointe episodes. My favorite: First Position. It made me cry. It follows young dancers competing for awards/scholarships at this giant event in New York. The stories are all fascinating, but I especially love Michaela, who was born in war-torn Sierra Leon and was adopted by white parents (her mother discusses racism in the dance world, and she's filmed staying up late at night dying "flesh colored" parts of ballet costumes darker for her daughter -- because "flesh colored" isn't really the color of everyone's flesh). It's just such a beautiful, moving documentary filled with gorgeous dancing and touching stories.



9. Buying tickets to see "Sleeping Beauty" because I am on a dance kick.

10. Big news: My sister got engaged!

The best dress ever (ever, ever, ever)

I don't even know where to start with this dress. I thrifted it about a month ago, and it is the best thrift of my life. Even better than the Isaac Mizrahi dress. This is a polka-dotted, ruffly, soft, silky extravaganza of a dress, and it was $5. AND the tags were still on it. What? 

Here is a series of photos of me in the best dress ever (ever, ever, ever). My face morphs from serenely happy to seriously goofy. What can I say? The dress makes me giddy!

It is a ridiculous dress. When I first bought it, I thought I might be able to dress it down with flip flops or something, but this is no summertime fun maxi-dress. This is a going-out-on-the-town, ruffled, backless, totally sassypants maxi-dress.

So I wore it to the Lion King. The Lion King was as good at being a musical as this dress is at being a dress. Meaning: very, very good.

Here are a few details for your viewing pleasure... First up is my clutch, which was given to me by a student for Christmas last year and is super awesome. I love the beading details, and it fits my cell phone and red lipstick perfectly.

Here is a tiny, tiny, shiny button.

And I wore the same shoes to The Lion King as I did to last weekend's gallery opening because they are cute and comfortable, and I had forgotten they existed, and now that I have rescued them from the back of my closet, I might be wearing them all the time.

I love having an excuse to dress up. I love going out on the town. I love theater. I am mad for musicals. I knew The Lion King was going to be good, but it surpassed my very-high expectations. (Pictured above: the curtain before the start of the show.) The sets and costumes were a-mah-zing. The "Circle of Life" opening with all the animals coming on stage was worth the ticket price in and of itself. I've never seen anything like it. (And I've got to say, I love me some puppets.)

The whole night was just really spectacular and lovely and aesthetically pleasing. Check out the ceiling in the auditorium!

Even the elevators in the parking deck were beautiful. I stayed up past my bed time and had to get up early for training (summer is over people, but it looks like it is going to be an excellent school year), but it was more than worth the sleepiness. I laughed, I cried, my husband wore a bow tie. A girl could not ask for more.

Cats and foxes

It's time for some new spectacles! And I've decided to go with these saucy cateyes because I love them.

For a second, I worried the little rhinestones on the side were too much for a professional environment, but then I decided I was being a crazy person and these glasses weren't too much, they were just right. I am Goldilocks and these glasses are the baby bear's porridge.

Speaking of woodland animals... This taxidermied fox wearing sunglasses is in a glass case in my eye doctor's lobby. Why is it there? What is its deal? What is going on? I have not actually asked my doctor these questions as I just prefer to let the mystery be.

Style Icon: Nancy Drew

As a kid, I started out reading the classic Nancy Drew books -- the ones that are very innocent and fun and have hidden staircases and mysterious old clocks.

I dug these books, but then I discovered Nancy Drew Files, which were way more exciting. There was sordid romance! There were perilous situations on every page! Nancy almost died on the regular! It was thrill ride after thrill ride, I tell you what. 

Whether it was prim Nancy Drew or sassy Nancy Drew, she always looked hella-fabulous on the book covers. And so I say: Nancy Drew is a style icon no matter what the era.