Loving It

Lately I've been loving..

1. How chill my dog is when my niece and nephew dress her up in various outfits.

2. Enjoying a baby shower/crawfish boil at our house. It was our last baby shower! We're done with classes! What do I do now? Wait. Organize. Wait. Clean stuff. Wait. Read some books. WAIT.

3. My husband wore a Rosie the Riveter apron when preparing the boil. He is a fun dude. We should have a baby together. We can do it!

P.S. A long time ago I wondered how long I'd be able to wear that thrifted blue maxi into the pregnancy. Answer: All the way to the end! That is one stretchy dress.

Style Icon: Freddie from A Different World

I was a huge "A Different World" fan, and once Denise Huxtable left the show, Freddie became my number-one favorite character. She was a free-spirit flower child with painted jeans and amazing hair.

There she is in the center with the hippy jeans. Her style was kind of a joke on the show, but I was always way into it!

On being normal

“My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." -- Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic 

Cut up

It continues to be summer and the weather continues to be hot and I continue to be pregnant (a very good thing -- not ready for you yet baby!). I don't have many maternity shorts, but I realized I could chop a pair of pants and create some shorts/capris/cropped something-or-other situation with them and so I did.

I am so so happy I bought these shoes for third trimester. At my baby classes, all you see are pregnant women in sandals and flip flops. That's all we can fit into! As for those baby classes? We're officially done! Do I feel full of knowledge and completely confident? Nope. But I know way more than I did when we started.

This is a little knotted necklace I thrifted a long time ago. The shirt is one of the first maternity items I bought. Sandals were totally bought for full price and totally worth it. The pants/shorts/cropped things were given to me by my friend Sherrie. I hope she doesn't mind that I cut them up!

I am so grateful to be off of work. I didn't plan it this way on purpose, but I'll take it. If I could have perfectly planned it, I would have been due right around the end of the school year. So many teachers have stories of going into labor while in the classroom! Having some summertime is nice though. It gives me time to properly nest, and now instead of just feeling intensely exhausted and pushing through it, I feel intensely exhausted and take naps! I much prefer the nap option, I tell you what.

Style Icon: Jan Brady

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Okay, Marcia did have it going on, but so did Jan, and Jan didn't have that Homecoming-Queen-Gleam. She was more down to earth.

She had great '70s style and long, flowing hair. Those Brady girls sure did have amazing, straw-colored, straight hair, didn't they? My mother had naturally straight hair, but she tells me stories about other people breaking out irons to iron their hair straight, which sounds like a whole lot of work to me (although I guess people use hair straightening irons all the time, but that seems more sane than an actual iron and ironing board).

Jan had glasses. Whenever someone wears glasses, I love them a little bit more. Just because. Because of the glasses.

And she was sassy and wore groovy bell bottoms and great '70s shirts that I would LOVE to thrift. She's definitely the second-banana though. If you look through Brady Bunch promo shots, Jan is literally always covered by someone else -- usually Marcia or Cindy, and then it's just her poor bespectacled Jan head sticking out and smiling. 

Oh well. Jan, you still have your place in history! You're a role-model for middle-children with glasses everywhere! (Or at least here. In my living room. Right now. For me. A role model!)

The maximum amount of dress

Oh, you know, just carrying around a bit of a belly these days.

I used to refer to this as my "maxi-dress mumu" because I wore it almost every day one lazy Christmas break. It is so comfortable! It is so great for lounging around the house in! So voluminous! So purple! So paisley!

I wore a tank top under the dress for a little extra coverage. Maxi-dresses -- a girl's best friend, pregnant or not! They are one of my favorite things in the summer time. That and ice cream sandwiches. And cherries. I'm really into cherries right now. Maxi-dresses, ice cream sandwiches and cherries -- these are a few of my favorite summertime things!

Style Icon: Lelaina in Reality Bites

Reality Bites is such a great piece of '90s fashion awesomeness. When people first started getting '90s nostalgia, I was like "What? Nostlagia?! The '90s were, like, yesterday!" But I'm coming to realize (and as the  years pass this becomes more and more true), that the '90s were quite a while ago, and I'm beginning to be a bit nostalgic about them too. I was a teen during that decade, and it was a great time to be a teen. I spent many hours watching and re-watching Reality Bites as it was the best.

 Everyone had great style. All of them. Clearly. As seen above.

I'm focusing on Lelaina in this post partly because she was the star and partly because I covet Winona Ryder's hair. She dresses sloppy throughout the movie and looks so fabulous in her sloppiness.

She looks great in red lipstick and muscle shirts.

And she also rocks the gas station shirt as did the hot boys at my high school. 

But here and there she cleans up, and when she does, she looks right nice. There she is, our '90s heroine, looking like "a doily" (to quote the movie), but what a great doily she is!

Pregnant Lady Peasant Blouse

"Is that vintage?" asked my stylish, designer-loving friend who can comfortably drop hundreds of bucks on a purse.
"I think so," I said "I'm not sure. It's thrifted."
"You're the only person I know who can find things like that when thrifting," she said.

What's my secret? Lots and lots of time spent thrifting. If you put the hours in, you find pretty awesome stuff. Of course, lots of people hate the idea of sifting through old stuff in order to find something fabulous. For me, it's super fun. But... I haven't been thrifting much lately. I am not letting myself buy anymore baby clothes because this baby has possibly too many clothes as it is (THEY ARE SO CUTE). And then thrifting is much less fun when pregnant. It's partly because I get winded doing not very much and my legs hurt etc., but it's mostly because nothing fits me. Plus-size isn't quite right. Straight-sizing is definitely not right. Maternity-wear is hard to find. Then, I think about thrifting clothes for my post-baby future, and I'm not sure what to buy for that either. What is my body going to look like? Surely, it won't be exactly the same as it was before. I know better than that!

But I have plenty of clothes and don't need to thrift any more (I just enjoy it!). This shirt is one of my favorite items pregnant or not. I love the cap sleeve and the crochet details and the pattern. It's so sweet and thin and summery. I've been wearing it a ton as it covers my pregnant belly. Also wearing a ton: My Birkenstocks, but they're beginning to get too small! I am swelling! Swelling, I say! It's the heat! The humidity! The being a pregnant-lady! Flip flops: I think you are in my future.

Leaf dress

I thrifted this gorgeous silk dress this winter when my baby bump barely existed. The jeans were thrifted too -- one of several maternity pairs I found in my early searches. Thrifting for the win!

I wore this to another baby class. This one was called "Transition into Motherhood." Robert was in a class at the same time called "Daddy Bootcamp." We had a thin wall separating the future moms and future dads, and we could hear each other laughing through it. It was a pretty fun and informative (oh the things that will be happening to me!). The male/female separation reminded me of when you separate the boys and girls in fifth-grade to teach them about the birds and the bees. The subject matter is related for sure!

One of my favorite things about this dress is the green sash. Such a great shade!

I also really love the print. Look at those pretty leaves! Such intricate lines!

So, yes, summer vacation is officially here. I've spent it at baby classes mostly. I think this is going to be a pretty baby-centric summer, which is fine with me. Look at my belly! How big is that thing going to get?

When Harry Met Sally

Such. A. Good. Movie.

I once watched an interview with Nora Ephron where she said the movie was completely unrealistic, and it would never happen in life, and I was like "Then why do you make the movie? Why do you make us believe it could?" But I have since decided: A) It could happen. Two people could be friends forever and then end up together. (I know of one such couple!) and B) Even if it isn't completely realistic, I'm just happy to have the fantasy on screen. And it's so funny! And Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are just so great together! "When Harry Met Sally" -- Such. A. Good. Movie.

Loving It

Lately I've been loving...



1. This Iggy Azalea parody -- "I'm so pregnant." Oh man, I AM so pregnant. So, so pregnant! Got the whole world asking when's my due date.
2. Summertime! Almost! Kids are out of school, and we only have a few work days left!
3. Coleslaw.
4. Orange is the New Black.

5. My adorable nephew Nate turned four years old. He is such a cutie!

Shorts. Tank top. Birkenstocks.

How will I dress myself between now and when the weather is not super-duper hot? Tank tops. Shorts. Birkenstocks (which are one of the only pairs of shoes my feet are fitting into right now). There's going to be a lot of those happening this summer.

Style Icon: Claudia Kishi

Claudia tied with Maryanne for my favorite character in "The Babysitters Club" series. I read all the books pretty obsessively in fifth-grade as they were the best. Maryanne is awesome because she's sweet and bookish, and Claudia is awesome because she's artsy and a total style icon.

Claudia, who was vice president of the Babysitters Club, was an artist who struggled in school, and her outfits were always ridiculously wonderful. The writer of the series, Ann M. Martin, always made a point of describing her look. It was the '80s/early '90s so everything was big and colorful, and I loved the descriptions to bits.

Even without the description, it's clear Claudia is a style icon based on the book covers. Girl always had it going on.

Did you know there was a book out about where the Sweet Valley High characters are now? I would LOVE for Ann M. Martin to write about the Babysitters Club characters as adults. For now, I'll have to settle with this imagining by a creative fan.

Style Icon: Lauryn Hill

I remember reading a review of "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" when the album first came out, and the reviewer was praising it and saying he hoped it wasn't like Carole King's "Tapestry" where the artist is one and done, and I was like "Why are you even writing that? Why are you putting it in the universe?" And then it came true. Boo. (Rumor has it she's working on new material. I believe in this rumor.)

Lauryn Hill -- great musician with great hair and an awesome ability to accessorize.

 She looked rad at all the awards shows -- very bohemian, very cool, wearing those signature bangles like it was no big thing.

She was beautiful and super glamorous, but also a bit of a tomboy. I'm so impressed with women who can pull that combo off.

I became a fan (like so so many other people) when she was with The Fugees. I remember singing "Killing Me Softly" all the time during high school, and my mother really hating the beat behind it. She liked the classic Roberta Flack version. Me? I like the classic '90s Fugees version the best.

Hot, hot, hot

I got this necklace on eBay, but it's not vintage. It's faux-vintage. Still cute!

Working my third-trimester belly in this green maxi dress. It's already getting so hot in North Carolina. This week, it's supposed to hit 100 degrees. That's too much! Too many degrees, I say! 

Slight upside: Ice cream is more delicious when it's hot out. Robert and I split this ridiculousness (raspberry/brownie/ice cream sundae), and it was scrump-diddly-ump-tious. Ice cream -- definitely one thing I love about the summer!