Ok so right up front, I'm going to say that most of what I bought this month won't be appearing on the blog. Because the majority of my budget was spent on socks and underwear. And socks are too boring to show, and there's no way in heck I'm showing you guys my underwear :P I also bought a swim cap that I may or may not end up keeping; I'm taking swim lessons at my gym and hope to replace the treadmill/elliptical/stationary bike with swimming laps!
Anyway, the one thing I got that I will show you is a sweet pair of Prana pants, in anticipation of climbing/hiking season! I'm a few months away, but I just can't wait for the weather to be warm enough to break them in!
I got them on sale at The Clymb, which means they're probably discontinued from Prana itself. They zip away at the knee, which is perfect for hiking. Keep 'em long in the woods, then zip 'em off once you get to the crag. They were $34.98. (If you like these, you can still find them on Amazon for significantly more than I paid.)
The rest of my budget breaks down thusly:
- $16.31 on long- and short-cuff socks at Target
- $39.75 on underwear at Victoria's Secret. It was the semi-annual sale, and I might have gotten a little purchase-happy...ha
- $8.22 on a swim cap from Amazon
Total $99.26. A whole 74 cents under budget, woohoo! How'd you do on your clothes budget? And hey, don't forget to share with Franziska's Budgeting Bloggers link-up!
sweater: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
khakis: Old Navy
Boots: Target
necklace: Etsy
Given the stupid-cold temperatures lately and the fact that "business casual" generally tends to frown upon sweatpants, I've been re-wearing a lot of the same warm outfits lately. So while this sweater/khaki/boots combo was shot nearly a month ago, I've worn it at least three times since then. Honestly? I'm not even going to pretend that I care. Comfort > new outfits.
Matt and I went to go see American Hustle last night, thanks to a BOGO movie ticket deal we got in the mail. (Also: Free popcorn and parking, woot!) It was pretty good, but not in the way I expected it to be. I also had a hard time seeing J.Law as anyone other than J.Law with a Jersey accent, which was pretty unfortunate. She had some good moments, though. Matt said he had a hard time seeing anything other than Amy Adams' sideboob, which was abundant. Hey, who can blame him?
And tomorrow we're doing another sort-of-cheap date night: Dinner at the Refectory (that awesome restaurant where we went for our five-year anniversary), thanks to a gift card Matt's sister and brother-in-law got us for Christmas. I'm pretty stoked.
But tonight? Tonight is even more exciting, kind of. We're going to sign a contract with our wedding venue! I'll share more details in a post next week, along with a little catch-up on where we are in the planning process. (I'm thinking I'll do some sporadic "Wedding Wednesdays" posts. Man, I love me some alliteration.)
blouse: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
cardigan: Express via DFWh
slacks: thrifted
flats: secondhand
necklace: The Limited
For me, most really bad colds usually have a turning point, or a hump. After days and days of feeling crappier and crappier, suddenly there's a day where you don't feel quite as bad as the day before. And then another. And that's when I realize, I'm getting over the hump. I think that's where I am now; I hope it is, because I don't know how much more of this going-to-bed-at-nine-every-night-and-still-waking-up-exhausted stuff I can take.
Of course, this week, "the hump" also means the same hump as everyone else's: Wednesday. Due to holidays, vacation days and sick time, this is the first full week I've worked since before Christmas. I'm not complaining, but man, that extra day seems like five this week :)
Today's outfit is another month-old gem from my stockpile of photos. It's crazy how much my hair has grown in that time! Well, I guess any amount of growth is significant when you have a pixie. Also, you can see my work badge in that first pic. Forgot to take it off at first! If you look reeeeeeally close, you might get a glimpse of my shoulder-length hair from almost two years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long!
blouse: secondhand
slacks: thrifted
cardi, flats: Target
necklace: Etsy
Hooray, you might be thinking, she finally put up another outfit post! (Who cares if it's a month old, right?) Or perhaps you're mentally rolling your eyes at the mention of being sick yet again. Well, I agree with you in either case. I know I complain a lot about colds and whatnot around here, but that's only because I have a terrible, crap immune system that doesn't seem to understand what it's supposed to do. Seriously, I've had this cough for like a week and it's showing no sign of letting up.
I had a hugely busy weekend planned for yesterday/Sunday, full of venue tours and DMV visits and dance rehearsals and various other things. The mere thought of it on Friday was exhausting. But fortunately for me/my immune system, literally every task/event I had planned was cancelled due to a sizeable snowstorm. Except our friends' engagement party. Happily, that continued regardless.
So instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I was able to stay home almost all weekend and relax. I got some writing done, I napped, I read, I napped some more, I watched a few movies, I went to bed early every night...it was just what the doctor ordered.
How was your weekend, all? Busy like mine was supposed to be, or relaxing like it actually was?
Ok, so between battling a cold, some freelance, and a weird and overwhelming amount of random social obligations, I haven't had much time for blogging since...well, since last year, really. So today I'm totally taking the cop-out method and just posting some more photos from my weekend visiting Emily. They were all shot on my iPhone, so they're not *quite* as awesome as my last post, but some are still pretty cool. And we'll return to real blog posts soon, I promise. (Maybe a wedding planning update? Would you all like/care/roll your eyes at that?)
Leaving Columbus Saturday morning/coming in over the bay in Baltimore. I hate mornings, but the sunrise is much nicer when viewed from 30,000 feet.
The harbor we were at (didn't look for the name, was too excited to see Em and a new city) had these retired Coast Guard vessels, including this submarine and the ship below. Note the sign on the ship: Last survivor of Pearl Harbor. Neat.
Ok so this is at Woodberry Kitchen, aka the brunch spot I will spend the rest of my life dreaming about. Seriously. The best breakfast food I've ever put in my mouth, and second best meal I've ever had (second only to the fancy French noms Matt and I enjoyed for our five-year anniversary). Also home to an incredible hot toddy, which took about five to seven minutes to make because it was just that damn complex and hand-crafted, y'all. I'm still dreaming about it...
Just in case you all didn't get enough pictures of fish the other day.
Fact: Watching a puffer fish get hand-fed little bits of shrimp is the cutest.
Saturday evening, Emily and I went to a distillery called Bloomery SweetShine, where we sampled some freakin' incredible limoncello and other various liquors. If you're ever in Charles Town, WV on a Friday or Saturday evening, make sure you stop by! You'll get some hilarious banter with your flight of such deliciousness as raspberry lemon, peach, "cremma lemma" (aka moonshine milkshake), black walnut and chocolate raspberry liquors (or liqueurs? not sure), as well as regular limoncello that's to die for and some phenomenal mixes. Their hard lemonade made me never want to drink anything else ever again.
You may or may not know that our cat, the aptly named Spazzy, was rescued and brought to us by Emily. Spazzy's brother, Oboe, went to Emily's dad. I got to meet him! He's a lot bigger and, as you can tell, not as patient about being held.
We also did a lot of driving in the mountains and looking at scenery.
Em basically lives on a peach orchard and the sunsets (and sunrises) are fantastic.
Flying home, I got to see a spectacular sunset, and some pretty cool night-flying sights. Including the lights over my beloved city (bottom-right; no idea what city that is in the bottom-middle).
Ok. Phew. So that pretty much wraps up my weekend! I'd like to say that this weekend will be relaxing, but it won't. We have two venue tours, a trip to the DMV to transfer the title of my new scooter from the friend I bought it from, our friends' engagement party, and I have a nail appointment, a hair appointment, dance rehearsal AND freelance work to do. Oh, geez. Is it NEXT weekend yet? Haha. Hope you all can do a bit of relaxing on my behalf, readers!
That's what was going through my head Saturday morning as my plane touched down. I spent the weekend visiting my friend Emily, who lives in West Virginia but was kind enough to make the trek to the nearby city and pick me up. We did a lot, but the first afternoon was spent touring around the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which was a fantastic photo op and soooo much fun. I've been down the rabbit hole that is Photoshop the past couple days, editing the pics and whatnot, and that's what today's entire post is dedicated to. More fun trip details to come later this week, of course.
There are a lot of pics, so I'll try to keep words to a minimum. And these are just a fraction of what I shot and kept; if you like them, you can see about 120 more (no lie) over on my Facebook.
There we are! This cool shot was Emily's suggestion. She's a real photographer, with a degree and everything, not a hobbiest like me.
I had never seen a real live sea turtle before. This one is missing a flipper because she was injured and the aquarium rescued her.
This is a mantis shrimp and I"m a little obsessed. Seriously, they're among the baddest mofos in the whole ocean. Look it up. (No really, do it. The big ones are a foot long and can straight-up punch through aquarium glass.)
Another "hey, this would be a cool shot" suggestion from Emily.
I love how the fish in the foreground is like, "Oh crap, I'm ruining the shot! Ahh!"
I dubbed these guys "the derpfish."
Creeperfrog is creepin'
Top-right(Edit: Top-left. Apparently I don't know my right from my left.) is a sculpture thing just outside the jellies exhibit.
Reflections usually are annoying, but this one's kind of cool.
Stupid green light on the croc, ruining my shot...
So yeah, make sure to check out that Facebook album if you liked these and want to see more :)
