Blogger Hall of Shame

sleeveless button-up: New York & Company
pants: secondhand
heels: Target
necklace: gifted (Kate Spade)
bracelets: don't remember :(


I've been a bad blogger lately; these photos have been sitting in my queue since late July. July! Now they just look ridiculous. I mean, no one would be wearing flowy pants and a sleeveless shirt this time of year...unless they lived in California or something. Can we just pretend I live in California? Ok. Thanks.

Ah, if only that were true. But alas, I live in central Ohio, where this time of year I only get to see the sun through the window of the office that's next to my cubicle. Maybe if I'm lucky, it won't be overcast on my commute in to work and I'll get a tiny bit of vitamin D, but it's always dusk as I'm heading home. It's been a struggle, mood-wise, since daylight savings time, so I bought a lightbox to help offset the worst of it.

The upside to the lightbox (aside from its mood- and energy-boosting properties) is that it forces me to sit still for an extra 30 minutes in the morning. It's too bright to do my makeup by, so I can use that time to sip some coffee and cuddle under a blanket with Cam while I work on blog posts, or edit photos, or research for freelance stories...Thank goodness Cam (like me) isn't a morning person, haha.



I'm also making sure to carve out time in the evening for the gym to help combat the dreary Ohio winters. I never really WANT to go to the gym when it's gross out, but if I can force myself to get there I always end up feeling a hundred times better.

Do you have any go-to methods to beat the winter blues?

Emma lately

t-shirt: The Limited
cardigan: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
jeans: Target
flats: Forever 21
necklace: Kate Spade, gifted
bracelet: Etsy
watch: Coach, secondhand

UGH. Has it really been two whole weeks since my last post? Insane. (These photos are from June. Insaner.) I've been busy writing, and then recovering from, one of the most challenging, research-heavy stories in my freelance career. It was rewarding, but man, did it have me exhausted.

That story comes out in October; meanwhile, if you're local, you can see my most recently-published story in the August issue of Columbus Monthly. It's a feature on Dublin City Schools that is way, way less boring than it sounds ;)

Ok, ok — shameless self-promotion over.

What else is new? I have two, potentially three, photo shoots lined up for next month, and another I just finished, so that's pretty cool. I've started using the money I earn on shoots to save for some gear that might let me take my "side hustle," as Hayley calls it, semi-pro. First up on the list is a body upgrade, probably to this, since I won't be able to afford full-frame anytime soon; another fast prime lens, because my 35mm f/1.8 is nice, but doesn't give me the bookeh I want in full-body portraits; and a nice all-in-one zoom lens, probably this or this. If I keep getting steady work like this, I might be able to make all the upgrades before my next birthday!

Other new and exciting news: Matt and I are getting a puppy! I've been trolling Petfinder.com and the local shelter sites basically since we got back from the honeymoon, because that's what newlyweds do, right? Get a dog? Well, I finally found the most beautiful German shepherd/pit bull mix that has basically all of the qualities we want in a dog earlier this week. I contacted the shelter with very low expectations; puppies that cute don't tend to hang around long. But to our surprise (and delight!), the shelter called us the very next day. Things moved really quickly after that, and as long as everything goes well with her spay today, the little furball comes home with us on Sunday. The only downside to this, of course, being that we won't get to really play with her for the first week or so. Don't worry; there will be pictures!

I've also been getting more involved in my Big Brothers, Big Sisters match lately. For the past two years, I've met with my Little at her school, during her lunch period on Fridays. At the end of last school year, she asked if we could also become a community match, which is the more typical program you think of when you hear BBBS. We just started doing our out-of-school meetups last month, and it's been really cool getting to know her outside of her academic setting.

So yeah, that's where I've been! Just lazing around, doing not much of anything as usual, haha. So. Anyone out there ever had a puppy before? (I haven't.) Other than peeing and pooing everywhere and chewing on everything, what can I expect?

Brrrr!

sweater, slacks: thrifted
short-sleeve button-down: New York & Company
flats: Target
necklace: gifted (Kate Spade)
Welp, you're looking at a pretty close approximation of my outfits all this week: sweater, a layer under it, warm dress pants and flats that are easy to throw in my bag while I wear my heavier winter boots. Because all week, temps have been in the teens or single digits, with negative-degree wind chills. Yesterday morning, the actual temp was -6 Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of -22! It's not okay, guys. I'm too delicate for this bitter winter clime.

But I haven't been letting the chill get me down too much. I layer fleece-lined leggings under my pants for the walk home from the bus stop. (Matt, who works second shift during the week, is a saint who drives me to work every morning in his well-warmed-up car.) I have my rated-to-20-degree boots that perform well enough even when the temps are below 20. And I have a killer long down jacket I got at the end of last winter from Burlington Coat Factory. I'm even managing to make it to the gym most evenings! If you know anything about me, you know that's a feat even in nicer weather. So I guess I can't complain too much.

In other news (cue abrupt subject change), our wedding is exactly four months from today! I still have so much to do...cutting wine bottles for our centerpiece vases, making the flower-petal candle holders for our other centerpieces, assembling all the flowers we made, making my veil, doing my dress fitting(s), designing and printing our invitations and other miscellaneous stationery, doing final meetings with the few pros we did hire to confirm all the details...eesh. It's gonna be a very busy four months. I can't think about the big picture too much, or I get super stressed out and panicky. I just have to take things in baby steps: This weekend is devoted to bottle-cutting and editing some photos from a newborn session I had the other weekend. Keep it small and manageable, that's my motto :)

How do you deal with massive projects? And while we're doing the whole ask-questions-at-the-end-of-the-post-to-encourage-feedback thing, are the temps abysmally cold where you are, too? How do you even handle that? (I'm thinking of you, Sydney, up in what I can only assume is the frozen tundra of Canada. I'm shivering just thinking about it.)

Frightful

t-shirt: Old Navy
jacket/blazer: thrifted
skinnies: Forever 21
flats: Target
necklace: gifted Kate Spade
That's right; the weather outside certainly is frightful. We got our first real snow of the season last night; now there's an inch or two of icy/slushy/powdery mix on the ground. Delightful (not). Get ready for these wonderfully lit outdoor alley shots (from last month) to disappear; it's time for me to make the switch to shooting indoors. Womp womppppp.

Also frightful this weekend was my intense anxiety level. I had probably the worst shopping experience of my life on Saturday, when I tried to buy a corset for under my wedding dress. Seriously guys, if you need a quick fix for hating yourself and your body, I highly recommend corset shopping for two hours. I apparently have weird proportions, so everything that fit around my stomach wound up giving me awkward and heartbreaking armpit fat, which apparently is a real thing. And everything that avoided the apparently-a-thing armpit fat was way too big in the stomach. I wound up buying a strapless bra and a stomach-only corset piece thing (kind of like this, only it goes from your bra line down to your hips, not from your waist down past your hips). They were way more than I wanted to spend, but I'll at least be able to wear both of them under other outfits. Plus, I now get to go up to my grandma's house and try on the dress again (I have to make sure the undergarments work, of course!) so it's not a total loss.

Then Saturday night, I had a host of wedding nightmares. Awful stress dreams about not having a dress at all (I walked down the aisle in a gray maxi dress and a cardigan), about being in the wrong venue, about the music not playing right during the ceremony...basically, everything was just wrong. Then I got a text from my sister; a fire on campus at our alma mater had destroyed the apartment I lived in my junior year. It was an attic studio apartment above a flower shop, and the entire attic just collapsed into the apartment below it. I was devastated; I had a lot of great memories in that apartment. Obviously the situation is so much worse for the students who are living there now; they lost everything they own. I'll be donating to the university's fund for them; if you have some extra cash lying around and want to do a little good with it, you can do the same here. Just select the "Ohio Parents and Family Endowment."

So between bad shopping experiences and dreams and sad news, my Sunday was shaping up to be a huge sulk-fest. But then I went to a meeting for a new project I'm working on and it honestly turned my entire day around. I left feeling excited, optimistic and refreshed. I don't want to go into too much detail on the project, because I'm honestly a little terrified that my contribution will be terrible, but if all goes well I'll divulge more in the spring.

Aaaaand that was my weekend. Here's hoping yours had more high points than low ones!

Guest Post: Whitney from Between the Lines

Today's guest blogger is Whitney from Between the Lines. I love her blog because she posts awesome, workplace-appropriate outfits that are also affordable. (She's a teacher, so she has to make sure she looks good on a budget...a lot like me, actually!) I'm particularly excited about this post, because she talks about "Glee," which is probably my biggest guilty pleasure. I. Love. That. Show.

I’m Whitney from Between the Lines and I’m excited to sub for Emma while she’s on vacation.

As any of you who are familiar with my blog will know, I am a teacher. Being a teacher definitely changes and challenges the way you dress not only professionally, but also on weekends and during the summer. My once skinny-jean and sundress-filled closet is now infested with pencil skirts, button downs, and cardigans.

My teacher wardrobe is taking over.

One challenge I have faced with this invasion that I feel as though I have to compensate for the fact that I’m young, so I am trying to dress older and more modestly without being frumpy.

Another challenge is that there are not a lot of “style icons” for teachers (or for young ones, anyway). The only real source of inspiration for me is Jayma Mays’ character Emma Pilsbury from “Glee.” If you watch Glee, you know that Emma is the adorable, sincere, doe-eyed counselor who is a sufferer of a major case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Her style reflects the same sense of control and propriety with her tie-neck button-downs, pencil skirts and classic pumps.

If you know anything about Emma’s wardrobe, you know that OCD is not her only problem--she has to be thousands of dollars in debt for her shopping addiction.

In one episode alone, she wears clothes and shoes from Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Anthropologie, and J. Crew totaling in at $4,913*--probably more than my entire wardrobe put together. I don’t know about other teachers, but I don’t make that kind of money. True, I shop at J. Crew (specifically in the sale racks) and drool over Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade, but to own approximately $22,125 in clothes** from these designers seems a bit unrealistic for a teacher’s salary.

*expense estimated by the blog What Would Emma Pilsbury Wear?
**estimated expense for Emma’s season two wardrobe by WWEPW

Instead, I use her looks as inspiration and I build outfits from central pieces and styles of her wardrobe—with a much cheaper price tag. I have put together three outfits based on clothes Emma has worn. (I did my best to identify where an item is from, but I couldn’t get them all.)

Inspiration One:

Emma is wearing:
Kate Spade A-line dot skirt
Anthropologie necklace

I'm wearing:
Target skirt and plain tee
Multi-strand turquoise necklace (gift)

Inspiration Two:

Emma is wearing:
J. Crew skirts
J. Crew sweater (?)

I'm wearing:
LOFT skirt (clearance rack)
NY&Co sleeveless button down (clearance rack)
Target sweater and necklace

I, like Emma, appreciate embellished cardigans. She often tucks them in and pairs them with belts, but I can't quite pull that off as well as she can. I combined looks for inspiration and added my own personal touch with the necklace and un-tucked cardigan.


Inspiration Three:

Emma is wearing:
Anthropologie skirt

I'm wearing:
CATO shirt (clearance rack)
Target shirt and belt
DIY'ed necklace

This is one of my favorite Emma outfits. I love her Anthropologie skirt and I could not pass up the skirt I’m wearing when I saw it on clearance (for $13!). I added a red belt and necklace to add in the red my skirt is missing, but I can pair my skirt with so many other colors and shirts.

Bottom line is: Emma’s style is possible without living out of my car and eating rejected cafeteria food for a decade.

Do you have any “style icons”? What are some ways you incorporate their looks into your everyday outfits?

*All images and information borrowed from What Would Emma Pilsbury Wear with permission.