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?

Normalcy and coziness

shirt: secondhand sleeveless button-down: New York & Company maxi skirt: Target d'orsay flats: Forever 21 necklace: giveaway win watch: secondhand Coach Oh hi June, when did you get here? Funny, seems like mid-May was just here. No? You've been sneaking up for a while now? Huh. Imagine that. It's been nearly a month since the wedding and frankly, I still feel like it just happened last week. As much as I try, I've had the hardest time getting back into any semblance of a routine. This week, Matt and I only just got in our first climb since...oh, since these pictures were taken, maybe? And these pictures are two months old. Not that you'd ever know it, of course. It's been so unseasonably chilly the past few weeks; I haven't even packed my sweaters away yet. And I've been wearing a lot of my business-ultra-casual outfits, like this one, lately. It's the best of both worlds, really! I look pulled together but the soft and flowy fabrics are ridiculously cozy. Slap on a sparkly necklace and your'e good to go! I'm sure soon things will start to feel normal again...right? Right?!

Outfit, projects, equipment, schedules.

sweater: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
sleeveless collared button-down: New York & Company
khaki skinnies: Old Navy
boots: gifted (Old Navy)
necklace: giveaway win
Yeesh. End of January, where did you come from? I feel like lately, I think that every month will be easier than the last...only to find out that it's not. "Oh, once the holidays are over, things will settle down." "Oh, once I finish these photo shoots, life will be calmer." "Oh, once this freelance deadline is passed, I'll have some free time." But then I realize that after the holidays, and the three newborn photo sessions, and the writing deadlines, I'll still have about eight bajillion wedding crafts to finish. So...June? Yeah. Once June hits, I'll be able to take a breather. Possibly.

In other news, these are the last indoor photos you'll see with my curtains and a bar cart as a background! I used some Christmas money and a gift card to buy what essentially is a beginner's indoor portable studio. There's a lovely white backdrop, and a mediocre light kit. It's great in that it has two umbrella stands and a naked bulb stand, but it's not so great in that you can't really angle the umbrella lights...you can only adjust the height. Still, for a first set (and for how little I paid), I can't really complain.

The new setup means my newborn photo sessions went wonderfully; I have two of them finished and am just trying to find time to upload the photos to my portfolio site. I'll be sure to share a link when I do because these kiddos are ADORABLE. I love babies. Especially tiny little newborns. They're so precious!

Anyway, yeah. Tangent much? I have no idea what I really wanted to say about this outfit/life in general this morning. Other than maybe, is there anything easier than throwing a collared shirt under a sweater and adding a big necklace? I am digging this look lately and I swear I wear some variation of it at least once a week. Yeah nope, still super random/tangental. I'm trying to get back into the habit of waking up early to do some yoga and mini projects (like more frequent blog posts, ahem). Sooo my coffee hasn't quite hit my brain yet, I guess? Yeah, let's go with that.

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.)

Holiday style

I've been pretty terrible about taking OOTD photos lately. That's about to change, thanks to some really cool photography-related Christmas gifts I received, but that's a topic for another post. Today's post is strictly about what I wore for the various and sundry holiday gatherings I attended this year (and every year, really, because big families rule).




sweater: H&M
short-sleeve oxford: New York & Company
skinnies: Forever 21
boots: Madden Girl via Famous Footwear
necklace: Express
If the background looks unfamiliar here, it's because these photos were taken by my sister at our parents' house. I literally dragged her away from the party and snuck into an empty room so we could snap these really quickly. I bet being a style blogger's relative is so much fun, haha. We celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family the Sunday before the holiday, so things got kicked off nice and early for us.




sweater: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
jeans, flats: Target
necklace: Jane.com
This is easily one of my favorite sweaters, and I guess I must have good taste because I always get compliments on it. I swear, this thing no sooner comes out of the laundry before it's back on me. I don't know if it even ever gets put away on the shelf. Anyway, I wore this to a few gatherings on the unseasonably warm (like, 60s warm, it was magnificent) Christmas Eve. We started at my parents' house for our immediate family's celebration just west of Cleveland. It sounds like it'd be small, but even with one of my sisters in Hawaii with her husband and his family, we still were up to nearly 20 people. Between my parents, me and Matt, my two sisters and their fiancé and boyfriend, my two brothers and their girlfriends, and my youngest brother and sister who are way to young to have significant others, it was quite a party. From there, Matt and I popped over to Akron to hang out with his dad's side of the family for a few hours before driving back to Columbus and collapsing exhaustedly into bed.




sheer button-down: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
red plaid tank top that you can barely see in the pic: Target
skinnies: H&M
boots: Target
necklace, bracelet: Etsy
Christmas Day dawned much colder (welcome to Ohio), but we roused ourselves and prepared for another long day. Fortunately, this year we were able to stay in Columbus the whole time, heading over to Matt's parents' house for a quiet present-opening sesh with them and Matt's sister and brother-in-law. Then Matt's mom's side of the family descended on the house and everything dissolved into chaos. I kid, it was a really nice gathering. My soon-to-be-in-laws are pretty rad. After that was over, we popped over to Matt's grandparents' retirement home for a quick visit, then over to his aunt and uncle's house (on the other side of the family) to greet the newest addition – an eight-day-old little girl who basically stole my heart. Matt got to hold her and, having never held a newborn in his life, he did pretty well! (Though if you ask him, he'll say it was the most tense 10 minutes of his whole life, haha.)

Wow. I'm getting exhausted again just thinking about all the festivities last week...and that's with us skipping out on a gathering! Yup, big families rule, but they also are crazy as hell. And I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Autumn is coming

shirt: secondhand
sleeveless button-down: New York & Company
khaki skinnies: Old Navy
shoes: Target
necklace: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
I have very mixed feelings about autumn.

For the most part, I'm a summer girl. I love the heat (though not always the humidity). I love sun and golden skin and massive thunderstorms and ice cream and pools and beaches and breezy dresses and fireflies and sunsets after 9 p.m.

But autumn is kind of special, too. It brings crisp mornings and leaving the windows open all day and especially all night. It brings football and two of my favorite holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Hot toddies are acceptable again and sweaters are so cozy. I've also felt for the last several years that fall can mark the end of a bad era. I like to take time in the fall to find everything that's been weighing me down over the last year and shed it to crunch underfoot with the leaves.

But.

But autumn is so brief and temperamental in Ohio. It seems like you just blink and suddenly it's all shitty half-hearted snow and gross grey slush and feeling so cold that each inhale freezes your lungs. And because I have SAD, winter is especially difficult. Watching the sun set from my office window is heartbreaking. There are days when I feel like I'll never see the sun again.

Fortunately, it's early in the season. There's still time to enjoy cute boots and pumpkin-flavored everything before things really get tough. And I feel a little more optimistic than usual about winter this year. I joined a new climbing gym, and I'm going to go back to vitamin D therapy via tanning beds (with proper sunscreen on, of course). Plus I found a therapist I really like who I can return to if things get really out of hand, so that's a comfort.

How do you feel about autumn? Are you heralding its imminent arrival with three daily Starbucks PSL runs? Or are you already holed up in your hibernation nest, counting off the days until spring arrives again?

Day off

Not that I really need it, seeing as how I'm leaving for a weekend bachelorette party for my friend Jenny tomorrow and Matt and I have a beach trip coming up, but I have a day off today nonetheless. Sadly, I can't do much of anything fun because of this:


Man, I need a pedicure.

Fear not; it's just a very minor sprain. I (intentionally) dropped from the top of a 10- or 12-foot bouldering route while climbing yesterday and landed poorly. The super-thick padding in the drop area actually was to my disadvantage, I think; when I landed, my ankle rolled right under me. It didn't hurt too badly at the time — I even kept climbing for another hour or so, and got a route I've been working on for a few days — and I just iced it when I got home. But when I woke up this morning, it was swollen and I had a hard time putting any weight on it. I've been RICEing it (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) all day, and I think the swelling is starting to go down. I can walk to the kitchen or bathroom with little pain, but stairs are still hard and the Aleve might be masking that anyway.

But enough about my stupid ankle. Hey guess what! I have some in-focus pictures from a few weeks ago to share today.






button-down: New York & Company
skinnies, flats: Target
necklace: Express
I don't really know why, but a crisp white shirt with skinny jeans always just makes me feel so polished. It's the simplest outfit, but I always feel so put-together in this combo. The best part is, I feel just as good about it in pointed-toe flats as I would if I were wearing heels. Comfort and style FTW!

What's your go-to for a polished but comfortable look?

ConGRADulations are in order!

Forgive the pun, but I wanted to give a little shoutout to my sister, Ellen, who graduated from Bowling Green State University yesterday! I'm crazyproud of her; she busted her butt for four years to graduate summa cum laude, working the entire time she wasn't student teaching to pay her own way as much as possible. Whatever elementary school that manages to snag her will be a lucky school indeed. I went up to BG with my parents and (most of) my siblings to watch her get her diploma and enjoy a celebratory dinner. (I didn't think to bring my nice camera, so forgive the iPhone snaps.)


The gang, minus Abby (who was home in South Carolina) and David (who was at prom with his girlfriend).


I also managed to snag a quick outfit shot with my sister, who was dressed to kill on a budget that wouldn't. Seriously, her entire outfit was from H&M, with the exception of her Target shoes. Girl knows how to dress on a dime.


on me:
shirt: The Limited
sleeveless button-up: New York & Company
skinnies: Forever 21
flats: Target
necklace: giveaway win (Nordstrom)
Our youngest sister, Audrey, didn't want to miss out on the photoshoot...though I have no idea where her outfit is from. Probably Target/Old Navy?


As for today, I was a total mixture of lazy and productive. I cleaned the bathroom and did a load of laundry, went on a mini Hulu spree, switched out my winter/summer clothes (finally!), then jumped on the scooter to donate the too-small stuff from last year and do a little closet-gap-filling shopping. Did pretty dang well on that part :)

Now Matt and I are off to swing by his parents' house to wish his mom a happy Mother's Day, then it's back home for some much-needed relaxation for both of us :)

What about you guys? Anything exciting to report this weekend? Graduations, siblings' proms, Mother's Day escapades?

Neutrality and photo editing

When I first started blogging, I tended to wear a lot of neutral colors. Black, gray, white, beige...that was my comfort zone. Every once in a while, I'd throw in a pop of red or yellow. Now, I'm mixing colors and patterns with the best of them. I might stick more to the "safe" zone of color-/pattern-mixing, but I still do it.

Usually.








sweater: New York & Company
blouse: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
khaki skinnies: Old Navy
boots: Target
necklace: Jane.com
Sometimes, it's kind of nice to go back to my roots, so to speak. Though even this outfit is a far cry from the black shirt/khaki pants combo I would have been wearing three years ago, when I first started brainstorming the idea of a style blog. The pearls! The stars-as-polka-dots sheer blouse! The layering! The khakis-as-skinnies-tucked-into-boots! I would have worn none of it, I tell you.

Except the sweater. That baby was purchased nearly three and a half years ago, when I first entered the professional world and needed a business casual wardrobe, stat. New York & Company, you've done well for me.

Oh, and if that last photo looks different, it's because it is. Slightly. I played around with sharpening the image in Photoshop's RAW editing mode before using the sharpening actions I've mentioned before. (My original post on sharpening photos is pretty poor; it's little more than a link to these three pages. I'm going to do some more research on sharpening in the RAW editor, then I'll come back and do a comprehensive post on the whole shebang. So...stay tuned!

Indoor-schmindoor

sweater: thrifted
sleeveless button-down: New York & Company
skinny khakis: Old Navy
boots: Target
I think one of my least-favorite things about Ohio fall/winter (besides the dreariness, the cold and the inconsistent temps that mean you're freezing in the morning and sweating under your down jacket in the evening) is that it forces me inside for blog photos. It's usually too dim for me to take outfit photos before work, and it's practically full-on dark by the time I get home. And I usually don't have the time to document my outfits throughout the week and re-shoot them on the weekend. Le sigh.

At least these are starting to get better. I don't have any kind of professional lighting equipment, of course; it's just me and my cheap-o detachable flash (though for the price, it works pretty dang well).

The other day I was talking about favorite things and outfits on repeat. I get the feeling that variations of this outfit will be on repeat this winter as well. Umm, business casual AND pants-tucked-into-boots? Yes, please! It's boring, but hey. It meets dress code and it keeps my feet warm and dry. Win-win, if you ask me.

Hey P.S. My spa day giveaway ends this weekend. If you're in/near Columbus, make sure you get your entries in!

Craziness and sorryness

sweater: New York & Company
Oxford and slacks: thrifted
shoes: Target
necklace and bracelet: Etsy
I apologize for the lack of quality posts this week. My friend Hayley is getting married this weekend, and I've spent most of the week fulfilling various bridesmaidly duties and just generally preparing myself for a weekend in Pittsburg. And just kind of catching up on life in general, since this weekend was kind of a major bust in terms of productivity (but not in terms of fun...there was lots of that).

And I guess while I'm at it, apologies might be owed for these photos as well...they were my first indoor shots of the season, from a few weeks ago when we got that wild flurry of snow. Ugh. It's warmed up since, so I have a few more outdoor shots to share, but I know those days are numbered. Guess I'll have to improve my indoor shooting skills as well. They were never all that good to begin with, but I'm hoping that now, thanks to the help of my DSLR and the wonders that are RAW Photoshop editing, I might be able to improve upon them. What I really need is a quality light and some reflectors, but let's be honest. Ain't nobody got time for that.

What are you all getting into this weekend? Fellow U.S.-dwellers, any fun plans for the long Veterans Day weekend?

Keep it going

t-shirt: Old Navy
button-down: New York & Company
slacks: thrifted
flats: Target
necklace: Stella & Dot giveaway win
bracelet: H&M
Let's talk about this outfit for a sec. I don't know why, but I kind of love it. It's so simple and classic, but with fun accents that keep it from being boring. I won the necklace in a giveaway hosted by Jess over at Here & Now. I never win giveaways, so it was pretty exciting! I love how she styled it with a bold shirt, but for my first time I wanted to keep it fairly simple and let the necklace speak for itself.

When I was putting this outfit together, my mind flashed to Fran's post about how to wear a button-down under another shirt without all the bunching and weirdness. At the time, my sleepy brain thought, "Nah, you're good girl. No need to take off that tee, find a cami, put it on, then put the tee back on. Let's goooo!" But looking at these photos, I'm thinking I should have done it. Note to self: Morning brain is kinda cray.

Like this morning, when I woke up and for some inexplicable reason, was overcome by energy and the intense desire to clean everything in my house. Well, I guess only the energy was inexplicable. The cleaning bug probably was because the house is a *tad* overdue. So I tidied my closet and wiped down the kitchen counters and stove instead of writing a post this morning. Cause I can write a post on my lunch break, but I sure can't clean my kitchen, amiright?

I'm just hoping I can keep that energy/desire to clean this evening. It's my off night at the gym and I don't have any immediate deadlines to work toward, so instead of vegging out on the couch for an Adventure Time marathon, I want to try to catch up on house stuff. Including a couple projects for Phase 2 of house decorating :) It might be a coffee-in-the-afternoon type of day...I also find that music is a great motivator for me. So I'm trying to think up a good "getting shiz done" playlist for this evening. Any suggestions?

Some random thoughts (what else is new?)

shirt: New York & Company
shrug thing, slacks: thrifted
flats: Target
necklace: Old Navy
Shoutout to Sydney and Kelly for their feedback on my weird Pinterest photo issue. It looks like making my photos bigger was the answer after all. That meant I had to change the width of my columns, though...so could you all just take a second to click over from your reader and make sure this shiz still looks good on your browser? I tested it on a 13" Macbook screen and it seemed okay, but I dunno, maybe there are some netbook users out there?

This week is what I affectionately call my "hell week" at work — I help put out this newsletter that's always more hectic than I expect it to be. This month's has gone pretty smoothly so far, thanks to an early start from the rest of the team, so I'm cautiously hopeful for a not-so-stressful week. We shall see :)

So I wasn't going to blog this outfit at all — it was just one of those throw-it-on-and-run-out-the-door days — but I got a couple compliments on it, so I shot it after work. The photos turned out a tad blurry (I'm seriously done with manual focus for selfies) but other than that, I guess this wasn't too bad of an ensemble.

Happy Labor Day!

chambray-type shirt: Banana Republic
ruffled shirt: thrifted
cropped pants: New York & Company
heels: Target
necklace: Etsy

If the purpose of Labor Day is to not do labor, then I haven't been celebrating in full force. After I met my friends for brunch at Katalina's (Columbusites, you have to try their Nutella-filled pancake balls. You have to), I headed home and hung seven shades and four windows' worth of curtains. I would have hung six windows' worth, but I'm an idiot who can't math and therefore didn't get a long enough curtain rod. Womp womp. Oh well, a new one is en route, and I can still use the too-short one. Minor success?

Now I'm sitting at Panera getting a quick late lunch/dinner number one after running a few errands...then it's off to the grocery store, then Goodwill to drop off some things, then home to do some cleaning. Oh vey. Can I get a vacation from my day off?

If you had today off work...how did you spend it? Hopefully doing more fun stuff than I did, haha!

Settling in

shrug thing: came with a dress from Burlington Coat Factory
button down: New York & Company
skirt: Old Navy
necklace: Express
heels: Target
Well, I can hardly say that Matt and I are completely settled in to the new house, but we're getting there. There's still a ton of framed art leaning on the wall and packed in boxes that needs to be hung. And another box of vases and whatnot that I need to find a home for. And our living room looks kind of like a basement at the moment, thanks to all the random junk that's just kind of thrown in there. And Matt's studio/the guest room needs some serious work before my friend Emily comes to stay Friday night. But all in all, we're getting there.

We went to our friends' wedding this weekend (congrats Braden and Christine!), helped other friends move into the house they just bought (congrats Tim and Kellen!) and got a few things hung and put away here at the house. I'm hoping to post before-and-current pics of the house before the weekend...but I also have a good handful of outfit photos that were shot at our old place that I have to get through, too. I took my very first outfit photos at the new place this week, and I'm loving how they turn out.

So. It's still a crazybusy time (I mean, when is it not?) but I'm hoping to get a ton of posts up really quickly so I can blast through those old-house-outfit-photos. Woohoo!