So the last few weeks have been something of a whirlwind. I was completely overwhelmed with the task of finishing and mailing our wedding invitations; I left a few things (like getting the dang things printed, ahem) to the last minute and found myself scrambling to get them sent out in time. Granted, they still technically went out "early" — eight weeks instead of four to six — but our hotel block's cutoff is in about a week and I wanted to make sure everyone who wanted a room could get one.
Anyway, I designed them, fretted until the last minute about said design, said "screw it" and just sent them to be printed, was disappointed to see that they turned out purple instead of navy blue, said "screw it" again and started stuffing, stamping, addressing and sealing. The addressing took forever; I wanted them to look fancy, so I bought a calligraphy pen and promptly regretted that decision. After much trial and error, they turned out okay. I ordered 25 more envelopes than I needed and with mistakes, I ended up with one to spare. That's what I call luck. I then proceeded to stay up until 2 a.m. last Friday, stuffing, licking and stamping 125 envelopes. Have you ever licked 125 envelopes by yourself? It sucks.
But aren't they pretty?
A little obsessed with the lettering on this one. For some reason, I just love it. You can see my secret, too: Write it in pencil first, trace over with the calligraphy pen and India ink, then erase the pencil when the ink dries.
On top of all that, Matt was gone for two weeks to do a training in Colorado. I wasn't jealous or lonely at all. He came back on Saturday, and I'm still trying to get back into some semblance of a schedule. I kind of devolved into bachelorettehood while he was gone. I didn't hate it, but I much prefer having him around ;)
I've also been SERIOUSLY slacking on the outfit photo front lately. Something about the frigid temps and the snow lately have just crushed my motivation. I'm dressing for comfort, not style, which has meant leggings under slacks, three layers of shirts, big sweaters and generally shapeless silhouettes.
I did manage to dress nicely on a semi-warm (read: temps in the 20s instead of single digits) day last month. I straight-up copied this pin, but honestly, I was just glad to bust out my beloved maxi skirt and look somewhat pulled together again.
sweater: H&M
oxford: thrifted
maxi skirt, kitten heels: Target
necklace: giveaway win (originally from Nordstrom)
Just realized you can see my remote in the last photo. The illusion is shattered! Womp womp. Anyway, there's my secret to wearing skirts in winter: Wear long ones so you can rock some bomb-ass fleece-lined leggings underneath. I was so toasty, you don't even know. But you could. If you got a maxi skirt and fleece leggings.
Anyway, this was the first outfit I've worn in a long time that I really put effort into and liked. I hate how winter just saps all of my energy and creativity. Oh well, at least it's almost over!
And finally, in other news, if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, my usernames have changed! They're easy to remember: @verbalmelange. Hooray, brand alignment!
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.
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?
dress: thrifted
cardi: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
heels: secondhand
necklace: giveaway win
belt: Target
And the parade of not-quite-focused outfit photos continues! Two of these didn't turn out so bad, but I wound up way-overcorrecting on the other two, so they're noisy instead of unfocused. Thankfully, I think (hope!) I've figured out a solution to this annoyance. I still have three outfits in my queue, but two are not quite as bad as they have been and the third was shot by my friend Emily who actually knows how to handle a camera.
In other news, I think this might be the most inexpensive fancy-dress outfit I've worn in a long time. Granted, the thrifted dress is only a basic H&M sheath dress, but those shoes are from my friend Hayley who always buys quality kicks. (They might be Nine West?) The necklace was originally from Nordstrom, and the super-discounted Express sweater just pulls it all together. Talk about getting the look for less, amiright?
In other other news, I had another mini-wedding-freakout today! Hooray! It occurred to me that I have to send out save the dates this month, which means I have to get about a billion addresses and, you know, DIY the dang things with photos Emily shot of Matt and I the other weekend and this magnet DIY tutorial. But before I do all that, Matt and I have to really, truly, actually finalize our guest list. When we first made it, we just kind of threw everyone we know onto the list. Even people we haven't seen/talked to in months. Uhhh, yeah. Not the best way to go about it, really. Ugh. Can I just clone myself for the next nine months (and five days, not that I'm counting) so one Emma can go to work and earn enough money to pay for the wedding, while the other Emma plans and DIYs the dang thing? Pretty please?
T-shirt: Old Navy
skirt: JCPenney
heels: Target
necklace: Jane.com
Guys, can we just talk a second about how awesome T-shirts are? Seriously though. They're comfortable, versatile and basically the first item on every "closet staples" list ever made. I love T-shirts; I have more than I could count. A lot are stuffed in drawers--those are the shapeless participation shirts from races, the concert tees that cost $40 but somehow seem worth it, the annual show tops from my marching band and theatre and Greek life days. (Don't get any ideas; I wasn't in a sorority but I did join a couple co-ed scholastic fraternities in college.) Those tees are great, and I love them, but they're usually more sentimental than stylish and are worn more often as PJs or workout tops than as blog-worthy outfits. (Though one has made a couple of appearances around these parts; also, you're welcome for the linkback to the hilariously bad three-year-old post from the very early days of VM.)
But where the shapeless, unflattering T-shirts tend to flop, a nice fitted tee almost never fails. I have many 10 or 15 such tops in various colors and basic patterns, and of course I'm always snapping up "just one more." I think my favorite way to wear them is dressed up for work. It feels like of like cheating the dress code, while still looking professional. But seriously...comfort AND classy attire? Ultimate win.
The key to dressing up a tee for work, I think, is to make sure the rest of your outfit is ultra-polished. Find bottoms that you can tuck the tee into and that compliment the form-fitting-ness of the tee. If I were wearing this outfit with pants, I'd go for a wider leg or maybe some dress capris. If you can add a coordinating belt, you're good to go. (I didn't have any such belt for this outfit, unfortunately, but I think it works nonetheless.) Of course, heels and pearls or another classy statement necklace always lend a sophisticated air to an otherwise casual piece.
How do you like to style your T-shirts?
(Yes, short post today, but check back later this evening for an update on wedding dress shopping this weekend, if you're interested in that sort of thing. There will be pictures.)
blouse: thrifted
blazer: Express via Discount Fashion Warehouse
skirt: The Limited
flats: Target
necklace: Jane.com
So I was inspired to re-create this outfit, originally worn by Ashley of The Cream To My Coffee, the second I saw it on her blog. Part of it was the fact that I knew I had all the pieces to do so, but mostly it was just a cool-looking combination that I was excited to try. In retrospect, I'm wishing I had added my thin black belt to the skirt, or untucked a little of the shirt to spill over the waistband. Oh, well.
Unfortunately, the zipper on this skirt broke shortly after I wore this. Well, it didn't so much "break" as "get caught in the material next to the zipper, tear it to shreds and basically become inseparable from it." I'm debating whether I want to remove the zipper and try to sew in a new one. Has anyone tried this? Is it hard?
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?
I may or may not have stolen that word from Sydney, but I'm sure (I hope?) she won't mind. It's a pretty baller word. Anyway we had another (mini) climbing trip this weekend and it was pretty rad for only being a 36-hour trip. Matt and I met our friends at the Red River Gorge Friday night, climbed all of Saturday and then trucked out early Sunday morning so I could get back to Columbus for a dance rehearsal.
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen some of the snaps I took over the course of the day. I didn't get anyone to take any of me, which is unfortunate because I successfully climbed my hardest route yet. It was a 5.9 in Muir Valley--and if the idea of a "5.9 at the Red" seems familiar to you, that's because it was one of my 25 in 25 bucket-list items. To quote Minus the Bear: Booyah achieved! I actually didn't think I'd make it past the small roof about halfway up the route, as I am terrible at overhung climbing. (If you want some context, here's a shot of the route. The guy in the green shirt is working the roof, and the guy in orange is nearly to the top.) Anyway, I surprised even myself when I managed to pull up past it, and then had the conundrum of trying to figure out how to climb the rest of the route, which I hadn't really looked at because I didn't think I'd make it that far. That one route made my whole day.
Matt climbed an impressive 5.10c that totally blew my mind--the start was nothing but the teeniest little nubbins of rock and iron. Think half-inch nubs and smaller. I swear at one point he was hanging on with one finger on a Peanut M&M-sized hold and a couple fingertips of his other hand on an equally teensy little ledge. *PSHEWWW!* <--sound of my mind being blown again at the memory
And to those of you who aren't such climb-enthusiasts: fear not. I have an outfit post to entertain you as well :)
dress: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
cardigan: Express via DFWh
heels: Target
necklace: The Limited
bracelet: Etsy
I have been largely anti-peplum since...well, basically forever. But I saw this dress on a semi-recent trip to Discount Fashion Warehouse with Emily and kind of fell in love. The peplum is subtle enough that I don't feel goofy, and the whole thing just has these polished, professional lines that I could not pass up.
It's finally getting warm enough to allow me to do outside photos again, and I'm happy to report that this will (hopefully) be the last indoor shoot you see for a while. Oh, and speaking of warm weather, guess who's going to pick up her freshly painted, now-running-again scooter from the shop this afternoon? THIS GIRL! I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it.
Sometimes, I sit down to write a blog post and feel like I have literally nothing to say. Maybe it seems like this happens frequently, because I often blather on about nothing in particular around these parts, but most of the time my blathering is semi-planned or constructed. Days like today, though, the blinking cursor just kind of mocks me.
It's times like this that I wonder whether Verbal Mélange has a shelf life, an expiration date. My three-year bloggiversary came and went with little fanfare, and while on one hand it seems like an accomplishment (three years of committing to a thing!), it also kind of seems like a pretty weird thing to celebrate (three years of talking about and posting pictures of myself!). The reason behind the lack of fanfare--because if there's anything I love, it's making a big deal out of things--is that April is triple anniversary month for me, and two of the three (my start date with my current job and more importantly, Matt's and my dating-anniversary) land at the end of the month. So I tend to mentally lump the blog anniversary at the end too, even though it's really in the beginning.
Anyway, where I was going before that tangent about anniversaries: I've been doing a lot of thinking about VM and what it is now vs. what I originally envisioned it to be vs. what it's evolving into. But that's a post for another day, I think.
So much for said "writer's block," I suppose. Funny how that works.
And just to give your eyeballs a little visual stimulation, here's a fairly nondescript representation of what I've been wearing a lot lately: plain tee, cardi, slacks, flats. Warm weather, where art thou?
t-shirt: Old Navy
cardi, flats: Target
slacks: thrifted
necklace: Jane.com
Man, girls have it so easy for business casual wear, it isn't even funny. "Business casual" for dudes means ties and Oxfords, but I can wear a t-shirt as long as I dress it up with layers and a statement necklace. I kind of love it. (And to guys who may be tempted to complain about the unfairness of this double standard, I have two phrases for you: "gender pay gap" and "glass ceiling.")
You all are familiar with Galentine's Day, the completely necessary holiday invented by Leslie Knope of Parks & Rec fame, yes? Good. For those who don't know, here's a quick rundown: It's celebrated the day before Valentine's Day by showering affection on the special ladies in your life. This year, I swapped the two; Matt and I celebrated V-Day on the 13th with our traditional epicmealtime, and I celebrated G-Day on the 14th with my friend Emily, who was up from West Virginia.
We went to a wine tasting at the grocery store (so. much. fun.), grabbed a couple of burgers and caught a movie. When we came home, I begged her to shoot some photos of my Galentine's/Valentine's outfit. Emily went to school for photojournalism, and she is crazy-stupid-talented. I have her work everywhere--in my house, in my cubical at work, on my phone. Hell, a shot she took at OU of the "Athens Block" bricks is even my Facebook banner...and a shot she took of me is my current profile pic. Anyway, she acquiesced, and now I just have to convince her to move to Columbus and shoot my outfits full-time.
shirt: H&M
chambray: thrifted
skinnies: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
boots: gifted (Old Navy)
necklace: giveaway win (Stella & Dot)
bracelet: Etsy
sweater dress: The Limited
cardi, boots: Target
tights: Groupon deal
belt: H&M
necklace: Express
I think one of the worst parts about blogging, for me, is having news that I'm not quite ready (or allowed) to share on the blog. When it comes to my own personal secrets, I am a terrible keeper. I just get so excited and want to share that excitement with the world! (When it comes to other peoples' secrets, however, I'm a vault. Swear.) Anyway, some pretty exciting collaborations and other fun things are coming up, both here on VM and in real life. And I can't talk about most of them for, like, another month. Maybe more? One of the IRL things I actually have no idea when I'll be able to share. How's that for cryptic?
Don't worry, I'm not a complete tease here. I do have one fun thing to share with you guys. A fellow Ohio University J-school alum, Rachel, has started a blog about Generation Y-ers/Millennials. Specifically, folks that age who aren't living up to the media hype of being lazy underachievers. Her first feature? It's me! I'm so flattered; to be honest, I didn't think of my debt paying-off-ness as really a huge achievement. It was just something I had to do. Then I thought about the numbers...$18,000 in less than three years is something to be proud of. And I am. Ok, not-so-humble-brag over. Check out Rachel's blog, both now and later when she has some more features.
In other news, there are clothes pictures here too! I'm digging this outfit, though I think the tights might be a little too dark. I had the same problem when I wore them here, but I think it was worse for that outfit. Here, it seems almost passable. What do you think?
