Month: February 2011

Fashion Friday: Edition it’s beginning to look a lot like springtime

I know y’all probably think you have problems, but you have no idea what I’ve been through this week. The temperatures have been in the high 70’s every single afternoon. To make matters worse, the mornings start off in the high 50’s with precipitation that won’t commit to being full on rain, but is instead somewhere between a drizzle and a mist.

I think it was Tuesday morning when I had the best of intentions to resume my Couch to 5K regimen (which has become the longest journey to a 5K of all time) when I looked out the window and remarked, “Oh, that is actually drizzle I can see. I can’t run in that.”

Clearly I am very committed to my fitness goals.

Anyway, the problem with the warm weather is it’s February. Which is technically still winter. And it’s hard to know how to dress in a seasonally appropriate fashion without wanting to die by noon when the sun comes out. Such is my plight as a Texan. I should be used to it by now considering I’ve lived here my entire life.

I’ve been meaning to share the links to a few of my favorite fashion bloggers and today seems like a good day to do it.

First up, is Kendi at Kendi Everyday. My friend, Amy, told me about Kendi a few months ago and I’ve been reading her blog ever since. She is a fellow Texan and posts daily photos of herself in various outfits. While I cannot totally replicate her cute, funky twenty-something style (mainly because I am not a cute, funky twenty-something but rather a late thirty-something) I love seeing the outfits she puts together and how she uses colors in ways I wouldn’t normally think about. She inspires me to think outside the box.

Secondly, is Lindsey’s style column, She’s Still Got It. I’ve followed Lindsey from the beginning and she always finds great deals on things and helps me keep up with the latest trends.

And, lastly, it was through She’s Still Got It that I discovered Rebel Attitude. I adore Edurne’s sense of style and her use of scarves and the way she layers things and puts the whole look together. She lives in Spain and is impossibly glamorous, but she puts clothes together in ways that I could totally imitate if I’ll take a shower and get out of my workout attire.

In other news, here are a few things I like right now.

1. Merona Striped Tote

I walked in Target earlier this week and this tote stopped me in my tracks. It comes in a pink or black stripe and both are equally adorable. There’s no way to choose.

It took everything in me not to buy one right then because it would make the best pool bag. I reminded myself it’s absurd to buy a pool bag in February. But now I’m worried they might sell like hotcakes and I probably need to make the long journey, with six extra stoplights, back to Target to get one.

2. tall full needle cardigan

There’s a girl in my Bible study who has a great sense of style and she had on an orange cardigan the other day. I don’t even remember what else she had on with it, but I saw that orange cardigan and felt like my life may not be complete if I don’t get one.

Banana is calling this one autumn sunset. Whatever. It looks orange to me.

3. linen-blend tunic

Oh, now this, this is my springtime love language. I can just envision this tunic with a pair of cuffed jeans and my silver flip-flops.

4. drifting sprigs tee

Floral prints are big right now. HUGE. Floral, floral, floral.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t know how I feel about floral. It can take a quick leap to Mamaw’s bedspread for me. But I love this shirt because it’s floral-y without being too precious.

5. sunny safari blouse

See how the springtime has just sucked me in? And I guarantee we still have at least one more freeze in front of us.

I think this top would be darling with white jeans. Or blue jeans. Or a skirt. I don’t know how I feel about that elastic at the waist, but it could be covered with a cute skinny belt.

6. teelicious roll sleeve hoodie

I’m all about orange right now. This looks deliciously soft and comfortable. Or teeliciously soft and comfortable.

7. working daze seersucker tunic

This would be so great with leggings. I love the collar and the sleeves.

8. milly antonia coat

Umm, so this coat is WAY out of my budget. WAY.

But if someone could find me the $50 version of it, I would be much obliged. Check out the buttons. ADORE.

9. kissing birds ring

So this is kind of funky and different, but it appeals to me.

10. navy striped polo

The other big trend for spring? Navy and white stripes. You know why I just wrote it that way with the question mark? Because I couldn’t decide if it should be “are navy and white stripes” or “is navy and white stripes”.

This polo shirt is a perfect way to incorporate the trend into your closet and, best of all, it’s on sale for $11.99.

That’s it for today.

Y’all have a great Friday.
Book Club: Half Broke Horses

Today is the first official meeting of the book club. And perhaps the last. We’ll see how it goes and work out any issues and decide if it might be fun to do it again and what book we should read next and how long we need to finish said book. See? It’s a lot to think about.

I feel like I need to confess up front that I have never participated in a real life book club, unless you count all the times Gulley and I have read the same book and discussed it over chips and queso. The idea of a real life book club commitment kind of stressed me out since I tend to get stressed by commitments of all kinds because WHAT IF I CHANGE MY MIND?

Plus I only want to read the books I want to read and don’t want to waste any time reading something that might involve science fiction or boring people. But what I do know is it’s a pretty safe bet that if I ever participated in a real life book club, I’d be content to just sit back and listen to what everyone else had to say because I’d be afraid of saying something stupid or inappropriate.

(Like last week in Bible study when I went off on a tangent about the show Good Times)

That being said, I’ll begin our discussion and include a few questions at the end. Feel free to add your thoughts, insights and questions in the comments and we can all just check in there to see what everyone has to say. I’ll chime back in there, also.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls basically had me from hello. I adore a good memoir and, even though this was part novel/part memoir, it read very much like an authentic first hand account of Lily Casey’s life. I thought it was written with humor (big fan of humor) and sensitivity but definitely made me think about things in my own life and whether or not I agreed with Lily’s philosophies on life.

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“I asked Dad if he believed everything that happened was God’s will. ‘Is and isn’t,’ he said, ‘God deals us all different hands. How we play ’em is up to us.'”

“Also, my front teeth jutted out, so she bought me a red silk fan to cover my mouth. Whenever I laughed or smiled too big, Mom would say, ‘Lily, dear, the fan.'”

When her daddy was teaching her to train horses…“Most important thing in life,” he would say, “is learning how to fall.”

(I’ve used this particular quote several times in recent days because Caroline is trying to learn how to ride a two-wheel bike. So far it hasn’t helped. But it makes me feel better to say it.)

And maybe because I am a big English nerd at heart, I adored this “Two of Dad’s biggest concerns in his letters were industrialization and mechanization, which he felt were destroying the human soul. He was also obsessed with Prohibition and phonetic spelling, both of which he saw as cures for mankind’s tendency toward irrational behavior.” She later goes on to write, “At the same time, Dad was working on a book arguing the case for phonetic spelling. He called it A Ghoti out of Water. ‘Ghoti,’ he liked to point out, could be pronounce like ‘fish’. The ‘gh’ had the ‘f’ sound in ‘enough’, the ‘o’ had the short ‘i’ sound in ‘women’, and ‘ti’ had the ‘sh’ sound in ‘nation.'”

Y’all have no idea how much I wish a real book existed called Ghoti Out of Water.

I loved Lily Casey. I admired her tenacity in hard times and the way she just did what she had to do. She accepted her circumstances and made the best out of her situations, never wallowing in self-pity. I had times where I questioned what kind of mother I thought she was. No doubt she loved her children, but the boarding school decision was hard for me to understand even though it was a different day and time and I’m think she was just trying to give them the opportunities she wished she’d had.

Overall, this was one of the best books I’ve read in a while and I’ve already started The Glass Castle because I want to see what happens to Rosemary and Rex.

So here are a few questions (adapted from the Simon and Schuster reading guide) you can ponder. Or not ponder. Or turn into other thoughts. Or add your own thoughts.

1. When Lily’s father dies, she and Rosemary drive his body from Tucson back to the ranch in West Texas. Rosemary is embarrassed to be seen driving with a corpse and ducks down in the car when they stop at a red light (pg. 198). “Life’s too short, honey,” Lily tells Rosemary, “to worry what other people think of you.” What does Lily’s reaction to this behavior show about her character? Does she give much credence to what other people think of her? What effect do you think her mother’s attitude had on Rosemary?

2. Lily has high expectations for her children, from sending them off to boarding school despite their protests to enforcing strict rules for keeping animals as pets. When Rosemary falls in love with a wild horse and asks her mother if she can keep it, Lily replies, “The last thing we need around here is another half-broke horse” (pg. 190). How might this statement apply to Lily’s children as well? Are Lily’s expectations of her children particularly high or rather a reflection of the times? Why do you think this phrase was chosen as the title of the book?

3. When a group of Brooklyn ladies visits the ranch, Rosemary and Lily take them for a car ride they’ll never forget. Lily concludes their encounter by saying, “You ride, you got to know how to fall, and you drive, you got to know how to crash” (pg. 175). How does this statement apply to Lily’s life as a whole? What does she mean by knowing “how to fall”?

4. While attempting to prevent the ranch from flooding, Lily tells Rosemary, “Do the best you can…That’s all anyone can do.” Her instructions are echoed by Jim’s declaration: “We did a good job—good as we could” (pg. 152). Why do you think Lily and Jim have both adopted this philosophy? To which other instances in their lives are they likely to have applied this rationale?

5. “Helen’s beauty, as far as I was concerned, had been a curse, and I resolved that I would never tell Rosemary she was beautiful” (pg. 119). Examine Lily’s relationship with her daughter, Rosemary. How does each generation try to compensate for the one before? How does each mother try to avoid the mistakes or pain imposed upon her by her own mother?

Can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
Here’s what happened so long ago that I almost forgot about it

I’ve already started this post once and then WordPress decided to delete it just about the time I was halfway finished. Or maybe I pushed the wrong button. I’m not sure, but it feels better for me to blame WordPress.

So I never talked about what we did last weekend. And now it’s Wednesday which is almost the next weekend and it seems kind of pointless to write about something we did almost a week ago. But given that there is nothing new and exciting going on here, I’m going to go with it. Plus, what if a day comes when Caroline pulls up the blog because she is desperate to know how she spent the weekend of February 11, 2011 and is left with lingering questions regarding her whereabouts.

The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo is in town right now. Otherwise known as one of my favorite times of the year. Normally the kids get out of school at some point during rodeo season, but that isn’t the case this year for reasons known only to some bigwig administrators who probably scoff at the thought of chicken-fried bacon and moon pies. Fortunately for Caroline, P and I believe strongly in the importance of teaching our child the merits a good ferris wheel ride, the proper way to eat a funnel cake, and a hands-on example of why you don’t want to grow up to be a carny.

(Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.)

We picked her up early from school on Friday under the guise of an appointment. Yes, she had an appointment. An appointment with fun.

Every Friday is dollar day which means admission and all rides only cost a dollar. This helps offset the sting of paying $50 for a couple of corndogs and a lemonade. I’d complain more about the rodeo food price gouging, because I may not be a smart man, Jenny, but I know the cost of making a corndog, but I have to admit that those corndogs are worth every penny.

After a quick stop for a nutritious lunch of corndogs dipped in diamonds and rolled in gold, Caroline wanted to check out the rides. She decided to start small.

The inclusion of the carny in this picture is just a bonus.

She quickly realized she was ready to move on to bigger and better things and pointed out the Gravitron, intrigued by the spinning and loud music coming from the inside. P and I were quick to regal her with horror stories involving the loss of recently eaten corndogs because there was no way either of us was going anywhere near that sucker. If I wanted to be spun around so fast that gravity becomes a non-issue, I’d have been an astronaut.

We all decided to ride the ferris wheel instead and I hung on for dear life as we moved around and around at two miles per hour while P kept telling me to look down at how high we were and I tried not to hyperventilate while I wondered why we were married. I’m not sure what’s happened to me since my childhood days riding the Texas Cyclone repeatedly at Astroworld, but I’ve become a bit of a ride coward. They mess with my equilibrium or inner ear or something. Caroline and I rode the Tower of Terror last year and I wasn’t right for about six days after the fact.

I decided to be a carnival spectator while she and P went on a series of rides that featured things like spinning around in circles at terrifying heights.

I feel sick.

I can hardly bear to watch.

After they rode several more variations of rides that go fast and defy gravity, including one called Crazy Mouse, we decided to move on to my area of rodeo expertise. Eating funnel cakes and walking around through the barns to look at the cows and the pigs and the baby chickens. Which is where Caroline totally scored a set of pig’s ears.

We finally headed back home after a big day of fun and all went to bed with stomachs that felt just a little bit off. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the corndogs or the funnel cakes or the rides that spun us upside down.

The next morning I went to HEB because we were having some friends over for dinner and we believe that food is an important element of any good dinner party. And then I came home and Caroline helped me clean the house before we left to attend Will’s birthday party. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that he had an Ugly Doll birthday cake.

After a big time at the party, we went straight to Caroline’s basketball game where she scored two goals. And then she smiled so big her face was probably sore the next day.

Our friends came over for dinner later that evening and we had a great time. And then I fell into bed where I could have stayed for the next three days.

But instead I got up for church the next morning. Ate Chinese food for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon helping P work in the yard because our yard looks like a testing site for nuclear weapons. It would be nice to call a landscape company to come take care of it for us, but P owns a landscape company which meant we had to rake it all ourselves.

On the plus side, I believe we worked off a little funnel cake.

And that’s what we did last weekend.

**Don’t forget that tomorrow is Book Club day. Can’t wait to hear y’alls thoughts!***
My pancake was a broken heart

Yesterday morning as I got Caroline ready for school, I told her, “Tonight we’re going to have a special family Valentine’s dinner and there might even be a present!” She said, “Okay, but I thought I usually get my Valentine’s presents in the morning.”

Yes. Yes, you do. But only when Mama actually remembers that it’s Valentine’s Day.

I should have remembered. I spent a good portion of our weekend helping her make homemade cards for all her classmates while practicing the art of glitter management. Which is just a fancy way of saying I tried to limit the spread of glitter to one small patch of the dining room. Although based on the fact I just walked to the kitchen for a glass of water and came back with a bedazzled foot, I may have failed at my task.

But I procrastinated on a Valentine’s gift all last week and, thus, had to make a run to Target before attending Caroline’s class party later in the afternoon. I secured a gift and made a quick swing through the Whataburger drive-thru line because I was in need of lunch before all the cupcakes. The girl at the window informed me it’s FREE JALAPENO WEEK at Whataburger and asked if I’d like my jalapeno on the side or on my burger. It seemed like too much to think about and so I made the decision to forgo my free jalapeno. And, may I just say that FREE JALAPENO WEEK seems like kind of a lame marketing strategy.

Once I arrived at the class party, I helped set up the tables and the party craft. All of Caroline’s classmates began to file back in the room after recess and I was immediately greeted by my child and a little girl I’ll call Mabel. Mabel wrote Caroline a Valentine’s letter that read, “Dear Caroline, You are a nice friend that is wite” which is ironic because Caroline just asked last week if we could please adopt a kid with dark skin so she’d have someone in the family that looks like her. Apparently the fact she tans well has caused some racial confusion.

Anyway, Mabel also told me, “I really like the way you talk. It sounds like a cowgirl.” In other words, MA’AM, YOU SOUND LIKE A COUNTRY BUMPKIN. It made me so happy.

I decided it might be fun to cook breakfast for dinner and make heart-shaped pancakes because I am nothing if not a culinary optimist. You’d think the Gingerbread Man Pancake Fiasco of Christmas 2009 would have made me own my inability to properly cook pancakes in a specific shape. But you would be wrong.

(On a total tangent-y sidenote, the mention of heart-shaped pancakes reminds me of the time in college when one of my roommates decided to make a Valentine’s Day gift basket for her boyfriend. She put in things like a mix CD, a new t-shirt, and a pack of his favorite gum or whatever. And, last but not least, she lovingly made a giant Rice Krispie treat in the shape of a heart and wrapped it in foil. She came home later and told us that he named each item as he took it out of the basket. “A pack of gum, a t-shirt, a CD…” and when he pulled out the foil-wrapped Rice Krispie treat, he said, “A big pork chop”. I think about it every Valentine’s Day and laugh because, seriously, a pork chop.)

The first error of dinner occurred when I looked in the refrigerator and discovered I only had three eggs left in the carton. That’s the kind of thing that tends to put a damper on a dinner consisting of eggs, sausage and pancakes. So I headed to HEB to procure more eggs. Like I told Gulley on the phone on my way there, nothing says I HAVE HOT VALENTINE’S DAY PLANS like a trip to HEB at 6:00 p.m. to buy a dozen eggs and some cake flour while wearing a pair of faded yoga pants and an Old Navy t-shirt that reads “St. Patrick’s Day 2003”.

But eventually I managed to make at least two out of six pancakes look remotely like hearts. And P cut me some slack and said he’d be content with just average round pancakes.

And, let’s be honest, that’s what real romance looks like.

We had a great time, drank milk out of the crystal stemware I only use once every three years, and laughed a lot. Or maybe just P and Caroline laughed at me. Especially when I asked her if someone played the guitar during worship at Sunday School or if they played the music on a tape player.

A tape player.

Yes, they magically transport all the children back to 1985 each Sunday and play Petra songs on the tape player.

If that church existed, I would totally go.
It’s like a Valentines remix

Well, we did not spend our Valentines Day Eve watching Lady Gaga hatch out of an egg. Instead, we watched The Great Outdoors because P really enjoys few thing more than movies from the 80’s starring John Candy. God rest his soul.

(John Candy’s soul. Not P’s soul. P is still with us. He’s sitting right here next to me in his gingerbread pajama pants.)

Anyway, we’ve had a great weekend full of rodeo carnivals, birthday parties, basketball games, and yard work. In other words, I am exhausted. And, as I thought long and hard about something meaningful to share with y’all on Valentines Day, I went back to my archives and looked at what I’d written over the last several years on Valentines Day. Only to discover that, for the last two years, it’s fallen on a Saturday and Sunday and I haven’t posted anything. But then I found this gem from February 2008 and decided to repost it. Because you know what never changes? The songs that define the angst of your teenage years.

So here it is. A repost. Because I have reached new heights of laziness tonight.

I thought long and hard for about five minutes about what I’d write about today. I mean, after all, it is the high and holy day for the Hallmark corporation and I felt like it needed the proper respect. I finally decided to present my list of the Best and Worst love songs ever.

But then, the more I thought about it, I decided that list would be entirely too complicated. Obviously the list of the best would include classics like “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and “At Last” by Etta James and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf.

It just didn’t seem fair to poor Sergio Mendes who was destined to end up on my Worst List with “Never Gonna Let You Go”.

What to do? What to do?

I hereby present my list of songs that were extremely meaningful to me during my teen years, otherwise known as The Time I Cried in My Bedroom and Lip-Synched Dramatically in Front of the Mirror for Seven Years.

And remember, this is back when I looked like this.

And this.

(I don’t know if Slash was aware that a sixteen-year-old girl in Beaumont, Texas was copying his hairstyle)

There were days when the only thing that got me through was the Chicago 17 Album. God bless you, Peter Cetera and David Foster.

Here is my list.

1. “You’re the Inspiration” by Chicago

I didn’t actually have a boyfriend who was my inspiration when this song came out. However, my best friend, Tracy, and her boyfriend, Wade, had been going together for like two whole weeks and this was their song.

I could only dream that I might find that kind of true love for myself.

2. “Open Arms” by Journey

It wouldn’t be fair to my fifth grade crush, Phillip, if I left this song off the list. There were so many Friday nights at The Magic Skate when they would play this song and I would giggle with my friends about how cute he was with that comb sticking out of his back pocket.

But, like the song says, “we drifted apart”, mainly due to the fact that we ended up attending different junior highs.

3. “All Out of Love” by Air Supply

If you didn’t love you some Air Supply in the 80’s, then I don’t know if we can be friends. Why can’t I quit you, Air Supply?

4. “Keep on Loving You” by Reo Speedwagon

I kept a portable cassette player next to the radio at all times so any time this song came on, I could instantly press record and play. And maybe, just maybe, it would be the time I’d get the entire song without the DJ talking over it.

5. “Stuck on You” by Lionel Richie

Oh, I know Lionel had other songs that were more popular. You know like, “Hello”, when he dated that blind girl that sculpted that weird-looking bust of him.

But this song was special because it was the song we were dancing to when a boy named Danny asked me to go with him. Of course, we were twelve so we never really went anywhere or did anything. However, just knowing that I could draw his name in a big, puffy heart on my bookcovers was enough.

6. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler

I won’t even lie to y’all. To this day if this song comes on the radio I will turn it up and sing along complete with hand gestures.

You would think I’d be embarrassed to admit that. And I should be.

7. “Crazy for You” by Madonna

This was back in the good old days when Madonna wore lace hose, fingerless gloves and those huge bows in her hair. I can’t remember who I was crazy for when this song came out, but it might have just been Madonna.

Who knew she’d still be around at 75?

8. “Glory of Love” by Peter Cetera

“Karate Kid II”, anyone?

This song played a crucial role in my own personal love triangle the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Neither one of those boys ended up traveling to Japan to use their Ka-Rah-Tay skills to fight for my honor.

And if memory serves, that love triangle ended the same way Kelly Taylor decided between Dylan and Brandon. I chose me.

Or maybe I just chose another boy. I can’t really remember.

9. “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” by Peabo Bryson

This will always remind me of Bo and Hope on “Days of Our Lives”. Now that is true love.

I mean, their love has survived eight fake deaths, three remarriages, several brain-washings and multiple misunderstandings caused by Stefano DiMera.

If that isn’t love worth celebrating, then I don’t know what is.

10. “Separate Lives” by Phil Collins

This totally summed up how I felt when my crush of over two years had to move away. I was devastated. I related so much to the movie “White Nights” and this song, except that we weren’t apart due to the Cold War and my need to be a ballet dancer.

We were apart because his dad got a new job in another city.

But still, the similarities were uncanny.

I realize I have left out many, many quality songs. It is hard to narrow down the quality music from the 80’s and I already feel bad that “Heaven” by Bryan Adams didn’t make my list. Not to mention “Babe” by Styx and “Is This Love?” by Whitesnake.

However, I tried to limit it to songs that meant something to me. Songs that reflect a time in my life when real love wasn’t measured by superficial things, but by the proximity of your locker to the one you loved and whether or not he had a driver’s license.

So, what about y’all? What are the songs that made you want to couple skate every time you heard them?

I wish you all a Happy Valentines Day complete with chocolates filled with mysterious varieties of nougat. Or, better yet, a few packs of Valentines M&Ms.

***Oh! Also a quick reminder that the book club discussion for Half Broke Horses will be this Thursday, the 17th. Can’t wait to hear y’alls thoughts on it.***
Fashion Friday: Edition today there are 12 things! Twelve!

I’ve recently designated Thursday as my day to stay at home all day long while Caroline is at school. I’ve discovered it’s a great way to make sure I get things done around the house, like cleaning or checking Twitter or sitting on the couch and catching up on my DVRed programs. It’s good to have goals.

The only problem is I pick up Gulley’s boys from school every Thursday. And every Thursday I show up in some version of sweatpants and a “vintage” sweatshirt because I’ve just been at home all day. I told Gulley yesterday that I’m afraid there are going to be some ugly rumors about why she allows a woman with limited hygiene goals to pick up her children once a week.

Then, last night, Caroline and I were waiting in the drive-thru line at Chick-Fil-A and we could see through the windows into the actual restaurant. Caroline said, “Mama, I can’t help but notice that one of the girls that works in there is having a bad hair day”.

I looked up and immediately knew who she talking about.

And then I caught my reflection in the rear view mirror and decided that those of us who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones through the windows at Chick-Fil-A. Or something like that.

I do make the effort to put on makeup and look presentable on the majority of the other days, but I need my Thursdays. So, if you ever see me on Thursday, please be kind.

1. avery washed leather moto jacket

This is a great time of year to find a really cute jacket on sale. Thus, I present a really cute jacket on sale.

2. big buddha empire bag

I seriously debated buying this bag in black back in the fall. It is so much better in person than in the picture. And I adore the mustard color. It’s the perfect accent for almost any outfit.

3. chenin grape scarf

Love, love, love this scarf. And it’s a great price.

4. calvin klein skirted wool blend coat

See? Another cute coat on sale.

I really need to buy myself a new coat.

5. silk taffeta blakely dress

I really like this dress and it comes in a variety of colors. In fact, it comes in so many colors that I would have a hard time making a choice.

6. jingo wrap

I love these Jingo wraps by Lucky. They’re made out of really soft cotton and are the perfect layer to throw on over jeans and a t-shirt.

7. kut from the kloth knit jacket

Another cute jacket on sale. Am I being repetitive?

8. wavy colorblock sweater top

I can just see this top with a great pair of wide-legged jeans and some wedge sandals.

9. sailor denim skirt

I’m always on the lookout for a denim skirt. And I have yet to find one I really like. However, the buttons on this one may be calling to me.

10. elevenses karelia coat

Okay, I’m going to let y’all on in a little secret. Ebay can be a great place to find jackets and coats from Anthropologie for less than you would pay in the store.

Unfortunately, Ebay lacks the ambience of the actual Anthropologie, but you can’t have everything.

And this coat is still expensive, but I love it so much that I wanted to share it with y’all. Maybe someone might buy it and I can live vicariously through them.

11. angel face top

Adore.

12. yantra tee

I am always on the search for a great t-shirt. But I think great t-shirts can be hard to find. They’re as elusive as a television show that P and I both enjoy.

(As he sits next to me watching The A-Team for the third time in four days. I pity the fool. And myself.)

This one is really cute and I’d love to wear it with jeans and a bright scarf.

That’s it for today.

Y’all have a great Friday.