MOA and other adventures, a recap

Chris and I spent the weekend up in the twin cities. Chris has been doing his OBGYN rotation about 3 hours up north from Madison, which is about an hour away from the cities, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to get out there and do something shopping! The main goal of the weekend trip was to get a suit for Chris's residency interviews, but that only took a couple of hours, so we had lots of time to shop all of the other stores. I was holding on to my money pretty tight so it almost wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be. With trying to save as much money as possible for my 6 weeks off between quitting my job and starting school, and for the move, money has seemed pretty tight lately. I did manage to find a few things though!

+ On the first day, all I bought were these nude ballet flats at Nordstrom Rack. I got them for just under $60, which I think is decent for leather flats I plan on wearing a lot. I also tried on this pair of shoes but in the end, I already have a pair of light/dark cap toed shoes, and they weren't as versatile as the plain nude ones. Sometimes practicality just has to win, ya know? I really wanted to find a pair of jeans at Nordstrom Rack, but unfortunately that didn't work out. I need jeans with a longer inseam, and all the jeans there were in a regular. The eBay/poshmark search goes on.

+ We drove to another mall on Sunday because I really wanted to go to a Madewell. Everything in that store is far out of my normal price range though (which I knew going in), so I stuck to the sales rack. I tried on, and somehow fell in love with, this sweater. It's not that versatile, and I think it kind of looks like it belongs in the 80s, but it was just so comfortable and not like something I really own, so I felt it was okay to step out of the comfort zone here. With the 30% of sale items it came to just over $30. I also got this tee in green (which is not as bright in real life) for just over $9. I tried on these sidewalk skimmers in burgundy because they were on sale for around $30 (I could never justify spending the normal price on shoes that I wouldn't wear all the time), but I needed a half a size larger which they didn't have. I'm actually pretty bummed that those didn't work out, but buying too tight shoes would have been foolish.

+ We made another trip to the MOA on Sunday because we had tickets to go to Sea Life (which was so much fun, and makes me wish I was going scuba diving any time in the future). We stopped in Old Navy quickly, and I ended up buying this tee. I saw it on Kendi a few weeks ago, and thought it would be a fun light tee to have. And yes...there is neon on it. WHO HAVE I BECOME? It is pretty comfortable though, and it's a 100% copy of this much more expensive J.Crew Factory shirt. I always wonder how Old Navy gets away with always so having so many J.Crew dupes, but for now I will just gladly get the cheaper version. The shirt was on clearance for $6. I also tried on this skirt which was on clearance for $8, but in the end I didn't want to spend the money on it, even though it was pretty dang cheap.

So all in all, not too much damage to the budget. Chris and I had a great time spending time together since we had spent the last 4 weeks apart. He comes home on Thursday for good, which I'm really really happy about. We have about 10 weeks left together until I leave though :(

P.S. I know I totally dropped the ball on the whole blogging every day in may thing. I'll be back tomorrow though....hopefully.

6 months of 2012: a review

Well, all the cool kids are doing it, so I felt obligated to do it too. Don't worry, I won't show you every.single.outfit of the year because if you cared that much, you know where the archives are ;) I only started blogging this year, and spent a good 2 months of that time as a "hiding in the bathroom faceless blogger" (my first real world post is here! such a baby) so it's really only a "best of the last 6 months" kind of roundup. Either way, here's a list of the best, worst, and wtf was I thinking of the year:

Favorite Outfit of the Year: This outfit is my favorite for several reasons. It has my new favorite purse in it, I really like this (new to me) color combination, and it has the perfect feminine/masculine vibe going on that I've realized is what I tend to gravitate towards. Plus the photography gods were on my side that day so overall, favorite.

Biggest WTF of the Year: This pattern-on-pattern monstrosity. In theory, not too bad since pattern mixing is all about staying in the same color family. Unfortunately, this is just too much, too bright, too overwhelming. You live, you learn. I'll stick to little pattern mixing instead.

Biggest Regret Purchase: Although these pants were only $20, I've only worn them one time. I don't really love drawing that much attention to my legs so bright green pants weren't the smartest purchase for me. I think this was one of those "everyone has colored jeans, I NEED THEM TOO" purchases. I've definitely learned my lesson.

Favorite Manicure of the Year: Although extremely simple in design and execution, I love this manicure and hold myself back from recreating it every week.

Biggest Learning Experience: I'm a huge fan of and participant on GOMI. There are some really smart and sassy ladies on there, and I love going to place that allows me to feel sane when looking at some of the more out there blogs. I've met some of my favorite bloggers on there as well. That being said, being on an anonymous site doesn't always mean you're anonymous. I've learned that as unoffensive as you try to be on the internet in general, you aren't going to please everyone but for every 1 person who dislikes you, there are in general 10 that do like you. My face and thighs aren't those of a supermodel, but I think I can add a little bit of value to "fashion" blogging as a whole in a normal girl kind of way.

Most Pageviews of the Year: This post about a little trick Bri taught me has 3 times as many views as the next highest viewed post. I hope all of the repins on pinterest have helped a lot of other women with the art of layering ;)

Favorite Thrifted Item: I'm pretty new to thrifting. My mother, literally the most stylish woman I know, is a huge thrift store person, so it's almost embarrassing to admit that reading blogs motivated me to finally go to a thrift store. I haven't purchased that much, but this mustard cardigan is my favorite. I'm unsure what the original brand is, or how old it is, but I love the color and fit, so I don't even care.

Favorite DIY of the Year: My tube bracelets are my favorite thing I've made this year, with my flannel scarf coming in as a close second. I made them in gold and silver, and reach for them almost every single day. Plus the materials cost less than $10 and are super easy to make - cheap and easy: sounds good to me!

Most Worn/Favorite Purchase: My favorite purchase of the year is also my most worn (makes sense, huh?). My J. Crew Schoolboy blazer, which was a birthday present to myself, is the most expensive piece of clothing I own, but I know the cost per wear will eventually be less than a lot of my cheaper pieces of clothing.

So that's it! I hope 2013 brings me the foresight to make smarter purchases to fill the holes in my closet, to still expirement with my clothes, and to continue to have fun with this little hobby.