I am now 30. And totally a real adult.

Yesterday, the big day.

I had thought about wearing a really pretty dress yesterday, to celebrate my birthday. But...I like to be comfy. And I sit in my desk chair with my legs criss-crossed up in the chair. So I decided to wear something pretty and comfy. Revolution! This skirt is so big. I love how big and fluffy it is. It's everything I want my hippie skirts to be. Plus, the bright skirt let me wear a black top, which was crucial. See, I went to lunch with the people I work with at an Italian restaurant (potential marinara sauce!) and Jen fixed the best enchiladas ever for dinner. So I needed a black shirt to protect against any possible stains, and since I wore it I was stain free. (If I had worn a white shirt, there would have been all sorts of stuff on there.) But seriously, Jen fixed amazing enchiladas and cheesy rice for dinner, and a brownie cake with peanut butter icing. I ate way too much yesterday. To the feeling sick stage after lunch and dinner. That's what I get for such yummy food.  And as for pressies, Jen asked the munchkins to think of a present they wanted to get me, asking what I liked. And Killy, the most quotable boy ever, said "Auntie likes to sleep...so let's get her a really nice expensive pillow!" So they got me a memory foam pillow (that I had been lusting over for weeks, but telling myself was too much to spend on a pillow) and I woke up this morning without my neck hurting for once. Jen and David gave me a beautiful outfit (soon to be debuted) and Mom and Dad gave me an Amazon gift card (to buy Kindle ebooks), a real book, and a pack of hair stuff. I'm so lucky...I should probably go buy Kindle ebooks.

Top - Walmart, Skirt - Jessica London, Shoes - Target, Necklace - JewelMint.

I decided to try Gracey's tip about belting up so you look leggier. Gracey...dear...methinks your tip is in my case. I don't really look leggier with my little sash belt up under my bust, just busty-er. And while that's fun, it wasn't really needed. Lesson learned in time for my 30th birthday tomorrow!!!

And here's a fan video of my new favorite song, Ludo's Everything for you. If I ever get married, this will be my wedding song.
http://youtu.be/-3DEOdxEc5Q

spiked

I have two of these "magic" sarong type skirts that are double layers of silk. You're supposed to be able to wear them a kabillion different ways...I pretty much just use mine as skirts. The two layers of silk are different lengths and I almost always wear the shorter layer out. But not today! Today I was different! And my jewelry had spikes. This was a set from Send the Trend, and originally the earrings had chains and wear way too long. (Resting on my shoulders too long.) So I got out my tools and fixed them so the earrings were just one dangling spike, and the 2 extra earring spikes went on the necklace.

un-puffed

This is the same dress as this post, only un-poofed (the skirt ties are undone). It is so beautiful and comfy, and if you all gave me a lot of money for my birthday this week, I could buy everything Joe Browns from Simply Be.  No takers? Jeez, it's like you guys have your own lives. I had a super rush project to finish at work, and I desperately missed my 15 minute Pinterest breaks. I looked a couple of times for a minute, but then I had to crack the whip on myself. I might be a little bit addicted. Just maybe.

my Little Mama is sad this dress doesn't cinch at the waist.

Dress - Joe Browns, Shoes - Crocs, Necklace - Send the Trend (skull!), Earrings - self-made.

sparkly

I recently rediscovered this shirt (in the dry-clean only laundry bag, where it had been languishing for...none-of-your-business-okay-several-years-but-everything-is-done-now. It's lovely, but I have to keep a watch on the neckline as it wants to dip down much lower than is really appropriate for everyone who doesn't have a burning interest in what bra I'm wearing. Jen plucked my eyebrows yesterday, because I'm bad at it and because she likes to groom people. Like a monkey. An older sister monkey. I need to make her do my nails too, since that's also something I'm bad at. I keep seeing all these neat nails on Pinterest, not super fancy or anything, but I'm about as far from nail ambidextrous as they come! My left hand is nice and my right looks like a 5 year old did it, if I try anything more than clear or pale pale pink. This, for instance, is GORGEOUS. And I need someone else to do it so I don't look like I just dipped my fingers in the polish.

The idea of this on my fingers is driving me insane. Must have!

Classy black polish, right? Totally work appropriate.

EBEW: Thrift: Randomly Country

My dad asked me if I wanted a brace of pistols to wear with this outfit, after telling me he liked it. I'm not really sure how that makes me feel....
I was going for a floral but tough look, and I'm not sure if I nailed it. Usually this dress looks hippie, but belting it made all country/western. The dog likes it, but she's dumb as a box of hair. This dress + belt did make it appear that I had a decent butt though, unlike my actual flat butt. So that was a big plus, but a bigger minus was how hot and sticky the polyester/rayon made me tonight when I was outside at melodrama practice under the lights.


Dress - Thrifted, along with the unseen slip.
Belt - Target.
Shoes - Bass, but horribly uncomfy and soon ditched.
Jewelry - self-made.

I am totally famous, guys.

You can see me mentioned on Be In Style's Best of the Web: Style Blogs of the Week here! Yes, I picked the picture and wrote the blurb. BUT. They sent me the request totally out the blue, so I'm calling it as a sign that I'm completely awesome. And, I have a skull necklace. Your argument is invalid. (Assuming you had an argument. And really, you shouldn't argue so much. I just assume the other person is wrong, and find it much less stressful.)



You can see my tummy is this dress, but I don't care. Because (a) everyone has a tummy, even if their tummy is flat, and (b) I find my gigantic belly button hilarious. Seriously, it's deep enough to fit up to the first joint in my thumb. You can also vaguely see my leg scar from my car wreck. A friend at work told me it looked like a shark bite (she's from Florida), which makes me feel pretty awesome. The flesh does dip in a bit, like something got a taste of me...

Dress - Mai Tai (Fashion To Figure), Shoes - Dexter (don't my feet look teeny?)

Purl Purple

I love this purple open knit summer sweater (or top, to say it briefly) even though it's a bit baggy. I got it originally to use as a super cool alternativey swim coverup, but I just can't leave it alone. The color makes me happy, it's not too warm, not too cool when I'm in the frigid office...really, I want about 12 more, but only in specially picked out colors that I choose. (NO aqua, or orange, or neon...) I've gone on a little buying fit of shoe cubbies and other organizing type stuff. But it's okay, because my (30th!) birthday is on the 29, and I'm ultra excited about it. I just...don't get people who don't get excited about their birthday. It's a day for YOU! And I'll be 30, which is like, a real grownup and everything. I think.

Head to Toe - Avenue, Jewelry - Selfmade.

*PS. Anyone who wants an invite to Pinterest, just email me. OR, you can do the whole email the site thing if you don't love me. I'm on there under my real name, but I come up under libgirl9 as well. Anyway, it's neat. Like Tumblr, but a different way of wasting time.

Unicorn Herpes is a terrible thing.

I went to the doctor for a strep test today (because my throat is killing me and I thought it might be strep.) After running the culture, he came back and told me it wasn't strep and gave me a prescription to take for 5 days. It's an antibiotic, but he dashed off before telling me what it was for. So, I'm going with Unicorn Herpes. DAMN YOU UNICORNS! And now to talk about the pictures where I look pretty. The top one was for my friend's wedding on Saturday. Let it not be said that I can't bring the bling, ya'll. This was towards the end of a rainy day, ergo the slightly frizzy hair. The dress is from Avenue and is perfect for weddings because (a) it's gorgeous and (b) the loose waist lets you snack all you want at the buffet. I started feeling sick on Saturday, and by Sunday (yesterday) I felt horrible. So I went super loose and super maxi. The full shot of this dress got cropped because of a weird breeze that made me look preggers, but you can see it here. It's Fashion to Figure and as comfy as pajamas. The broach helped keep the vee in check for Church.

Side-eye

Look upon my hair and weep, Earthlings! [Note that there is no picture of my hair after a full day of work, when it's gotten big and poofy from me constantly running my hands through it/general frizziness.] It is almost long enough now. Long enough = me not having to deal with large chunks falling out of a bun/falling in my face/falling on my neck instead of staying in the style I start with. My hair is super thick (my sister says it's obese), so it needs to be longer than the average person's in order to be fully contained. I'm going to a friend's wedding tomorrow, so my hair will be down again, but more fully imbued with product.

Shirt - Jessica London, Leggings - Avenue, Shoes - Dexter.

Pants that are not dark

That's right. My pants are beige. They are not black, or grey, or pinstriped. It's a pants revolution, and even the dog is impressed. These pants are from Avenue, and have an elastic waist, so they fit both my hips AND my waist. Woo-hoo! Excitement in the pants world! (Seriously, I can't do any other sort of pants without serious beltage.) These are of a linen-like fabric, so they did get seriously wrinkled throughout the day, but I think with summery pants like this you have to take that as a given. I got a good back-handed compliment today that was all in the tone. I had melodrama practice tonight, and one of the older ladies told me "Erin, you look really good tonight." Nice compliment, yeah? But her voice said "Erin, you look really good tonight." As in key word tonight with a faint hint of surprise. Apparently the last time we did a melodrama, I came to practices dressed like crapola! But it just made me laugh when I thought about it. She managed to say so much with so few words.

Top - OneStopPlus
Pants - Avenue
Shoes - Dexter
Necklace - Send the Trend

+1 to Dad

Tomorrow is my father's 60th birthday. He's been taking my photos for most of my blog (other photos have been taken by my little mama, and my sister). He's gotten pretty good at it, don't you think? He's also never looked at my blog. He's a wee bit internet-incompetent. So if I want to show him pictures of people (like twitpics of the munchkins) or youtube videos, I have to take my little netbook in the living room to him, after I've gotten it all ready. My mom, although she takes pictures like a drunken gnome on crack, is as internet-savvy as they come (assuming "they" are baby-boomer non-tech workers). Both of them are baffled by the large number of remotes we need though. Although if I didn't live at home, and schedule all the tv to DVR, they would HAVE to figure it out.

Top and Shoes - Avenue, Pants - White Stag, Scarf - Ebay, Necklace - JewelMint.

Everybody, Everywhere - Yellow

Today is Yellow Day for Everybody, Everywhere. I totally voted for scarves. BUT. Yellow won. And I went, "Ehh. I don't like wearing yellow. But I want to participate." I had ONE yellow piece of clothing, a yellow sleep shirt that has a cartoon bear growling on it. In hindsight, that might have been a better choice. But I was in Avenue a couple of weeks ago, and picked up a plain yellow tee for $5. You know why I don't like yellow? (On me, I mean. I love this pale lemony color of the tee I bought.) Because my skin is so freaking pale! It looks wonky all plain like this. Next time, it is definitely getting a scarf, or a cardigan, or something.

Tee and Skirt - Avenue, Shoes - Mossimo



But yesterday, I looked AWESOME. Also, in this picture, vaguely like a plus-size Kristen Stewart (cranky/unhappy, yet cool). And one of the reasons I am so awesomely cool is that my silvery white streak of hair is super shiny in this pic. I looked less awesome last night, though. I had a "sleepover" with my sister and niece. And of course I slept in my little 5 year old niece's bed with her, since she wanted me to. But her bed is a bunk bed/futon made from the spines of hell beasts. So I woke up every two hours or so, entire body achy, checked my phone (each time) desperately hoping it would be close to time for me to get up. But no. Last night was approximately 60 hours long. (My niece slept perfectly of course.)

Tank and Flip-flops - Avenue, Pants - Lands End, Earrings - Self Made, Scarf - Send the Trend

Favorite new weekend outfits

I bought this dress from Simply Be. It was on sale and I had a discount. Since the first time I laid eyes on it, I wanted this dress. So cool! So steampunky! But, at $89 originally, then marked down to $62, not what I was going to pay for a dress I couldn't wear to work. Like I've said before, my boss is very much of the professional work wear mindset. So I waited. And looked at it every time I went to the website. And when it was finally down to $37, I decided yes, this is worth it for a dress that I have wanted for this long and find this beautiful. It does run a little large, so I probably could have gotten away with a size 18, but as bodaciously curvy at the hips as I am, I would much rather the dress be a little large than too small. (Seriously, is there anything worse than clothes that are too small? People, no one sees the label but you, they just see how it fits.)

My favorite part, and what really sold me on the dress, are these little poofs on the sides. There are two in the back as well. They're like mini-bustles on my legs! And they don't always have to be there. The poofs are done up by ribbon inside the skirt, so you can untie them and have the skirt be all one length. This is my new favorite summer dress, although I do think I'll leave off the waist tie in the future.

Dress - Joe Browns Sexy Dress

Shoes - Dexter

This is what I wore today, and I took off the waist tie/belt from this dress already. I have a defined waist. I don't need a sash belt aimlessly flopping about and getting out of place. I'm already planning to wear this dress again next weekend, to a friend's wedding. I love the handkerchief hem on it. I might see if I can make a necklace to match the coral-ish flowers.

Dress and shoes - Avenue

Shrug - Torrid, years and years ago

Why I...buy my clothes online

I'm plus size and petite. If you've ever seen my blog before, you're thinking DUH. Where I live, there are virtually no stores that carry plus size lines. The Kmart doesn't have the new plus size line. The Walmart has some stuff, but very few petite items with lots of "old lady" styles. There was a Lane Bryant; it left. An hour away, there's an Avenue (my favorite store!) but I only go to that town every third month or so. Thrift stores? Try a rack of old lady clothes squished next to the maternity clothes (they are NOT the same, people). So. If I want cute clothes, professional clothes, clothes that are awesome and wearable...I have to shop online. I have four places I shop: OneStopPlus, Avenue, Fashion To Figure, and Simply Be.

Avenue (favorite store!) has a combined website with Jessica London, and caters to the cool thirty-something crowd. They have professional clothes, weekend clothes, dressy stuff, basically everything you need, and they give you coupons every week for something if you're on the mailing list. Shipping here is expensive.

OneStopPlus is a website that pulls together stuff from all sorts of plus size clothing companies: Avenue, Jessica London, Roaman's, Ellos, Taillissime, just tons of them. They give you mailing list coupons as well. About half of the stuff is frumpy old lady shuffleboard clothes, but the other half is adorable. So you just have to look. They also have home stuff, men's clothes, and a few new expensive brands - IGIGI and 148 Lafayette New York, Kiyonna, Svoboda, etc. If you join, shipping is $3.

Fashion To Figure is a website that evolved from a NY branch of stores. It's a clothing line similar to Torrid, but less teenage, and more twenty-something. It only goes up to a 3x (supposedly a 22/24, but they run small, so check the size chart). They have coupons (seeing a theme?) and some awful cute tunics. If you order over $75, it's free shipping.

Simply Be is a site that started in Britain but now has a US site as well. They are the most expensive on the list, and I've only ordered from them twice. But the things I have (a cardigan and a dress) are gorgeous! Well made, beautiful. They do run sales and coupons, so I would wait and stock up. The Joe Browns line is fantastic. At the moment, all shipping and returns are free.

Pretty, but ultimately sticky

I was completely comfy in my office and in the car. Then we went to the munchkins recital. Outside. It was too toasty for this light sweater.  But they were fantastic (Ellie on violin, Killy on ukelele) and it was all good. And I had melodrama practice tonight. (You'll hear that a lot in the coming weeks. ) They do a melodrama every few years in town, and I acted in the previous one, as well. Melodramas are campy as hell, and ours are a sort of melodrama/musical combo.  It's a very rag-tag production.

Top - Avenue
Pants - White Stag
Shoes - Dexter

purty

I somehow succeeded (through the magic of nothing more than Windows Live Photo Gallery) in making the real landscape behind me look like a pulldown of fake trees at a photographer's studio. I'm pretty damn impressed with myself on that one. This is a gorgeous Avenue short sleeve super light knit top. It's so light and open-holed that I had to wear a lavender cami underneath so I didn't flash my bra at people all day. I'm even happy with my little smirk here in the photo; after all, it's just a little bit of a smirk. And how would the average person recognize me without a smirk? Also on the plus side, I didn't explode any computer reports today! [See yesterday] So go me altogether! Alright, now it's bedtime. Amuse yourselves, and don't break anything while mommy sleeps.

I didn't mean to break the internet...

So, Friday when I was at home sick, I broke the internet at work. Sort of. In a theoretical, humorous way. Let me explain. I was entering data on Thursday, and I entered some stuff incorrectly (I didn't delete the previous info on the tab). It was caught and I corrected it. I THOUGHT. And the IT staff set their reports to run Thursday night. But, apparently, one lonely little record still had two entries on the tab, and it blew the computer's mind and wrecked ALL the reports. Luckily, I wasn't there on Friday to reap the reward of ruining all that IT work from Thursday, being out sick. Apparently, it was not a pretty sight. So, I got a quick re-schooling, and I will get a through re-training sometime this week. But everyone (boss included) was nice about it, and I won the gold prize for mistakes. I'm just glad I missed my first HUGE mistake. Also, in a unbelievably nice twist, I got a package from Avenue and everything fits! (Lest you think I'm spending shitloads of $ there, I always use coupons and buy on sale. And I only buy a few things at a time. There just aren't any actual plus-size stores in my area since the Lane Bryant store left and my Avenue store is an hour away.)

Top - Avenue
Pants - Denim 24/7 pinstripes that photograph like a LSD trip

Post-weekend

Sleepy Sunday

 I had a lovely holiday weekend (and I hope you had the same) except for this wonky ear thing I have going on. I actually took Friday off and went to the doctor. I told him about how my ear was hurting, that I have allergies, and that it kept popping randomly (like your ears do when you go up and down mountains). I figured I had an ear infection since I had them almost constantly as a child, but no, I have some grossness where all my snot is backed up and the tubes in my ears have gotten affected by it (that's affected not infected). So I get cortico-steriod nose spray and decongestants, in addition to my allergy pill. It seems so totally unfair considering how much I sneeze and I know all my hippie friends are going to start pestering me to use a neti pot. I have a problem using eye drops; I don't think my first time with a neti pot is going to go well at all. But luckily, I figure I can put it off until I'm done with this nose spray that I've got for a month.
 

I can make him talk...

 I love this charm. It's a little gold skull, with a hinged jaw. It came from Send the Trend, on a white gold chain, but it didn't really go well with the chain, so I gave that to my little mama and braided up this ribbon. Mama hates it and keeps threatening to make it disappear. I'm not super punk, but I do like a little edge now and then.

Scarves fascinate the dog

Sunday top - B'leev
Today:
Tank - Avenue
Jeans - Avenue
Shoes - Dexter
Scarf and Skull - Send the Trend