Potpourri

A friend of mine is pregnant and her baby shower next weekend. I can’t make it to the shower. BUT I put together a lovely package and mailed it to the shower hostess. So, my friend will have a nice gift from me to open at her shower. Which basically mean that I get, like, partial shower credit. BAM.

Maybe you’re already aware of this as an option but I only recognized it as a thing when it happened at my bridal shower. I had a friend who was unsure if she could make it to the shower, so she sent a gift to the hostess. She ended up not being able to make it, but I opened her gift at the shower and it gave me an “aww, how thoughtful” feeling toward my friend. It’s the kind of thing that has the EFFECT of seeming “above and beyond” in terms of effort, when it in fact is way EASIER.

[I swear I WOULD go to my friend’s baby shower if I could, but it is too far away and I have a prior commitment. This is not a suggestion that in any way should imply that I am a person who avoids baby/bridal showers on a regular basis, disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer.]

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I seem to have reached the point in my pregnancy at which putting on work clothes is a difficult task. Usually my work uniform consists of a dress, leggings, and boots.

I had to start wearing compression socks to work because my legs were getting swollen and a little painful. Putting them on is a bit of a pain but I think I’ve got a system now. I sit on the bed sideways in my underclothes and put one foot on the bed at a time and wrassle the socks onto my feet. Then, I’m usually tired and a little sweaty, so I don’t want to put on leggings. So I put on a pair of pants.

“You should buy the size you were before getting pregnant” said the lady at Motherhood Maternity. Bullshit. These pants are XL and are starting to feel a little tight. These pants are the pants I will be wearing for the next two months at work.

I also bought some new shoes. They are slip-ons and very comfortable and very boring.

They’re even more boring than the ones from this link because the ones I bought don’t even have the hot pink insoles, just plain black. But WHATEVER, I’m wearing clothes at work, gold star for me.

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I’ve been going to a different gym than usual. The one closest by my house is like a big warehouse. One huge room with a high ceiling containing all the equipment (plus a couple of adjacent rooms for individual classes and whatnot). The locker rooms are spacious and usually fairly well kept. I’ve been going to a slightly farther away gym because this one has a pool and a hot tub. Sitting in the hot tub after working out is very nice and relaxing.

However, this new gym is unfortunately more gross than the old one. The locker rooms are teensy with weird small hallways between apparently added-on spaces. The whole thing is just more stinky, possibly because of the smaller more enclosed spaces. And the people there seem to be more prone to be gross in this gross place. There are clumps of hair in the shower drains. There’s always some woman using the (ONLY) hand dryer to dry her whole body or someone else exfoliating her feet or deeply Q-tipping her ears on one of the locker room benches. And more than once I’ve run into this lady in the hot tub who drinks this POTION that makes my stomach turn. It looks like maybe iced tea with, like, whole baby carrots and garlic cloves in it? I honestly have no idea what’s in it. There are little orange oblong bits and round white bits and some of them sink to the bottom of her water bottle and some of them float. She sits in the hot tub and takes big gulps of it and drinks/CHEWS it noisily and I just cannot even.

And the design is weird. To enter the gym, you walk up a flight of stairs. You sign in at the front desk. Then you walk DOWN a flight of stairs to go to the locker rooms. Then it’s back up the damn stairs again if you’d like to use any of the workout equipment.

Despite its grossness, I’ve been going to this gym really solely because of the hot tub. I try not to think about the (high) possibility that people are also gross IN the hot tub when they’re gross everywhere else.

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I passed my glucose tolerance test. I had heard a lot about it being HORRIBLE, but it wasn't so bad. I downed the syrupy beverage and really the only issue was some icky burps during the hour I had to wait before the blood test. So that test was fine.

But, unfortunately, I’m mildly anemic so my doctor said I should start an iron supplement. I’m going to start with changing my diet first, though, and see if that makes a difference. I have definitely not been eating iron rich foods.

There was the week when I could only eat Spaghetti-Os. Then there was the week when I could only eat Cheerios. Buttered noodles have also been a staple in my diet. Since I’m not feeling as sick anymore, I’ve definitely been able to eat more different types of things but iron-rich foods haven’t so much been on my radar. I basically eat unintentionally vegetarian during the week and then splash out a bit on the weekends.

Anyhow, I’ve been snacking on crackers with goat cheese and spinach leaves at work. And over the weekend Niall made tacos so I have leftover taco meat that I’ll be eating all week.

And I have a cast iron skillet that I’m going to cook in more, once I figure out how to “season” it properly so food doesn’t just stick to it.

And I also bought this Lucky Iron Fish. I’m planning to make the iron-citrus water and, y’know, drink it.

Shopping Trip

I knew traffic was going to be terrible so I stopped at Ross on my way home from work tonight. Oh darn.

Question: Do I need this extremely practical travel purse? Hear me out. I'm going on a trip to Ireland in May and I'm thinking maybe I do. I like that it has a shoulder strap and a zipper. My regular purse is of the over-one-shoulder variety and I'm thinking perhaps I'll need my hands free to hold my beer and pet the sheepies. Anyway I bought it. It was $40, which is a bit steep at Ross, but it's The Sak and seems to be leatherish and sturdy and I dunno I just like it. For traveling! See the handy passport pocket?

Quarter for scale

I also bought a dress for my sister. I had sent her an orangey-pink dress for her baby and she was really excited when she first pulled it out of the box, "Oooh, it's just my color! I lo- oh, wait." So anyhow I saw this dress today and I thought maybe she'd like it.

I also got her this little floofy sweatery thing.

Not to wear together, but knowing my sister she actually might. I usually don't buy clothes for people that they wouldn't be able to return, but my sister kind of lives in the middle of nowhere and I want to send her a dress. I realized that I like the picking out and sending enough to justify the fact that it might not work out every time. I'm sending my sister these things and maybe it'll fit and she'll love it, or maybe not. And if not she can give them away to somebody else or cut them up to make new playclothes for the Von Trapps or whatever.
Even if I bought her a dress from Macy's where they have a great return policy she still wouldn't be able to return it for months since she lives nowhere near a Macy's of any sort. The point is that I thought of her and sent her something I thought she'd like and that makes me feel good, so yay. (It's this logic that led me to buy my other sister a purple dress from Belk when I was in Carolina.)

Worky Clothes

So I was looking back through my archives and I noticed when I first started my job I wrote about the outfits I was wearing to work. I thought it might be fun to do that again now that I’ve been there, wait for it, TWO WHOLE YEARS. Two years! That’s some seriously legit employment. For me, anyway.

I don’t recall if I explained this at all but in order to hire me my workplace had to actually have me come on as an RN and then transition into the role of NP. My current position is still somewhat a combination of the two (but I have learned that the profession of nursing is so broad that it encompasses quite the assortment of types of jobbies). The point is that I’ve had a couple different job titles and with those job titles comes different ensembular expectations.

When I first started at my job I did the New Job Dress to Impress thing until my supervisor asked me why I didn't wear scrubs like a nurse. So I wore scrubs like a nurse. About five months later my job title and requirements changed, so it was back to business casual for me. That was fun for about two days and then I started running out of options and realizing how persnickety I am about my clothes. I always have to wear an undershirt uh.. under my shirt and tucked into my pants. Should it ever come untucked from my pants, HEADS WILL ROLL. I cannot have the tops of my shoes showing, even sitting down they should be covered by my pants (by this I mean the tops, like the… mouth(?) of a boot, not, like everything except for the sole). I can neither be too hot nor too cold and I need to have the option of removing/donning layers. Mainly my rotation of outfits consisted of slacks with niceish tops and cartigans and it was a bit of a pain to remember that this sweater would go with this top but oh that one is dirty and I don't have the right shoes and why did I wear short/long sleeves today and these pants are too floody.

And then one day whilst I was pawing through my closet, I rediscovered leggings. Leggings are comfortable!, I realized. And leggings work with boots and dresses. So now, a year or so later, I think I have nearly perfected my work uniform. On any given day I can usually be found wearing some combination of long sleevie dress plus leggings plus boots.
Examples!

These are actually tights.

The long sleeves are for covering my tattoo.

Red leggings!

Long sleevie dress plus leggings plus boots = actual work OUTFITS.

Outfits I can actually, like, put together.

Yeah, I'm getting the hang of this.

Once I started looking, I was surprised at how many long sleevie dress options I could find (at Ross and Marshalls).

Don't I look somewhat put together? Ish?

New Jeans HAY-OH!

I have been wearing the same jeans for a rather long time. Since, oh, sophomore year of college I think? So that's eightish years.

They are Hydraulic brand and if memory serves I believe I bought them at Nordstrom. They were probably around $60 which seemed like and AWFUL LOT to pay for a pair of jeans. Especially since I decided I liked them so much that I went back and bought a second pair. They've faded over time and the hems are frayed and torn. And for some reason the back pocket buttons on ONE pair have fallen off. But I can't give them up. Because other jeans have come and gone but these babies have LASTED.

Here they are. I took the following pictures of them in a dressing room where I was fruitlessly trying on other jeans.

From the front:

From the side:

I don't know if the photos do those jeans justice for how much I like them. They are comfortable but still look pretty good. At 97% cotton/3% spandex they have enough stretch to give a little if my weight fluctuates. And did I mention they are EIGHT YEARS OLD? Maybe that's not SO long but it's eight years of heavy use-- of wearing them at least a couple times per week, in the rain, in the snow, in the mud, and throwing them in the washer and dryer.

I have certainly bought and worn many a pair of other jeans within the past eight years. But none of them had the staying power. They either would get too small or too big at some point or they would have some defect I failed to notice when I bought them: like too thick of fabric or too long of a crotchular region.

It took me a long time to realize that if I wanted new jeans that I would wear all the time, I should be looking for replacements of THOSE SPECIFIC jeans. Not that there's anything really WRONG with them right now, but just in case both pairs get torn or lost or we just stop getting along as well as we used to. And actually, I probably should retire them soonish anyway... I tend to hang onto things long after the magic has faded and all that's left is bitterness and frustration.

Anyhow! I don't want to speak too soon but I think at long last I may have found them! At Charlotte Russe, for $34.50, with 98% cotton/2% spandex.

Here are some photos of them (taken on a different day from those above, though I do seem to be wearing the exact same shirts).

From the front:

From the side:

I think (hope) we have a winner! (But I'm definitely hanging on to the old ones for as long as we can stand each other).

Dress

How sad am I that this dress was too tight and would only zip halfway up?

Very.

Reunion Outfit Advice?

You guys. YOU GUYS.

My TEN YEAR high school reunion is this Saturday. Yes, THIS Saturday. Yes, THAT high school.

Oh man.

There is apparently, like, a whole weekend's worth of activities including an awards ceremony (for what? I'm not sure), campus tours, and a power point presentation of the school through the ages.
I'm only planning to go to one evening reception thingy for drinking/looking around the school/schmoozing purposes.

Here is my question to you: WHAT DO I WEAR? I think this is the type of event that is dressyish but not, like, cocktail dress dressy, but that jeans might not be dressy enough and I don't really have any other pants that aren't jeans and I want to wear pants because it will probably be cold but I suppose I could wear a skirt and boots but is that TOO dressy? Or not dressy enough? And I do have white pants but are those not evening-appropriate? What about stretch pants with a long top over them? Or should I wear a little black dress since it IS the evening and probably kinda dressy or will I feel too dressed up? Or what about jeans with heels?
It's not so much that I'm worried I won't look CUTE because I think all of those choices would be fine but basically this is the type of event for which I have the HARDEST time figuring out what is appropriate to wear and tend to think myself in circles. Gah.

At least I'll be able to find out if my former classmates are single, married, or have children.

Lab Coat

I said maybe I would go buy a new lab coat today and lookee here I actually did it! Now perhaps you are wondering why I would go out and spend money on a new lab coat when I already have a perfectly adequate one?

Allow me introduce you to my alter-ego, Nurse Dowdy McFrumpleton.

You see I bought this coat about three years ago when I was taking my prerequisite anatomy class at LA City College in preparation for nursing school. We were dissecting (*gulp* EARMUFFS BOWIE) cats and therefore had to wear lab coats. So I bought this one cheaply and unenthusiastically. And I thought it would be fine for this year but recently I've been feeling rather BLAH in it.

Blah, hi, I guess I'll be your nurse or whatever.

Functionally it is fine I suppose and it fits all the requirements of a lab coat-- that it be white and shaped like a coat. But the fabric is thin and flimsy the sleeves are that weird mid-wrist length, and it is way too long and ballooney. Bah! Humbug!

I have been gearing up for Spring quarter and feeling like maybe I needed to revamp myself a little. And so today I went to the medical uniform store and purchased not one, but TWO new lab coats.

The fist one I couldn't resist because of the cute flowery pocket details.

Hello, I'll be your nurse today!

The second one was the one I was even more excited about because it has short little sleeves. This is a valuable feature based on the tremendous number of times I must wash my hands while working at the hospital. Since it is so short and short sleeved I think of it as more a nod to the traditional lab coat, but in a much more wearable, movable, makes me want to put on accessories and pose kind of way.

Hi there!!! I'm your nurse!!!!

If I were going to BlogHer,

I would bring these earrings.


And probably that dress that I'm wearing in the pic, too. I'm kicking myself for not getting a photo of it but how about this? Just imagine me in a long flattering, swishy dress that shows off my tattoo and can be dressed up or down, looking not unlike Aphrodite. And then when tipsy fabulous bloggers told me it was nice, I would say something like "Oh this old thing? It was $14 at Ross and I tried it on over my clothes!" because I can't just accept a compliment without being awkward.

But, alas, I will not be going to BlogHer this year. Last year, Miss Grace took me with her (told me what to wear, paid for my ticket, the works) in exchange for staying in my apartment and drinking PBR in the hot tub. I was wide-eyed about the whole thing and tended to freeze up when people asked me what my blog was about (my "blog" that I had started writing the previous month). We did have a fabulous time, though.

This year, they had the nerve to move it all the way to Chicago which is rather less convenient and more expensive. So instead of schmoozing and !!!!ing and cornering my favorite bloggers to recite my favorite things they have written, I'll be here. Jealous of you.

Girl Talk: Sensual Underthings

My immediate thoughts about lingerie tend to be of the Halloween variety:


For bedtime, generally speaking, I tend more toward always wearing (what I think are) cute undies instead of occasionally breaking out something with a lot of bells and whistles. Sometimes I wear particularly cute undies for particularly special occasions. And sometimes fancy lingerie can certainly be a fun surprise and a nice way to spice things up.

But then sometimes it can be a letdown if you wear something sexy and the evening does not go as planned. Like, you might go into the bathroom and change into a cute, coordinated little getup and come out and realize the guy has already passed out with the remote in his hand.

Also, I think I categorize lingerie shopping the same way I do regular bra shopping-- it's only fun if you have a perfect body. You know how it feels kind of crappy when you're shopping and you see an article of clothing that you think is so cute and so awesome and would look so good on you and you try it on and... ugh? Now multiply that feeling by ahundredish if that article of clothing happened to be a super fantastic looking piece of lingerie but when you put it on the bottom part cut off circulation in your thighs and the top part looked like two deflated balloons. Just as a for instance.

This weekend, I:

- did NOT bring my old teflon-shedding pots to donate to the thrift store. So now what? I had moved them from the kitchen counter to the living room/only room floor because I thought they would be leaving soon. But I felt too guilty to inflict their poison on others so they are still there. Can I just throw them away? It feels dirty and wasteful and cliche-edly American to just toss them, but what am I supposed to do? They're not some old blanket with holes in it that I could cut up and fashion into a series of throw pillows. And even if I wanted to get creative and make something pretty out of my pain, I lack the artistic talent. That, and the appropriate welding tools.

- DID park my car at a meter that was apparently a very poorly marked commercial loading zone and I got a $70 ticket. AND they were about to tow my car. Thanks, San Francisco! And also- ticketing and towing seems like overkill, shouldn't they just do one or the other?

- bought two pairs of boring workey pants (one by Marc Jacobs) at the thrift store for $3.99 each. I had to buy boring workey pants because in our Psych rotation were aren't supposed do wear our scrubs and we can't wear jeans and I'm not about to wear the same pants for 5 days in a row. Normally, I wouldn't have anything against that but after seeing what goes on in a hospital and coming home with pee/poo/lice/scabies/pus/blood/MRSA/CDiff/vomit on my clothes, I tend to like to boil and pray over them before wearing them again. I also bought a water jug and a set of those cute little kitcheny jars where I'll keep my rice and pasta and such.

- tried to pick Bowie up for a snuggle. He kicked me in the chest.

- hung out with my mama. She took me to Macy's to get some nice layering basics and out to lunch were she told me to order a steak. Apparently she's worried that the Bay Area health food craze might have gotten to me. She doesn't realize that it would take threats of force and violence to convert me to a vegetarian in any sense of the word.

- took a sip of milk that I thought tasted a little funny. I took another sip, thought it tasted okay, and drank the whole glass. Then I opened the fridge and smelled the milk in the jug and realized that, yep, it was bad.

Creepy Crawlies

A friend of mine recently found out that her little girl had nits. Yes, nits. The things that come before lice. So she paid the local Lice Lady (which I didn't know existed) to come and give her daughter (and her siblings) extensive (and expensive) lice treatment. And then she took every article of clothing and bedding and washed it in hot hot HOT water. And threw out the hairbrushes and replaced them. And then threw out those hairbrushes and replaced them. And bug-bombed the house. And bug-bombed the car. Twice. And vaccumed and sprayed abrasive cleaning products all over every piece of furniture that couldn't be thoroughly washed. And put all the stuffed animals that couldn't be washed in bags to suffocate any critters that might be hanging on. And had her husband check her head every night before going to bed.

She was at the laundromat, walking up and down the aisle to feed quarters to the 16 dryers she was using when she realized maybe she had gone crazy. And she told me this story and I laughed.

And then last week at clinical it turned out that we may or may not have been exposed to lice. Lice, that is, AND SCABIES. And since there is actually a bit of downtime at clinicals we all were looking up exactly what that might mean and exaclty what we might have to do.

Some things I learned:

- Head lice can change to become the color of the host's hair.

- Females can lay 6-10 nits per day. Which, while not an overwhelming number, is WAY TOO MANY.

- There is also a type of lice called Body Lice who like to live in clothes and just crawl back onto the person when they want to feed. To me this seems worse, since they're not just localized on your head, they're on your body. Or not! They already had lunch so they're partying in your shirt. Try and catch 'em now!

- Scabies- mites that burrow under your skin- need close physical contact to be spread. But! They can also be spread through a handshake. Or, say, using the toilet after someone who has them.

- Also, there is a type called Norwegian Scabies. The difference between those and regular scabies? Pretty much just sheer numbers-- if you get infected with regular scabies you have about 10-20 bugs on any given day. But with Norwegian scabies you get thousands to MILLIONS. Which makes your skin thick and crusty, hence their other name Crusted Scabies.

Lice and scabies, though not fatal, cause extreme itchiness. Interestingly, thinking one might have caught lice and/or scabies can also cause extreme itchiness! My hairs would tickle the back of my neck and I would leap out of my chair and swat at my head. Which made me look like an awesome, really together, professional nursing student. I had an intense case of the heebie jeebies. I know, I know. I'm in nursing school- I just need to get over it. I've had experiences with plenty of other infectious diseases but for some reason the lice and scabies creeped me out the most. Most diseases are caused by tiny buggly wugglies that somehow get in you and mess shit up. But if they are bacteria or viruses they're attacking your cells and whatnot, it seems much less concrete and more a collection of symptoms rather than an actual organism. But if they are actual bugs..... THAT YOU CAN SEE? GAAH!

So I went home, threw my clothes in the washer on HOT. And then took the hottest shower I have ever taken in my life. It was scalding. I would put my head under the water and try to count to at least 10 before moving away or slightly decreasing the heat. On my head I used hand soap, shampoo, two kinds of body wash, and bubble bath.

I thought that if one abrasive ingredient in my soap didn't kill the vermin, then another surely would. Or else I just wiped out the ones that are sensitive to soaps and heat and left behind the resistant ones who will now mate and form an army of lice-scabies-super-bugs....

A New Appreciation for Old Jeans

Well today was productive, but not in the sense of homework or school. I had to get out of my house so I did what comes naturally-- I went to Thrift Town where I bought a pair of jeans and a scented candle (I've been needing a scented candle for my bathroom because, well, it's Bowie's bathroom too, TMI?). I had thoughts of going to the bookstore and buying the sequel to Twilight, but after hearing that this New Moon book is similarly lacking in the hot and heavy department, I kind of lost momentum. So I puttered around my house, doing the dishes and organizing my desk, until it was time to have dinner with Diana. We agreed to meet halfway between our houses and I ended up getting there about 25 minutes before her (the public transportation system in SF, while superior, is not flawless) so I agreeably went to Out of the Closet. And I ended up finding another pair of jeans!

So, I'm rather excited. Because while many people do not believe me when I mention in the first time, I have a rather large posterior. I'm not sure why, but people seem to want to believe that "oh she thinks she has a big ass, but she's just a skinny white girl." Which is not true. It's big. Trust me. So anyhow, jeans that fit are just hard to find period, am I right ladies? Add to this the fact that my butt is a size or three larger than my waist and it can make the jeans-finding a rather frustrating exercise. Actually, it's not so bad now that I'm aware that having an expansive behind is actually not an undesirable characteristic. But in high school, when my curves started appearing in what I understood to be the wrong hemisphere of my body, pants shopping often reduced me to tears.

But in the coming years I've been able to find pants that fit. And actually the pants that fit BEST are Apple Bottoms, but I don't think I can get away with the flamboyant gold accents on an everyday basis. So I often end up spending far too much on jeans that end up disappointing me-- the waist is actually too big and folds out, or the legs are too long (and no I'm not getting my jeans hemmed, I don't have that kind of commitment), or they do that muffin top thing. But today I think I've come up with a solution-- thrift store jeans. They are cheap, often of a quality brand, and someone else has already broken them in. It's perfect! I'll just have to watch out for crabs.

Achieving my goals... ish. Plus a rambling thought process about Halloween.

Well I did it-- I wrote those 5 entries that have nothing atall to do with nursing. It kind of took me longer than it was supposed to, but I'm still going to call it a success. It was a good experiment to do to help myself remember there are lots and lots of other things I [used to have time to] care about.

This past week was week 8. Which means we have 2 weeks left in our first quarter!! Or, as I like to put it-- we have one week left until our last week!!!!! And then it's only 3 more quarters after that till the end of the year. And then two more years after that and then I'll be DONE......... sigh. These last couple of weeks are going to get even crazier than usual, I think, since classes and clinicals and such are getting wrapped up. So I'm going to get even less sleep than usual as I attempt to pass my finals and assessments. But my classmates and I have already come so very far this semester that I'm pretty sure we can all hang on for a little longer. And then we get a nice 5 or so day break before we have to start all over again in September.

This weekend C is a-visiting, which is wonderful. We've reserved the theater room in my building for tonight and I'm pretty excited to eat a variety of fried foods and drink vanilla vodka and _____. I am not so excited about the fact that he wants to make me watch Saw. Last night we were at the movie theater in Daly City which, p.s., is rather on the ghetto side in terms of general clientele. But the parking was free. Anyhow, we were at the movie theater and we saw a preview for Saw V which comes out on Halloween-- which got me all excited. Not because it's a movie I'm looking forward to seeing (since I'm pretty much the biggest wuss you'll ever meet in terms of scary movies) but because I love love LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween!!

I was going to write that I start thinking about potential Halloween costumes in late December, but that simply wouldn't be true-- I am always thinking about potential Halloween costumes. I mean, not actively, but it's definitely always in the back of my mind. And I sort of keep a running list of costumes I'd like to or might like to do. Which means that I'm also always on the lookout for the various pieces of my costumes that I might run across in thrift stores or Target or wherever so I'm not rushing to the ridiculously overpriced costume shop on October 29th.

I'm serious. Last year one of my costumes (oh, did I not mention that I also like to wear a minimum of 2 separate costumes every year?) was Little Miss Sunshine, from her dance scene at the end of the movie.

(Sorry for the somewhat tiny and poor quality of the images...)

I thought of this costume idea in, like, May so I was on the lookout for its components since then. I found the gold belt first, at Charlotte Russe in Burbank. Then, during Fiesta in Santa Barbara, Flynne and Whitney and I went to this crazy costumey store whose name escapes me at the moment and I found the ruffly shortie shorts. I bought the gold wristbands about a week later at Claire's. They were actually little cell phone pockets but I cut one end off them and they made perfect wristbands. I already owned the black tank top, those adidas pants that button down both sides, the white collared shirt, and the red headband (I just turned it so that you couldn't see the USC side). And I found the red tie in my dad's closet. I bought the suit vest at a thrift store and I was almost ready to roll. C told me that I wasn't allowed to wear knee pads because every douche bag guy at the party was going to make some comment about them. But they completed my costume so I didn't really have a choice and I bought a pair at Sport Chalet. And then I bought the Little Miss Sunshine DVD so I could learn her dance. Yes, really.

I'm realizing that this may sound like it was a lot of hassle, but it really wasn't. I happened across most of the pieces of this outfit on shopping trips I was already on. And even if it had been a hassle, I still had the best costume at the party, if I do say so myself.

So I currently have 2-3 outfits in mind and I'm on the lookout. I bought a dress at the Palmdale thrift store a few months ago that I think will work for one of the costumes I have in mind. But the hunt is still on and my excitement is growing!

#2. I heart thrift stores

On my way home, the insanely overcrowded Muni I was riding stopped and the driver announced that all of us had to get off and wait for another since this one was being rerouted and going back the way it came. This was rather obnoxious since we were already uncomfortable and cranky from having to wait. But I stepped off the train and right in front of an Out of the Closet. So while the other grouchy Muni riders waited for the next train, I killed some time at the store and ended up buying this sweatshirt:

I think it will keep me rather cozy. It's not something I would have paid a lot of money for, but I think it's cute and I like that it's been worn and probably won't shrink. Plus it was under 10 bucks.

The other day, I was actually at the same Out of the Closet and I bought this:

because I STILL have a box in my bathroom and need something to hold my various bubble baths. And this is wickery, which I like.

My recent purchases have gotten me thinking about how much I love thrift stores. I think it was probably Miss Jenny who initially introduced me to the ones in Santa Cruz when I wasn't sure if I should shop there. I always knew I liked rifling through junk and wearing unique clothes and she showed me a place where I could combine my interests. I think the first time we went to a the Thrift Center, I bought my favorite shirt ever. I wore it for something like 7 years before I finally retired it into jammies.

The last time I was there, Jenny and I went to the Chico version of the Thrift Center-- Thrifty Bargains-- where she convinced me that I needed this strawberry teapot:

I went to Goodwill in LA and bought the other teapot-- with the peacocks on it. I like to fancy myself as a lady who sits around and drinks tea that she pours from a teapot while responding to ball invitations and waxing shut my envelopes. But it's possible that I'm just the girl who collects teapots and has a wild imagination....

Anyhow, another time I was at the Goodwill, I bought this little bowl:

It's perfect for lemon wedges, am I right??

Speaking of bowls, Jenny also bought these at Thrifty Bargains. Well, she bought a set of 10, so guess who ended up with 5?!

And when I was homeless in LA, Dave invited us to a "Black & White Party" which meant that I had absolutely nothing to wear because everything that was black or fancy or, for that matter, clean had already been moved to SF. So C and I headed to the Goodwill in Palmdale, where I bought this dress:

for 7 dollars. And tied a white string around my wrist.

Some of my other purchases at thrift stores include but are not limited to: a maroon book case with hearts carved into it, my favorite pair of jeans, the movie "Sister Act" and a skirt with $20 in the pocket.

I love thrift stores not just for the treasures you can find, but also because things are so equalized. If a shirt cost 20 bucks or 200, it's going to be on the same rack at Salvation Army. Unless it's made out of some fancy material like suede, these stores generally sort items according to part of the body where worn: pants, shirts, sweaters, shoes, etc. So you could find a Banana Republic ballgown for $12.

Considering these fantastic purchases all made at thrift stores, I'm pretty excited to explore my new city and all the old junk it has to offer!

Well if you really want to know...

I was wearing this:

And these:

#1. "Fashion"

In order to actually (hopefully) achieve my writing goal for the week, I think I'll start with the compliment I recieved this morning. Ian told me that I look cute today. This is probably because I was too tired to take a shower last night and took one this morning, which meant I couldn't straighten my hair. Since my hair usually does unpredictable, crazy things when not controlled I was somewhat reluctant to leave the house. But I put on what I thought was a pretty cute little combination of clothes, plus some nice dangly earrings that draw one's eye.

I was excited to learn that I looked cute in someone else's opinion-- perhaps I have finally gotten the hang of this "layering" business. After moving here and leaving my apartment a half dozen times, I became frustrated and believed that my collection of lightweight sweaters had rendered me completely unprepared for the foggy chill of San Francisco. But I perservered. I used my bookstore gift certificate (given to me by the school- how awesome is that?) to purchase a nice warm fleece sweatshirt makes up for its slight frump factor with the fact that it has the school's name on it. And then I took another look at my clothes and realized I actually do posess a number of the raw materials to make it through at least the summer and fall months. I have jackets and sweaters and long and short sleeved shirts... it's really just a matter of learning to coordinate them into functional, comfortable, carryable, cute outfit combinations.

Getting dressed is not always the easiest thing in the world for me. When I was little my grandmother sewed most of my clothes for me, which is awesome. And then in middle school we had a uniform. In high school I would wear anything and tried to be different from everyone else. I wore leopard print pants as if they were jeans with my Dad's lacoste sweaters (which are actually popular now, who knew?). I shopped at Urban Outfitters when it wasn't so insanely overtrendy and overpriced. I wore a skull ring that I bought at the fair. I painted my shoes with glitter nail polish. In college I settled down a little and wore less... interacting(?) outfits. But I will say that if I found something I liked, it was hard for me to take it off. I can remember finding a combination of clothes and wearing it to class 2 or 3 days in a row, because they were different classes and I was proud of the one cute outfit I had come up with. But when I started working and saw the same people every day I had to (finally) learn how to put together clothes I liked on a daily basis and rotate them through the weeks. It took some getting used to and some outfits I couldn't wait to get out of when I got home, but I did it.
And now moving to this new city and new climate has presented other challenges.

So I told Ian that I had some trouble getting started since I was from LA where people don't really layer. He disagreed and said that people do in fact wear layers in LA.


I realized that this is true. But the layering in LA is generally achieved in a rather nonfunctional, borderline frumpy manner, such as this:

I'm not saying that some people can't pull this off and look adorable while doing it... I'm just pointing out that I don't happen to be one of them. And so the layering does not come naturally to me, which explains why I'm still glowing from the compliment.