Random December outfits

A few random outfits I have been wearing lately:



Grey on grey on grey on black. I am crazy about all the draped necklines around these days; this one is a heathered grey sleeveless one from Target that has worked well under many of my blazers. The drape at the waist is a problem, though. I put this grey mix together because I wanted to wear my grey pinstriped pants but there is something about the hue that makes it hard to fit with my more brightly-colored tops. So I went with neutrals instead. The jacket is a knit Alice + Olivia that I got during the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale; for a while there I had my doubts it would get much wear but I've been putting an effort into finding the right use for it, and it's worked well. 



More neutrals of the navy and brown school.  The grandpa cardigan is a little too grandpa-y here, but I decided to give it some structure by tucking in my Gap navy-and-brown striped top and adding a brown belt. Now that I look at it, a stronger gold necklace would have worked better instead the delicate long one I wore.



Casual Friday with a mustard v-neck shirt from Nordstrom, my beloved striped Lands End blazer, the Gap trouser jeans, and rose gold Tahari flats from DSW.

We went to Detroit this weekend (photos coming tomorrow!) and I somehow only managed to get one outfit photo. Which is a bummer, because I did finally break down and bought some new clothes from Lane Bryant, all of which I wore -- and that went together perfectly -- all weekend. I was so excited about my weekend packing, and I have no visual evidence to show it off. Doh!



This was Friday night; we stayed at the MGM Grand casino, so we spent the night "in" and downstairs gambling and hanging out. The long cardigan and black top are new from Lane Bryant, the jeans are those Jag jeans that I am still on the fence about (they did not fare well by the end of the weekend, waaaaaay too stretched out) and my sparkly Vince Camute suede flats. I am in love with the weight, fabric and stripe size on that cardigan; it is going into heavy rotation this winter, I can tell you now. Probably going to wear it today!



The purse is from a consignment store from a couple of years ago; it's a faux Chanel that I paid about $15 for. I love the idea of it, but I have only used 2-3 times. This is the last one; the "leather" in the strap is completely shredding and left little red pieces everywhere. It's in the bag for donation now!



This is yesterday's back-to-work outfit: the top is from Gwynnie Bee, and I knew as soon as I saw it on their website I had to wear it with my cobalt blue blazer. On its own, I didn't really love the top; the knit was too static-y and too short for my preferences, but under the jacket? Perfect.



I am so enjoying my Gwynnie Bee experience, I am considering upping my subscription to 3-pieces out a a time. Hmm, maybe for the new year when the shopping itch starts up anew. Right now I think I am doing okay finding things to wear. :)

Layering to good effect

I did some layering of two of my favorite pieces, a sheer Target patterned bowtie top and an older Halogen sparkly-purple cardigan. Then black everything else: layering tee, skinny belt, bootcut pants, pointy shoes. I wasn't sure about the two tops pieces together, but I think in the end it worked well.



That poor sweater has a number of snags. This might be its last season.

Day/Night #2 of the Night Shower Experiment also turned out well.







The only problem is that it turns out my hair has 22 hours exactly before the roots get oily, dark and flat. So if I shower at 7 the night before, by 4 or 5pm, it does not look good at all. This is a problem on days when I am going out after work! Since I am doing so on Friday -- Phillip's last day, you guys! Noooooo!!! -- I had to scrap the Night Shower experiment for today.

But it looked good yesterday, at least!



Happy Friday! Any interesting weekend plans?

Stuff I Wore

So the whole Dress Like a Normal Person challenge has fallen apart; I stopped taking outfit photos and tracking them on my spreadsheet since I got back from Florida. Ooops.

That said, I still have been dressing like a normal person, and I have a small backlog of photos to prove it.

First there are some last shots of Florida. Got a goofy one with my parents the morning I flew back to Chicago.



Doesn't my mom look great? She's been doing WW online, and it's paying off. Go, Mom!!



One of me, with a Florida-appropriate top and Chicago-appropriate shoes. And a butt-ugly fish.



Then we got silly and I bundled up full-on in my Chicago gear. I was sweating by the time they finished taking the pictures! :)



I made Hubby snap this one after work one day so I could show off yet another wearing of this awesome Nordstrom dress. I haven't lost a significant amount of weight yet but I am losing a little bit, and it already shows in this dress. It fits much better now than it did in December. You will just have to trust me since the blurriness doesn't help prove my case. :)




A lazy Saturday. I felt like I was channeling Sheila with her striped graphic top over a long sleeved tee! :) Next time I will wear my short-sleeved black cardigan over this; without some solid blocking the sides, I really look much too wide in this. Oh well, lesson learned!



And this was yesterday. This is a new skirt I got on sale from Nordstrom a few weeks ago in its inaugural wearing. It's a midi-length which is all the rage on YLF. I loved the pattern on the knit, and the fit is just amazing. I actually TUCKED IN my top with it, something I haven't done with any outfit in quite some time.



I liked the addition of the thin patent belt too; it made the outfit under the sweater almost look like a dress instead of a LOFT tee and skirt. I could have gone with a dressier jacket or even a more structured sweater, but I was at my desk all day and I don't like to overdress when I am not going to meetings. It makes people in my office nervous, like I have a secret interview. With all the turnover and change in the team these days, I don't want to do that to people. We're already stressed out enough.

And that's a quick peek at some of the outfits I have been wearing lately! Now I am off to figure out what to wear since we did not do laundry last weekend and I have completely run out of pants and skirts to wear. Uh oh...

Optical Illusion

I don't have much to say about this one, I just really liked this outfit from Wednesday.



On the days that I've been skipping (see: Tuesday), my outfits have pretty much been like the one above: straight-leg pant, long cardigan, heeled bootie, layering top and either a long pendant necklace or a scarf. It's a look that covers all the parts I want covered, and gives the optical illusion of making me look leaner than I am right now.

In contrast, we have the outfit I wore on Thursday.



I finally managed to wear the button-down under a dress! (Hrm, the collar appears be tucked under more than it should have been.) I've worn this dress before, but most of the pattern was covered up under a cardigan. I am really in love with the pattern -- up close, the top part makes my shoulder line look stronger than it is -- but looking at the whole thing like gives me pause. Maybe that wasn't the right belt?



On the plus side, it had some really nice flow, and I loved the grey tights and black Vince Camuto boots with it. On the minus side, it is not nearly as slimming as Wednesday's grey pants and gold cardigan combo.

I am trying to make my peace with that -- do all outfits need to be optical illusions, or can I live with the fact that sometimes I just look heavy? I don't know the answer. I see other bloggers wearing their curves and shapes with pride, and I am torn between envying them their freedom, and silently re-dressing them so they look slimmer in the camera. ("Oh, that would be perfect if you lost the belt!") It's a vicious circle; as confident as I am about who I am, I feel more comfortable in my clothes when I think I am fooling the world in an optical illusion outfit. Then I feel bad for copping out like that, that I should be proud of myself no matter what size I am. But I'm not, and I don't want to be this size. So I change back into an optical illusion outfit, and I stop beating myself up.

See what I mean by a vicious circle? Oh, the terrible things we do to ourselves with negative self-talk sometimes!

Anyway, I worked another optical illusion to my advantage yesterday. This was dinner:




We ordered salads and pizza, our weekly too-tired-to-cook meal.  (How do I know it's weekly? The delivery guy complimented the way we redecorated the living room. He has been to our house enough times that he noticed the change. Yep!) So I dumped the salad out of the container and put in a nice big bowl, and I put the pizza on a smaller plate. And it worked; I ate the half the amount of pizza I normally would!

It also occurred that I probably need to stop fighting the weekly pizza ritual so much, and find ways to work it into the Foodstyle so it is a regular indulgence instead. Repeating the trick above will be a good start, and replacing the salad with a healthier one will be a second. I don't like their salad anyway. I bet if I mix up a bag of chopped lettuce and veggies the day before, when I have cooking energy, I could dump it into a bowl just like I would if I bought the bag at the store. Hmmm, that would work!

What tricks do you have for including unbreakable habits into your meals? Any optical illusion outfits you like to wear?

Snow Bunny

Not that we have anything more than a dusting of snow. I just think I bundled up like a (business casual, kinda dressy) snow bunny.



Cream heathered turtleneck sweater, Old Navy
Black ponte skirt, Macys
Cognac open-weave belt, Walmart
Black Assets tights, Target
mushroom Franco Sarto fitted boots, Zappos
mess of double-strand pearls, brown string necklace and tiger's-eye necklace from Shopping Friend

I don't know what is going on with my red face. I have had a terrible rash for days. I am switching face washes, from Aveeno Calming to Cetaphil, too see if that helps. Aveeno has done me well for years, but maybe it's not enough anymore. Dunno,

Another hibernating bear look. I swear, it is much cuter in person!



Cinnamon chunky knit sweater, Old Navy
White layering tee, Old Navy
Brown studded belt, Walmart
Lucite statement necklace, LOFT
Brown NYDJ ponte skinnies, Nordstrom
Brown suede BOC clogs, DSW

Then it was the weekend, and I cooked. Two soups were on the agenda, and both I made from scratch.

The first was a smoky black bean soup that I have been making for years from an old WW Core recipe. It's Hubby's favorite and was a personal request. But it's so easy I decided to challenge myself and made the beans from scratch too, instead of from a can. !! Really, it's very easy to do.

Start with a bag of beans.



Pour them onto a jelly-roll pan and pick through any discolored or wrinkled ones, and check for any pebbles. (I was going to not even mention the pebbles because it's so rare when I find one, then I DID find one in this bag. So there you go -- check for pebbles!)

Rinse the beans and put them in a pot with a lot of water. Like, a couple of inches above the beans at least. Bring to a boil, then skim off any foam from the top. Turn down to a simmer and add a tsp of kosher salt for every cup of beans. (I added that and some smoky flavoring to it. Dunno if it did any good.) Let actively simmer for 60-90 minutes, checking at the 30-minute mark and every 15 minutes after that. Add more water if necessary.

You will end up with almost twice as much cooked beans than raw, and they freeze easily. So make the whole bag, and then freeze it in 2-cup portions -- which is a can from the store. Easy as pie, and much less sodium! :) I think I did 4 cups raw and ended up with 8 cups cooked.



Once they had cooled (and it was late enough in the day that it was time for supper), I made them into soup, starting with sauteed onions, garlic and 2 chopped red peppers in a pot. Add the beans, some chopped bacon or Canadian bacon, add 1 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp of chipotle and stir 30 seconds until fragrant, add 4 cups chicken stock and bring to boil. Season with salt and more smoky seasoning if desired, then let actively simmer for about 30 minutes. Use the immersion blender to chop it up.

For me, I loved that butternut squash soup so much last week I made it again. But this time I did some hardcore roasting; I cut up into chunks 2 small butternut squash, 2 small onions, 2-3 carrots, a Yukon Gold potato, and tossed it all with olive oil, kosher salt and Northwoods seasoning. Then I cut off the top of a garlic clove and nestled it in the middle of the pan.





I baked it at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, just until everything was super-soft and just starting to brown. It took a lot of willpower not to inhale it all right then! But I squeezed the garlic out of the papery skin, and let it all cool for the afternoon.



For the soup, I followed the same recipe as last week; I even though there was onion and carrot in the roasted veggies, I still diced up a small onion, couple of celery stalks and some carrots as the base of the soup, and sauteed them in a pot with olive oil. I also pulled out as much of the onion as I could from the veggies and chopped those into smaller pieces. Once everything was softened, I added all the veggies and about 4-6 cups of chicken stock (low-sodium, I like to control the salt I use with just pinches of kosher salt). Bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes, then use the immersion blender to mix it all up.

The finished products.





I have to tell you, roasting all the vegetables together with seasoning was a brilliant addition to the squash recipe. I can't describe it well, but the soup tastes like "roasted", especially the sweet garlic depth. I am so glad I made practically a double-batch; I will be eating it like crazy this week. Hubby also loved the black bean soup, whew! He likes things with more heat than I do, and this had a lot of heat and smokiness.

I also have plans for a quiche with sun-dried tomatoes, leeks, and goat cheese, but I wasn't in the mood to make it yesterday so I will save it for later in the week. Hubby is off today, so he is making the long-awaited BBQ portabello mushroom quesadillas we have been dying to try for dinner tonight for us.

Hunh, we sure do eat well on the Foodstyle! Probably better than when we are wimping out and ordering pizza. :)

A shifting of interests

Lately, I am far more interested in what I eat than what I wear.

I did a lot of winter clothes shopping, and I feel like I am set for a while. My closet has been cleaned out, so I can see and be honest about what fits and what I like to wear. I find that I am repeating a lot of the same outfits, which is pretty new for me; since I've had Low Fat Dressing I've been conscious about wearing different combinations, always changing it up in some way. But lately I am okay with wearing the exact same thing I wore a week or two weeks ago; if it worked then, why not let it work again?

This has cut down on my getting-ready time, which I suppose is partly why I have moved toward this; work was so crazed in November I didn't *have* the time to spend coming up with new creative outfits, so I started sticking to the basics, and I found I liked it. So I got lazy about taking my photos; I'm not quite ready to move the whole endeavor back upstairs to the office, but I'm finding it harder to get a picture done in the morning (I am ready to snap at the moment my neighbors are leaving for the day, which is pretty embarrassing) and I feel all frumpy by the end of the day.

But I did promise I would take photos this week, and I have stuck to that!



Hubby took the first one on Tuesday night; I have no idea why he constantly takes blurry pictures. God bless him. I took the Wednesday one myself in the kitchen the next morning. Yeah, I think it's time to head back up to the corner of the office; the light is better and it's faster. Will do that today!

Anyway, I liked Tuesday's outfit with the skinny belt giving that loose cardigan a more professional look. Wednesday's has my favorite yellow sweater from Martin + Osa; it's probably time to retire it, but I just love it and will miss it. :( The pants are Gap straight legs, one in grey and one in black; so comfy and much better than the skinnies! And of course it's winter, so my scarves have come out to play.

This, however, is where my interest lies these days.




The talk my doctor gave me has been pushing me all week. It's time to start eating better, to take all the things I know and like about good nutrition and good food, and putting them to work. I've started taking my lunch to work, and even better, I am tracking my food again. I am still having a big no-WW block in my head, but I created a spreadsheet based off the Core plan, which is the WW plan I always loved the most. It is the most focused on eating whole, fresh foods with the fewest options for mass-prepared foods, which of course falls right in line with my foodstyle and interest in seasonal eating.




The other tab in the spreadsheet has my weight, so I will start tracking that too. No more hiding my head in the sand! This is far and away the most I have ever weighed in my life, and the thought of gaining even more devastates me. I have got to turn the Titanic around, people.

The Sunday cooking project has turned into a regular habit; I now spend the time in the evenings that I used to spend perusing fashion sites and blogs looking at recipes and healthy food sites. I have also started bringing my lunch in again, like I said; this was a big change at the office, but I am making sure that I sit with everyone anyway to eat, so I engage in the social aspect of lunch if not the caloric foodbombs I was indulging in with them every day. Plus, my varied fancy lunchboxes ;-D are quite the hit; I think my co-workers may even like the tall Mr. Bento with its round 4 containers more than the flat colored one in the picture above. :)

Anyway, I started writing this entry on Thursday night, but didn't finish until Sunday morning. Now I am off to start cooking this week's foods and to catch up on outfit posts from the second half of the week. See you again in a bit! ;-D

Low-contrast twinsets

Angie at YLF posted on Monday about blousey twin sets, which is instead of the traditional twinset of a sleeveless sweater shell and cardigan uses a softer blouse as the under-piece of the set. Ask Shopping Friend, she had a hard time pulling me away from twinsets (remember how you got me to at least wear button-downs with the shell over them, and then that was my uniform for a year?!), so putting a new twist on the idea with this look intrigued me. As much as I like layering and colors, there is something so easy about a twinset; it's like Garanimals for grown-ups!

Then I looked at my unposted photo from last Thursday, and the outfit I put together yesterday, and realized I was already doing a variation of that but going with low-contrast combinations.





The cream Gap boyfriend cardigan from Thursday has already been worn with a color-matching top, so I wanted to see how it worked if I went with a low-contrast top instead of a high-contrast one (which had failed in the past). As I have also done with success with that sweater, I added a scarf to bring color to my face. I also added my long pearls double-looped to hold the breezy scarf down and bring up the elegance of the outfit a notch. My brown NYDJ ponte pants and Clarks olive suede booties finished off the look.



Tuesday's outfit was more of a deliberate nod to Angie's post. I wanted to go with matching purples but of my tops and cardigans none had the right tones. Instead I used a lighter hue from a LOFT summer tee, and topped it off with a black patent skinny belt and my LOFT statement necklace to make it look dressier. Gap skinny pants and my Sam Edelmann embellished flats finished the outfit (only because my longer pants for heels are all at the tailor).



I like these color combinations; I had been falling into a rut of white or grey as my under-top, and I was as bored wearing it as you must be reading this. Now I can look at my layering tops and cardigans with a fresh eye! And I will confess, I have been missing wearing button-downs and have been on the hunt for ones I would like. I think looking for softer-fabrications might be the key to my success this time.

+++++++

I hope you all had lovely Halloweens. We had only a handful of trick-or-treaters, so of course have way too much candy in the house. Sigh. But we have had home-cooked meals every night this week, and I just found this recipe for Baked Rigatoni with Brussels Sprouts, Figs and Blue Cheese that I am definitely making tonight. Doesn't it look amazing?

Mark Bittman is a genius.

Team Straight Leg

Follow-up on my last post:
1. Hurray for the resounding approval of my new bag! As you will soon see, it has already been put into rotation, so I guess it's a keeper. :)
2. I am still laughing at RoseAG's comment: Isn't that gunmetal jacket the one with documented color-coordination issues? Ha! Spoken like a true fellow IT project nerd. :) And yes, yes it is. I should know better by now, but I keep trying with that one!

 Monday was rather a boring day, sartorial-wise. I did some closet rearranging, and am making a concerted effort to remix my new pieces with my older ones as much as possible. I feel like this summer it was all new, new, new, probably because it was all new dresses and my awesome sandal collection. This season I'm trying for more of a balanced approach. For now.



I am officially in love with this cozy knit long sweater from Old Navy. I remixed the white sleeveless tank with the bow, also from Old Navy, but this time swapped in a black stretch belt instead of the self-belt. The grey pants are Ashley Stewart, which I bought last spring but never really cottoned to, and the shoes are my grey tweed Ann Taylor Outlet flats.

I like being able to work in rarely-worn pieces like the pants and shoes, and I love when they work together.




I think I need to re-evaluate the hem on those pants, though. I'd rather be able to wear them with heels than flats. Hmm.

The best part of the outfit, of course, was the new Coach bag!








Yeah, it's a keeper.

Tuesday was another remix, and the debut of my new True Straight Leg pants from Gap. I wish I could wear these pants every day. Oh. My. God.




This was another version of a cream top (my Lauren Conrad tee with embellished horizontal lines) with the cream Gap sweater, then adding a sweet pink and brown floral infinity scarf (a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law) to break it up at my face. The shoes are brown suede BOC heeled clogs from DSW, a favorite find from last fall and available at DSW again this year. I guess clogs aren't totally done yet!

But the real star of the outfit are these new pants. Angie asked yesterday if readers were Team Wide Leg or Team Bootcut, and my answer is that I am Team Straight Leg. It is hands-down the style that looks best on my body shape. I'm not a small woman, in any way, and my legs are my best asset; the larger I get, the more pronounced my pear shape gets at my hips, but then it quickly thins out from my knee down. So a bootcut tends to look like a mermaid-shape on me, and makes my hips even bigger. And a wide leg...well, it looks like Monday's shots. Kind of shapeless and everything is the same size as my thighs and hips. Not my best look.

Skinnies, too, pose their own problems; their streamlined shape is actually too pronounced for my legs, and I look like an ice cream cone. But straight legs have all the virtues of a skinny (highlights my lower legs) but in a less pronounced way.







Truthfully, all of my "skinnies" are really straight legs: the NYDJ ponte pants, my old Kut from the Cloth jeans, etc. But these new ones are really the best of the bunch. The fabric is a great heavy stretch, which keeps its shape but still has some nice give to it. They feel exactly like Banana Republic's Martin Fit pants did a couple of years ago. I am IN LOVE.

Lastly, in case you were worried I have been going way too neutral lately:



I am still me!