Seven Quick Takes - The 'Fashion' Edition

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1 - I've always prided myself on being a bit of a devil-may-care when it comes to fashion - which means I'm touch and go at a party, let's be honest.  I could show up and look simply smashing, and yet it's equally possible I will arrive in sweatpants.  Okay, maybe not sweatpants.  But I did walk through town yesterday knowingly wearing a shirt with stains down the front of it.  Whatevs.

However - I'm actually really trying to change this.  If you've ever seen my What I Wore Sunday Posts you know I have a theme.  I kinda always look the same.  I also recognize this - I know there's a uniform in my life; knee length A-line skirts, tops from Reitmans, usually with a V-neckline...I get it, I get it.  I did try to sort of break free...once.  And then...I chickened out.  But no more.  I'm determined.  I don't want to get known as a dumpy pastor's wife.  So much so that's I'm using my 'child and husband free' evening and actually going through my closet tonight to make up outfits that stretch me beyond my comfort zone.

2 - Keeping this in mind - my husband took me shopping today.  Like...for clothes.  Not nursing clothes or underwear, which is pretty much all I buy myself these days, but real honest-to-goodness big girl stuff.  Not surprisingly, I had a very difficult time just Picking. Something. Out.  I'm serious; when your personal shopping generally consists of stuff you can bleach plus tube socks, it's remarkably difficult to get beyond that.  Three shirts, two stores, one skirt and a pile of rejects later I emerged with the first real clothing buys in a long time.  It's a start.

3 - Even harder than actually making decisions on what clothes to buy is somehow figuring out how to put things together.  Take this outfit:

www.whatsaybeauty.tumblr.com

I love it.  But honestly, if I had a tea length cream tulle skirt, I would never in a million years think "you know, this would look great with a green wool blazer".  Never.  In a million years.

Or this one:

link

Fun, right?  A bit K. Hepburn.  Never would pair these two together.  I'd be the girl thinking "Right, three piece man's suit.  This needs a hat."  Not. A. Big. Scarf.

4 - While this might make me hopeless, I'm still giving it a shot.  And frankly, some of my outfits are likely to be hideous.  I'm going to come right out and say it - likely to be hideous.  But David is usually a pretty good judge and he'll hopefully stop me from walking out the house with two different shoes and a lampshade on my head.

5 - I've always had this Pinterest style board and now I'm actually adding stuff to it.  Tell me what you think.

6 - After actually deciding to try and improve my fashion abilities a bit, I thought long and hard about where I could best spend money to make the biggest impact on my wardrobe.  Decision?  Shoes and belts.  I'm not kidding.

7 - Suggestions?

You didn't think Clothing Was Optional, did you?

Linking up today with 7 Posts in 7 Days and What I Wore Sunday...just a linking machine I am, I am!

I wish you could all have prayed for me this morning.  You could have started, oooo, right around when David turned to me in bed and said "Oh, when you get to church, can you set up the communion table please?"  and then got up and left for work.  Leaving me with two sticky, hot children to dress and drag off into the wild blue yonder all by my lonesome.  And then you could have tossed in a thousand or so prayers for the children, who had to eat cold pizza for breakfast because mama neeeeeeeded a shower, and one or five cuppa teas.  No, actually you could have started with the discovery that we had no clean diaper covers, or maybe that we didn't fill a prescription yesterday that we need today.

Wherever you start, you would have had to continue right on past the wanton destruction of all cleaned surfaces in the house by Clara The Destroyer, and the spectre of 'Too Much TV'.

***

Alright.  I have a bit of an explanation to make here.  I haven't been linking to anyone very much lately.  And there's a reason.  Sort of.  I mean, it isn't a very good reason but it is kinda a real one.  You see, I'm not joining in a lot of link ups because I really like blogs; I really like beautiful blogs.  I like pictures of other people's lives, and children, and backyards and holidays.  I like the pictures, and for some reason I seem unable lately to replicate anything even kind of sort of approaching a decent photograph.

It's not for lack of trying!  Take a look...

See?  That's a What I Wore Sunday post...that never happened.  We got dressed, we got outside, I had a friend come over and take a picture of us with the horrifically un-mowed clover field in the background, and then I just didn't post it.

Now I don't know why, maybe it's because I don't like the pictures I'm taking enough to post them, or maybe I'm lazy by the time I get home from church, change, put the children down for naps and collapse in a heap of tension.  I'm not a psychoanalyst, I'm just a gal trying to get a post up here, but today - well, today I was going to do it if it killed me.

And so we just plowed through, we did.  Straight through the awful behaviour, the endless crying, the discovery that the only functioning single stroller was soaking wet and Samuel's shoes were as well.  Keep on going!  Are you wearing a plaid shirt and striped socks and slippers to church?  Good, excellent!  And you?  Are you barefoot and in your brother's diaper cover and no hat?  Right!  Fine!  Hold on, babies, I've got to hot glue gun my shoe back together!  Wait just a moment, somebody pooped!

My hair is wet, doesn't matter, don't stop now, the stroller is locked in a reclined sleeping position, that's fine, get that baby in.  Take pictures, everyone smile.  Let's go to church.

The only time they were both standing.

Dreary looking.

Dark, frowny.  Whatever.

I'm wearing a dress from Forever 21, a cami from Walmart, shoes (that you blessedly cannot see) also from Walmart.  My necklace is a little pocket watch clock on a chain, and it's a Christmas gift from my parents from several years ago.  My bracelet is a plain silver chain and my headband is from the Dollar Store with an antique cameo broach pinned.

I have a nice camera, I do.  And I just don't understand why I seem completely unable to USE it.

Looking 32

So I was on the phone with a friend last night and we were bemoaning the fact that we're growing older.  I'm 32 now, and I'm starting to look like I'm in my 30s, which is really not what I want to look like.  This is odd to me, this whole growing-older-and-looking-it nonsense, because I'm one of those people who just have never really looked any different through the years.  My hair has a lot of natural highlights, so any greys have blended in; I have oily skin, so there are no dry patches, no wrinkles...I've had two children of course, so I'm a different shape than I was previously, but I don't think I ever noticed any major change in my appearance until recently.

It started last year, when I discovered those first few grey hairs, some at each temple.  I pulled them out, but they came back of course, and so I went to talk to the stylist about it.

"So, there are grey hairs just above my ears."
"I don't see any."
"Yeah, they're there.  Should we dye them?"
"No!  It's fine, it's not even noticeable."

Regardless, I saw them.  And since I wear my hair up a lot, I've just kept noticing them more and more.  And now there are more of them to notice, too.  And so the next time I went to see her I mentioned it.

"Still there.  The grey hairs."
"There are a few."
"What do we do?"
"I think they just look like highlights."

I think she's being optimistic.  But okay, okay, it's a few hairs, right?  Then this year I've noticed a change in my face - it's not quite as youthful as it once was, it looks a little older.  I used to be able to pass for a girl in her twenties, now I think I would look 30 no matter what I did.

My friend and I started joking about the wardrobe problems of getting older.  We don't want to dress like we're in our thirties, but we don't want to look like a trendy teenager either!  And we're both a little afraid of becoming 'comfortable' in our clothing choices.  In fact, I'm willing to bet I'm already there.  At some point in the conversation her husband yelled in the background "soon you'll be shopping at Talbots!"  It's true!  You're only a few years away from Talbots, Amy; you're only 8 years away from 40!

I blame the whole thing on Reitmans.  With their easy to wear cotton stuff that gives the illusion of being so fresh, so stylish while still working on a daily basis, but covering up the fact that it makes you look like a mother!  Ugh.  50% of my closet has to have come from Reitmans, or looks like it did.  The knee length skirts, the v-knecked tees, the little button-up-the-front blouses, they suck you in with their 'I'm teal and therefore will make you look nice and pretty this summer!  Also I go with every other item on this rack!'. 

And then you read articles like this one, that declare in such a happy way that in your 30s you are going to start looking like a hag.  Great.  Very uplifting.

Oh, I know how awful this sounds, this complaining business, but it's bothering me recently.  I've never liked my birthday, I've never like the downward aging slope.  I don't relish the idea of getting older and have never really had any desire to do so 'gracefully' in any way - I plan to fight it all the way.  And I'm not sending Reitmans any Christmas cards this year, either, no matter how preppy and cute they make their sweaters this winter.