wool coats

It's been a long time since there's been a Bloggers Do It Better challenge, and this lined up with Cleveland's "lovely" weather - wool coats, right in time for the first snow. (IT'S ONLY OCTOBER, COME ON CLEVELAND).  Literally, I'm pretty sure I read the challenge after I got dressed on Wednesday.

For clarification, this is what we looked like on Wednesday:

It was nuts, because we had thunderhail (and a guy at the RTA rapping about the thunderhail, but that's a different story), and thundersnow, and thundersleet, as well as just old-fashioned thunderstorms.  A very good day for warm coats and umbrellas...

Coat/earrings on coat/bracelets - F21 | Dress - The Limited | Tights - WalMart | Shoes - PayLess

Also, can I just say, I took these pictures like right after eating wayyyy too much food...  It was a bad idea.  Such a bad idea.  I pretty much went to bed straight after this, honestly.

Winter isn't just coming y'all.  It's here.  Now go check out the linkup to see what other people did!

What Rhymes with Orange?

Everyone tends to have a signature something - a lot of people talk about signature scents, for example. It's something seen as characterizing or defining your presence.  According to my friends, my signature is that I really have a thing for orange bags, enough so that one of my friends once thought a tall Asian guy was me - and didn't realize his mistake until he was about to hug the guy.  Unfortunately, one of my orange purses has died (though maybe I can fix that by using weird methods to turn it into a cross body? The attached handles kind of broke off...) and my normal bag is slowly having the covering on the strap wear off, and therefore, I'm looking for a new purse, in case the "let me play Frankenstein with my purse" thing doesn't pay off.

So what do you look for in a purse?  I know what I look for (besides it being orange): I want it to be gigantic and hold all my books so that I don't have to carry my highschool backpack (I know, I could get a cute new one, but I really just like having crossbody bags rather than things that I have to hold onto or that go on my back; big isn't a dealbreaker, it's just something that would be a thing in an ideal world), under $50 because I'm a poor college student with student loans who's trying to build a professional wardrobe (even if I am considering spending like $70 on a Nicholas Cage morphsuit...but we all have our priorities, and mine may be weirder than other people's), and then I just hope that it will stand up to the constant abuse of incessantly changing weather and daily use, because I do not have the time to switch things between bags.

So, some purses I'd like...whether or not I can afford them:

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So this isn't in orange, it's sold out, and it's WAY too expensive.  But I really wish it was in orange and that I could afford it, so it totally counts, right?

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Actually affordable: absolutely!  Also, cool gold accents.  I appreciate this a lot.

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Look, it's a large-ish bag!  It's unfortunately expensive, though, but it looks so good.

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It's affordable, it's cute, and I do like it.

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So cute.  And so sold out.  Not that it would've fit half the stuff I carry around, but y'know...

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Oh, and then there's this DIY...  Maybe I'll eventually have time to make this?  (And figure out how to turn it into a crossbody...)

I'll probably hold off on actually buying a new purse till I have the opportunity to create the Frankenpurse, but it's always fun to go looking and see what's available.  There's a depressing lack of available and affordable orange bags, but at least there are some!

Do you have any off-kilter signatures?

and I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I think the two weeks before midterms might be the most exhausting ones of the semester, but maybe that's just because it isn't time for finals yet.  Right now I've got a ten page paper to write, and I really need to be putting a lot more effort into my math and micro-econ courses.  Unfortunately, when you have no interest in a course, it's pretty difficult to talk yourself into working on it.  Oh well - I'll get through it.

Today's post is pretty much going to be a long-overdue dump of outfit pictures.  I'm sure you're thrilled (probably not).  This is going pretty far back through this summer, so brace yourselves...

Shirt - DEB | Skirt - F21 | Shoes - Payless | Scarfbelt - Meadows Museum | Necklace - Jeweliq

Pretty much the only thing I remember about this outfit is that I went to the Feast of the Assumption (a street fair in Little Italy) in this after work, and that I was pretty exhausted from work that day.

Blazer - A'gaci | Dress/skirt - TJ Maxx? | Shoes/bracelet - thrifted | Belt - ? | Ring - Jewelmint | Earrings - Grandma

I was able to speak during freshmen orientation about one of my clubs, which was really exciting! And it gave me an opportunity to be really fancy, which was wonderful.

Dress - The Limited | Shoes - some store in Rockville, AR

Job interviews.  Apparently, I was so terrified of the interview for the job I have now that I completely forgot jewelry was a thing.  And I showed up an hour and a half early.  On the other hand, first grown up dress!  (It was so expensive, and it was ON SALE how do adults do this stuff).

Shirt - JC Penny's | Skirt - F21 | Shoes - H&M | Ring - Jewelmint

I don't remember a story with this outfit beyond the fact that yes, I DID take a bathroom picture because I had to change for PE, and goodness knows I wasn't going to be changing again.

Shirt - JC Penny's | Shirt/necklace - F21 | Pants - LC Lauren Conrad for Kohl's | Shoes - H&M

I don't know how this outfit happened, but it me feel either like I was french or my mom.  I think the latter's a bit more accurate, somehow...

Vest - thrifted | Shirt - from Mom | Skirt/shoes - F21 | necklace - Rue21 | Ring - Jewelmint

This is the outfit that made the ladies who work upstairs of my office decide that I'm awesome.  Also, if anyone ever doubts the power of dressing professionally, let's take a moment to realize they thought I was a senior or graduate/professional student, not a sophomore, because of my clothing.

Shirt - Kohl's | Skirt - Uniqlo | Shoes - Lulu's | Arrow&infinity rings - F21 | Claddagh ring - ? | Necklace - Jeweliq

As some of you know (or you found out last week), I'm in a business fraternity.  I wore this to go out for brunch with my big and my twin (a twin is someone who you share a big with).  It was really fun.

Blazer - A'gaci | Shirt - H&M | Jeans/shoes/belt - F21 | Necklace - Rue21 | Ring - Jewelmint

This outfit was worn when I got my bid for my sorority!  It was pretty exciting, although I was not what you would call prepared for getting out of the elevator on my floor to find ten people standing around waiting for it...

Necklace - Amazon | Dress/bracelet - F21 | Shoes - Payless | Headband - ?

The main thing I know about September 10th was that I was completely exhausted the entire day.

Jacket/shoes - F21 | Necklace - Rue21 | Tights - Target | Shirt - JC Penny's | Jumper - my old uniform

Apparently this is from September 13th, but I messed up with formatting, so nebulous Friday go!  The main events on the 13th were watching A Knight's Tale at the sorority I'm pledging, and going to a fundraising event for my fraternity (we titled the event 'Suit and Tie', if you wanted to know).

Shirt/skirt/ring - F21 | Purse - Target | Necklace - Jeweliq | Shoes - Charlotte Russe

I wore this to my first work event!  We had Robyn Ochs, a writer about sexuality, in for a talk, and it was a pretty fun event.  (Especially since there was food, and any leftovers were free to be taken home by us after the event).

On another note, I was turned into a zombie on Tuesday, after surviving for a total of about seven days (which is pretty good for your first time playing...though it was expedited by how often I'm in formal clothing, admittedly).

What have you all been up to while I've been doing things?  (I mean I'm going to figure it out by stalking your blogs for a while, but that's going to take ages...)

Have a lovely next week, and I'll see you next Friday!

hey y'all

Hi!

I'm crawling briefly from my hiding spot full of papers and textbooks to give updates on my life.  Besides the obvious fact that I've taken on far too much, I mean.  Because I definitely have, and while I don't regret it in a lot of ways, I do regret that it's taking me away from the blog so much.

A rundown on exactly what I'm doing...

• 17 credit hours (might as well be 19, since 0 credit PE course takes up two hours)
• 2 giant group projects that need probably like six hours combined per week outside of classes (aside from just standard studying and homework hours, which are also monumental)
• 11+ hours of work per week (I only work more than 11 hours when we have events)
• two clubs
• two clubs I am on the exec board for
• a business fraternity
• pledging a sorority
• about to enter into the insanity known as Humans vs. Zombies for ten days (starting tomorrow)

Let's just say somewhere in the hecticness, I forgot about my blog.  I would like to make promises that I will be back soon, but the reality is that this semester is not going to be easier, and that I want to spend my free time with my friends, which is something that I can do, given that I'm not using this blog to make money, and while I put it on resumes, it's more to show that I can (generally) balance my life pretty well because "hey, I regularly update this thing and people are occasionally interested in it".  So, with that in mind, I'm going to give a schedule for my updates this semester (and put it into Google Calendar, which now runs my life) and give it to someone so they can poke me about it, because even though this is important to me, it is less important than the things I have a genuine obligation to keep up with, given that it is something I do entirely for my own enjoyment.

After this, my next post will be next Friday, and my goal is to put one up every Friday for the rest of the semester.  I'll re-evaluate my posting schedule and content over winter break, when I may post once or twice, and then I'll announce the posting schedule for next semester sometime during the first few weeks of it, though it's likely to stay very similar, since I'll be handling about the same amount of things.  As for "why Friday?", that is the one day I do not have tests, which means I will not be spending time studying on Thursdays, but rather, can work on writing a post, since I don't have the time to write posts particularly far in advance.  I will also attempt to read and comment on the blogs of people I follow and enjoy reading, but it's going to be difficult to keep up with, and since it's not an obligation, I'm not going to worry about it.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you here with the things I have done recently next week!