Outfits: My Favorite Skirts

March 9-

Favorite Skirt #1 also qualifies as my favorite thrift store find ever. Seriously, I love it. A lot. You can't really see it that well in the pictures, but it is pleated all the way around and has a great motion when I walk. So glad I found this guy.

This top was another Vera Wang item I picked up at Kohl's. It was on the clearance rack for a gazillion dollars off so I couldn't resist. I love how it ties at the neck.

March 10-

Favorite Skirt #2 is one that I bought a long time ago and didn't wear it for months because I thought is was really unflattering. I eventually figured out that if I got it to sit at my waist instead of my hips, though, it looks much better. I just use the waist sash to tie keep it in place. And now it's my best friend and I wish I could wear it every day. 

Side note: this is one of my new ModCloth coats! I love the color, and the buttons are super killer. And don't even get me started on the pink lining... pure gorgeousness...

The other coat I got is pretty cool, too. Not quite as fabulous as this one, but still good. The skirt, on the other hand, was awful. On the ModCloth site is said that it ran large so I should order a size down. So I did. And it's too small. Thanks for nothing, ModCloth. At least it was only $15... I can't imagine who would have paid the original $50 for it. The darn thing wasn't even lined.

Outfits: Sunday & Monday

Sunday-

I got my Urban Outfitters order on Saturday! Hurrah! I picked up this dress for a mere $16, which if you know anything about UO you will know that is ridiculously cheap for them - it was originally $70! You can get one for yourself HERE if you want (I had a 20% off code, so that's why it's $20 on the site).

Monday (today)-

Get the top HERE (it's actually been marked down even more since I bought it, now it's only $10), or the cardigan HERE.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! I spent mine working (on Saturday), and lazing around after church on Sunday. Oh, and eating lots of Cheetos, too. I love those things!

Outfit: Mellow Yellow --- Day 28: I Miss...

I love yellow. This cardigan is really more of a camel brown, but for some reason in pictures it looks more mustard-y and I am A-O-K with that. :)

30 Day Challenge. I'm almost done! Yay!
Day 28: Something you miss.
I miss sleeping in! I used to sleep in 5 days a week (Mon.-Fri.) since I only worked on Saturday and had church on Sunday, but now I sleep in ZERO days a week because I work 6 days and church on the 7th. Booo! I get up at 8am every morning, and even more early on Sunday. It's tragic.
However, I am getting paid to wake up early, which makes it not quite so bad. Earning money is a good thing!

Outfit: I Have a Dream --- Grammar Fail

I have a dream that one day,
The temperature will rise up,
And live out the true meaning of its creed:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that when it stops being freezing cold, Leanna will be able to wear this outfit without a jacket, tights, and boots. Because it's a lot cuter that way."

And that, my friends, is called historical revisionism, and is generally frowned upon in most circles.


And now, I have a complaint.

The prologue to this complaint is that I subscribe to all the email lists from the online shops I like to look at in the hopes that they will send me good coupon codes or something (by the way, they don't). I get emails from Urban Outfitters, Lulus, Forever21, ModCloth, and a few others, so every day I have several messages in my inbox from these sites trying to get me to buy something. I have been noticing lately that Lulus, in particular, has the most obnoxious subject lines. They are almost always in caps, or they have a bunch of exclamation points, or they add a couple of extra o's in certain words.

Well, yesterday I logged onto my email account...

... and saw the most awful subject line ever. Just look at it!

*facepalm*
It combines all three obnoxious errors... I can handle one at a time, but all three together? Writing like a 5th grade girl does not make me want to buy from you!
Who writes these things? Are they being paid? If so, they are being paid too much. Hire me instead, Lulus! I will write grammatically correct subject lines for you all day long.

End of rant.

Outfit: It's Not Easy Wearing Green --- Day 17: Highs and Lows

So I messed around with my camera a wee bit, so now my pics aren't as grainy, but the lighting is also a bit. funky. You give some and you take some, right?

Anywho, these are my new green pants! The green is a great shade for me... kinda an army/sage green. One has to be careful when wearing colored pants, though. Wearing colored pants with a colorful or over-designed top  can make you like like an emo/hipster hybrid, and no one wants that. A solid, neutral colored top is the way to go.

Fun fact: My bracelets are made out of old airplane parts. Cool, right?

Onto the 30 Day Challenge! Click HERE for the whole list of prompts.
Day 17: Your highs and lows of this past year (2010).
Lows:
-Not being able to get a job over the holidays. I had two interviews but no luck.
-Spending too much money on clothes.
-Realizing that the school I wanted to go to was way more money than I could afford.
-My dad getting a job that requires him to travel a bunch. I mean, I'm glad he has a job, but it's not much fun when he's gone for 3 weeks at a time.
-At the beginning of the year I thought that staying home a year and working before going to college was a real low. Now I'm so happy that I did, but back then I was kind of grumpy about it.

Highs:
-Graduating from high school and getting to give a speech at graduation.
-Going to France for two weeks in the summer.
-Getting a full time job! (well, technically that happened early in January... oh well)
-Discovering that thrift stores are really cool and that there are not scary monsters living in them.
-Getting to continue to meet with Charlene, a wonderful lady from my church that has been my mentor for the past 2 years. We meet every other week to do a bible study and memorize passages from the Bible together.
-Going to State in tennis with one of my best friends.
-Discovering some really awesome fashion bloggers that inspired me to have more fun with clothes (and try thrift stores!)
-Having 3 bedrooms all to myself!
-Learning how to sew.
-Getting to teach Sunday School at church. I teach 4th and 5th grade girls and it is so awesome to get to be involved in teaching them about God.

That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure there are lots more of both, but it's hard to remember (oh gosh.... I must be getting old.)

Outfit: Bully For You --- Day 12: Bullets

ModCloth called this the Bully Mammoth Tee. Don't ask me why. But I think I'm going to make it my goal to use the word bully 5 times today. Bully for me!

I am having camera woes at the moment, so that's why these pictures pretty much suck. Which is kind of sad, because I love this outfit. It matches so well without being matchy-matchy. I wore the gray tights to match the gray of the woolly mammoth on my shirt, the navy socks (I know they look black in the pictures, but they are really navy) compliments the blue text on the shirt, and the cardigan and boots are also very complimentary tones. And black matches everything so no worries there.

30 Day Challenge!
Click HERE for the full list of prompts.
Day 12: Bullet Your Whole Day
Like Mckenzie did, I'm going to do this for yesterday because today is yet to happen!
-Wake up, hit snooze.
-Wake up, hit snooze.
-Wake up, hit snooze.
-Wake up, hit snooze.
-Get up and get dressed.
-Have a minor crisis when the planned outfit decides to break (you can read about that HERE).
-Pick a new outfit.
-Straighten hair because I slept on it wet and it was crazy funky.
-Get everything together for work (laptop, lunch, purse, reading material).
-Double check that I have work keys.
-Get picked up, go to work.
-Because I am 15 minutes early, I go to the coffee shop next door and get coffee and some mini donuts.
-Work from 10am-6pm.
-Mom picks me up, we go home.
-Watch Li Na kick Caroline Wozniaki's butt at the Australian Open on ESPN2.
-Eat dinner with my mom. We have leftovers because my dad is gone on business.
-Watch Kim Clijsters kick Vera Zvonereva's butt at the Australian Open.
-Fall asleep on the couch.
-Get woken up by mom.
-Trudge to bedroom.
-Pick out an outfit for today.
-Wish that I could stay up and watch Djokovic play Federer play, but because of the time difference their match didn't start until after midnight.
-Go to bed around midnight.
-Have weird dreams about tennis.

This has pretty much been my life for the past two weeks. I work all day, come home and watch tennis, pick out an outfit, then go to bed. Thrilling, I know. But the Australian Open will be over on Sunday so then I'll probably take a TV break for a while, other than Biggest Loser on Tuesdays because that show rocks.

Outfit: When Disaster Strikes --- Day 11: Music!

Last night when I was deciding what to wear to work today, I just decided to be lazy and wear my favorite outfit ever, which is this:
I've already worn it twice the exact same way, and I was going to wear it again today exactly the same way. It's just so perfect I don't think I could ever bring myself to change anything about it.

But then, disaster struck. As I was getting dressed this morning, one of the two buttons that keep the skirt closed (there is no zipper or anything like that) popped off. It flew off just like in the Subway commercials with all the people blowing the buttons off their pants!

So what was I to do? I could have worn it anyways, as there was still one other button, but what if I decided to blow that one off my skirt while I was at work? I couldn't risk it, so I decided I needed to wear a different skirt. After picking my new skirt, I then decided to wear a different pair of tights. Then I decided to wear boots instead of heels. And then I decided to change my top. And then I added some jewelry. And 10 minutes after the initial explosion that rocked my closet, this is what I ended up wearing:
I'm actually kind of proud of this. I know that sounds silly, but really I usually am horrible at choosing clothes to wear at the last second. That's why I always pick out my clothes the night before. So for me to come out of this not looking like a rugrat is quite an accomplishment, in my opinion.*Pats self on the back*


And now the continuation of the 30 Day Challenge... (click HERE to see all topics)

Day 11: Put your iPod on shuffle and list the first 10 songs that come up.
I've downloaded a bunch of new music lately and haven't synced it to my iPod yet, so I'm going to do this on my iTunes instead of my iPod, okay? Good, I knew you wouldn't mind.

1. Let Your Love Grow Tall by Passion Pit
2. If You Return by Maximum Balloon
3. I Belong to You by Muse
4. Manhattan by Kings of Leon
5. Little Shadow by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
6. Loose Ends by Imogen Heap
7. Eat That Up, It's Good for You by Two Door Cinema Club
8. Dog Days Are Over by Florence + the Machine (LOVE this song)
9. Thistle and Weeds by Mumford and Sons
10. Now You're Gone by Basshunter

A nice mix of techno, rock, pop, and folk. Fun!

Outfit: New Boots --- Day 9: Future

Quick, guess what I'm wearing around my neck today! Oh, and if you guess anything other than a cowl you're wrong.
Truth be told I wasn't planning on wearing my cowl today, because I wear it like every day, but I just had to wear my new booties from Charlotte Russe today and they match the cowl almost exactly. Who am I to deny such a perfect match? I also was not planning on a Charlotte Russe party, and I didn't realize I was wearing 3 things from there until I was writing up the price description for this. Shame on me.

30 Day Challenge!
Click HERE for the full list of topics.

Day 9: What you hope your future will be like.
Didn't I already answer this question back on Day 2? I was planning on being profound today since I was so lame yesterday, but I just don't think I can muster up anything interesting for a question I've already answered. What am I supposed to say? I hope it's awesome?

So yeah, I'm going to be a party-pooper again today. And I will be again tomorrow, but there's not really anything I can do to help that. But it looks like the topics are going to get more interesting starting on Day 11, so hang in there!


And guess what! I remembered that it's Monday today, which means I'm going to get a Music Monday blog up on the right day! I actually wrote myself a note last night that said, "Leanna, tomorrow is Monday. Don't forget!" and stuck it inside of my laptop so when I got to work I'd see it and remember. Isn't my subconscious so sweet?

Outfit: Snow Day

It snowed last week and you would have thought the whole of Oregon had not seen a snowflake before. I logged on to facebook and I'd estimate over 90% of my friends' status updates were along the lines of,"It's Snowing!". So I looked outside to see this wondrous event that had everyone in a tizzy, and was frustrated to find I couldn't see any snow. I actually had to walk outside in the cold in order to see the teeny tiny microscopic flakes that were falling. Lame!

And of course, because snow is soooo dangerous (I'm being sarcastic, if you can't tell), school was canceled. For this:

Only in Oregon...

Anyways, to prove how much I couldn't care less about freaking 2 millimeters of snow, I did my picture outside. Take that, Mother Nature.

Thrifted Mock-Neck Sweater: $1.64, St. Vincent de Paul's
Black Skinny Jeans: $22.42, Alloy
Gray Socks: $?, Unknown (Gift)
Black Union Bay Heels: $18.06, Kohl's
Striped Scarf: $2.50, Kohl's

Cut-Out Circles Stretch Bracelet: $4, Charlotte Russe

I went to St. Vinnie's for the first time the other day and was pretty impressed with it. Very neat and organized, and I didn't leave feeling like I needed to run home and wash my hands. I found 4 tops that I really liked and when I took them to the counter to check out, this is the conversation that took place:

Checker Dude: "Find everything OK?"
Me: "Yup."
[Checker Dude quickly looks at the tops I put on the counter and then punches some numbers on his register]
Checker Dude: "$6.54"
Me: [Silent, because I'm waiting for him to ring up the rest of the shirts]
Checker Dude: "Uhm... $6.54?"
Me: "What, for all of them?"
Checker Dude: "Uh, yeah."
Me: "No way!"
Checker Dude: "All the clothes are 50% off today."
Me: "Marry me."

OK, so I didn't ask him to marry me, but I was pretty happy.

Outfit: Second Hand Steals

Stepping outside the comfort zone.

-Thrifted Old Navy Salmon Cardigan: $1.99, Teen Challenge
-Ivory Knit Top: $14.80, Forever21
-Black Pencil Skirt: $?, JCPenney
-Basket Weaved Cream Rope Belt: $6.80, Forever21
-Apt. 9 Gray Tights: $5, Kohl's
-Black Predictions Oxfords: $19.99, Payless
-Cut-Out Circles Stretch Bracelet: $4, Charlotte Russe

The other day I went and shopped at a thrift store, a completely new and frightening experience for me. I tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing/looking for, but I really just ended up wandering around grabbing clothes that I thought had any sort of potential. After I'd tried everything on and made my final selections, I had 7 items and my total came to a whopping $13.46. For that price, it doesn't even matter if I don't end up wearing half of what I bought!

Probably my favorite find was this Old Navy cardigan. I've been attempting to add a bit more color to my wardrobe (I just went through a hard-core ivory phase, and now find myself leaning towards gray and black combos), so this is a great piece for me with its awesome shade of pink/salmon, paired with the orange strip running down the front. I've already worn this piece twice and plan on wearing it again. All that for $2!

And on a side note, don't those black oxfords I just bought at Payless look pretty darn similar to these Seychelles ones that I included in my last Seychelles post? Obviously they aren't made from the same materials, but for less than 1/5 of the price that's fine by me.

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This one is super old (well, like 2-3 weeks). I forgot I had the pics and needed to post them.

Pink Button-Up Top: $19.99, Charlotte Russe

BKE Madison Jeans: $74, Buckle

Pink Quilted Should Bag: $20.80, Forever 21

Black American Eagle Gladiator Sandals: $24.99, Payless

Purple Cabochon Headband: $12, DivineBijoux on Etsy

I really love this purse a lot. It's a great color and the antiqued silver studs keep it from looking too boring.

I also love this headband a lot. Just enough color to compliment the shirt, but not enough to overpower it. The seller that I bought it from was so nice, too.


Token shoe-shot, since I'm too tall to get my whole body in one picture :).

VR