Springtime!

Spring is finally here, which means it's time to break out one of my very favorite wardrobe staples: my coral pencil skirt. I bought it two years ago and have loved it ever since. I wear it dressed up and down, with flats and heels.

This week I tucked one of my new tops from Kohl's into the skirt and put a stretchy, mint-colored belt over it. Those heels were on clearance at Target two autumns ago, and the giant earrings were a little bit of a splurge at Macy's.

The hot pink skirt just makes my day every time I wear it! Somehow I think it manages to slim me and emphasize my curves at the same time. And when you feel good about how you look, how can you look bad??

Perseverance

I went to church this morning for the first time in a long time. I haven't had a church that I felt like I truly belonged to in a while, and then with all the traveling I used to do and working on Sundays, the task of seeking out a new home seemed awfully daunting. Now, with my Sundays free, it feels like the right time to start looking again.

As we're in the middle of Lent, the reading for today was from Romans 5:1-11. What really stood out to me was a passage right in the middle of that: "We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us..." Good things to keep in mind.

Anyway, my sister and I had a great shopping trip last night. We hit up Marshalls, where I got a couple of clearance frames, but I'm most excited about what we found at Kohl's. She found a pair of spandex shorts and 3 pairs of earrings, and I came away with two dressy tops, one dress, a bracelet, and a pair of earrings for our sister. Everything was on clearance, and they were having a 20% off sale for friends and family, and our mom had given us a $20 Kohl's cash coupon. After all that, we paid a total of about $29!!! Amazing.

So I wore the dress to church today! I matched it with black tights (seriously, they go with almost any dress, and they slim your legs!), my favorite cognac MIA boots, and a wide belt. I know wide belts were big a few years ago, but for someone with an hourglass figure like me, they will always be a wardrobe staple. I wore my gold statement necklace with it, my cute new Lauren Conrad bracelet, and a neutral cardigan.

I promise the dress is not as short as it looks in this picture!

Everyone at church was so welcoming! I even had a girl, probably a few years younger than me, come up to me and tell me how much she loved my outfit! I think I'll be going back there :)

Road Trip! --part 2

After my first visit, I probably drove another 6 or 7 hours to Hammond, Louisiana, where I had booked a motel across the street from a truck stop. This one was about $60 for the night, and I did get internet, a nice bed, some heat, a granite shower and tub, and a kind of strange room setup. I don't really mind these motels. It's kind of nice to park your car three feet from your door. I wasn't too sure about the one lock, so I wedged a chair under the door handle like they do in the movies.

I got a good night's sleep, and I had plenty of time to get ready the next morning before driving into New Orleans. I even watched a little SVU while I was getting ready. Then I set up my tripod and got serious about the outfit selfie. Well... not too serious.

Did I mention that, while hiking up my skinny jeans, I might have tugged a little too hard on one of the belt loops? Yep. That happened. It's not the first time, either. I have a bad habit of wearing tight jeans and pulling them up high on my waist. They just look better on my shape that way. Low-rise jeans are not made for me.

Those are the same fabulous Else skinnies from the day before, with a $3 belt from Target and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt from the boys clearance section at Macy's. I love tucking button-down shirts into skinny jeans. I think it's a saucy look for us curvy girls. It definitely looks better if your jeans come closer to your actual waist. That, plus some cute accessories and attention to your hair and makeup, keep the look saucy and feminine.

As you can see, I did my hair up big. I love it when I can get my hair looking like something you'd find on the set of Mad Men. Joan Holloway is one of my greatest inspirations.

New Orleans was very, very cool. I got a tour of a law school in which I am interested, and then I explored the surrounding area. I hit up the bookstore and found a cute, if somewhat garish, sweatshirt on the clearance rack for about $7. Probably the coolest souvenir of my whole trip.

I took a streetcar to Bourbon Street and explored the French Quarter. Let's just say that the gentlemen along Bourbon Street were very complimentary. I know you have to take things that guys on the street say with a grain of salt, but sometimes it does lift your mood. Even if it goes against everything I try to stand for as a strong, independent woman. Sometimes it just feels good to have a drunk homeless man tell you that you're the most beautiful woman in all of New Orleans.

There was no fancy new outfit for my third and final visit, because it ended up being really cold, so I just threw on a puffer vest from the Gap Outlet in Vicksburg over my Tommy Hilfiger plaid button down. I tried to dress it up a little with a cute little necklace, but I still found myself woefully underdressed when the only other person to show up for the tour and class was wearing a suit. Yikes! Whatever, though. The property class I sat in was actually really interesting. I think I might be able to do this law school thing.

Road Trip! --part 1

So I took off last Tuesday night for the South. I capitalize it because it's like a foreign country to me. As you know if you've read my travel blog, I've been across Europe and South America, but never to the South. And it was a trip.

I drove three hours, then checked into an extremely cheap motel which was surprisingly awesome. For $35 a night I got the largest hotel bed I've ever experienced, a nice shower which I didn't use, and some decent room furnishings. Supposedly there was internet at this place, but I checked in at 11:30PM, having to wait outside and hand my credit card through one of those bank teller windows, so I didn't get a chance to ask for the code. Having three deadbolts on the door and a very responsive heating unit meant I slept like a baby for about 6 hours, until I had to wake up and get ready for my very first law school visit.

I haven't really gotten the hang of taking pictures of myself for the purpose of this blog (this is my first, actually), so I took a very basic selfie in the mirror. And here it is!

Basically, I got the whole outfit on clearance at Macy's. The blazer is Nine West, the blue and white polka dot top (which you can't see) is American Rag, and the jeans are Else. I am in love with those MIA boots, and the scarf was a bargain at Charlotte Russe. If Blair Waldorf and Phil Mickelson had a love child, and that love child were a curvaceous professional equestrienne, she might dress something like this. Wait, no, that's not quite right. Not Blair Waldorf. But definitely Phil Mickelson in his green Masters jacket. Good ol' Lefty.

I've been doing this thing where I part my hair on the side, straighten it, and tease it from the root. I always had long hair, like waist-length hair, up until October. I still haven't really figured out what to do with it.

My coolest accessory, though, is definitely that adorable camera strap that my sister made for me for Christmas. My parents bought me the new Canon, and I asked my sister to make me a whole bunch of cool, colorful neck straps for it. She came through in a big way!

For anyone actually interested in the actual law school visit: It went well. It was cool to walk into the building and see my name up on the television screen in the hallway. I felt very welcome and saw an amazing library. Afterwards, I took in a Rothko exhibition at a nearby arts center.

Then I grabbed a burrito and hit the road again.

Getting started.

After years of rolling my eyes at my father's constant suggestions, I am actually searching for a law school to call my own. [wow, I can't believe I'm saying that!] I'll take a road trip south next week to take a look at a few places which intrigue me, and I went to my first open house the other day. It was a disaster, but more on that later.

As I've said before, I'm most excited about all the new outfits I get to wear. Is that bad? I'm a planner. I love planning things like that. Lord knows nothing else will be in my control during this process, so I think it makes sense that I'm fixated upon making the best impression possible. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of money right now. I didn't have a super lucrative job to begin with, and I just learned that that job will be ending by the end of March. I don't know what exactly I'll do after that.

So, although I went on a little shopping spree on Tuesday, that shopping spree consisted of trips to Target's clearance section and a couple of thrift stores. I came away with a skirt, two dresses, a pair of dressy ankle pants, three sweaters, a top, and a long coat from Target, and a Banana Republic cashmere blend cardigan, an Ann Taylor angora sweater, two pairs of dress pants, two dresses, another cardigan, and a pair of heels from the thrift stores. The total for everything was $107.14! Cheapest item: a pair of eggplant-colored Ann Taylor dress pants for $2.49. Biggest splurge: this coat, for $17.98.

I ended up wearing one of the dresses from Target with the thrift store heels to the law school open house that evening. Apparently I don't speak law school yet because when I read 'open house' I thought that indicated a more casual evening. I assumed I could arrive whenever and leave when I wanted. 

Nope. I showed up an hour late. Fortunately, it was during an intermission where food was being served, so I was able to slip in without making a scene. Unfortunately, the first person I spoke to when I entered was, unbeknownst to me, the dean of the entire law school. He asked me about my undergraduate career and I brilliantly told him that I had only gone to college to play ball and had selected the easiest majors possible. When I got home, I realized my false eyelashes may or may not have been hanging off my face. 

Thankfully, I don't think that law school was for me, so I'm going to use the whole experience as practice for the next one I go to. Now I know how to dress, when to show up, and what kind of questions to ask.

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be taking a road trip next week to visit a few schools. If I can afford hotels along the way with internet, I'll post regularly. When I was in high school, I only made one college visit, so this is a totally new experience for me. I'm open to suggestions on how to dress and what to bring on next week's visits if anyone has any!