What I want to wear today:
This skirt is my summer's pop of pink.
Composition:
black and white striped button-down (Passport, borrowed from sister's closet. Surprise, Em!)
pink skirt (Target)
black belt (Shop Mamie)
black strappy heels (Carlos by Carlos Santana circa high school)
pink striped slippers (Roxy)
Usage:
I'm going on what feels like Day #1,000 of unemployment and house projects. At the end of May, when I graduated from my M.A. program, I felt liberated by the month(s?) of job-hunting ahead of me. Job-hunting meant long-awaited free time for plowing through our growing list of home renovation tasks. My husband and I purchased our house in October, when I was in the thick of graduate school, so by May we had lived among unpacked boxes and unopened paint cans for eight eternal months.
After graduation, I launched into a home improvement frenzy, fueled by what felt like an endless supply of energy and creativity. One striped guestroom, a grey? purple? foyer, nine trips to Ikea, one built-from-scratch tabletop, a nearly-botched installation of a Roman shade, three curtain rods, one uprooted front yard, a new desk, two trips and a moving crew to transport the heaviest armoire imaginable, a love affair with Craigslist, and a hoard of dying house plants later, I am officially losing steam.
Today I have to paint one last room before my parents arrive for the weekend. One. last. room. I am the dehydrated do-it-yourselfer in the desert of never-ending home improvement projects! Numerous as the sand, I tell you! I think I spy an oasis ahead! A mirage? An oasis?
So it stands to reason that all I want to do is dress up and go to The Office. Any office. Any out-of-my-house office, really. Isn't that the way it goes? I want what I don't have; I don't want what I do have. I want to wear heels and a skirt and a belt cinched at my waist, because sartorial order will most assuredly compensate for the chaos in my house, right? Since I can't - or shouldn't - wear this neon pink number whilst applying primer to bedroom walls, I'm wearing these neon pink striped slippers instead. And I will proudly wear them as I trot across my front yard to activate the lawn sprinkler. Today my neighbor's grass is greener and less-weed-ier, but it won't be for long.
Prompts:
- What do you wish you were wearing right now? Office-bound readers, care to switch lives for a bit?
- Fellow DIY-ers, tell me there's an end in sight! What do you wear on house project days? My husband wears the same T-shirt and shorts, and the Young House Love bloggers actually designate a house project wardrobe. Have you organized your closet according to function too?
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7 comments:
Hahaha, oh dear. Well good thing you look sassy in both outfits! I know how it is to be so excited about turning your home into your "dream" place, and then after you realize that it isn't as easy as it looks on HGTV, you start to burn out a little bit. But the wall behind you looks great! And I'm sure your parents will ooh and aah over the renovations.
I felt the same way as you did about clothing choice last Friday, lo and behold, I even blogged about it! http://thequixoticcomposer.blogspot.com/2010/07/casually-uncomfortable-friday.html
Well, say what you want about how you feel-- but you look GREAT! Seriously! LIKE, RESTED! So at least there's that. I love the top outfit and I love the striped wall!
I can understand your point of frustration, though, because I repainted and redecorated my whole house when we moved in, too. I did so wearing my favorite pair of booty shorts from undergrad, which means I can no longer leave the house in them. (Because I'm ashamed of paint splatters but not of words written across my butt? I can't explain this.)
I can't wait for your parents to get in and tell you how nice it all is, though, because that continued feedback is what has made me completely forget about the state of despair you're currently experiencing!
-Liz
Just have to say how much I love that pink skirt! And those strappy black shoes are fantastic with it.
Also, I'm really quite taken with those striped walls.
I think the point of a DIY outfit is comfort and ease of movement so that you can make a day of whatever house project you're on, and yours ticks the boxes on both counts. So maybe you just need a lunch date with the other SSG ladies after your weekend with your parents!
I totally sympathize, by the way, with the seemingly interminable projects around the house (and my DIY ensemble is still usually a Life is Good t-shirt and a pair of jeans with little rips from my puppy's teeth--she's such a herding dog!). We painted most of our house in one long weekend, except for one bathroom that is need of a renovation, not just a minor update, and neither oasis nor mirage is quite on that horizon yet! So keep plugging away...you will enjoy the results no matter what...or when!
That is one fantastic striped wall - the lines are so straight:-)
And of course I love those pink shoes.
Ha, I love reading about your house project-ing outfits! Too funny. Thanks for the encouragement, ladies. We're about to call it a night here; only one wall of trim left!
Thanks for the compliments on the striped wall. I like them too! Credit goes to my girlfriend Kate - welcome to the blog, dear! - who spent an afternoon measuring, marking, and taping those bad boys. I followed along with a roller, 'tis all.
Kate was also the one who advised me to purchase those striped slippers. Hm. I'm sensing a pattern here. ;)
Keep those DIY survival stories coming!
- AM
I love that bright pink skirt! It's the perfect shade and has such wonderful details. I love how you paired it with the blue puff-sleeved blouse (love that feature!) and the strappy sandals. That belt creates such a great silhouette, too.
I hope the end of your painting project went well! At first I enjoyed painting my apartment (well, two rooms of it, anyway), but by the end of day two, I was ready for it to be done done done. I have an alcove that needs painting, but man... it's such a commitment once I get started, that I really don't want to get started!
LOVING the striped walls, Anne-Marie!! I have wanted to do this in my master's bath (I even penciled out the lines!) but I chickened out because I was terrified it would look like a circus tent. The similar tones in this grey/taupe combo looks great and is inspiring me to break out the paintbrushes again.
Really like your sister's button down. I buy all my button downs from J. Crew, but they don't have any adorable ones like that. Hope you're having a nice summer - you look so tan and glowy!
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