stars and stripes

First of all, do you see how long my hair is?? It's finally reached a length where I'm not anxiously tracking the rate of growth each week. I can calm down and just live my life. In three months I'll have been growing out that darn pixie cut for two whole years and I feel like I've finally reached the point where it's not driving me crazy anymore. The last two years have been so weird and dramatic and scary that it seems silly that I've been so hung up on my hair throughout it all, but it's like every time I looked in the mirror I missed seeing *me* looking back. The lack of normalcy probably just made me feel more unstable about everything else going on in my life. Ugh this is all so cheesy and #firstworldproblems I shouldn't even be talking about my hair but it's a little thing that's mattered a lot to me and I'm glad I have more of it now.

Secondly, I wanted to devote a few sentences to this beauty of a dress. It reminds me so much of vintage Biba, maybe more of their branding than their actual dresses, but I just absolutely love it! It arrived right after I had listed things for my closet sale last week and I can tell it's one of those pieces that I just know I could never part with. There are some dresses in my wardrobe that have been with me through every closet sale for the last 9 years and I had the same feeling about all of them when I first got them. Some are really unique and special, like this one, and some are just really versatile like this one, but as long as those threads hold together they're mine, all mine.

dress - c/o Joanie | shoes - bait footwear

shop my closet is LIVE!

My closet sale is LIVE now! Please note that even though I'm doing this on Poshmark this time, I priced everything as low as I'm willing to go, so I'm not accepting offers. I'm really, really hoping to raise enough money from this sale to give my mom a down payment for a car for Mother's Day so even if you're not my size or don't see anything you're interested in please pass on my Poshmark link to anyone you know who might be interested :) My mom is super awesome and I really want to be able to do this for her :)

Here is the link for my closet shop!

shop my closet alert!

I've been planning this shop my closet sale for what feels like a year now, and I am FINALLY doing it!! Tomorrow me and my brother are going to shoot all the photos and I'll start listing them either tomorrow night or Thursday morning. I'm going to be using Poshmark this time, and you can keep an eye on my account here. I'll also put up alerts on all my social media accounts when everything is listed, too :)

I am going to be listing mostly dresses and tops in sizes US 8 and Medium. And shoes in a size US 7. I'm hoping to scrape up enough money to give my mom a down payment for a car for Mother's Day, so the items will be priced to sell! :D

when life gives you lemons

Sorry again for the unexpected hiatus! Right after we got back from vacation my mom was hospitalized with pneumonia, someone close to me had a mental health crisis, my dad got sick, and Arrietty gave me a scare that turned out to be nothing, but frightened the wits out of me. My mom is doing a lot better now, but she had some complications that we're still not sure are okay (and the doctors are being weirdly cagey about discussing it?) I also got sick, probably since my body does not handle stress very well, and ended up with the worst case of bronchitis and asthma that I've had since I was little. I'm going on week 3 now and I still can't shake it completely. At least I can talk without coughing now, though, which I couldn't do for about two weeks.

But things are definitely looking up from where they started. My mom was home from the hospital in time for Easter, so we had a quiet dinner at home and I still cooked and decorated. I'll share some pictures from how it turned out later this week. We were all just so happy that my mom was able to come home that it was one of the best Easters we've ever had. And luckily I felt healthy enough this weekend to make it to the Montclair Film Festival where I saw Mindy Kaling's new movie, Late Night (with a Q&A, too!!) It was a total blast, and such a nice respite after a pretty trying couple of weeks. Oh, and this outfit is what I wore to the event. I wanted to pick my most Mindy-esque dress for the occasion!

I know most bloggers manage to keep it together and stick with their schedules when things go awry at home and a lot of people have things way worse than I do, but for me when things happen offline I just like to log off for a while and not worry about the internet. And inevitably, even when I'm away because of family crises, that time spent away from the computer always makes me want to cut back when I inevitably return. I don't know where I'm going with all this. I've been going back and forth the last week thinking maybe I want to cut back on my blog schedule or make less youtube videos -- especially since I'm planning, once again, on trying to go back to school and need to make room in my schedule for tests and homework -- but also there's the reality that even if I get my degree I'm years away from another career. I don't know. The internet is such a double-edged sword. Working from home allows me to spend all day with my cat, it allows me to set my own schedule and work in pajamas. But I'm constantly tethered to my computer. My income is painfully erratic, and as much as I love being creative, my body consistently hums with the frequency of humiliation and self doubt when the things I create do poorly online. These feelings are constant for me, but they always seem to snowball when life throws me curveballs, you know? Last month I seriously grappled with the possibility that I could lose three of the people that I love most in the entire world, and that hurt stirs up so much inside of you. I want life to mean more, I want to plan my time more wisely, I want to be 100% there for the people I love.

For now these thoughts are all so random and I'm still getting over being sick, I'm not making any rash decisions I'll regret at some point later on. I'm temporarily nixing my wishlist wednesday posts because they are way more time consuming than you might imagine and yet I don't think anyone really even looks at them, lol. I'll still be updating my wishlist on pinterest here though. And for the time being I'm pausing the youtube videos (I honestly don't have much of a voice right now to be able to do them, anyway, lol!) And this week I'm going over to my alma mater to release my transcripts so I can apply for a few online BA programs.

When I look back through my blog archives I have written SO MANY posts where I was like "I need to change! I want to pursue a different path in life and I'm doing it NOW!" and then I didn't change a darn thing. I hope so badly that I have some follow through this time and I don't look back at *this* post five years from now, shaking my head like "Kate you dumb cluck, what is the matter with you?!"

dress - asos | shoes - bait footwear | belt - from another dress

DIY Mickey Ears holder

Sorry for that little unexpected hiatus! I'll let you know what's been going on in my next outfit post on Monday but I just wanted to pop in today to share this ridiculously easy DIY that I came up with. I was looking for a way to store all of my Mickey ears when I came home from Disney World with two more pairs. I looked at some headband holders on amazon and then it dawned on me that the shape I was looking for was about the same size as a roll of paper towels.

I took a brand new roll of paper towels, rolled it in a pillowcase, and then tucked the ends of the pillowcase into the holes of the paper tube. Then I just put all of my mickey ears on the roll, and the ends of the headband keep it from rolling off the table. That's it! SO easy! And now all of my cute ears are on display without taking up too much room. I think at some point I'll probably get some cute Disney fabric to wrap the paper towels in instead of a pillowcase, but for an impromptu DIY the pillowcase worked perfectly! :)