pajama state of mind

I was at Kohl's recently and noticed how many fun pajamas they have with lots of bright colors and cute patterns! And it got me thinking about how those sorts of clothes are often relegated to the bedroom and people rarely wear such bold, lively items out of the house. And THEN it got me thinking that you could easily incorporate pajamas into your outfits, especially tops since they're essentially the same as a classic button down shirt (and often with prettier peter pan collars instead of the standard pointy ones!)

 

All this to say, I am wearing a pajama shirt in this outfit and I think it looks FANTASTIC. 

 

I also painted my eyeglass frames on a whim last night! They're Pair glasses (the kind where you can swap out the tops for different colors. not sponsored, nothing ever is lol) so it was easy to paint without worrying I'd ruin the glass. I used nail polish and little tiny sponges to blend everything together and I'm obsessed with how they came out! I've really been in a phase where I just want to wear ALL of the colors ALL of the time and these glasses are definitely helping me to accomplish that lol!

shirt - ban.do

sweater vest - j.crew

pants - athleta

neck tie - fat cat fancy

glasses - pair eyewear (Otis frame)

hi there!

Today I took outfit photos - the old fashioned set-up-my-tripod-and-run-back-and-forth-to-the-camera-between-each-shot kind! I haven't done this since 2021 according to my ootd folder on my computer, and that is just bonkers! I've done some mirror selfies and a handful of outfit videos for instagram reels but I can't believe this thing that was a part of my daily life for so long was just totally missing for 5 years!

I miss blogging and doing outfit posts. I guess it's all part of that 2016 nostalgia that's been trending online lately. I miss the static image version of social media and the era when those photos were accompanied by text with an unrestricted word count. Sometimes I find myself penning blog-style captions on instagram and coming up against the character limit way too fast. It doesn't help that I write all my captions in texts to myself on my computer and then copy and paste them into instagram on my phone - I'm always like 1,000 characters over at that point and have to trim it down 😂

But anyway, I feel so incredibly OVER all of it. The algorithms and countless posts about which types of media are trending. Do a carousel, NOT a static image! Make sure your first sentence is a HOOK. Everybody has the attention span of a gnat so do everything you possibly can to get them to watch YOU for 10 seconds. Your best time to post is at 7:55pm. If you post in the morning nobody will see it! Use this trending audio or else people will keep scrolling. I just don't want to participate in any of that anymore. 

I want to post my old fashioned outfit pictures and static images and long blog posts that I can come back to and read 10 years from now. I'm constantly searching my blog as if it's a digital archive of my life. Recipes, life events, where did I get that dress that I loved so much? What did I write about Arrietty the week that I brought her home? I really hate that most of that digital life archive has lived on sites like instagram and twitter for the past 5 years instead of here, because it's not searchable and it doesn't feel like my own little home. It's an online parking space, not a house. I want to live here again!

I recently got over a really bad GI flare and was living in pajamas and sweatpants, so Valentine's Day seemed like the perfect impetus for finally getting dolled up again and sharing some photos here! I feel like whenever I go through these health episodes I always come out on the other side looking forward to three things: getting dressed up, going to the grocery store, and eating pizza. So far I've done two out of the three (still giving myself another week or so of being back to normal before I take a chance on pizza!) As much as I *hate* how miserable I feel while it's happening, I'm always left with a new zest for life and appreciation for little things like leaving the house, going to the movies, waking up from an uninterrupted night of sleep, and wearing things that make me feel more human. 

I'm notoriously bad at sticking to things and chances are this will be my last blog post until next February when I re-read this and feel incredibly disappointed in my ability to follow through on literally anything. But hopefully not! Hopefully this will be one of many entries in my digital life archive this year. Hope to see you around, and Happy Valentine's day!!

Dress - Lazy Oaf

Shirt - GAP

Belt - h&m

Earrings - Blush Daisy

Necklace - Blush Daisy

undeniable determination

This is a close approximation of what I was wearing on February 7, 2011, exactly ten years ago! You can see my original outfit post right here. I don't have that dress anymore, which is a shame since it was one of my first adventures in sewing. But even with my alterations I still didn't wear it very often, mostly because the bodice was too long for me (you can see it bunching a bit in the pictures) and I didn't know at the time that it was only like a $10 fix at the tailor. Also I hardly ever smiled in my photos back then. I wasn't sad, I just didn't think I looked nice when I smiled, and that in turn makes me a little sad. I'm glad I finally got over that at some point and let my happiness show in my photos now :)

This dress was a recent find on Thredup (not sponsored) which is where I've been getting a lot of my new-to-me clothes recently. I love color and fun patterns and bold designs just as much as I always have, but most stores seem to only be selling clothes in various shades of grey and beige these days. So I've been getting my shopping fix buying slightly used clothing instead! I especially love that they have a "fit and flare" filter on their dress page! All I have to do is scan the listings for pops of color and shopping is a breeze lol!

Also, this bow tie is actually a hair tie with a duck bill clip in the back. I attached it by putting a bobby pin on the neckline of my dress and then attaching the bow to the bobby pin. The bow mostly hides the pin, so you don't even see it! It's my new favorite clothing hack! I got a few of these hair bows in different colors and can't wait to start adding a little vintage bow flair to some of my dresses!

dress - J Crew (via thredup) | shoes - bait footwear | bow - amazon

sweetheart

It's officially that time of year when I start wearing pink and red like it's a uniform lol :) Sometimes I think it's kind of funny how much I absolutely LOVE Valentine's Day when I've never had a significant other or even been on a date. But what can I say, hearts and pink and red are my jam. 

The only holiday I enjoy more than Valentine's Day color-wise is Easter. A few years ago I started hosting our family Easter dinners (I wrote a bit about it here) and I went all out on decorations. I had so much fun shopping at Michaels and Target and Pier 1 and stocking up on plates and napkins and wicker bunnies and decorative easter eggs! Each year I've added a few things to the mix because I just simply can't help myself when I see a wall of pastel Easter decor in front of me lol! Last year they had *just* put out Easter decorations before my last trips to stores before the quarantine, so I managed to get a cute pastel egg wreath from Target and a new table runner before we shuttered in for the year. This year I might cruise Target.com when it gets a little closer and keep the tradition going.

I feel like a broken record at this point because I've complained about this so often, but so much decor/clothing/everything these days is neutral and looks so drab to me. So I really treasure these colorful holidays when stores make some space for bright and happy decorations, and the world is allowed to be a little bit more vibrant :)

shirt - asos | skirt - old | shoes - bait footwear | tie - amazon

happy days are here again

In my last blog post I wrote about how uncomfortable I've felt sharing frivolous posts during such serious times but today I feel like I can unabashedly just scream "YAY!!", put on the happiest, sunniest outfit possible, and sing "happy days are here again" because Joe Biden is officially the President and Kamala Harris is our first female VP! It actually happened, today is really here, things are changing for the better and I could not be more happy about it. I cried so many happy tears yesterday that I had to put ice packs on my eyes before I went to sleep because my eyelids were so sore! I'm THAT happy!! 

I'm happy for so, so many reasons. Obviously I'm happy that the previous president is gone, that's a given. I'm happy that the pandemic will finally be taken seriously and hopefully it'll come to an end much quicker than it would have otherwise. I'm happy that the vaccine rollout will finally be organized and my at-risk parents will get their doses soon. I'm happy that I don't have to wake up each morning wondering if we randomly bombed Switzerland or something. I'm happy that there might actually be a place for frivolity in the world again. And more than anything else I'm happy that Joe Biden, a man I have admired and rooted for for my entire adult life, is sitting in the oval office. I have a button that I purchased at the 2005 NJ Democratic Convention that says 'Biden for President 2008', so this has been something I have wanted for a very, very long time. He is such an incredibly kind and decent man with a giant heart and more empathy than most politicians have put together. I truly believe that he will always do what he really believes is the right thing to do, without any consideration of his own political fortunes. He has our best interest at heart and he is going to be such a great president. Oh, and he's adopting the first White House rescue cat so I mean, does it get any better than that??

dress - old | shirt - asos | belt - collectif | shoes - bait footwear

ye olde juicebox

Here is my second recreation of an outfit I wore exactly ten years ago! On January 13, 2011 I wrote a post about a historic house in my hometown and judging from the photos and the text I'm pretty sure I was in a crabby mood that day lol. I was wearing a plaid dress, black coat, red tights, and black shoes. I am fairly certain I still have that dress but I think it's in my storage unit because I couldn't find it in my closet. I did, however, have this nearly identical plaid printed frock at the ready. 

This ten year project is so surreal because that time period of my life doesn't feel like a decade ago. Not much in my personal life has changed since then. I don't feel like I've progressed at all in my career and I feel like somehow I've regressed when it comes to friendships and connecting with other human beings. I don't keep in touch with many friends (mostly because I don't think anyone likes me, something I'm definitely working on with my therapist) and even before the pandemic I honestly didn't leave the house all that often. Life in 2011 looks a lot like my life in 2021. With one pretty big exception - the world around me.

While my own life has stayed the same and time has passed without much notice, the world I was living in in 2011 is so different from 2021. The other day I said something like "I have so much hope that Biden will get a handle on the pandemic provided this coup doesn't pan out." and I just had to stop myself and consider how insane that sentence was! Looking at my old posts, it's just so hard to believe how much the world has changed in such a short amount of time. My generally frivolous existence was perfectly fine six or seven years ago, but now I feel such enormous guilt when I share unimportant content. I hesitate to post things and I take long social media breaks, but inevitably I still share it because I think there's a place in the world for silly things even during the darkest times, and because I am a firm believer in escapism. But I definitely miss those days when the most pressing concern in life was whether or not my brother was being moody about taking my photo on a cold January day in 2011. 

dress - amazon | coat - asos (old) | tights - we love colors

can't you hear my heartbeat

In 2011 I started blogging every single day - and often more than once a day. I logged a whopping 430 posts on this site in 2011!! I was scrolling through my archives the other night and thought it might be fun to start recreating some of my outfits on the exact tenth anniversary of the day I wore the original ensemble. So here is my first one, a 2021 version of what I wore on January 4th, 2011! You can view my original post here.

In my Jan. 4, 2011 post I wrote about getting my first "you're fat" comment on my blog and how it was water off a duck's back because I was so confident, but I'm sure it really, really hurt me. In 2013 (two whole years after this 2011 post flaunting my unyielding confidence) I deleted my entire instagram account because somebody said I was ugly. I was just soo sensitive and that's never gone away. Several months ago somebody with a Bette Davis avatar on twitter told me I was ugly and while a bunch of friends hopped to my defense and I swiftly blocked the person, it still hurt a lot. And the fact that it appeared to be coming from Bette Davis made it even worse lol! 

I don't think I'm ugly and I don't think I'm fat (not that there would be anything wrong with either thing anyway) but I think it's just the idea that someone out there really doesn't like YOU.  It's like Pam says on The Office, "I hate the idea that someone out there hates me. I even hate thinking that Al-Qaeda hates me." It always hurts, no matter how many years of blogging or social media you have under your belt. The mean comments I used to get in my early days of blogging led me to stop allowing comments on this blog entirely and I rarely check my comments on social media. I probably missed out on a lot of very kind and pleasant responses and definitely lost out on potential friendships I might have formed through mutual commenting, but it caused me so much anxiety that I just feel so much better being completely oblivious. I look at that photo of myself from 2011 and think about what a brave face I was putting on, while I was definitely hurt inside. But then I look at these photos I took today and see a blissfully unaware, confident girl who happily takes pictures of herself because she can't hear the hate anymore.

dress - asos | top - modcloth | collar clips - my shop (coming soon) | tights - uo (old)

Happy New Year!

Hey! From my last two posts it would appear that I've somehow turned into an "only blogs on holidays" blogger, lol! But actually the time period between Thanksgiving and today was unexpectedly hectic and weird and I even ended up closing my shop up way earlier than normal because I just needed some time to catch up on sleep and spend time with my family. When I tell you that this is the first time that I put on a dress since Thanksgiving, I am not exaggerating. I've exclusively been donning oversized sweatshirts and leggings while I napped and snacked my way through the last few weeks of 2020. 

I've never felt more hopeful for a new year than I do for this one. Most January Firsts I start making big plans for vacations (usually to Disney World) and dreaming about all the fun adventures I'll have over the next twelve months. But this year honestly I'm just so excited about doing normal things again. Assuming all the vaccinations go according to plan, sometime this year I'll be able to see my friends again, go to Target, eat at my favorite restaurant, go grocery shopping, get my nails done, visit an art museum, go for a walk in the park, go out for ice cream, spend hours in a used bookstore, go to the movies, all these little things I used to take for granted before me and my family decided to spend the pandemic sheltering in place. I am so incredibly happy with our decision, and even if I don't get to leave the house again until November it will still have been worth it to know that my parents, who are both very high risk, are safe. But boy oh boy am I looking forward to hanging out in the Target Dollar Spot again, lol!

I'm not being too outrageous with resolutions this year since this is honestly a difficult time period we're all living through and just getting through it is resolution enough. But I am working on losing a little bit of the weight I put on this year, trying to be slightly more disciplined with my daily routine, and trying to save more than I spend. One thing I do really want to improve on is my communication skills, since I'm absolutely terrible at replying to messages. All of them - emails, texts, tweets, snail mail, you name it. I also have a habit of crafting replies in my head and thinking I actually sent them when I really never did. If anyone knows of some kind of full proof method for tackling this particular problem maybe let me know on twitter? (I'm @kategabrielle) I've tried working on this for probably a decade now but I'm always just so bad at it! Even if you do tweet me a link I probably will forget to reply to thank you. I'm that bad.

As always, if you're still here reading this blog thank you so much!! I hope you have a wonderful 2021 and hopefully I will see you here again before Valentine's Day lol!!

thankful

The last year of my life has been very, very difficult for me. I've had something going on offline that made my life a living hell this year. It's not something I'm comfortable sharing (I didn't even tell my closest friends about it until about a month ago) but it was truly horrible, and it made every single thing in my life stressful, even the things I'd normally enjoy. Thankfully, the situation was finally resolved this weekend just in time for me to spend Thanksgiving feeling more grateful for all of life's simple pleasures than I've ever felt in my life.

There were so many times this year that I thought about the quote "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" because it's so true. We all choose to share tidbits of our lives online, but a lot of us are also fighting secret battles that nobody knows about. There have been a lot of times this year that posting my normal fluffy content on social media has been tough because behind the camera I've really been struggling to be happy. And there have been a lot of times that I just stopped posting things entirely because I couldn't bring myself to try to be positive online. 

Thankfully this chapter is behind me now and I can really enjoy my life again. I'm so excited to share *genuinely* happy content with you here and on social media this holiday season!

If you are also going through a difficult time right now and feel like you're in a tunnel of misery with no end in sight, know that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. You might not believe it now when every day feels like you're living a twisted version of Groundhog's Day, but someday things really will get better. And in the mean time please reach out to friends or talk to a therapist. My doctor helped me find a therapist earlier this year and our weekly video chats are what got me through this.

If you are reading this, I am so thankful for you and I hope you have a safe, healthy, and happy Thanksgiving today ❤️

dress - unique vintage | shoes - bait footwear | belt - collectif

tonight I'm gonna party like it's 2012

I have no idea why but when I woke up and got dressed this morning I was suddenly overcome with a huge wave of nostalgia for 2012. Those early days of blogging when the first thing I'd do when I woke up was check to see if my favorite style bloggers had shared any new outfits. There are so many girls that I absolutely *idolized* and just could not even begin to wrap my brain around their perfect color combinations, their beautiful vintage collections, their seemingly effortless ability to capture a perfect twirling freeze frame in the middle of a quiet city street. 

I found myself googling a lot of old blogs today and I was heartbroken that a lot of them are either private now or just don't exist at all. I was a huge creeper and looked up some on the wayback machine so I could save my all-time favorite outfit posts to a private pinterest board for my own eternal inspiration. I'm not kidding when I say that some outfits have stuck with me, vivid in my mind, for the last 8 or 9 years. I was particularly mesmerized by the impeccable stylings of lace, pattern, and knife pleats that would usually grace the pages of Fancy Fine and All This Happiness. Yours Truly was my go-to for fun '60's inspired outfits and I am *still* looking for a pair of red mary janes as perfect as the ones she owned. Tick Tock Vintage introduced me to patterned nude tights, a revelation for me as I was always self conscious about going bare-legged in shorts. I still think about her blog whenever I buy a new pair. Every time I put on my mint green gloves in the winter I fondly recall this post from Skunkboy and how the mint gloves paired with black, grey, and rust always struck me as an absolutely genius combination.  

Taking this stroll down memory lane today was so rejuvenating. It made me want to be more adventurous in my sartorial choices (I'm embarrassed to admit to you how often I've been opting for sweatshirts and leggings recently) and revisit some of the older pieces in my wardrobe that I haven't really reached for since 2012 or 2013!

ten years

This past July was my 10th anniversary of taking outfit pictures! It's incredibly surreal that I've spent a full decade now propping up a tripod and taking self portraits to document whatever I was wearing that day. I originally started because I wanted to increase my self confidence, and I think I definitely succeeded. When I go back and look at photos from 2010, and then look at photos from the past year, I can see a huge difference. I look at the camera more often, I smile more, and I don't cover my face up with an opaque red oval in photoshop like I did in my first outfit post. I definitely built up confidence in myself, my own weird sense of style, and my body image.⁠ ⁠

If you've ever considered posting outfit photos or starting a style blog, I highly recommend it. Not only did it help me find my style and feel much more comfortable in my own skin, but now I have this collection of 10 years worth of photos that I never would have had otherwise. It's fun to go back and look at old outfits. They trigger memories like you wouldn't expect - a dress will immediately remind me of one of my cats, or a family trip, or meeting up with a friend. Some outfits remind me of my old apartment, or an art show, or a big life decision. ⁠ ⁠⁠

And if anyone out there has been around since 2010 - thank you so much for your encouragement that inspired me to keep with it all these years, and thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking around! Now that I have 10 years of photos under my big purple bow belt, I think maybe I'll try for another 10! ;)⁠ ⁠⁠

dress c/o collectif | shoes - amazon | belt - amazon

oh hi

March was the tenth anniversary of this blog, and the tenth anniversary of my first outfit post is rapidly approaching, on July 25th. And I've been thinking about Scathingly Brilliant an awful lot because of those two anniversaries.

Since my last post in December I cannot count how many times I thought "what was that recipe?" or "when did I go on that vacation?" or "what was Arrietty like when I first brought her home?" or "what did my bedroom look like in 2011?" and I hopped over to this blog, typed a keyword in the search bar, and boom! My own little search engine for the last ten years of my life.

During all this reminiscing I also happened upon this David Bowie video on youtube, and this quote has been ringing in my mind ever since, "Always remember that the reason you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society."

When I stopped blogging in December it was admittedly because I felt like nobody really read my blog anymore. If you know me, you know that my ego is as fragile as a broken eggshell and I avoid seeing things like follower counts, page views, likes, retweets, etc. like my life depends on it. I have somehow managed to totally avoid seeing how many instagram followers I have since 2018. Is there something pathologically wrong with the fact that I bought an ipod in order to login to my second instagram account so that I don't have to switch accounts within the app and see my follower counts? Definitely. I'm seeing a therapist, okay, lol. But the ignorance keeps me going. I hate this about myself so much, and I'm working on it, but that's just how I am.

Anyway so this is where the David Bowie quote comes in. In December I accidentally clicked on a page that showed me my dwindling blog stats, something I had managed to evade for a very long time, and I stopped blogging here. But that's not why I started! I'm such a dummy! 

In my second blog post here, on March 22, 2010, I wrote about my favorite songs. I was 23 years old and my favorite song was Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago. I was also obsessed with the Frank Sinatra song "Take Me" which I don't think I've listened to in at least 9 years. I'm listening to it right now and it's like a time machine to being 23 again.

How will I feel if ten years from now I want to know what my favorite song was (Dustland Fairytale by The Killers) or see what my room looked like in 2020? If I want to know my go-to recipe for smoothie bowls or to know what crazy new career I was interested in, but would predictably never follow through on. How would I remember what year I was obsessed with Seinfeld (2020) or what year I trademarked my own name (also 2020!) How would I know what month I learned to do my own acrylic nails (March 2020) and what month I completely gave up and took them off (May 2020.) Ten years from now how will I know how well I coped when my actual worst nightmare of a global outbreak came true (spoiler: not well.) I like having this record of my life - the ups and the downs, the pixies and the pink dos, the anxiety and jubilation and everything in between - and I don't want to totally abandon this little search engine.

So anyway.. I'm going to blog here now and then, mostly for me, but if anyone out there happens to be tagging along, it's for you too 💕

outfit posts

Hi there! I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I'm still doing outfit posts but they'll be over on my patreon now (they're set to public so you can view them even if you're not a supporter. Don't worry, it's FREEEEE!!!) It's just easier for me to post things in one spot and my traffic on this blog indicates that this is really not the spot I should be posting things anymore, lol! I think when I took a blogging hiatus in 2014 my blog kind of drifted off into some blogging abyss where even if you return and blog daily (or, lately, monthly) nobody knows.

ANYWAY. If anyone is out there (*if anyone is out there* echoes back at me) you can find my new posts over there.

Click here to view this particular outfit post and learn a bit about what's been going on in my life and my beautiful love story about this pretty dress. Hope to see you there!

100% that witch

Hey, long time no see! I promised you guys that in my next outfit post I'd be wearing a dress I designed and I did not mean for it to take two months but HERE IT IS!! 💁🏼‍♀️

I've had quite a lot of setbacks in the life department and, more relevantly, in the "having a room to take outfit photos in" department. The shower upstairs sprung a leak and flooded my studio several weeks ago! My pretty pink rug was ruined, my ceiling is all brown and peeling and falling apart, and I can't use my light because the water was pouring down through the fixture. The sky was literally falling, LOL! As you can tell by the grey wall-to-wall carpet here, my room still isn't back to normal yet. I actually have a replacement pink rug ready to go as soon as the contractors finish working on my studio. But I figured I'd waited long enough to share some of these dresses with you guys, so grey carpet be darned, I'm posting them!

This particular dress was the culmination of years of searching for a Halloween dress that wasn't black, dark, or orange. I wanted something really cute and pastel but also Halloween-y, so I designed it myself! I think this one is going to get a lot of wear in the next couple weeks. I also paired it with a brooch that I made (Veronica Lake from I Married a Witch with "100% that witch" written in her hat. I HAD TO DO IT.) I have my laser cutting machine up and running and I'm having so much fun coming up with new designs for it!

Oh, and I'm back to pink hair! I'm in the process of trying out a new method for dying it so that it won't be like neon pink, something a little more subtle. This was step one and I have step two sitting on my head as I'm typing this! If it all works out I'll write a little post with details about what I did :)

dress - my shop | brooch - my shop
cardigan - amazon | shoes - bait footwear

arms are for hugging

Today is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and to raise awareness for the cause Everytown for Gun Safety is asking people to wear orange June 7 - June 9.

In America we are TWENTY FIVE TIMES more likely to be killed by a gun than citizens of other developed countries. Every single day 100 Americans are killed by guns. 100. Every. Single. Day. That's unacceptable.

I've always been a proponent of gun control, but ever since the Newtown tragedy it's felt so much more urgent. No parent should ever be afraid to send their kids to school. Nobody should ever be scared to go to the movies, or to shop at the mall. Honestly if I had my way, I'd get rid of guns entirely. I hate that they are used for hunting animals, and I hate that they're used for killing people. I just don't understand the need for a machine thats sole purpose is to kill.

But most gun safety organizations, like Everytown, aren't actually trying to get rid of guns entirely. They're seeking common ground with people like me (guns are evil!) and people who are responsible gun owners that never want to see another American massacre. They want background checks and safety locks and reasonable, common sense laws that will keep guns out of the hands of people who might hurt innocent children or church-goers or college students.

Wearing orange today, tomorrow, and Sunday will help raise awareness for this vital cause. You can learn more, take action, and/or make a donation on Everytown's website, here.

And honestly the most important thing you can do is vote. Vote for candidates who will keep us safe, not the ones that are beholden to the gun lobby. Vote in primaries, local elections, midterms, every single time that you can cast a vote, do it! And if you aren't registered yet, you can do that right here.

Finally, this weekend I'll be donating the profits from my "Arms are for hugging" t-shirt to Everytown. You can find the shirt in my Threadless shop right here. I also have it available in pink lettering here.

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

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

the happiest place on earth

If you watched my Packing for Disney World video you'll know that I was very torn between dressing up or just being lazy and wearing leggings (or maybe dressing up and changing into jeans or leggings each night?) I decided to pack enough clothes to decide once I was in Florida, and I ended up splitting it about half and half - I wore cute clothes three days and went super casual the other four. It was the best of both (Disney) worlds! Total, complete comfort a couple days and photo-worthy cuteness on the others! :D

dress - modcloth | ears - etsy

great big beautiful tomorrow

I'm back from Disney World! I enjoyed being there so much that it felt like my trip flew right by, but I also missed Arrietty so much that I felt like I was gone for 2 months. Isn't it weird how you can simultaneously feel like a substantial amount of time has passed, and that none has passed at all?

I really had a good time though, and I made so many wonderful memories. One of my favorites was on our last night in The Magic Kingdom when it started pouring rain, and me and my brother decided to buy ponchos and stay in the park while everyone else hurried out into the parking lot. There was no wait for any of the rides we went on, and the park was practically deserted! Even on our normal standing-room-only bus ride back to the hotel we were the only passengers!

I also had so much good food. Omg! The Epcot Flower and Garden festival was going on while I was there, and the Roasted Cauliflower that I tried at their honey stand was *chef's kiss.* I ate THREE of them!! And we had dinner at Tony's Town Square at Magic Kingdom where I got gnocchi with veggies and pesto and it was out of this world. They make the gnocchi on site and I don't want to be one of those people (or maybe I do..) but it was the best gnocchi I've tried outside of Italy.

All in all it was just a really beautiful vacation and totally worth the wicked sunburn that I'm suffering through this week (ouch!)

dress - modcloth (old) | cardigan - amazon | shoes - bait footwear

suburban serendipity

A few days ago I had to go to Old Navy to buy a pair of flip-flops for my Disney trip (last time I was at a hotel with a swimming pool I totally forgot about footwear and had to make the impossible choice between wearing very nice shoes to go to the pool, or walking out of my hotel room completely barefoot) and when I got out of the car there was music in the air. It's one of those standard American shopping centers with an Old Navy, a Kohl's, and a Red Robin. The kind where you have to get back in your car and drive from store to store because they're spaced so far apart (I'll save my "indoor shopping malls were so much better than this!!" rant for another day.)

I walked around a little to try to see where the music was coming from, and saw a man playing an accordion outside of a Modell's sporting goods store. One of the things that I love about cities is how many times you're treated to someone playing their music outdoors, but I hardly ever get to experience that kind of beautiful serendipity in suburbia. It was so lovely.

dress - modcloth | sweater - amazon

shoes - bait footwear