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

My apartment bedroom

After I moved out of my house I moved into an apartment, and I'm currently using the master bedroom as a bedroom/closet/office hybrid. My bed is pushed up against the wall, and the headboard serves as a divider between the bedroom and the office, with felt daisy garland strands hanging from the ceiling to add a little extra separation between the two spaces.





The bedding and wall tapestry are both from my society6 shop. The tapestry felt like a great way to separate this section as its own little room since the rest of the space is just painted plain pink. 





In my old bedroom in my house all of the artwork was sleep-themed, and I kept a few of my favorites on display here as well! The "literally nothing" poster print is from The Motivated Type, the "Less drama" print is from Hollie Startup, the "Worries can't reach me" print is from A Soft Wrongness, and the "Tired all the time" poster print is from Exquisite Paradox.

The giant poster of the sleeping woman is actually a vintage ad for bed sheets that I bought on ebay and scanned so I could blow it up to 30" x 40"! I'm SO thrilled with how it came out. The ad already had a bit of a halftone pattern, so it upscaled beautifully and it just looks so perfect hanging above my bed. I uploaded the file to my google drive, if you want you can download it here.

I don't have room for a nightstand, so I decided to hang a floating shelf and use that instead! It actually works great - I was a little worried at first that I was going to constantly bump my head on it, but I don't actually end up sleeping anywhere near the edge of it - so far so good! I also have a discreet ipad holder on the underside of the shelf. I love reading on my kindle app in bed and using one of those remote page turners so I can be extra cozy laying on my side, all bundled up in my blankets!

The bedroom in my house (which I'll be sharing soon!) was an all-time vintage inspired kitschy dream room and I'll never be able to compete with that, but I am pretty darn pleased with how my little bedroom nook looks in my new apartment. And it's so, so comfy! I'm not exaggerating when I say that my favorite part of every day is getting into this bed and cuddling with Arrietty before I go to sleep. It's a perfect cozy oasis!

my home cinema!

For a little while, I lived the dream! As an obsessive cinephile there was nothing I wanted more in my house than my own little home theater. Not just to watch movies (duh!) but also to finally have a home for my massive collection of movie posters that I had been hoarding and collecting for decades. This will sound so silly but there were times when I didn't even watch a movie, I just stood in the theater and looked around at it. I was just so happy to have it, so grateful that life led me to a place where I could devote a room in my home to my love of the movies. Even if this only lasted a little over a year, I will look back fondly on this room, the memories I made in here, and the warm fuzzy celluloid feelings it gave me.

Now, first let's take a look at the before photo, from when I first got the keys!



Me and my brother built the arched entryway from plywood (not the most perfect way to do it, but it did the trick!) and I made my Cinema sign using my laser printer. 



I don't know how many people would want to recreate this, but if you're looking for authentic home theater carpeting I highly recommend the one I got, here. It came rolled up and I hired a local flooring company to install it for me as wall-to-wall carpeting. This was one of the first things I did when I moved in (the rug was literally sitting in the POD in my parents' driveway before it was even delivered to the house on move-in day lol!) and it immediately made the house feel like it was mine!



The chairs were all from Wayfair (I just searched for "black recliner" and then sorted the results from cheapest to highest price and picked the cheapest ones lol) I put the back row chairs on furniture risers so that they'd have a little more clearance to see the screen. Each chair had a blue quilt (from the kid's section at Target!) so we could all be extra cozy during the movies!





I used the wall behind the roll-down screen to store my DVD collection and also to highlight three of my all-time favorite films. Above the shelving I had printed out pictures of my favorite movie stars and put them in Dollar Store frames. 









My house didn't have a ton of closet space, so at the back of the theater I had two utility cabinets filled with pantry items and household essentials (toilet paper, my vacuum and broom, paper towels, etc.) and then I used the side of one of the cabinets to build a mini concession stand for candy and popcorn!



I've mostly come to terms with having to give up this house, especially since I was able to move a lot of my furniture and knick-knacks and artwork into my apartment. But I just don't have the room anymore for most of these posters and they're back in storage. I can't imagine I'll ever own a house again (I don't even know if I would want to after this ordeal) but I really miss having my own little theater.