Time for a cozy sweater!

I got most of yesterday off because of President’s Day (translation: I worked at home in the morning, then went into the lab later in the afternoon because I had a meeting and a rehearsal). After the lazy, lovely weekend, it was a bit hard getting myself back in gear! (Also, code did not work as well as it was supposed to. Grr.) So… a cozy sweater-dress seemed in order. I found this one thrifting with the boyfriend over the weekend. It's lovely and warm, which seemed really appropriate...even though it was almost 40 degrees out eventually. (Spring coming soon? Maybe?)



The coat is another weekend thrifting find. I’ve been having really good luck with coats at my favorite clothing-by-the-pound store! Now I just have to start wearing them...which may mean it has to be a bit warmer for some of them, but I think I can wear this coat now and still be fine. I really like the faux fur cuffs and collar, too.


Also trying a photo without the glasses…what do you think? I used to wear contacts, but have given up on them in the last few years as I haven’t found any pairs I can wear really comfortably (my astigmatism = huge contacts that go blurry when your eyes get dry and they shift a little bit).



I only have a week and a half until this thesis performance. There is SO much that needs to be done. And I'm spending time blogging. Oops.

Pre-Valentine's Day outfit

This was last Friday’s outfit… for work at the lab, a couple of meetings, and seeing the boyfriend who came to visit for the weekend. (He's in school in NYC right now...hopefully will be joining me in the Boston area soon.) So, an early Valentine’s Day look seemed appropriate. I’m not huge on the symbolism of the holiday, as I think people (not only those in romantic relationships, mind you) should show their appreciation and care for one another on a regular basis…but it’s still nice to have a good excuse to do so.

Also, I got some yummy food and a red cake baked for me because of it. :) The boy rather enjoys baking, and is quite good at it, which is a great thing for me. Look at this pretty cake!


I’m getting really interested in layering slips under dresses and skirts…here I tried a black slip with lace trim under a plain black dress, to give the appearance of a more detailed dress.


The brooch is one of a number of vintage costume jewelry pieces I’ve gotten off Ebay. I’m overly tempted by pretty shiny things…sometimes I think I must have been a magpie in a previous life. (Sometime I should post pictures of my dresser top covered with shiny jewelry things...)


The boy took these photos, and I find it interesting to see that I do smile differently when it's for someone rather than for a self-timer.



Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend!

Two for the price of one!

Haven't yet posted my photos of what I wore yesterday, so here we get both yesterday and today!

Today:


I had gotten this skirt a while ago, but hadn’t gotten around to wearing it yet. But today I was in a mood for bright floral embroidery, so on it went. Also, the skirt has beaded fringe! Which was fun to wear and definitely drew a few comments from coworkers. I paired it with my character shoes that I’ve had for forever (from my regularly-performing-in-musical-theater days), and a lovely necklace my boyfriend gave me a couple of years ago.



The day overall wasn’t that great, though. A few technology failures…technology failures occurring during demos of my work for lab sponsors…my advisor not being thrilled about said tech failures… technology that I needed in rehearsal tonight not working by rehearsal time → not the best day I’ve had. On the other hand, I then got some stuff working and had a good rehearsal. So. I'll be interested to see how I pull this performance off in the next...two weeks, yay!



And here's the fringe!






And yesterday! We were supposed to get a lot of snow, so I made sure to bundle up and prepare for bad weather. Instead, we had probably less than an inch of snow, and most of that after I got home in the evening. Instead, a lot of cold rain/drizzle. Pretty disappointing!

Shiny shoes Tuesday!

We had a plan to organize and inventory things at the lab today, so I knew I should probably wear pants…didn’t want to be sitting on the floor all afternoon sorting cables and such in a nice dress. But I couldn’t resist wearing these gold shoes to liven up the outfit a bit! I’ve declared that Tuesdays should be Shiny Shoes day at the lab. This did not necessarily go over so well with my male coworkers, who sadly don’t own pairs of shiny shoes. I’m attempting to start working into my daily wear some of the pieces in my wardrobe that are a bit more special or dressy or interesting…so hold me to that, okay? I have a bunch of great clothes and shoes (mostly thrifted) that stay in the closet most of the time because I don't have the proper "occasion" to wear them to. I can wear fancy shoes along with a regular outfit on a regular day, right?



Also interesting…I was looking at some pictures of me on Facebook that were taken last year and the year before, and it’s strange to see how much my sense of style has changed. I hadn’t realized how much I tended to be in the jeans-and-a-t-shirt ensemble… maybe that's just when the pictures were taken, but it was probably a representative cross-section. I'm definitely liking the change, and how I'm paying more attention to things and having more fun with my style now.

Wishing it were spring!

So when I pulled this outfit together, I think I was thinking more “Paris in the spring” (not that I've been to Paris...) than “Boston in the dead of winter”. Unfortunately, I had to deal with the second one…Winter is not my favorite season, by a long shot. But it’s definitely something I have to encounter for the next two months at least. I can’t wait until it starts getting warm enough to go out without a heavy jacket and multiple pairs of tights! So of course I ended up wearing a sweatshirt over this for most of the day, as the lab was kind of cold. I think I ought to keep an eye open for some nice cardigans next time I go thrifting...



I’m trying the slip under a skirt thing again, this time less because of the length of the skirt and more to add an extra layer and some detail. Also, this skirt has pockets, which I love. It’s a favorite in my summer/fall wardrobe, but a bit thin for winter. The necklace is probably my favorite for sentimental reasons…my first gift from the boyfriend, as a holiday present. He’s got good taste in jewelry, luckily for me!





But yes. Looks like it’ll be a busy week. I had a number of meetings today, a rehearsal, and a good amount of time spent writing code. There’s going to be a fair amount of repetition of that for the rest of the week. Only two and a half weeks till this performance…wow! I have a fair amount of gesture recognition technology that I have to get actually working...much of the code I wrote today was more about getting the software ready to use in a performance scenario, rather than about fine-tuning the gesture recognition stuff so that it works reliably. (I am entertained by the fact that everyone else is completely sure I'll pull this all off; I'm the only one with doubts!)

Catchup from Friday

So, as I may or may not have mentioned, I joined Chictopia at the beginning of the week when I started doing these outfit posts. It's already been quite interesting. I wore this on Friday, inspired by the colors of an outfit I saw on Chictopia (from accessorypirate). I wanted to try my own outfit with navy blue and black…I took the easy route, a bit, as the dress has both colors in the pattern already. But it also gave me a reason to wear these navy heels for the first time… I happened to be walking through the campus center a few months ago and saw a couple of pairs of shoes in a box labeled “free.” So of course I took the ones in my size (especially as they were still new with tags!). However, as they’re a pretty high heel, I hadn’t gotten around to wearing them yet. I really liked them for the first part of the day, until my coworkers and I went to lunch at one of the Indian buffet places a good 15-20 minute walk from the lab. Then the fact that the shoes were not broken in yet started to get to my feet. I need to figure out how to wear new heels without them rubbing the sides of my feet too badly (though it's better in the winter when at least I have tights on...)





Another part of this outfit I like is the necklace, which is self-made from a modified vintage brooch (which had chipped paint and therefore got a new color with nail polish) and a chain my grandmother gave me. This is a trick I've been doing recently, pinning a brooch to a chain to serve as a pendant.



I wore this on Friday to work, for a demo of my research, and to class. I was planning on going to see a play after work, or potentially go meet up with some friends, but was so tired I decided just to head home. It was a long, busy week! And, actually, it's been a kind of busy weekend...though I did a fair amount more resting and reading blog posts and going thrift shopping with my mother than I probably ought to have given the amount of work that I have to do on this thesis performance before the end of the month. Which is a lot! Finishing the costume design, getting the gesture recognition software to work better, designing and programming sound and visuals and lights to be controlled by the gestures and qualities of movement (some of that is done, but there's still a lot to go), finishing the choreography and rehearsing as much as possible with the gesture sensor systems...yeah. A fair amount of work for three weeks. On the plus side, after that I'll primarily just have to write the thesis.

And back to Monday, soon, and the regularly scheduled work/class/meeting/rehearsal week!

So, it's Thursday already...

Getting near the end of the week! (Does anyone have great plans for the weekend? I have a fair amount of thesis-related work to do…) It feels like this week has been going really fast, though. I think that's because I have a thesis-related performance at the end of the month, so I know this month is going to pass FAR faster than I want it to! I still have quite a bit of design/coding work to do.

So, the outfit! I had two demos of my work at the lab today (one for a visiting professor, one for a company thinking of sponsoring the lab), so wanted to dress up a little bit. I wore this for demos/work/rehearsal.



This outfit includes something I’ve done quite a bit recently, which is wearing a white ruffled skirt under a dress or skirt that’s a little shorter than is comfortable (or than is warm!) for a bit more length and some interesting detail. I especially like it with a skirt or dress that’s fitted a bit more like a pencil skirt, because then the ruffles gather quite a bit at the bottom. On the other hand, I’m still debating what I think about the extra layers.



The necklace I got at a fair near my undergrad school. The man selling it tried to convince me it was real amber, but I knew better than that. Still probably paid a bit more than I should have, though. But I wear it on a regular basis, so…



The belt was one of my dollar-a-pound finds last weekend.

So, I'm a bit surprised I've kept this up for a few days already. It's interesting to see my mind working...outfits that seemed cute all day when I was wearing them suddenly feel a little frumpy when I go to post them here (and on Chictopia). I need to remember this is for the fun of it and for developing/improving my style, not for judging it right now. (Or for judging my body. No need for me to do that right now...though it's interesting that I look heavier to myself in pictures than in the mirror.)