Dresstember Weekend Recap Part 2

September happens to be the birth month of Boyfriend.  He doesn't make as big a deal of his birthday as I do, which is ok.  But we had an awesome party at his place an I had been saving my Kate Spade dress for the occasion.  I am so stoked on this dress – it looks like it was custom made and I never even tried it on!  I jumped a lot.  And I also discovered a zebra wine.

The next weekend Boyfriend, Michael, and I drove down to Ventura to go to our friend Nick's 33 1/3 birthday party.  About 4 hours of our drive down from the Bay Area was surrounded by a lightening storm, so naturally we blasted storm music and tried to take pictures (and ate our weight in tortilla chips, but that's neither here nor there).  And once we got there, my "cousin" Kate showed up and I got to meet the most amazing new friend, Ash.  Again, you're jealous of us.  I mean, just look (and not the lens flare. hott).

And that's a wrap on Dresstember.  Now we'll move on to October and I'll get the first few movie post up soon.  Huzza for October!

Dresstember Weekend Recap Part 1

So, strictly speaking this first part isn't from September, but it was right before when we went to Vegas.  I had been meaning to write about the trip anyway plus I wore this crazy skimpy Vegas dress.  I mean, the front was so low and slouchy that it's a good thing I don't have a big chest and the back was so short that I couldn't bend over.  So, it was pretty much perfect.

We ended up going out to a club inside/outside the Wynn.  It was kind of a mind-trip because it was like 90 º out at night, so whenever I was under the lights I thought I was under heat lamps.  Also, I spent way too much on gin & tonics.  It was an experience, but you know, not really for me.

Two weeks later my "cousin" and one of my best friends, Kate, came to visit.  Kate and I have a curse that whenever we try to go visit one another: "snow storms," cancelled flights, county wide power outages, you know...

ANYWAY, once she did make it here, we got our Karaoke on with Boyfriend on Friday, and then on Saturday we went to Alcatraz, hit up the Ghirardelli chocolate festival, and finally danced the night away at Bootie.  It was amazing. You're jealous of us.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the Weekend Recap – The Party Weekends!!

Catching Up with a Double Post

September was a crazy month, you guys.  Especially the last week – hence this getting posted so late.  But I did it!! I made it through Dresstember!! I just have to do the Weekend Recaps.

September 26 – 28

Monday – So, I wore this grey dress (Target - again) and this fantastic stripped blazer from Express to work.  Then, we had plans to go the Giants game so I came home and threw on tights and coat.  Of course I ended up putting on purple.  What are the odds that the one time I go to a Giants game we're playing the only purple team?  Yeah... I changed.

Tuesday – This is my first Kate Spade dress.  I was shopping with my best friend and "Our Mom" over Christmas and fell in love with this dress.  It was on sale, but it was still just too much... so "Our Mom" marches up to the sales lady and goes, "My daughter loves this dress but there's a loose string. What can you do?"  And you know what?  I got a discount.  It was a very Phyllis Nefler moment.

Wednesday – One of my favourite vintage inspired dresses from Banana Republic.  I love their jewel tones and they bring out my eyes... Also, this has like a flap that I can flip up and not have as much cleavage (as if I have boobs, right?!) at work.

September 29 & 30

Thursday – Boyfriend got me this Shabby Apple dress for Christmas last year.  I feel like a starlette when I wear it, but I don't wear it all that often.  Fabulous butons. 

Friday – A J. Crew strapless dress to celebrate the last day of Summer.  I love how it fades from dark pink at the bottom to white at the top and it reminds me of Gwen Stefani's wedding dress.  One last light and airy dress before the rain started this week.  Perfect timing. 

Stay tuned for the Weekend Recap and then my introduction for my October Theme!!

Belts, belts, and more belts

So, three belted dresses in one week and all for less than $20!  Yeah, that's how I roll.  Plus I'm getting into the last of the summer dresses since it's officially Autumn now... Oh, right.  Except for the crazy heat wave we're having right now.  So, yeah one more week of Dresstember and then all of my Dresstember Weekend recaps!  So, you've got that to look forward to, which is nice.

September 22, 23, and 25

Thursday – One of my favourite $4 Forever21 dresses.  It goes with tights or leggings, boots or sandals, and obviously really fun belts.  I love it.

Friday – I usually pair this Target dress with a teal sweater and earrings.  I love that it goes from casual to fancy.  And it's super comfy.

Sunday – Target again!  I swear that this was longer when I bought it.  But damn, I love striped dresses, especially ones that I can now add tights to and wear for the rest of the year!!

This feels kinda weak tonight. Meh.

Blocks of Colour

WTF, September?  Why is it suddenly 6 billion degrees?  I'm not really complaining because a) I prefer warm weather, and b) I get to keep wearing summer dresses a little bit longer.  Though, I won't lie – Autumn is my favourite season and I kinda can't wait for that change, too.

September 19 – 21

Monday – Back when I live in downtown Palo Alto, I used to walk past Anthropologie every day on my way to work.  Good news for my body, bad news for my wallet... their visuals are so awesome that I kept stopping to try things on.  Luckily, since I was there often enough, I managed to score quite a few sale items like this one.  Seriously, I would almost never buy anything there full price.

Tuesday – Another Target dress, great for laying around on a crazy hot day when you're dead from gluten poisoning.  Oh, yeah.  Good times.

Wednesday – Another sale Anthropologie dress.  I didn't even realize that until just now.  For some reason, I got a ton of compliments on this dress today.  And on my hair.  Huh, that's what happens when you skip the gym and have time to get ready at home in the morning.  Noted.

Also, can we just say how cute Boyfriend's set ups for these quick shots are?  I love the colours in the background and yeah, my house has a lot of colours.  We're festive.  Or indecisive.  Whatever.

High Maintenance Machines

I'm learning a lot from Dresstember so far.  For one, I don't own nearly enough dresses with pockets.  This is an issue at work when I need to carry my phone around, but even more so because I have nowhere to clip my security badge unless I'm also wearing a belt.  Secondly, I'll never regret wearing tights (you can always take them off), but I pretty much always regret not putting them on.

September 14 – 16

Wednesday – This was a holiday dress from Target last year or the year before...?  The only problem is that it basically does not have a back, so I always have to wear a sweater when at work.  This time it was a problem because the office seemed to make up for the broken air conditioner on Tuesday by cranking up the air on Wednesday, so no back and no tights... freezeville.  But cute, yeah?

Thursday  – God, I look tired in this picture.  The dress is H&M and  I learned my lesson the day before and packed tights so that when I went to my class in The City I could be warm enough, which was good since I got into a row with the ticket machine at the BART station and missed a train to the city and then again on the way back.  But at least I was warm.

Friday – Again an H&M dress, which I only have a few of because I generally think it starts for Hit/Miss.  I actually really love this dress with the flower tights.  It make me feel whimsical and fun.  And perfect for unintentionally spending 3 hours at my favourite mexican restaurant with some of my favourite people on a Friday night.

I need a new pose

So, I'm jumping around a bit because I had one of the most awesome weekends I've had in a long time.  And because of that, I have dress photos from last Wednesday, Thursday, and today.  This weekend will be covered when I get the pics back from Boyfriend and my amazing photographer friends, and suffice to say that Sunday and Monday were lost in a haze of a partial hangover and then pure laziness (I didn't ever change out of my yoga pants or leave the house...).

September 7th, 8th, and 13th.

Wednesday – this was a thrift store gem I found 10 years ago.  It originally had these hideous bell-sleeves that my Mom helped me remove.  It's light and flattering and one of my all time favourite dresses.  Also, please note Bunnydict Cumberstatch – my bunny with a mustache.

Thursday – Speaking of my Mom, this is her favourite outfit that I wear.  The dress is a Jessica Simpson (that reminds everyone of a Spirograph) and the jacket is is People's Liberation – both from ideeli.com (such a shopping problem for me!).  Of course, my Mom thought this was actually a dress Jessica Simpson wore at one point, so I stopped explaining brands to her.

Tuesday – My Kate Spade giraffe dress came last week and I got to rock it today.  Everyone loved it and lucky for me the air conditioning in my building was broken so I didn't have to put a sweater over it or anything!  Seriously, I could just wear her stuff forever.

But seriously guys, I need a new pose for these pictures.  I should work on that.

Photo Envy

Considering Boyfriend is a photographer, I do seem to end up with some lame photos.  It's not his fault, of course.  I always wait until the last possible moment before I ask him to take a picture of the dress I'm wearing.  Over the past 3 days, only one of these has been durring daylight.  I should work on this – I get envious of all the fancy fashion blog photos I see!

Well, as usual I'm late in updating, so here are the past 3 days worth of Dresstember outfits.

September 4 – 6

The first dress is from Target – I have it in 3 different colours, which you may see soon.  It got suddenly cold on Sunday and so we added tights, boots, and a sweater. Ta-da! Fall clothes!

The second is either from the GAP outlet or the Banana Republic outlet... I have no idea which because it was years ago.  I think it was actually marketed as a sweater dress.  It has a giant ribbon, which is good to hide my ice cream tummy when needed ;)

Finally, the third dress is from Ross as picked out my mom, The Queen.  It's warm and springy (as suddenly it was summer again on Tuesday).  You know I'm a sucker for purple of all shades.

Well, so far so good.  This would be way harder if I had to wear pants for a month!

Introducting Dresstember!!

Well, I'm back!  I needed a short break after Awesome August – turns out that committing to write an entry for 30 days without anything really planned was harder than I expected.  My only goal was to post something which was both freeing and limiting as I didn't want to bore anyone with what I had for lunch, so often it was hard to find something interesting to write about.

I also learned that as much fun as the challenge was, I didn't want to put my life on hold just to make sure I posted something, hence the missing 3 days at the end – Vegas was just too distracting!  But having a goal did help me get in the habit.  And so I introduce my new challenge:

Dresstember!!

My friend Di challenged me to wear a dress every day of September and document it.  An excuse to wear nothing but dresses?!  I accept!  I have so much going on this month that the dress challenge just seems to add more excitement to it.  So, we shall see how that goes.

September 1 – 3

Banana Republic is doing this gorgeous Mad Men line right now.  OK, so I've never seen Mad Men, but that doesn't mean I don't LOVE everything in the line.  Especially this lace white dress... but I didn't love it $100+ worth.  So, I bought the $13ish version at Forver21.  I'm rad like that.

The second dress I bought at one of those little shops in downtown Santa Cruz years ago when shopping with Bear.  I asked her if it made me look like a gumdrop (because I usually think I'm fat).  She said no (because she usually tells me the truth about when things make me look fat).  My scarf has giraffes on it because my Bestie gives me wonderful birthday presents.

The third is from Express (and wow, I didn't think I'd wear Forever21 and Express in one week. How odd).  It has 3/4 sleeves and evoked the coveted "You've got a Jackie O. look today" from my co-worker.  But then I got cold and put a H&M blazer over it.  (and yes, to anyone who is reading this that I haven't seen in a few years – I wear blazers now. what up.)

So, now I'm back to trying to get this updated more regularly and perhaps with less randomly blocks of text. Happy Labor Day everyone!