How I wore it: stood up

There was some miscommunication at my school as to whether or not advisors of ninth grade students were supposed to attend an event for parents tonight. I am an advisor of ninth-graders, so I was planning to stay after work for many hours and dazzle my advisees' parents with both my sartorial splendor and my mad contacts-wearing skillz. However, in the end, we were discouraged from attending, so I wrote my advisees' parents a polite e-mail and left work at the normal time (4 PM). Still wearing my fancy new dress and my contacts. So I ended up just dazzling my own students, my husband, and my cat:

This dress is the other maternity item I bought at Target on Saturday, apart from yesterday's bright red shirt. I'm not enamored of that taupe, grey-brown color (grown?), but I do like that it's a blank slate for bright red shoes and a bright red pendant. I think it'll come in handy for all sorts of weather, too. I do have some gripes with it: the hem is uneven and I consider it a tad short for a maternity garment (bending over was pretty dicey today). That said, for under $30, I'm a happy camper.

And you know what? It felt good to dress up today, even if the event for which I fancied up didn't end up happening. I've been feeling a little bit blah recently - my hair is growing out and it's awkward and my skin is going out of control as I've severely limited my usual acne-fighting arsenal since becoming pregnant - most of all, I just feel as if I've lost control over a lot of my body. So it was nice to dress up and feel pretty. 

And if that's not a good reason - if not the best -  to dress up, for one's own damn self, I don't know what is. 

Muddy dress: Liz Lange for Target
Red wedges: CL by Laundry, by way of DSW, remixed

How I wore it: it's not the heat, it's the humidity

[In re: the title of this post - it is so bloody hot and humid here in MA! I cannot wait for cooler weather! Autumn, I take back everything bad I've ever thought about you in the last 30 years...]

So I've rarely gone to Target in my life. Maybe a couple of times with my brother and sister-in-law, but... I went shopping for, like, clothes there. I know that they sell clothes and have collaborations with designers and whatnot, but... it's just never happened. So when my husband and I took a drive by an area shopping complex in order to accost the Geek Squad at Best Buy, I begged him to let us stop at the complex' Target too, in order to eye maternity wear.

The good news? I found some. 

Welcome to the Mondays, people. After a lovely, relaxing weekend, it was tough to go back to work today, but wearing jeans and a bright new maternity top sort of mitigated the Monday blues. 

A funny side-anecdote: my pregnancy is obviously no longer a "secret" at school in that my belly has definitely popped. But usually my clothes don't showcase it as much as the above top does. A student's boyfriend walked her to her class and then whispered to her, in shock, "I think your teacher's pregnant!" I was really close to asking her to tell him, "Nah, she's just big." But I didn't. Because sometimes 17-year-old boys just don't. Get. It. 

The other nice anecdote? One of my ninth-grade advisees approved of both my top and shoes and told me that I had nice style: I was this close to directing her to the blog! 

Red top: Liz Lange Maternity for Target

Jeans: Maternity America, via Gilt Groupe, remixed

Plaid flats: American Eagle by Payless, remixed

Thank you, internet

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Sometimes, the internet is just awesome. And now that I have to spend almost my whole day on it, checking and writing e-mails to and from colleagues, students, and parents, not to mention uploading links, PDFs, homework assignments, grade books, and attendance - I sometimes forget that fact. 

But a few weeks? Days? I'm not sure. Anyway, some time ago, the lovely Kelly offered to donate some maternity clothes to me. We started e-mailing and we met today (making her the third blogger I've ever met in person, and neglected to take a picture of! I didn't have my camera. It wasn't in the cards.). Apart from the fact that it was wonderful to talk to a mom (I met her two kids! It was amazing!) of small children, it was so relaxing to sit in a nice café, chat, have some tasty treats, and just be on a Sunday morning. 

And, more frivolously, she passed me on some pretty wonderful fall/winter maternity gear that will no doubt get lots of wear, lots of love, and lots of exposure on this here corner of Style Nation. Did I mention it's all in my size? And did you get the sense that I was already a little depressed by the puniness of my maternity wardrobe? I'm feeling a damn sight better now, let me tell you.

So, yeah. Style Nation? You're awesome. Readers? You're awesome. Kelly? You're super-awesome.  You guys? I'm a little emotional. Did anyone see this week's season premiere of 'The Office'? I'm kind of like Pam these days... 

How I wore it: in Jersey anything's legal, as long as you don't get caught

I think the majority of my early productivity in graduate school was fueled by guilt. During the second semester of the first year of my Ph.D. program, I was done with classes for the week on Wednesday at, like, 7 or 7:30 PM-ish. Four-day weekends! Party, right? Wrong. I worked like a dog, never harder than those free Thursdays and Fridays when, after a couple of hours at the university gym, I would come home and translate Sanskrit (as well as do my class readings) like a maniac. I usually took Saturday off to hang out with my highly unsuitable boyfriend of the time, and would return to work on Sundays. And it was all because of guilt: I couldn't possibly have a four-day weekend! I had to be doing something wrong! I better do more Sanskrit... This is how I got a reputation of being over-prepared for Sanskrit class - a reputation that followed me across an ocean and several years, one that my advisor remembered again this year in Hamburg.

Yeah, I have issues.

So now you find me, paralyzed with guilt on a Monday evening because...? I didn't bring any work home. And, legitimately, I didn't have any to bring home. But I feel far too idle and I have this niggling sense of guilt, or worse, that I've forgotten something vital. So I didn't have any work! Couldn't I have gone to the gym? Walked around the lake? Done something active and healthy for my unborn child?! No, instead I came home and ate a snack. The angels are weeping.

So, I'm not adjusting all that well to having a lighter workload than I'm used to, but I'm hoping that I'll get over that. And I doubt it'll last, anyway...

So now that you have a better insight into the darker workings of my psyche, let's turn to important things, such as clothes! Because the weather was pre-autumnal - cool, but sunny and welcoming - I decided to continue to rock the bare legs until the last moment. I also decided to try out another one of my non-maternity jersey dresses to see if what I suspected was true: yup! Stretchy empire-waist jersey is a pregnant lady's best friend, even after hitting the 23rd week!

Hunched and tenderly watching Amalía destroy her scratching post

In fact, with the sweater on, you can't really tell that I'm sporting a pretty respectable belly back there! But anyway, this dress fit my purposes admirably, although I sort of missed wearing tights in the morning: they would've been nice and comfy for the walk to and from the earlier class. But by the afternoon, I was just fine with just the cardigan. 

Now she's a super-hero!

In other news, my hair is going through the phase of a million cowlicks. I have weird tufts protruding from all over my crown and I can't tell why. You can see a slight unevenness in the first photo. That being said, I've pretty much decided to restart the long, arduous process of growing out my hair again, mostly because I can't foresee me having the time, energy, and budget to get my hair freshly cut every six weeks or so. I think my plan for right now is to let it get to maximum awkwardness before asking my stylist to do something with it. 

... Fortunately, I work in such an artsy environment that the kids will probably think I'm making some sort of "statement" ... maybe I should dye it green?

Charcoal cardigan: Gap, remixed

Green dress: Gap, remixed

Olive modesty top: Express, remixed

Mustard flats: Nine West, by way of DSW, remixed

How I wore it: I wasn't kidding

Remember how on Friday I promised you that I would probably wear the exact same outfit the next day? Well, I kind of did and then decided to kick up the sloppiness a notch. I had actually been a little chilly on Friday with my flats, so I decided to stop making excuses for myself and pull out my first pair of boots of the season for a day spent driving in a car, hanging out with family (including a small child and a small newborn), and driving back home.

... I deployed the leggings.

And, yes, it wasn't my most sartorially satisfactory look, but damn, was I comfortable!

It's totally a different outfit, y'all!

And I must admit - I may have been a little overexcited to pull out the boots: what can I say? Who can blame me? They're my BOOTS! 

Now the tunic was a little short for the leggings and I caught myself pulling it down a lot (and some disapproving looks from my mom, I'm sure), but my husband actually loved the whole look so much that he insisted on it going up on this here blog. So, being a docile little thing, I complied. 

Grey striped tunic: A Pea in the Pod, remixed

Black leggings: HUE, by way of Lord and Taylor, remixed

Grey boots: Frye Paige Huaraches, by way of endless.com, remixed

How I wore it: something about this place

Folks, I took an hour-long nap on a Friday night, my throat is raspy as hell, and I've slept about eight hours every night: it must be the end of my first full week of work! The good news is that it's going well. The bad news is that I don't know how I'll ever feel rested again. Maybe during maternity leave ... oh, wait.

Today the weather changed drastically from the humid and hot 80 degrees Fahrenheit that we'd been experiencing down to the high 50s and low 60s. And boy did we feel it... I was happy because a) I could stop flashing my tank tops/bra straps to my high school students, and b) I'd been wanting to wear the outfit I ended up wearing for about three weeks beforehand; you see, I went to a A Pea in the Pod maternity store some weeks ago and bought three really pretty things. Clothes that I liked so much that I considered wanting to wear them when I'm not pregnant, although I'll probably be sick of them in a few months. That being said, I loved today's outfit and wouldn't be blameworthy, I don't think, if I chose to wear it again tomorrow to visit family in Connecticut:

I felt like a million bucks in this outfit. I love corduroy, I love mustard corduroy, and I love grey-based tunic tops, maternity or no. I wish I didn't have to constantly cuff the pants, but they are pretty long and I worry about tripping and hurting the crap out of my face... 

... So, yeah, I have the feeling that this outfit is gonna be a staple in the next few months...

Grey striped top: A Pea in the Pod

Corduroy pants: A Pea in the Pod

Mustard flats: Nine West, by way of DSW, remixed

How I wore it: any other day of the week is fine

Woo! Happy Monday, y'all! Although getting up at 6:15 today was a little tough after the weekend of leisure, I had prepared and gone to sleep early last night, so I was ready to face the day ahead. Even though I'm kind of convinced that my kind-of-upper-level Spanish class sort of hates me. Maybe it's because they have me first thing in the morning. EVERY DAY. Oh, well.

While getting up and going to work has added some fun novelty into my life, some of my normal full-time work routine has been a little tougher to get into. For example, do you know how hard it is to leave Amalía in the mornings? She's not used to me being gone all day (and when my husband comes home - tomorrow! - she'll have the benefit of having him home during the week a fair amount), so she's quite needy when I get home and very yowly at night.

[For those of you who don't remember, Amalía is my cat, whom we adopted a year ago. When I wasn't working.]

The other thing? Showers. I know this might make a lot of you recoil in horror, but when I work full-time (I've only worked as a teacher), I don't shower in the morning. Waking up, having breakfast, getting dressed, and made up take me a good hour. Don't expect me to add a shower in there unless it's just to shower and not wash my hair or shave or anything. So I revert back to my high school life and shower at night before going to bed. While it's soothing to do so in the night, I do sometimes miss it in the morning. But then I could never wear skirts without tights because I probably will not shave in the mornings.

Anyone else do this, or have I alienated everyone with the above statement?

Anyway, yeah. Some parts of the daily grind are tough ("Wait. I have to correct these? I just wrote these tests!"), but it's still nice to have a routine again and I still love the school and its administration.

All that being got out of the way, I decided to celebrate today's beautiful summer weather by wearing a recent summer staple:

I fancied it up by adding my summer cardigan (which I had to remove at some point because of my overwhelming sweatiness... oh, well. Bare arms, no dress code ... yay?) and the pops of color with the seashell necklace and the red wedges. It was a simple outfit, but I enjoyed the satisfying "click-clack" that my shoes made on the hallway floors and the fact that all the teachers complimented my necklace (and a cool student complimented my dress! I didn't have the heart to tell her it was maternity wear: let her think I'm cool and have a big belly). 

Now, of course, my problem is how to keep it interesting what with my small collection of maternity gear... and my expanding belly...

Black cardigan: Ann Taylor Loft, remixed

Grey dress: Old Navy Maternity, remixed

Red wedges: CL by Laundry, by way of DSW, remixed

I shouldn't have looked...

Man, it takes having a job to remember how awesome weekends are. And to make Sundays kind of depressing, but that's neither here nor there. After days of waking up at 6:15 and checking my e-mail via iPod because my computer was already packed away for work, it was quite blissful to wake up yesterday morning - after 8 AM - and not check my work e-mail first thing. Instead, I went to the Frye site for... no good reason. It had been a while, what can I do?

Between watching the video of 'Yoü and I' on repeat (is it me, or is 'Jo Calderone' kind of a looker?), watching terrible movies ('You Again' OnDemand - totally worth it), eating leftovers cooked by my parents, doing some work, and watching 'V for Vendetta' on video (the graphic novel, which I read for the first time last weekend, was the students' required summer reading this year), I actually left the house today in order to run some errands.

... And wouldn't you know it? Despite the temperature being such that I wasn't even wearing a light sweater over my short-sleeved tee, I saw a fair amount of girls and women wearing shin-high (at least) boots - often with shorts, which isn't a look I go for, unless, of course, they're winter shorts.

So therefore I felt pretty justified in going back to the Frye website in order to drool over a new pair of boots that I covet. Behold!

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These are the Melissa Button Back Zip in grey (which, in Zappos pictures, is more of a muddy grey/brown), which I'm kind of in love with. If this were a normal September, I would totally buy them: I have a paycheck! I'm a grown-up! I can afford boots! However - I'm trying to save money for little Booties and I'm also paranoid that my feet will expand (although there's no sign of that occurring yet), so ... no new boots for the moment. But aren't they pretty?!

I am not one of those bloggers who pines for fall the minute that July hits and it gets a little bit hot. Last year I was looking forward to autumn simply for the chance to wear boots, not because of autumn per se. However, this year I'm looking forward to fall with a fair amount of enthusiasm: I'm looking forward to wearing some of my cute clothes, I miss my boots, and - most importantly - I get hot while the weather's warm, yo. I'm looking forward to cooling down a little...

What about y'all? Anything you're looking forward to in the next season? Any new purchases? Any new imaginary purchases?

How I wore it: school is in session

Style Nation! Would it be weird and codependent to admit how much I missed you all during this whole week eight-day period while I've been going insane? INSANE, y'all. Since I last posted, I've been visited by my parents for a week, and gone to work every day of the week apart from Labor Day Monday. Classes started on Wednesday and today, Friday, I'm bushed. I pride myself on being a super-energetic teacher, but I've been, um, sitting a lot. Today I totally felt the strain of being a tired pregnant lady. At least I remembered my water bottle today. Yay for hydration! I've also had my traditional back-to-school ailments: shin splints (despite the fact that I've been sitting more than usual) (oh, and yeah, if I've taken a break from it, I get shin splints whenever I start teaching again) and voice loss. I sound like a dying heifer today, people. Let's hope this goes away quickly.

But... the work environment is lovely, my colleagues are maybe the nicest people I've ever met (and I've lucked out with colleagues at all my other jobs), and the school's philosophy is definitely a change for me. My classes have been going well so far, although I have some reservations - naturally - about some aspects of the environment. But I am psyched.

However... this first week, it rained all week long, from Tuesday through Thursday (was it only three days? It felt like more). So my planned outfit for Wednesday's first day of school was kind of a bust because it was pouring rain and 60 degrees. So I wore this instead:

Who's that tired, blurry lady with the belly?

It being the first day of school, I decided to bust out my contacts, which I pretty much only wear for self-defined special occasions. Like the first day of school. I wasn't exactly thrilled with how all the proportions of this outfit looked, but I was comfortable and dry, which was key. And all the teachers, including my boss, were all about my rain boots. Would you guys believe if I told you that this is the first denim skirt I've owned since I was, like, eleven? And it's definitely the first traditional (i.e., straight/pencil-shaped) denim skirt I've ever owned. Maybe I'll invest in more of them once I'm back to my regular size... 

It was a more somber look than I wanted overall, but it was still "me," you know? Muted colors, cool boots, and whatnot... 

Man, am I wordy tonight, y'all! I really missed blogging this week and I had a lot of stuff I wanted to show off. It's just... my schedule has been: go to work super-early (with my computer), work all day, come home, have a snack, plan lessons, eat some sort of dinner, and fall into bed. So no blogging. Which is why I'm so verbose. I'm hoping I'll get into the swing of things in the near future...

What's been going in with you guys? Tell me everything!!

Purple cardigan: gift from my mom, from Lord and Taylor, remixed

Olive tank: Old Navy Maternity

Denim skirt: Old Navy Maternity

Blue rain boots: Steve Madden, remixed

Shiny things

Yowza, people, I hate leading with this again, but damn, am I tired. The meetings were actually short today (and I was able to be productive enough so that I won't have to go in tomorrow!), but it was what came after that exhausted me. My husband's going on a business trip tomorrow in a few hours and my parents are coming in to help me out, so... there's a lot to do, even if I do the bare minimum of clean-up and home-gussying.

Anyway, because I wanted to be casual today at our faculty meetings, I wore a very simple outfit. And I let my necklace do the talking:

It's my newest necklace! When we left Sparta in mid-August, we stopped at small beach town that wasn't really on the way in order to visit my husband's aunt, uncle, and cousin (and her husband). Since my aunt-in-law is also my godmother, she presented me with this lovely necklace for my Greek name day, which is the same day as Assumption, on August 15th (I have a real [by which I mean my family's traditional celebration day], Catholic name day too, which is - naturally - different from the Greek one). I didn't get a good detail shot, but you can see a little cascade of the stylized flowers that make up the necklace in general. While I loved the necklace and wore it once to go out in Athens, today it got all the compliments in the world from all of my new colleagues. Go, godmother!

I'm usually a person who pairs a statement necklace with other eye-catching jewelry - I don't mind "too much" jewelry. However, upon seeing myself in the mirror this morning with this necklace and a pair of silver hoop earrings, I took the earrings off and replaced them with a plain pair of diamond studs, which you can barely see in the photo above. While they didn't exactly "match" the necklace, they held up their own in sparkliness and simplicity, which is all that I wanted.

All right. I'm starting to hallucinate. I'm out! Good night!