Exhausted, but sparkly

February has left me so tired. The past 10 days or so have been a struggle: I slipped on ice and twisted my ankle last week (fuck you, winter), and besides that, a whole lot of shit has been stirred up (I blame Mercury in retrograde, and also the people doing the stirring), forcing me to again face my lifelong challenge of trying to not get caught up in other people’s problems and let them overtake my own life. I’m better now (moving forward, because I have to), but since my last post all I’ve wanted to do is wear leggings and oversized T-shirts, hide under the covers, and never come out.

Instead I’ve been hobbling to work, still bundled up like this:

I’m so bored of this. I’m fine with being in tights for the next too months, I’d just like to not be so cold my face hurts when I go outside.

Also because my life motto (at least when it comes to dressing) is “just because I feel like crap doesn’t mean I have to look like crap” (a variation on “fake it til you make it”/”put your best face forward”), I have not succumbed to leggings and oversized T-shirts, I have been getting dressed and putting on sparkly jewellery to make me feel better.

J.Crew Lightweight Merino V-Neck Sweater // J.Crew necklace (anyone know what it’s called?) // Kilsgaard glasses (lenses by Spectacle)

I’ve had this necklace since Christmas (picked up in Boston on sale) and I’ve worn it a lot, but here’s the first post of me wearing it. I’ve also had these new glasses for a month and haven’t commented on them either (if I had it would have been “OMG why did I choose these glasses they’re so big and hipster I’m turning into Zooey Deschanel again”). I’m more than a little behind.

Fighting winter with hot pink

Winter has been terrible pretty much everywhere (except maybe California), and I’ve joined the many who are just effing tired of it. However, I’m not a big fan of the hot sticky humid summers either, so I would still take this winter over the Australian heatwave every time. I’m trying to remember that so I stop whingeing.

I’m still protesting winter with hot pink though. We need the pop of bright colour to cheer us up.

Sorel Youth Tivoli in Bright Rose, before they got outside (they look really really clean!)

I intended to get through the rest of winter with the boots I have, but winter isn’t going away and I needed some new ones fast. It’s damn near impossible to find winter boots in my size in February (even more so now with an apparent boot shortage on the East Coast), but I fit kid’s sizes so I had a few choices. I didn’t want them to scream little girl though, unlike my first attempt:

I ordered these online where they didn’t look nearly as glittery, but when I got them I knew I couldn’t pull them off. I can’t. I just can’t. I’m not a 5-year-old girl.

Still, hooray for small feet (I wear a size 6 women’s and got a size 5 youth, which is the equivalent to 6.5-7) and paying half the price of adult Sorels.

I was trying to make do for the rest of the winter in these old furry North Face boots that my sister gave me, but they’re leaking and I end up with wet feet.

There’ll be a few more weeks of dressing like this, unfortunately.

But on the plus side, a few more weeks of prettiness.

Hey February

I’m only 10 days late.

Apparently I had a lot to say in January (well, at least for me), but now that it’s February I’m suddenly at a loss for words. I would talk/write about what I’ve been doing lately, but I think I blacked out in the last ten days because I can’t remember. Or it was just so boring it’s not worth writing about. Or I somehow got snowed under. The latter is probably more like it.

Club Monaco CeCe Cashmere Tee (Spring 2013) // J.Crew Gem Stack necklace (thanks, Lisa!) // Anthropologie Eva Franco Aniseed Skirt (2010) // Wolford tights // Tory Burch Revas

I pulled out the real camera again and attempted to take some photos, and then I realized that we can’t find the cord that connects it to the computer, so I can’t transfer any of the photos. It’s an old camera, not one of those new wifi enabled ones (which make so much sense!). So I’m stuck with iPhone pics for now, despite my best intentions.

Shameless selfies, mostly, in not the best lighting (but it does hide any skin imperfections, of which I have many!).

 

I love love love this necklace. Would have completely passed it by if I hadn’t seen it on Lisa, but it’s gorgeous. I love the combination of colours, it goes with pretty much anything.

I’ve become a soft Torontonian in the 7 years I’ve lived here, I can’t deal with a real Canadian winter anymore. I grew up in Ottawa. I’ve visited Montreal and Quebec City in the February. But Toronto is special! It shouldn’t get winter!

I took these photos walking home through Mount Pleasant Cemetery just as the snowstorm was ending. (The cemetery is beautiful, not macabre at all, I walk in there all the time.)

January 2014 in pictures

January 1 dog is a golden lab puppy // January has been coooold, keeping warm with my huge Club Monaco scarf // poor chilly doggie // New Year’s Resolution: exercise more! // screw eating healthier, eating pizza // and sandwiches // Anthro top from 2009 and Hilary Druxman necklace // trying to convince myself to get off the couch and work out // reward: milk chocolate with maldon salt

Yep, this pretty much sums up my January. Cold! Dogs! Exercise! Eating badly again! Lots of jewellery on Instagram! Hoping for a better, healthier diet in February and warmer weather.

And because it’s what I do, here are my sunset photos from January.

Well, sunrise/sunset:

 

A hair-raising tale

There are times when perseverance, stubbornness, and downright pigheadedness will serve me well, and there are times when it might make me burn all my hair off.

For some boneheaded reason, I’ve been obsessed with trying to curl/wave my hair with a straightening iron, because it looks so easy. Never mind I have a curling wand that works great.

 

No, these aren’t the amazing results of the straightening iron, This is the curling wand. The results with the straightening iron were terrible, seriously I-can’t-leave-the-house-looking-like-this, no-photo-evidence-because-there’s-no-way-in-hell-anyone-is-seeing-me-like-this terrible. I can’t get the hang of it and it drives me nuts. But why am I trying so hard when I already have a tool that works?

Because it’s supposed to be simple and easy. Blog tutorials like this one and this one make it look easy! I must be really hair incompetent if i can’t do it!

At least this time I had enough sense to stop while I was ahead, while I still had hair on my head, that is. I’ll have to file this technique under the heading “I can’t do it, but that’s ok.” The perfectionist in me is struggling with the “that’s ok” part, but really, that’s ok.

Cold weather clothes

The funny thing about Toronto is that Canada Goose parkas are everywhere as soon as it gets the slightest bit cold (at freezing or just above freezing), so I wonder if people who need them when it’s not very cold need to layer two or three of them when it’s really really cold. I’m a penguin so most of the time I’m fine with just a wool coat, layering as I need to. But it has been really really cold for a while now, so cold that I’ve had to take the subway instead of walking to and from work, and I hate it. What is this, Ottawa or Montreal weather?

I don’t want to pay $700 for a Canada Goose parka that I won’t get enough use out of, but I’ve been considering a Soïa & Kyo parka now that they are on sale. (That’s another thing I’ll never get used to, it’s January and it’s freezing and already winter stuff is on sale and spring clothes are in stores!)

Except that the hood of the Carmella Down Parka might eat me alive.

 

Seriously, that’s the biggest hood I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t look like that in the product photo. I’m not sure why it looks so insanely huge on me.

I also felt like a stuffed sausage inside a marshmallow (apologies for the blurriness).

It’s awesome and ridiculous and at the same time (also, this was a size too big so it adds to the marshmallowiness). If I were a very cold person, I would snap it up right away, but I’m a penguin so I’m going to wait to see if it goes even more on sale.

Blue and green boxes and shiny things

My table was taken over my Stella & Dot boxes over the past week and a half, after Leslie lent me most of her samples to try out.

The packaging is very pretty, but I had no idea what was in anything so I had to put post-it notes on each one so I knew what I was reaching for. Nice to receive jewellery in these boxes, not practical for storing.

As with most brands, I didn’t like everything. (That’s inevitable, even with my favourite brands I probably only like about 20% of their offerings.) Aside from Norah Pendant, which I wore multiple times, there were only a few others that I liked.

The Sutton:

 

I love that you can wear the Sutton multiple ways, although it took me a while to figure out how I was supposed to wear it 5 ways (I consider myself an intelligent person, but some days I am profoundly dum).

The Mae & Somervell (although I would prefer the silver Somervell)

I really like the layering effect of these two.

But here’s the thing: the hipster in me wants to wear things that are unique and different. When wearing the Mae and Somervell to work, I ran into one person on my floor who was wearing the same combination (and who was also a Stella & Dot rep), and then I saw two other people in the building wearing the Somervell. I work in a pretty big office, but the hipster in me did not like.

It’s not like I’m incredibly unique and different in the way I dress either, I’m pretty conformist. I’m no man-repeller and I’m not even very fashion-forward either. I’ve jumped on bandwagons, I got the knockoff J.Crew bubble necklace I wear all the time because I saw lots of bloggers wearing it and I really liked it (but I don’t see anyone else wearing it at work). I have aspirations of uniqueness that I don’t achieve, so maybe that’s why the ubiquitousness of Stella irrationally bothers me.

Wow, that was a little more deep than I intended on a Saturday morning, so I think I’ll stop there.

Bad day, good day

from Instagram: Hilary Druxman silver nugget necklace

It can’t be a bad day if I’m wearing my favourite necklace (one of my favourites, it’s hard to rank), but I did one of my patented boneheaded careless moves this morning and lost my makeup bag. I’d pulled it out in the elevator when I was leaving my condo and I thought I shoved it back in my purse, but it was gone when I got to work. I tried to look on the bright side of things (I still had my phone, wallet, and Bose headphones), but I was pissed at myself for my stupid carelessness. I figured it was gone and I’d have to replace it (luckily not all my makeup, the majority of it stays home).

But I found it outside my building when I got home.

Woohoo!

Club Monaco Kelsey Dress // Mexx cardigan // black Wolford tights // Tory Burch Reva flats

That’s how happy I was. That’s some good karma, I’m going to have to pay it back/pass it on at some point.