Shopping.

• Cardigan: Old Navy (previously)
• Cami: Maurices (previously)
• Belt: Maurices (from a dress)
• Skirt: Old Navy (previously)
• Pumps: Nine West (previously)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart

I previously wrote about finding some shoes for sale in my size on Craigslist. During the visit, the lady selling the shoes mentioned that she was also doing some end of year cleaning out of clothes that no longer fit her, and many of them were in sizes near my own. I told her to let me know if she ended up with some clothes in my size. Luckily for me, she did, and sent me an email this past weekend, so we scheduled a meeting time on Sunday for me to visit and "shop".

This was my shopping outfit for the day. My wonderful wife did my hair and makeup, but she ended up having pre-existing plans for the afternoon and didn't accompany me on the visit. I ended up getting a lot of wonderful pieces for a great price, and I will be incorporating them in future posts. It was a fun day, and this was an interesting first for me: making a solo visit to a stranger, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get out and about. Of course, I was careful. This trip was also a good confidence builder for this weekend, but that will have to wait for another post.

I also want to take a second to thank Melanie, of Dressed to IL for mentioning me in her post on authenticity.

I also need to thank LaToya of A Chameleon's Closet for giving me the Versatile Blogger Award in her post Leopard and Purple. So here are seven more things about me as part of the award.

1. Since I mentioned music in my previous post, I figured I would share some more. I like a lot of music, so this is just another sample of the randomness that is my playlist. Here are some bands that showed up on my playlist in the past few minutes: Cage the Elephant, Gogol Bordello, Beck, Muse, Hybrid, Rage Against the Machine, The White Stripes, The Killers, and Movits!.
2. Last time, I also mentioned that I liked bad movies. Well, I also frequently like cult classic movies, and as an example I have to mention one of my all time favorites. Krull. Which has an epic soundtrack by James Horner, and a young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane in early minor roles. Its not a movie for everyone, but its one of my favorites.
3. I have no siblings.
4. I am scared of have serious reservations about flying. Every movie I've watched where things go wrong with airplanes makes it worse. My wife finds it seriously unpleasant to fly with me.
5. I don't drink, this makes the previous fact even more difficult to cope with. I once had a fellow passenger (whom I did not know) offer me some of her drink, in fact, I was so visibly nervous.
6. I also don't smoke.
7. I dislike raw tomatoes, but I enjoy Ketchup and nearly every other tomato based product you can imagine.

Things have been incredibly busy lately, and I look forward to being to get caught up soon, I haven't forgotten about everyone, but this month hit the ground running, and hasn't let up at all. Thanks so much for bearing with me. And of course, my amazing wife took the pictures for this post.

Velma.

• Dress: Macy's (buy)
• Boots: Payless
• Pantyhose: Just My Size
• Socks: Target (previously)

This was an outfit from last week that I meant to blog. The dress was bought with Christmas money, but I've had my eyes on it for a while. So when I was doing some after Christmas shopping, and noticed it on clearance... I figured that meant it was time to make a purchase. When I picked it out, the burnt orange color was one of the draws, but it was only after I had the outfit on with some nerd-chic glasses (not pictured of course...) that I realized that with a few minor changes, I was dressed similar to a certain Scooby Doo character.

Now I have to take a second to thank some really awesome bloggers. First, AppGal of Musings on the Mountain listed me, along with some other wonderful bloggers, in her post on blogs you should read! So thanks the for wonderful shout out! And Lisa from respect the shoes reminded her readers about my giveaway in her Lazy on a Sunday Afternoon. And Meg of Questionable Taste kindly mentioned me in her post What I've Learned. Thank you so much for these mentions! And of course, I hope I haven't missed anyone!

And last but not least, Ariana of fatale fashion gave me a stylish blogger award! Thanks so much Ariana! Now as part of the award I'm supposed to list seven things about me.

1. I love ballroom and latin dancing. Its a passion actually, but where we're located, we don't have a lot of opportunities to go out and dance.
2. I love horrible movies. The worse the better actually. My latest favorite is Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Of course, some movies really are just bad, but there are certain types of Grade D cheese fests that I adore.
3. I secretly enjoy Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, La Roux, and other pop singers. And I don't usually want to admit it to my friends. (And I'll even admit that I owned a New Kids on the Block tape when I was growing up.) Now, I'm not one to obsess, so I'm not a super fan by any means, and I enjoy a pretty wide range of music.
4. I love traveling. I have seen (and waded in) both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean within the same two week period once.
5. I was involved in band all the way through college. I even stuck with marching band for part of my college career. Ironically (or perhaps not...) I don't usually enjoy watching football at all.
6. In addition to my personal addiction to shoes, my wife and I both have a serious addiction to collecting books. And books, like shoes, present serious storage issues when you have "too many". We have "too many".
7. I spend a lot of time procrastinating. Its actually gotten worse as I've gotten older. I try to compensate for this by reading nearly anything I can find on better ways to be organized. Of course, reading up on better ways to be organized is a great way to procrastinate. :)

I know I'm supposed to pass the award on to 8 other bloggers, but I have so many wonderful blog friends and I wouldn't feel right leaving someone out. In addition I truly believe all of my readers are stylish, so if you need a reminder of how stylish you already are, consider yourself awarded the Stylish Blogger Award!

CSN Stores Gift Certificate Winner!

• Tote: Maurices
• Paper slips with everyone's name: Walmart
• Winning Entry: Pretty Penny Mae

My wife wanted to do the drawing, so I took the pictures today. The method of picking the winner was, of course, a random drawing!

Congratulations to Brooke of Pretty Penny Mae! You've won the $25 gift certificate to CSN stores! I will be sending you your gift card in an email momentarily! If you don't get the email or have trouble using the gift card, please let me know!

Thanks to everyone who participated in my first giveaway!

Seasons greetings.

• Tree: Walmart
• Lights: Walmart
• Star: Walmart

My wife and I will be spending the next few days visiting with friends and our families and observing the Christmas holidays. And while I will be reading and catching up on blogs here and there, I will be taking a posting break until next week, and posting lightly until after the New Years. I can't thank everyone enough who reads this blog, and thank you for all the wonderful comments you leave! It has really made a huge impact on my life! Rather than an outfit today, I thought I would post our Christmas tree. Our Christmas tree is rather small, but that does make it perfect for the moderate size of the space we live in. Even better, we bought this tree together while we were still dating in college, and so it has a lot of sentimental value to us. But I know many of you celebrate different holidays, or no holidays at all. But no matter the details of what you do or don't celebrate, I wish you the best! Thanks again everyone, see you next week!

Its too cold for this outfit.

• Cami: Cato (previously)
• Cardigan: Old Navy (previously)
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Shoes: Gabriella Rocha via Zappos (buy)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart

A while back, I saw Ashley of Ashley Getting Dressed post a really cute outfit. It didn't take me long to realize that one of my favorite skirts was really similar to hers, and that I could recreate a very similar outfit for myself. As an added bonus, I realized it would make a great outfit for the blog debut of these camel colored T-strap pumps. And those white blurs in the last two pictures are not a camera malfunction, they're snow! I hope everyone had a great weekend, and of course today's pictures were taken by my beautiful wife.

Hair and makeup.

• Top: Maurices
• City Shorts: Maurices
• Boots: Payless (previously)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart
• Necklace: Maurices (previously)
• Bracelet: Torrid (previously)

I felt really great in this outfit, but there are some things I'm not sure about. This button down is a little on the bulky side bordering on too big, but it can be cinched with the ribbon in the middle. I have seriously thought about removing that ribbon because I'm just not sure about it (As you can see, my bow tying skills are also a bit off as well...). If removed the ribbon would also be a pain to thread back through the fabric "loop" that contains it. I always enjoy everyone's feedback on my outfits, so definitely tell me what you think about this one!

In the previous post, Pamela from the awesome blog Call Me Ishmael asked a question: how long does it take wifey to do your hair and make up every time you take pictures and post? The answer is that it really depends. I normally wear my hair in a ponytail, and if I'm changing in the afternoon or evening and just going to wear one outfit and stay in, I'll just brush out my hair, but I do play around sometimes and try to fix my hair myself. I really want to be able to do these things for myself. (I also definitely intend to corner my stylist next time I get my hair cut and beg for lessons!) Likewise with the makeup. I want to learn how to do it myself. But most of the time for pictures I just brush out my hair and don't wear makeup (including the pictures in this post).

If we're going to go out though, I usually ask my wife to do my hair and makeup since she does a much better job than I do. I hope to get to the point where I feel comfortable doing it myself when I go out, but on the other hand, my wife does enjoy playing with makeup, so its not too much of a struggle to get her to help out there.

For makeup it normally takes about 15 minutes total. I start by shaving, and that takes maybe 5 minutes and then I take a break to let my face air dry. I should add that recently I have also experimented with using an epilator on my beard as well, but I still have to shave to get the hairs it misses. Fortunately, this experiment with hair removal went better than my last big adventure, I won't say its the most pleasant thing I've done though, but strangely enough it seems to irritate my face less than shaving (especially past the initial usage). I think I must have fairly sensitive skin. Anyway, with that done, we apply concealer for red spots/beard coverage, then use a loose powder foundation, blush, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, and lip gloss. I could probably get away with less work on facial hair removal if I would use a heavier coverage foundation, but I don't really like any of the ones we've tried, and its been really difficult to match my skin tone on the heavier coverage too.

Hair takes a lot longer. Usually about an hour I think. I have fine, thick, straight hair, so it tends to take some work to get it to hold a curl. The last time my wife curled it in layers and used a spray gel before curling, and then hairsprayed it all when she was done. Its been tricky for my wife to figure out how to style my hair since her hair has a lot more natural curl.

And while this is not exactly what was asked, I do think I should add that the real time sink in getting ready is hair removal. Shaving my legs, chest, face, and armpits, plus using the epilator and tweezing just takes a while. I probably spend 4-6 hours a week on hair removal. So to go out for the evening like this post, I probably spend about 2 hours before getting ready, with my wife helping for about half of that time.

And of course my beautiful wife took the pictures for this post.

Timing is everything.

• Sweater: Maurices
• Cami: Maurices
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Boots: Indigo by Clarks via Amazon
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart
• Coat: Kohl's
• Scarf: Kohl's (came with the coat)

This is one of my favorite outfits. Its one of the first outfits we bought at Maurices after I got "okay" with my interest in fashion. I saw it on one of the store displays and bought it "as is" off the mannequin. The boots weren't with it, of course, I bought those later. They are actually one of my favorite pairs of boots too. I really like their dark brown color, and while they aren't leather, I found them on Amazon and watched them until they went on clearance for $25 (they were originally around $125). I really love how they look and they are extremely comfortable to boot! I have been waiting for the "right" occasion to wear this outfit since I started the blog. Unfortunately, I have had several opportunities lately to go out dressed and socialize, but various things interrupted those opportunities at the last minute. So this past weekend, we finally got dressed up to go out, even though we had no real plan.

Now, while we had no plan for the day, it still worked out that almost nothing went according to our un-plan. How that works, I'm not sure, but that's what happened. We started off by getting a late start. We had tried contacting a friend or two, but it was a holiday weekend, so everyone was either busy or didn't get the message until too late. And why I thought one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year would be a great time to discreetly sneak out... I'm still not really sure what I was thinking actually. The evolving un-plan for the day ended up being: take some outdoor pictures and go to an uncrowded restaurant with a couple of friends and eat a quiet meal while dressed up. Or something like that.

In addition to all the shopping traffic, on the way to the nearby larger city we discovered a sporting event was letting out. We discovered this because interstate traffic slowed to less than ten miles an hour for... most of the evening actually. In addition, due to our late start, we were rapidly running out of daylight (made worse by the traffic delays). At least the outdoor shots that turned out much better than I feared they would.

The shopping traffic plus the event traffic also meant every restaurant was packed, even the typically quiet restaurants we had picked out had lines. Ultimately I decided to put on the change of clothes I brought and wash off my makeup and so we wouldn't have to worry about the crowds.

On the whole, I'm not that disappointed. I think I would have gone in to a restaurant if pretty much any of the stuff that went awry had gone a little different, and the pictures did turn out nicely.

And of course, somehow, I had this idea I would get caught up over the holiday weekend here, and it turns out, I'm more behind than ever. I have not given up yet, and we'll see what this week brings. I hope this week brings me time take some outfit pictures, do some more posts, and read everyone's awesome blogs I have been missing. And of course I must add that my patient and wonderful wife took today's pictures (and she did my hair and makeup too).

More dark neutrals.

• Sweater Dress: Torrid
• Pumps: Payless
• Pantyhose: Just My Size from Walmart

This dress was a prize from last year's end of season sales, and I got it for under $10. At first, my wife wasn't so sure it would be such a great purchase, but its turned out to be one of my favorites, and its really comfortable too. The only thing that would make it better is if the "top" and "dress" were separates, but for under $10, its pretty great I think. I know I'm continuing with the theme of dark neutrals lately, but it just seems to be what I end up pulling out of the closet. I also realize that I have way too many pairs of black heels, but every time I try to decide which pair to part with, I end remembering why I bought them all (besides the fact that they fit... which is actually pretty high on my list of reasons to justify shoe purchases....). On the other hand, some of them don't fit quite as well as they ought, which is helping me decide on some pairs to get rid of, and I'm trying to always remember to remind myself how many pairs of black heels I own when I'm shoe shopping.

I'm slowly getting caught up on blogs, even though things have still been pretty busy in our household. I'm hoping that thing will slow down after Thanksgiving, but we'll see. Unfortunately, we didn't get to take pictures until after sundown, so the lighting wasn't the best, but I think the pictures turned out mostly okay. And of course, as always, today's pictures were taken by my awesome wife.

BBCA 2: Highlights on Black.

• Sweater: Target
• Yellow Cami: Maurices (previously)
• Skirt: Walmart
• Belt: Torrid (previously)
• Leggings: Maurices
• Boots: Payless

This outfit is part of Melissa's Blogging for Breast Cancer aWEARness challenge. It's also a little different from my norm, but it was a cool day and I was in a mood to be cozy, so my thoughts went to leggings and sweaters. I have also had mixed feelings about this skirt, which is today's pink, but its one of my few pieces with pink in it. I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask what everyone else thought about the skirt. Also, we tried some changes with how the pictures were taken today by following some advice from this post Six steps to take your fashion photos to the next level at Two Eyes in the Mirror.

I really enjoy writing posts to answer questions from the comments (or you can ask me in an email if you prefer), so feel free to ask away! And of course, today's pictures were taken by my fabulous wife!

It's not easy being green.

• Top: JC Penney
• Skirt: Walmart
• Belt: Torrid
• Green Wedges: Alice + Olivia for Payless
• Bag: Target
• Necklace: Maurices
• Bracelets: Torrid

I got these green wedges a while back, and absolutely love their color and quirkiness, but I've had a horrible time trying to figure out the rest of the outfit to go with them. Until today :). I've decided the problem was that I was never bold enough or funky enough with the rest of the outfit. I usually feel like I have a horrible time making tops work with skirts, even though I love wearing skirts and I rarely tuck in my tops, but I think that worked out too. I'm really happy with this outfit though, and I hope you enjoy it too. I hope everyone enjoys their labor day weekend. I know I'll be away from the blogging enjoying myself. And thanks to my beautiful wife for taking the pictures.