In-between Inconsistent Implementation

MMMSC Day 28: Print Mix--Thursday, 4/9/15

When I saw this leopard shirt + polka dot cardigan photo, I was initially like, Too bad I don't have a polka dot cardigan, waaah.  But necessity is the mother of absolute fucking genius.

From afashionfixation.blogspot.com

I'm sorry that this crappy mirror-selfie-taken-after-dark doesn't fully capture the awesomeness of what just might be my favorite outfit since I started these outfit challenges...an outfit consisting of neutrals (not even a pop of color) and without either a scarf or necklace!  Whoa.  One thing I like about it is how the shapes of the pieces work together.  A loose blouse, a form-fitting pencil skirt, a cardigan that is just the right length for the blouse and has an interesting curved hem.  I just loved it.

Grey leopard blouse (JNY)
Grey/black striped cardigan (Kohls)
*Black/white microcheck pencil skirt (JCP)--I found this in my closet, having bought it in the fall and forgot about it
Grey sweater tights (Target)
Grey ankle boots by Seychelles--suede with a snakeskin print

But even without color or accessories, this outfit still has a lot going on with both patterns and textures.  And even though "print mix" is a standard Sally practice, I'm not sure I would have gotten here without the leopard shirt inspiration photo.  So despite the fact that my outfit bears basically zero resemblance to the original pin, I consider my spin on her outfit a total success (and I'm thankful I stumbled across a photo that got my brain thinking in this direction).

Verdict:  I am looking forward to another version of this outfit using my red leopard blouse (cousin to this one), my red and black striped cardigan (brother to this one), and black ankle boots with black tights.

Although woven cotton button up shirts have their place, I keep coming back to how nice a softer, drapey blouse can be.  I don't think a normal stiff button up shirt would have gone easily underneath this lightweight cardigan, but the blouse presented no difficulties whatsoever.  Agreeable blouses are pretty much awesome--I should keep my eyes open for them.  I think I have gravitated toward them less than to button up shirts and knits because I still think like a southerner--to wit:  Blouses made out of actual silk are both expensive and a pain (or expensive or both) to wash, and blouses made out of polyester blends etc. are too sweat-inducing most of the year.  But up here, I'm finding that the man-made fabrics are workable almost year-round.  And I think the technological innovation behind these man-made fabrics just keeps improving, making these blouses softer, more luxe, more comfortable, and overall a better alternative to silk all the time.

Luckily I wore my trusty rain boots to work because it was raining pretty hard when I got to work...and snowing in that "snow that falls on the ground and turns to something in-between water and slush" way when I left work.  Winter's last gasp?  This is a really weird in-between kind of season this week.  Next week's supposed to be warmer again.

In other news....This has been an interesting couple of days at work, where I've been tasked with a somewhat incoherent yet urgent analysis project involving tracking customers as they move from one program to the next in terms of various "pathways" that exist in our system.  Understanding what these pathways actually are would have been a nightmare if I hadn't looked into this issue for a while several months ago.  Getting the data was tricky but I surprised myself by using our new data visualization tool to link to our primary database to get my hands on data I've never had access to before.  Then it was a matter of working out a bunch of logic to categorize people into different initial pathways, account for all the different possibilities of movement and categorize those, etc. 

But even once all that was done, and I'd generated a nice spreadsheet with percents of customers by various groups staying in these different pathways, there's a need to basically put a gigantic asterisk next to several things--all of us in my department still do not understand why customers are assigned certain codes and from what we can tell, the people who do this assignment are inconsistent in their implementation of whatever protocols may or, more likely, do not actually exist.  My officemate describes the two people who do this as "not linear thinkers"--by which I think she means "does whatever makes sense to them at the time, completely in isolation of other decisions and without consideration of how these decisions affect anyone else."

A to Z Challenge Day 9: I is for In-between and Inconsistent Implementation