Monday, October 19, 2015

Stripes, Storage Solutions, and Software in Space

Satisfactorily Salvaged--Monday, 10/19/15

Looking for navy top + navy cardigan outfit inspiration, I saw two outfits with green skirts where I thought it would be easy for me to substitute my green pants.

#1: A long-sleeved navy top with strappy cognac sandals.

From theaveragegirlsguide.com

#2: A lacy navy top with leopard heels.

From modern1modesty.blogspot.com

But when I tried my navy top and navy cardigan with my green pants--ruh roh!  Both the top and the sweater were on the short side, so when I sat down in my low-rise pants, I didn't feel confident that I wouldn't be showing the top of my undies at work.  So I thought, well, maybe I have a navy pullover sweater that's long enough to go with these pants...I seem to remember having a wool sweater so maybe I can transform this into a winter outfit.

I looked on my Big Shelf o' Sweaters and saw this delightful striped cotton sweater!  Not only do the greens match perfectly, it has little gold buttons along the shoulder that match the gold necklace and gold flats that I'd picked out.  I tried it on, sat down, and boom, we have a winner.


Navy/green striped pullover sweater (Kohls)$7.50/wear+
Green pants (JCP), $2.93/wear
Gold chain necklace (Ann Taylor), $2.15/wear
Gold flats (Nordstrom), $2.94/wear

Outfit total: $15.52/wear

This is a nice summer-to-fall transition outfit (not that I am especially careful with that or anything, but it's a sweet little bonus to be seasonally appropriate).


I also feel that this is an outfit that is what Angie from youlookfab describes as "just flattering enough."  The pants have tapered legs and are a bit on the short side (more an ankle pant length), which is not a conventionally figure-flattering style for a woman large of the hip and thigh.  But the color of these pants makes me smile, I like having pants that are an alternative to the bright colored pencil skirts I wear so often, and it's a rare pair of pants I own that are reasonably current in their style.  Add a striped (matelot!) sweater and gold accessories that bookend my hair color and I am glad to rock the tapered pants (which, by some miracle, are actually large enough to satisfy the Thighs of the Colossus).

Related post:  Sally McGraw discusses "When flattery and design preference clash."

I cannot resist another shout out to my awesome sweater storage solution (to wit: leaving them in plain sight) and to Robert for installing it.  Also note the fabulous series of laundry bins that we use to pre-sort our laundry at the time we take the garments off...wait, the first one is missing--Robert must have been doing some laundry (warm water/dryer) when I took this photo.


In other news...A nice article in Wired about Margaret Hamilton, the mother of software engineering.  My favorite part starts like this:

There was no reason an astronaut would ever do this, but nonetheless, Hamilton wanted to add code to prevent the crash. That idea was overruled by NASA. “We had been told many times that astronauts would not make any mistakes,” she says. “They were trained to be perfect.”

You can tell where that story's going.

2 comments:

jen said...

Haha, wow. Sometimes I swear 90% of software engineering is handling the cases that *shouldn't* happen. Guess that was a new concept back then!

Sally said...

Jen, right?? It's mind-boggling to think of how naive people were about the ways that even highly trained people can fuck up in various situations.