Rainy Monday

"The Giant Alice Schoolgirl"--Monday, 4/25/16

For today's inspiration, I'm bringing another StyleUp photo out from the dark recesses of my computer.  A navy sweater is paired with a brown skirt.  Let's get to work.  (Not private school, or should I say "public school" in good British style, like this model, who has torn the school crest patch--with the Latin phrase "Numquam obliviscar" and an elephant rampant--off the front of her jumper and turned the waistband of her skirt over several times to make it daringly shorter....ah, to be in 8th grade in some imagined England of the 1960s).

From styleup.com

Anyway, back to today.  This schoolgirl outfit can be the basis for using two relatively recent thrift store acquisitions--a lightweight brown pleated skirt purchased in November (as a "warm weather" companion to my corduroy skirt) and a navy argyle cardigan from the 88 cent sale in December.

*Brown pleated skirt (thrifted, Casual Corner), $5.99/wear+
*Navy/light blue argyle cardigan (thrifted, Kmart), $0.88/wear+
White long-sleeved T (Walmart), $0.38/wear
Navy tights
Navy striped flats (Payless), $2.83/wear
Aqua/silver teardrop necklace (JNY), $1.85/wear

Outfit total: $11.93/wear

I would not normally wear tights with striped shoes but I was optimistic when I put this outfit together that it would still be firmly cool for a few weeks yet.  As it turned out, we've been in that limbo between true tights weather and bare leg weather for the last couple weeks.  It's been cool enough that I need tights until about 2:00 in the afternoon, at which point I start to feel warm.  Today, however, the rain kept me happy to be in tights all afternoon long. 

I haven't lived anywhere before where--not counting winter--the difference in how warm you get indoors when it's rainy vs. when it's sunny is so substantial.  Sunshine is like a guarantee that the apartment/office will be too warm.  Are all buildings constructed here to suck all warmth out of the outdoor air and transfer it immediately indoors or what?

Regardless, I am irrationally pleased to see how the cognac piping on the edge of the ballet flats matches the brown in the skirt. 

Also, this close up of my legs and feet, in comparison to the smaller photo above, makes me feel like Alice after eating the EAT ME cake.

From disney.wikia.com

In other news...How was the weekend so short?  Oh yeah, I spent a lot of it playing Fallout.  As my mom predicted, Robert finished the game before I did--though to be fair, I collected all the bobbleheads and he did not, so I am finishing more of the game, if that makes sense. 

When I completed the final quest of the main quest line on Saturday, it was so short and easy that I decided to play the DLC that extends the game (Broken Steel) on the Very Hard setting (i.e., the very hardest setting in the game).  That wasn't too bad at first (because the missions were relatively short so I could go back home and resupply) but when I reached the final quest of Broken Steel yesterday...oh man.  That is a LONG SLOG. 

I had to travel through 4-5 metro lines while being attacked by things like groups of 6 feral ghouls, 3 of them the dreaded ghoul reavers, or groups of sentry bots (oh yeah, I'd forgotten that those sumbitches can be tough to kill) until finally reaching this air force base that is gigantic and crawling with enemies (and with turrets atop every corner of every building, it seems).  I have tons of ammo and tons of stimpaks (for healing) but my weapons are really degraded--I brought spare parts, but not enough given how many/tough the enemies are.  I did pick up a special weapon ("tesla cannon") which is good but only holds one piece of ammo at a time so there is a lot of reloading.  So far I am finding it mostly an inferior substitute for my degraded Vengeance gatling laser (it runs on the same ammo type as the tesla cannon).

At one point I was taking a ton of damage and I realized that I hadn't checked my armor in a while--it was almost in shreds.  Luckily I was able to scavenge a couple sets of armor off some dead enemies and cobble them together into a pretty nice set of gear. 

Anyway, after a few hours of that on Sunday, I was like, OK, I am ready for this game to be over RIGHT NOW.  I took that as a sign that it was time to take a break.  I am planning to return to the game next weekend to finish Broken Steel--and I'm planning on continuing on the Very Hard setting for maximum bragging rights to Robert when I'm done for the greater challenge.  I mean, if you are ridding your world of a horrifyingly powerful and evil enemy army, it should feel hard, you know?  But who knows...if it continues to feel like an un-fun slog, I reserve the right to reduce the setting to Hard.  (I still think that the default setting is likely to be too easy.)

How was your weekend?