I'm always on the prowl for style inspiration for my coral tiger graphic T, so I decided to try it with olive and black as in this blogger's photo.
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| From exploringmystyle.blogspot.com |
As a bonus, I also wore my olive cardigan and olive leopard flats, both of which could use some love during Operation Cost Per Wear.
Olive cardigan (Kohls), $8.21/wear
Black knit hiking skirt (Patagonia/REI), $3.33/wear
Coral tiger graphic T (Kohls), $2.58/wear
Olive leopard flats (Nordstrom Rack), $5.00/wear
Outfit total: $19.12/wear
In other news...Although the style blogger favorite Nordstrom Anniversary Sale (in which they discount hundreds of new fall items for the upcoming season) is happening this weekend, that's not the shopping I was referring to. Instead, yesterday morning Robert and I went to Goodwill, where I bought 1 blazer, 1 top, 3 cardigans, 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of shoes, and approximately 1 million scarves. Hand-washing and ironing all those scarves is going to be a big job.
We also made stops at Walmart and Target, in part because I am still looking for a light beige t-shirt (which is apparently impossible to find). One thing I discovered from that--while it's great shopping at the Goodwill in a prosperous suburb, and it's great shopping at Walmart and Target for groceries in a prosperous suburb, shopping at Walmart and Target for clothing in a prosperous suburb is a mistake. The women's clothing sections in both stores was maybe 1/3 the size that I'm used to and both stores sold only very casual clothing, lingerie, and exercise wear (not that this helped me find a beige t-shirt). I didn't see a single pair of pants, skirt, cardigan, blazer, dress, etc. at Walmart that you would wear to even a generously casual business casual workplace. Target had some pants you could wear to work, if you can get away with cotton ankle pants, but that was about it. Crazy, no? I guess even young people living in prosperous suburbs don't shop for work clothes at these kinds of stores.
Target had the cotton ankle pants in maybe four different colors. Amusingly, I had just tried on a pair of white-and-black ones (a print they didn't have in the store) at Goodwill, and I had seen a pair of identical white ankle pants in my size at Goodwill as well. Anyway, I immediately fell for the floral print of these pants. (Note: I didn't try them on but if they fit like the black-and-white ones, they would have fit perfectly. I only didn't get the black-and-white ones because in the end, I wasn't crazy about the pattern, and in every use case I imagined, I'd rather wear one of my black-and-white skirts instead.)
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| From target.com |
However, I am not going to get $28 worth of wear out of such a distinctive pair of pants. Had it been a skirt, I would have had to think about it harder because (1) I wear skirts a lot more often, (2) skirts can be worn year-round in Coldville but ankle pants cannot, and (3) my weight tends to fluctuate in ways that make pants not fit right but I can wear the same skirt across a broader range of weights. So instead I'm going to hope that someone else my size falls in love with this floral print, buys these pants, wears them 0-3 times, and quickly donates them to Goodwill.
As for what I did buy, these items will be coming soon to an outfit post near you. But for a teaser, I couldn't believe that I lucked into a blazer, new with tags, of exactly the kind that I have been wanting for the last couple of weeks as everybody in the style blog world is wearing one. That was nifty.
I racked up about 7,000 steps in the process, which is shocking but awesome. (Note that I didn't wear these support-free ballet flats for our shopping outing; I wore the sort of worn-out but still functional athletic mary janes I still have from walking 2 miles each way to the university.) This is funny because we had initially planned to get up and go hiking/birding but my allergies were acting up so badly that we had to scratch those plans. Walking around indoors, in air conditioning, was not a bad substitute at all.
It's sad that because of the whole kidney stone fiasco, I was out for the best 8 weeks of spring/early summer birding in Coldville. When we walked out of the Goodwill around 10:30, Robert commented on the heat and sun and how we'd be starting to feel miserable by now if we were out on the trail. Too true. If we're going to do any birding this summer (and I hope we are!), we're going to have to plan to be on the trail very early indeed to make it back before it gets too warm.
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