Friday, January 16, 2015
That Was Weird...
When I posted my "Loving Cashmere Part 1" post, it put it under yesterday's post, and it took me a moment to realize that for some reason Blogger thought today was the 15th, not the 16th. I think I've managed to fix that now but what the hell, Blogger?
Loving Cashmere, Part 1
Great news! The paper based on my first year research project at My Masters University has been officially accepted by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (JESP is an "A" journal in my field.) My advisor has been working to get this published for a couple years now, so I was happy to give him first authorship (which most advisors in his position would have taken for himself from day one) as a reflection of how much effort he's put into pushing this paper through the review process.
And now back to our regularly scheduled post.
Red and Blue Again -- Wednesday, 1/7/15
I really don't know what year it is. I typed "18" above and it took a second to realize why that was wrong was not because it's 2016.
This week was a bit crazy because our assistant director was suddenly like, Oh yeah, because of This Big Event I Wasn't Aware Of on Saturday, we really should have These Two Reports I Thought I Might Eventually Do But That Were On Indefinite Hold posted on our website by Friday. I started scrambling around a bit frantically but after a while, I realized with amazement that the Excel fu I used in generating the previous iterations of these reports meant that I could just cut and paste in the new SPSS output and everything BOOM updated correctly in Excel, just like it was supposed to (but that so often doesn't work out without all kinds of annoying fiddling). So I turned those reports around like a boss.
But on Wednesday morning, I was still feeling a bit anxious about this whole thing.
However, I wasn't feeling cold because I was wearing one of the new cashmere pullovers I bought at Macy's Christmas sale for $40...even though it was so cold that several school districts in the area, including Snow City but not Coldville, canceled school. It was expected to be about -35 F wind chill in the morning -- Coldville's policy is to cancel when it is -40 F wind chill and Snow City's policy is to cancel when it's -35 F wind chill. (As it turned out, it wasn't quite that cold.)
The media (including social media) was full of discussion about the fact that Coldville didn't cancel school, and I think maybe my favorite visual was a newspaper photo of two girls coming out of a high school at the end of the day, one wearing her hoodie under her jacket up, neither wearing a hat, gloves, or real coats, both looking completely miserable. WTF PEOPLE??? This is the kind of idiocy I expect of people who don't know from cold. Meanwhile, I'm wearing a heavy, ankle-length wool coat, short snow boots, and a fleece hat, gloves, and scarf every day just to walk less than 5 minutes from my car to the building. If I were walking or waiting for the bus, I'd have my giant green puffer coat or my giant purple "stadium" coat (even if it did make me look like Grimace) on with my serious mittens and hat with the ear flaps. But I'm an old person. What do I know?
I know how to stay warm in the winter in the frozen north, that's what.
*Red cashmere pullover sweater (Macy's)
Navy Dockers
Navy ponte blazer (Target)
Red/blue fish scarf (Target)
Navy ankle boots by Seychelles
And now back to our regularly scheduled post.
Red and Blue Again -- Wednesday, 1/7/15
I really don't know what year it is. I typed "18" above and it took a second to realize why that was wrong was not because it's 2016.
This week was a bit crazy because our assistant director was suddenly like, Oh yeah, because of This Big Event I Wasn't Aware Of on Saturday, we really should have These Two Reports I Thought I Might Eventually Do But That Were On Indefinite Hold posted on our website by Friday. I started scrambling around a bit frantically but after a while, I realized with amazement that the Excel fu I used in generating the previous iterations of these reports meant that I could just cut and paste in the new SPSS output and everything BOOM updated correctly in Excel, just like it was supposed to (but that so often doesn't work out without all kinds of annoying fiddling). So I turned those reports around like a boss.
But on Wednesday morning, I was still feeling a bit anxious about this whole thing.
However, I wasn't feeling cold because I was wearing one of the new cashmere pullovers I bought at Macy's Christmas sale for $40...even though it was so cold that several school districts in the area, including Snow City but not Coldville, canceled school. It was expected to be about -35 F wind chill in the morning -- Coldville's policy is to cancel when it is -40 F wind chill and Snow City's policy is to cancel when it's -35 F wind chill. (As it turned out, it wasn't quite that cold.)
The media (including social media) was full of discussion about the fact that Coldville didn't cancel school, and I think maybe my favorite visual was a newspaper photo of two girls coming out of a high school at the end of the day, one wearing her hoodie under her jacket up, neither wearing a hat, gloves, or real coats, both looking completely miserable. WTF PEOPLE??? This is the kind of idiocy I expect of people who don't know from cold. Meanwhile, I'm wearing a heavy, ankle-length wool coat, short snow boots, and a fleece hat, gloves, and scarf every day just to walk less than 5 minutes from my car to the building. If I were walking or waiting for the bus, I'd have my giant green puffer coat or my giant purple "stadium" coat (even if it did make me look like Grimace) on with my serious mittens and hat with the ear flaps. But I'm an old person. What do I know?
I know how to stay warm in the winter in the frozen north, that's what.
*Red cashmere pullover sweater (Macy's)
Navy Dockers
Navy ponte blazer (Target)
Red/blue fish scarf (Target)
Navy ankle boots by Seychelles
Thursday, January 15, 2015
In Which Sweaters Are Appreciated
Yep I'm tired today (1/15) -- First I published the post with the number in the title, then realized that was the wrong post anyway, so I published the right post....with the number in the title. Bah!
Purple All Over -- Tuesday, 1/6/15
OK, maybe not all over but I'm wearing a purple pullover sweater and purple shoes and a purple necklace and I do not bear a striking resemblance to Grimace while doing it, so I declare victory and move on.
Purple/pink striped button up shirt (thrifted, Bass)
*Purple pullover sweater (Kohls)
Grey trousers (Kohls)
Purple "gumdrop" necklace (Target)
Purple suede pumps (thrifted)
What's weird is that I feel like "What's blah blah and purple all over?" is some kind of standard joke, but I can't remember the rest of it, and google isn't helping me here. So my mind goes to Grimace.
Did you know Grimace has a great-great grandma named Jenny Grimace? Now you do! And here you worried that my leaving grad school would lower the intellectual tone of this blog. Silly you.
This week is pretty much the Week of New Pullover Sweaters, in which I feel totally smug about feeling warm enough in my clothes at work to almost never use my ass-heating-pad. The heated seat in my car after work, though? That puppy is ON. There is something about getting into the car after work (especially on days when you first have to brush a few inches of snow off it with a giant brush that looks like something out of Star Wars)...and having it immediately beep to draw your attention to the fact that the car is 1 F...and realizing you have at least a 45-60 minute commute home ahead of you...to be glad your car has heated seats. And to be glad you're moving closer to work soon. And to be glad that winter will, eventually, end so that you can transition to bitching about the heat.
Purple All Over -- Tuesday, 1/6/15
OK, maybe not all over but I'm wearing a purple pullover sweater and purple shoes and a purple necklace and I do not bear a striking resemblance to Grimace while doing it, so I declare victory and move on.
Purple/pink striped button up shirt (thrifted, Bass)
*Purple pullover sweater (Kohls)
Grey trousers (Kohls)
Purple "gumdrop" necklace (Target)
Purple suede pumps (thrifted)
What's weird is that I feel like "What's blah blah and purple all over?" is some kind of standard joke, but I can't remember the rest of it, and google isn't helping me here. So my mind goes to Grimace.
Did you know Grimace has a great-great grandma named Jenny Grimace? Now you do! And here you worried that my leaving grad school would lower the intellectual tone of this blog. Silly you.
This week is pretty much the Week of New Pullover Sweaters, in which I feel totally smug about feeling warm enough in my clothes at work to almost never use my ass-heating-pad. The heated seat in my car after work, though? That puppy is ON. There is something about getting into the car after work (especially on days when you first have to brush a few inches of snow off it with a giant brush that looks like something out of Star Wars)...and having it immediately beep to draw your attention to the fact that the car is 1 F...and realizing you have at least a 45-60 minute commute home ahead of you...to be glad your car has heated seats. And to be glad you're moving closer to work soon. And to be glad that winter will, eventually, end so that you can transition to bitching about the heat.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
A Layer of Snow on the Northern Forest
On my return from the Christmas vacation, I kind of forgot about my style challenges, but keeping warm when the wind chill is -30 F or below outside and your workplace is seriously under-heated is a challenge in itself.
I will probably not be returning to style challenges until after our move in a couple weeks. Until then, "wearing appropriate clothes to work" will be a victory.
But serendipitously, it appears that I finished the 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge before my vacation. So, yay for that! I have a couple ideas of which one I will do next, but until then, I'm just wearing clothes in combinations that I hope are reasonable.
New, New, New -- Monday, 1/5/14
My mom has talked recently about how she doesn't tend to like wearing a cardigan in a lighter shade than her shirt (though she did this once while I was visiting her, an exception that tested the rule -- in this particular instance, we agreed it looked good). So of course I immediately noticed (cue frequency illusion/Baader Meinhoff phenomenon) someone else writing about finding this look unflattering on herself. I haven't really thought about this before -- how I like this combination on myself or on anyone else -- but this outfit that I had planned before my Christmas vacation (and before the arrival of the bitter cold to Snow City) gives me an opportunity to consider it.
Verdict: I think I liked this outfit better when I tried it on than when I wore it all day. The very light cardigan against the very dark shirt did feel a little iffy (perhaps only because that idea was on my mind), but mostly it was a matter of how the t-shirt and cardigan played together. They seemed to be fighting each other a fair bit. It might be unfair to the cardigan to make this attribution, but it seems that the cardigan caused the neckline of the shirt to ride up a bit oddly in the front during the day so I found myself pulling the shirt down at the front hem (a la Jean-Luc Picard) when I stood up from my desk. I think I will wait to try this cardigan again with a different type of top -- perhaps it will be happier with a short sleeve shirt? I might try this shirt with my other cream cardigan (the lace front one from Nordstrom) and see if I like that better. Or maybe I'll just learn to rock the sartorial Picard Maneuver when I wear this combination.
In any case, I was happy that the three major items of this ensemble were pieces that I was wearing for the first time!
*Forest green floral knit top (Kohls)
*Cream cardigan (thrifted, JNY)
*Brown trousers (thrifted, JCP)
Light brown ankle boots by East Spirit
Gold shelled pea necklace (Target)
And I can retroactively make it fit the theme of "Fuck Me, It's COLD Outside" -- hence this post title.
I will probably not be returning to style challenges until after our move in a couple weeks. Until then, "wearing appropriate clothes to work" will be a victory.
But serendipitously, it appears that I finished the 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge before my vacation. So, yay for that! I have a couple ideas of which one I will do next, but until then, I'm just wearing clothes in combinations that I hope are reasonable.
New, New, New -- Monday, 1/5/14
My mom has talked recently about how she doesn't tend to like wearing a cardigan in a lighter shade than her shirt (though she did this once while I was visiting her, an exception that tested the rule -- in this particular instance, we agreed it looked good). So of course I immediately noticed (cue frequency illusion/Baader Meinhoff phenomenon) someone else writing about finding this look unflattering on herself. I haven't really thought about this before -- how I like this combination on myself or on anyone else -- but this outfit that I had planned before my Christmas vacation (and before the arrival of the bitter cold to Snow City) gives me an opportunity to consider it.
Verdict: I think I liked this outfit better when I tried it on than when I wore it all day. The very light cardigan against the very dark shirt did feel a little iffy (perhaps only because that idea was on my mind), but mostly it was a matter of how the t-shirt and cardigan played together. They seemed to be fighting each other a fair bit. It might be unfair to the cardigan to make this attribution, but it seems that the cardigan caused the neckline of the shirt to ride up a bit oddly in the front during the day so I found myself pulling the shirt down at the front hem (a la Jean-Luc Picard) when I stood up from my desk. I think I will wait to try this cardigan again with a different type of top -- perhaps it will be happier with a short sleeve shirt? I might try this shirt with my other cream cardigan (the lace front one from Nordstrom) and see if I like that better. Or maybe I'll just learn to rock the sartorial Picard Maneuver when I wear this combination.
In any case, I was happy that the three major items of this ensemble were pieces that I was wearing for the first time!
*Forest green floral knit top (Kohls)
*Cream cardigan (thrifted, JNY)
*Brown trousers (thrifted, JCP)
Light brown ankle boots by East Spirit
Gold shelled pea necklace (Target)
And I can retroactively make it fit the theme of "Fuck Me, It's COLD Outside" -- hence this post title.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
What To Wear Packing Up Your House
This shirt has been in heavy rotation (along with the French lapin in a beret shirt) as my go-to weekend top...my weekends full of packing, packing, eating, packing, and more packing.
And yes, it's written in looking grass script because Year of Alice, people. (Cuddle bunny)
This past Sunday (1/11) I wore it with jeans and my new bunny slippers I bought for my birthday (have I posted these yet? oh well, here they are again in all their rabbit glory).
I needed all the bunny-ness I could get on this exhausting day of packing.
I think I leveled several times in Taping Boxes (even though I started from a high level due to all the boxes I put together for the state park surveys back in the day). I think I'm about 100 boxes away from the highly desired perk of Never-Ending Packing Tape Roll, which functions like the Expert Armorer perk in Oblivion --- one tape roll lasts forever. However desirable that would be, I am glad that I won't be reaching that threshold on this move. Robert's taping skill is still at the novice level, but he can assemble wardrobe boxes and schlunk them around pretty well now.
And yes, it's written in looking grass script because Year of Alice, people. (Cuddle bunny)
This past Sunday (1/11) I wore it with jeans and my new bunny slippers I bought for my birthday (have I posted these yet? oh well, here they are again in all their rabbit glory).
I needed all the bunny-ness I could get on this exhausting day of packing.
I think I leveled several times in Taping Boxes (even though I started from a high level due to all the boxes I put together for the state park surveys back in the day). I think I'm about 100 boxes away from the highly desired perk of Never-Ending Packing Tape Roll, which functions like the Expert Armorer perk in Oblivion --- one tape roll lasts forever. However desirable that would be, I am glad that I won't be reaching that threshold on this move. Robert's taping skill is still at the novice level, but he can assemble wardrobe boxes and schlunk them around pretty well now.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Christmas Break
It was kind of nice to take a break from outfit photos over the holidays while I was on vacation. This time I packed a very simple color scheme (black, white, red, and one green shirt plus my forest green jacket), which made pretty much everything go together.
But I did take one photo of this necklace my mom gave me as part of my birthday gift. It's a necklace she bought for herself a really long time ago but didn't wear. I had it in heavy rotation during my vacation because it is simple and understated yet not too delicate -- and thus it is very flexible. (I mean, it's a chain -- that's always flexible, right?)
Instead of taking outfit photos, I kept busy petting the cat, spoiling the cat with Robert's leftover beef brisket, cursing the cat for howling loudly in the middle of the night and early in the morning, watching the cat watch the birds at the bird feeders, and shooing the cat off my suitcases.
Oh, and there were people there, too. My mom and I finished three computer games while I was there (adventure/hidden object games from Big Fish), which I think is a Christmas week record. My dad told this extended joke about a genetically engineered snail that took my mom and me in at first because it started with "I saw this article on Bilt.de..." (a German-language tabloid website that apparently has all kinds of crazy stories, a couple of which he had already told us about) -- it was a real triumph. Robert played a hell of a lot of Tetris on his tablet. We had several Skip-Bo evenings and I think the overall record was almost perfectly split between the teams of Mom and Dad vs. Robert and me. And of course, no Christmas visit to my parents would be complete without seeing a festive holiday movie, in this case the last Hobbit movie. Next year's movie: the new Star Wars, of course.
My mom, Robert, and I went birding at the lake and saw a bunch of ducks, including several canvasbacks, which were a life bird for my mom. We later saw a kestrel in the backyard, which I believe was another life bird for her. I enjoyed the (relatively) warm weather and seeing birds, even if I cannot expect to get any life birds out of it at this point.
Perhaps the single weirdest moment of the vacation occurred in the park between the high school and my parents house, where Robert and I were finishing up a walk around town with my uncle and his dog, Ginger. Ginger is an extremely fast dog, so even though I kept thinking we were leaving her behind, she'd suddenly appear out of nowhere and take the lead. One time this happened, I saw she had a stick or branch in her mouth as she ran past me. Then I realized, WTF that branch has a hoof?! It turned out she'd found a deer leg and, being a dog, decided to pick it up and run around with it.
But I did take one photo of this necklace my mom gave me as part of my birthday gift. It's a necklace she bought for herself a really long time ago but didn't wear. I had it in heavy rotation during my vacation because it is simple and understated yet not too delicate -- and thus it is very flexible. (I mean, it's a chain -- that's always flexible, right?)
Instead of taking outfit photos, I kept busy petting the cat, spoiling the cat with Robert's leftover beef brisket, cursing the cat for howling loudly in the middle of the night and early in the morning, watching the cat watch the birds at the bird feeders, and shooing the cat off my suitcases.
Oh, and there were people there, too. My mom and I finished three computer games while I was there (adventure/hidden object games from Big Fish), which I think is a Christmas week record. My dad told this extended joke about a genetically engineered snail that took my mom and me in at first because it started with "I saw this article on Bilt.de..." (a German-language tabloid website that apparently has all kinds of crazy stories, a couple of which he had already told us about) -- it was a real triumph. Robert played a hell of a lot of Tetris on his tablet. We had several Skip-Bo evenings and I think the overall record was almost perfectly split between the teams of Mom and Dad vs. Robert and me. And of course, no Christmas visit to my parents would be complete without seeing a festive holiday movie, in this case the last Hobbit movie. Next year's movie: the new Star Wars, of course.
My mom, Robert, and I went birding at the lake and saw a bunch of ducks, including several canvasbacks, which were a life bird for my mom. We later saw a kestrel in the backyard, which I believe was another life bird for her. I enjoyed the (relatively) warm weather and seeing birds, even if I cannot expect to get any life birds out of it at this point.
Perhaps the single weirdest moment of the vacation occurred in the park between the high school and my parents house, where Robert and I were finishing up a walk around town with my uncle and his dog, Ginger. Ginger is an extremely fast dog, so even though I kept thinking we were leaving her behind, she'd suddenly appear out of nowhere and take the lead. One time this happened, I saw she had a stick or branch in her mouth as she ran past me. Then I realized, WTF that branch has a hoof?! It turned out she'd found a deer leg and, being a dog, decided to pick it up and run around with it.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Alice in Wonderland's 150th Anniversary
Getting a Jump on Celebrating the Wonders of Wonderland -- Friday, 12/19/14
I read in The Economist recently that there's a bunch of stuff in the works to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incomparable Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So clearly my personal style challenge for this Friday was wearing my Alice in Wonderland scarf to work. OK, actually, I'd already chosen this style challenge before reading about the anniversary, but cause and effect don't have to work in that traditional straightforward linear fashion, do they? Not in Wonderland!
Like the Alice stories, my stripes-and-polka dots combination might seem initially absurd or nonsensical, but ultimately brilliant to a discerning audience.
Debbie once asked whether wearing long scarves that dangle down get in the way/etc. and I said, Nope, totally fine! But then I tried wearing this scarf, made from a moderately thick t-shirt fabric, in this style (to quote the Hatter's hat tag) and it was too cumbersome. So I ended up folding it in half and tucking the ends into the loop to shorten it significantly once I got to work. But this photo gives you the best looking-glass mirror image of the iconic Cheshire Cat scene with the words "We're all mad here." Just right for a Friday at work.
*Black/grey stripe cardigan (Kohls)
*Grey/black polka dot knit pencil skirt (Kohls)
Black long-sleeved T (Walmart) -- see, told you I was going to start wearing these to work regularly and I am
Alice in Wonderland scarf (NerdAlertCreations on Etsy)
Grey leggings (Kohls)
Grey tall boots by Fitzwell
BONUS! BONUS! On the same day I wore this outfit, the Already Pretty blog linked to this delightful recitation of Jabberwocky by Neil Gaiman. He even finds a tulgey wood to stage his performance. LOVE.
I am excited by the prospect of an explosion of All Things Alice in 2015.
I read in The Economist recently that there's a bunch of stuff in the works to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incomparable Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So clearly my personal style challenge for this Friday was wearing my Alice in Wonderland scarf to work. OK, actually, I'd already chosen this style challenge before reading about the anniversary, but cause and effect don't have to work in that traditional straightforward linear fashion, do they? Not in Wonderland!
Like the Alice stories, my stripes-and-polka dots combination might seem initially absurd or nonsensical, but ultimately brilliant to a discerning audience.
Debbie once asked whether wearing long scarves that dangle down get in the way/etc. and I said, Nope, totally fine! But then I tried wearing this scarf, made from a moderately thick t-shirt fabric, in this style (to quote the Hatter's hat tag) and it was too cumbersome. So I ended up folding it in half and tucking the ends into the loop to shorten it significantly once I got to work. But this photo gives you the best looking-glass mirror image of the iconic Cheshire Cat scene with the words "We're all mad here." Just right for a Friday at work.
*Black/grey stripe cardigan (Kohls)
*Grey/black polka dot knit pencil skirt (Kohls)
Black long-sleeved T (Walmart) -- see, told you I was going to start wearing these to work regularly and I am
Alice in Wonderland scarf (NerdAlertCreations on Etsy)
Grey leggings (Kohls)
Grey tall boots by Fitzwell
BONUS! BONUS! On the same day I wore this outfit, the Already Pretty blog linked to this delightful recitation of Jabberwocky by Neil Gaiman. He even finds a tulgey wood to stage his performance. LOVE.
I am excited by the prospect of an explosion of All Things Alice in 2015.
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