April 2010- March 2011 reading list

My yearly reading goal is 50 books, and this year I read 50 exactly (down from 56 last year).

I definitely gave in to my secret love of mysteries this year... I'm a total sucker for an engaging plot and well-written detective/psychological mystery series. We read one of Louise Penny's mysteries for one of my bookclubs, and when I discovered that there were several more that include the same quaint small Quebec town and its inhabitants and the protagonist detective that I loved, I read them all. I also loved Tana French's previous books, so I got my hands on the newest (Faithful Place) as soon as I could and liked it even more.

Joining two bookclubs expanded my book choices a bit - some of my favorites for that were Half the Sky (excellent nonfiction discussing injustice against women around the world and an agenda for improving it), East of Eden (was dreading it a little as it's so thick, but I really enjoyed it; great book to discuss), and Half Broke Horses (true-life novel about a fiery, independent woman in the sort of wild west of Arizona at the turn of the century).

Some other favorite fiction: All Other Nights (about Jewish spies during the Civil War), Cutting for Stone (a mission hospital in Ethiopia and the story of the twins born to a British surgeon and Indian nun/nurse), The History of Love (so lovely; cannot describe in one sentence! See here), Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell and England during Henry VIII trying to divorce/remarry).

Read on for the full list of books I read!

no jeans day 7

Sometimes I struggle with non-church/work skirt and dress wearing because I end up feeling too dressed up - which is strange because in the summer I pretty much live in skirts and dresses. I think the difference is that my summer skirts/dresses: (1) are simple cotton numbers, which makes them feel inherently more casual and (2) can be thrown on with just a t-shirt and sandals for everyday casual wear. However, I can still feel put together in them even if they are casual.

cardigan: Loft; tee: Target; skirt: Old Navy; boots: Nine West via DSW

So for a work-from-home/visiting the bagel shop appropriate no jeans outfit, I pulled out one of my cotton summer skirts, paired it with a (long-sleeved) tee, and then layered on a couple additional items to handle the unseasonable coldness: two pairs of tights, boots, cardigan.

I think the result it serves its purpose quite well, but still, there is nothing like a good pair of jeans for casual yet put together... and now I am officially missing mine. One more week till they're supposed to be back from the tailor (crossing my fingers for sooner though!).

 note that my walls are a nicer color than that... my photographer got home 

after dark and I don't really know how to work my photo editing software....

(Also, I'm not daring enough to come up with that pattern mixing on my own - I saw ideas on Bibliomomia and Kendi Everyday and decided to finally give it a try.)

no jeans day 6

This is one of the most comfortable outfits in my closet - and comfortable and easy felt like just the thing after my self-record-breaking distance run of 10k this morning.

tunic: TJ Maxx; leggings: Target; shoes: Gap; belt: Forever 21

I'm training for a 5k race and regularly run 4 miles or so, sometimes 5. My times have been getting faster and faster, but that was my distance limit. Recently while running I wondered to myself how many miles 10k is (note that I know this for 5k...) and thought I should ask Peter later (which I did, and realized simultaneously that duh I can figure that out very easily).

Clearly my brain cannot handle math while running, but today when I got to about 5.5 miles, I thought that with less than a mile to go for 6.2, I might as well run my first 10k. It actually was not that difficult and felt really good - especially because it was probably much more of a mental barrier than a physical one to get to that distance - though my legs certainly felt a bit more tired than usual afterward.Also, this outfit: some really good deals. The shoes were originally $40, marked down a bit, and then I go them on an "extra 40% off sale prices" day for a final price of $10. The tunic was a super clearance TJ Maxx find, I think $8. Of course a girl needs to be careful not to buy stuff just because it's cheap, but I've gotten quite a bit of wear out of both - especially the shoes as they're the perfect pop of color with neutral outfits.

What that has to do with my post-run comfort? Not much. Except that I felt like I could eat about a million dollars' worth of carbohydrates afterward, so I guess it was a good thing I saved some money earlier.

no jeans day 4 + our new car (!)

cardigan: Gap; tee and boots: Target; skirt: Anthropologie;
tights: American Apparel; necklace: gift from parents (from Australia)

I knew our mid-March 70 degree weather was not going to hold, but I really thought we were done with snow... Until we woke up to some this morning.

But I guess it wasn't so bad, as:
(1) it was pretty much melted by noon
(2) it did give us a chance to experience the cold weather features of our new car ... we had nice and toasty buns on the way to church.

Yesterday we traded in the 1994 Accord, which has been in the family since my grandpa got it - not sure what year that was, do you remember, Meenum? - and has slowly been losing pieces of its body to rust and functionality of various things (most notably the windshield wiper motor) in the last couple of months.

And we bought our very first car, a Subaru Forester:
We're loving it already - anything new is automatically a bit of an upgrade from an older car - one of my favorite features of that is remote lock/unlock! But I think it will be a while before I can look out the window and stop wondering who on earth parked their car in my driveway.

no jeans day 3

For day 3 I made it easy on my creative muscles by sticking with several of yesterday's elements - gingham, pink belt, boots - but switched out for this navy skirt. Not bad for a casual Saturday non-jeans ensemble (even if it was crazy cold out - problem solved with the heated seats on our new car though - wohoo!).
After our morning car shopping Peter took Ginger to the park to play but had to call me after a bit to come pick them up because Ginger's foot was bleeding. She didn't seem bothered by it at all (and thus rather confused why Peter was trying to wrap a towel around her foot and carried her into the house), but he didn't want her to walk home on it.
Luckily someone around here has some medical training and could investigate/clean the wound and apply some neosporin - though we're a little short on supplies around here, so the dressing ended up being an old sock taped around her leg. And I cannot stop laughing at her. Sorry, Ginger.

no jeans day 2

Okay, this is good - since I'm not allowed to default to my jeans & cardigan uniform, I'll get a few more wears out of some items I'm going to put away for spring/summer, like this flannel dress.

dress: Old Navy; leggings: F21; boots: Nine West via DSW; belt: Target

I was kinda trying to hide my tri-colored thumb but here it is anyway - this is probably not kosher, but nail polish just doesn't look the same on as it does in the bottle, so I did a quick sample in the beauty aisle at Target. I decided on "clambake" by Essie; "geranium" was also in the running (the job of nail polish and paint color namer would be so fun). I am loyal to OPI, but this was the color I liked best, so I'm trying out a new brand.

And now I'm off for an evening of our DVR'd shows and a little at home manicure...

awkward/awesome thursday + no jeans day 1

cords: Loft; tee: Target; cardigan: Gap; scarf and shoes: Old Navy

It's Thursday again (already!)...

Awkward:

• Deciding to issue a no jeans wearing challenge right when it gets cold again. As if I want to wear a skirt now!
  
• Car shopping - pretty much everything from having a salesperson ride in the back while you drive around (and wondering if he's judging your driving skills) to having him ask you "what price would keep you from going somewhere else?" feels awkward to me. Negotiating is awkward, but so is having a car that's slowly falling apart, so we'll go back to finish the deal sometime soon...
• Packing up your stuff to walk home from the bagel shop and then realizing that tornado sirens are going and the sky looks rather ominous in the direction of your house. That's more scary, I guess - the awkward part was trying to appear in need of assistance. But it worked, and two nice moms with a minivan offered me a ride home.

Awesome:

• Digging out these pants to wear in lieu of jeans and realizing that they fit better than they did the last time I wore them (last fall).
  
• Not having the furnace kick in for several days... and being in a house that's 4 or 5 degrees warmer than what the thermostat is set for. Comfortable and money saving! (In July, don't remind me how awesome I thought this was in March. It'll just annoy me then.)
• Daffodils in bloom.
• Peter spending much of his day off over the weekend doing our taxes. I tried TurboTax this year since he's so busy, but I think our part-residency in two states really threw it off... said we owed Michigan over $1000 which is soooo not true and Peter took care of figuring out the right answers.

more awkward & awesomeness here:

my no jeans challenge

After seeing a coupon for 2-for-1 on pants hemming at the tailor down the street, I finally brought my favorite two pairs of jeans for shortening (I'd been wearing both tucked into boots, cuffed, or folded under [pretend hems!] to hide their too-longness in the meantime).

On my way out the door, the tailor informed me they'd be ready on April 5, and once that sunk in I was a little horrified: two weeks without my best jeans?!? Waaah!

But instead of spending the next two weeks in the one remaining pair of jeans in my wardrobe that I actually like, I decided to issue myself a challenge: NO jeans.

See? Evidence from my last challenge: jeans, jeans, and more jeans.

Since starting to work from home, jeans have become the absolute staple of my daily wear, since I no longer have need for dress pants (and usually find myself a little chilly wearing skirts in the house in the colder months). I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but here's an opportunity to mix things up a bit! And of course... blog material.

the other side

Today is Match Day. Which means it's been a full year since Peter's Match Day. It's so weird to think that a year ago, we were still in our apartment in Okemos, with no clue of where we'd be living for the next 5 years. I'm sure I was very busy trying to stay calm... there were 10 places on Peter's list, some of which we were more excited than others at the prospect of living in, and some of which Peter was more excited about working at than others - and we really had NO IDEA which one he'd end up with.
It really is a strange thing to be handed an envelope in late March and know that whatever city's listed inside, you need to move there within about 3 months. It's also strange to think about how stressful I found that whole process, now that we're all settled nicely into our new city and new house. It's turned out to be a great location with plenty to do, close enough to MI that I can drive there on my own for visits, and all in all a pretty temperate winter, which I appreciate! And Peter gets along so well with the other interns, and I think he's going to like the program a lot. It all turned out.But I can't believe it's been a year already. Peter and his fellow interns are excited about getting their new recruits; it means they're almost done with year one - year two actually sounds like it's going to be a lot harder, but they won't be on the bottom any more! There's a student from MSU who Peter's pulling for to match here, so it will be kind of fun to find out what happens.

And wow, am I glad to be on this side of Match Day.

beaten down blahs, part 1

Winter was taking its toll on me, so a while ago I made a list of things to do in order to combat the winter blahs.I started with #1, the easiest to motivate myself on (i.e., the most fun). Perfect for all my evenings alone last month when combined with all my tv watching. (And I didn't watch P&P but instead S&S, equally as good.)

Then I moved on to #2, and though I'm happy with the end result, I can't say I really enjoyed doing it at all. I'm a horrible painter (thankfully pretty much everything I could drip on in the bathroom was tile, so no permanent damage done...).

(The before and the before-before photos are here; the change
is subtle, but looks so much nicer than the white walls against the crazy tiles.)

But this kept me occupied on a dreary Sunday while Peter was working, and it got something off my to do list - plus got me to finally remove all the potential paint chips that had been there for 6 months - so we'll call it a success.
And then I did #6 - the closet cleanout - which was handy to do in conjunction with the 30 for 30 challenge, since I was busy thinking about my favorite items and how my wardrobe remixes anyway. I brought a big bag of stuff that didn't fit me or my style well enough over to the consignment shop; whatever they didn't want is going to Goodwill.I kind of waited to bring over the pile of clothes until post-30-for-30 shopping ban... shopping at the consignment store while they evaluate my items kind of defeats the purpose of getting income there, but I can't help it if I have the best luck ever with crazy deals on jackets at this particular store (see my $8 beloved Gap army green jacket and my $6 herringbone blazer).

I was thinking I'd like a navy blazer to add to my wardrobe - and lo and behold, here's one from the Limited that fits perfectly, for $20... except that it's in the half off section. $10. Score.

Sample of spots

Everybody, Everywear is wearing polka dots today ... I had a hard time deciding between the two spotted items in my wardrobe (scarf or blouse); since it would clearly be too dotty to wear both, I went with the blouse, a jacket (since it's warm enough to go overcoat-less), jeans, and colorful flats (a must when the temperature gets above 50, in my book, since it looks like I'll be back to warm socks within a few days).

(Yes, awkward iPhone self portraits again... can we just call them artsy?)

Ginger mania

I thought it was time for another installment of gratuitous puppy photos, mostly because I take a lot of them, not really because I think anyone is clamoring to see them (except for my brother Dirk, from whom I receive somewhat regular text messages declaring "we want Ginger!").

Apparently I'm not the only one who likes to accessorize around here.

Her favorite toy; I marvel that she can still find stuffing to pull out of it.

I have an extremely lazy office mate.

Beware letting any of your lap blanket touch the floor...

Pretty puppy.

A typical action shot.

An outtake that completely cracks me up.

self improvement

I'm starting a little bit of a self-improvement campaign around here. Every once in a while when I feel like I've been watching too much TV I do such a thing... And with Peter's nights schedule last month, I had ample time for television watching (and ample good stuff to watch: Top Chef, Glee, Real Policewomen of Cincinnati [yes, seriously], American Idol, Clean House, my new Sense & Sensibility dvd). I have nothing against TV, but sometimes it turns me into a lame couch potato.

Books:
No light reading around here - currently working on Wolf Hall for bookclub, and then I'll be reading Tender Is the Night for the other bookclub. Certifiably self-improving, as the former is a Booker Prize winner and the latter is on a list of classics I should have read.

Wolf Hall is really good, but hefty (contentwise and pagewise, all 604 of em). It took me rather a while to get into, partly because everyone in 16th century England either had two names (e.g. Thomas Howard and Duke of Norfolk = same guy) or was named Thomas. Confusing.

Music:
Until the other day, I hadn't sat down at the piano since before Christmas. Time to get back at it - half hour a day, at least. I have a couple of pieces I'm determined to be good at.

Culture:
This was one of my winter-blah fighting items - I seriously need to make use of my Enjoy the Arts subscription. I have passes for several museums, plus tickets to the symphony, chamber orchestra, Shakespeare theater, and some others. Unfortunately my date has been somewhat unreliable for the evenings (well, unless it's work - he's very reliable at that), so I've been sitting on these vouchers... No more! He has a good schedule this month, and warmer weather makes me want to go out and do stuff. (But if anybody wants to come be my plus one for on-call days, that'll be great.)

Skills:
I found Photoshop and sewing classes to sign up for, so I can work on my skills in those areas. Currently my skills are minimal and tend to lead to frustration...

30 for 30 recap

Since I started this round of 30 for 30 thinking it would be a good way to wrestle my creativity back from the depths of winter, I guess it's not surprising that I had some ups and downs.

There were a couple of days on which didn't like any of my options (not that I was excited by the rest of my closet either) and struggled to get myself to get dressed and post an outfit. Then there were days when I felt like this was hardly a challenge and I could keep remixing for a long time. And, happily, there were a couple days when I just felt great in what I was wearing (there's nothing like fishing for compliments on an outfit by getting your hubby to photograph it and then posting it for comments...).

A few favorites from this round - I like how a few of them feel very "me" and a few were a stretch that I ended up liking:

(1, 5, 7, 14, 16, 29)

This go-round I learned: being limited to 30 items really isn't that challenging for me, since I tend to have favorite items of the moment and like to wear them a lot. (I actually used only 28 items; I didn't wear one of the pants and never picked a 30th item.) But it was good for me to be challenged within those usual items I wear to try out some new combinations since I would usually be perfectly happy to go with just jeans and a cardigan (my uniform).

Coming up with these new outfits and checking out a lot of other people's is helpful in actually defining my own style... Now the trick will be to shop that way - I always say I need to be better about not getting sucked in by good deals on items I don't really love, and now I'm determined for that to stick.

#30: hope springs eternal

We've been working on getting back to springy weather 'round here after a couple days' hiatus. To celebrate the difference from Monday (rainy and 40) to Tuesday (sunny and 50) I took Monday's sweater and made it a more springy and fresh outfit with: pink! floral! ruffles! washed and styled hair! outdoor photos!

last one! so you know all items are remixed...

p.s. we noticed yesterday that the daffodils I planted are coming up! Winter has to be over, right?!