Still got it.

This morning the shuttle bus to work was so full, I had to stand. I pretended I was in a big city. It was exciting! I tried to hide my big smile at my excitement at standing on a moving bus, but I think I ended up sort of looking creepy to my fellow riders as I did let out a random giggle at one point when the driver took a quick turn at one point. I'm happy to say that, although I haven't spent much time standing around on public transportation in many years now, my balance is still superb! Much better than the guy in front of me, who I was more afraid was going to flop back onto me a couple of times. Guys have higher centers of gravity and I think it's a little tougher for them (or, this one in particular?) to stay fully upright on a shuttle bus while going uphill and making quick turns. But, it was really pretty fun and I find myself sort of hoping for a repeat tomorrow morning...minus the fear of being squashed by a fellow bus-rider.

Also, at work we're pairing up with the Textile and Apparel Mgmt department for an exhibit on Nell Donnelly Reed, a fashion designer from KC. (http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/r/reed/index.html). She was the designer/creator of Nelly Don fashion line. She's seems to have had a fantastic fashion sense and was incredibly successful. To the point that she was kidnapped and held for ransom. Interesting life, really. Her husband seems to have not been able to do much to help find her when she was kidnapped. Another man got the police together with a  KC crime boss and found Nell and got her released without paying the ransom. Within a year, Nell had divorced her husband and married the man who worked so hard to find her. There's a whole movie about Nell Reed called "A Stitch in Time". She lived to be 102....interesting stuff. Some of the dresses for the exhibit showed up today for installation and I went and peeked in toward the end of the day and my eyes are probably still green with envy after seeing them. They are so awesome.

I really feel like if someone took the patterns like hers and made lines of dresses in the classic styles and made them cheap enough for regular people to buy, the style sense of the United States would suddenly rise to new heights. I think women would love to wear those dresses again. At least, judging by just the poll of women in my workplace, we all want dresses like those in the exhibit. I know there are a few online stores that sell modern vintage dresses, but I personally feel that Modcloth, Ruche, and the like are grossly overpriced. I love their clothing, but if you want a vintagey-looking dress you have to practically sell your soul to get one. Ridiculous.



Some music to end this Thursday with (I can't stop listening to this song):

Hey birdy!?

Hello Friday afternoon! I got a jump on the weekend today after working extra long earlier in the week. It's been nice. Relaxing. I have begun my thirty dollar clothing project in which I will not spend over $30 on any piece of clothing, pair of shoes, or accessory for a year. I'm going to keep my receipts so that a) I can keep myself honest and b) at the end of the 12 months, I hope to add up what I've bought and see how much the damage was. I have noticed that I tend to think a lot more about what I'm buying when I have a project like this. Kind of a double take, because everything I buy will probably be considered a bargain, so it cuts down on the impulse purchasing in the clearance aisle. Or, at least, that's my initial hypothesis.

(Hey! I don't think I've used the word 'hypothesis' since a high school science class! And never in terms of fashion! That's a thousand dollar word right there...ka-ching!)

I don't think the birds have yet figured out the birdbath scenario. They seem to be a little slow in this neck of the woods. I'm anxious to see them use it and am probably hovering too much at the window next to it. I'm not quite to the point of shouting 'HEY! BIRDY! GET IN THE BATH! SPLISH SPLASH?!?', but I'm probably not too far from that cliff. I have seen some robins getting nearer and nearer to it, so it might not be much longer before they're in it. I'll probably stop stalking them soon...ish.

If you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan, you probably already know about the team's tendency to dress up in wacky ways on road trips. This week they were in Los Angeles and all dressed up in tuxedos or various other fancy-pants outfits. The team shot is making its way 'round the web and it's pretty fun. They are a fun team. I'm not sure who the instigator of it all is, but I have a hunch it might be Lance Berkman, because I don't remember hearing much about these sorts of things until he came on board. They did a lot of this kind of thing last year, too.

I don't know if I'm a little late to the game or not when it comes to this band, but I've been hearing Of Monsters and Men on the radio the lately and I really like it. The song is "Little Talks" and it's pretty catchy, I think. If you like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, they sound a lot like that. It's nice driving music.

I've been trolling Dear Photograph lately. The book is finally out in stores. It's a really interesting site, I think. Everything is constantly changing, but some things really do stay exactly the same as they were when we were younger. And sometimes the photographs we have from those times can be relate-able entirely because some things don't change at all, like a certain building or a landmark of some sort. It's nice. It's a cool project. The ones about the pets are the ones that get me weepy. Sniffle.

I'm kind of in a rambling mood, blog-wise. Not much to mention, I guess. It's the lazy days of not-quite-summer. More to come after the weekend, perhaps.

Momma's gotta eat and she can't eat her clothes.

I came across something the writer calls The $30 Project. This freelance writer gave herself the challenge to not spend more than $30 on any one piece of clothing for an entire year (2010). In 2011, she budgeted $100 per month for clothing. And for this year, she's giving herself a budget of $1200 to spend on clothing any time she wants (so same budget as previous year without the monthly strings attached). She recently wrote an article that got published in The Huffington Post about cutting all her hair off and going pixie after having long hair. I haven't read it yet, but I probably will. She did that last month and, from my cursory glimpse at her Pinterest pages, it looks like she's discovering how having super-short hair suddenly changes everything about the way your outfits look. (I remember that moment, too, when suddenly the outfits you used to wear all the time don't look right any longer and you start to go crazy trying to come up with new outfits that suit your hairstyle.) Plus the girl looks way more chic with the pixie cut than she did with her long hair + bangs...and if you're going to write on a topic like fashion on a budget, you should probably look as chic as possible to try to get your 'Look, you can look nice without spending a ton!' point across.

You can see her project blog here: http://thirtydollarproject.tumblr.com/

p.s. I'm a big fan of women chopping their hair off (if they want to) once in their lives. I think women should do it simply because it forces you to go outside your comfort zone a little. We can get stuck in hairstyles and keep them for no other reason than we're bored and don't know what else to do. It does take some courage to take the plunge and drastically alter your hairstyle, especially when you know that it's not an easy fix if you hate it. And I know a lot of people have a strangely deep-seated hatred of this sort of drastic chopping off of hair thing. People think it's unfeminine. Others think you're making some sort of statement. But, this is the real secret of it all: it's just hair. I think every woman should chop their hair off at some point. You can say you don't have the right face shape for it; you can say that you can't cut your hair off because your husband/boyfriend/significant other won't like it (although, don't say that to me because I'll probably say something snarky in response. I have a very low tolerance for doing/wearing only that which you think another person will approve...yuck.); you can say you're afraid people won't be able to tell if you're a guy or a girl (true fear, I know); you can come up with whatever excuse you find handy. But, from my own experience, I can tell you that it's not that big of a deal. When you go short, you don't have your hair to hide behind any longer, it's true. What that means is that you're forced to change the way you act and the way that you express yourself. You no longer can nervously twirl your hair or constantly brush it behind your ears when you're shy. You can't hide your face behind bangs or long layers. With short hair, you clearly show your face to the world and there's nothing to hide behind, but this doesn't mean that you're vulnerable. It means you have to [wo]man up and face your own insecurities. It can definitely make you more confident in yourself, which will change the way you're viewed by those around you--in a good way. Will everybody like it? No. Does everybody like the haircut you have now? No. Will people more freely give you their positive and negative opinions when you chop all your hair off? Probably so, yes. I never got more compliments from strangers on my hair than I did when I had it super short. The important thing to remember though, is that cutting your hair doesn't change who you are; it doesn't turn you into something you're not...it's just hair.

But, this isn't a post on hair. Or, at least, it didn't begin that way. I love the idea of the $30 project. It wouldn't be very hard to do at all. I tend to shop very low-cost stores like thrift stores and consignment stores as it is. Columbia's got some good ones. I might do this? I could begin it in June and go for the whole year buying no piece of clothing for more than thirty bucks. Hmm...mulling, mulling, mulling... Yes!

I would say I'd budget $100 a month, but that would actually break the bank for me. Gotta stay realistic, here. Momma (and Bea) gotta eat, and jeans don't make a meal.

Attack of the Polyvore

Meet my newest obsession: Polyvore. It's a site where you can choose from thousands of pieces of fashion, music, artwork, decor, movies and just put together collages of things you like. I became aware of this through the ultra-fantastic site, Pinterest. Anyway, I've now spent oodles of time creating my own looks from the selections over at Polyvore. If I had all the money in the world and access to all of these stores and they had these pieces in my size, I would wander around my life dressed in these things: