i'm just mad about chevron

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone! I hope you're doing something fattening this Tuesday :) I'll be having a regular, ordinary afternoon and wishing that I was throwing beads around down in New Orleans instead.

(dress: plato's closet; chambray shirt: walmart; scarf: tjmaxx; boots: seychelles; tights: hue; necklace: jewelmint)

This dress is one of my very favorites, and it's definitely appropriate for the seventies revival happening this spring. I'm not sure I'll ever bust out my bellbottoms (not because I don't like them, but because I rarely wear jeans... maybe I should challenge myself), but I can certainly channel that seventies vibe with this classic chevron-print sweaterdress in a gradient of browns.

Speaking of challenge, this week I'm making a concerted effort not to wear my Seychelles oxfords. I literally wear them with everything, and while I will still love and adore them until the end of time, I do have about four hundred other shoes clamoring for attention in a very crowded closet. So far, so good! In fact, I might even try to wear a different pair of shoes every day this week! Wish me luck :) Also, it has officially stopped snowing (thank goodness), but all of the freezing and thawing that has been going on lately caused a break in the pump that supplies water to my little town, and now we have to boil our water before drinking, brushing teeth, preparing food, etc. I feel like I'm living in the Dark Ages. Or, as Snooki would say, "I feel like a pilgrim from the f**king 'twenties washing this sh*t in the sink!"/"boiling this water before drinking!"

In other news, this is what I had for dinner last night, because it was pretty:

(spaghetti with spinach, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese, tossed with pesto and olive oil)

PS: I am a MAJOR pasta lover. There is no way I could ever turn my back on carbs. Give me a bowl of spaghetti and a loaf of bread and I'm in heaven.

pressed pennies and monochromocracy

Two Christmases ago, K gave me some presents (bien sûr), and this little pressed penny was one of my favorites (sometimes it is the little things...). I always intended to turn it into a necklace, but never got around to doing so--about a year ago I poked a hole in the top, and only last month did I finally put a chain on it. Man, do I know how to procrastinate, or what? Anyway, I think it is charming :)

(dress: rock n' rose vintage; tights: goodwill; shoes: seychelles; necklace: diy)

I feel like I've been a little less adventurous with color lately. Maybe it's a reflection of my grey surroundings, but some mornings I feel like color is an assault on my eyes (I originally put on a pair of raspberry tights with this dress and swapped them out for monochromatic grey). Also, I've had a bit of a revelation about my personal style, which I'll get into later. I bought this dress when I was living in PDX, and it always makes me a bit nostalgic for the little old city. I would go to Powell's, spend hours and hours browsing the racks for used books, then hop across the street and duck into Rock N' Rose Vintage for some vintage shopping (in an effort to escape the rain, usually). Mind you, when I was living in Oregon I was working as a barista and making no money whatsoever, so all of this shopping was very, very naughty of me. No matter :)

Do you see all of the broken branches strewn on the ground around me? We had a huge storm yesterday, with winds up to 75 mph. I had an appointment yesterday morning and when I was driving to work I was whiteknuckled with fear because I thought my car was literally going to blow off the interstate. When I got home the entire town of Richmond was powerless--even the stoplights were out--but luckily we had to do laundry (I never thought those words would ever pass through my lips, but there you go), so I just grabbed the clothes and the soap (fumbling in the dark) and hoped that everything would be sorted out by the time we got home. It worked out. I got to sit in the well-lit laundromat and do a crossword puzzle, and our little town was up and running when we returned.

Oh, and speaking of grey, I found my first grey hair this morning. Not awesome. We're just going to chalk that one up to stress and pluck the slate clean.

(PS: Thanks to everyone who left lovely comments re: my fall photo shoot! I made K read all of them in an attempt to convince him that his talents were appreciated--here's hoping you can convince him for me!)

fourth festivities

I love long weekends, especially when they are packed full of summer fun :) Even though K and I sort of celebrated the 4th of July on Saturday, we went all-out on the actual Holiday.

When we woke up in the morning, all we had to do was step outside. The town parade went right down the street in front of our apartment!

After sweltering in the sun for the hour-long event (only in Vermont will you see a tractor pulling a band in a hay cart, a hippie-dippie "solar bus," and a couple of girls in a jeep dressed as sweet corn. The only thing missing from the Richmond parade was Bread & Puppet... the dancing puppet troupe has always been my favorite part of parades in the past, but I guess Richmond is a little too small & far away to make the trip worthwhile.


K and I retired to our comparably cool apartment (which isn't saying much--it's still crazy hot in there at all hours of the day and night) for a brief interlude and then headed back out into the sun to partake in the field-day festivities at the nearby park.

I was primarily interested in the flea market...

...where I managed to find a dangly, neck-wobbling bird carved from coconut, a beaded necklace, and a matching bracelet all for $15. We hung the bird from one of our living room windows:

We then promptly fell asleep (the combination of two late nights in a row + hot hot heat = siesta time) and woke in time to eat lots and lots of watermelon, watch some Northern Exposure, and headed back to the park for the evening's fireworks display.

We watched the sun set...

...played with sparklers...

...saw an extremely loud and incredibly close display of explosively brilliant fireworks (may have been the best fireworks I've ever seen, mainly because they were right above us)...

...and put on a little light show of our own before heading home.

After spending all day yesterday doing our darnedest to keep cool, K and I decided that it was a perfect day for a baseball game & we went to Burlington to see the Lake Monsters play the Williamsport Crosscutters at Centennial Field. It was a lovely night (still hot...) and we stayed for all nine innings, even though the Monsters lost in the end :( I love baseball games, and definitely intend to catch a few more before the season is through!

I hope you all had an amazing Independence Day! I'll be back with regular outfit posts tomorrow (K and I are finally doing laundry tonight...).