Happy Boxing Day!

I hope everyone had/is having a wonderful holiday season. While many people are relaxing at home or taking advantage of holiday sales, we are on our way to another Christmas dinner with my in-laws. I have to admit I am exhausted, Robert seems to be getting sick, and I'm totally ready to just sit in my p.j.'s (and new snuggie :) and nap all day long tomorrow.
I went for comfort with the sweater dress today but added my new boots from LOFT to spice it up a little. The wedge is about 4 inches, but I don't plan on walking around a lot so I should be OK!

Dress: Loft (fall 2011)
Scarf: Christmas gift from last year
Sweater Tights: Target
Boots: Loft (Christmas gift, still available on the Loft website) 

Snowflake Style

Today we went caroling through the halls of our school with 7 Kinder classes. They wore various adorable hats and the teachers decided to get festive as well with snowflake sweaters and santa hats. I pulled out this old Eddie Bauer snowflake sweater and tried to figure out a way to make it a little more current. Hope I did a good job!

Snowflake Sweater: Eddie Bauer (old)
Button Down: Old Navy (old)
Leggings: Loft
Boots: Nine West via Macy's (fall 2011)

All Aboard!!!!

Many years ago when I first started teaching, my mentor teacher handed me a book titled "The Polar Express". I had never heard of this book before but she told me to read it "with a tissue in my hand." Well I did, and she was right to tell me that because I needed it. I read that book every year to my class and now to my son, and every time I get choked up at the end.  I am huge Christmas person, and that story for me brings out all the magic and beauty of Christmas. Needless to say I am very excited (probably more excited than little R) to drive over to PA this afternoon and board the Polar Express train ride. I can't wait to see one of my favorite books and now movie come to life, and can't wait to see R's reaction as well!

R and my husband are both wearing P.J.'s but I decided not to. I"m just going for warmth today as it's only in the 30's which will truly feel North Pole -ish since we've had temps in the 60's up until these past few days.

Sweater: Dress Barn (2 years ago)
Turtle Neck: Gap (Old)
Jeggings: Dress Barn 
Boots: Ugg Australia Bailey Button 
Mittens: Fossil (via Macy's) (last year) 

Who are you calling "worst dressed"??

I was listening to my favorite Christmas music station in my classroom this morning and the trivia question of the day was "what is the worst dressed profession?" "teaching" I blurted out before I even had a chance to think! Wow, I am a traitor to my own career and colleagues. But sadly I was correct. Well, "not me" is what I thought as I stood decorating my classroom with more gingerbread houses in my 3 inch skinny heeled metallic Kenneth Cole boots. "I am stylish," I thought to myself... I mean, how many Kindergarten teachers do you know who wear 3 inch skinny heels to work?? Yes, I was pretty impressed with my stylish self.. and then I nearly tripped over a small chair. As you can see from the picture, the boots did not make it through the day. At least I WAS smart enough to bring a back up pair of flats with me.. they were also metallic, don't want to mess with my style :)

Sparkle Sweater: NY&Company (old)
Cords: NY&Company (recent)
Flats: Nine West (a couple of years ago)

Knee Highs

The weather has been nuts in the northeast this fall. Lots of rain and very mild temperatures. I think that's about to change beginning tomorrow, but I've been taking advantage and wearing stuff like this navy blue shirt dress that I normally only wear in the spring/late summer. It's pretty lightweight but it was so balmy yesterday that I had no problem and felt totally comfortable. I also decided to skip the tights and wear knee highs with tall boots. I haven't really tried this look and felt kind of funny all day, like one of the kids! But I did get compliments so I guess I managed to pull it off!
Shirt Dress: H&M
Grey & Pink Knee Highs: Charter Club (Macy's)
Boots: Nine West (via Macy's)

In the Spirit

Shawl Sweater: Macy's (recent)
Tank: Gap Outlet
Jeans: Old Navy
Boots: Nine West 

I realize I have not been posting many (any) work outfits lately. This is happening for a couple of reasons.
#1 I am not good about re-mixing stuff and I repeat outfits often.
#2 With it getting dark so early, I pretty much put my sweats or p.j.'s on as soon as I get home from work, plop down on the couch in front of my Christmas tree and then think "oops, I forgot to take a picture for the blog!" I DID take a picture today.. but I'm saving it for tomorrow's post. I figured since I have an outfit picture from this past weekend, might as well use it!

I am still feeling exhausted from our fun Christmasy weekend. We saw the Muppet Movie on Saturday (funny and soo cute!) and headed out to dinner after. Sunday was a fun filled day in the city. First we saw the Big Apple Circus, then headed to FAO Swartz, saw the windows at Bloomingdales and Tiffany's, and finished up with a visit to that little old Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza. I really do consider myself lucky to live so close to NYC, and as anyone who has ever visited I'm sure knows, there is NOTHING like New York at Christmas!

The lovely window display at Tiffany's 

Me and R in front of the tree

Rockefeller Christmas Tree 

Casual Friday

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Mine was pretty quiet. We went to my parent's house where it was just the three of us, my sisters and my brother-in-law, my nephew and my grandmother. Last year we had a huge family reunion on Thanksgiving so everything seemed pretty subdued in contrast.  I did not venture out to the stores yesterday. I've never been a Black Friday shopper. I hate crowds and am not an overly aggressive person so I don't think I would do too well! I am very disappointed to find out that the Leapfrog Leappad which is on R's Christmas list to Santa is sold out on-line and basically EVERYWHERE.. I'm in a panic! It was staring me in the face a couple of weeks ago in Target and I passed it up thinking "oh, I have time". BIG mistake! I really hope it comes back in stock soon.

I

I wore this to my mom's on Friday. I just hung out there and spent time with my mom and sister who I don't get to see that often. 


I included R's Thanksgiving picture.. his outfit was much cuter than mine :) 

Cardigan: Banana Republic (last year)
T-Shirt: Gap (old)
Trouser Jeans: NY&Co (old)
Shoes: Kenneth Cole Reaction
Bag: Purchased in Italy

Loving my red shoes :) 

Red Shoe Diary

awkward "show off my shoes" picture
oh and that spot is from my camera.. not my pants! 

I have 1 pair of red shoes.. just a simple pair of ballet style flats. I bought them last spring and surprised myself by how often I wore them. When I saw these Kenneth Cole Reaction wedge loafers on my sister I knew I had to have them. My sister has them in a nude color (sand) that I originally thought I wanted as well..until I headed over the the Kenneth Cole web site and saw them in red. I envisioned them with tans and blacks and grays and totally sprucing up some dull winter outfits. When my sister sent me the 3 hour 40% off link to the Kenneth Cole website I knew that was my "chance" and I went for it! They just arrived this afternoon so I did not actually wear them outside of the house, but I figured I would blog them since the forecast for the next few days calls for rain. I'm certainly not going to wear my brandy new red suede wedges in the rain. So here they are!

Cardigan: LOFT
T-shirt: LOFT
Black Cords: Gap
Shoes: Kenneth Cole Reaction Flirt It Up

Add caption

Long Time No Blog

Yes it's been a while. I"m going to attempt to get back into the swing of things now that my basement remodel is done and I don't have contractors in my house until 7:00 P.M. every evening (yay!) So this is what's been going on:
*Basement is done and I love it!
*November was/is crazy busy with some kind of birthday celebration every weekend.
*We got to see a Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds acoustic show at the Palace Theater in NYC on Friday night. It was my 2nd Dave and Tim show and didn't disappoint. The theater was beautiful.
*I made several new purchases this month through gift cards, coupons, and just a plain "I have to have these" moment (a pair of 3.5 inch red loafer wedges, I can't wait to get them!)
*I even bought a few Christmas gifts. That NEVER happens, I never shop early. So I'm proud of myself. LOL

This navy bag is the only Anthropologie item I own.. well besides a cute dish towel that I ruined and had to get rid of :(
Actually, I don't even own this bag.. I'm "borrowing" it from my sister.. As in, I plan on keeping it until she realizes (hopefully 3 years from now) that I still have it. It's stylish and roomy and I always get a ton of compliments when I use it.
I had been looking for a new pair of grey boots and this Nine West (via Macy's) pair are a recent purchase.

Sweater: LOFT (couple of years ago)
Cami: H&M (old)
Jeans: Old Navy 
Boots: Nine West (via Macy's)
Bag: Anthropologie (via my sister :) 

Bouncing Around

WEEEE!!!!!!

 Last Saturday we had Robert's 4th birthday party at Bounce U, a local kid's place filled with inflatable jumping apparatuses, slides, and etc. This was his first "kids" birthday party outside of the house with friends. He was sooo excited and woke up every morning last week asking if it was Saturday yet. Everyone had a great time. Our living room looked like a preview of Christmas morning with all of the gifts he received from family and friends. He seemed to have a bit of the post birthday blues but got over it quickly enough to go through the entire Target catalog and circle what he wants from Santa this year!

Think he was having a good time? :) 

eShakti Promotion

eShakti Dress

The lovely representatives at eShakti are offering a promotion to readers of my blog. If you enter the code LONGANDSHORT0811 at checkout you will receive $20 off of your order total. Check out the eShakti website here. They have very pretty dresses, skirts, tops, sweaters, and jackets. They offer custom sizing options which is a great plus. Here is my review of one of their dresses. 
The offerer ends on December 31, 2011. Here is the rest of the fine print: The discount code is not case sensitive. Only one gift certificate can be used per order. The code can be used any number of times until the validity period. This discount code is not applicable on our Overstock category. This cannot be clubbed with any other offer / discount that may be active during this period.


If you find you like eShakti merchandise, take advantage of this great offer! 

What a Week!

 This week has felt like a month to me. I'm looking around at the jack o' lanterns in my house and thinking, "Wow, I need to take these down was't Halloween, like, 6 weeks ago?" Because that's how long this week has been. I'm pooped but we'll be bouncing away tomorrow afternoon at little R's 4th birthday party!

red zip sweater: Loft
lace tank: Loft
pants: Marshalls (really old)
shoes: Nine West
small child with lollipop holding i-phone: ithappenedonenight.com :)

4 Years Old

The look of love :) 

Four years ago today, to most people I looked like a hot mess.. no makeup, awful hair, hospital gown.. Yet somehow I don't think I've ever looked better than on that Saturday, November 3rd back in 2007 during an autumn nor'easter. That was the day I became a mom. I don't look the same as I did before that day, I don't feel the same, nothing about my life is the same, and I wouldn't change a thing about any of it. Happy 4th birthday to my little Robert. As he always likes to say to me, "you make my heart happy."

My Best Outfit EVER!!

Need I say more?? I have never gotten so much attention for something I've worn! My friend was the  pig which means I had the extra fun of knocking into her all day long as a joke. Yes, the kids loved us, it was a nutty day, made even more insane by the amounts of SNOW on the ground. We had to move our parade indoors. The reaction to our angry bird/pig combo costume was either confusion (huh, what are you? a lot of people thought my friend was a frog) to random parents snapping pictures of us like we were celebrities.

Oh yeah and little R dressed up too..  I forgot Halloween is supposed to be for kids. My husband had to keep reminding me as I pushed R to go for the kit kats and reese's peanut butter cups while we were trick or treating :)

Little Dino R

Fall Crafts

Here is a little peek at my classroom. This is my fall bulletin board display. We worked on the scarecrows, (I ordered them at Oriental Trading), fall trees, and watercolor painted leaves throughout the month of October. My fall board might be my favorite of the entire year. The scarecrows and colors from the leaves and trees are so pretty.
The other picture is a portion of my desk (almost always a disaster area!). I've been a slacker on pink breast cancer awareness outfit pictures so I figured I would throw in a shot of 2 of my favorite pink accessories; my pink animal print coffee cup and pink floral agenda by Vera Bradley. I know not many people use agendas anymore since this is such a tech advanced time in our lives, but there is something about writing down to-do lists and scheduling appointments and activities in those little boxes that I love. Maybe it's a teacher thing!

A "Me" Day

Yes I realized I had a sticker on my jacket before I left the house.. the joys of 4 year old boys!
I did NOT realize that I left the tag on the back of my Loft sweater. No one to blame for that but my 35 year old self! 

On Saturday I had a day to myself. I haven't had one of those in a while so it was nice. First I headed out to make some returns and pick up some new clothes for little R. I love to shop for him as much as I love to shop for myself. Oh who am I kidding, I love to shop for everyone and everything. Well except maybe for food, that is kind of annoying. After the shopping trip I headed down to my sister's house where she was hosting a Willow House party. There were lots of nice housewares for sale and I had more fun.. shopping! AND eating delicious desserts that the hostess baked herself. Hello huge brownie made with nutella. I ate the entire thing and have no regrets!

My "me" day came in handy because when I got home Saturday night I started feeling weird and woke up with the classic fever and body aches that can only mean one thing.. some kind of flu bug :( I missed my nephew's christening yesterday, I just could not get out of bed. I didn't even make it into work today but I'm starting to feel more like a human again now so hopefully I've survived the worst of it!

Jacket: Loft (recent)
Sweater: Loft (recent)
Jeans: Old Navy
Boots: Nine West via Marshalls
Bag: Coach Madison Leather Lindsey Satchel (recent)

Pink is my Signature Color

I threw on this pink jacket over my new green Loft sweater dress. I found this dress on the sale rack, actually I found A LOT of these dresses on the sale rack and that had me thinking it wouldn't work out for me, but I tried it on and thought it was cute. I wore it to work today and got a ton of compliments on it. This will be a go to dress for me during fall/winter..  it's easy to move around in and perfect with tights and boots.

Lately I have blogger paranoia. Nobody in my life besides my husband knows about this blog and I want to keep it that way for now. Today when I was getting compliments on my outfit I had a panicked feeling for a minute and I thought to myself "I wonder what they would think if they discovered this blog?" I know I shouldn't care but I hate when people are overly critical and I know there are people in my life who won't get why I'm doing this. I've actually been thinking about stopping for a while, but that will only hurt me.  Writing is a great outlet for me to release stress. Then I thought about steering away from the fashion angle and focussing more on other things. I like the way I dress, but I'm not the most creative and I'm actually OK with that. Plus I'm on my own with taking pictures and have a plain old point and shoot camera (with no plans to upgrade any time soon) so my pictures don't come out great. Maybe I can make myself more anonymous somehow. Or maybe I just need to step away for a while. Anyone else go through this and have any suggestions??

Dress: Loft (recent)
Jacket: Gap (old)
Tights: Dress Barn
Boots: Nine West
Necklace: Sunshine Daydreams

Eshakti Dress Review

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a representative from Eshakti and asked to review a sample from their clothing company. Of course I jumped at the chance. The thing that's great about Eshakti is you can customize their clothing by providing your measurements. You can even change sleeve lengths and hem lengths to your liking. You can also just order standard sizes and keep the clothing as is, which is what I chose to do. The Eshakti website is very user friendly and has lots of clothes to browse. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to sample! I wound up choosing a dress. Here was my experience in a nutshell:

*Great customer service. E-mails were answered promptly and with courtesy.
*Wide variety of clothing on the website to choose from.
*Prices are reasonable. I chose the Pointillist Tweed Dress and it is $69.95 which is an amount I would spend on a work appropriate dress.
*Shipping took a while, I didn't receive my dress until about 3 weeks after I put my order in, so that was a draw back.
*The fit of the dress is great, and I didn't even use the custom sizing option.
*The dress I chose is nice quality! The top of the dress is tweed, has a pretty black fringe that lines the neckline, back, waist, and zipper. It is also fully lined. The bottom portion of the dress is a multicolored stretch cord material. I loved that it's stretchy.. very teacher friendly! Even though the cord fabric stretches, the dress still retained its shape throughout the day (and I move around a lot!)

I decided to wear this dress to work today for class pictures. I wore it with a black cardigan this morning since it was chilly, but I can pair it with many different colored cardigans or jackets. It will also look great with tights and boots. I got a lot of compliments on this dress today and am very happy with my selection! I plan on wearing it again to a family Christening this weekend. Would I ever consider ordering clothing from Eshakti again? Definitely!

Dress: Eshakti
Shoes: Nine West
Jewels: Lia Sophia

Pick, Pick, Pick a Fat Pumpkin..

Shorter hair.. I'm still getting used to it. 

Hay rides are the best! 

We went pumpkin picking today and it was the perfect day for it. Blue skies, crisp weather, and a not-so-crowded pumpkin farm. It was great!

Now that the craziness of the beginning of the school year has settled down a little I feel like I can really enjoy this time of year.. and I do. I love the weather, decorating the house and my classroom at school, doing fun fall projects and knowing that the    holiday season is just around the corner makes me happy! 

Shirt: Dockers (don't remember what store)

Sweater/Cape: Old Navy (last year)

Jeans: Old Navy (A couple of years ago)

Boots: Nine West via Marshalls (several years ago) 

                                                                                       

Hot cider donuts.. yum! 

Lofts of pumpkins! 

Spooky hands :) 

Pink and Grey

I have continued to wear my pink for breast cancer awareness.  I've owned this pink jacket from the Gap for many years and I still break it out every fall. You can't really tell from the picture but I'm wearing a grey cardigan underneath the jacket/over the tank. I love the pink/grey combo. I also love the lace detail that I've seen on a lot of LOFT stuff recently. 

Today I had to find a field trip for my grade level, reserve tickets, and submit all the paperwork by the end of the day. Originally the deadline for field trip submitting was November 1st but it was changed to today and I found out about that TODAY! I also had lunch duty with the 1st graders. Ugh. And now I have a splitting migraine headache. On a happy note, tomorrow is Friday! AND my sample dress from eshakti arrived today. I can't wait to wear and review it! 

Jacket: Gap (old)

Cardi: LOFT (recent)

Tank: LOFT (recent) 

Pants: Gap Outlet (old)

Shoes: Nine West (old) 

Little booshie (as I like to call him) decided to
crash my photo :) 

Seasonal

Sorry about the blur, still not
the greatest with the pictures! 

It has been hard to dress seasonably when the temps have been in the 70's and 80's in the northeast. Today was an actual "seasonal" day of overcast skies, light drizzle, and temperatures in the low 60's. I loved it!  I like a warm spring, hot summer, and brisk fall and I don't like when Ms. Mother Nature messes around with those 3 seasons. Winter, on the other hand, well she can disrupt that one all she wants! I'll take 70 degrees in January any day of the week :)


Corduroy Shirt Dress: Old Navy (Fall 2010)
Leggings: Loft Outlet (recent)
Boots: Kenneth Cole Reaction (2 years ago)
Belt: Loft Outlet (2 years ago)

Nothing to blog home about

I have to admit that this has not been my best week as far as feeling inspired to get dressed for work. On Monday night I decided to switch my bedding and while I was pushing the mattress to put on the new bedskirt, I hurt my back. So I've been going mostly for comfort when choosing clothing this week. Also, we've been painting t-shirts for anti-bullying week at school, so I obviously didn't want to break out any of my ball gowns for that project! 

I love these grey cords, they are super comfy and it was the perfect day to wear them, not too cool not too warm. The weather has been beautiful the past couple of days here in NJ. 

Sweater: Banana Republic (last year)

Shirt:  Banana Republic (last year)

Cords: Gap Outlet (2 years ago) 

Shoes: Kenneth Cole Reaction (last year) 

Sunglasses: Coach (several years ago) 

Tickled Pink

Please excuse the mess of toys behind me, such is life with an almost 4 year old! 

I joined up with Melissa from A Working Mom's Closet and some other bloggers to participate in Blogging for Breast Cancer Awareness.  What a great cause and a great excuse to wear pink!  I signed up for at least 1 pink outfit a week for the month of October, but I'm sure I'll have more. I love pink and have a lot in my closet. Although you can't really tell from the picture my shirt has subtle tones of pink, I added a pink bracelet, and of course my pink shoes! I've always loved the pink/brown combo so I like the way these look with my brown pants.

Poncho/Cape: Gap (old)
Button Down Shirt: NY& Company (old)
Pants: Target (old)
Shoes: Old Navy (old, hmm sensing a trend)

An apple a day

We have been working on an apple unit for science and social studies at school and today was our culminating activity day. We tasted red, yellow, and green apples, graphed our favorites, made apple headbands, and made apple sauce from scratch in the crock pot. The smell was heavenly and the kids were so excited. They were adorable. It's days like today that make me love being a Kindergarten teacher. 

I suppose I should have worn a combination of red, yellow, green, but I wound up in orange stripes instead. It was actually much warmer than I expected and I felt warm outside with the cardigan on, but thankfully my classroom AC is working again. I can't believe tomorrow is October 1st. I made it through the 1st month of school! I am feeling much more into my routine and my class is starting to settle down also. I'm  looking forward to crisper weather, leaves changing colors, pumpkin picking (and pumpkin coffee and muffins from Dunkin' Donuts) and all that good fall stuff! 

Cardigan: LOFT

Tank: Old Navy

Pants: Gap 

Repeat Offender

My red eye removal is making my eyes look super dark.
So from demonic red I switched to gothic black! 

Ever since I started reading fashion blogs and have seen how people are so great at remixing their wardrobes, I've tried to become better at it myself. If I buy something new I will try to imagine many options of how and what I will wear it with instead of just 1 or 2 outfits.  I have to admit though, I still have a tendency to repeat outfits that I love. If it works it works and I have no problem with working it again and again! This was an outfit I wore to work a few weeks ago and never photographed and here I am wearing it again! During cold weather (that it is if it ever actually GETS colder, we're stuck in the 80's here in NJ) I will pair it with a cardigan, tights, and boots.  Does that count as a remix? :) 

I am trudging along at work.. OMG.. I really have my work cut out for me this year. That's all I'm going to say about THAT for now, don't want this to turn into a vent fest. But there will be venting in future posts, be ware! 


Shirt: LOFT (fall 2011)
Skirt: Old Navy (pretty old)
Shoes: Kenneth Cole Reaction (hand me down from my sister)
Bag: Coach new madison leather Lindsey satchel in persimmon find it  here

Birthday Goodies

Yesterday my husband had a college football game so Robert and I headed down to my parent's house to spend the afternoon. My parents gave me a very generous coach gift card for my birthday and since I had another gift card given to me by my friend AND a $100 off a purchase of $300 or more coupon that was about to expire, I decided to head to the Coach store! I used to be very big on Coach signature bags, but as I've gotten older I have gravitated to their lovely leather items. Here is the bag I picked up yesterday:

Madison Leather Lindsey Satchel
in Persimmon

As soon I saw this persimmon color I knew I had to have it. It's a very nice orange hue, not too loud though, almost a neutral. This is a larger bag than I would normally get, and definitely the most I've ever spent on a bag, but the quality of the leather and the style drew me in. Plus I had the gift cards and coupon so I figured this was the best time to splurge! I can't wait to use it!

I also found a gift from my sister:

Pandora Blue Eye Dangle Charm

It's been a running joke (but not that funny to me!) that I've had some pretty awful luck this past year and I guess my sister thinks I have some bad karma to ward off! I think this is adorable and she also got me a gray leather braided bracelet to put it on.  All kidding aside I am actually very lucky to have such a great family who supports me through the good and bad.

It's My Party

Birthdays are always a great excuse for pretty
dresses with pink flowers on them! 

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned the big 3-5. I cannot believe I'm 35, in my mind I feel like I haven't aged past 25. Not the case! Anyway I guess I'm OK with getting older. I feel like I'm gaining that wisdom thing everyone talks about :)

My birthday was actually pretty great. My friends at work gave me very generous gifts and a cake. My teacher aide bought me flowers, presented me with cards that the kids made, and even BAKED me a cake. Some of my parents even gave me gifts! I felt so loved. Seriously.

When I picked little R up from school he had made me a card too. My hubby sent me flowers and bought me a gift that is back ordered so I don't have it yet, but it will be a nice little belated surprise when it arrives. Then we went to dinner, just the 3 of us. It was such a great day!
Plus I still have celebrating to do! I'm going shopping with my mom this weekend to pick out my new Coach bag (my mom's gift to me, plus I have gift cards and a coupon to put towards it) and since my sister is out of town on business they want to have a cake/dinner for me next weekend when she's back from her trip. Yay, I love extended birthdays!

As you can tell from this post, I am 35 but still very much a child, especially when it comes to birthdays!! LOL
Dress: Gap Outlet (fall of 2010)
Shoes: Coach (summer of 2010)

I stalked these Coach shoes all through the summer
of '10 until they finally went on sale enough for me to
justify buying them.  Love them! Oh and the toe imprints
are from getting water spilled on my foot during lunch duty
last year. I nearly had a heart attack. The good news is you
obviously can't see the marks when I'm wearing the shoes :)