Relaxed weekend

The heat this past weekend was ridiculous. Portland finally broke not only 90 degrees, but 100 degrees as well. Thankfully my parents have a pool, so we headed over there on Saturday with Onyx to have a BBQ and go swimming. (There are some photos of that at the bottom of this post.) We also got to watch Portlander Galen Rupp win the silver medal in the men's 10,000 meter race, which was very exciting! We don't have a TV, so the only chances we've had to watch the Olympics are at other people's houses, or while in the fitness center of our building.

This outfit was actually from Sunday, but it was still crazy hot then, too. The jacket was purely for air-conditioned buildings; I only wore it for about a minute for these photos.

Floral shirt: Marshall's

Pink shorts: Loft

Jean jacket: thrifted from Rerun

Gold sandals: Asos

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Blue earrings and bracelet: B. Lee Designs, gift from my aunt

Gold necklace: Evidence Jewelry, won in a giveaway

Here was my church outfit from Sunday. Our pictures were turning out horribly (that's what you get when you try to take photos at noon on a sunny day, and are forced to take them in the underbrush just so you get some shade), so we gave up, but I salvaged one halfway decent photo to show you guys:

Here are a few fun photos from our Saturday! Onyx had a blast jumping in the pool about a hundred times, eating blueberries off the bush, and harassing my parents' dog Lucy (fourth photo down):

Crazy hat lady

This hat is almost comically huge, but I love it because it means I don't have to put sunblock on my face and neck when I'm out in the sun. (Okay, let's be honest here: I almost never wear sunblock anyway, so basically the hat just makes me feel better about that.) The gigantic hat plus the bold printed dress plus the bright shoes made for an outfit that felt on the verge of overkill, but it also felt very fun and summery. This is one of those dresses that would be improved upon if I hemmed it up about six inches, but I have so many dresses that I've been meaning to hem that I've been overwhelmed into procrastination.

Thank you all for your lovely comments on yesterday's post. You were very sympathetic, kind and flattering, and I appreciated it :)

Floral dress: vintage, from my mom

Blue and green wedges: Nine West from Nordstrom Rack

Gigantic hat: Columbia Sportswear

Blue belt: free from my aunt

Blue bracelet: B. Lee Designs, gift from my aunt

I looked too funny and horrible in this photo not to share it...this is what happens when someone whistles at me while we're taking outfit photos...

Four eyes

Every now and then I spend a day wearing my glasses instead of my contacts. I wore glasses for about five years before I got tired of how they looked on my face, and how they made my vision clear when looking straight ahead, but blurry when looking down, so I switched to contacts.

This was my church outfit for Sunday. I wasn't feeling great, so I decided to forgo heels in favor of sandals. Sickness is one of the few things in the world that makes me willing to wear sensible shoes.

White top: H&M

Gray cardigan: Gap

Floral skirt: thrifted from Village Merchants

Brown sandals: Nordstrom Rack

Pink necklace: vintage, gift from my grandma

Brown belt: thrifted

Pink bracelet: H&M

I'm linking this post up to Monday Mingle and Watch What I'm Wearing.

Another wedding

One of Josh's co-workers got married on Saturday, and I wore this to the wedding. I'm madly in love with this dress. I saw it on E from District of Chic a few weeks ago, and literally as soon as I saw it I clicked over to the Zara website and bought it. I never buy anything that impulsively, but it was so pretty I couldn't resist. Here's a tip for buying online from Zara - size up. I wasn't sure what their sizing was like, and didn't want to have to go through the hassle of having to return an ill-fitting garment via the mail, so I googled reviews and found out that their clothes tend to run small. I purchased a large instead of my usual medium, and it fits perfectly.

I promise I'm not looking for validation here, but I just have to say that I felt gorgeous in this outfit. Usually I feel interesting in my outfits, but this was one of the few where I felt downright pretty. And that got me thinking about body confidence. It's so common for people to complain about the way they look that no one thinks twice about it if they hear a woman say, "I hate the way my thighs look in these shorts." But to hear a woman say, "Wow, I look hot in this outfit" - well, a lot of people would call that vanity, and I think that's a shame. It's not like I'm not going to go around telling everyone how great I look all the time (because I think that would be vain, and also it just wouldn't be true), but every now and then I have a day where I'm completely satisfied with my appearance, and I'd like to be able to admit to that without feeling too narcissistic :)

Dress: Zara

Pink heels: Steve Madden from Marshall's

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Pink belt: Gap

Gold leaf cuff bracelet: In Pink

I'm linking up this post to Monday Mingle.

Rain boots in the summer

Even though Oregon is The Rainy State (our unofficial title), I rarely have an opportunity to wear shorts and rain boots together, since it's also The State That Doesn't Get Warmer Than 70 Degrees Until July. But the other evening when Josh and I went out to dinner, it was muggy and pouring, so I finally had a legitimate excuse to wear shorts and rain boots.

I love the moody sky in these photos. Normally I like my outfit photos to be bright and cheerful-looking, but there's something appealing about the miserable weather in these pictures.

Floral shirt: thrifted from House of Vintage

Pink shorts: Loft

Hunter rain boots: Nordstrom

Pink earrings: Simply Jo Designs

Black necklace: Urban Outfitters

Pink heels

I realized this weekend that my weekends aren't very restful. They're generally full of social events and meals out and lots of driving, when at heart I'm really just a girl who likes to hang out at home with her husband and her dog. But weekends are always the best time to hang out with people who I don't usually get to see, and that usually involves lots of driving, and then that ends up with us eating out because I'm too exhausted to cook anything.

This outfit was what I wore for our weekly Sunday church and Costco trip. I think it was the first time I'd worn these heels since my friends' wedding in April, and I forgot how difficult they are to walk in! I honestly can't believe I wore them for about eight hours back then without twisting my ankle or toppling over. They're cute, but wobbly. I have plenty of shoes that fit that description, so apparently the quality I care about most in a pair of shoes is "cute."

Well hello, random guy who decided to stare at me while walking past during our photo shoot...

Gray shirt: Forever 21

Floral skirt: thrifted from Village Merchants

Jean jacket: thrifted from Rerun

Hot pink shoes: Steve Madden, from Marshall's

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Hair clip: gift from a friend

Pink necklace: gift from my grandma

Embroidered bracelet: thrifted from Village Merchants

Embroidered belt: Scandinavian Midsummer Festival in Astoria

Déjà vu

I feel like I've worn this outfit before. I looked through my archives and didn't find it, but maybe it's in a post I forgot to label. This shirt and these pants are such a natural fit that it feels like I must have worn them together before. I added the leopard print hat for a touch of quirkiness, and also because I start to get uncomfortable when my outfits match too much.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these pants were some of the best $60 I've ever spent. They're a beautiful color, a beautiful fit, and way more comfortable than any of my jeans. They're definitely a pair of pants that I will wear until they fall apart.

[Side note: Today I'm doing a guest post over at Danica's blog goodheart! She's doing a week of guest posts celebrating her first anniversary of living in Portland, and I did a post about the beautiful Rose Garden - check it out here!]

Floral shirt: Georgia tee from StyleMint

Red corduroy pants: Anthropologie

Faux leather jacket: Forever 21, from Jen Loves Kev's closet sale

Black purse: thrifted from Salvation Army

Leopard print hat: Albertus Swanepoel for Target

Spider necklace: Bauble Bar

Brown belt: thrifted

Bracelet: In Pink

Free spirit

We're back to regularly scheduled programming around here! This is my first outfit post since returning from vacation. Don't worry, most of my posts this week are outfits - I only have one packing post (and even that one has all my vacation outfits in it) and one post of vacation photos scheduled.

I felt very bohemian in this outfit, with the headband, wavy hair, and flowy dress. The blazer kind of toned down the free-spiritedness, but I didn't wear it much anyway because it was quite muggy outside.

Floral dress: from an antique show

Camel colored blazer: Forever 21

Brown heels: Macy's

Brown headband: Forever 21

Brown belt: thrifted

Gold bracelet: gift from my mom, from Yosemite

I'm linking up this post to Monday Mingle and Watch out for the Woestmans.

Sneaky

My birthday was yesterday, and I wore this outfit over to my parents' house for dessert. Josh had told me a few days earlier that his birthday present for me wouldn't arrive for a few weeks, which amused me more than annoyed me because he's notoriously bad about doing things on time. But then we went to my birthday dessert, and I found out he was sneaky and only pretended there was a present on the way for me, when really he had conspired with my family to buy me a PIANO! It's by far the best birthday present I've ever received :) I won't get the chance to use it before we leave on our vacation (tomorrow), but I can't wait to get out my old piano books once we get home!

Floral shirt: Marshall's

Gray cardigan: Gap

Jeans: Levi's from Urban Outfitters

Brown sandals: Nordstrom Rack

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Blue earrings: B. Lee Designs, gift from my aunt

Turquoise bracelet: Charlotte Russe

An evening stroll

After spending nearly all of Memorial Day lounging around the house, Josh and I took Onyx out in the evening for a walk up to a nearby park. Now, I love my dog, and like any dog owner think he's the smartest, funniest, cutest dog in the whole world, but man, he was such a brat on that walk. First, he kept trying to eat sticks and garbage. Then he woofed at two people who walked past us. (Okay, so that was actually kind of funny, but I didn't want them to think he was going to attack them. At the most, he would have attacked them with kisses.) And then when we tried to take photos of him and us, he kept trying to climb on top of the hedges in these photos. So we just tied him up to a nearby post and took the photos anyway.

The pattern mixing in this outfit felt very intuitive - I think it worked so well because the top and skirt both contained red. Plus, in my opinion it's hard to go wrong combining stripes and floral print.

Lately I've been trying to use the manual focus on my camera more, but I have such crappy vision that I can't necessarily tell whether the object I'm photographing is in focus. This flower pictured above was one of the few nature photos that turned out well on our walk.

Red striped shirt: Old Navy

Floral skirt: thrifted, hemmed by me

Jean jacket: thrifted from Rerun

Espadrilles: Ann Taylor Loft (about six years ago)

Necklace: possibly American Eagle Outfitters

Red belt: free from my aunt

Blue bracelet: Dress Barn

A picnic in the countryside

This outfit was a bit of a fashion hodgepodge (gingham! floral! embroidered belt! bright wedges that don't really match anything!), but I liked it. I've been displeased with many of my outfits lately, so it was satisfying to finally hit on one that felt sufficiently quirky and interesting.

My family went on an early Memorial Day picnic on Saturday because it was supposed to be the nicest day over the weekend, but it was still a bit chilly so I layered some long-sleeved tops and brought a blanket to wrap around my bare legs while sitting at the picnic table. Then we went on a short hike - and yes, I wore these heels, which just proves how comfortable they are. (Or how stubborn I am. Or how determined I am to look stylish even in the woods.)

Blue sweater: Anthropologie

Gingham shirt: J. Crew

Floral skirt: thrifted from Village Merchants

Blue and green wedges: Nine West from Nordstrom Rack

Purple necklace: gift from my aunt

Embroidered belt: Scandinavian Midsummer Festival in Astoria