I'm just tellin' you tings.

Wait... Oh Gurl.  Is that- 

Uhhh, yeah, yeah it is.  It's another Dear Creatures creation.  This one was purchased via eBay for $30.  Weee!  I did mention that I've gone off the deep end with this Dear Creatures shit, right?

So, anyway, I have only had this this little frock of perfection for a week, and it has already been through the ringer...

It's a small, and I usually can't do smalls because I'm built like Justin Beiber from the waist up (make NO mistake, from the waist down I am ALL J.Lo, it feels weird to reference J.Lo past 2005... Also, I'm sure my dump is nowhere near as spectacular, but I'm just trying to convey I done got me something back there, this is a long parenthetic sentence, I literally did not know parenthetic was a word, I just typed it and it didn't have squigglies and looked it up, and that shit was spot on, now I'm just being a dick and typing to type, sorry), but the measurements said the waist was 24 inches, so I figured it would be fitted enough.  Well, the dress arrived, and it is just everything I could hope for in a dress, the cut, detailing, quality, colors... everything!  Then I  go and try it on... and it's... it's... HUGE.

I mean, beyond just a little roomy, this dress was incredulously large.  If I stood still in the dress, I could stand there with the dress not touching any portion of my body from the shoulders down.  That's how large it was.  This was, needless to say, a pretty big let down.  Then I got myself one of them ideas...

I'll wash it in hot water and then throw it in the dryer!

Dress: Dear Creatures

Sweater: Random Ross find from like 2006

Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell

Purse: DKNY

It really did resemble a pile of throw up when I opened the dryer, what with all the tan and subtle bits of green here and there, but it did the trick, the dress shrunk to almost perfect!

Following a really strenuous ironing... we were good to go!  Weeee, again!

I wore it to Tour de Fat the very next day.  For those of you not familiar with Tour de Fat, it's a good fucking time.  It's a Fat Tire beer festival that is heavily bike themed.  There is this huge bike parade that Bahb and I took part in this year, and a lot of people deck out their bikes as well as themselves in just ridiculous costumes.  It's a lot of dudes with handlebar mustaches wearing Speedos basically.

Anyway, it was hot as hell that day and I did my share of drinking, so this dress took a beating.  It got every beer flavor I enjoyed doused on it, it got some lovely grass stains and, my favorite, I dropped a beer in my purse (ruining my phone, but that matters far less) and it caused the black leather to bleed all over the side of my lovely, newly fitted Dear Creatures.

Then I got another one of them ideas...

And I washed it just as I did before, and it looked almost good as new!  I tell you what, this dress took a licking and kept on ticking.  

I feel strange typing so much about a single dress, but to be fair, I am just always around guys. Between work and the lab and school, I have so precious few opportunities to just spew nonsense about clothes, so when I do, I go to town; the entire history of the dress needs delved into and discussed.  It's kind of like those days when I would stay home sick or something and wouldn't interact with any humans until that evening when I'd see Bahb and I would just start to tell him every last fucking thought I thought that day, and he so politely goes "uh huh, oh, really?  uh huh, that's neat..." 

So every now and then when I start rambling and going on and on because I get so happy to see him and I feel need to share everything with him, and he'll just go "you tellin' me tings, huh??" and I get the hint.  I don't by any means stop talking though.  I talk a lot you see.   A lot a lot.

A Farewell to Bean...

I was not going to post anything about this because I generally feel the less negativity I emit out into the ether, the better... but then I realized how disingenuous it would be to omit something that I am going through for fear of seeming unpleasant.

As any of my bloggy buddies might know, I have spent the last six years being mama to the two most remarkable boxer puppies in the whole wide world, Gertie and Tonka Truck.

They have been there for me through some painful and strange experiences associated with a tumultuous time in my life.  They wiggled with me happily as I moved into a lovely home and got an amazing first job out of college and they were always there to lick away my tears (mainly because they are salty and yummy, but also to comfort me) as I attempted to find my bearings living on my own, going back to school and enduring some rough break ups.  

Without any question, no matter what I was going through, those beans were there, lickin' and cuddlin' their mama.  They were, and are, so much more than just dogs to me.  Those little wiggle-butts were the first pets I ever had, and I was shocked at how much they understood and could convey despite all that "being different species" nonsense. 

And although having joint custody was hard, knowing I was never more than a week or so away from seeing those big brown eyes and darling, saggy-cheeked smiles made it all okay.  

I can't describe the pure, unadulterated bliss I would feel when I would stop by to pick them up for the weekend.  Those car rides with the evening sun making them look extra fuzzy and darling, the HUGE smiles they would have on their faces because they were so happy to see me again.  I am tearing up thinking about how they would want to be close to me so bad, that it was often very difficult to shift, and I'd roll down the windows while we were on the main roads so they'd be distracted and I could focus, but as we got to the tiny roads by my house I would let them come back and have at me, because having boxer puppies sitting on you and licking you while driving is always better than not having boxer puppies sitting on you and licking you while driving.  DUH.

And now is the part that I am still unsure of how to convey.  I really don't know how to express how this ended without sounding bitter.  I guess I can't.  I got fucked over.

I got the text a little over a month ago, a spineless text, from the guy I bought and cared for them with, saying I was no longer welcome in their lives.  As annoying as it may sound, it really was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to me.  I still have a hard time rectifying the thought process behind the only person in the world who truly understands just how precious those dogs are deciding that I have no right to see them anymore.

And that was that.  I just have to accept his decision.  It's so hard to accept though.  Those dogs were just as much mine.  Even if you look at it from a crude financial point of view, I literally purchased my sweet little boy.  Not to mention pup check ups over the years, and the times they lived with me full-time.

But there is nothing I can really do except be thankful for the six years I did get to have with them. I still find myself bringing up Trude and Tonk stories all the time.  It feels weird, like it is keeping me from moving on, but they are remarkable puppies who do a lot of funny fucking shit... so there's a good chance that those bean stories aren't going anywhere any time soon.

I was allowed one final weekend with those two, which is where the photos in this post came from.  It was a wonderful weekend, we had a lot of cuddles, a lazy day and an adventuresome day, but it over far too soon.  No amount of time would have been enough, though.  On the car ride to drop them off for the last time I was crying pretty hard and Tonka came across the bench seat of my truck, sat his little bean ass down right next to mine and put his head on my shoulder.  I can still feel that darling little boy's breath on my neck and see those huge brown eyes that were filled with such concern over why mama was so sad.  It kills me to think of him wondering why mama never came back to get him after that night.  "It's not that I don't want to, buddy," I'd tell him if I could.

Because I do... every last stinking bit of me wants to stop by and just check to make sure they're happy and safe and have plenty of treats and tennis balls to play with.

But I won't, because while I don't agree with the decision, I, for some reason, feel compelled to go along with it. Those dogs were a huge part of me, and they always will be, and when I'm ready I hope to have many many more boxer puppies. There will never be another Gertie, or another Tonka Truck, but that doesn't mean there won't be other, just as amazing, baby beans. 

As far as I know, they are healthy and happy, living and wiggling around just a mile or so up the street. For that I am so glad.  And as I wake up each morning, all I can do is imagine them as they always were; a fussy, sleepy little Tonk hiding under the covers trying to be left alone to sleep, and a sunny, happy little Gertie jumping up and down, wiggling with all of her might, screaming with every fiber of her doggy being "HEY!  HEY YOU!  IT'S A NEW DAY!!!!"

Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

Full disclosure here:  these pictures are from yesterday.  Today I am home sick... blech...

So this is basically as close to lab appropriate as I get.  I have on pants and closed-toed shoes... we're good to go!  I am so used to having to first change into pants or put leggings under my dresses or switch out my adorable strappy shoes for a pair of beat oxfords I keep constantly at school, that it was very strange to be able to walk right into the lab!

Fashion and function so very rarely collide for me.  

So although fall in Phoenix isn't like the fall some of you lucky gals are enjoying, I'm still fully interested in pretending, and found myself looking up yummy soup recipes during some down time at school yesterday.  I found a tomato soup recipe on Delightfully Tacky that sounded doable as well as delicious and that was, uhhh, that.  I was sold.  The rest of my day was spent dreaming of soup makin'.

As soon as I got home from school I dragged my roommate to the grocery store and we began. Two hours later (counting grocery shopping and driving time, the soup itself took like 20 minutes) we were happy as two bugs in a rug eating our amazing tomato soup and watching the new Bridezillas.

Chiffony Tank Top: Collective Concepts

Jeans: BDG (Urban Outfitters)

Socks: I just have no idea at this point...

Shoes: Dolce Vita
Sunglasses: Ray Bans

That evening, after I had dropped some of the soup off at Bahb's, I started to feel a little sick. I was getting a little nauseous and started to get that feeling like I'd been beaten with a bat all over and even though I had a ton of reading to do for school, I laid down and immediately fell asleep.

At 4:30 a.m. I woke up to go to work, but my nausea had only gotten worse, and I was running a fever. So it was back to bed I went... although, who the fuck am I kidding, it was 4:30 a.m., it wasn't going to take much to get me back in bed.

So here I am, laying under a whole bunch of blankies, feeling an enormous amount of guilt for not being at work or school!

On an unrelated note, I was just on the phone with my dad, and I was telling him how I'd made tomato soup last night, and without skipping a beat he said "That's great, Al, you finally learned how to use the can opener!"  Haha, oh Dad...

Anyway, I really do need to try to stay awake and do some school work.  Have great days anyone who sees this!

Dear Creatures Feature: Part I

Oh my GOODNESS, where the hell have I been?  How did I let the Dear Creatures train pass on by for so long?  

I mean, my word...

I very infrequently find myself admiring the quality of the clothes I own, which is mainly due to my love of Free People and Urban Outfitters (great styles, simply abysmal quality), but I am seriously smitten here.

I bought my first Dear Creatures dress this past month to wear for my birthday from Modcloth, which I will at some point wear again and put on here I'm sure, and from there it just snowballed.

If only the Dear Creatures phase would've kicked in when mama was still making it rain as a full-time workin' gal!  Because as it is?  I have to resort to scouring the internet for sales and markdowns.  Take this romper, I bought this romper off eBay for $18!  $18!   

The pattern is so precious, the detailing so perfect and it's wonderfully constructed.  This is not a piece of clothing that I need to be ginger with.  This is one rough and tumble romper!  

But seriously?  A romper off eBay?  That's a serious risk.  Especially for me and my elongated torso.  To illustrate this let me mention that my boyfriend and I are almost the same height when we are seated, which isn't exceptional in and of itself, until I mention that he is a full 11 inches taller than me.  

Romper: Dear Creatures

Jacket: Target

Hat: Free People

Shoes: Frye

It seems so trivial now, but when I couldn't wear cute one piece swimsuits or track uniforms, or when I'd get sent home in high school when my stomach inevitably showed because the Abercrombie shirts I lived in all through the early 2000's were just not designed to fit my body, my torso length really bothered me.  

When I was growing up there always seemed to be something bothering me about my body.  I spent my tween years praying to develop, hoping every summer that I'd be able to come back to school with a shiny new pair of boobs in August.  That lasted until high school when it occurred to me that I love not having to wear bras and then I started to fixate on how I'd look so much better if only my inseam were an inch or two longer to even me out a bit.

I am realizing that now, as I type this, that I am in no way insecure about my long torso and short legs anymore.  I don't know whether it comes with being busy and not having time to pick apart my body, or if it comes with the shifting paradigm of priorities associated with adulthood, or if it comes with just growing into one's own skin.  It might be a mix of the three, but it never hurts to realize you are so much more than your outward appearance (says the girl who blogs what she wears everyday). 

Take away point?  I need every Dear Creatures creation ever.  EVER.

Captain's Blog, Stardate 9522.1

So it really does appear that I am more or less incapable of creating a post that doesn't have a cringe-inducing, over-the-top, corny-as-fuck title.  It's kind of my "thing."  

Anyway, so this last year I didn't really post on here.  At all.  I mean I was, and still am, really really stupidly busy.  Like really busy.  Like a "SHIT! RUN HOME! CHANGE! GO TO LAB! RUN HOME! EAT! SHIT! GO BACK TO LAB! RUN HOME! CHANGE! GO TO WORK! RUN HOME! GRAB KETCHUP! BRING IT TO BAHB'S FOR SAUSAGES!" kind of busy, so it was only natural that this fell by the wayside.  

And that's fine, because while blogging is a thing, it's certainly not the be all and end all of things.  It's a great outlet and such, but I pretty much wrote it off as a thing I tried that didn't really "take."  However, as time passed, I was surprised to the extent I found myself wishing I had kept on top of it, if for no other reason than having a living document of what I've done and where I've been.  

I don't keep journals.  Every attempt at keeping a journal has started and ended the same way.  I see an  adorable journal/notebook/writing tablet of sorts at the store and go "OH! you know what, I should keep a journal!" so I buy it and begin writing in it... write away (I can't stop with the puns).  But that only lasts a matter of days and before long I lose it, along with my interest.  

This blog doesn't seem like that for me.  I mean, yes, it was this shiny new thing at one point, but upon looking back at it, it still makes me happy and I do wish it were a bit fuller. So frequently I have a habit of getting ahead of myself, I plan and worry and fret and I am constantly either living in the burden of the past or being horrified by the inherent uncertainty of the future.

Dress: Funktional (Nasty Gal)

Shoes: Ecote (Urban Outfitters)

Necklace: Hannah Makes Things (Modcloth)

Bangle: I got it at Dillard's forever ago

Bag: Gift from my mom

Sunglasses: Ray Bans

This blog really does help me extricate myself from useless worry and allows me to actually exist in the here and now.

With that said, I do understand that blogging is realistically the first on the chopping block when things get harried.  So in looking through all of the blogs I have followed over the years, I understand why some of those bloggers I developed interwebs relationships with haven't posted in a year or why they deleted their blogs altogether, but it still makes me a little sad.  

I guess I learned through trial and error that there are some things in life that won't allow you to just pick up right where you left off.  It makes me feel kind of shitty for quitting blogging cold turkey and not at least keeping up with those wonderful ladies while I had a chance.  

Fortunately there are still a whole shit ton of the amazing gals I used to follow who are still posting out into the ether, and I am so glad to be able to follow those blogs again (like Claire, who was probably my very first blog friend and the incomparable Lydia and the darling Kimi and, of course, Emily and Erin and at least a half dozen others).  So really?  I'm just being drama.  

Whatevs, I'm just feeling my feel feels.  Basically, this is yet another annoying "Alex learned some shit" post but at least my dress is perfection.

Seriously, I eyed that thing for the better part of the year, visiting it at Nasty Gal often.  Watching, waiting.  For that beautiful markdown.  When at long last it came, I sold some clothes on eBay to negate the cost, and long story short, I, uhhhhh, got me some dress.   

The Solstice with the Mostess

I'm a little late... but... FALL!  It's FALL!

The best season ever.

Since I've spent the last 26 years living in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area I have basically never had a good and proper fall.  It's sad to admit, but leaves don't even change colors here until well into January, when it is finally cold enough. So even though I say I love fall, I basically love the idea of fall.

Seriously though.  It's an obsession.  I love everything fall.  The sights, the smells, the tastes...

As I type this I am burning a Cashmere Woods candle by Glade (oh my GOD, it smells delicious) and sipping on the Republic of Tea's Pumpkin Ginger Spice black tea from my orange hued owl mug.  Even though the air conditioning is running, we are in FULL FALL MODE over here, people.

 

My love of the season extends to clothing as well.  The burnt hues and mustards!  I can't... I just... there are no words for how much I love autumnal hues.  This outfit made my day so much more fall friendly.  Despite the temperatures being in the low 100's, I was convinced that every breeze had a subtle tinge of chilly attached to it.  

Blouse: Tucker for Target

Skirt: Tracy Feith for Target

Shoes: MIA

Bag: Vintage Dooney & Bourke

Sunglasses: Ray Ban

Earrings: Electric Ladyland

There is just an excitement attached to fall, perhaps it is the barrage of occasions. Starting with school starting and my birthday and continuing on through Thanksgiving, there seems to always be something to be excited about during fall.  

And boy howdy does fall go by quickly...

Between school and work and midterms and blah and blah and blah, I really need to be on top of things to get the most out of the season.  The last two years in a row I haven't been able to carve pumpkins or dress up for Halloween with Bahb because I had stupid projects and tests, so this year I'm determined to keep shit under control so I can have time to indulge in all of the trappings of autumn.

Even if I have to keep the damn air conditioning down extra low to make sweaters and hot tea bearable, I will be doing that.  Because it's fall, weather (HA! a pun!) the Phoenix metropolitan area chooses to behave accordingly or not.  

Am I alone in this fixation?!  Fall is freaking fantastic, right?!