Meet the Teacher

If you've been reading this blog for the past month, I bet you're probably thinking, Meet the Teacher?? That doesn't have anything to do with your clothing challenge this month! And you're right, but one of my favorite teaching blogs, The First Grade Parade, (Thanks, Meghan, for getting me hooked), is having a Linky Party (oh, the things you learn about once you enter blogland) and I wanted to join up, so here goes...

A little bit about me...

I've been teaching 1st grade for the past 6 years (with one year spent in 2nd grade). I love teaching on days like this when we have 2 snow days in a row and I can just hibernate in my house while it's freezing outside!

As a diversion from teaching, my sister and I have recently been blogging about our fashion adventures. Last month we tried a 6 Items or Less challenge where we picked 6 items and wore only them for the month. This month, I'm trying to simplify my wardrobe by wear different items of clothing everyday and donating most of what I don't wear at the end of the month. Check out our other posts on this blog for more info.

Here I am, modeling a couple of outfits from my February challenge...

Now onto the Q & A:

Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?                                             
A:  I would have a cute little bakery/coffee shop/craft store with my sister, cousin, aunt, and cousin-in-law. It is our secret dream to quit the jobs we have and open this little store!

Q: What are your hobbies?                                                                                    
A:  My new hobby is definitely blogging and blogstalking. I have been posting and reaing blogs A LOT these past 2 snow days. I also love baking and knitting. (Check out my baking blog here)

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?                     
A: I can't remember ever really wanting to be anything - this definitely caused me problems when I got to college - it took me a year and a half to declare a major!
  
Q: What are your guilty pleasures?                                                                 
 A: Diet Coke, Netflix (I can watch almost anything!), and those frosted animal crackers with the round sprinkles - I could eat the whole bag at once if I'm not careful!

Q: What is your biggest fear?!                                                                      
 A: SPIDERS! I used to have dreams nightmares that I would come home from vacation and my room would be covered with them. Gives me shivers just thinking about it!

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?                                  
 A: I love vacation! I really love to go and explore places I've never been before. In October, I went to San Antonio with the fam, and it was so fun (and warm), and this Spring Break I'm hoping to go to Italy to visit my cousin who's spending the semester there.
                                                         
Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?                                                   
A: I love that little sign that seems to be everywhere these days - Keep calm and carry on. The best advice is to live in the moment instead of wishing for what could be.

Q: What do you value most in others?                                                                   
A: I value creativity because I don't have a lot of it myself! I also value friends who are loyal.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?                                                                                                        
A: Hmm...no kids yet, but thanks for rubbing it in! Seriously, I would want my kids to have a sense of fun and be able to create fun in their lives. Example: All of the crazy traditions my family has like, Thanksgiving Projects or Celebrating Groundhog day at Portillo's (check it out here or here for more details).

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?                                                                                                               
A: Definitely Jimmy Fallon and my roommate. We know that if he just gave us a chance, we could be BFF's! LOVE HIM!!

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:

I love being an extra in movies. So far I've worked on The Express (you can see me walking across the screen in a hideous blond wig), The Dilemma (you can see my car for about 5 seconds, but not me), and Contagion. You meet tons of new people and it's a lot of fun, whether or not you end up being in the final cut of the movie.

Hope you had fun learning a little bit more about me, and be sure to check out all of the other fun blogs in the linky party...

Groundhog Day: Snow Day Edition

2 great things happened today... 1. SNOW DAY! (no school) AND 2. The groundhog DIDN'T see his shadow so we'll have early spring! Hmmm...since this is the view out my front door today...

...I'm not sure I believe that spring will ever come! You can see in the left picture especially how the entire street is covered over with snow. Someone tried to start plowing, but didn't get very far. And yes, we still have Christmas lights up outside, but they're not plugged in, so please no judging!

Since this is day 2 of Frivolous-less February, and also a Wednesday, I decided to link up with The Pleated Poppy again and share what is already in my "Off Limits Laundry Basket". If you haven't read about February's challenge, check it out here.

I was SO excited to finally get to wear this skirt yesterday:

One of my good friends has been teaching in Ghana (Africa) for the past 2 years and this year she brought me this amazing skirt home as a Christmas present. I love the bright colors, plus it has pockets! Unfortunately, I didn't get it until January, so I had to wait until 6 items or less was done to be able to wear it. Sad. But it was the perfect thing to wear after all of the blacks and blues from January. I wore it with this black sweater from Ann Taylor Loft and some black tights: 

For today, it wouldn't be Groundhog Day without wearing one of the shirts we had made a few years ago to celebrate the day. We are mildly obsessed with G-hog Day in my family. Yes, we have shirts and every year we meet at Portillo's for some chocolate cake to celebrate. A few years ago, we even made a trip to Punxsutawney, PA to see Phil predict the weather in person. Not kidding, see for yourself...

All that to say, I am definitely wearing my Groundhog Day shirt, with some sweatpants - after all, it is a snowday. I might put a sweater (and some shoes) on if we make it out for cake tonight.

Here's a close-up of the front and back of the shirt...

 Happy Groundhog Day 2011!

New Month, New Challenge

Welcome to...

Frivolous-less February

Make sure you read the title correctly - It's not frivolous February; It's frivolous-less February!

This is a two-part challenge...

Part One:

The rules are simple and few: Don't spend any money that you don't need to.

Example #1: Groceries at Target = Allowed. Cute shoes on clearance at Target = Frivolous

Example #2: Wedding shower gift from Anthropologie = Allowed. A little something for yourself from Anthropologie = Frivolous

Example #3: Dinner out for a special occasion (Birthday, Groundhog Day, etc...) = Allowed. Dinner out because you are lazy and don't feel like cooking = Frivolous

I think you get the idea...

My one exception (so far) to all of this frivolous-less-ness is using gift cards to be a little frivolous. So if you'd like to go out to dinner with me, I can do Panera, Noodles, or Chic-fil-a (I've been saving up my gift cards from Christmas).

Part Two:

This part of the challenge comes from just having finished a month of wearing only 6 items of clothing. All of the rest of my clothes were just hanging around, waiting for me to wear them again, and I started to think that it's pretty frivolous to have a closet full of clothes that aren't being worn.

Then I started to think that a lot of my clothes are never worn even when I'm not limited to just 6 items. That's when I decided on this month's clothing challenge.

The rules are a little more complicated than part one:

1. I am going to wear something different every day in February. Once something is worn, it can't be worn for the rest of the month. It goes in the "off-limits laundry basket" (OLLB).
2. When the month is over, I am going to look at the clothes I didn't wear (plus the ones that I wore and didn't like) and donate (or at least seriously think about donating) them to Goodwill.

Like the 6 items challenge, there are some exceptions:

1. Like last month, accessories don't count. Wear your shoes and scarves as many times as you want.
2. Unlike last month, special occasions do count. Wear it to a wedding, and it's done.
3. I think I'm only counting items that are worn for most of the day. Example: The clothes I wore to work have to be put in the OLLB, but the sweatshirt I wear only in the house to keep warm can be worn more than once.

I think both of these challenges sound pretty do-able. Let me know if you're joining in on either one, and feel free to add your own exceptions to the rules to make them more your style!











P.S. I know this new challenge doesn't really fit with the title of our blog anymore -maybe this is the MORE part. Aimee thinks we might need to change the title - any suggestions?

My Grand Finale

Over. Done. Finished.  Here are my last three days (and a few other grand finale photos):

I thought I'd wear all six items to finish off with a bang!  I also rummaged through my accessories & found the ones I haven't worn this month:

My plan: to turn this little bag of unwanted leftovers into brand new lovelies!  This is my accessory challenge.  Perhaps while Allison is cleaning out her closet in February, I'll be creating new accessories to ADD to my wardrobe.... Or maybe I'll join Allison & save crafting for March.  We'll see!

Alright, last I thought I'd put all the outfits together so you can see how well you think I really did at turning my 6 items into 31 outfits.  Here you go:

Last Day, Hooray!

Every year on the last day of the school year, I read a book to my students called Last Day, Hooray! In the story, the kids have to clean up their classroom and take everything home. They are sad that everything is coming off the walls and they won't see their teacher and friends everyday. But then they start thinking about everything that happened during the year, and the teacher gives them gold stars and tells them what a great job they've done in school, and everyone goes home happy.

I kind of feel like those kids today - I am packing up my 6 items and I won't see them everyday anymore. I think I'll even miss them a little bit. I enjoyed the easiness and routine of knowing what I would wear the next day. Even if I was running late in the morning, I knew all I had to do was pick up a couple of the items off the chair (or the floor) and I would be all set to go! It was much easier than my usual routine of standing in the closet wondering what to wear or trying on three different outfits before deciding! Even though I was worried in the beginning that I would be bored wearing just 6 items, I actually enjoyed the challenge of making each outfit look different and using the items and accessories in different ways.

I'd like to think that I will look at buying clothing differently now and maybe not spend so much money on clothing or so much time trying to look nice. I've realized that people don't notice your clothing as much as you might think they do. I've also learned that it's not really that hard to make different outfits out of the same clothes. Maybe this will change the way I pack for vacations! These are just a few of my thoughts about the experience - nothing truly life-changing, but it's something to think about.

Going back to my story, I also think that we, like the kids in the book, deserve some gold stars! It was a challenge, and I think we did pretty well. But I'll let you decide what you think while you look at my last five outfits...

P.S. I'm starting a new, clean-out the closet challenge for February, so be sure to check it out tomorrow!

Nearing the End

Week Four is over!  And that means only three days left with my six items.  While Allison has been planning out her outfits, and my husband says he's ready for me to wear some colors other than black, gray, and teal; I am wondering if I'm ready for the end of the month.  I mean, in reality, I'm ready.  It will be nice to have a little more variety.  But really, I have kind of enjoyed the simplicity of my six items and the creativity it required.  No - I'm not going to continue into February, but I am starting to think of what other creative fashion journeys I can go on.

But enough rambling,  here's a snapshot of Week Four:

(I know... some of my pics are blurry.  But don't worry, we just got a new camera, so I'm sure my last 3 pics will be beautiful! :))

Playing Catch Up

Well, my internet has not been working at home this week, so I'm WAY behind on the updates. I was going to try to make my pictures all fancy, but instead, I'll just give you days 19-25... (Pardon day 20, I ended up with an extra picture and couldn't figure out which was really day 20's outfit!)

Well, I can't believe the month is almost over. We are on the home stretch here. I will say that today has been the first day I really did not want to put on any of the 6 items. Maybe it's the weather, but I really just wanted to put on a big comfy sweater (and stay in my bed all day), but since neither of those things were going to happen, I picked my clothes up off the floor and put them on again. I did a repeat outfit, since I am running out of ways to make myself feel like I'm looking cute and different. (I am already mentally planning my outfits for Tuesday and Wednesday next week.)

Stay tuned for the final outfits of the month, and to find out February's challenge!