It’s that odd, liminal time between Christmas and New Years, and I’ve lost pretty much all sense of schedule and structure. My mom was visiting us all last week and I was off from work, so mostly I’ve just been reading, cooking, eating, eating, and did I mention eating? We had a good time.
While gifts are certainly not the main point of the holiday, many wonderful gifts were exchanged this week. Matt got me a stuffed giant squid and I got him a Merino Henley he’d been wanting from Wool&Prince (“brother” company of Wool&). My mom made us both cry a little bit by giving us the gift of a Disney vacation after Matt’s graduation in the Spring. I don’t really care if it’s basic as hell to love Disney World – we went nearly every summer when I was young, and all my happiest childhood memories are from those vacations. I am so, so excited to be able to share that magic with my husband this year. Thanks again, Mama.
Also, very importantly, we found out that our family is about to get a little bit bigger, because my brother proposed to his girlfriend and she said YES! I am overjoyed – I love my brother like the best friend and confidant he has been for me these last 28 years, and his fiancee is genuinely one of the lovliest people I have ever met. They are perfect together, and I’m selfishly very excited to have an awesome new sister-in-law. Congrats, you two!
I get this week off from work every year (one of the best benefits of the organization I work for) and I typically use this time for a lot of self-reflection and planning for the next year. In terms of blog reflections, I feel good about what I put out into the world this year even if it wasn’t always exactly what I planned. I’m not making any blogging resolutions for 2020 except to keep doing it.
In terms of wardrobe reflections, I’ve been feeling sort of overwhelmed by how large my wardrobe has become. It’s not huge, but it is a little too big for my liking. I’ve accumulated a lot this year – I think I have everything that I need at this point, and I’m giving myself permission to slow down and stop obsessing over shopping. I have more on this in a bigger post that will go live next week.
During my vacation, I get the rare opportunity to get dressed for something other than work. What I learned this week is that even if I’m not working, I tend to gravitate toward a more business-casual look anyway. That’s fine with me. I always prefer to be overdressed than underdressed, and my sartorial preferences are generally more formal than jeans and t-shirt. For your reference, I have one pair of blue jeans, one pair of black jeans, and seven pairs of black work pants. I think that tells you all you need to know about where my style priorities are.
Today, though, I decided to go for a fun, loungey mix. I’m wearing my Mott & Bow cropped tee (definitely my pick for best plain white tee out there), my Pact pocket leggings (technically part of my workout capsule but I have not been to the gym yet this vacation and do not plan to go), my Keds, and my new-to-me Elizabeth Suzann Rebekka sweater (originially named the Rebekka “Kimono,” but ES has discontinued the style and worked to name her newer garments in ways that are more respectful to the culture and history they are meant to pay homage to. I highly recommend reading her blog post about collaborating with members of the ES community to name her new Asawa Tie Belt.).
I love this loungey outfit because it feels put-together while still being the epitome of at-home comfort.
p.s. someone recently commented on an Instagram post of mine to ask me how I keep my Keds so white. The answer is… I don’t. They look really nice and clean in most of my photos because I bump the exposure of the photo up a little bit and de-saturate the yellow tones, but in reality they are not clean at all and in fact I accidentally permanently yellowed them by attempting to clean them with bleach. Pro-tip: do not do this.
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