What's On My Bookshelf?

Last week, Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy asked us if we snuck peeks of other people's bookshelves when we visited their houses. Of course we did! And so this week, we're linking up pictures of our bookshelves for others to ogle.

I have a lot of books, y'all. So here we go!

The first bookshelf you see when you enter the house is this one:

Until recently, it held very few books; I had only recently consolidated the APO memorabilia to one shelf instead of two. But then T-Rex started walking and pulling books off shelves, so I had to clear the lower shelves of another bookcase, and those books got jammed in here willy nilly.

Most obviously, the stack of German textbooks on the very top of the bookcase:

Then more German books, shoved in around the original contents of the shelf: parenting and baby books. That Having a Baby book is the one my mom read when pregnant with me in the eighties. You may recognize The Chronicles of Narnia in the middle there--but auf Deutsch. I wrote my senior thesis on Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus, which is why I have that one in both English and German.

Next, the rest of the German books, my Latin stuff, and a few political/sociological books joined the original Gardening and Animals/Nature shelf.

A shelf in the cabinet at the bottom of this bookcase holds the rest of the rescued books: politics/sociology/finance, mostly, though you might spy a few more linguistics/language books--including Cat in the Hat in Latin.

Since Anne mentioned her own little yellow German books, I decided to gather all mine up and take a picture just of them, all two dozen of them:

I don't know why Goethe's Faust is green and not yellow. Because it's so special, I suppose.

The family room holds the majority of our books in five different bookcases.

First up, the little bookcase I had to clear to save from the toddler:

The top shelf is nothing but Bibles. Well, and a concordance:

 

Also? Not even all the Bibles we own.

The next shelf is about a third hymnals and songbooks, one third random religion/theology books, and one third the beginning of my German collection:

 

 Recognize this little volume, Anne? Jane Austen's Stolz und Vorurteil.

 

The two built-ins hold mostly Fancy Law Books and movies:

 

 But there are some random reference books, Spanish textbooks, and modern fiction scattered in:

 

Also some board games and middle school social studies textbooks:

 

The other built-in really is just Fancy Law Books:

 

The final two bookcases hold most of my history and English books from college:

 

From which you can clearly deduce that my history concentration was Asian history:

That Mao biography is heavy stuff. Anyway. Some random war histories, the Crusades, and one of my two books on the sinking of the Titanic--not sure what happened to the first.

Then, a bit of a mix:

Various nonfiction titles, classic fiction, Bullfinch's Mythology, the one volume of Harry Potter I own (the British edition of book seven. Wait, I also own book three auf Deutsch), some other Harry Potter stuff (Looking for God in Harry Potter is a good one for literary types) and, for some reason, two-thirds of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as a combo edition. Whatevs.

Next shelf: where English books go to die:

Can you tell my advisor was a Faulkner scholar? All those gold books in the middle are Faulkner. I think this shelf is arranged novels/short stories and then plays.

More, including the much-loved Norton anthologies:

The random Grisham novel is the DDH's; because he's a lawyer, people keep giving him Grisham books. The book on top of it, To Set Before a Queen is a tell-all cookbook written by a former chief chef to Queen Elizabeth II. I found it hidden away in a used bookstore while looking for something else, which is where all the best books come from.

Next up, the kitchen:

The three books on top are usually displayed elsewhere: Die echte deutsche Kueche, a Schwabisch cookbook, and the Lindt Book of Chocolate. Yum.

I refer most often to Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything, which is why they're on the end where they're less likely to set off a destructive domino chain of cookery books. The binders are Kitchen Stewardship eBooks that I printed out because I use them pretty often. There's a healthy collection of church cookbooks from around the country in the middle there.

Ok! On to the less public rooms and their books.

The children's/young adult books live in the guest room:

Oh, Animorphs. I still think you're awesome, even though I'm no longer in middle school:

The white books are the Billabong series, an Australian series of novels about a girl growing up on a sheep station in the Australian bush in the 1910s (spanning WWI). My aunt sent them to me two a time for every birthday and Christmas when she lived in Australia, where I guess they're a classic akin to Little House on the Prairie here. I love them so. much.

Here's my Redwall collection; I was a little obsessed with those mice for awhile in elementary school:

 

Here you can see a bunch of the books left over from my childhood horse obsession, including a really beautiful edition of Black Beauty. Also, dinosaur books:

 

Some more random children's books, including a children's cookbook I got for my seventh birthday and a few German storybooks:

A few of the children's books live in the nursery:

Notably, our How Do Dinosaurs...? collection and some Bible storybooks, including one that is fuzzy like a lion. Also, The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter from my own childhood.

There are a few more children's books around the house. His Indestructible books (paperlike, but unrippable) and a few other board books were on the bottom of that shelf I cleared off for him in the living room. His current favorite is Die liebste Mama der Welt. He also has a German My First Dictionary that contains pictures of things very important to German children, like public transportation ticket vending machines, that do not translate well at all to the American Midwest.

Here are the books in the office:

They're mostly the DDH's law and psychology books.

Last but certainly not least, the books in our bedroom. First, the stack by my bed:

 

I haven't gotten around to putting What to Expect When You're Expecting away yet. The DDH gave me the first Game of Thrones book to read, but I haven't yet started it. I love the Then Sings My Soul devotional, which looks at the origins of hymns. The Lutheran Study Bible because Lutherans decided they needed their own Bible. Here I Stand, the excellent biography of Martin Luther that I have been two chapters away from finishing for more than a year now.

Then there's the built-in shelf, where I keep the sci-fi/fantasy novels:

Theoretically they're in alphabetical order by author. At one time they were, anyway. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy starts us off. Watership Down is one of my absolute favorite books. The Ender books and some other Orson Scott Card novels, which I've loved since we first read Ender's Game in eighth grade. I Capture the Castle is a charming little novel, written by the author of 101 Dalmations. Stephen Gould, the author of Jumper, lives in Albuquerque and those are all signed.

Let's see. Some Wizard of Oz books that need to move downstairs to the guest room. L'Engle, of course. Jane Lindskold is another Albuquerque author and her books are also signed; we're apparently both Tigers in the Chinese zodiac. I was obsessed with Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels for the entirety of middle school.

And I stole that The Atlas of Pern from my dad--the other place all the best books come from. Robin McKinley--love her books. Deerskin is beautiful and sad.

More Lindskold because they wouldn't fit on the top shelf. More McKinley; more McCaffrey. A penguin ice cream scoop.

And there we go! Longest post ever, but I have a lot of books!

What do you think? Do you check out other people's bookshelves when you come to visit? What do your own bookshelves say about you? Be sure to check out the linkup to snoop on more awesome reading collections.

Meet the Spouse: The DDH

Kathleen at Becoming Peculiar had the genius idea to share posts about our spouses. Because we write about our lives, our children, even our pets, but often our spouses make only cameo appearances on our blogs.

So without further ado...the DDH!

At Pops in Arcadia, OK last spring.

The DDH and I met in college (Blow, 'Cane!). He was the Assistant Resident Director (the student staff member in charge of all the other student staff members) for the Honors House (where we lived) and another dorm. I was a freshman. There was probably a rule against that, oops.

His first memory of me is of a dorky freshman wearing a straw cowboy hat. Admittedly, that is precisely what I was. My first impression of him is probably lost somewhere in a blur of new faces and panic, but I came to know a man who was funny, intelligent, interesting, and a firm Christian (though he tricked me into thinking he was Lutheran, which he wasn't).

After only a few weeks hanging out with him, I said to myself, "This is the man I'm going to marry." And I did.

Ironically, at the time I decided that, I was oh-so-generously helping him woo a girl at a different college. Because I'm tricksy like that.

Oktoberfest 2011.

We began dating steadily October 1 (having just met in August*). We continued dating all through my freshman/his junior year and my sophomore/his senior year.

During this time, we managed to take a couple of courses together (one block level psych class (his major) and one block level history class (my minor)). We were both very active in Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed community service fraternity, and traveled together to Denver, St. Louis, Louisville, and other less exotic places for fraternity conventions, as well as logging countless service hours together. During this time, his parents went through a very messy divorce and his little brother's life spiraled out of control. I considered dumping him because he would answer his mom's phone calls and spend dozens of minutes talking to her while out on dates with me. In retrospect, this demonstrates his emotional stability and empathy, or something, but at the time it was really annoying.

Finally, during my junior year of undergrad and his first year of law school, in a paddleboat on the Schluchsee in the Black Forest, he asked me to marry him (I was studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany at the time). A week later, after spending six days traveling around Italy with my parents and siblings in an SUV that only nominally seated six people, he still wanted to marry me. So, we went ahead with planning a wedding and were married in the November after my graduation from college, in 2008.

He graduated law school and passed the bar in 2011, and has been working as an assistant district attorney in the juvenile bureau for the last year and a half. (That's one reason I call him the DDH on the blog, though many of you know his real names. There are people out there who don't care much for prosecuting attorneys, turns out.)

At the Oklahoma State Capital for his swearing in ceremony.

In some ways, I think we're too similar. We're both painfully shy as well as introverted, and incredibly indecisive. We have had more than one argument about not being able to choose a place to have dinner or a way to spend an afternoon, and somehow we each resent being the one who "always" has to make these decisions.

Over the Main River in Frankfurt.

But in other ways, he complements me beautifully. He is very handy, willing and able to fiddle with everything from electronic gadgets to Christmas lights to furniture to fix, build, or otherwise make it work properly. I, on the other hand, am something of a technophobe who has difficulty following the instructions in beginner Lego kits.

In the paddleboat where he proposed.

He loves and supports me unconditionally, never complaining about the strange dishes I cook (though he does give his honest opinion) or my various other experiments, and always egging me on to write more.

He loves the things that I love, like food and travel and cheesy action movies. He's a gift-giver and a romantic and general all-around thoughtful guy.

At the hospital, waiting for T-Rex to be born.

I mean, he has his faults, and we disagree on lots of things big and small, from televisions in bedrooms to fine details regarding the doctrine of Original Sin. I suppose life would be pretty boring if we agreed on everything. And anyway, the important thing is, he always takes my side against his mother, even when I am, ah, less than delicate about expressing my opinion about her opinions (heh).

In particular, I have always envied him his certainty about his calling. He has known he wanted to be a lawyer since high school. He worked steadily through high school, college, and law school with that goal in mind, and now here he is. He loves his job. He loves the law. He loves being a lawyer, and he loves the kind of law he practices right now. I have never known what I want to do and have never loved a job. I envy him that certainty and sense of vocation, and I am so glad at least one of us has it.

Price Tower Artz Center in Bartlesville, July 2011.

 And he loves T-Rex. Watching him with our son the past three months has been a joy. He plays with him and shows him off and rocks him when he cries. He not only never once questioned my decision to go with cloth diapers, he volunteers to change them. He is a wonderful father, and I can't wait to see them together as T-Rex grows and as (hopefully, eventually) other children join our family.

Cool dudes.

Basically, he's the best. I am blessed far beyond what I deserve.

Linking up at Becoming Peculiar for the Meet the Spouse! carnival.

*Few people, however, can beat my parents, who were introduced on a blind date the day after Christmas and were married the next March, about eleven weeks after they met. And they're still married, almost 31 years later.

I am opening a can of worms.

The internets have gotten me thinking.

So if you're having a lazy layabout weekend, I thought I'd get you thinking, too.

First, read this. It discusses a study by a couple of psychologists researching a psychological phenomenon they term the "stereotype threat."

It's an NPR fluff piece with an angle, not the actual scientific study itself. NPR's angle is that this stereotype threat is one of (perhaps the major) factor behind the dearth of women in mathematics/science careers.

I know several women in precisely those fields (including one working in the National Security Administration's cybercrimes division), but they're roughly my age, so I can't exactly speak to whether or not they'll stick it out in those careers. That's one of the article's points--women start out in those fields, doing well, with lots of academic credentials, but end up quitting sooner and advancing less than their male colleagues.

Keep in mind, too, that one of those women specifically credits attending an all-girl high school for her own success in mathematics, reinforcing the stereotype threat theory.

So in other words, for stereotypes to stop being true, we need to stop talking about them all the time. If you never know there's a stereotype that girls are bad at math, you'll never unconsciously self-fulfill that prophecy. Maybe?

Something to think about, since current feminist methods promote pointing out every little disparity all the time until you can't even enjoy a movie without worrying if it passes the Bechdel test or read a book without worrying about its conflicting feminist messages.

Yet complaining about these stereotypes may in some way perpetuate them, exactly the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish (not that I think we should sit down and shut up like good little housewives, either; it's just that the situation is a lot more complex and multi-faceted--and harder to fix--than we'd like to think).

Got all that?

Ok then. Now read this thoughtful post by Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy.

What do you think?

I think that the stereotype threat is the most compelling theory I've heard for discrepancies of that kind. But. It's certainly not the whole story (it never is, is it?).

Women (and men) of a certain generation worked very hard to ensure that the women of our generation had the opportunity to work in scientific fields (and business ones, and political ones, etc. etc.).

And it must be excruciatingly frustrating to see women of my generation (and the one between, to which Anne belongs) not fulfilling their dreams of total parity (in terms of numbers, prestige, pay, usw.) in the workplace.

So they look for an outside explanation. If laboratories and Senate floors are not fifty/fifty men/women, there must be some outside force preventing women from holding those positions. After all, in their day, an outside force was to blame. That's what the women of that generation know how to fight--entrenched societal norms and stereotypes. Nothing but those sorts of outside forces could keep them from fulfilling their own dreams, and they assume that younger women have the same dreams and thus the same impediments to those dreams.

That's not necessarily the case. I'm not saying a certain amount of stereotyping and pressure don't exist. Like I said, I think it's likely that the stereotype threat, as a psychological phenomenon, is real.

But. I also think that women of my and Anne's generation have different dreams, on the whole (see, there I am stereotyping, of course), than did the women of the previous generation. It's not that outside forces are keeping us from jobs as scientists or politicians or whatever. It's that we don't necessarily dream of being scientists and politicians, or we dream of being them differently than did our predecessors.

Because, as I pointed out in my comment to Anne's post, this is not just a women's issue. It's a generational one. The men of our generations don't really want to be scientists and politicians in the old mold, either. Both men and women want more flexibility, more freedom. They're more concerned with happiness and personal fulfillment than getting ahead. They want to be successful in their careers, but on their own terms, in ways that mean that their successful careers don't define them.

The DDH doesn't just want to be an awesome lawyer, or to claw his way to a partnership at a prestigious firm. He wants to be a good husband and a good father and a man who pursues other interests, from video games to church leadership. And he's willing to work at a less prestigious (and, sadly for me, a less financially renumerative) lawyering job in order to have the time to be those other things.

Which is what Anne is doing.

Which is what my friend at the NSA plans to do, to stay home with her children once she and her husband have them, at least for a time, and pursue other interests (and her husband also works for the NSA, so it's going to look, on paper, exactly as if a man and a woman, same age, began working at the same workplace in roughly positions, and the woman "couldn't stick it out" and quit while the man keeps going).

Which is what I want to do.

Which is what thousands of other women and men in their twenties and thirties are doing because it's what they want to do.

It's not what every woman wants, of our generations or any other, and it's very important that women have the opportunity to be just as successful as men in any career they choose.

But when we choose not to stick with a career or to take a slower route to the top, it's not necessarily because of the insidious pressure of entrenched societal stereotypes. It's not a problem that can be rectified with more shows like Bones or movies like Brave, though I think we could use more of those, too.

Because it's not necessarily a problem at all.

So what do you think? Am I crazy?

What is your experience with and relationship to these issues?

What I am into this month: April

Still just greening.

On My Nightstand: I'm still reading An Omnivore's Dilemma and Changer (sidenote: if you want an eclectic, though-provoking author-blog to add to your reading list, I highly recommend Jane Lindskold's). I've started both Introverts in the Church and Here I Stand: A Biography of Martin Luther, both of which the DDH got me for Easter. I'm slogging or have slogged through a million billion baby books (or at least it feels that way).

I did actually read the entirety of Free Range Kids. Unfortunately, I then decided it would be a good idea to give it to the DDH to read, and he has proceeded to provide me with a list of the exact charges he would level against Skenazy after DHS took her kids and she ended up in his courtroom.

Never marry a lawyer, ladies. -_-

I also read all of Having a Baby, a pregnancy/baby book that my mom read when she was pregnant with me in the mid eighties, written by Danielle Steel (yes, that Danielle Steel, of bodice-ripping romance novel fame) and six of her friends who were all pregnant at the same time in 1983 or so. It was hilarious (please click the link and look at the cover. I implore you). And reassuring? Also, apparently less than thirty years ago women not only still drank while pregnant but drove around in cars with their babies on their laps instead of in car seats. What the what.

Want to Read: The books that I've already begun! Ouch. I blame the fact that I've been opting for naps and worry over reading lately.

Oh! If you want some excellent book suggestions from a variety of ladies 'round the web, check out Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy's Book Carnival going on today! Really some excellent suggestions.

TV Show Worth Watching: Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Castle, Bones. Community. Alcatraz. The usual.

The DDH and I have also been watching Mad Men on Netflix. We finished season one and are working on season two. That show is simultaneously BORING and engrossing. It is so. slow. Like snails high on weed crawling through molasses. And every last character is a jerk and/or a creep. BUT. They're all so fascinating, in a train-wreck kind of way. A gorgeous, beautifully costumed, impeccably set, stoned-molasses-snail train wreck.

Movies I've Seen (in or out of a theater): We may or may not have rented a movie or two at some point. When it gets windy (aka every day in the spring), our internet gets unreliable because the giant untrimmed trees snag the cable that leads to our house. I feel certain the DDH rented some movies to remedy this, but I can't even remember. This month has been a haze of all-day-sickness and exhaustion.

More importantly: The Hunger Games. Here is my review: The DDH agreed to go see the movie after I had read the first book, but said that young adult novels are dumb and he doesn't read them. We saw the movie Friday night. Saturday he bought the first book on his Kindle.

In My Ears: I hate music right now. This is apparently my pregnancy aversion: noise.

What I'm looking forward to next month: More appointments. Starting to tell more people (though not telling work...I mean, I'll have to eventually, but I'm not looking forward to it. Or to deciding what my plan actually is about work in the future). This mystical sense of well-being and energy that I have been promised will be mine in the second trimester.

Goal Progress: I posted some goals for the new year, and I figured these monthly wrap-up posts would be a good chance to check my progress throughout 2012.
The Budget: I don't even know. We're fine right now. Still trying to figure out what's going to be what with my work situation in the next few months/years.
The Garden: I ate a snap pea off the vine yesterday. It was delicious. We also planted six tomatoes, four peppers, and a ground cherry plant on Friday.

Food: No @#%$ comment. Blech.

The Craft Room: Miraculously I did actually work on this some the other day and might even share my progress on here at some point.

What a difference a month makes--when that month is April!

How are you doing on your 2012 goals? What are you looking forward to in May?

I am two.

Oh, hey there, blog. Almost forgot about you.

Life's been a little busy, and I've been a little tired.

And we're not ready to tell everyone (which means, no Facebook), but I'm trying to work through some things in my head so I'm going to tell you, my dear Internet friends (and Jessi, but please keep it quiet for now!):

Yup. Little Critter's ETA is mid-November. The same month as our anniversary. And as DDH's birthday. So that was good planning. -_-

Yay! So other than being terrified, we're very excited (even though I'm going to spend the rest of this point not sounding excited at all but worrying over related matters). But I guess my goals for the year have changed a bit now.

I need to:

1. Learn everything (or at least enough) about pregnancy, childbirth, and babies.
2. Make a nursery and otherwise babyproof the house.
3. Figure out how to babyproof the dogs (they're very loving and protective, but Jayne also sliced my toe open yesterday making a mad dash for his Kong. Soooo....).
4. Figure out how to tell my boss that I'm leaving the firm, hopefully while still being able to work up until the baby's born (the "hopefully" is not because I anticipate illness but because my boss is insane and might just fire me as soon as I tell him).
5. Figure out a way to make some money from home, and/or find a job of some sort to go back to next year.

A massive trip to the library and a judicious amount of googling are taking care of number one.

Number two will begin over the next few months. On a strict budget and with lots of gifty help from the parents...first grandchild FTW.

Number three...I'm guessing google will help me there, too. Though some people suggest using a doll and training the dog to behave around the doll, and that doesn't make sense to me. Dogs identify primarily through smell. A doll doesn't smell anything like a baby, and training a dog to be nice to a piece of plastic has nothing to do with it being nice to an actual person. Really I suspect this will just involve actually training the dumb dogs to behave better (finally! a reason for the DDH to cooperate and not sabotage all my efforts). And trimming their nails more frequently. And constant vigilance!

Numbers four and five, though...blech. For various reasons, starting with my boss is batshit crazy, going through no really, he's insane and ending with also I don't really like finance that much and I'm not that good at it, I do not plan on coming back to this job after Critter is born.

The fact that my salary would approximately equal the cost of good daycare enters into our consideration as well, and is part of the reason why I would prefer to manage to make some sort of money at home rather than by going to a part-time job somewhere. But the fact is, the DDH's ADA job will not quiiiiiitte pay all the bills. (Of course, trying to make payments on his ridiculous law school student loans is really what makes it impossible for us to get by on just his ADA salary...but anyway.)

I've worked as a tutor on the side before, and imagine I could pick up some more of those gigs--except that childcare will again be an issue (though not an insurmountable one, surely).

Here's the thing. Really, Critter just pushed up my deadline. I've been planning to quit my job for a while now, because I hate it. It's both boring and stressful and not particularly rewarding in any sense of the word--except for the sense in which it's reliable, regular income, which going out on my own with any sort of project is not.

But while what I love is writing, editing, cooking, and gardening (and I'm not particularly talented at the last two)...I have no idea how to turn that into any amount of money at all. And I'm getting depressed googling around for online editing gigs and only coming up with scams. Why don't legitimate people want a complete stranger to edit their important documents over the internet? I don't understand. ;-)

So I need some ideas. Is it too much to ask that I

1. Actually make some (not a lot! but some) money
2. Doing something that I actually enjoy
3. That lets me stay at least mostly at home with Critter and his/her eventual siblings, doing what I believe is the most important job of all?

It would be really nice if the DDH could just snag some swank private-sector lawyering gig with a private-sector lawyering income so that I wouldn't have to worry about making my writing projects profitable...but he promised the county four years and he's a man of his word. And he really, really loves his crazy insane stressful heartbreaking job, so I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to stay longer.

Sigh. It's something I need to work on regardless of whether Critter sticks it out (yes, I'm reading too many miscarriage stories on Babycenter), because as scary and uncertain and failure-ridden as doing something else is likely to be, I cannot subject myself to this place much longer.

Help, friends!

I am dressed (don't ask much more of me)!

I've been in a bit of a rut, outfit-wise, for a few weeks, but this past week or so I finally hit on some inspiration and a few outfits that look good.

Have I shown you this one before? It's from back in February:

Shirt: Either H&M in Freiburg (because
there's not one in Oklahoma OR New Mexico,
cry) or Old Navy--I have two red shirts and don't
remember which one this was; Dress: Old Navy;
Leggings: Target; Necklace: Kohl's.

Sometimes I like the dress-over-a-shirt thing and sometimes I don't. This one was okay, except apparently the shirt added a bit of bulk around the middle--a lady at church asked me when the baby was due. :-(

I really feel like I've described this outfit before, but I don't see it in my old posts. Hmm.

Anyway, I like this dress because it's so comfy-casual-summer, but that crossed bodice style, though popular and though I always end up buying items with it, really doesn't work that well with small boobs. A size that's big enough both to be long enough and to fit me around the waist/shoulders/hips/wherever inevitably gapes at the boobs. So the shirt underneath helps solve this problem as well as warmed it up for winter.

Shirt: Old Navy; Jeggings: American Eagle;
Necklace: Target.

I have had this shirt for.ev.er. My sister has a matching one. She ripped a hole in it and tried to pull a switcheroo on me. I sewed up the hole in hers and stole my uninjured one back. THAT'S HOW OLD THIS IS, I was still in high school and shared a room with my sister.

I love this outfit. I love blousy tops with jeggings/skinny jeans (skinny jeans have the advantage of pockets). I also get a lot of complements on that necklace--I swear it was just on sale at Target, it's nothing special. I wore this out with my purple pumps and around the house with my ballet flat slippers and it's just so comfy and yet put-together. Win.

Shirt: Old Navy; Sweater: Old Navy; Pants:
Target; Belt: Target or Old Navy; Dog Collar:
Southern Agriculture.

Jayne wanted to get in on the fashion picture action, too.

Even though I burrow into a cardigan every day at the office, very rarely does it occur to me to actually make it a part of the outfit. This makes sense in the summer, when I'm not wearing it outside of the office, but it was cool enough for a cardigan out and about.

It's amazing what buttoning the thing up and slapping a belt on the outside of it will do to an otherwise normal and boring outfit.

Camisole: Kohl's; Shirt: Old Navy; Skinny
Jeans: Old Navy; Belt: stolen from a jacket
that I got at SteinMart.

Wow, this picture makes my hips look huge. It didn't feel like that was the case IRL.

Here again is an outfit I've worn numerous times: black v-neck shirt over a red camisole, with my very favorite dark skinny jeans. But it occurred to me that the sash from a red jacket I had would work tied around the middle, and it did. It brought definition to my figure and flair to the outfit.

And then it was freezing in church and I wore my scarf and trenchcoat the entire time so no one even saw my awesomeness. And then when I had to take the coat off to donate blood I also took off the sash because restricting my breathing when I knew I would get light-headed seemed like a bad idea.

But I wore this again with a pair of black slacks to the office and was happy with it.

Dress: Target; Cardigan: Old Navy; Belt:
Target or Old Navy; Tights: Target;
Necklace: Target? Express? Somewhere.

Monday we had a Very Important Lunch Meeting. These are intimidating, because our clients and potential clients are all wealthy, successful professionals--lawyers, in this case--and dress like, well, they have a lot of money, in high-quality suits and things. I usually try to wear a dress or some other outfitty thing because my singular suit jacket that I bought at Target for Youth & Government back in high school is...pretty sad. So rather than try and fail with an obviously cheap "professional look," I go with an outfit that's obviously not trying to look like a suit, where the cheap clothing maybe isn't as noticeable.

And didn't I look awesome? It's impossible to tell in the picture, but the dress is a dark gray with a hatch pattern of lighter gray stripes, and then a black cardigan, gray silver-studded belt, black leggins, and my gray leather boots. I liked it, anyway.

So there you go! A ridiculously long look at what I've been wearing.