OOTD Extreme Failure

Girls, let this be a lesson: you can get away with being cheap and not buying a lot of maternity stuff if you can just be creative with what you have! Who doesn’t aspire to look like some kind of yoga hobo? Whatever, I was only going to the mechanic.  International Housewife Code clearly states I don’t need to shower or break out the nice elastic pants until Target and Wegman’s.  Duh.

From the waist down: Marshall’s
Tank top stretched within an inch of its cottony life: Wal-Mart
Cardi: Mom
Scarf: Grandma
Wardrobe carnage behind me: Sorry

Let’s Talk About Hair (Slow News Day)

Here is where I out myself as a true failure of a twenty-something chick: hair maintenance is extremely far down on my list of priorities.  I cut my hair… twice a year.  No joke.  Only once a year do I splurge and get a cut and highlights at an actual salon place, and then about 6 months later when I start to look like Garth Algar I go to Hair Cuttery for a trim.  ($15 GUYS!).

I swear… it’s the same.  I don’t know what others’ thoughts are, but my experience with hair is that its level of attractiveness is more proportional to the amount of time I spend with it in the morning than how much I spent the cut.  If you are too lazy most days to spend more than 93 seconds with the hair dryer (me), no expensive cut is gonna bail out yo slacker self.  Conversely, if I actually bother to bust out an appliance of some kind, I can usually walk out the door feeling OK about my head.  So $15 it is.

I also abhor the process of getting my hair cut.  IT’S SO BORING.  I am simply too hyper to sit in a chair and gaze at myself in the mirror for 45 minutes.  You try to read and they just yell at you to pick your head up.  Or you are subjected to the worst torture of all, 45 minutes of small talk with the cutter.  Holy God.  Last time I had to suffer through that I walked out with this stylist’s life story… childhood.  Sister’s divorce.  Death of first dog.  Current dog that they can’t bring themselves to put down but it’s probably time.  House remodeling.  Neighbors they don’t get along with.  Complaints about the bad benefits from the salon.  None of that was hyperbolic or fabricated for the sake of jest. TRUE STORIES, ALL OF IT.

So… anyway.  I skipped my annual highlights treat at the salon this summer (umm, did I mention the part about walking away from my job/income when we came to PA?) and my hair has deteriorated rapidly from cute blond to rodent blond.  Very un-cute.  I’m quite leery of cheap color for a lot of reasons.  Dye is probably low quality and full of 4,000 carcinogens and illegal in 12 states, much higher stakes if something goes wrong (you can’t blow dry your way out of a color disaster), etc.  But desperate times call for… extreme cheapness.

So I was intrigued when we got a coupon in our new mailbox for $10 off a color treatment (“a $40 value”) at something called Cost Cutters.  $30 for highlights? Hot diggity! Also… $30 for highlights? Meep.

So what is this Cost Cutters?  Is it like a poor man’s Hair Cuttery? (Repeat: MEEP).  I asked Google for some reviews and here is what Shanksbbygurl94 has to offer…

I… umm… guys…. I… just can’t.  This may be slightly irrational, but with my ego already fragile right now, I can’t help but worry that Cost Cutters will lead me down some kind of slippery slope wherein one day I’m a respectable woman, and the next day I’m picking outa picturr and asking for high lights everyware.  Except then I walk out looking likea lion.  (Actually my first pass at that I was like ‘What’s an ikea lion?’)

Sorry you had to read all this about my hair.

Deal With It

One man’s horrific clashing pattern is another man’s… Funky! Right? Or in this case another man’s not having done dry cleaning in three and a half months….

Blurbs of the Pointless Variety

1.  In case you haven’t seen yet (I hear it’s “getting around” on the interwebs) please check out 13 Steps to Get You Through a Rough Day.  A referral to me from BFF Kristine which did not disappoint.  I did exactly as it suggested and printed out the Britney picture for my desk, and inexplicably my mega-annoying work week seemed more surmountable.

2.  Can we make fun of my awful outfit today?

Let me preface this.  I freaking lurve dresses.  They are my #1 work wardrobe investment and, if I may humbly suggest to you all, the best work wardrobe investment.  Why? Dresses are usually priced comparably to skirts if you search correctly, but really they’re like getting an extra half off because they’re complete outfits in and of themselves.  If you’re interested in conforming to societal rules, skirts require tops unfortunately.  So then, not only do you have to find a top, you have to match shoes, tights, and whatever else to both those things.  SO MUCH THINKING.

A dress? One thing.  Done.  Shut it down.  Boom goes the dynamite.  This also saves you a good 30-45 seconds in the morning putting on one thing instead of two.  Does anyone else have their mornings timed down to 15 second increments to allow for super-maximum taking advantage of every last second to sleep? I do.  It’s pathetic.  And disordered.  And my relationship with sleep must be dangerously close to an actual clinical case of narco…….. narca…….. whatever that person from Deuce Bigalow had.  ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Any.  HOO.  I’m obsessed with this dress above that my mama got me for Christmas (thanks, mama).  It’s jersey knit with a wrap detail meaning there are no zippers, no buttons, so it is like your understanding, comforting friend even on the worst muffin top-y day.  It’s amazing how much better your day is when it feels like you’re sitting around in PJs.  Unlike every other day where I eat, like, 3 bites of lettuce and somehow my waistband suddenly becomes some crazed Jumanji python eating me ALIVE and I’m asking myself “Nobody would notice that I had this belt on earlier and I don’t have it on now, right? Right?” [un-clip] “aaaaAAAAAaaaaaHHHHhhhhhhhhh sweet merciful macaroons that is BETTER.”  [resume nomming]

Back over the winter I always wore this dress with my BFF boots, a scarf of some sort, and big gold earrings.  I always really liked it.  Then today it was too warm for boots and scarves, so with 0 seconds left in my rush to catch the bus I needed a solution prontissimo and threw on black tights, black flats, and pearls.  (With no hooks or clasps or other motor skill consuming BS, the pearls carry a time committment of <1 second and are therefore a popular last minute choice).  But unfortunately it took my beloved outfit from cute-in-a-thirty-something-art-teacher-kind-of-way straight to John Goodman guest-starring in The Church Lady.  BLECH.

3.  Earlier I emailed Jeff that I’d be late due to a meeting at the zoo (tonight we learned about a new radiography exhibit in the small mammal house… HOLLER) and he responded, and I quote:

Wednesday afternoon, April 4, monkey screams ring out in the zooooooo skyyyyyyy!

That’s all.  It cracked me up and needed put on the internet for all eternity.  I’d love to yack about more pointless crap but I need to get the eff to sleep due to this week blowing.

Since I don’t want to hog the fun here is a squirrel x-ray parting gift…. Too cool!