I'm back!

. . . with heavily edited, vintage looking, hopefully dreamy, autumnal photos.

To me, early fall is one of the best times for vintage. There's the always awesome back to school vibes, the nostalgia of the summer ending, falling leaves, it's all kind of dreamy. And I love fall clothes and colors, mustard and knits and corduroy and gray and all those lovely things. Later in fall, like now (these were taken in early/mid September if I remember correctly), I start feeling more gothy. My grays turn from soft to deep charcoal and start getting paired with blacks and I start wearing dark lipstick again. Unfortunately, I seem to miss the best of this season, the early fall, each year. I jump too quickly into the dark late fall, which is really unavoidable after daylight savings time ends. This year especially, since I didn't have a camera for much of it (I'm now borrowing my stepdad's, until he notices and asks for it back), I feel like I missed.

dress - thrifted, belt - vintage, tights - target, shoes - steve madden

But I had a few good days, and a few good outfits. I had many more outfit ideas that I didn't get around to using, but hopefully next year I will really grab onto that month and a half period of loveliness. This dress is new, I found it while shopping in Seattle with my cousin and his english wife. They were only here for a day, so I took them to Pike Place Market and Capitol Hill. We came home to meet my parents for dinner at the Grange, which is a lovely restaurant with really fresh, seasonal, and local food. (Do excuse the wonkiness of this photo, I think my cousin was trying to be arty.)

tank - gap, skirt - thrifted, tights - ??

your weight gain is my clothing gain

I had the coolest thing happen last week! I was wearing my favorite blanket skirt at work, and I went to put something on hold at customer service for a customer. The customer my co-worker was ringing up noticed it and told me she really liked it. Then she looked a little puzzled and asked me where I got it. I told her Value Village of course, and she started laughing and told me she had donated that very skirt to Value Village. It was so weird to meet someone who had gotten rid of something I chose to pick up. It was cool because she still liked the skirt, it just didn't fit her anymore. So she was really happy to see that someone else wore and loved it, and she told me she thought it looked good on me.

tank - target, skirt - thrifted, tights - target, cardigan - uo, boots - thrifted

pie guy (aka my new husband)

shirt - alternative apparel, skirt - urban outfitters, scarf - gift, tights - target, cardigan - urban outfitters, boots - thrifted, bag - vintage dooney & burke

Dudes, you can get pie delivered until 3am Friday and Saturday nights in Seattle. Via bike. By a cute boy who makes and delivers all the pies himself. I am so in love. After seeing the Normies play in the CD with my new coworker (she just moved here and is pretty cool), we went back to Amanda's apartment to order a whole fucking peanut butter and chocolate pie. God, it was incredible. Actually, Justina, Amanda, and Tony went back and ordered the pie while coworker and I got burgers at Dick's. I'm introducing her to as much Seattle stuff as possible. Tonight she saw the neighborhoods of Wallingford, Capitol Hill, and the Central District, drank Ranier, and ate at Dick's. I think I'm a pretty good tour guide. But guys, the Piecycle is AMAZING. So damn incredible. He's only been doing this for a month but the pies are INSANELY GOOD. I'm shouting I'm so excited about this pie situation. Oh my lord, not only are the fillings crazy good, but his crust is the flakiest and most delicious I have ever tasted.

So I got this vintage purse at VV the other day, where I scored BIG on purses. Three really nice Dooney & Burkes (kind of becoming a favorite brand?) for less than $20. Plus a wool skirt and a tweed shift dress, which I'll have to show you soon. I've worn both already but just haven't blogged them. Anyways, love the kind of doctor bag vibe with this purse but the interior pocket situation is abysmal. There's a lot of them, but they're way too thin to jam anything into. So all night I'm rooting around in there trying to find my phone, or lighter, or camera and just totally dumping cigarettes and change all over. I kept losing my keys 5 seconds after putting them in there. I THINK, though, that it is cute enough to justify keeping it despite the annoyance. It has shorter handles which I removed because they are awkward with the long strap but it's really cute with those, so I'll have to use them next time. Other than that, I just found my favorite (only) ridiculous acid washed tee so I totally wore that and this floral silk skirt. And my black boots, of course, since last week at the same house I wore heels and had a bottle broken over my fucking FOOT which was not pleasant. A friend also poured his entire beer over the same foot the same night. Unfortunately, foot and shoe mishaps are still happening as this house seems to have a mysterious gold paint leak somewhere and for the second time in two weeks I discovered gold paint on my clothes when I got home. While last week it was just a tiny smudge on my (brand new, dammit) tights, this week I had not only several small and one large spots on my tights, but also huge drips and smears all over my boots. Not sure what to use to clean them, but hopefully I'll be able to get it off.

my so-called life

coat - old navy, purse - thrifted coach, cardigan - urban outfitters, flannel - gap, skirt - urban outfitters, tights - somewhere, boots - thrifted rockport

Wow, I am definitely back in Seattle. Talk about a typical Washington day. It rained like crazy today, but I kind of like it because it makes everything seem so lush. The light is really beautiful on these sorts of days. I've been watching a ton of My So-Called Life lately and loving it. I actually never watched it when it was on TV (pretty sure I was way too young and we didn't even HAVE a TV in the nineties) so this is actually my first time seeing all the episodes. Man, I love it. I know I'm not 15 anymore and I really shouldn't be identifying so strongly with a fictional character who is, but I do. That whole desperately liking a boy and not knowing how to interpret the way he acts around you? I am so there right now. It's like, one minute you're sure, he has to like me, and then he acts totally different the next. God, I really should not be feeling this show so strongly. Oh, but the clothes. Also dying loving them. The episode where Rayanne sings for Jordan Catalano's band (Frozen Embryos, although in that episode they're "between names"), she wears the most hilarious metallic, shiny, fringed, layered, craziness of an outfit. And I love her super long flannel shirt. Or is it a bathrobe? Whatever, she wears it in multiple episodes.

As it so happens, today was all sorts of nineties-rrific. My outfit, for one, which started out inspired a little by all the flannel and boots on My So-Called Life, but then I just started having fun with pattern mixing. Which seriously, I'm proud of. I'm usually no good at it, but I really really liked my outfit today. Then, after eating Thai food with a friend I haven't seen for months (welcome home from Spain buddy!), we drove to the thiftstore where I bought some boots that are the exact same ones I wore today, but black. Definitely a good find, since I don't have any black boots right now and sometimes brown just looks weird. And, we also listened to Nirvana, on TAPE no less, on the way there and back. I didn't even pick it, my friend did. He said it went with the rain and the two together made it feel like home. Yeah, that's what Seattle boils down to, even for people from here. Rain and Nirvana.

by the way, i did take lots of pictures while in texas and they will be coming soon. just really felt like posting this today. i've missed blogging. so look forward to some sunny weather, hardly any clothes posts, which should be a nice change from the rainy day stuff right now.

moon palace

Wait, what? A non-boring outfit? No way!

Yeah, I didn't have work today so I spent a little while getting dressed and then went down to the used bookstore (this bench is outside) to look for a book. The book is for a bookclub, but the bookclub only has two people. One of whom is a boy I like. The other is me. Yeah, it's cute. I didn't find the book, but the boy found his old copy of it (he had bought a new one) and said he'd mail it to me.

Anyways, after Justina and I hung out at the bookstore and then at the park for a bit, we decided to go thrifting since she hadn't been in awhile and we were both wanting some summer stuff. She found some cute dresses and skirts and I got a couple things too, including a really beat up denim jacket. Just for fun, we were looking in the furniture section and we found these amazing yellow sixties-ish chairs. Now, we both still live with our parents, but we've been talking about getting a place together this summer so we decided it was a sign that we should live together and each bought one. Stoked for our place. It's gonna look rad.


dress - old and from somewhere stupid, cardigan - target, shoes - some cheap shit, socks - dunno, bag - thrifted coach

thriftscoring an easter dress

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. My celebrations were limited to omelets for breakfast and wearing a pretty dress. Since I am not religious and have grown out of Easter egg hunts and dying eggs with food coloring (or have I? I think next year that needs to come back), Easter is barely a holiday. I did have the day off work, which was nice, and went to dinner with J and L.

I've been thrifting like crazy lately. About once a week I go after work and have buy at least a few things. Value Village has been kicking ass when it comes to vintage dresses. This particular one is a rather awful polyester fabric and appears to be handmade. It may look like something a grandma less hip than my own would wear but I quite like it. I do think it needs to be shortened though. Just above the knee? I have a lot of dresses that need to be hemmed but I can't decide on how short. Several of them I think would look best quite short but then I wouldn't be able to wear them to work. And I need more clothes that I can wear at work. Quite a dilemma.

dress - thrifted, purse - thrifted coach, coat - old navy, tights - dkny from garage sale, shoes - jeffrey campbell

Ok, these shoes. Love them. I got them months ago but haven't actually gotten around to wearing them yet. I can't wear them at work and my life has pretty much been work or home these days so I had no reason to. Finally decided, fuck it, I like them and want to wear them. I don't need a reason. Besides, I liked how they're kind of intense and it contrasts with the pastel floral dress. They will definitely be worn lots more. They're even really comfortable!

And the bag, oh man was I stoked to find this. I swear, it was probably never used. Perfect condition basic black Coach bag. The shoulder strap will be great for the summer (for some reason I hate bags that need to be held during the summer) and it's a bit bigger than my brown one which means I don't have to desperately cram all my essentials into a far too small to hold them bag. So yeah, thrift stores have been rocking my socks off lately.*

*I will be talking more about thrift and vintage stores in a later post but I had to mention that I just heard about a great sounding one in the U District. A friend of my dad's owns it and it's called Valley of Roses. Haven't checked been in yet (it was closed when we went by on our way to dinner tonight) but it looks great.

along the western slopes of the oregon coastal range . . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the wakonda auga river . . .

flannel shirt - gap, thermal shirt - target, jeans - gap, boots - thrifted

This is definitely not the most exciting boots, but I did want to show off these sweet new boots I got at the thrift store. They're kind of hiking/work boots and they fit awesome. I like how they're a light-ish brown color and the height of them. They're just a little taller than my old red boots that fell apart (I still need to try to glue the soles back on those). Anyways, I feel more like a lumberjack than usual, with the plaid flannel shirt and work boots.

(the title of this post is a quote from ken kesey's sometimes a great notion, one of my favorite books, which just so happens to be about loggers in oregon)

goooooooooooey

Sorry once again about the scarcity of posts lately. I've been working crazy hours lately. I work six days in a row next week. All full eight hour shifts. I'm also housesitting that week. I think I will die.

cardigan - thrifted, shirt - gap, skirt - vintage, tights - target, shoes - thrifted

Wow, I didn't realize how much of this outfit was thrifted! I just got this skirt the other day in the vintage section of my local Value Village (I thought I would hate it when they created the vintage section because I was worried they would start charging more for the good stuff, but it's still as cheap as ever and it's nice having a starting place with a higher ratio of good to bad). I actually changed into jeans after wearing this for a little while because Justina and I made MARSHMALLOWS and I didn't want to get the goo all over this nice wool skirt.

I also got to see Michael and Amanda that night, and we rented Moon which was REALLY good. You should watch it!

nineties nostalgia

sweater - thrifted uniqlo, tank - gap, jeans - express, shoes - thrifted

So today I went to Seattle to visit Amanda again. We decided to make a trip to Ballard, but the weather was terrible so we ended up just going to a bookstore where I looked through a book about grunge. It had a short introduction and then was just all photos of bands and grunge kids on the Ave and such. The photos were great, and I loved the outfits. Totally Seattle. It's funny because I used to hang out in the U District all the time when I was a kid and I remember it being like that, but now it's just all college kids and overpriced stores instead of street kids. Anyways, I'm rambling. Since it was so terribly windy and rainy (apparently someone died from a falling chunk of tree tonight) we just went back to Amanda's apartment and hung out until the power went out and I went home. Where we surprisingly had power.

I picked up these sweet shoes at Value Village when I was looking for stuff for my Halloween costume. They're half a size too small but I wore them all day today and they were pretty comfortable. I really dig the pointy shape and buckles at the ankles. They didn't have laces when I got them and I think I got longer ones than needed but oh well.

i'm melting. honest lee.

dress - thrifted XL men's shirt, belt - borrowed from step-dad, shoes - target, purse - vintage coach

As you may know, I live in Washington State, near Seattle. We are known for cool rainy weather. Our summers are generally pleasant, but rarely could be described as hot. The past few days have been hot. Like really hot. Really really hot. I shouldn't complain since I know so many places are much much hotter, but I'm not used to this, ok? Sure, I visit Texas, or the Midwest, or New York, and have experienced this kind of heat. But here? It's not supposed to be like this here. Today, the high temperature was 95 degrees. Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. The average high for July 28? 77 degrees. The record? 97 degrees, in 1958. I can't handle this! It is currently nearly three in the morning, and the temperature is 77 degrees. That's the average high temperature for the daytime! What the hell?

All complaining aside, today was really a good day. I actually am starting to get a little acclimated to the heat. I managed to do laundry and hang it out on the clothesline (shit, did I remember to bring my last load in?), as well as clean a spot in my hallway outside my bedroom that has become a dumping ground for random junk. I'm surviving by forgetting pants ever existed, drinking lots of water, and taking frequent breaks to sit entirely still. I also cannot bear to have any hair on my face in this heat, hence pinned up bangs. A cold beer with dinner is just about my favorite thing on earth right now. Thank god my mom is cool with that, otherwise I would be cursing our stupid drinking age. Instead, I enjoyed a nice cold, non-shitty beer with the grilled chicken and zucchini my mom made for dinner. (One reason I love drinking at home: My mom buys better beer than my friends. One reaon I love drinking with my friends: They may have shitty beer, but I can get trashed.)

I spent the rest of the evening sitting around listening to records, eating ice cream, and having a good session of girl talk with J and A. I've been meaning to grab the stack of records (mainly old ones that used to belong to my step-dad) I stashed up in the attic during a cleaning spree some time ago but only just got the guts to brave the heat. It's nice to have something other than the three records I've bought since I put the others away. Lying around on my bedroom floor talking about boys and sex and drama and all sorts of stuff and listening to old records on my thrifted (got it for a dollar) record player ended up being the perfect thing for a ridiculously hot summer evening. Thank god the vinyl hasn't melted in the heat yet.


(picture I took yesterday of some kind of flower, I don't know what it is, in our garden)

finally! sunglasses

shirt - pacsun, jeans - pacsun, shoes - converse, necklace - ghana, purse - hand me down, camera - yashica (from my mom's aunt)

I went shopping with Amanda the other day, after taking some pictures with this new camera. Well, really old, but new for me. It's awesome how once people hear you're into photography, specifically film, they start giving you all their old cameras. Some end out being quite nice and others aren't so good (I have a Canon that's really tough to use in manual mode, which is how I prefer to shoot) but it's really cool. Anyways, Amanda was looking for some jeans. Why are jeans that fit so hard to find? We ended up at PacSun and found a pair that were alright. Looks like they don't have my favorite jeans (the ones I'm wearing up there) any more. Bummer. I liked the straight leg, instead of skinny or bookcut, but oh well. Amanda found some nice skinny jeans, without too much weird fading, that she liked pretty well. We also went to Value Village. That was nice because I could actually afford stuff. Amanda found the cutest sundress ever and Dior silk scarf. I got two silk scarves and a pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses were broken, I was bummed when I found them because I liked them so much but they were missing an arm, which I found on the floor, so I got them for half off, which ended up only being a dollar. All I had to do to fix them was steal a screw out of another pair of broken sunglasses when I got home. I really really like them. The brand is Humphrey's, which I just think is the coolest name.

the fourth

shirt (worn as a dress) - thrifted, slip - mom's, belt - thrifted, shoes - random gladiators, purse - mom's from the 90s

I got a bunch of men's XL shirts at the thrift store awhile back, planning to reconstruct them into cute little sundresses but I haven't gotten to that yet, so I wore this one as it is, just belted. I like that the sleeves kind of turn batwing/kimono-y, although it definitely tended to ride up. I didn't mind the slip showing a bit, as long as it was just the lace part, but tugging it down repeatedly definitely got annoying.









We enjoyed both the public and private fireworks, although the dry grass was a little sketchy for lighting them off. I'm actually pretty happy with how the pictures turned out, but I think I'd be a lot happier if I had used a tripod. Something like the gorillapod would be perfect for these sorts of situations.







But sparklers really are my farorite firework, despite the fact that I like lighting the other ones. Sparklers are just so pretty, and fun to make designs with when taking pictures.



I made a delicious strawberry rhubarb pie, with rhubarb from the garden and strawberries picked locally. I love making pies, but this was my first one with a lattice top crust. I love how it looked.



This is the one shitty thing about the fourth, especially in a dry year. Usually we have so much rain that everything is nice and damp all the time and there's very little danger of fire. But this year we had pretty much no rain in the weeks leading up to the holiday. This fire was caused by some idiot (probably a stupid hick wearing Carhartts and driving a lifted truck, but I'm being a little judgmental) throwing a cherry bomb out the window of their car as they went around the corner by my house. Luckily there were smart people around who reacted quickly and knew what to do (most efficient way to deal with something like this is shoveling dirt on the flames) and the fire department got there quickly. Still, it was a little frightening so close to my house, and made me angry that someone could be so completely unthinking and inconsiderate of other people's safety. I mean, the flames even jumped the road, and were climbing up a tree when the fire department arrived.