Tuesday Fashion Show

Working women have unique wardrobe problems.

Like, when your work wardrobe is in so much better shape than your casual wardrobe. I wake up on the weekends and stare gloomily at my casual clothes, which are old, unfashionable, stained, and in much disarray. I kind of suck at buying casual clothes/pulling together a cute casual outfit. I'm much more comfortable with my spectrum of skirts, tights, blouses, cardigans sweaters (one for every single color of a large crayola box), and blazers.

Also, whenever I put on a dress at home, the length seems totally appropriate and conservative. The second I step into a meeting, somehow my dress suddenly shrinks several inches and I feel like the conference room whore. I find myself hiding my legs under the tables. The unexplained mystery of wardrobe physics.

I have a small obsession with tights. Is that what people call them? I refuse to say the words....panty hose (shudder!)...or hosiery....(double shudder!). I was informed today that they are not stockings. But the word "tights" give me flashback images to white girly tights with little red hearts plastered all over them, you know, from elementary school. Anyway, I love tights. A nice, good pair of black sheers will dress up and classify ANY outfit. Opaques are ok...but I strongly prefer sheers (which are much harder to find, at least ones that you can wear more than once before The Rips appear). Also, it's amazing how a thin layer of tights can make you so much warmer. Magic?

I also have some fun patterned tights. But I'm less brave about wearing them. They are much harder to coordinate properly with an outfit. Today, my rose-patterned tights were staring sadly at me from my tights drawer. They needed some love. I happily obliged.

Forgive the bad quality/poor lighting.

As evident from my lame posing skills, I will NEVER be the next Miss America. But I think I'm OK with that.

I Finally Get It Right

The first thing that crosses my mind when someone invites me to a party is, "Oh shit. I have to figure out what to wear!" When it comes to clothing, I have two modes:

Professional:

And this:

(my husband snapped this picture of me while I was pregnant and passed out on the couch after work. Isn't he kind? Also....the socks win.)

When it comes to dates, parties, and girls nights out, I'm a mess. I have no idea how to dress. Seriously. No clue. I have work blouses, cardigan sweaters, and collared shirts galore. I have pencil skirts, pearls, and suit jackets. On the other side of my closet, I have unwashed-for-8-days yoga pants, hooded sweatshirts, kitten pjs, and track jackets.

This is why I hyperventilate upon receiving any social invitation.

But honestly, I should stop worrying. Because as soon as the last drop of my first glass of wine glides down my throat, I'm a total disaster regardless of what I'm wearing.

BUT tonight. For the first time EVER. I felt totally fabulous at a party. Tonight, when I dressed for my husband's work party, it all snapped into place. I wore my favorite grey, shiny skirt and tucked in a glittery tank I purchased the day prior (at Nordys the other day, I decided that I wasn't going to let the world end before I owned a champagne-colored sequin shirt). I paired it with a black cropped cardi and I felt like a party rockstar. Aside from this photo with my unfortunate duck lips pose, I did not get a decent picture of my fabulousness.

Go away Duck Lips! No one likes you!

The party was very nice as well. My husband works with some great people. We even brought the kids. For most of the night, Jacob was running around the room in his christmas socks while Ryan crawled all over the floor sans shoes (my husband dressed him). Ryan ate two whole dinner rolls (it kept him busy so I could shovel food down my duck-lipped mouth). At one point he dropped one of his rolls only to rediscovered it again when I put him on the floor to crawl (#extraprotein, #10minuterule, #secondchildsyndrome). He also snuck under the table and played footsies with coworkers.

Later in the evening, Jacob discovered the art of paper airplanes. And Ryan met a girl who is one year older than he is. She was fascinated by him and wanted to repeatedly touch all over his face and head. Ryan was not a fan. She chased him around the room as he was frantically trying to army crawl away from her. The spectacle was so interesting that a group of adults circled around to watch the entertainment.

Best part of the night? For once, someone was rolling around on the floor grabbing people and it wasn't me.

Also...my husband is growing a beard.

I keep telling him...between his eyebrows and his beard, his face should never be cold!

Happiness Is

Happiness is: fun tights on a chilly fall day!

I love these:

This is a bad picture (thanks crappy non i-phone). Possibly too much grey here. I think I was wearing a black button-up blouse.

My all-time favorite.

I'm pretty sure this legwear would be inappropriate in many law offices. But I work for a small, slightly more casual firm. We do insurance defense and rarely meet clients. I definitely would not wear these on a day when I had a stuffy, important meeting. Not that I ever have those. I'm not that important yet.

But aren't they so fun?!

Tights are my new thing. On the days I wear crazy tights, I'm sure to tone down the rest of my outfit so that I'm not emiting symptoms of headaches, dizzines, and blurred vision. I am now on a quest to find MORE fun tights. Checking-account, beware!

Today at Target I bought...get this....

DRUMROLL....

Reversible tights! When I saw them, they blew my mind! They are grey on one side and black on the other. I can't wait to try them on. By the way, I refuse to spell grey with an "a." It looks much more eloquent with an "e." In fact, I'm on a personal quest to change the dictionary spelling of the word. If you are interested in joining any of my country-wide public demonstrations, just shoot me an email.

It's 12:05am and I should go to bed. I HATE going to bed. Don't get me wrong, I love to sleep. I just hate going to bed. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I absolutely dread brushing me teeth. So I put it off as long as possibe. This is why I'm sitting here on the couch at midnight constructing a blog post about the spelling of the word "grey." Yeah, I'm a little bit strange.

But at least I have cool tights!

Me 1 And Me 2

Today, I arranged for the service of a complaint. Technically, it was a third-party complaint contained in a responsive pleading. This was the first time I had to serve someone with a lawsuit and, the whole thing made me uncomfortable. We're months from the statute of limitations but, for some reason, I was so paranoid about making a mistake. I checked (and re-checked and checked again) the service of process statutes and civil rules to make sure I was complying with everything. What should have taken me ten minutes turned into an arduous affair.

As much as I love being an attorney, there are so many times that practicing law makes me uncomfortable. "Really? Someone's putting ME in charge of their case? Don't they know that I can't even make my bed in the mornings, that I wear bright berry-colored rainboots, and occassionally fantasize about being a Ninja Turtle?"

By the way, what would you say if you caught your attorney wearing these:

Target was out of black and I needed a way to stay dry during my walk-heavy commute. Confession: I've actually grown to like them!

Sometimes I'm amazed at the extreme differences in my two lives: professional and personal. I can responsibly manage cases worth thousand (or more) of dollars. But I can barely manage my own stuff. I can (for the most part) follow procedures, create litigation checklists, and keep files organized at work. But at home, my crap is everywhere and it's a scary thing each time I cook a meal. I dress on the more conservative side at work (hose, black tights, tucked-in shirts, more skirts than pants) but at home, I'm super relaxed (flannel! yoga pants!). I simple exercise the "smell" test before putting something on. Clearly, this is evidence that I am two different people.

One reason, I couldn't practice law in a small town: I'd be constantly afraid of running into clients at the grocery store while rocking dirty yoga pants, a ratty sweatshirt, and bird's nest hair.