Spring Things

2010 notwithstanding, Lent and the Paschal season just don't seem to lend themselves to blogging for me. Maybe next winter I should write some posts and schedule them so I don't fall off the face of the internet during that very full time of the year. But perhaps you can just expect me to go on hiatus, and know that I'll likely show up again in June, we'll see. :) So what have I been up to? A lot of the same things as last year.

• Once again, I took some weekend trips to see friends and family. The second week in Lent, I headed down to Evansville for a surprise 65th birthday party for one of my aunts. I got my own surprise on my way back from church when my car (the one we bought less than a year ago) was totaled in a hit and run accident. Thankfully, although I was quite shaken up, I came out of it with only a small scratch on one arm and sore muscles. 
• Once again, we found ourselves unexpectedly in the market for a new car. After doing some research and looking at some used ones, we decided to buy a truly new car, not just new to us. My first ever. We realized that since we didn't have a trade-in to consider, a low-mileage compact used car like the one we had was actually pretty comparable in price to a new one, once you figured in the warranty. So we bought a new Hyundai Accent. It's green. It suits me down to the ground.

• Once again, we journeyed through Lent and Holy Week to the Feast of Feasts. And as always, I was slightly sad to see Ascension come along, bringing the end of singing Christ is Risen. And so, I say to you all: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! 
• Once again, I celebrated my birthday. 34 on Friday the 13th, but not just any Friday the 13th. It fell on Holy Friday. Somehow that always seems to be the case when my birthday falls on a Friday. With a birthday like that, I just consider it a moveable feast and celebrate during Bright Week. Actually this year I kind of dragged it out. We spent a weekend with my parents a few weeks later and celebrated with two Cincinnati favorites, dinner at the Grand Finale one night and Graeter's ice cream the next. Yummmm...
• Once again, I attended the Evergreen International Conference the last week in April. Last year I very much enjoyed traveling to Georgia for the conference. This year it was a bit closer to home, in Indianapolis. Not quite as much of an adventure, but it led James and me to play tourist in our hometown that week, which was fun. 
• Once again, I have been delighted by fresh vegetables with the start of the summer farmer's market season. 
• Once again, I've found a word game to play on my phone. This spring I've thrown over Word Feud in favor of Scramble with Friends. If you play, my user name is SarahinIndy. If you don't play, and you like Boggle, and need another time suck in your life, you can download the app for Android phones or iPhones. I think you can play it on Facebook as well.  
• Once again, we enjoyed some time with family over Memorial Day weekend. This year we stayed home, working and playing around the house, but my brother stopped in on his way back from a business trip in St. Louis. 
• Once again, we have spent some time working in the yard. Just a lot of clean-up so far, though. I have yet to get anything planted! Although the last month has been sorely lacking in precipitation, which doesn't bode well for the summer. Maybe I'll wait and plant some things in the fall.
• Once again, I squeezed in a few other things here and there...
• And continued to attempt to live a Christian life, again, with mixed success.

Printable Letter Art

A new edition of the Pinterest challenge has brought me out of blog hibernation. The Pinterest challenge was dreamed up by Sherry at Young House Love and Katie at Bower Power, and this challenge is also hosted by Erin at the Great Indoors and Cassie at Hi Sugarplum. You can head over to any of their blogs to see all the fun Pinterest inspired projects that people are doing. I had so much fun with the last two challenges, that I was determined to try it again, despite the fact that I haven't had a free weekend in a few weeks. I pulled this together last night. I pinned this two or three months ago, because I thought it was a great idea for affordable, personal art to hang on your walls.

Source: fullofgreatideas.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

The idea came from the blog Full of Great Ideas, but the thing that made this a really fun and easy project was this image collection from Leo Reynolds. He has created collections with 100s of images of each letter of the alphabet (and numbers, too) that you can use for non-commercial purposes. To personalize this even more, you could take your own letter pictures, like Matushka Anna.

Last night, I stopped at Michaels, coupon in hand, and bought a frame. Then I had fun taking a look at all the options for the letters in my last name. I tried to keep the first rule of cataloging in mind as I did so. (Do not agonize.) I wanted a somewhat colorful collection with various styles of letters. I really like the results, and it was pretty quick and easy to do. I saved the images in the large size, since I wanted the printouts to be high quality. I cropped them to fit my frame, and then I just pasted them into a Word document to print them out. I printed a test sheet in grayscale fast quality to make sure the images would work with my frame. Once I was sure my images were the right size, I printed them on plain old printer paper, but I used the high quality print setting.

Once they were all printed, I cut them out, taped them to the mat, et voilà! I'm lucky, since it's pretty easy to find a frame with 6 slots. If you have a 3 or 4 letter last name, you'll have lots of options. If you're not so lucky to find a frame with the correct number of slots, you could have a mat custom cut, or design an image that doesn't need a mat. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and it's fun to know I can change up the letters any time I want. I plan to hang it in our entryway. I have a few ideas for dressing up that area, and now I'm excited to get going on it, so I can hang my new picture.

Quaking in my boots

Today is the last day of the challenge, and we were supposed to try something that scares us. Not something like sky-diving, but something like wearing neon, or, in my case, boots over jeans. When this trend started, I thought it looked fabulous on tall, willowy people, but I thought, "Oh, I could never wear that." I'm not tall or willowy. I'm 5'2" and curvy. When I bought this pair of skinny jeans last summer, I immediately tried them on with boots, you know, just to see. It made me feel like I was all hips and no legs. Fear of wearing something often relates pretty closely with body issues, doesn't it? I'm generally content with my figure. But I want to dress in a fashion that says neither 'I'm a frumpy librarian,' nor 'Hey, check out my curves!' It can be hard to know if I'm erring too far one way or the other, and boots over jeans made me feel like I was erring in both directions at once. Weird how we can have such an emotional reaction to clothes, isn't it?

I didn't wear this yesterday. I tried it on last night and had James take pictures. I'm wearing it today since Friday is jeans day at work. I'm actually really glad we took the picture before I had to wear it in public, because I feel much better about this look after seeing the photo than I did seeing it in the mirror. So once again the challenge has pushed me to wear something I wouldn't have otherwise, which I ended up liking. A big thanks to Kayla for hosting this shindig, because I've found it so valuable both times. Even though after two challenges, totaling a full month of outfit posts, I still feel ridiculously awkward getting my picture taken and posting it on the internet for any to see.

Sweater, the Limited. Jeans, thrifted (Ann Taylor). Boots, TJ Maxx. Necklace and earrings, made by my sister-in-law. Bracelets, made in Africa.

Penciled In

Today our mission, if we chose to accept it, was to create our own interpretation of this outfit:

Image source: J. Crew

This is part of the Open to Interpretation series that Kayla, our challenge host, does along with Amy and Erica. I did it once before. Since we just have to interpret the outfit, and not recreate it identically, this is not Mission: Impossible. It's actually pretty fun. You should take a look at all the variations on the theme. I had the wardrobe pieces to do a pretty close approximation this time. My thoughts with this inspiration pic were: OK, brown sweater, green pencil skirt. I can do that. Since my skirt has the white pattern, I decided to skip the white shirt under the sweater. Instead I opted to wear a black t-shirt. I wanted to incorporate the brown and black together element of the inspiration, and I hoped that layering black under the brown sweater would tie the two together the way the two-toned bag does.

I don't think I would ever have put this outfit together if it weren't for the inspiration. Usually I play it safe and wear this skirt with a white or green top. So both Kayla's challenges have gotten me to try pairing this skirt with something I might not have otherwise. Nice to be expanding my options! I wore the ponytail to further match the inspiration picture. I did not skip earrings because of the picture, though. I am wearing pearl earrings, but unfortunately this picture turned out a bit blurry so you can't really tell. We took a few photos, but this was the best one.

It worked out well to have a dressy outfit for yesterday, since we had Evening Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Blessed feast to all!

Skirt, Ann Taylor Loft. Sweater, Kohls. T-shirt, thrifted. Shoes, Casual Corner. And it may be warmer than usual in Indy, but it's not bare legs warm. I'm wearing hose. Target, I think.

Cover-up

The challenge for today was to dress up a coat. Ironically, the weather was unseasonably warm in Indianapolis yesterday. Thanks to the Super Bowl, you can read about our typical (cold, snowy) weather this time of year here. But we had a balmy high of 58°F, and an overnight low of 47°F. It felt like late March or even April rather than late January, so I did not bundle up in my usual woolens. Instead I wore this lightweight green jacket. I dressed it up by adding a couple of pins. I frequently wear a pin on my winter coat, but the two pin thing was new for me. I was amazed at how much harder it is to put two pins on than one. It took me a surprisingly long time to arrange them! I may or may not have accidentally pinned my coat to my shirt during the process. The dove is my current favorite. I bought it for my grandmother at James Avery when I was in college. My mom found it in her jewelry and gave it to me after my grandmother passed away. The other pin was attached to a Christmas gift, and it conveniently doubles as a Christmas tree ornament.

Here's the rest of my outfit, since there aren't nearly enough awkward pictures of me on the internet yet. But more importantly you can see more of the fun paisley lining of this coat. Also, I liked this outfit, to my surprise. It's the first time I've worn this sweater as a vest. Since I went to high school in the '90s, I kind of have a thing against vests, but I thought this turned out classic and preppy. And have I mentioned I like green?

Coat, hand-me-down. Vest, trouser jeans, shoes, all thrifted. Shirt, Eddie Bauer.