Turnabout Is Fantastic

Jeans, Shoes, Earrings

Academia: Today did not get off to a great start. My day began with a fairly invasive and uncomfortable doctor's appointment, then segued to a frustrating situation with a student's medical records that was completely the result of miscommunication within campus medical staff. I was hating today pretty hard. Then I came home and found this:

This my birthday present from Cary! My birthday isn't for another 11 days, but we'll be in California and I couldn't have "opened" my present on my actual birthday. Cary knew I had a hard day, so he decided that today was Birthday Present Day. I have never been a fan of the dining room chairs that my mom passed down to me (and she passed them down because she wasn't a fan either), so Cary and Brian have been working on repainting and recovering these for a couple of weeks. I love them. I love mismatched chairs in general, and I love the bright colors of these. I'm sitting in the fancy green one right now. After I exclaimed over the chairs, we went to dinner at my favorite pizza place. Aren't y'all jealous of how awesome my husband is? I'm almost jealous of myself.

Sartorial: These jeans have become the security blanket of my wardrobe. I knew I would have this doctor's appointment this morning, so I grabbed the clothes that make me comfortable, physically and emotionally. And then I was perfectly dressed for pizza and beer, so it all worked out. For a day that started so rough, it ended wonderfully.

Substitute

Academia: Yesterday, a new teacher suddenly quit. Office gossip tells me that this wasn't really that sudden, but it was sudden enough that everyone was thrown for a loop and the administration had to scramble to cover her classes. The upshot is that I'm filling in for one of those classes until next week, when the permanent replacement comes back from her summer break two weeks early to take over. It's nice to be in the classroom again, but it means that for the rest of the day I have to rush rush rush to make up those two hours. That plus the fact that we're going on vacation next week equals a very busy week for me.

Sartorial: The class I'm subbing for is on the other side of campus, and our campus is giant. It takes me 20 minutes to walk there from my office, and it's hot and sticky even at 8:30 in the morning, so I've been trying to keep my clothes light and simple. Today I just went with a dress and sandals. It was too hot to even add many accessories. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment and so won't be subbing, but I would expect my outfits for Thursday and Friday to look pretty similar. If I could wear shorts to work, I would.

Just One Kind of Folks

T-shirt, Shoes, Earrings

"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks." - Scout

I want to be Scout's BFF. I love this book that much.

Academia: Today was a crazy busy day (I asked for it, I know), but I want to put that aside to pay tribute  to a book I love, or better put, THE BEST BOOK EVER PERIOD. If you've even glanced at the pictures today (or just have great taste), you know what book I'm talking about. I'm talking about To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the awesomest book in the English language and the subject of my ensemble today.

If you've read TKAM before, you know why it's so great. But if you haven't, let me tell you what you're missing. Cliff's Notes would tell you that it's about two children in small town 1930s Alabama who watch their lawyer father defend a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. But beyond that, it's about children trying to make sense of a world that is often senseless, and looking to their father to know what to do next. It's about a father who wants to be honest about human nature with his children, but doesn't want to scare them. It's about the way fear and prejudice can make basically good people think that other people aren't really people. It's about doing the right thing, even when you know it can't end well. And all those "abouts" are what make To Kill a Mockingbird about my favorite book of all time.

Sartorial: This t-shirt from Out of Print Clothing is an early birthday present from my parents. They didn't intend it  to be early, but I saw the label on the package when it arrived last week so I knew what it was and I swear I have a good reason for opening it early that isn't "I just wanted to wear it." The 30x30 starts next week, six days before my birthday, and I wanted to include this shirt in my 30. And then I figured, if I'm going to open it six days early, I may as well open it now. I mean, early is early, right? That's what I thought.

I'm on Academichic!

I've been reading and admiring Academichic for a while now, so I was really excited today when I saw that my outfit inspired by Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was included in their book cover outfit roundup today! It was fun to see how other bloggers interpreted their book covers into outfits - I'm kind of loving Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey's romantic ensemble inspired by I, Coriander especially.

So to any readers coming over here from Academichic, welcome! Feel free to wander around and leave a comment if you'd like. I'd love to meet you and visit your blogs as well. Thanks for stopping by!

I'm a Travelin' (wo)Man

Earrings

Stripes on stripes!

I'm going to bypass the Academia/Sartorial section today because I have a lot to say about the Friend Friday questions. All you need to know about my outfit today is that I forgot to safety-pin my belt to my skirt to keep it from riding up, so after an hour of constantly adjusting it at work, I stapled it. The staples didn't show because the belt is metallic, and I was saved a lot of aggravation. Office supplies FTW.

Now, on to the Friend Friday questions! They're about packing for travel, and I love to travel. I've traveled a bit around the US, including Puerto Rico, and since 2002 I've visited Europe four times, each time for at least three weeks. Packing for long trips like that is a challenge and I definitely get tired of the clothes I bring with me, but I love spending enough time in a place to get to know it a bit, so I keep doing it. So far, I've been to the UK (England, Scotland, and Wales), Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Turkey. This summer, Cary and I are staying stateside and going to California for 10 days. We're leaving June 16, and I can't wait!

When it comes to packing for vacation, what's your mantra? After a grueling seven weeks of hauling a 70-pound suitcase around Spain and Switzerland in college, my mantra is "lighter is better." Mainly because Cary resigned as my bag-carrier after he had to carry that suitcase through Zurich, a city made entirely of stairs. So I try to pick pieces with a lot of versatility, or that can be worn over and over again (hello, jeans), and I bring a lot of accessories to jazz them up. Accessories don't weigh much.

Ronda, Spain, 2005. I wore this shirt and these shorts alllll summer.

What are your must packs? Comfortable shoes are number one. I'm pretty unconcerned about being my most fashionable when I'm going on a trip that requires a lot of walking, and most of our trips do. I've found that nothing will make me hate beautiful palace, museum, or cathedral more than having sore feet and a sore back. Besides that, a cardigan or jacket for layering is a must. I get cold easily, and freezing on a plane or at night in a new climate is the worst. And of course, I always bring the camera (although Cary takes all the pictures).

El Yunque Rainforest, Puerto Rico, 2009. My Keens sandals aren't pretty, but they kept me from falling on my booty while hiking in the rainforest.

What are you happy to leave behind? I will be happy to leave my laptop behind on our upcoming trip to California - it's heavy! Cary has an iPad, so we can check email or update our travel blog easily from that. In the summer, I'm always happy to leave the heat and humidity of my home state behind as well. Almost anywhere else has better weather right now.

Any packing secrets to get everything into one suitcase? First, don't pack too much. Really think about what you need and if the pieces you chose can be worn more than one way. If you're going to be gone for more than about 10 days, plan to do laundry while you're there. Once you've narrowed it down to the bare essentials, rolling your clothes saves space. So does bringing travel-sized containers of shampoo, sunscreen, etc. (and if you're carrying your bags on a plane, rather than checking them, security requires you to do that anyway). Finally, you might consider getting a suitcase that can expand to accommodate more stuff if necessary. I have this bag from Rick Steves' website, and I love it. It's size-adjustable, can be worn as a backpack, and is carry-on sized. I find that this bag, completely full, is about as much as I can reasonably carry anyway.

Kings Cross Station, London, England, 2008. Heading to Hogwarts with all my luggage.

Beach reading... what are you taking with you to read in the sand? I'm not going to the sand this year (I live in a coastal state), but I've been reading Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon this summer, and it's great beach reading - historical fiction/sci-fi/romance/action thriller. Last year in Austria and Germany, I read the entire series of Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde on my iPod (thank you, Kindle app), and loved them. And when I was in England three years ago, I read a crime thriller set in Yorkshire, the name of which I can't remember. It's always fun to read novels that are set in the place you're visiting. Maybe I'll try to find a book set in California this year, although it will not be The Grapes of Wrath. That book is definitely not vacation reading.

... And the Livin' Is Easy

Necklaces: Katogo Long, doubled, and Katogo Short 

Full skirts inspire me to flamenco dance.

Academia: Y'all, I need to add a class in the second half of the summer. Everyone is getting along fine so far, and so today was a slow day. I worked on a packing list for our trip to California in a couple of weeks and researched hiking trails in Yosemite National Park. I read blogs and went home early. I'm not trying to invite a bunch of crises on myself, but the pace needs to pick up a little bit.

Sartorial: Another day oversleeping, another ironing-free outfit. I really liked the bright pink shirt with the bright green sandals, and the Bead for Life necklaces tied everything together well. And the skirt has an elastic waistband, which is always a good thing. And I buckled the belt one notch skinnier than the last time I wore it. Healthy eating FTW!

Not a Father's Day

Earrings 

Academia: Nothing unusual to report, except that I turned in my online driving school certificate at the courthouse. Why is it that government offices are always slower than molasses in January? Is the work that complicated, or that uninspiring? All I wanted to do was hand my certificate to a live person, and it took me half an hour. *End gripe*

Sartorial: How do y'all like my necktie-belt? Cary got it for me over the weekend. He and Brian were out buying stuff (I think for my birthday) and they saw this belt in a $1 bin. Brian thought it was a tie and wanted to buy it, but then they realized it was an awesome $1 belt and bought it for me. It's kind of funny - my birthday is on Father's Day this year, and they got me a pseudo-tie. Well, I think it's funny. Y'all don't have to. Anyway, I really like it. It's like a combination of an obi and a necktie. Since the colors are pretty loud, I tried to tone down the rest of the outfit, and I'm pleased with how it all turned out. Happy Not a Father's Day to me, indeed.