Conferencing in the Lone Star State

Academia: Happy Memorial Day, y'all! I hope anyone reading this in the US is enjoying the holiday (and if you're not in the US, I hope you're just having a nice Monday at work). I am spending my Memorial Day flying to Houston for the annual NAFSA conference. NAFSA is an organization for international educators and administrators, and a colleague and I have a poster presentation on Wednesday. I'm really excited; this is my first national conference and I'm looking forward to see what this type of conference is like. I can't wait to report back to y'all next week about my first foray into academic networking!

Sartorial: I wore this outfit last week, but I'm wearing something very similar for the flight today - just swapping out the shirt and adding a blazer (so I don't have to pack it). These pants are sooooo comfy, so they're great for the plane, but can also go straight from the airport to conference registration and still be appropriately professional. And I think the animal print shoes make the whole outfit a little more fun - yes, I'm going to a conference, but my shoes don't have to be stuffy, right?

Hispanohablante (Sort Of)

Academia: Check-in week for the summer term is over, and my free time and energy have returned, huzzah! Y'all have heard me talk about how crazy the first week of the semester is approximately eight billion times, so I won't go into much detail. I drove students around, I gave seminars, I answered what are now extremely familiar questions about housing, immunizations, insurance, and life in the US. Blah blah blah.

The only thing that really stood out as different was how much Spanish I got to practice during the week. We have a strict English-only policy at work; not because we hate our students' native languages, but because the best way to learn English is to use English as much as possible. So usually, I try to encourage my students to speak English with me, even though I minored in Spanish and am passingly fluent. But last week, we had several new Spanish-speaking students who really didn't speak English at all, and it was more important that they understand how signing a lease, opening a bank account, and buying health insurance works than that they get a few more hours of English practice.

It took a bit for my Spanish to un-rustify, but once I got going, I felt like I got by reasonably well. Everyone seemed to understand what I was saying at least. Plus, it's good for me to put myself in my students' shoes linguistically from time to time. Spending two whole afternoons speaking only Spanish reminded me how hard all my students are working every day to live life in English. It gave me a renewed admiration for them. At the beginning of the semester, when students are beating down my office door, remembering just how brave and determined they are helps me stay flexible and patient.

Sartorial: I wore this outfit last week on one of my Spanish-speaking days. I spent the afternoon driving students to see apartment complexes in the rain. Rainy days always make me want to wear jeans, and these pants are the closest maternity alternative I have. Actually, on a hot, humid day, they were better than jeans - the chambray fabric is lighter and looser than denim, making them the perfect summer pants. The loose top was cool and comfy in the humidity as well. All in all, not a bad outfit to spend a day in.

Kelly Green

What's going on with my face here? Is this "Pregnant Women are Smug" face?

Academia and Sartorial: Happy early St. Patrick's Day, y'all! Today is Green Day on Everybody Everywear, so I'm busting out the luck o' the Irish a few days ahead of schedule. I got this kelly green t-shirt in Target's limited maternity section over the weekend, and I really like it - partly because it actually fits, but mostly because I love love love this shade of green. It's such a happy, bright color, and I feel happy and bright wearing it.

I'm a little disappointed that St. Patrick's Day is on a weekend this year, because part of the fun of working with international students is dressing up for holidays. I normally get to wear lots of green on St. Paddy's Day, lots of pink on Valentine's Day, and costumes on Halloween. Oh well. I am going to a friend's 30th birthday party on the 17th, so I'll wash this and wear it again then.

What about y'all? What are your plans for St. Patrick's Day? Any green outfits set aside already?

To Everything There Is a Season

Academia: This week is spring break for my university, but unfortunately not for me. We have our half-semester check-in this week, so I'm not getting a spring break right now. (I am taking a vacation at the end of the month though... stay tuned for all the exciting details!) So I wore this yesterday to give a seminar, answer student questions about insurance, etc. Not thrilling, but all in all, an okay day.

Sartorial: Yes, these are the same pants I wore on Monday. I also wore this cardigan yesterday, although I didn't manage to snap a picture. I'm finding that wearing maternity clothes is kind of like a 30 for 30 remix, except it's more like 9 or 10 for 150. Here's what I currently have in my pregnancy wardrobe:

5 dresses
2 pairs of work-appropriate pants
1 pair of boyfriend jeans
2 skirts
2 shirts

I plan to add to this list, of course, but for the next five months, I also plan to repeat items of clothing with no "but I have a style blog" guilt. To everything there is a season, and right now is a season of sticking with clothes that I like and are comfortable. And after the baby comes, I plan to have a season of "huzzah for normal clothes again!" shopping and skinny jeans wearing. Because I'm sure that's what the writer of Ecclesiastes 3 meant.

I Can't Believe I Watch...

Academia: Guys, I'm writing this as I watch the "Women Tell All" episode of The Bachelor. Holy crap. I can't believe I care about this show. I started watching this season as part of a discussion group on Christian femininity at church, which seemed like a legit reason to tune in. We talked about what it's like to be a woman in our culture, and how that relates to our faith. It was great.

But then the discussion group ended and I CANNOT STOP WATCHING. And weirdly, I can't stop drawing parallels between this and The Hunger Games. The women may not be getting killed off in a brutal fight to the death, but otherwise it feels pretty much the same. Except I was excited to share my love of The Hunger Games with others, but I feel the need to start every conversation I have about The Bachelor with a disclaimer: "Well, I was part of this Bible study..." Because Bible study makes this less lame, right?

Sartorial: There are three things that make this outfit Bachelor-inappropriate: 1) All of my limbs are covered, 2) These pants are comfortable, and most of the ladies' clothes on the show look like medieval torture devices, and 3) Spanx cannot do anything about my belly. And I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work for The Hunger Games either. Nothing about this outfit says "protection from the elements," "camouflage from enemies," or "flammable dress to impress adoring public."

Rushed and Rainy

Academia: I stayed up past my bedtime to watch half the Oscars on Sunday night (seriously, at 10:00 I was beat; I didn't even make it to Best Supporting Actor. Lame.), so I woke up yesterday with just enough time to pull together an outfit and run out the door in the rain. It wasn't a bad Monday; it just got off to a bit of a rushed start.

Sartorial: On a rushed, rainy morning, I needed an outfit that didn't take much thought. I wore this to a baby shower for my sister on Saturday, so I already knew it worked. It's pretty much the same outfit I wore last Thursday, as you can see by scrolling down one post, but it kept me warm in the rain, it didn't squeeze my belly, and it looked marginally professional. I call that a winner.

Pregnant Looking-ness

Academia: This has been an exciting week in the world of being pregnant. You know, for me, not for all pregnant women. I feel like I'm finally starting to look pregnant to people other than myself and Cary (and I'm not sure how pregnant I've actually been looking to Cary up until now, since I spent a lot of time standing in front of the mirror and demanding of him, "I look pregnant, right? Right? RIGHT?" What else could he say but yes?). It's nice to finally be looking on the outside like I'm feeling on the inside.

Speaking of how I'm feeling on the inside, this week I started feeling the baby kicking! It was pretty amazing. I mean, I've known there was a tiny person in there, but it all seemed a bit theoretical before. Feeling that tiny person's arms and legs moving, controlled by a completely different brain than mine, makes everything much more real.

Sartorial: With all of this growing and flailing of teeny limbs, I'm feeling very pregnant, so one thing I'm completely sick of hearing is, "You don't look pregnant at all!" I've really been looking forward to looking pregnant, and being told I don't is always a letdown.

So to combat that letdown, I picked out clothes yesterday that do everything possible to emphasize my pregnant looking-ness. I got new maternity pants from Target, so no weird squishing of my belly - just stretchy goodness. I picked out a form-fitting t-shirt with horizontal stripes. I walked around with one hand on my lower back. And no one said I didn't look pregnant. So there.

Freeze Panic

Academia: It's Valentine's Day, y'all! I love celebrating love, and even more importantly for this blog, I love that it's Everybody Everywear Day. Okay, lame segue. I'm still trying to process Sunday's episode of Downton Abbey; my brain cells can only do so much at once. 

Sartorial: For Everybody Everywear today, everybody is wearing red or pink for V-Day. I was thinking about my red satiny shirt with the ruffly collar, or one of my new maternity dresses. I was going to be so cute. And then we had a freeze.

For those of you in colder climates, a freeze is probably not a huge deal, but for Floridians, cold weather is a cause for panic. We are a people incredibly poorly equipped for cold weather. There are actually very serious consequences freezes have for citrus farmers, but for the rest of us, we just don't have the clothes for it. I'm not kidding. When I was five, we went to South Carolina to visit my grandparents at Christmas, and my mom had to put plastic bags over my canvas sneakers to keep them from getting wet in the snow. Blazing, inferno-like heat we're good with, but cold makes us spend entire days sniveling, "Can you believe how cold it is? I can't believe how cold it is!"

The temperature we have to reach to go into full panic mode varies depending on how far south we live. Up here in north Florida, panic ensues at freezing; in Ft. Lauderdale and points south, anything below 70 degrees is cause for freaking out. Seriously. I went to the Keys in January a few years ago. When I left home in the morning, I had to scrape ice off my windshield. When I got to the Keys that evening, it was 65 degrees and people were apologizing for the excessive cold. 

I've found that sartorially, my fellow Floridians deal with the cold in two ways. The first way is to throw on all the warmest clothes we have, sometimes in multiple layers, with absolutely no regard for social context. Jeans and sneakers at work on a Monday? Yes, because it's sooooo cold! The other way is to pretend the cold isn't actually there, and continue to dress as though it's July. This is more of a "mind over matter" approach. If I'm wearing shorts, that means it's not cold, right?

I'm a multiple layers kind of girl, so this is what I wore to work yesterday. It was 30 degrees when I left home. This is my warmest sweater and my thickest jeans. Under the jeans are hiking socks, and over the jeans are boots. Over all of this I put a trench coat, a knitted scarf, and an old pair of gloves that I found in the back of our coat closet. And as I pulled into the parking garage, car heater blasting at 80 degrees, I saw a girl in shorts and flip-flops, willing the cold away.

Anne of Green Gables

Academia: Things are quieting down from the beginning of the semester, for which I am sooo thankful. It's nice to be busy at work, but it's also nice to have quiet days after the busyness. Yesterday I had a few minutes to sit in my office armchair and put my feet up on my desk chair. It was delightful.

Sartorial: Another delightful thing that happened over the weekend is that my mom came and took me maternity clothes shopping! I thought everything would be too big still, but it all fit perfectly, so apparently I'm showing more than I thought. I can't tell y'all how nice it is to have clothes that look right on my body and don't make me feel like a sausage squeezed into a too-small casing. I got three dresses, two skirts, and a pair of jeans. And may I just say, why aren't all pants made like maternity pants? They're so stretchy and wonderful. A friend of mine called them "reverse Spanx." Instead of squishing you in, they just expand to let you be as big as you want to be. I must find a way to keep wearing them forever.


This is one of the dresses I got, and I feel so pretty in it. The ruffly collar and the flowers remind me of Anne of Green Gables - they seem so feminine and old-fashioned. Of course, Anne didn't get pregnant until book five of that series, and then I doubt her maternity dresses were 100% synthetic fabric (or that they even called them "maternity dresses" back then... they were probably just "dresses"), but I like to think that if Anne were not fictional and walking around today, this is what she would have picked.

Okay, I'm imagining a fictional character from an Edwardian-era novel shopping at Motherhood Maternity. It's definitely to stop writing and go to bed. I'll be back soon with more new maternity clothes and less rambly weirdness, I promise.

All for the Gators, Stand Up and Hope Saying So on the Internet Isn't a Mistake

Academia: Hey, y'all. It's been a while, hasn't it? Everything is fine here; this week just got busy and the blog got away from me a bit. But here I am now! I promise to do better with blogging regularly in the future. I have more energy now than I did a few weeks ago, so I think I can do it. I think I can, I think I can!

Sartorial: We're still having a ridiculously warm winter down here in the Deep South, but there was a coolish snap earlier this week, so I pulled out all the winter clothes that are languishing in my closet for this outfit. My poor tights, cardigans, and boots have been feeling neglected, I'm sure, so I was happy to take them for a spin. I liked all the bright colors together too; they felt very appropriate for a semi-tropical winter.

Also, check out my cute necklace! Cary got it for me for Christmas in honor of our alma mater, which I guess means the poorly-kept secret of where I work is now a not-at-all-kept secret. Oh well. If y'all promise not to e-stalk me, I'll send you a crate of oranges or an alligator burger or something. You know, because that's what everyone eats in Florida.

Anyway, if you like Florida (especially the University of), Daisygator Designs is the Etsy shop for you. I just got my soon-to-be-born nephew the onesie version of this t-shirt and OMG, it is so cute. Speaking of cute things, if you click on the link, there's a picture of Tim Tebow holding a baby. You're welcome. There is jewelry for a lot of other universities as well, even Florida State, which is quite the olive branch coming from a jewelry designer who named her shop after UF's mascot.

Okay, it's time to sign off, because now all my tired brain can think of is UF-FSU rivalry jokes. So I think I'll spare you that and go to bed. And maybe watch other people make UF-FSU rivalry jokes on YouTube. I mean, it's still funny.

Land of the Living and Growing

Check out the To Kill a Mockingbird necklace Cary got me for Christmas!  I love a man who indulges my nerdiness.

Academia: I am beginning to re-enter the land of the living, y'all. I've progressed from the "pounding sinus headache" stage of the cold to the "hacking up a lung" stage, but it's progress. I got a reasonable night's sleep Wednesday night and am starting to feel a bit more human. I also found out that I'm allowed to take Robitussin, huzzah! Plus, the hacking cough scares off students who don't really need anything but just want to complain, so I've been surviving working sick pretty well. I'm not feeling great yet, but I'm not feeling like a zombie anymore either. Maybe by next week I'll feel like a person again!

Sartorial: I wore this Wednesday, which was not a great day health-wise or weather-wise. I hadn't turned the corner with this cold yet, and it was chilly and rainy all day. A nice loose blouse over my increasingly weird-to-dress belly and some dark tights were just what I needed to stay warm, dry, and comfortable.

I don't think I would have tried a loose shirt over a pencil skirt before getting pregnant, because I felt great about having a small waist and I liked emphasizing it by tucking in my blouses. I like my growing body too, but having a constantly changing shape has challenged me to dress it differently than how I normally would. I liked how this blouse draped over my belly without hiding it. It's certainly a change from showing off a tiny waist, but I have a feeling I'm going to love this kind of showing off even more.

Professional but Fun

Academia: Check-in week continues, and thankfully it's a bit calmer than either check-in during the fall semester. Yay! I wore this yesterday to help a friend with an academic culture seminar, and to drive new students to visit apartment complexes. Rather than being in my windowless office, I was about on an unseasonable 70 degree day. Can't complain about that!

Sartorial: I used to belt this dress, but this belly seriously has come out of nowhere, so I decided the tights were restrictive enough without adding a belt. I really liked the gray dress with the chestnut tights and the animal print shoes; to me it looked professional, but still fun. "Professional but fun" is pretty much my motto for dressing for work, so I was happy in this all day (other than being a bit squeezed by my tights).

Limited Time Only

Academia: Thanks for all your congratulations and well-wishes on Wednesday, y'all! Cary and I both read your comments, and it meant a lot to us. Thanks!

I've been back at work this week, but yesterday was the first day I had to interact with anyone other than the other administrators and office staff. We had a new student and his parents arrive early (check-in for the spring is next week), and they wanted some help getting settled, so I went with them to apartment complexes for part of the day. They were a very nice family, and it was a great way to ease back into the semester.

Sartorial: Since I was seeing a student, and not just my coworkers, I thought it would be a good idea not to wear the jeans I've been wearing all week. I also spared y'all from seeing them. You're welcome. I'd say this pencil skirt only has about three or four more weeks before I can't wear it any more (it's already a little tight), so I'm trying to get as much wear out of it as I can now.

I'm looking forward to finding fun maternity clothes, but I'll definitely miss this skirt. It's comfortable and versatile, and it makes every outfit look more polished. Does anyone make maternity pencil skirts? Is there a way for a pregnant woman to wear a pencil skirt and not look absolutely squeezed into it? Yes, I hope?

Ever Seen a Movie About New Year's Eve in Manhattan? Yeah, I Thought Not.

TOMS

Academia: The last day of classes in any semester is a whirlwind of insanity, but yesterday felt more insane than normal. One of our administrators was out sick, so there was a lot of scrambling to cover the million-odd jobs she usually does. On top of that, the students go into panic mode at the end of the semester when they realize they have too many absences/are failing their classes/haven't made hotel reservations for the holidays/will miss the final because they bought their plane tickets for the wrong day. Fun times.

Amidst the normal hand-wringing that shows up in my office at the end of the semester, one crazy problem stood out from the rest yesterday. A very nice, very conscientious student came by and said that he wanted help making a hotel reservation. I said sure, where did he want to go? Times Square, New York City, was his answer. Fine, I said. What day?

December 31. Yeah.

I tried to explain that Times Square is the most popular place to be on December 31 in the entire United States of America, but he wanted to forge ahead and find a hotel. He was shocked to see that every available bed, army cot, sleeping bag, and folding chair on Times Square - nay, the entire island of Manhattan - costs $500 and up on New Year's Eve. I felt bad for him - I mean, he's not from here, he couldn't really know - but OMG, dude. Just OMG. Not surprisingly, he ultimately decided to go home and re-evaluate his plans.

Sartorial: I like to bring a little color to a day of insanity and hand-wringing. Purple tights make me feel better when I have to say things like, "Hmmm, I guess you could stay in Newark. Which is not actually even in the same state you're trying to be in."

Love Actually

Academia: So, Love Actually night happened last night. Yay! The movie was just as delightful as it always is. I can't really pick a favorite part because the whole movie is so awesome, but my top three are probably Colin Firth's stumbling proposal in Portuguese, Hugh Grant dancing in 10 Downing Street, and the whole Liam Neeson father-son storyline. Plus, my sister set up a hot chocolate bar so we could have yummy drinks and cookies while we watched. Hot chocolate + Love Actually = a perfect December evening.

Sartorial: I wore a sweatshirt and leggings to movie night, but I wore these fun tights to work yesterday. This is the first time I've tried out chestnut-colored tights, and I think I like them. They were only $5 at Target, so I may need to go back and scoop up some other colors. Any recommendations? The only other color I have right now is black. What else do I need?

Pageant, Etc.

TOMS, The Poppy Chain Boutique 

Academia: Sometimes the nicest weekends are the most random ones. Over the past 48 hours, I have done the following:

1. Had a visit from my mom
2. Been inducted into PEO (my mom is also a PEO, which is why she came)
3. Went to my godson's baptism
4. Attended a local church's Christmas pageant, which wasn't so much a pageant as a 90 minute variety show that included a medieval court performance, a rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas" in which the partridge in the pear tree kept forgetting to hold up her sign, a musical retelling of the Christmas story with a completely immobile Mary and Joseph (they just sat there holding Baby Jesus for upwards of 20 minutes), and a giant fake boar's head. Yeah, it was weird.

And it was all delightful. At the pageant, my friend Brian went to ask one of the greeters if she had a tissue, and she made him hand out church-themed calendars while she went to find him one. I love living in a small town.

Sartorial: I wore this outfit on Friday, to work, to clean my house before my mom's arrival, and to the pageant. Any outfit flexible enough for all of that is an okay outfit by me.