Rosy tea party

dress - Urban Outfitters / cardigan - JC Penney / shoes - Target

I found this beautiful dress on the clearance rack at Urban Outfitters, and it just screamed "tea party" to me. I also discovered my new favorite place to take pictures in my apartment. Finally, a place that looks halfway decent. It can be a tricky thing to find when you live in an apartment this small!

Even though it's been really warm today, I just had to have tea. A friend and I had a study date earlier in the day, and I treated her to some of my new jasmine tea I brought back from Okinawa. It's nice, but it's pretty strong compared to most mainland Japan teas. I wonder if they drink something similar in Taiwan? Anyhow, I'd love to make a tea latte out of it and sweeten it up a bit. 

In a stroke of luck today, it's beautifully sunny outside right now! The forecast called for rain, and it was pouring earlier, but now it's lovely. I think I might go for a jog later. By the way, I can jog two miles now without stopping! Not bad, huh? Of course, it's not the quickest two miles on record, but I'm super proud that I can even do it. It's good progress towards the St. Patrick's Day 5k that I'd like to try to do. 

Technicolor gams

dress - Target / cardigan - Charlotte Russe / belt - Charlotte Russe / tights - Target / shoes - Shi / scarf - Filene's Basement

I decided to try the colored tights trend tonight! I really wasn't sure about this one because I'm kind of insecure about my legs, but I couldn't resist trying these bright purple ones. I didn't want to go too crazy with the color so I kept everything else kind of muted (except the scarf). I have a stack of fun scarves like this in my closet, left over from my teaching in Japan days. The dress code was really strict, so I wore scarves to have a little bit of personality. Even though the skirt suit + silk scarf combo led a lot of people to ask me if I was a flight attendant....

Sorry for posting only one picture. We spent the day in Charleston, and unfortunately it rained the whole time, so it was kind of tough to get some good shots. I also bought a pair of red tights, and I'm trying to think of ways to wear them without looking too Mrs. Claus. We'll see!

First week down

cardigan - Forever21 / halter top - Forever21 / skirt - Filene's Basement / boots - Macy's / earrings - New York & Company

 

Sorry for the brief hiatus!  This was the first week of classes for spring semester, so it's been pretty busy chez moi. Plus, the outfit you see above is what I wore to buy a new car.

Yep. After K's car dramatically killed itself, we had to go car shopping again. I had a serious case of deja-vu-- oh wait, I just did this five months ago, that's why! Funny, I bought my other car the first week of fall semester. So we ended up getting a 2006 Kia Spectra5. Right, it's not new, but it's new to us! I think it's really cute. I had been eyeing an Aveo hatchback, but I actually like the Kia better after test driving it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that having a 2006 and a 2007 means that we won't have to deal with car repair issues for a long long time.

If you aren't familiar with the Spectra5, here's a glamour shot of one. Mine is black!

Farmer's Daughter

Hamming it up with self-timer mode while the Mr. was at work today.

Wow, I've really been wearing a lot of plaid lately, haven't I? I'll make it a point to wear something entirely non-plaid tomorrow, then. Whatever I wear, it'll have to keep me warm, because I will be outside for much of the day. At car lots.

Snippet of conversation yesterday which took place in the lobby of our local Midas:

K: So what do I owe you for the diagnostic?

Mechanic: [laughs] Don't worry about it. I have a heart, man.

When you hear a mechanic say this, you know you're screwed.

45 minutes prior to this, K and I pushed his car from his office parking lot over to Midas for a diagnostic. It broke down on him while he was driving down to Charleston for work the other day. Thank goodness he wasn't hurt, but the car is so dead that the mechanic didn't even put it on the lift to announce the diagnosis. It's currently sitting in the Midas parking lot until we make an appointment for the car donation people to tow it off.

Which means we now have one car between us, and my classes start next week. My tutoring job was supposed to start next week, too, but I haven't set anything up yet because I don't know if I'll be able to go anywhere. It's really not a good time financially for this to happen. Sigh. Especially since neither of our parents are in a position to help us out right now. So we are stuck with the choice of either A) paying a little bit, mostly up front, for a piece of junk that may or may not last through the summer, or B) trying our luck to get financed for something newer and more reliable and having to deal with the monthly payments on top of everything else. I don't even know if we could get a reasonable financing plan since I just took out a car loan last August when my car died. Needless to say, stress levels are super high right now. Which I think has contributed to K coming down with a cold today. Things could definitely be worse, I know, I know. But sheesh, couldn't they be a little bit better? At this rate I won't be able to afford school in the fall, which will leave me two courses short of an M.A. -_-

What's a girl to do? 

Rad Plaid

I love love love this plaid coat! Got it at Dillard's about a year ago hot off the clearance rack. What's that? Me? Shopping from the clearance rack? Shocking, I know.  The boots are from my mom for Christmas. I love them! I've been craving some high black boots for a while, but they can be so pricey. The broach is my latest favorite accessory, purchased (on sale) at San-A in Miyako. I love the blend of traditional and modern in it-- it's very similar to flower ornaments that geisha apprentices put in their hair, but the colors and the rhinestones and pearls are completely modern. I've never worn a broach before, but I just had to have this one. Here I am showing it off in Ginza!

It feels so posh to say "Here I am in Ginza!" but the truth is that I can't even afford to walk into most of the stores there XD  Still, it's fun to pretend. Also, it's nice to show that I don't spend my entire life in the backwoods of South Carolina, haha!

Classes begin next week. I only have one class that I actually have to attend (Second Language Acquisition), and then one independent study (Advanced Topics in Japanese Sociolinguistics), and tutoring my students for credit. This should give me plenty of time to catch up on my hours for my research assistantship. I can't wait to get back into it. Part of what I do is scour letters written during the Civil War, from soldiers missing their families or in desperate need of help because they are deserters. It's fascinating stuff, but admittedly very difficult to read at times. Some of the words they use are also very interesting, and many are terms that were very relevant to the culture at the time, but that hardly anyone today would understand. Luckily my professor seems to know absolutely everything about everything, so he can answer my questions.

I've also been working on figuring out my program of study. I haven't been freaking out about it, only thinking about it. Progress!  I think I've come to a conclusion that will work best for me at this point in my life, and still leave plenty of academic doors open. I'll share more on this once it's finalized.

Too cold for flappers

New dress, straight from the clearance racks at $9.99! I love this flapper style, and it's lined chiffon, which will be great come spring and summer. I don't think you can see it in these pictures, but the dress actually has a teeny-tiny multicolor floral print.  I can't wait to try it with a bright, shorter cardigan when it gets warmer.

These pictures were taken on my beautiful campus (honestly, that's one of the things that drew me to this school).  The last picture was taken near the entrance to the university rose garden.  Look at the fountain!  It's very rare that you see such a thing in South Carolina, so I just had to snap a picture with it.

Here's another picture I just had to take-- look at how comfortable Dexter is on his chair! I think this is his favorite spot in the whole house. We have this chair sitting in the dormer, so it gets lots of sunlight, which of course kittles like. I can't believe how big he is! To think that when he showed up last summer he was only about 3 weeks old.  Sometimes I wish he was still the size of a 3-week-old, particularly when he decides to tear around the place like a psychopath.

Psycho kitty, qu'est-ce que c'est?

Yeah. Really bad. I know.

Scarf Love

I am in love with this new scarf! I got it on sale in Japan last week. Around New Year's, just like here, the sales in Japan are incredible. This gem was only 400 yen (around $4.25). Can you believe it? I love the Burberry-esque look for Goodwill prices. I got K one in a charcoal and red plaid.

As it's Saturday, we're just hanging out until K has to go to work later today, and doing a little thrifting. While we were out, we took advantage of the clear (although COLD) weather and K took some fun shots of me.



It's supposed to be pretty frigid the next few days, but still sunny. It always seems like a trick when you look outside and the sun is bright, but then you step out and it's F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G! Well, I'm just grateful that we don't get snow down here XD