Little Miss Sunshine

The shopping trip was a huge success, I got every single item on my list (and a few that were not on the list, but it's my birthday this week and I work hard so I deserve it, and it's all stuff I need and a girl doesn't cross the border to go shopping every day....and...and...)

This morning I felt like putting on ALL of the new things I bought, but that wasn't really an option since: 1.  I bought 3 pairs of shoes, and 2. I aim to look sane while at work. So...... I had to start slow. While I hate to pick favourites, I knew that the outfit had to include this denim shirt, which I kind of have a crush on *swoon*. This shirt was basically made for me - it fits perfectly, which is a huge small miracle when you are tall and have long arms like me.

I also threw on this sunshine coloured sweater, which may enter the regular rotation pretty quickly because I really like it and the colour looks decent even on someone super pale (aka. me).

I finished off with my new neon bracelet, and a couple of "oldies but goodies" (gray denim skirt + grey wedges)....and almost ended up in a Canadian suit.

The yellow was perfect for this particular Monday as it made me look alive and cheery and covered up the fact that I was barely awake.

Ps. I've been rocking the sockless sock bun pretty regularly since I went on my YouTube tutorial binge.

Shirt: Levis outlet, Sweater and Bracelet: Forever 21, Skirt: Esprit, Shoes: The Shoe Company 

BorderCrossing

The girls and I had a fantastic weekend in Syracuse - good company, good food, good shopping and a crazy night out full of ab-breaking laughs. I bought sooo much awesome stuff, and I can't wait to show it off here, but right now I need to go to bed and make up for lost sleep. I'll leave you with a few pics from our epic adventure! PS. I heart the Canada Border Services Agency :)

A Lot of (blog) Lovin'

When I fist started blogging, a long, long time ago (aka 3 weeks ago) I didn't think too much about why I was doing it or what I was expecting to get out of it. I've been obsessively following fashion blogs for a while now, so I thought : why not join the conversation?
Today I am pleased to admit that one of the last things I expected out of all of this, is the kind of positivity and kindness I have experienced from fellow bloggers. It has been especially cool to discover all the positivity coming from style bloggers.

Style blogging is a predominantly female preoccupation (I haven't stumbled upon any male style bloggers as of yet - boys if you're out there..holler!).  When I imagine walking into a room full of self-proclaimed fashionistas in real life and showing off my outfit, I feel like throwing up in my mouth! It would be scary, because I would assume that this crew would be stuck up, harsh and judgemental.
I am so glad to report that walking into the cyber equivalent of this room - the style blogging community- has been NOTHING like that.

On the contrary, I've discovered that an  important part of blogging is the positive feedback we give and receive, which is such a refreshing change from the type of negativity we are made to believe that women feel toward one another and toward their own bodies. Yes, I'm sure that there are douchebags out there who leave angry, negative comments, but overall the vibe is predominantly positive.
Complete strangers from all over the world leave encouraging comments for each other, appreciating and supporting each other's creativity and work. This is not only really flattering, but in a world of worst dressed lists and angry celeb blogs (which I adore, don't get me wrong) it is also rare and inspiring. It flies in the face of what people (including myself from 3 weeks ago) might assume a group of women who love fashion would be like.

Ladies, thank you all for your comments and please keep 'em coming. We face a lot of scrutiny and negativity relating to our looks on a daily basis, I am happy that style bloggers have  chosen to be kind to one another!

I'm such a cheeseball.

Excess Cargo

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm sitting on my couch eating air-popped popcorn covered with butter that I melted myself and loving every minute of it. Finally a chance to unwind after what turned out to be pretty weird and stressful two days. Blah.

It is still cold and rainy here in Ottawa *yawn*, and yesterday's blog related activities turned into a pretty big disaster. We both forgot our sunnies, the lighting in the photos is all weird (sorry!), Sarah's heels got stuck in the mud at our super exotic photoshoot location (aka. some park in the middle of suburbia), I lost my work pass for a couple of minutes, Sarah dropped her lunch container and it shattered into a million pieces AND I realized after we came back to work that I had somehow managed to lose both of my earrings. Then I checked the photos and realized that I lost only one before the photoshoot so that in the photos I only have one earring on, like a crazy person.
When I finally came home, my internet was so slow that I couldn't upload my photos to make a blog post. Cool.

  

Pants: Winner's, Shirt + Necklace: Joe Fresh, T-shirt: Garage, Belt: Forever21, Booties: Zeller's

We're off on our cross-border shopping excursion tomorrow! Here's hoping I stick to my planned list and find everything I'm looking for!

Colour Block Shock

Today was another cold and wet day. I woke up and put on a cozy fall outfit, then I got angry and thought "it's SPRING, I need colour in my life" and changed into this little number. In these photos, the shirt looks pretty blue but in reality it is purple, and the skirt looks like an upside down tulip which is fantastic. Take that -3 degrees!

My life sometimes mimics the movie Home Alone, because every once in a while I just feel like doing things that would never be allowed if "grown-ups" were around, like eat in bed, or drink milk right out of the carton, or eat a bunch of random things I like but which don't neccessarily constitute a balanced adult meal. On the dinner menu tonight: a 3 egg omlette, fresh crusty French bread, kosher pickles, hummus, home-made 6 bean medly salad, olives and a Coke. Kevin McCallister would probably stay up late to watch scary movies and jump on his parents' bed, because he can, but I've been super exhausted all week and am looking forward to hitting the sack by 9:30 pm, because I can.

PS. Pardon my "WTF" face in the first photo, I forgot my sunnies and was squinting the whole time.

Shirt and Scarf: H&M, Skirt: Winner's, Shoes: Nine West, Bangles and Ring: Forever21

Kinks and Curls

I was born with no hair. I remained bald for way longer than most babies, and my mom said people regularly mistook me for a boy. When my hair did finally grow, there wasn't a lot of it and it was stick pin straight.

When I was 5, I asked my older sister to give me a "one side pinned back" (it was the 80's) haircut - she agreed and cut the right side while my mom was at work. The only way to rectify our hair experiment was a mushroom cut - people started to mistake me for a boy again.

When I was 11 my hair started changing. It didn't happen over night, but by the time I was 13 I had a head of thick, frizzy ringlets. Having lived with straight hair my whole life up until that point, I really had no idea a) what was happening or b) what I was supposed to do about it. So, I continued to do everything I'd been doing, including blowdrying it sans diffuser, brushing it out daily and asking for the "Jennifer Aniston" hair-cut at the salon. As you can imagine, my hair was an out of control nightmare and by the time I was 14 I had a legitimate afro that I absolutely hated.

The summer right before I started high school I decided to basically shave my head and start over. I came back from the salon with a pixie cut so short it required nothing more than a few swipes of a towel to be completely dry after a shower. I loved it. My mom cried. I looked like a boy again.

What I didn't count on was the fact that my hair was going to grow back just as thick and curly as it had been before the cut, and that it was going to grow UP (a la Marge Simpson) until it eventually got too heavy and fell over into a weird curly mushroom/ bob. Needless to say, hair-wise high school was a pretty big disaster. (but I still had the time of my life and met life long best friends)

My first year of university I became great friends with a Lebanese girl and it was there that my journey of a million terrible hair scenarios came to an end. She introduced me to mousse and hair gel (bless her!) and taught me to comb (not brush!) and style my hair while it was wet (bless her!). At first I went a little crazy and was going through tubs of Dippidy Doo on a weekly basis. My curls were so crunchy and sharp they became a serious hazard on the dance floor. Eventually I fine-tuned my methods and moved on to products that cost more than $3.99 a tub, and today I am happy to say that not only have I learned to live with my kinks and curls, I have also learned to love my hair (on most days). My hair is my thing, I feel like if people were to discribe me to a stranger they would say two things: she's the tall girl, with curly hair (well maybe three..tall, thin girl with curly hair).

My current hair regime was a long time in the making, but it's fairly simple and works like a charm. Here's the break down:

1. No 'poo!
I've stopped shampooing my hair completely (Google "curly hair method" for more details), but it's pretty simple. No shampoo and no hair products with silicone in them. It sounds kind of gross, but once you get past that you realize it's really no big deal AND you notice results within a couple of weeks which is a nice reward. I realize there are sulfate free shampoos out there, but why bother when conditioner washing seems to be working perfectly fine. (I did have greasier than usual hair for the first two weeks, but this wasn't really a dealbreaker since curly hair doesn't get very greasy at all. Oh and if you convert, know that your hair won't smell good nearly as much or for as long as it does with shampoo washing.) I don't have any particular conditioner to recommend, but I do always try to use professional conditioners. Winner's is a great place to score professional products at cut rate prices (if you're willing to try new and random brands, like the one below that I'm currently using)

2. AG Hair Products
This Canadian line of professional hair products is seriously amazing and contains no silicone. Although the stuff isn't cheap, it is more reasonably priced than other professional products I have tried (here's lookin' at you Aveda), and worth every penny in my opinion. The products smell delicious and work perfectly on my thick curls. I combine the Fast Food leave in conditioner with the ReCoil curl activator (1:2 ratio), rub vigorously in my palms until it becomes a thick, white creme, and then apply throughout my wet hair, scrunching curls up as I go. I repeat this step until I am satisfied that there is product ALL over my hair.

Recently I've added the Liquid Effects gel into my starting lineup. I use this to add extra hold if I am in a rush and need to diffuse my hair to dry it, if it's really humidy outside OR if I just want to make sure my hair has more hold. I also use it on day 3 to reactivate my curls - I wet my hair (not soaking), rub some Liquid Effects into my wet hands and then scrunch up the curls to bring them back to life.However, it's not an essential. The other two REALLY are.

And that my friends is the winning combination that took 28 years, several bad haircuts and countless bad hair days to figure out. Revealed to you in one post. You're welcome.

Nerd Squad

This morning I woke up to this:

As predicted by the fine folks at Environment Canada, it was snowing. Gross.



I don't even want to talk about it.



This was obviously a huge interruption to our regularly scheduled photoshoots. Luckily we found a suitable indoor alternative, which actually worked out well for my outfit because I was feeling super nerdy and the lockers remind me of high school.

This morning I moved the casual from "casual Friday" right into Monday, and wore this colourful number to work. Also, I wore my hair up, which I don't do often, but I've been admiring the high buns for a while now and thought I would give it a shot.

I followed this tutorial (minus the teasing....it's 2012, are we still teasing our hair?!!?!). Then I stumbled on this video and was REALLY entertained by the girl who does them, so I ended up watching ummm several of her tutorials. THEN I stumled on this and it basically blew my mind. Then I realized it was way past my bedtime and that I was easily amused.

 (Note: if this was my actual high school locker it would be covered with BSB and Leonardo Dicaprio magazine photos, of course)

Cardigan: Siren's, Shirt: The Gap, Pants: H&M, Boots: Aldo, Scarf: Ardene.

This Time Next Week

This time next week we will be on our way to the US for our girl's shopping roadie ...whoo! We'll be heading to Syracuse, with a short stop at the Watertown Target (I'm a Target virgin). Even though I've had to dish out some serious cash recently on a new car, and am pretty broke....I can't wait for this trip! Road trips with the girls are so much fun, and the shopping will actually be like saving money since I would pay a LOT more for the same items here in Ottawa. (welcome to "how I justify my shopping addiction 101")

The first time I went shopping in the US I basically behaved like an animal who had just been released into the wild after years of captivity. I had no plan, no self control and I bought everything I laid my hands on (to be fair, I was also recovering from a break-up, so it was to be expect...right?). In the end, I spent WAY too much money and what's even worse I ended up with a lot of things that I only wore once. Since then, I promised myself I would be smarter about my shopping trips to the US.

In preperation for last September's trip I made a list and managed to stick to it (more or less). In the end I think I only bought two things that I haven't really worn - a huge improvement, if I may say so myself.*round of applause* 

Hoping to keep the smart shopping streak going, here is my wish list for next week's trip:

1. Chambray shirt
2. A light colour maxi skirt
3. Leopard jeans, mint jeans, pastel pink jeans
4. Brightly coloured classic cardigans (I only seem to own long cardis, what's up with that?)
5. Statement necklace, neon accessories and a link necklace and bracelet
6. Denim jacket
7. Neon loafers
8. Beige pointy flats 

Red Hot Friday

Forget casual Friday..I'm calling today red hot Friday in honour of these jeans! Since the forecast called for rain and clouds, I thought it was the perfect day to wear my brightest pants. It rained on and off all day, but then the sun came out JUST in time for our daily photo shoot. Yay!

Today's outfit is basically a mix of individual pieces I wear ALL the time, but not always together.

I love, love, LOVE these jeans. I dress them up, dress them down and have been wearing them non-stop since I bought them in January.

The booties are from Nine West and one of my favourite purchases from my shopping trip to the USA back in September. So comfy and they pretty much go with everything.

The striped shirt and double print scarf are also staple pieces that I wear all the time, but never together...until today. I'm pretty sure that someone, a long time ago told me to never mix prints (or I read it in Seventeen magazine in 1992), and it stuck. So mixing prints today, I definitely felt kind of bad-ass!

Jeans: Siren's. Shirt: The Gap, Scarf: H&M, Booties: Nine West, Bracelets: gifted from China.

Green (and blue) With Envy

So it's official.... fashion blogs have changed my life. No joke. The old me (aka. last week) would never have paired these two colours together (green and blue). I love this blazer, and when I bought it I thought "I'll wear this with everything! Yay!" but as usual I paired it with two things and then just pressed "repeat". Not this time friends, not this time.

Pants: H&M, Blazer: Winner's, Shirt: Dynamite, Shoes: Stance

Picture taking day 2 was almost kiboshed by the fact that there was a whole group of landscapers milling around the "forested" photoshoot locations (aka. doing their job), but Sarah and I stuck it out because we're not quitters!

Dot you love it?

So I finally paid convinced someone to take some photos of me....outside! Score!

Really though my friend/ colleague/ fellow blogger Sarah and I finally took the plunge and decided to do a quick photo shoot. If you're wondering why I look so awkward it's because 1. I am and 2. I was trying to avoid being seen by people who were walking by and wondering what us two crazy kids were up to and 3. I really am.

I am hoping this picture taking business gets easier with time. Some of the bloggers out there are full blown models who smile with their eyes and pose hard core. Not me dudes, not me. But this is photoshoot one of hopefully many to come. We promised today that we would try to do this every day, weather permitting. That means that I'll get to practice. It also means that I am going to have to make a real effort to NOT look like a hobo on a regular basis, which is tricky all the time and basically impossible on some days. Stay tuned to see how I manage.

Shirt: Sirens, Skirt: Forever 21, Shoes: really old from The Shoe Company I think.

Umm I just realized I'm wearing this shirt in 2 out of 3 outfits posts so far...oops. What can I say...I love it. Not to worry I've washed it since the last time I wore it (that was a lie).

I also want to take a minute to let you guys know that I spent a good part of today crying. I stumbled upon this blog: http://leatherandlace-lg.blogspot.ca/ and the girl who writes it is unbelievably hilarious. I was laughing so hard, tears were literally (and not Patrick Schwarzenegger "literally") streaming down my face. If you haven't checked out her blog, you MUST. Just make sure you go to the bathroom first because while crying is inevitable, peeing is also a real possibility.

Celeb RX - Rihanna

I'm obsessed with celebs. Keeping up with celeb gossip is one of my favourite hobbies, basically. It all started back in grad school, when a fellow student showed me Perez Hilton's gossip site. Perez was his way of taking a mental break from studying and soon it became mine as well. I would set my own little goals like "I will write 4 more pages of this paper, and then go on Perez for 20 minutes". It was such a good way to let my brain cool off but it quickly developed into a full blown addiction. As Perez's fame grew, so did my obsession and today I follow celeb news daily.

Every once in a while, one of my celeb friends really pisses me off. I find myself asking "Seriously?" pretty much on a daily basis as I browse celeb gossip sites, but it's only once in a while that a celeb's annoying antics reach epic proportions that they could almost be considered an illness (and require a ranting blog post).

I used to really like Rihanna. She's talented enough. Her music is catchy. Her style is questionable but whatever, ever since Lady Gaga was born (our of her own womb in her video), I've become more tolerant. Jay Z likes her, and she's quite possibly the most stunning woman I have ever laid eyes on. I felt terrible following the whole Chris Beatherdown incident, I was outraged that he faced almost no consequences and at how quickly he was welcomed back into the music community. I still am. He's a douchebag of epic proportions.
BUT....Rihanna is not doing so well in my books either. In fact, at this point in time I'm going to have to diagnose her with Stupiditus streptococus, if not treated immidiately this could become very serious, so Rihanna if you are reading this (as I'm sure you are) please take note.

Symptoms:
It all started with her collaboration with the above-mentioned douchebag on her song Birthday Cake. I understand if she doesn't want to be a spokesperson for "battered women everywhere.org", but singing "come and put your name on it" and "I know you wanna bite this" to a man whose savage beating included a bite and left you bruised and bloody? RIDICULOUS. If Rihanna doesn't have any self respect (as this collaboration would indicate) than she should at least show some respect for the fact that women are murdered every day in senseless acts of violence most often committed by their partners. What kind of example is she setting for her young female fans?
The answer is: not a very good one. After releasing the song, she also released some serious racism aimed at Chris' Asian girlfriend on Twitter. The last time I dressed up a box of crackers was..never, so this photo is obviously intentional. Her caption "Imma make u my bitch" doesn't help the "maybe the sunglasses just fell on the rice cakes" argument.

Racism is not ok, in fact it is disgusting and makes me very angry. That was strike 2.

Strike 3 is really an ongoing issue I have with this woman. As mentioned above she is absolutely stunning. We know this. We've seen her (basically naked) all over the Interwebs, on stage, in magazines, on TV, in movies etc etc etc etc....you get the point. She's hot. We know. We get it. But apparently she doesn't think we do, because she insists on posting really awkward and highly sexual photos of herself on her Twitter and Facebook page.
Many of them are "self-portraits" (or as "self-portrait-y" as it gets for a girl who probably travels with 8 professionals photogs). REALLY RIHANNA?

Now I know we all have those friends who really want us to know that they're hot so they pose in the mirror and then photoshop or Instagram the shit out of their photos and post them on Facebook. These are regular folks, they don't get as much exposure as Rihanna. They can be (almost) forgiven for wanting to prove they're hot stuff and assaulting our Facebook Newsfeeds...but Rihanna, why does she need this?

The answer is: she doesn't.

Diagnosis:
Deadly if not treated.
Jay Z has already found himself a replacement Rihanna (Rita Ora, below). If the real Rihanna doesn't seriously check herself, we might all follow suit.

Treatement:
Banishment, 24 hours a day for 3 months.
Rihanna needs to go away for a little long while. And not on a vacation to Hawaii during which someone takes 98234734726 "candid" shots of her that just happen to show her super sexy self, doing normal but super sexy things like taking her shorts off...slowly.
Girl needs a real vacation, away from the public eye, her phone, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Chris Brown and me! 

Mint Condition

Saw this mani on Pinterest (shocker!) and had to have it. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!
I bonded with someone in my building's elevator after she complimented this manicure AND struck up a convo with a cashier at the grocery store for the same reason. That's the thing about a good mani...it brings people (well, women) together!

The accent nail colour is Deborah Lipmann's Today Was a Fairytale while the rest are Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet.

I really love the mint colour, but this Sally Hansen gets two thumbs down. I used it only once before it got SO thick that I could barely apply it. Boo! Luckily, a few drops of Seche Restore (from the same line as Seche Vite) brought it right back to life. Note to self: get Seche Retsore, ASAP! I have so many bottles I could revive and use again.