Outfit Post: Scarves and Jackets!

Cold weather means it's finally time to break out the coats and jackets and really play up the scarves! I'm really bad at transitioning from warm fall weather into the colder kind, and I haven't actually been wearing jackets all that much lately. This was from a week ago when my roommate Kelly and I went out to dinner with her brother and cousin who were in town. Unfortunately we were in a rush to get out the door so we didn't get too many pictures, but I'm sure there will be plenty of variations of this outfit to come in the future. I wish I would have gotten some in better light!

Outfit:
Scarf: H & M
Leggings: Old Navy
Necklace: For Love 21
Belt: Forever 21
Booties: Payless
Dress and Purple Bomber: Target

Picture Post: Halloween Social

I'll be back to a regular outfit post tomorrow with pictures of today's outfit (always a day behind, aren't I?) but I wanted to finish the Halloween series given Halloween was 4 days ago and I am still trying to get these up.

These pictures are from a social I hosted for a national honors/service organization that I am a chapter officer for. I basically serve as both the secretary and VP of public relations, so I get to do the social organizing! For Halloween, I knew I wanted to do pumpkin painting, watch Corpse Bride, and do a game called the Donut Dangle (You'll understand with pictures, but basically you're trying to catch a powdered donut with only your mouth while it furiously dances around from a stick). We don't always get a ton of members that actually show up, but the officer group has been about the same for a few years now, so we're all friends and it usually turns out to be fun nonetheless!

(Devil's Food cupcakes with Pumpkin Icing!)

(Lauryn's dog Dolce in his aptly chosen Satan costume)

Still planning on doing a giveaway very soon! I have been all kinds of a mess lately trying to get everything done, but after today's round of tests are over I should have a bit more free time to get some other things taken care of.

Costume Recap: Jane of the Jungle

This costume first made it's appearance on Halloween Weekend in 2008 and I was completely eager to bring it back out this year. It was a ridiculously simply "thrown together" costume the first time around, and my favorite part about it is the makeup and wild hair. Well, I also love the dress, which might be a little too much to wear on any other night that didn't involve a costume part of some sort.

It was only perfect that Kelly chose to be an Amazonian Woman for one of her costumes and made her brother a Cave Man costume to go along with it, and that we ended up wearing them all on the same night!!!

Costume Recap: Gretchen the Biergarten Girl

Ok, so I guess we'll do these in "outfit post" type installments. I am OBSESSED with Halloween, particularly the costume part. My mom said I "always loved the costume box!" when I was younger, and I still have one to this day. I ordered this one from Lingerie.com when I saw a post on Curves and Chaos about their Halloween sale... THIS COSTUME WAS ONLY $15.99! I have always wanted a Beer Maid costume, and when this $60 costume was on sale for such a low price I had to buy it. Anyone looking to jump the gun for next year should head on over and check Lingerie.com out, they still have a lot of costumes on sale!

Picture Post: Pumpkin Carving!

I'm really behind on getting up some of the posts I have wanted to do... but here are the pictures from pumpkin carving! I loved how my little owl turned out, but I kind of messed up and didn't make the part where he was attached to the rest of the pumpkin big enough, so he became Franken-owl when I had to toothpick attach him back to the pumpkin. And of course he started shriveling up already the day after carving just because some of the sections are so thin, but oh well, he was cute at first! Now it's just turned around so the star side faces forward.

Lauryn's dog Dolce just wanted in on some of the action.

Kelly's Happy Little Jack!

How adorable is Lauryn's Hello Kitty Witch carving?

Wouldn't be pumpkin carving without toasting some salted seeds!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Outfit Post: Drinks at Nick's

I met my friend Betsy on Wednesday night at Nick's English Hut (Bloomington favorite) for a few drinks, and since I've been a bit under the weather lately and not making much of an effort to wear "real outfits", I felt like actually putting a decent outfit together. These booties have become one of my favorites!!

Outfit
Booties: Payless
Dress, Leggings, Vest: Old Navy
Belt: Forever 21
Bracelets: Charlotte Russe

Is everyone having a good Halloween weekend? I can't wait to see any costume posts you all do :-) Last night I wore my "Gretchen the Biergarten Girl" costume, and tonight Jane of the Jungle is coming back out to play! That's one of my all time favorites because of the fun make up that goes with it. What are some of your favorite costumes you have ever done?

Better Late Than Never: Fall Festival!

I was waiting to post this for one reason only: getting the fried green beans picture from Nickie at Wild as a Mink. Because YES, I finally got to meet her! She had been having some internet issues but finally got her Fall Fest post up (You can read here), so I stole a few of the pictures from her ;-) I guess you could call it a mini-blogger meet up of sorts, featuring the lovely Sew Me Some Love (My roommate, Kelly), Lalalaurynnn, and Nickie, and then we threw in our good friend Mandy who was visiting from St. Louis as well. Not to mention the million other people we met up with AT the Festival... because you sure can't go there without seeing everyone you have ever known in the city.

(All of the girls with our bug-lollipops)

(Keeping it classy with our "Southern Apples" and "Apple Jacks"... aka alcoholic apple cider)

For those of you who don't know, Fall Festival is what Evansvillians (Evansville, IN) claim to be the "second largest street festival next to Mardi Gras". Whether that is actually true or not is beyond me, but everyone down there sure likes to think so. It has the whole carnival-rides-games thing going on, but the REAL deal is the food. There are over a hundred booths selling ANY kind of food you can probably think of. Especially the really disgusting kinds: brain sandwiches, alligator, turkey testicles, chocolate covered bugs, and any weird combination of things you could think of.

(The guys playing some silly game wearing their hats they won in some other silly game)

(The infamous scorpion lollipop)

This year I got way too full way too early, but we had a good system of kind of just sharing everything everyone bought, so I tried a little bit of: fried green beans, sweet potato fries, deep fried bacon (sorry arteries), Texas tenderloin, apple cider, annnnd a scorpion lollipop. Much to my dismay I didn't actually get to the scorpion because I REALLY accidentally dropped it before I could get there. I wasn't too mad though, because the lollipop itself tasted horrible. One thing I did miss this year was the deep fried cookie dough, but I was way too full to even think about that.





And of course, outfit pictures! I had to put SOME effort into that given that I was finally meeting my "blogger big sister" Nickie. I think our group was probably the classiest to be seen at the Fest... a place most notorious for it's people watching. (Mullet count, anyone?)

Outfit
Dress: Target
Leggings, Sweater: Old Navy
Bracelets, Hair Flower, Boots: Charlotte Russe

Nickie said she gained (and then quickly lost) something like 10 pounds just from that week. Thank god I was only there for one night, and also that I do not even own a scale, because I wouldn't even WANT to know. But in the name of terribly unhealthy but wonderfully delicious food, we all justify it. After all, it's only once a year!!!

And one last thing- new recipe up at Wonderland Kitchen for PUMPKIN CREAM PASTA! Yum!

Procrastination at it's Finest.

The adorable Megan at Time After Tea passed these questions along to me, and they could not have come at a better time as I am desperately needing (or wanting) a little break from writing a book critique. It is actually a really good book, and I think I will probably post a mini-review of it here soon, but I have never written a book CRITIQUE before so it has been a bit of a process trying to figure out what exactly to analyze for this assignment. Anyways, on to the questions.

1. Why do you blog?

I think when it comes down to it, it's essentially "the talking cure"... everyone likes being able to vent, ramble, or share with someone else. And what better place to do it than to a bunch of complete strangers who are oh so supportive? It has really just become fun to get inspiration from other people for different outfit, craft, and recipe ideas, and then passing those along hoping to provide that for someone else.

2. Name three of your best memories...
-Going to the breeder with the family and picking out Penske as a puppy, and getting to hold her on my lap the whole way home :-)
-Running around barefoot in just a swimsuit all summer long in our neighborhood in St. Louis, playing with all the neighborhood kids late into the night (flashlight tag!) until our parents made us come in to shower and go to bed
-Florida Spring Break senior year with the extended family and my best friend Katelyn. I don't know if we even did anything all that exciting, but it was still really fun

3. Name 4 of the best fiction books you've read.

I LOVE reading, but here are a few:
-A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
-Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
-Lullaby (My first Chuck Palahniuk book)
-The Holly Barker "Orchid" series by Stuart Woods (some of his earlier ones, his others are good but the more recent ones have not been as great)

4. What are the 5 best movies ever made?

SO HARD! Uh, here are probably just five of the first few that came to mind.
-Forrest Gump (I don't know how you could not like that)
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail
-Interview with the Vampire
-Public Enemies
-Wizard of Oz (I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this but I have always loved it)

5. Name 5 things you can't live without.
-Music, specifically Rock'n'Roll.
-My wonderfully crazy, fun, beautiful friends.
-My ridiculous, yet entertaining, family.
-Water water water water. More so than the normal human. LOVE it.
-Creativity. Can you even imagine how dull this world would be without it?

6. If you could change your name what would it be?

I hated my name when I was little and always tried to at least go by some other variation of Alex (Lexi, Alexa, etc) because I did not like that it was also a boy's name. I think I've come to terms with it though, I do love my full name (Alexandra) and I was actually just thinking earlier today how cool it is that I have one of the few names with an x in it. Haha.

7. Tell us a unique and interesting fact about yourself....

When I was little, in the school play/musical/whatever about careers, I played the role of a florist, and I think everyone (including myself) thought it was kind of ridiculous to want to be a florist when I grew up (you know, that or a marine biologist. I don't know where I came up with these things), but now I think I would LOVE to own a flower shop that catered to big events.

8. What do you love most about yourself?

Oops... forgot to change this answer the first time: I think mostly just that I generally try to consider how the things I do/say are going to affect other people, and then act accordingly, although it does stress me out at times.

9. If you had a 'Freaky Friday' experience, who would you change places with?

Chelsea Handler. If her life on a daily basis is even REMOTELY close to being as funny as it is in the stories she tells in her books, it would be totally worth it.

10. What is the best thing about being a woman?

HAVING FEELINGS. Haha. Ok, kind of joking. But... I have been reading the book Why She Buys, and I just think it is so insane how women just tend to be more in tuned with and caring of other people and how they feel as well as how what we do affects others. I guess kind of just the "motherly" thing. Well, that and the high heels, make up, and all that good stuff. While it can sometimes be a real pain, when it comes down to it, I love it.

Picture Post:The First Costume Party of the Season

All I really have to say is that I was delighted to discover that Kelly's Nightwing is the character that Robin becomes when he grows up. (According to Kelly's boyfriend, I'm completely illiterate in most things of that nature) Clearly the best roommate unintentionally match their costumes last minute... I was digging through my 'costume box' trying to figure out what to be and stumbled across this Batman mask and knew it was a great idea. Really I'll just take any excuse to work my black stiletto "hooker boots" into an outfit.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN WEEK!