What I Wore Sunday

Linking up to Fine Linen and Purple.

I kept it simple this week with a Shabby Apple classic and my favorite Gap cardigan...

Plus a new bracelet—Christmas present from Grandma—and my sturdy black flats that Frank gave me for Easter and which I've worn every day since. They're headed for retirement, poor black flats, because they're developing holes from all that wear.

Most important of all, my fluffy Notre Dame zip-up! I've worn that baby every day for the past 2 weeks, because God forbid anybody meet me and not know I went to Notre Dame. You've heard the old joke: "How do you know someone in the room went to Notre Dame?" "Because they told you." So proud of my alma mater, especially today. :)

Are you watching the National Championship tonight? I'll be on the edge of my seat the whole game, and I know I'm going to cry whether we win or lose.

My favorite article about tonight's game? Here.

Still have Christmas decorations up (as I shamelessly do)? Share here.

Go Irish!!!

What I Wore Sunday

I'm thrilled to be participating in my first round of What I Wore Sunday! And in typical Tess fashion, I'm joining the party late, half an hour before it's Monday

Today's outfit was thrown together a little haphazardly. I woke up late this morning after having friends over until... (Mum, skip to the next paragraph) ... 3:00 a.m. So it was noon Mass for Frank and me.

Posting this photo is a bit of a triumph, because it took five tries to get this shot. My camera was feeling rebellious today and took terribly blurry pictures

So we had a bunch that looked like this:

And the fourth attempt led to this:

The face of excitement.

Frank said, "I finally got one that's not blurry, but you're not looking at the camera... but I think you can still use it for the blog." Ah, no.

You can see our Christmas tree, Edwin, in the background. I thought the tree looked a little too pretty to be an Edwin and seemed more like an ... Edwina. Frank insisted, however, that he was "handsome," not pretty, so Edwin it is.

Are you wondering what we were doing up til 3:00 a.m.? I'll be posting about that tomorrow!

Head on over to Fine Linen and Purple to see everyone else's lovely Mass outfits!

Two of a Kind

Brandon, thank you for the link! And all of Brandon's readers who clicked over here, welcome! I hope you enjoy reading!

Just a quick post today as I work on a few projects. Tonight I'm going to a happy hour and lecture featuring the lovely Helen Alvare. I came up with a new look for the occasion: the cardigan-as-shirt, tucked into a gray pencil skirt.

This morning I was skyping with my college friend Shannon when Frank called to offer me a ride to work. I love driving in with him so I hurried myself up and managed to get ready in only 25 minutes! Miraculous!

When I got in the car, I saw that Frank was wearing a red shirt too with gray pants. We started laughing at how similarly we think sometimes.

What I Wore & April Birthdays

My family is still here in DC and Frank and I made dinner for them on Wednesday night. It was quite the undertaking but we had fun doing it.

Our preparations started bright and early with a trip to the grocery store at 8 am. Our menu: baked brie-in-croissant dough, pulled barbecue chicken on potato rolls, mashed potatoes, cheddar jalapeno cornbread, and brownie sundaes for dessert. Yum.

The problem was the chicken. It needed to cook for 4 hours in the crock pot but I wouldn't be home to turn it on and off at the right times. So Frank went to my apartment between classes to get it all ready. He also made the cornbread and the brownies, and then after dinner, he cleaned up almost all of my kitchen. No, I know. He deserves extra snuggles for all that.

I was so excited to have my family over for dinner! I decided to wear a festive spring-like outfit for the occasion and I took a picture to commemorate it. Shirt from Land's End, cardigan from Target (they have the world's best cardigans and so cheap!), smile from Life is Awesome.

Then I neglected to take a single picture of the actual meal. Whoops. Photography fail. But I'll give it another try tonight.

Today is my little baby sister Caroline's 16th birthday. Well, she claims she's turning 16. In my mind she's 4 years old and always will be. We're going to my favorite restaurant/cupcakery to celebrate.

Angela, the very youngest in our family, turns 8 on Saturday. Frank and I have some nice little presents planned for those two! But seriously. What the heck. Family, stop growing!!! I don't even know what I'm going to do when I have kids of my own.

Maria turns 19 between the two, on Friday. Three birthdays in a row - April 12, 13 and 14. Our family's annual birthday triduum. It's a little crazy and always a very fun time of year.

I had lunch with a good friend today. She recently started dating another friend. I introduced them but I didn't expect them to date so I can't really take any credit.

She is dealing with some rough things these days. Her 10-year-old brother has a severe form of cancer. He only has a 68% chance of surviving the next five years. She told me about what a great little man he is. He started an "IV Club" at the hospital for the all the other patients and declared himself president—no doctors and nurses are allowed to join!

He's a brave little guy and is focused on trusting God. He told his sister, "Everyone has to carry a cross. Mine is cancer. But I know I can carry it because Jesus carried His before me." And this is a ten-year-old! I wish I had that kind of faith. She and I both had tears in our eyes as she told me all this. Please keep her, her brother, and their family in your prayers.

In spite of that rough stuff, it was a fun lunch. We laughed a lot and talked about the men in our lives. I can't imagine why I was so worried about growing up when I was a little girl. Being a grown-up is so much fun.

I snapped a quick picture of what I'm wearing on this friend-lunch and family-birthday-dinner day.

I officially promise myself to take pictures of the festivities tonight! You are all my witnesses. ;)

What I Wore

I have a confession to make. Have you noticed that I haven't been posting very much recently? Well, the truth is, I've hit my annual case of "mental road block." With the coming of spring, sunshine, and warm weather, suddenly I don't want to write much on my blog anymore.

A few days ago, I got a new computer at work... and it has Photobooth on it. I've been having fun goofing around taking pictures of myself during down times in the day. And today I came up with the idea of doing a little series (inspired by this blog series) of my outfits at work. That will give me something to post about on days when I don't want to write a lot, and I think it will be fun to look back on too!

So for my inaugural "What I Wore" post, I bring you this photo, taken about 2 minutes ago.

The light is pretty terrible, since it comes from behind me, and as you can see my office is a little messy at the moment. But here it is!

This evening I'm going to a birthday party for my friend Lee, so I wore a more festive shirt than I would normally wear to work. This light pink top is from Charlotte Russe. My friend Claire bought it for me for my 21st birthday.

For a long time I thought this shirt was maybe a little too "fussy," with the elaborate decorations, ribbons and flowers. I loved it, but I thought maybe guys might think it was high-maintenance. But Frank recently told me that it's one of his favorites. I guess that goes to show how little I know about how guys think!

To dress it up for work, I'm wearing a black pencil skirt from Banana Republic and my trusty black cardigan from Target. Man, I love that thing. Target has some really stellar cardigans. I also did a simple bun because I woke up late today and didn't have time do anything cute with my hair.

I hope you enjoy this little taste of my daily fashion choices!