Let’s talk shoes.

If you know anything about me, you know that I really dislike shoes. (I know, gasp, what girl doesn’t like shoes? This one.) I generally find shoes uncomfortable and awkward, though I have a strong love for both sandals and boots. Unfortunately, sandals aren’t appropriate for all situations, my mocs get pretty beat up and aren’t exactly, you know, nice, and I do not want to be wearing boots when it’s 90 degrees outside.

The obvious answer would be ballet flats, right? Except that I find ballet flats incredibly uncomfortable. They pinch, squeeze, squish, rub, and generally make me miserable. I’d been eyeing some leather scrunch flats at Target because they have great reviews, BUT they aren’t sold in store. Not sure I wanted to shell out $40 for a pair of shoes that I may just end up returning. I ended up chatting with my stylist about shoes, and she started raving about the scrunch flats at Payless. I’ve seen them–cap toe, super cute, but I’ve never had great experience with ballet flats.

I hit up Payless that afternoon and slipped on a pair of the nude ones. They were pretty okay (that’s basically the best I can do at first wear in the store–you never know when they’re going to rub blisters on your pinkie toes or heels!), and the employees started raving about them–apparently everyone there owns at least one pair. Okay, that’s a pretty decent review for me–they’re on their feet all day, so they would know. I had seen a leopard pair and a cream/black pair in some super small size, but I stuck with the nude ones at first. I won’t lie, I wore them for a couple of hours as soon as I got home (there’s a wear tip for you: if you aren’t sure about a pair of shoes, wear them around the house for a while so that you can return them if necessary), and they were…great! I ended up hitting up the other Payless in town that I always forget about, and they had both the leopard and cream/black ones in my size (YAY).

I’ve worn the leopard ones for three days and then the cream/black ones one day, and have not had any issues. The footbed has some padding (I think it’s supposed to be memory foam), but I have super high arches and have to wear insoles, so that doesn’t really matter to me. They do recommend the little no-show sock things, so I picked up a pack of them for good measure (apparently the memory foam soaks up sweat and smells pretty bad). Unfortunately, the leopard and cream/black ones are discontinued (along with some gorgeous gold and charcoal/black ones), but a few stores may have select sizes left. Currently, they only have the nude and a solid black pair (that I NEED). Hopefully, they’ll come out with new colors soon (and if you sign up for their rewards program, you get a 20% off coupon immediately).

Being April and all, it’s supposed to be spring here, right? It’s not. It’s sometimes in the 50s-60s during the day, but mostly it’s been cold and rainy, with some surprise snow. Yay.

We have just under four months until the wedding (119 days, according to our registry), so there’s my explanation for the lack of updates. Mostly everything is done, really. Need to address our invitations (once I work out the bugs with our printer). Need to paint votive holders (but it’s not warm enough yet). Waiting on our bridesmaids dresses to come in. Little projects here and there, mostly. It’s been fun, but honestly, we should have eloped. It would have been easier, less DIY, less money, less stress. The good news is that our reception venue ended up getting a new coordinator (who actually has event/wedding planning experience) who replaced the awful one I had to deal with for three months. I love her already–she’s been quick and thorough in answering my emails and has really taken away a lot of the anxiety I was feeling over the reception. Yay!

BUT. We’re almost there.

And, it’s Friday!

cardigan – Target
striped pocket tee – Old Navy
mocs – Target
cuffed skinny jeans – American Eagle
initial necklace – gift

I love these mocs, but they’re beat up after just over a year. I’m the worst shoe person ever; I love ballet flats, but find them mostly uncomfortable, boots aren’t year-round footwear, and sandals are frowned upon in some situations. Whatever!

Ever since I attempted to curl my hair with my flat iron, my hair’s been…fried (though I have had a trim since then, thankfully). I picked up a new curling iron ASAP, and decided to grab a deep conditioner to give my hair a little help and then use it on Sundays after I use my clarifying shampoo. I love Organix products already, so I grabbed their macadamia oil mask. Now, my hair is pretty healthy already, so I didn’t need nor expect a miracle.

Naturally, the first thing I did was smell it. It smells really good. Almost reminds me of 7th grade and my Herbal Essences obsession. It promises to mend split ends, which I never believe in any product, since you can’t actually fix split ends. I used it that night, and…I was disappointed. I had to use a LOT of it to cover my hair.  I have a ton of hair, but I don’t normally use that much conditioner. Instead of feeling slick/slippery like my hair normally does with conditioner, it felt stringy and almost dried out. I clipped my hair up and let it sit, as normal (the jar says 3-5 minutes, or 20 under a shower cap for extremely dry hair). I unclipped my hair and combed through it, like normal. My hair was tangled and hard to comb through, which I expect pre-conditioner, but definitely not post! I rinsed and my hair felt…dirty. I will say that my hair felt fine after I dried it, but until then, yuck.

pros

• smells great
• not expensive

cons

• made my hair feel dirty/stringy/tangled/etc. when in
• I had to use a LOT of this to cover my hair
• didn’t do anything better than my normal conditioner

Personally, I’d pass on this one and pick up one of the other masks they sell instead.

I wasn’t really on board with the whole chambray trend at first–maybe it’s because I mostly wear jeans, and I thought chambray + jeans would look a little too…Canadian tuxedo for me. THEN, I saw a polka dotted chambray button down in the add for our favorite grocery store, and I was kinda in love. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it when I stopped by, BUT a quick trip to Kohl’s on Saturday fixed that for me.

chambray shirt, Kohl’s
grey thermal, Target
skinny khakis, AE
Pink & Pepper Racer boots, DSW
jewelry, gifts

I actually hate wearing khakis, but I’m supposed to wear them for work (except on casual Friday…and most Thursdays…or random days when khakis just aren’t doing it for me).

It’s getting warmer here this week and next, yay! It’s about this time that I realize that I forgot how to dress for warm weather. I have to get rid of the extra layer that I wear (leggings, knee socks, and a long sleeved shirt), and then ??? Josh asked me this morning what shoes I plan on wearing once it’s too warm for boots. I DON’T KNOW!

I’ve wanted a navy gingham shirt since last year when I saw one on Sydney over at The Daybook. Hers was a j.crew boys’ shirt, and by the time I got to the site, it was sold out. I saw this one at Forever21 and had to snatch it up. I actually wore this outfit a couple of weeks ago on our engageaversary date night, and Josh loved it! I thought he’d hate the color combo, but he complimented it five times that night.

orchid cardigan, Target
gingham button down, Forever21
dark wash skinny jeans, Express
Pink & Pepper Racer boots, DSW
jewelry, gifts

Josh is gone until Saturday at the state wrestling tournament, which means that I am trying not to go crazy. I came home from work, did a quick workout, made dinner, and started sorting our wedding invitations. Murphy helped!

I designed our invitations, RSVP, reception, and thank you cards myself, to match our save the dates, and had them printed through Vistaprint. Thankfully, they keep offering Groupons, so we got everything for under $100 (plus, I got a cool new mug with my new last initial on it to put myself over the Groupon amount). I ordered the RSVP and reception cards back in January, and then the invitations and thank you cards a couple of weeks ago. The invitations and thank yous showed up and…they were the wrong color. The pink was way too bright, which made the text hard to read and wasn’t the color that I wanted at all. I emailed Vistaprint ASAP, and had a reprint and reship order the next morning. Yay!

Basically what I ended up doing was grabbing all four boxes of invite stuff that I had (different shipments from VP, as well as the envelopes that I ordered), pulling everything out, and separating it all into piles. The printed stuff comes banded in plastic with cardstock covers, so I took out all of those and put them in a trash box (which would be the one that Murphy took over). All of the pieces went neatly into a smaller box to be assembled and addressed later. All of the extras (the first set of invites, thank you cards, and the million plain white envelopes from VP that I won’t use) went into yet another box. I’ll most likely keep the thank yous, because we can always use those, and might do some crafty stuff with the invites, but the majority of the leftovers will probably be recycled.

I think we also have our honeymoon chosen, as well, and plan on going in December, after Josh’s finals. It’ll be a nice way to end his first semester in the Respiratory Therapy program, as well.