First Strawberry

Right after we moved to our house, my mother-in-law brought us 3 pots of strawberry plants. We were in the middle of ripping out the 1970s carpet to refinish the hardwood floors and unpacking, and gardening was the least thing I wanted to do. Being forced to was probably a good thing because I'd never think of planting strawberries in the backyard that hasn't been touched for 30 years (apart from mowing).
This spring, I found clusters of strawberries hiding under big leaves. Apparently, strawberries are low maintenance because all I did was stick the plants in the ground. A couple of days ago, we harvested our first strawberry, followed by two more in the next two days. A strawberry a day! What a treat to pick your own berries...

I love tomatoes more than strawberries, so I started 3 varieties from seeds in February. I babied them and now they turned into huge bushy plants. There are 3 tomatoes already and I keep checking them every morning. More on that in the next posts.

What would have thought I'd be posting about gardening. Owning a house changes your priorities and interests. Yup, there will posts on house renovations and we are not going to have any lack of them in the next 10 years.

Shoes. Nude Shoes.

Well, as the title intends, this is a chaotic blog, so there. Life has been busy. Lots of things changed since my last post. We purchased a 1928 house that needs a lot of work, and that has been quite distracting. I switched from fashion to house renovating/decorating and it is as challenging as picking a new outfit.

I have no lack of nude/white/beige shoes, and yet I still reach for them when shopping for new shoes. I can't help it. I have a black shoe aversion and have troubles wearing them. No problem with wearing nude shoes all year around, but summer is the best time for them.

You can see 6 pairs here but that's not all of them. I have a few more... Not enough, though.

Sometimes, I just enjoy looking at my shoes (and photographing them)...
The shoes above are Seychelles that I snapped at a ridiculous price at the local DSW. They are super cute with their vintage pattern fabric and orange heels.

And these are flats from Urban Outfitters that are very comfortable and make your legs look looong. I was very tempted to get another pair but got greedy. I'm thinking of trying them with a ribbon around ankles.

Craving Houndstooth Pattern

I've been craving houndstooth pattern for a while now, and I think it I now like it best in brown colors. Tommy Hilfiger's Fall 2012 ad campaign set me off, and I went hunting for those perfect patterns and textures in my wardrobe.

Well, I dug out my tartan shorts in black and orange and wanted to wear them with houndstooth tights but Z started arguing that I shouldn't mix patterns. I shouldn't have listened but his opinion matters...

I liked the result but it turned out somewhat boring because of the lack of patterns. I must admit, though, I'm terrible with any sort of pattern, and I prefer sticking to solid colors. I'm just afraid of loud patterns.

I must warn you - I tend to abuse brown colors in Fall. I have way too much brown in my closet but it does make it easier to mix and match.

Anyway...

The sun was just setting and extremely bright, so the colors turned out too bright in the first few pictures. Some day, I'll figure out this photography science.

Trying to settle on a rock - not an easy task in heels...

Alright, have I convinced you to get these houndstooth tights yet? They have a self-explanatory name (United Kingdom tights) and are also available in black & white.

Picnic in the Park

I had this outfit in my mind for a very long time and thought it would be an easy one and would look sort of village-girl style. Once I started dressing up, it felt like I was getting ready for a wedding. As a bride. Everything was off-white or ivory and these lacy socks only added up to the feeling. Then I curled my hair, and yep, the feeling got even worse. I think the hat and the picnic basket helped a little to get rid of that feeling.
Z took lots of pictures. LOTS. First, I thought there weren't that many I liked but then I got carried away...
The focus of the shoot: Sethunya lacy over-the-knee socks by Trasparenze. Obviously. You will see a lot of them. The rest was just to mix up a little. But aren't these socks lovely? Love the pattern and the ribbons.

Quill is munching on the grass while I'm trying hard to prevent my heels from sinking in the dirt...

It's much nicer to be standing on a solid surface...

Sit tight, there are a lot more pictures of these socks coming...

Whew, I'll have to stop here.
The socks can be purchased here.

Friday Dinner at Zingerman's

If you ever visit Ann Arbor, you must go to Zingerman's for their famous sandwiches. They are soooo good.
We don't go there often as they are quite expensive, but it is a wonderful rare treat. Quill-pup also enjoys going there as he gets a piece or two of the delicious crusty bread.

Post-dinner walks are a tradition, and even better when they are in a nice park...
Happy weekend!

Rug-Inspired Eye Makeup

I mentioned earlier my jewel-color obsession, in particular, teal/green shades. I saw this rug in a catalog and had to dump everything and try the color combo on my eyes immediately. Luckily, I had almost exact shades in my The She Space collection. Oh, it looks like that company is reopening soon; yay!

The colors of this rug are so vibrant, the pictures don't do any justice. It's extremely dark and cloudy today, so no good lighting.

These eyeshadow minerals matched almost perfectly...

And... if you own a camera with manual lens, you know how difficult it is to focus on something without looking... How do you take pictures of your eye makeup? I'm always amazed my some sharp pictures some makeup bloggers take of their own faces. It might be the time to purchase an auto-zoom lens... I also tried really hard to not wrinkle the closed eye to show the colors. Failure. What I see in the mirror is so much brighter than what the camera sees!

Cropped to see better...

Cropped even more for close-up. Excuse my hair post-washing flyaways...

Bottom color was the dark blue, then teal in the middle, and then green on top. But it shows as two colors only. The teal must be hiding in that eyelid fold that I tried really hard to avoid. Sigh...

Challenges, Challenges...

I have a tendency of picking a-difficult-to-style clothing and then trying to create a wearable outfit. This time it was metallic/silver leggings that were quite challenging because nothing in my wardrobe would work with them. They are sort of futuristic and a bit too edgy. They would look fabulous with faded pink or peach colors based on these pictures I saved from the web a long time ago. I forgot to write down the designer because I wasn't planning to post them on the web. Sorry about that!

So, I went hunting on yoox.com and saw this high-low shirt with a gray owl on it, and thought "it was it!". It is not pink but it seems to work still. Anyway, here is the final outfit...

I rolled up the leggings to make them look like pants! They are pretty long because you are supposed to bunch them up (plus, my legs are on the shorter side).
They are available here, and they are on sale right now for only $16!

Shirt by American Retro: www.yoox.com (think it's sold out)
Pumps by Michael Antonio: www.endless.com
Bag: thrifted