• Taco chicken with quinoa
• Pico de gallo and corn tortilla chips
• Cucumber with dill
• Banana
• Fage 2% Greek yogurt with honey

• Spinach salad with celery, shredded carrots, cucumber, feta, and home-made mustard vinaigrette dressing
• Chicken sausage (love my cut bento cut-outs!)
• Quinoa
• Gala apple
• Fage 2% with honey

With my bentos, I’ve noticed that I tend to go in patterns.  One week,  I’ll have cucumbers almost everyday.  Another week, it’ll be salad variations.  Right now my two favorite things in my bentos are quinoa and Fage Greek yogurt.  Quinoa is actually a seed that acts like a grain.  It tastes delicious and has a lot of protein too.  Lately I’ve been eating it almost every day.  While my diet is not full Paleo, I don’t eat a lot of carbs (your body really doesn’t need that many).  So my main sources of whole grains are my daily oatmeal and quinoa.  These both give me sufficient carbs, fiber and whole grains.  Plus,  I’ve found that eating quinoa at lunch keeps me full longer.

Fage Greek yogurt is my favorite morning snack.  I eat breakfast really early (6:00 am) but I often don’t get a lunch break until 11:00 or 11:30.  Having a yogurt with honey around 9:00 keeps me from feeling starving at lunch and making bad choices by buying stuff I don’t need (like cookies).  Plus, that natural sweetness from the honey keeps me from craving sweets later.  Win.

Casual is a tricky realm for me.  During the week, I mostly stick to dress-casual ensembles.  I like to be professional, and I  know that if I dress too casual, students are less likely to listen to me.  On the weekends, I tend to stick to jeans and t-shirts, and when I’m just around the house, yoga pants and tank tops.  So figuring out weekend looks that are casual yet still put together is not easy for me. But with my new skirt in this outfit, it just got a bit easier.

A few weeks ago, I had a couple of amazing thrifting karma days (Lululemon crops for $8!  Jeans that fit perfectly for $1.50!  Summer shorts that actually fit decently for $9!).  This skirt was part of that good karma experience.  I was mainly shopping for workout and yoga clothes, but I decided to check out the skirt section too.  When I saw this skirt, I initially didn’t like it.  But since I’m trying to get more casual pieces, I went for it.  It’s got a drawstring/wide elastic waistband and shorts hidden underneath – yay!  This makes it super comfortable, but since it’s a skirt, I don’t look ridiculous sloppy.  I paired it with a yellow stripey top and brown accents when I wore it to my cousin-in-law’s baby shower last weekend.

This purse is another awesome find of recent weeks.  I was on my way home from errands on a Saturday when I saw that one of my neighbors was having a garage sale.  I popped in on a whim, and lo and behold, I found this purse.  I’ve been stalking vintage Dooney and Bourke purses on Etsy for weeks now, but hadn’t found the perfect one yet.  This one was in pretty good shape on the interior, but the exterior had some type of stains (they looked like rust).  For a mere $8, I figured it was worth the risk.  I took it to a local luggage repair shop, which was able to basically paint over the stains for about $20.  All together, it was still way cheaper than many of the purses I was looking at on Etsy, and I love it!  It’s the perfect size for days when I don’t need a ton of stuff.

What are some of your best thrifting/garage sale finds?

Top: J. Crew (via eBay)
Skirt: Target (thrifted)
Sandals: Dansko Cara (via eBay)
Purse: Dooney and Bourke (garage sale)
Watch: Fossil
Necklace: I build pretty things

Quote: Friedrich Nietzsche

• Sausage and quinoa with bacon
• Romaine with feta and pico de gallo (sounds like a weird combo, but it’s tasty!)
• Celery and red bell pepper sticks 
• Turkey and muenster roll-up
• Gala apple

Just goes to prove that sometimes the most unlikely combinations taste great.

• Chicken and capers with quinoa
• Romaine and feta salad
• Celery sticks with cheddar and sausage
• Gala apple

I think that blue and red will always be my favorite color combination.  There’s so many variations, but with this outfit, I found that pale blue and brick red make a wonderful pairing.  I’ve had this dress for awhile, and while I love a good printed dress, sometimes I have trouble finding yet another new way to remix it.  This combo did the trick.

Going back through my archives, I realized that I haven’t posted this dress in a long time.  Which is weird, because I wear it every other week almost.  I’ll have to take pictures of it more often.

Here’s how I’ve blogged it before: (click the thumbnails to see the original posts)

How do you keep your old favorites fresh?

Dress: Boden (via eBay)
Cardigan: J. Crew (via eBay)
Purse: Morelle
Shoes: Born Codders
Quote: Brian Andreas

While I buy a lot of second-hand shoes on eBay, I very rarely ever buy second-hand shoes from thrift or consignment stores.  I’m extremely picky about what I put on my feet and tend to stick to the same few brands (Dansko, Keen, Fluevog, Born) and I don’t see these brands very often in second-hand stores.  But last week, I was shopping at Revolve Clothing Exchange with some store credit when I spotted these beautiful cognac mary jane flats.  I figured they would probably be uncomfortable, if they even fit (they were 7.5, which is normally a bit small for me).  But they fit like a glove, and so for a mere $12 in store credit, they were mine.  The sole has since separated a bit on one of the shoes, but it’s nothing a cobbler can’t fix right up.  They’re insanely comfortable and really cute, so they’re worth a little repair investment.

The belt is from J. Crew Factory.  I normally wear it as a trouser belt, but I wanted another touch of cognac, so I adapted it for this outfit.

It’s hard to see this bangle in the outfit pictures, but it’s one of my favorite vintage finds.  I can’t remember now exactly where I bought it, but I want to say it was a garage sale.  It’s such a beautiful, pale turquoise, and it makes a nice subtle accent.

Have you ever bought shoes in a thrift/consignment store?  What was your best find?

Top: Sandra Ingrish
Cardigan: J. Crew
Skirt: Thrifted
Belt: J. Crew Factory
Shoes: Earth shoes (via Revolve)
Bangle: Vintage
Necklace: Kira Ferrer
Bag: Angry, Young, and Poor Bread Bag

Quote: Ron in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J. K. Rowling

• Audrey proves that mint and orange make for a fantastic color combination.
• Sally reconsiders investment pieces, and makes some pretty good points.
• Jen looks amazing in her bright pink pencil skirt.
• Gala has an amazing, in-depth article on the intersection of fashion and feminism.

• Steak, Spinach and mozzarella frittata with organic ketchup
• Lettuce, red bell pepper and feta salad
• Celery, bell pepper sticks and cheddar
• Greek yogurt with dark chocolate and maple syrup
• Nectarine
• Pistachios

While the yogurt looks amazing here, it ended up being less than awesome by the time I got to lunch.  The yogurt had gotten watery and a bit sour, and while the chocolate was able to cover up that a bit, it’s definitely much better fresh.  I think I’m switching to individual yogurt containers for lunch.  It just tastes better when it’s freshly opened.

• Chicken Kourma
• Broccoli and feta
• Fresh strawberries with yogurt and a little sugar
• Herbed Quinoa!!
• Apple (not pictured)

Yay for the return of quinoa!!!!  I hadn’t eaten any in months because of my Paleo experiment.  While I’m definitely retaining a lot of aspects of the Paleo diets (mainly focusing on whole, natural foods and not being afraid of fats), I have been adding some whole grains back into my diet (no processed grains though).  And since quinoa is technically a seed, not a grain, it probably would have been okay anyhow.  I love to eat it like this: add in some salt, pepper and parsley, plus a bit of olive oil.  Delish

I’ve seen and pinned so many DIY earring holders lately, I decided it was time to take the plunge and make my own.  I wanted to create something that would work for my posts and my non-post earrings.  I didn’t want something too complicated or fancy, because I wanted my earrings to be the main attraction.  So I collected my materials and got to work.

• Picture Frame (I went with IKEA Ribba, but pretty much any picture frame would work)
• Perforated Metal sheet (I bought this at Home Depot for about $19, but there are probably cheaper options if you look around)
• Chalk or colored pencils
• Metal Snips (the ones in this picture sucked.  The ones shown in step 2 are Wiss Long Cut Aviation Snips which worked like a dream)
• Picture hanging kit (not shown)Step

Step 1: Take the glass and backing out of the picture frame.  Use the glass as a guide to draw the lines you will cut the metal sheet along.

Step 2: Using metal snips, cut along the lines and cut out your sheeting.  Do this slowly and try not to bend or warp the metal.  Oh, and you should wear gloves since you’re working with sharp metal.  I didn’t because I was being lazy.

Step 3: Put your cut-out metal sheet in the picture frame and secure in place by folding down the picture back thingys (don’t know the right word).

Step 4 (Optional): Attach picture hanging wire with picture hanging kit.  I like using this because it lets you adjust the frame to be straight.  I take down my earring holder whenever I need any of the post earrings, so this makes it easier. You could forgo the picture wire and simply set the frame on a table or dresser.

And that’s that!  There’s tons of variations. You could spray paint the metal sheet a fun color.  You could try a hinged double picture frame (I’m thinking of trying this).  You could decorate the picture frame, etc.  It’s a really great way to be able to see all your earrings at once, and as you know, when you can see your accessories, you’re more likely to actually wear them.  Enjoy!

Ah, yellow.  It’s certainly my favorite color, and mustard and goldenrod are my favorite shades.  Whenever I’m looking for something to add some “pop” to an outfit, I know I can turn to some of my favorite pieces, like my trusty Malibrans and this new-to-me vintage belt.

This belt was a great find.  Often I figure out what my accessory gaps are when I’m getting dressed in the morning.  One day, I was looking for something to add a nice pop of mustard, and realized that a woven leather belt would be perfect for this.  A few searches on Etsy later, and I found this beautiful belt on Vintage Grove.

And my Malibrans.  I’ve had these lovely shoes for three years now, and I still love them dearly.  Many other pieces of my wardrobe have come and gone since then, but these shoes have remained.  It just goes to show that sometimes, when you absolutely adore something, you should go for it, even if it’s way more than you’ve ever spent on something before (when you can afford it, of course).   And when I consider how many outfits have been made better with these shoes, they’ve been worth ever penny.  And I plan to keep wearing them for years to come.

My first outfit with my Fluevog Malibrans, in February 2009

Dress: Soprano
Cardigan: J. Crew (via eBay)
Belt: Vintage
Shoes: Fluevog Malibrans
Necklace: I Build Pretty Things

Quote: Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins