I need help!  Yes, I am admitting it…I may have turned a small rut into an ongoing issue.  You see, I don’t like taking my purses on the train (because trains are gross.)  I am a bit of a bag lady when it comes to my daily commute–I have to take the entire house with me not to mention the bulk amount of fresh fruits I carry now (that gets heavy!)  When I lived in NYC, I would carry my cute purse and then an extra bag, but my commute was so short–I only had to travel 4 stops from Brooklyn to Union Square. I also never packed my lunch in NYC (obviously this was before I married my sensible husband!), which significantly cuts down on the “stuff”.

So back to the issue at hand, I have been hauling my life to and from work in a canvas tote that I received at a luxury suite for L’Oreal (which was a work event) a few years ago.  That’s right, I own plenty of beautiful lovely bags and I am walking around like a homeless person carrying a dirty old one.  What is wrong with me?  I am including a picture of the bag.  PLEASE NOTE: I usually keep the slogan facing me!

So my quest to you is this: I need to find a large commuting bag, that is cute, washable and ready for spring!  It has to be a bag that, if necessary can be set on the floor of the train (extreme circumstances only!)

My husband and I were watching old episodes of the Dave Chappelle this week and the show had a segment called “keepin it real”.   I would like to follow his lead and do a similar gut check on some new spring fashion items.  Now I really do love the excitement and fan fare that goes along with Fashion Week and high design shows, but I feel that many of those creations are designed for attention and not practicality.  Here in Chicago, I work, run errands and have the occasional night on the town.  I like to dress up for dinner parties and work events, but mostly I am just a girl trying to avoid looking too comfortable out of my house (i.e. no sweatsuits at Target, please) but generally trying to have my attire meet the demands/needs of my daily life.

So when fancy pants designers meet the likes of Target I usually run to see what kind of everyday creations they unveil.  For the most part I love them.  Proenza Schouler for Target….Amazing!  Erin Fetherston for Target….Enchanting!  Jean Paul Gaultier for Target….Confusing.  The colors and prints are really beautiful, but I don’t know if I can totally get behind the cuts and fabrics.  I really liked this red dress on the left with the side swept fabric, but then I saw the other variation on the website I wanted to throw up.  It felt a little 1980′s M.C. Hammer to me.  I mean, let’s keep it real here folks, would you wear a chunk of fabric between your legs like that?  Just think of the maneuvers you would need to take to use a public bathroom.  Eeck!  I am sad to say that I think this equals a missed opportunity for functional, affordable fashion.

Do you remember this post?  The infamous “tights” post where I was fawning over Kate Spade dresses?  Well guess what?  Kate Spade is a little closer to the Budget Retro price range.  Hip-hip hooray!  Currently on the site you can log-in for the sample sale–which is about 75% of regular prices, making it worth the investment to me.

I don’t really want to buy a dress that I can’t wear right now, but I LOVE this sweater and red never goes out of style.  Shipping is also discounted to $5. So hurry, hurry, hurry and go buy beautiful dresses ladies!

p.s. To the two beautiful Jen’s at work who are looking for wedding shoes–I saw some lovely ones on the sale page.

Today is my 100th post!  How fun.  I feel so lame, I didn’t even prepare anything special.  All I can think about these last few days is spring and my longing for warmer weather and sunshine.  I don’t even need it to be hat, I just want a little sunshine!

I saw these shoes in Lucky Magazine this month (that photo was better too…), but I was hard pressed to find them available anywhere.  They are part of the Cynthia Rowley line for Roxy.  I will say, for the most part, I feel a little old to be rockin’ Roxy clothes, but these shoes scream warm weather and happy times.  No matter how round my body gets this summer, I am hoping that my feet can still have fun and look cute!

February, thus far, has been a pretty craptastic month.  My husband got his hours cut at work, our car broke down (which resulted in us renting the stinkiest rental known to man!) and my hormones are making me cry at anything.  I have had 3 food related meltdowns in the past week–I cried on Saturday night because I didn’t know what to eat and when I say cried, I mean like hysterical swollen face cry. (it’s pretty funny in hindsight, but my poor husband just looked scared!)

The future is looking brighter already; I have a long weekend ahead of me, one of my bestie’s and her husband and are going to be in town and we are one day closer to spring!  Can you feel it?

I decided to just post a cute outfit that Iwould like to be wearing today.  (I have wanted the shoes for months, but because my lovely friend and co-worker Renee already owns them–I refuse to be a copy-cat.)

I have a story that is just too good not to tell.  I mean most of you already know that I am prone to ridiculous circumstances, right?  I mean it is like bizarro scenarios just follow me around and wait for me to walk right into them.  So I was back home in Ohio this last weekend visiting with the fam and my step-son, Milo.  I begged my sister to go shopping with me because she has an eagle eye for deals and things that will fit me perfectly.  We did some second-hand shopping and some maternity shopping looking for things to fit my in-between body. ( I found maternity tights for $8!!)

We sauntered over to the shoes because this particular store always has good vintage dead stock and quality stuff.  As we were walking down the isle, I began telling my sister how the last pair of shoes that I got there had actually started to disintegrate while I was at work–it was summer and kind of hot and I had these BEAUTIFUL navy blue and white spectator heels on.  I was just minding my own business sitting on a conference call when I uncrossed my leg to find half the shoe was stuck to my calf. ha!  Totally gross.  It was right about this time that I found a “brand new” pair of black, wedge spectators.  They were in perfect condition and ready to be mine!  So I swooped those little suckers up.

Let’s progress to Tuesday–The morning started with me battling my dress slacks and literally bending the metal clasps to make them fit.  Then snow, so I wore my mountain boots to work.  Finally I got to put on the new shoes and a new blouse and look mildly presentable.  It wasn’t until about noon that thte shoes started to feel a little uncomfortable.  I ignored it because I have a weird (oddly shaped) foot and shoes hurt a lot.  Then I noticed that I kicked my file cabinet shut and it left huge scuffs on the door.  hmmmm….  That’s weird.  I invetigated and sure enough the leather felt uneven and kind of rippled from kicking (it was more like lightly pushing the cabinet shut).  Next I am sitting in a meeting and look down to notice that my heel fell off the one shoe–mind you this is a wedge–how does that happen?  The final straw came an hour later when I looked down under my desk to realize half the sole of the other shoe had completely fallen off.  I looked around and realized there was shoe debris all over my entire cube area.  How embarrassing!

I had actually thrown the shoes in the garbage when my friend Jess mentioned that I should do a post about it.  Sadly I have no before pictures because I didn’t honestly think this would happen to me once let alone twice!!  My sister said I jinxed myself by mentioning it while we were shopping–I think that particular shop may just store mass products in hot storage allowing lovely vintage to dry rot while maintaining it’s adorable exterior.  Any theories?

The pics are from my iPhone, but should give a pretty good indication of  the damage.  I actually cleaned up the floor before this photo, so the remains are just a fraction of the destruction.

That is a really unoriginal title, but come on it’s 8:30 p.m. and I am choosing to post to keep you lovely ladies in the know. I just found a new (to me) site that has beautiful, Budget Retro-friendly, dresses.  The shop is Conversation Pieces.

Were any of you already hip to this?  If so, bring me in the loop next time–I or we collectively–almost missed out on a huge sale.  The little ad is below, but basically you can purchase any 3 items for $80 with free shipping.  Are you kidding me?  That is a steal!  But the sale ends in 29 hours!!!  See, we almost missed it.

My top pick is the Ahoy, Sailor Tee. 

**UPDATE:  I think the site timer was playing tricks on me–you should still have today and tomorrow to shop, but you still need to move fast because all the good stuff is getting snagged!

Lately I have been feeling the urge to accessorize again.  As a young lass I took accessories a little overboard, i.e. I wore like 5 rings at all times, had 4-5 earrings in one ear and one perfectly placed little nose ring–this on top of necklaces and who knows what else.  I started collecting vintage jewelery when I was probably about 11 and I have a pretty decent collection of stuff.  It had all been stored away, safe and sound and just the past couple of weeks (as I have been trying make myself feel prettier) I have wanted to retrieve a few gems.  One of the gems I am speaking off is my beautiful pendant watch given to me by my g-ma.  It’s just nickel silver with a plain chain, but the face of the watch is so gorgeous–it has so much character and the quality would kick the butt of most modern day accessories.

That brings me to Swell Vintage and their amazing re-designed and re-purposed vintage jewelry. The proprietor of this lovely shop, Frankie, is absolutely adorable as well.  I follow her on twitter (@swellvintage) and she is quite the treat.  Below are two versions of her pocket watch necklaces that are a slightly larger version than mine, but just what I have been in the mood to accessorize with.

I know that you have all been dying to know how I am (kidding), but I am finally beginning to kick this cold–two weeks later–and I am returning to the world of the living.  I even managed to peel myself of the sofa on Monday (three day weekends are the best thing, EVER!) and attempt a shopping trip.  Feeling sicky has actually helped me to save money and conserve a bit, I have hardly done any shopping for myself in the past two months, but the Christmas gift cards were finally burning a hole in my pocket.

I set out to purchase a new winter coat to accommodate my swelling waistline–to no avail.  I think I waited to long, but in reality I hadn’t even thought about it–that is until the inside liner of my coat completely ripped last week because my body was taking up more space than the coat was willing to give.  ha!

Next thought was jeans–I don’t need maternity jeans right now, but maybe just a larger size?  Yes, well I am 5’2 and if you start to buy too large and your legs don’t fill the other space you start looking like a really bad 90′s hip-hop video, so I aborted that search as well.

Onto the shoes–shoes always fit, right?  Well now the question was “What do I NEED?”  The answer was very obvious that I NEED comfy shoes to commute in and to wear on the weekends.  Blah–who wants to spend money on that?  I explained to my husband who has been sending me links to comfy shoes and trying his hardest to convert me, that “I’m just not that kinda girl”.  I said it felt like I needed to wear a juicy couture jumpsuit with the comfy shoes–they weren’t my vibe.  I also had to tell him this horrible story from my first year in NYC (apologies for my digression).  I used to walk to my first job in New York, it was about 1.5 miles from my house and I was on a HORRIBLY tight budget, so it helped save money.  I originally tried to make the walk in my cute shoes–bad choice, then i switched it up to my converse hi-tops and they gave me blisters on the bottom of my feet!  Then my dad purchased me a pair of very white Reebok’s to walk in.  They were hideous, but they were like walking on pillows of air.  I could make the walk in no-time and completely pain free.  The only downside to these new found pillows of air was that they looked ridiculous and I had to walk through the East Village to get home.  I felt moderately dorky, but because I had very few friends it didn’t matter at the time–that is until walking home one day in my 9-5 clothes and my white Reebok’s I was spotted by an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages and asked to join them in a pub for a drink.  The group looked effortlessly cool and I looked like Ugly Betty.  I swore never again would I be caught looking “that” comfortable.

Fast forward “some” years and now I try to balance cute and comfortable–I wear kitty heels and flat boots and I can get away with wearing mountain boots on my winter commute (gotta love Chicago!).  If I need to wear comfy shoes I usually opt for my saddle shoes or Jack Purcell’s.  But the times they are a changing and to be frank, my feet hurt!  After lots of painful thinking I decided to get two new pairs of shoes and both needed to fall in the “I can totally wear these all day” category.  Please see my choices below and try not to point and laugh.  The Pumas were the least offensive running-type shoe that I could find and I have been looking for about 8 months and the Born shoes are totally the cute t-strap that I love, but they are filled with pockets of foot love on the inside.  They are like grandma orthopedic shoes, disguised as casual chic.

Thoughts?  Did I do good or I am on a slippery slope to mom shoes and leaving the house in gym clothes?

Okay, this is possibly the coolest thing I have seen in a while.  A website dedicated to highlighting vintage shops nationwide.  I know that most of us want to keep our favorite places secret, so all the girls that can shop during the day on weekdays don’t go and reap all the goods.  But after seeing my beautiful sister’s boutique Rockin’ Rose fold last year because sales were so low, I now understand that to keep the shops thriving we need to help promote them and stop being selfish (this is really just directed at myself.)

Jessica of What I Wore appears to be the mastermind behind Vintage Where? and I am so excited to see that someone took the time to do this–it is such a great idea.  So please fill in your favorite hot spots!