Katie Was a Rolling Stone with a Rolling Suitcase

Well, really more of a “rest comfortably in one place most of the time” stone, but that’s too many syllables.

I am traveling, though, which explains my absence of late. Lots to do before you fly to another country to visit a friend for her birthday! If only Canada was smaller, I could visit the other Interrobangs (and Danielle, Allison and many other lovelies), but, as the Arrogant Worms have taught us, “Canada’s Really Big.” Also, “Ontario Sucks.”

I have five days of traveling and have to prepare for mystery weather with a high chance of rain and absolutely no idea what I’ll be doing once I get there. Why the lack of plans? Well, the friend doesn’t actually know I’m coming…Surprise!*

Since I only want to take a carry on, but need my wardrobe to be super-flexible, time for another attempt at the capsule wardrobe.

Here’s what I decided on:

1. Blue jersey dress
2. Black jersey dress
3. Skinny jeans
4. Black leggings
5. Grey squid cardigan
6. Black blazer
7. Black tank top
8. Red and black silk shirt
9. Chambray shirt
10. Black heels
11. Black flats
12. Brown and black belt
13. Black belt
14. Two silk scarves
15. Lace necklace
16. Chunky silver and bronze necklace

I’ve decided I’m always more comfortable in dresses with layers on top and underneath, so I picked the black and blue palate with hits of grey and red. So far, I’ve got these combinations:

• 1+4+6+14
• 2+4+5+13+16
• 2+9+4+6+12+15
• 3+7+5+13+14
• 3+8+7
• 2+4+8+7
• 1+4+5+13+14
• 1+9+15

Eight combinations without too much thought, and depending on the weather I can layer dresses over one another, put the blazer over the cardigan over the shirt, it’s all good.

Well, I assume it’s all good. We shall see…

*Her husband knows, though. So it’s not creepy or anything.

Katie Daily Style – Weekend Capsule Wardrobe

Because The Rocket Scientist and I live in different cities (darn him and his need to be a doctoral candidate), we tend to alternate weekend visits at each others’ houses. Great idea in theory, but more often than not somewhat lousy for me when it comes to deciding what clothes to bring. I am notorious for not dressing appropriately for the weather (I currently blame this on a lack of television and internet that means I don’t know what the weather’s going to be each day, but I’ve always been this way, even when internet-ed, so it’s a spineless excuse).While the boyscout motto is “Always be prepared,” as far as I can tell the girlscout motto is “Badger people into buying cookies while learning how to make ugly lanyards out of plastic.” I think that’s it, anyway. I was only a girlscout for two weeks because meetings came on at the same time as the best television show ever, Avonlea, and I made my choice. Anyway, the end result is that I’m never prepared, except when it comes to cookie emergencies. I usually end up borrowing The Rocket Scientist’s clothes to balance out my lack of appropriate clothed-ness, and spend the weekend looking like a little hobo.

This past weekend, however, I was inspired by the Capsule Wardrobe Challenge several other bloggers I follow were participating in. I decided to do the same, but only do two days of the same clothes instead of five because I’m decidedly un-hardcore like that. Here’s what I packed:

Clockwise from top left (because I’m not so cool to know how to superimpose numbers on my photo):

• 1: Long purple cardigan – Old Navy
• 2: Grey belt – thrifted
• 3: Grey sporty Mary Janes – Naturalizers
• 4: Green scarf – Old Navy
• 5: Purple and green plaid shirt – thrifted
• 6: Short purple cardigan (over plaid shirt because it took me so long to layer the two of them together and then it was just easier to unbutton the shirt and keep them that way…) – thrifted
• 7: Half-shredded grey jersey scarf – self-made
• 8: Purple socks (2 pair, although you only see one) – Target?
• 9: Purple shirt – Target
• 10: Silver hoop earrings – Smart Set
• 11: Gold leaf earrings – self-made
• 12: Gold chair necklace – present from Sarah
• 13: Gold “K” necklace – self-made
• 14: Xenotees recycled magnetic locket with lobster lid (sorry for the horrible photo, click on the link to see how nifty it is)- Polarity
• Not shown: jeans, assortment of tank tops for layering, and the Wilma Flinstone wig I wear on the weekends to keep things interesting. Oh, and undies. But this isn’t that sort of blog, so we’ll just move on.

I went with a purple palate with accents of green and grey, inspired by new favorite plaid shirt. Here’s how I wore them:

• Saturday: 4, 5 and 6 with 2, 3, 10 and 14
• Sunday: 9 and 1 with 2, 3, 7, 13, and 11

The weather ended up being just right and I didn’t have to do any fancy layering, but if I had I know I could have piled one cardigan over the other, or put the purple shirt under the plaid shirt and added a cardigan, or piled on two scarves, etc. It also made choosing what to wear each day easier, since I knew everything would go together.

No photos of the ensembles, as I had a busy weekend that involved dragging The Rocket Scientist to a jewelry show in the big city, getting mauled by a durian* in an Asian supermarket, watching Paper Hearts, making pasta with cinnamon carbonara (I’ve since grown 4 dress sizes) discovering that my beloved pink Motorola Razor of 3.5 years up and had the screen die on me**, and making The Rocket Scientist look at all the dresses at the Academy Awards with me.***

*The Rocket Scientist is planning on buying one. I’m planning on buying nose plugs. Or maybe just not going to his apartment anymore.

**In today’s staff meeting, I mentioned that I didn’t want to buy a smart phone because the extra $20.00/month in data fees would just eat away at my ball pit ala Chuck E. Cheese’s fund. Shhhh, if you’re quiet you can still hear the crickets…

***My poor boyfriend, I make him do so many girly things with me. I think it’s finally gotten to his head and he’s reverting back to earlier, manly man ways to compensate. Exhibit A:

Seriously, is he adorable or what? Whoops! I mean manly. Very manly.