Katie Style – Love and Fluffy Scarves

Warning: This post contains lots of pink and ooey-gooey love. Proceed at your own risk.

• Cardigan – thrifted
• Belt – thrifted
• Skirt – Target
• Boots – Trotters
• Cowl – Anniversary present from The Rocket Scientist
• Earrings – The Rocket Scientist
• Bangles – Grandma

Last Thursday was The Rocket Scientist’s and my 4th anniversary.*

*Yep, Groundhog’s Day. Do we pick ‘em romantic or what?

To celebrate, T.R.S. sent me this fabulous coral cowl scarf, and a giant bar of Swiss dark chocolate. He knows me so well.

I love the scarf, but much more I love the guy who gave it to me. I had no idea four years ago that the smart and quiet guy across the table from me at pub trivia would end up being one of the most important people in my life. I’m lucky every day to know him, and even luckier to get to call him mine.

And now, thanks to him, my neck will stay toasty warm and adorable.

So Happy Anniversary to my very own Rocket Scientist, who looks adorable posed in front of a preserved tapeworm.*

*For those who don’t know, here’s how tapeworms factor into this story of love.

 

P.S. We just got engaged. Booyah!

Tapeworm Love

February 2nd is my second anniversary with The Rocket Scientist. And while most people  know the date as “Groundhog’s Day,” he and I tend to refer to it as “Tapeworm Day.” Settle in for a story, kiddos.

First off, confession time: The Rocket Scientist and I don’t remember when we met. Shocking, I know, and completely violating the romance rule. You know the one.  The first time you see the other person everything else goes into soft focus, and suddenly Cole Porter is next to you with his piano and singing, which would normally be weird since he’s dead but he’s singing “De-Lovely” and everything’s misty so it’s all good (in fact, it’s de-lightful).

Yeah, that didn’t happen with us. We know we met sometime in the fall of 2007 in the bar where we played trivia,  but that’s all we’ve got.

What we do remember is our first big conversation. We were at a fondue party and The Rocket Scientist asked a question about tapeworms. There were two ways the conversation could go after that: (1) Ignore The Rocket Scientist and be able to keep eating our beef and chicken without imagining it full of tapeworms, or (2) Start having that discussion and switch to frozen pizza. While everyone else opted for option 1, I took the road more disgusting and The Rocket Scientist and I had a lovely chat about intestinal parasites.

So, the moral of this Cole Porter-less parasite story is that since The Rocket Scientist and I didn’t have a “meet-cute” to remember, we decided to have a “conversation-cute” instead. So long Groundhog’s Day, hello Tapeworm Day! However, don’t carry that substitution any farther than that. I don’t want to image what hole the tapeworm is emerging out of to see its shadow.

For this anniversary, I wanted to get The Rocket Scientist something tapeworm-themed. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the dearth of tapeworm paraphernalia out there. I was about to give up and get him a plush Viking Kitten (someday, Rocket Scientist, someday), when I was suddenly brilliant and remembered that I have tapeworm diagrams in my undergrad lab books of yore. So I found an image and embroidered over it to make a one-of-a-kind, exceptionally geeky gift that I think The Rocket Scientist will love. I present you with:

Tapeworm Love

Note how I segmented the hearts the same way tapeworm proglottids are segmented, ready and waiting to be expelled from their hosts just like my love is ready and waiting to be expelled from me (metaphorical expulsion, of course). Oh yeah, this is love zoological style.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye boyfriend keeps bringing them to you

This weekend, The Rocket Scientist surprised me with these beautiful flowers.

I liked them so much that I decided to use them as inspiration when getting dressed this morning. Since I worried that the green and magenta combo might veer a little too close to Christmas for early January, I decided to focus on the gorgeous wine color and go from there.

• Magenta dress – JCPenney
• Black cardigan – Old Navy
• Black leggings – Target
• Black boots – Trotters
• Crochet necklace – self-made
• Gold chair necklace – gift from Sarah
• Gold leaf earrings – Arc

I love dresses like this – warm, fuzzy and largely shapeless. However, dresses like this don’t always love me back because the cut combined with my curves can easily make me look like I’m shapeless, pregnant, smuggling a small armadillo across the border, or possibly all three. I like this one because the yolke detail, banding across the bottom, and really cute sleeves (you can see them when it warms up) give it some shape and pizazz. It’s also a great dress to wear after a weekend spent eating homemade French Vanilla Ice Cream. Ugh, we ate ALL the ice cream.

The inspiration for the crochet necklace comes from this one, made by a common thread and modeled by Clare. My version is not nearly as gorgeous as the original, largely due to the fact that I cannot knit or crochet and had to resort to mangling two yard saled doilies. However, I still think it’s quite cute…for now. I say for now because this weekend I also went to my first “Crafternoon” with some of the women I work with, and along with finishing off another cherry quartz necklace and working on The Rocket Scientist’s embroidered amoeba, I learned how to crochet. So far I can only do a chain, but I did one that’s 15 feet long! We’re calling it the tapeworm.

I scrolled through the photos of me and the chain quickly, and I’m quite confident I’ve invented the newest dance craze. Just you wait, soon all the kiddies in the clubs will be doing the Interrobang Tapeworm!