Last Week, This Week: Earning My Stripes, February 18-22

Oops, I did it again. A blog post got published before I’d finished it. How does that happen, you might ask. Well, as a post is set up for publishing at a later time, you set the day and time with the confidence that the post will be ready to go by then. You can always revise the day and time if necessary. In my case, I’d set up the post and started to add in the photos but stopped and went onto do other things. I thought that the post was scheduled for the next day and that I had plenty of time to get back it. Lesson learned … I need to leave the post in draft mode until it’s absolutely ready for its debut.

Last Week This Week is a look back at what I actually wore last Monday thru Friday as long as it was a workday. I’ve included a brief description of each outfit and if I wore it for a specific event other than a typical workday. Without a specified dress-code in my workplace, casual Friday isn’t really an official thing but I usually adhere to it nonetheless.

You may have noticed that the feature photo above (and other recent ones) does not follow my typical MOU which had shown the LWTW outfits hanging on a rod. Due to reasons I’ve not yet shared (but will soon), that set up is not available to me at this time so I’ve had to come up with alternatives. In the last LWTW post, I used a photo of a rainbow that I took from my office. The photo above is another part of the view from my office window and how glorious it was to see the snow level in the San Bernardino Mountains so low.

Now, onto the subject at hand. There’s a theme with the outfits that I wore last week (actually now two weeks ago). How quickly can you figure it out?

Monday

Since Monday was a holiday, I was off from work enjoying the long weekend so no photo for this day’s outfit.

Tuesday

I’ve come to realize that I have a mostly black-based wardrobe. As much as I like earthier tones, I really like the strength and richness that black gives to clothing and accessories. And there’s more to a black-based wardrobe than goth. Black and white can be a striking and yet subtle combination that offers a ton of variety.

Wednesday

As an anchor, black affords lots of opportunities for pattern mixing like in this outfit. I posted the photo on the left on Instagram yesterday and I got a number of comments about the red boots. They add a fabulous and unexpected pop of color to this look.

Thursday

Have you figured out the real theme of this post and the motivation behind the outfits, yet? The title of the post gives you a big clue … it’s stripes, as in the sweater I’m wearing in each outfit. And yes, it’s the same sweater that I hope looks a bit different in each outfit since in two of them the pink stripe at the bottom is hidden.  The ensemble below is kind of an inverse of the one from Tuesday with solid black on top and tweed on the bottom.

Friday

TGIF even if it was a short week.   While Wednesday’s look had the red boots and all, it was this outfit that made me really feel fierce and cool.  More pattern play with tweed boots, a tweed jacket, and the striped sweater tucked into my favorite DIYed frayed hem jeans.  My trick for finding a belt to create this knotted look is to buy one from the plus size department.

I’ve got a bonus outfit for my striped sweater to share. Since The Husband and I were heading out of town after work that night, I brought a pair of flats and a bulky knit sweater to change into for the drive. And there you have it, a look back at what I wore to work last week.  How do you decide what you will wear to work? Let me clarify … unless you’ve declared yourself to be checked out from any type of routine, anything you do during daylight hours (and sometimes nighttime ones as well) whether or not you get paid for it, I consider that to be your “work” and you should/can be dressed accordingly. And even if you are retired, in whatever manner you’ve enjoyed your day is good enough for me.

I don’t think that I’m anywhere close to the limit on the number of outfits that I can dream up for this sweater yet. However, I’m not inclined to wear it again soon given the number of times I’ve worn it already. Fortunately, it’s lightweight enough to wear well into Spring and perhaps on a chilly Summer evening. I should note that no one at work asked or said anything to me about the repeated wearings of the sweater despite the comments I got on the red boots and the tweed ones. The only other person who might have noticed was The Husband and he was out of town so he didn’t see what I was wearing that week.

I’ll close with a side-by-side look at each of the outfits. Other than a required uniform, have you ever worn the same item or entire outfit several days in a row? Would you?

Let’s connect! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, love, pin … all options are available and waiting for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~