Ruffles

I have had such a busy few days. This past weekend I was entrusted with beautiful museum here in town, and frankly in frazzled my nerves a bit, but all was fine after the first day. The museum that I looked after is so lovely and my favorite in town. It's very much my type of museum and one that makes me feel at home. It reminds me my college and gives me the opportunity to surround myself with the objects that I am so accustomed to. Even though I'm working 7 days a week this summer, with weekends surrounded with beautiful artwork, it's not too bad.

Now, let's get on to an outfit post. This particular dress I bought about a month ago and just haven't had a chance to write about it. I really like, and I think it's perfect for summer. The print is really cute and the ruffles add a cute, fun little extra to it over all.

OOTD Details:

Dress: Old Navy
Cardigan: Torrid
Leggings: LB

I think this dress is going to be very versitile. It's a tube dress that stays up really well and looks great with and without leggings and with and without and top underneath it. This is what makes me think it will be great for the autumn too. All in all it's a great dress. It's still at Old Navy and on their website under the straight size range, (for reference I'm wearing an xxl).

Left Behind: The Dressing Room Edition II

Hello again, time for another installment of, Left Behind: The Dressing Room Edition. Once again, I've busted out the camera phone to take a few shots of the items that I decided to leave behind in the dressing rooms. I won't lie to you, one of these I really hated to leave, but for the most part, the decisions were well made.

Let's get to it.

#1

Left Behind #1: Large Flower Print Black Dress
The fit on this dress was great, but it just wasn't my style. I considered it, but just couldn't see myself wearing it on a frequent basis and therefore felt like it wasn't justifiable. I am glad I got a photo of it, because it is a cute dress.

#2

Left Behind #2: Floral Top
Weird fit and a strange material. I loved the print, but the material made me feel as though I shouldn't stand too close to an open flame. Does that makes sense?

#3

Left Behind #3: Pink Pleated Dress
So cute, but no. The top of the dress exposed way too much bra through the pink mesh and I'm not too big on strapless bras. It was too short as well. This dress is actually from the Lauren Conrad Collection, (I know I know), but I thought it would work and it did fit wise, but it's not really meant for a 6ft tall girl with chunk.

#4

Left Behind #4: Brown Floral Dress
Cute on the rack, bad on the body. This dress would have been fine with me if it wasn't for one little thing, the stupid brown ruffle above the smocked waist. Why? It looks so strange and causes it to sit so oddly on the body. Sure I could have hid it with a belt, but ugh, it really irked me.

#5

#5 Left Behind: Cute Yellow Print
This dress really had potential. The fit was wonderful, except for one little detail, the line for the bust ended in the middle of my bust, not under it. You can sort of see it in this photo. The look on my face is that of disappointment. The color and print were great, but my boobs were too big.

#6

#6 Left Behind: Blue & Yellow Dress:
Leaving this dress behind hurt my feelings. It should have come home with me. I had to leave it though as I was looking for a funeral dress. In fact the funeral dress I chose was the black version of this with a pink and orange stripe at the bottom, but this dress is the one I wanted. I could only have one though, and I needed the black one. When I have extra money, I will be heading back for this one and crossing my fingers that they still have it. Look at it, so cute!

I hope you enjoyed another installment of Left Behind: The Dressing Room Edition.

Body Positivity from Children: Camp Tales

Western Day at camp. My sheriff's hat was kid sized.

For my second year in a row, I'm teaching art at a summer camp and once again I love it. The kids are so sweet and funny and always surprising me with their creativity. One of the little kindergartners said something that I just had to share on the blog.

We were randomly talking about animal sizes and one of the group's counselors said that elephants were fatter than giraffes, which caused all of the kids to laugh. One little boy stood up from his table, put both of his hands out in front of him to silence the laughter and said,

"Hey, I'm fat and I like being fat, there's nothing wrong with it!" 

All of the kids looked over at him and kind of nodded and I said, "We're all different and that's what makes us special".  I was so incredibly proud of him. What was so sweet about it was the fact that, I could tell he felt empathy for the elephant and although no one was talking about him personally, he felt the need to stand up for the elephant when the kids started laughing. It was also amazing how the kids reacted to him, because I could tell that they really listened to what he had to say and even at 5 and 6 years old, they respected him for it. I hope that he keeps that confidence as he gets older and that need to stand up for others, elephants and people. I also hope that the kids that were in his group remember what he said and how he stood up for what he believed and said exactly what he thought and how he felt.

Quality Time

My husband and I both had last week off so we spent some quality time together, just the two of us, running around town and going on little adventures to some of our favorite little towns outside of Austin. We also spent more time exploring antique shops, we have a problem. Since I'm going back to a 7 day a week work schedule until August, I used the week like a little summer holiday.

One of the things I was super excited to do, was visit a little museum (that's always closed) in one of my favorite little towns. We pulled up checked the sign outside and yes, they were open! So, we parked, got out of the car, and I excitedly skipped up to the front door, just to find out they are now only doing tours once a week and not the day we were there. Damn closed again! One day I will see the inside of this house! We're already talking about what we can do in August when my crazy work schedule is finished and hopefully we'll be able to swing this museum.

I've picked photos from one day of last week to show y'all, so I hope you enjoy. Oh, and I'll start with an OOTD.

Hover Hand?

OOTD Details:
Top: Old Navy
Cardigan: Target
Skirt: Old Navy
Leggings: Torrid
Flip Flops: Walgreen's
Hair bow: By Me

The husband enjoying some tasty Southern food from our favorite restaurant.

We had a really nice week doing the things we love and just focusing on one another, which is something we don't have the luxury of doing very often. The next 8 weeks of teaching art at camp will be fun, but I'm also looking forward to August when I'll have the time to do this type of stuff with my husband again.