Inspiration Monday - Cat craziness and a request

Hello friends!  Happy Monday!  Did you all have a nice weekend?  Ours was a little busier again, but not too bad.  More on that in a moment, but here is today's Inspiration Monday look from two birds - Jessica Hart.

So I have never found a trench coat that I've ever liked.  And layering is getting to be more of a challenge for me these days, so this is kind of a loose interpretation - I kind of went for the overall color scheme more than anything else!  I'm excited to be wearing a Megan Mae obi belt today - I had been thinking, there's no way I'm going to wear them again until after I have the baby, but actually, I like how it changed up the look of this sweater and kind of accentuates the bump.

 Sweater - Motherhood, consignment

Obi belt - MMD

Leggings - Simply Vera, Kohls

Boots - Target

Necklace - S&D

So yes, our weekend was a little hectic - mostly due to the cats needing to go to the vet.  It was an interesting experience bringing them both at the same time - though the vet was nice and offered us a discount for doing that.  My Pippin cat was NOT happy about being in her carrier at all and wasn't afraid to let us know.  Taylor on the other hand just kind of resigned herself to the fact that it was happening and curled up in silence.  Thankfully the vet is five minutes from our house.  Both girls seem quite healthy, though it makes me sad that Taylor is over 7 years old so she is now considered a "senior".  She has a lot of spunk and I believe will have many more good years with us yet, it's just strange to think of her that way!

After we got them home they pretty much hid from us the rest of the day, no surprise there, but at one point before we were heading out to rehearsal with our music group, we could not find Taylor anywhere.  We called for her, looked under every bed and piece of furniture and started having a panic attack when the Pants Monkey remembered he had left the front door open for just a second when bringing in some groceries.  The cats have never snuck out before, but there is a first time for everything.  So we frantically looked outside, kept on calling for her, then decided to do one more sweep of the house and thankfully found her under one cabinet we must have somehow missed.  She was just lethargic and out of it from her shots so she didn't hear us calling her and she wanted to be left alone.  Thankfully she was better yesterday! Never a dull moment sometimes.

One more thing before I go today - I am putting out a request for guest posts to be used when my son is born and the first few weeks I'm home with him - obviously blogging will be put on the back burner for me a little during that time, but I'd like to schedule some posts to keep things active around here.  So, if you're willing to submit a guest post for me, I'd love to have you!  Suggestions for topics include holiday shopping tips, holiday dressing tips, thrifty Christmas ideas, DIY, recipes, mom styling tips if you're a mom or even just a plain old OOTD post - I'm really not picky!  I'd like the posts by November 25th so I can start scheduling them.  I may reach out to some of you personally too, but I wanted to throw this out here for anyone to respond, I'd love to have each and every one of you!

Head on over to two birds for more Inspiration Monday posts!

Obi Beth Kenobi and the Phantom Stain

Man alive, the best laid plans you guys.  So first of all, I decided not to wear my cute new sweater dress today because I need to wash a couple of things that I want to wear with it and the laundry fairy hasn't been to my house in a little while.  So then I decided to try an outfit suggested to me by Heather from H&K Style Journey which would be my cream cowl neck sweater (last worn here) with my red skinny jeans.  I pulled it all out and was ready to put it on after my shower when I discovered some ugly stain all down the back of the sweater.  I have no idea where it came from or how it happened, as I definitely washed it after I wore it last and don't recall anything being on the back!  I'm so bummed, I don't know if it's fixable.  We'll see what I can do.  So anyway, after all of that, I was then inspired by my newest Megan Mae obi belt, and managed to pull something together I'm quite pleased with.

 Sweater - St. John's Bay, JCPenney

Pants - Old Navy

Belt - MMD

Necklace - S&D

Shoes - Etienne Aigner, thrifted

So in the end, it all worked out just fine, but I'm still really sad about that other sweater!  I hope it's not a problem with our washing machine, I know that happened at my parents once where there would be rust stains and they ended up replacing the machine.  Eek.  Not high on my list right now of things to replace!  Homeownership.  You gotta love it.

At least it's my Friday once again.  As I mentioned last week I was lucky enough to get a couple of Fridays off here before my boss goes on a super long vacation and I'm a slave to my desk again.  And honestly I need to save some time off for this summer too, so I'll probably not have much of a chance to be off again for awhile, so I have to enjoy it while I can!

I may or may not blog tomorrow.  I have a couple of things going on and Mr. Monkey is off in the afternoon with me as our music group is putting on a concert tomorrow evening.  The rest of the weekend should be pretty relaxing.  We have his office party on Saturday evening at a fun local restaurant and then I decided if this snowstorm comes to fruition on Sunday that I might spend the day baking. We'll see where things go!  Have a great weekend my lovelies!

Observant

No pants week continues!  Well other than Monday of course.  Today I decided to fancy up this black sweater dress with my obi belt, I haven't worn it in awhile.  Added the argyle tights and like the result.  Sometimes the simplest outfits are the most fun.

I had to laugh this morning though, I have worn this belt a number of times now.  Apparently the Pants Monkey was just now noticing that the belt is made out of neckties.  He's like "Is that made from old neckties?"  I'm like yes, my blog friend Megan makes these, I bought this way back this summer.  He pauses, then says "Well, you look cute today!"  Nice cover babe.  He's not always the most observant!

 Dress - H&M from two birds garage sale

Tights - Kohls

Boots - Payless

Obi belt - MMD

Necklace and bracelets - S&D

Speaking of being observant, I was on my own last night for a bit as the Pants Monkey is part of a new beer club that was meeting last night.  So since I had some time, I decided, I own the entire series of Friends and have never watched the set from beginning to end, so since Mr. Monkey isn't a fan, I'll watch them when he's gone.  So I started with season one and observed how young they all were.  And then I thought about it - they were younger when they started that show than I am right this second.  

To further drive home the depressing factor, then I remembered how old I was when I first started watching that show.  Let's just say it might not have even been super appropriate for me at the time.  Man.  Time flies. But I still get a kick out of that show.  The first season was the best.

For the love of Lynne

Gasp, no Inspiration Monday again.  Love the look the birds picked, but I couldn't quite pull it together while being out of town this weekend.  We had a great, though cold, weekend away!  It's hard to be back at work today, Mr. Monkey was smart and took today off as well, I wasn't quite that smart!  Anyway, what helps today is while I'm not doing Inspiration Monday, I do have something else fun to share!

A little while back, the fabulous Lynne of Practical Paralegalism emailed me and said she had a new with tags Michael Kors shirt that she bought from Ross and couldn't use and wanted to know if I'd like it.  It was exactly my size, so I said, sure!  Then her daughter got sick and all those life things that get in the way sometimes and I was rather busy myself, so I kind of forgot about it.  I got home from work on Thursday and there was a large box sitting in front of my door.  I'm like, ok all my jewelry came, this must be for the Pants Monkey.  I picked it up and saw it was for me and it was from Lynne - and it was heavy.  I'm thinking holy cow!  I went inside and opened it up and it was like Christmas!  Not only did she send me the Michael Kors shirt, she also sent a few other items, including an amazing dress I can't wait to share because it fits me like a glove!

So anyway, I sure hope I'm not embarrassing her too much - but this was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done, I hope to repay the favor soon!  In honor of Lynne and her fantasticness, I named my outfit today "The Lynne".  I am wearing the Michael Kors shirt, some nice dress pants and dressy shoes and I topped it off with my obi belt from Megan Mae, because Miss Lynne is a huge fan of Megan Mae items - you should see how ladyfriend styles them, let me tell you, she's super creative. And this might just be a new purse I may have bought up north this weekend. Cough, really need that shopping ban now, cough.

So anyway, Lynne, I know I've already thanked you via Twitter and your blog, but I had to give you another shout out here, thank you, thank you, you are the best!!  I can't wait to show off the other items that worked out well for me!!

Some more photography challenges this morning.  I remember having these same issues last Fall too.  So, I added this one from indoors as soon as I got to work today, but I didn't have my tripod so it didn't turn out too much better.  Yeah, first world blogger problems!  I just don't want to use a big SLR camera, I really like the portability of my point and shoot!  Might be time for an upgrade though.  We'll see.  Happy Monday! And PS, even though I'm not over there today, go visit the two birds to see all the Inspiration Monday looks!

Outfit rundown:

Shirt - Michael Kors, from Lynne

Pants - Old Navy (last year)

Shoes - Madden Girl, thrifted

Necklace - S&D

Bracelet - Charming Charlie

Obi belt - Megan Mae Daily

A dress for all seasons

I am so excited about my outfit today!  I haven't worn this dress since winter and I've been wanting to pull it out all summer so far but haven't had the chance. Recently I got the idea to add my obi belt from Megan Mae when I saw Ki of Dressing Up For Life wearing her obi belt with a similar styled dress.  I was going to wear this together last week but due to the lady issues I mentioned yesterday I just had to put it off.  Today I was good to go though and I'm glad I waited because my newest order of buttonflowers from the fabulous Megan Mae came in the mail yesterday so I added one to my outfit as well and I love the entire look!

I still can't believe the versatility of this dress.  I've worn it in all types of weather now - nearly zero all the way up to 90 degrees.  Crazy!  It is probably one of my favorite pieces I own, if not the most favorite, it's definitely in the top five!

So last night we met up with a couple of friends at a nearby brewpub that we love, it totally has that Cheers "Everybody knows your name" vibe and they have amazing beer and a lovely patio.  We braved the heat and still sat on the patio because it was actually shaded pretty well and as the sun went down it was quite nice.  We were sending off one of our friends who leaves for Africa tomorrow for a two week trip.  We actually had a really interesting conversation about what type of clothes she should bring, not just for the weather, but what will be culturally acceptable.  It was a great night - though right towards the end I totally knocked over my glass of ice water and spilled the majority of it on my dress.  Let me tell you, if I was warm at all at that point, I sure wasn't after that!  I was proud of myself though, I did not break down in tears like I might have in the past and I even finished another round of cards before we left. (Yes we play cards at the pub.  That's how we roll.)

Today the Pants Monkey is off of work again and he is brewing his very first batch of all grain beer.  I won't bore you with tons of details as to what that means, but let's just say it's more "from scratch" than the other homebrew recipes he's done in the past.  I'm so proud of him for trying this out and I can't wait to taste the finished product in a few weeks!  As for me, it's work as usual and I should get back to it.  Have a great day!

Outfit rundown:

Dress - vintage, two birds

Obi belt - Megan Mae Daily

Buttonflower - Megan Mae Daily

Bracelet - Charming Charlie

Earrings - Butterfly Boutique

Sandals - Duck Head

Inspiration Monday - Out of the loop

Hello friends.  It's Monday again.  And on top of that, it's humid and rainy here in MN this morning.  So lovely.  Anyway, Monday is always better when playing along with two birds Inspiration Monday.  Though I'm ready to start calling it "Beth is out of the loop Monday", or heaven forbid "Beth is getting old Monday."  Why?  Because while these actresses are all lovely, I don't know who half of them are!  So today we have Aubrey Plaza.  Um, sure.  I could go look her up on Imdb, but I'm being lazy because after all, it's still Monday.  

So, now that we've clearly established it's Monday and I'm totally not up on pop culture, on to my outfit.  I still don't have fun red pants, but I saw a pair this weekend at the vintage shop I went to.  Unfortunately, they were way too small for me.  So, I kind of went for the color scheme today more than anything else.

I'm excited to be debuting my brand new Megan Mae Obi belt!  I started formulating this outfit idea in my head last week and then this came in the mail and I knew I could totally incorporate it into my outfit.  I like the result and I can't wait to wear it some more!

  

I got a close up of my obi belt here so you can see more of the detail.  Megan is awesome and she makes these for a very reasonable price, so hit her up if you're interested!

Did you all do nice things to celebrate Father's Day yesterday?  We had both sets of parents over for a barbecue.  It is always nice when we're able to celebrate with both families instead of dividing our time.  It doesn't always happen that way, but sometimes it works out!  It was a long day though, we had early church with our music group, then home to bbq so we were both pretty worn out by the end of the day.  Then it stormed last night and man, there were some loud boomers.  So I'm still kind of worn out today!  Coffee is good.


If you missed it on Friday I announced my one year blog anniversary giveaway.  Check it out here.  There is still plenty of time to enter, so don't miss out!


As with every Monday, please go visit the two birds blog to see how other folks styled their look for Inspiration Monday!

Outfit rundown:

Shirt - Antilita Femme (thrifted)

Dress as skirt - Thrifted

Obi belt - Megan Mae

Necklace - Butterfly Boutique

Bracelet - Charming Charlie

Shoes - Duck Head (from mom)