Blue Monday

It's Monday, so it's back to the grind.  How were everyone's weekends?  I had a chance to catch up with old friends, (fella's) family, and enjoy Chicago's awesome weather as of late.  Our forecast for the entire week is high 70's and sunshine, which I'm most definitely looking forward to.  Another week of work, on the other hand?  Not so much.

How do you psych yourself up for going back to work after a weekend/time off?  Is there any way to make Monday mornings a little easier to bear?

Sweater: New York & Company
Tank: New York & Company
Skirt: Target
Necklace: Ann Taylor
Shoes: Tsubo

Greetings from Frankfurt

Frankfurt is an underrated city. I fell in love with Berlin back in 2005, but Berlin is like the crush I had on the dirty punky left wing boy with the eyebrow studs and stinky hoodie when I was 19. Frankfurt is like that less obviously exciting dude that you'd introduce to your mum, who is still bohemian and but can clean up nice and hold a job. Blokey and I have been enjoying our quasi-escape from New York/fake honeymoon. We return tomorrow, but first we'll squeeze in a few more experiences. (There was talk of running through wine country over at In Professorial Fashion this weekend. We may have spent 36 hazy hours in German wine country over the weekend, gawking at castles from the river and buying bottles and bottles of local wine for then an €7 a pop. I usually don't drink but I pretended to be as awesome as D-Med and A-Dubs for a day or two).
I don't have much to offer style-wise, except to say that being in Europe for a week has made me more comfortable with capsule style dressing. Our awesome hosts have well edited closets but still very well defined styles, and wearing the same thing multiple times in a week is no big deal. I didn't stick to my 6 items, but I have been overwearing the stripey shirt and black boots from Monday's outfit over and over again.
Finally, Blokey has learned some German (danke and Sheiße, which are very important), is a big fan of the windows, Turkish snack stands, the transit system, and the bread, but remains skeptical of the German shelf toilet. You really have to see it to believe it.
We arrive back in NY tomorrow morning, and start teaching soon. I highly recommend a European-just-before-the-semester-starts-getaway. We'll be waking up at 4 AM for the next week.
Bis später!

Casual Thursday

Today is thankfully my last day in the office for the week!  Although I generally dislike a number of things about the corporate world, every now and then we get a few perks.  Today they're feeding my team a tasty lunch of pizza from Chicago's own Lou Malnati's (sorry - I can't help but get excited about food, especially if it's free), and after that we get to spend the afternoon having a Wii bowling tournament on ridiculously large projection screens in a conference room.  Seriously.  I'm getting paid to eat and play Wii today.  It's kind of awesome.

It may be too soon to tell, but I wear a lot of skirts and dresses, especially for work.  I'm more comfortable in skirts/dresses than jeans any day, and I think they're usually more flattering too.  Because I was hired for my job in a summer, I think I had a pants-free streak of a few months going when I started working there.  Finally, one of my co-workers very politely asked if I had some kind of religious opposition to pants, which still cracks me up several years later.  In any event, it's pretty rare for me to do this in 80 degree weather, but since it's a fun day, I decided to go casual with jeans.

How do you go casual for work? Do you prefer skirts and dresses to pants too?  Have any of your co-workers ever mistaken you for a well-dressed Menonite? (seriously, I'm not making that up)

Top: H&M

Cami: NY & Company

Jeans: Gap (Long & Lean)

Shoes: Privo

Necklace: Embellish

Jude finally noticed me taking pictures, and decided to join in the fun.

One Dress, Multiple Seasons

Being mid to late August, we're coming up on my most favorite time of year: Fall!  More specifically, early fall.  I love those first few weeks where it's still nice out here in Chicago (as in, not beastly hot/ungodly humid like our summers, but not snowy/icy/horrible like our winters), and I can dust off my sweaters, scarves, boots, etc.  It's still more or less summer here, with our days being in the mid-70's and significantly less humid.  But if you go outside at around 6am (after all, my fashionable dog doesn't walk himself), it's clear that summer is on its way out, albeit slowly.  The mornings are cooler, and that's definitely got me in the mood for fall.

So here's what I wore to work today.  I thought it'd be fun to transition this simple black dress into a couple of looks perfect for fall.

Here I lost the cami, changed necklaces, swapped out the sandals for heels (my very first pair of Tsubos!) and added a cardigan.  This would be perfect for work.  I'd probably pair tights with this for fall too, but I found that black tights looked kind of horrible with the shoes, so I'll have to figure out what color tights might go better.  Suggestions?  I've never owned grey shoes before (I tend not to venture away from black, as sad as that sounds), so this is new territory for me.  Here's a close-up.  I am that excited about them.

The second look isn't really my style for the office (though it'd probably fall under our casual dress code with no problems), but I'd definitely sport it on a weekend.  Adding a jacket, scarf and boots makes the dress a lot more casual.  This is actually a tribute to Rad, since I often see her with a dress, tights and tall boots.

What's your favorite season to dress for?  And how do you style your summer pieces for fall?

Dress: Target

Cami: Old Navy

Necklaces: New York & Company

Sandals: Aerosoles

Cardigan: LOFT

Shoes: Tsubo

Denim Jacket: Old Navy

Scarf: LOFT

Boots: RSVP via 6pm

Sunburn: Lake Michigan

Just to keep the blog honest about our showcasing of cute animals. Jude can pull off the corporate look too.

Interim Cohabitatant

Hello fashionable people!  A few of you may know that Rad has a co-contributor here at The Cohabitating Closet, but in case you don't (since I've been lurking for WAY too long), I'll introduce myself briefly.  I've got a few posts out there, but I had some life stuff keeping me away from the office and thus having to look decent everyday for a while, so I focused on my cooking blog instead. I'm Rad's Midwestern counterpart; the D-Med to her A-Dubs (this assumption is based solely on our respective karaoke choices).  I guess "counterpart" does imply that we're similar, but fashion-wise we're somewhat different.  Rad, for example, can sew and refashion things, whereas I can't sew much more than a button.  Another big difference is that Rad, like many of you I've noticed, is an academic.  I, on the other hand, hang out in a cubicle in a business-casual office in corporate America, so we have slightly different dress codes for work wear.  Are there any other corporate ladies out there?

Since the lovely Rad is going to be enjoying a week in Frankfurt, and prompted by In Professorial Fashion's New Faculty Orientation, I thought I'd keep you all company.  Unfortunately, being a corporate drone and all, I don't have the interesting social commentary to provide that Rad does.  Instead, I have what is hopefully cute and occasionally stylish business-casual attire, and it's more along the lines of a daily outfit post.  So here's what I wore today:

Dress: Target

Cardigan: Target

Sandals: Aerosoles

Necklace: NY & Company

I don't think this is my final submission, but I'm definitely getting ready for the Wonder Woman Pose Conference.  Are you?

If none of that was interesting, perhaps I can win you over with a picture of a cute dog?  He couldn't join me in my pictures tonight because he was busy chewing up one of my favorite earrings (sigh), but that's just proof of how much he loves accessories.

Busy work

Busy work, originally uploaded by Cohabitating_Closet.

I spent all morning (before getting dressed) on the phone with the emergency room and my emergency insurance company (separate than my main medical insurance company) about something that happened in December. Hopefully, it's all settled now.
Today, in addition to academicky stuff, I am going to buy some cute, non-toxic, non-gender specific toy for my friends' two year old boy. I found myself wearing the black tee shirt and jeans all weekend, which fit the 6 items challenge, but was quite boring. I tried to make it less boring today, and follow Kelly in Beantown's awesome styling of 1990s-esque boots, but I think this outfit just makes me look wide. Maybe it's the angle. And my legs are oddly iridescent. But since I looked better in the mirror, I am stick with it anyway. (I've got short bike shorts under the skirt, you know, for my mom's sake).
Oh, my friends in Frankfurt, which is where Blokey and I are going tomorrow evening. No particular reason, except to see our friends and pretend that school doesn't start in a week. Oh, and they're setting up meetings for me with like-minded scholars at the University, so someday maybe I can go do research there? (Oh German welfare state, how I do covet you). Hope you have a fabulous Monday.

Shirt: Rodarte for Target
Belt: free from an eBay purchase
Tunic/dress as skirt: AA
Microfishnet tights: Daffys
Boots: MIA

Weather break

Weather break, originally uploaded by Cohabitating_Closet.

One thing about the 6 item challenge is that if you air dry your clothes, you will inevitably have days where you can't wear anything. Yesterday was a big domestic labor day, so today has be heavy on the academic labor.
The past two days have been blissfully cool and un-summer like in Brooklyn. Right now it's 73 degrees, sunny and breezy. I hope the first day of school is like this. Today, since I really need to finish at least one syllabus today, I am dressed like it's a teaching day, from my 6 items. I probably won't wear this on the first day (I like black on the first day, to set a somber/serious/NYC tone), but maybe for one of the nicer days in October, after I've established some rapport with students?

A couple non-fashiony things:

For the Cannucks: the Guardian thinks weed may cause economic downfall for our neighbors to the north.

A NYTimes "Modern Love" piece about the vagaries of couples in academia.

If you're a blogger and interested in helping out an awesome academic who studies the politics of fashion blogging, send me an email and I'll pass your information to a wonderful researcher.

My sleepy adult cat really really wanted to be in this picture. She got up as soon as I set up the camera, off the futon, and just sat right in front of the camera. After I took the camera down, she ran back to the futon.

Cardigan: Jcrew (thrifted)
Tunic dress (as top): AA
Skirt: Muji
Key necklace: gift
Shoes: Aerosoles (thrifted)