Working Mama: One Year In

Four months ago (!!! Edit: more like six at this point), I promised an entry on working full-time as a new mom. Well, the baby turns one next month and I’ve just gotten around to updating the blog again, so that should tell you what my life’s been like. In a word: chaos. In two words: loving chaos.

Christmas Eve

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just a few short hours away! The past three months or so have completely flown by. It's as if we've been living in our own personal Groundhog Day since the baby was born, and yet it simultaneously feels like she's always been a part of our little family. She's already the gravitational center of my entire universe and a part of my brain is always thinking of her. Is this what parenting is?

Review: Midnight in Paris Streetcar

By now, I bet most of you know that I might be a Trashy Diva fanatic. I've fallen wildly in love with just about everything they've put out in the past two years, particularly the Wildflowers collection and my very favorite, Venice Nights. Given how much I absolutely loved Venice Nights, and how often I've worn it since it came out last year, I had high hopes for this year's travel print. And my goodness, Midnight in Paris did not disappoint!

Life Update: She's Here!

For those of you who've seen any of my recent Insta posts, this post will be old news. But in case anyone was wondering what happened to my lovely, predictable three-times-per-week update schedule, here's your answer: it's gone the way of every other schedule and routine in my life, because our baby is here!

My first postpartum blog shoot took three minutes flat.

Maternity Style Hacks

When I got pregnant, I had three main goals with respect to my maternity wardrobe. First, I wanted to avoid wearing boring, generic maternity wear as much as I possibly could. Second, I wanted to wear my prepregnancy wardrobe for as long as I could, because I really like my current clothes. Finally, as much as humanly possible, I wanted to buy things that would work as well after my pregnancy as they did during. At eight months and change into this pregnancy thing, I'm pretty happy with how I'd done so far, so today I'm sharing some of the top maternity style hacks that have gotten me this far.

25 Signs You're a Real Adult

Alright, who else thought they'd be welcomed to adulthood in a dramatic, unmistakable moment? That there would be a clear event that you could point to, after which you'd always feel like a 'real' adult? My dad often says that he used to think becoming an adult happened like this, but that he's come to realize that no matter how old he gets, he never quite feels like he's finished becoming a real grownup. And the older I get, the more I understand what he was talking about.

Review: Trashy Diva Wildflowers Streetcar

Trashy Diva has almost-singlehandedly turned me into a floral aficionado. Between their glorious tropical prints, their classic allover florals, and their big, bold flower prints, I've come to see the light at last! So when they released their Wildflowers collection, it was love at first sight! I had a little trouble deciding which style to order, but since I've been drooling over the Streetcar dress from afar for ages, the answer seemed pretty obvious.

Help Me, Trashy Diva Obi!

If you think I'm mildly obsessed with Trashy Diva...well, you're not wrong. They have so many amazing prints and such lovely vintage-inspired styles that I really cannot resist! I've reviewed quite a few of the new releases over the past year, but every once in a while, I like to take an older print out for a spin.

Pirate Treasure

What does my favorite neighborhood mural have to do with a pirate-print Trashy Diva dress? Well...nothing, unless 'both things make me happy' counts.

Review: Trashy Diva Birds of a Feather

One of my favorite places at the Field Museum is the birds collection. It's always a hotbed of activity and there's usually something nifty to see, whether it's eggs collected near Shelter Island in the 19th century, rainbow-bright stuffed birds from all over the world, or a live peregrine falcon accompanying its owner to work. So when Trashy Diva released their latest collection, Birds of a Feather, I was flying high! (Sorry.) And with a dress in my all-time favorite TD cut, the circle Day Dress, this collection felt like it was meant to be.

Berry Chantilly Hopscotch

Every time Trashy Diva releases a new collection, I drop everything, flail around in excitement for a little while, and order immediately. Every time, that is, except once. The Berry Chantilly release coincided with my unintentional hiatus from the internet, so I discovered that the new collection had dropped several days after the fact. The horror! Thankfully, my new favorite cut, the Hopscotch, was still in stock in my size, so this tale has a happy ending.

Vintage Garage Chicago

May was quite an exciting month for me. Between Member's Night, the Windy Pretties meetup, and my mother's visit to Chicago, there wasn't a dull moment in sight, and I'm so pleased to share one of my favorite May adventures with you today: my day at Vintage Garage Chicago with some of the Windy Pretties!

Members Only (Anyone Can Join!)

The past four days or so have been absolutely bonkers. (Sidebar: 'bonkers' is one of my new favorite words to use.) Between Members' Nights at the Field Museum last Thursday/Friday and the Windy Pretties meetup on Saturday and yesterday, I've just had so many exciting events to attend!

Dogwood L'amour

If you'd told me two years ago that I'd have more than one blue dress in my closet, I'd've said you were mad. However, it's a bit of a pattern with me to spend ages actively, vocally disparaging something (in this case, one of the primary colors) before unexpectedly embracing it, with no apparent reason for the change of heart. (Other times this has happened: blazers after college, pencil skirts, and that one John Mayer song.) Trashy Diva's Dogwood pattern, though, was easy to fall for., and after an first unsuccessful attempt at this print with the Day Dress, I grabbed a L'amour and fell in amour. (#Sorrynotsorry. I'm genetically predisposed to bad jokes.)

Review: Trashy Diva Carnival Annette

By my count, I am currently five collections behind in my ongoing question to geek out over everything Trashy Diva does. This is obviously shameful, and must be remedied immediately, so today I'm taking the first step with a review of the glorious green Carnival print!

Can't Change My Spots!

Like many people, I consider myself a principled person. Many of my principles are things like 'black lives matter,' or 'feminism without intersectionality is bullshit,' or 'lying is morally impermissible,' or 'never fight a land war in Asia in the winter,' but some, of course, are style-related. Today's outfit conforms to two of my guiding style principles:

1) leopard is a neutral, and
2) red goes with EVERYTHING.

Pretty in Plaid

Far and away, the best part of blogging is the new friends I've made. Immersing myself in a community of fabulous, supportive fellow clotheshorses has brought so much positivity and happiness to my life, and reading blogs helped me to get out of that new-city funk when I first moved to Chicago. A little over a week ago, I got to meet one of the very bloggers that I've admired since the early days of Thoroughly Modern Emily: Devinne from Mox and Socks! Her blog is one of my favorites around because of her incredible photo skills, fantastic style, uniquely thoughtful perspective, and creative hair tutorials, and since we've also gotten to know each other over Instagram, I was over the moon when we finally got to meet in person!

Review: Trashy Diva Venice Nights Day Dress

I have a confession to make: before I started typing this sentence, I was poring over the other styles available in this print on Trashy Diva's website. This dress is that good. Trashy Diva has been releasing amazing new prints nearly every two weeks for a couple of months now, and while I'm loving all my recent acquisitions (and, in fact, wearing one of my newer dresses right now!), the Venice Nights collection might just be my favorite of 2016.

Sci Fi Rockets

It's been a truly epic month for unicorn hunting: I've gotten my hands on some pieces I never thought would ever be mine, including my top two Trashy Diva must-haves. A sweet friend of mine decided to let both her French Quarter skirt and her Sci-Fi Rockets Rockette dress go, and offered to sell them to me, so perhaps 'unicorn hunting' isn't really the right phrase to use. It was more like 'unicorn oh my god yes please I would love to buy these from you *keyboard smash of maximum excitement!*'

I don't even care that my hair is all wonky here, because this photo perfectly captured the way this dress makes me feel.

Green Kimono Lena

During Honeymoon Part 1: Staycation Edition, I finally got to go to the Shedd Aquarium, and of course, I dressed for a completely different occasion. I have to wonder if the part of my brain that recognizes (and more importantly, cares) that I'm not dressed appropriately for an occasion was irreparably damaged by my years in grad school. I certainly wouldn't be the only casualty!