Today in Space Race History: Let's Light This Candle!

Last month, I chronicled the proudest moment of the Soviet space program: beating the incipient American human-spaceflight program to be the first to put a human being in space. On this day 55 years ago, though, the Empire struck back, briefly sending Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. into space. In honor of this, I'm wearing another space-themed outfit:

Wishlist Wednesday #12: May the Fourth Be With You

Today's very special edition of Wishlist Wednesday is an homage to my favorite films of all time: the Star Wars trilogy! Today is May 4th, which means I have an all-day license to use my favorite pun of all time:

Bet you saw this coming a mile away!

Let's get to the wishlist, shall we?

#AllDressApril Outfits and My #WeekWithBernie

I haven't worn pants in over a year. To some, that might sound unusual or challenging, but at this point, my wardrobe is 90% dresses and skirts, so it wasn't actually difficult to come up with a month of dresses for All Dress April. A few of my Instagram/Facebook friends were participating in the event, so I decided to join in. For me, 'joining in' just meant using the hashtag when posting photos of outfits I was already planning to wear ;).

Anyway, I had a blast participating in this challenge! It was so much fun to see what the other participants were wearing, and to virtually 'twin' with people, or plan to wear the same outfit. I only repeated one dress, because I'd worn it early in the month but when a group of ladies decided to do a week of Bernie Dexter twinning days, I wanted to participate!

A Star-Wars-Themed Wedding Event

Has anyone else planned a wedding? I'm less than two months out from mine, and am just starting to realize that there are actually things I need to be doing. Of course, I'm dealing with that realization by writing a post about the bridal luncheon my sister threw for me while I was in New York a few weeks ago. Technically, this is productive!

I was planning to wear my beloved tomato-print dress, but after realizing that it was going to be a family-style meal at an Italian place, I 86'd the fitted-waistband idea and went with a stretchy ivory dress. Everyone from my bachelorette party wore their fascinators, and tried to limit the number of "…because I'm fascinating!" comments to a reasonable number.

Fun fact: this coat belongs to my sister, but in the past 10 years or so, I'm the only one who has actually worn it.

The Best Day of my Life

In case you couldn't tell, I tend to think in terms of narratives, anecdotes, and 'onion stories.' When it comes to my to-do list/practical tasks, my memory is like Swiss cheese, but for major moments from my past, minute details of Stuff that I Did, or the like, my mind is a steel trap. It's quite nice for the most part, because it means that I can remember the happiest moments of my life in high definition, so to speak.

I'll get to the Best Day Ever in a minute, but first: the skirt of my dreams! I waited for what felt like an age (e.g. about six months) for this skirt to restock, and as soon as I got the email notification that it was back in stock, I snapped it up. To my never-ending joy, it arrived last weekend!

Italian Landscape Bella Donna

Happy birthday to my best friend Jenny! I've already written about her lifelong love of red, but I figured that I should celebrate her actual birthday in an appropriately-colored dress, even though she isn't here in Chicago to see it. I just realized that this dress is doubly appropriate, as she's half-Italian, and this is the Italian Landscape print.

Purple Floral Heidi Dress

The weather is finally starting to turn into a consistent approximation of spring, and I'm chuffed as chips! I don't think I've ever appreciated a 70-degree day more than I do right now, after surviving a totally mild Chicago winter. For one thing, it's much more pleasant to take blog photos when going outside doesn't require a coat. For another, five-ish months of covering my head with a hat all the time has left an odd stripe in my hair.

Jeez, am I really talking about the weather?!? Enough of that; let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Baton Rouge Birdie at Navy Pier

It's been a while since my last Chicago adventure post, but to make up for the long wait, today's post is a real doozy, in the best possible way! Jeff and I took a day during his spring break and visited Navy Pier. We'd been there once before, during our apartment-hunting trip to Chicago last August, but we were eager to go back and explore it without the stress of finding a place to live looming like a housing-related sword of Damocles over our heads. So we did!

Red! By Jenny.

In high school, my best friend had a line in her AIM profile (boy, I’m really dating myself here, eh?) that simply said “RED! By Jenny.” It always used to make me laugh, because it was just so unusual and I wasn’t sure what statement she was trying to make. I asked her about it last month, and apparently it was just because red is her favorite color and Jenny is her name.

I think of that whenever I put on a red garment: I hear the phrase “Red! By Jenny” in her voice, figuratively speaking. This particular red dress is another excellent new-to-me acquisition. I’d heard that the Lana dress from PUG was shorter than most of their other dresses, and thought it would make a cute knee-length dress for me, so I started looking around and found one that Bristol was selling. It came in a jiffy, during an oddly warm spell here in Chicago, and I really like it! I’m a little sad that this dress style was discontinued, but I guess tracking down other colors of this dress will give me a goal to work toward.

"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"I think so, Brain, but if they called them Sad Meals, kids wouldn't buy them!"

Tomato, To-mah-to

You might have noticed that the tomato-print Bernie Dexter dress was missing from my recent 'unicorn' wish list, and wondered how we could possibly live in a world where I didn't want it. Let me explain: it's because I recently managed to get my mitts on it!

Look! It's the first blog post featuring photos from my new phone! The future is here, people.