GYPO Style Challenge - Work Wear Edition!

A few weeks ago I blogged about the upcomming GYPO Work Wear Challenge. I was  super excited for it, especially since I always have to make adjustments to the daily outfits to make them more work appropriate. 

Complete disclosure, I work for a software company, I could come to work every day in a super hero t-shirt and flip flops and would fit in with 45% of the office. Instead, since I have direct reports I feel that I should dress a little more professionally and I like clothes. A LOT. Always have, always will. Fat Lara, skinnier Lara and in between Lara, we all love clothes.

I was really, really excited for this challenge and then I got the shopping list. I owned every. single. item... Not gonna lie, I was more than a little sad about that. But it's a good thing, we need to save money and get our house ready to sell, Instead, I shopped from my closet, Kev, did you hear that? I DIDN'T BUY A THING FOR THIS CHALLENGE.

Some of the other challengers suggested that I splurge on a piece or replace something in my existing wardrobe but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I'm a little fluffier than I want to be and I don't want to get something in a larger size than I'd like. Another suggestion was to get additional pieces for more variety... yeah, that's not a problem either, You'll see...

Instead I went to the closet!

Blue oxford shirt, I'm using this chambray one from Old Navy. I don't really like button-up shirts on me, too much boobage, so it takes a lot for me to find one I like. 

The white tunic-y shirt is from the Limited Outlet, and I actually bought this a few months ago in anticipation of the challenge. :) It paid off!

We needed 2 cardigans and a patterned skirt. I have several cardigans but I think this burgundy one and the green will work well with the rest of the capsule. 

For the skirts, I have a polka dot one and a black and white stripe, both from the Limited, and there's an unpictured red skirt from the Limited as well. Not gonna lie, I have an orange Limited skirt too.

Next we needed a polka dot shirt. Yeah, I have a few, one is blue and red (or orange, I swear I can't tell), black and white and black and red. All from the Limited. Remember, I LOVE circles.

Black pants, grey pants, colored pants and jeans. Kinda boring but the jeans and colored pants are from the Limited, grey from the Gap and the black ones from Macy's. Hmmm... I have burgundy pants too. I might like those for fall a little better.

Black blazer I picked up for convention and actually haven't worn yet. Surprisingly I got this at Sears.

Unpictured is a plain black tshirt from Target.

For jewelry and accessories, we needed a long gold necklace, pearl necklace, chunky gold watch. I have my MK watch that I wear almost every day, a neutral Kendra Scott Necklace and a chunky pearl necklace I got from jane.com a while ago. I did skip the skinny belt because I look dumb in belts. 

Lastly, the shoes.... This is a small portion of them... We needed neutral heals, and I have pumps, shooties and flats, leopard shoes (I have flats too), a pair of red shoes that I've really had for 100 years and I had to brush the dust off them. 

Oh, also unpictured is the MK bag I carry every day. The challenge called for a neutral structured bag and I use one everyday.

And that friends, is my capsule wardrobe for this challenge. It's going to be a good one! Oh, don't forget my 10 years in NC giveaway! Check out the original post here!

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Summer GYPO Style Challenge

Yesterday the Summer GYPO Style Challenge started and my capsule wardrobe is ready to go! OK, let's be completely honest, as awesome as the idea of a capsule wardrobe is, I'm just not going to wear the same dress to work one week and again the next even if its with different accessories. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a capsule wardrobe, you choose only a few quality pieces of clothing that can coordinate with each other and make multiple outfits with fewer pieces. Great idea and it really helps me to re-imagine how to wear the pieces I already have. 

When you sign up for the challenge, you get a shopping list and several alternatives. Being the Summer Challenge, I knew there would be a lot of shorts featured and I'd need to adapt to make the outfits adapt for work. In a fantastic twist of fate, I either already had the necessary pieces, already bought the clothes as part of my convention shopping OR bought them when I returned something else. Kev will be very pleased, especially if he reads this today. :)

Who's ready for some poorly lighted pictures??? Reason #275 why I will never be a famous blogger, no fancy camera and I'm taking pictures at 8:30pm in a dim bedroom. Sorry folks, love me, love my crappy pictures. 

First up, we needed patterned, brightly colored and denim shorts. I subbed with a patterned skirt and I have a red and orange skirt. I also branched out and got some palazzo  or "soft pants" in the black and cream and the blue pattern. 

Patterned pants which I also wore last week...

And I subbed the romper for the black jumpsuit I found a few weeks ago.

For the accessories we needed a brightly colored necklace, colored earrings, statement earrings and a head scarf. I decided to pass on all of those, mainly because I've never seen a colored necklace that I actually liked, They all look like a 5th grader made them. Sorry nope. Me and headbands don't really mix either since I have a freakishly large head.

Instead I'm going to use this gold tone bracelet from Target, earrings from The Limited and a knock off Stella and Dot necklace from Etsy.

Boyfriend shorts, a white eyelet skirt to sub for white shorts, patterned maxi dress and white pants.

The dress was part of my Convention purchases and I got it at Kohls, It's really cute on and not too long! 

I kinda love this white eyelet skirt from Steinmart. It's perfect for the summer,

As I look at the capsule, I'm realizing there's a lot of white. I might need more Tide sticks. They're my best friend.  

Here we have a white cami, white eyelet shirt, pink tee, another patterned maxi and a white eyelet dress. Several tees will be styled during the challenge and I'm sure I'll wear more than just this one. I have a bunch of t-shirts that would work. 

The white dress I got at Ross and I'm really stoked about it. I'd been looking for a new white dress for convention and sorority stuff and this one is perfect! I've honestly never worn a white dress outside of sorority stuff and getting married. It's definitely outside my comfort zone, but hey, that's why it's called a challenge!

This is the other printed maxi I picked up at Ross. Can I become a Ross poster child? Seriously, I rarely walk out of there empty handed. 

What else, I have another white flowy tank, a patterned flowy tank, 2 graphic tees and a denim jacket in place of the denim vest. Side note on the graphic tee. I ordered one from Jane.com at the end of May and it STILL hasn't arrived. I know these are small vendors who sometimes get overwhelmed with the volume of orders but when it's ordered on 5/28, "shipped" on 6/4 and still showing as being in transit, that's no bueno.

The black drapey tank. 

Still waiting...

And we have metallic and neutral sandals and some stripey espadrilles. We were supposed to try colored sneakers too but I don't need patterned sneeks when I have plenty of brightly colored running shoes.

And that folks, is my capsule wardrobe! Really though, who am I kidding, it's the second day and I'm already wearing something that's not in the capsule. It's just orange pants instead of an orange skirt, but hey, why not.

Scenes from the Weekend

Another Monday. Oy.... This week most of the other managers are in Scotland and they left me and the HR Manager in charge of the place. Lord help them... I kinda wish  my boss had left behind an "In case of emergency" sheet, You know, with the names and numbers of the vet, next of kin and that sort of thing. 

Before diving into the weekday, let's take a look back at the weekend shall we? 

Friday night Kev and I had reservations at Bin 54 for Triangle Restaurant Week. Restaurant Week is the bomb. A bunch of restaurants have price fixed menus for $25 or $30 per person for a 3 course meal. As soon as Restaurant Week is announced, we go onto Open Table and make reservations at Bin 54. 2 people can easily drop $150 there, so the restaurant week deal is pretty sweet.

I obviously started with a Cosmo and Kev some wine. We both got the same thing, wedge salad, fillet and strawberry shortcake for dessert. I'd had a spectacularly awful week and enjoyed 2 of these beauties. The meal was awesome, as always. 

Unfortunately we couldn't stay out too late since I was running the Susan Komen Race the next morning. 

I talked about this race last year where I apparently had a pretty run. I talked about it before but this race is super special to me because it was the first race I ever did... Five years ago! It's still hard to believe that I've been running that long. That's just crazy to me. 

This year they made some changes to the race that I wasn't a fan of, The biggest is that the competitive runner's start time was moved back an hour to 8am. The last 3 years we took off at 7am and the recreational runners / walkers at 8am. There's a HUGE difference between 7am and 8am on a super hot and humid day. I've never ran in hotter temperatures. If it wasn't the Komen race, I would have stayed home.

I was glad when I got there, it's always so inspirational to see 1000s of people coming together to fight against this terrible disease.

I wanted to die most of the race. Yeah, I haven't been running consistently but I think it was 82 degrees with 90% humidity. Hands down it was my worst time ever. I think I stumbled in at 38:00. But I did stop at the water stations and walked up the hills.

Immediately after I finished I ran into the super awesome Mindy Sopher. I've known Mindy through KD since I moved here 10 years ago. She's a 3 time breast cancer survivor and such an inspiration,

I was rocking some serious squinty eye

The rest of the afternoon I watched Netflix and refused to move. I think I sweat out 10 pounds at the race. Oh, and word of advice, if you haven't been eating gluten and then have 2 rolls at dinner, your stomach might not like you very much the next day.

Since I wasn't moving, Kev and I decided to christen our new fire pit and I invited some of my friends to join us.

I figured we were not only enjoying the outdoors but doing yard work as well. I'm going to burn all of those pine cones AND all of the random sticks in the yard. We might need a bigger pit.

For a while the smoke was blowing right on Kev and instead of move, he tried to blow it away.

It didn't work. Because we are fancy people we drink La Croix sparkling water beside the fire. Well, I had a cosmo in a solo cup.  I'd like to make a suggestion to the makers of marshmallows that they make single serving packets. I just need like 6 marshmallows. I have 3, Kev has 3 and we're good and no stale marshmallows. We didn't burn the house down so the fire pit was a huge win, Except I'd advise against having fire when it's 88 degrees at 7pm. It's stupid hot here.

Sunday morning woke up and Kev and I had breakfast before he had to leave. I headed over to the mall to see if I could find a black knit blazer for convention. Yes, I'm still looking for the last few pieces. I CAN'T believe I leave in less than 2 weeks! Convention packing post coming soon.

As I was looking I came across this Jessica Simpson military jacket at Belk on clearance. I had a gift card from an old return and ended up spending $3.17 out of pocket. Oh, and the Summer GYPO challenge starts tomorrow! I have my capsule all ready to go!

I think it'll be pretty versatile when it isn't as hot as the surface of Satan's ass here. Seriously, it's too hot to go to even go to the pool. 

I was browsing though H&M when a pair of leopard pants caught my eye. "Soft Pants" are in this season and even though I'm pretty sure I last wore "soft pants" in high school, I have a pair that I kinda love.

OMG, DO YOU SEE HOW LOW THE CROTCH IS?!?! THESE ARE HAMMER PANTS!!! 

No no no no no no no... These do NOT need to come back in style. No one looked good in them. No one.

I've been talking a lot about convention and how I'm pretty excited about it. I advise at both a national and local level and a lot of people think I'm a little insane. It gets a little hectic at times but I wouldn't do it if I didn't love it. I got this text from my advisee the other day and it made me smile.

How was your weekend???

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