Stitch Fix #3

With summer vacation winding down, I can't help but thinking just a little bit about fall styles and my work wardrobe. So I was excited to see if this month's fix would be good for school.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Stitch Fix, it's a personal styling service. After you fill out a detailed profile on their website, a stylist will choose five pieces for you for a $20 styling fee. If you purchase one or more of the pieces they send you, your styling fee will go toward that purchase. If you like all five pieces and decide to keep them, you will get a 25% discount off the total purchase price. You can schedule your fixes for once a month, 2-3 times per month, or much less frequently.

Here's what I saw when I opened the box:

Included were one pair of pants, one blouse, two maxi-dresses, and a pair of earrings. I tried on the pants first, but they were too small (this has happened before!). They were marked as a 29 which would have fit me if I was shopping at Ann Taylor Loft, but this particular brand ran smaller. The fabric was a soft stretch denim:

Just Black - Nolan Ankle Skinny Jean $58

Even if they had fit like a glove, I probably wouldn't have kept them because I already have two pairs of white denim pants (that do fit!) in my closet.

The second thing I tried on was the blouse:

Collective Concepts - Clarita Floral Print Flutter Sleeve Blouse $44

I absolutely love the vibrant colors in this! I think they are beautiful for fall. The styling card showed this paired with dark denim jeans or a khaki colored pencil skirt. This one's a keeper for sure!

Next up was one of the maxi dresses:

Under Skies - Clare Woven Maxi Dress $78

First of all, though it was a medium, this dress was huge on me! In the first picture, I am actually reaching behind to hold some of the excess fabric and define the waste. I did think the print was pretty, though.

Loveappella - Carlita Jersey Maxi Dress $78

I really like this dress. I thought the color was gorgeous and the style was flattering. It would have been perfect for a date night if I was still a married lady, but I'm not. I just couldn't foresee anytime in the near future where I'd have a reason to wear this. So I reluctantly returned this. Sad face.

Lastly, my fix included a pair of earrings:

Bay to Baubles - Elaine Gem Stone Statement Studs $32

I really think these are pretty, but I chose not to keep them because I don't like the way stud earrings feel on my ears.

Because my sweet coworker had scheduled a Stitch Fix recently using my referral code, I had a $25 credit on my account. Thank you, Wendy! Therefore, when I checked out I only owed $20 and change for that lovely blouse. Yea!!!

I made sure to give detailed feedback on each piece during my checkout process so that my stylist could use that information for my next fix in September. I also increased the frequency of my Stitch Fixes to 2-3 times per month just for a short while in order to see more items in a shorter period of time. I asked that my stylist focus on blouses and knee-length skirts in the next fix so that I'll have more things for my fall work wardrobe. September and October are really hot months here in southern California, so I don't want sweaters just yet.

If you would like to try Stitch Fix, please use my referral code. When you sign up for your first fix, I'll receive another $25 credit, and you will receive referral links to share on your Facebook page or your blog with your friends and family, too. Makes shopping with Stitch Fix even more fun!

Road Trip!

This year's big summer adventure was a two-week road trip up to the Columbia River Gorge and down the Oregon Coast - something I'd done with my family when I was a child. This time we traveled with my parents in a rented 31' RV, which was pretty nice. We had a few mechanical issues my poor dad had to deal with along the way, but overall it was a nice setup.

If we had to do it over again, we would have done it entirely differently, though. Experienced RVers usually tow another vehicle behind them in order to go out and site see once they reach their destination and get the RV hooked up, but we didn't do that. So once we got somewhere, we were stuck there until our next travel day. In retrospect, we should have taken my mom's minivan, and stayed in hotels along the way. We could have seen more that way, and it would have cost about the same. Live and learn...

Nevertheless, we did see some beautiful country. The Pacific Northwest is breathtaking.

After spending our first night parked outside of my great-aunt's home in Walnut Creek, we traveled north on Interstate 5. California is so big that it takes a long time to get out of the state. I did enjoy seeing the farmland in the northern part of the Central Valley, but it was so hot there. On our third travel day, we passed by the Mount Shasta recreation area. California is having a severe drought, and it was sad to see the lake so low. We had house boated on that lake years before, and it looked much different then.

Our first campground in Oregon was just outside of Medford. We spent park of the Fourth of July weekend there. I let my blogger/Facebook friend, April, know I'd be in her neck of the woods, and she drove out for a visit. It was the first time we'd ever met face-to-face. She is just as wonderful in person as she is online. I wish we'd had more time to visit!

Our next destination was the Columbia River Gorge, but to get there we had to go through central Oregon. We traveled on a two-lane road through heavy forest for a good part of the morning, and then we stopped for lunch with my mother's cousin and her husband in Bend. That afternoon we enjoyed seeing the Cascade Mountains to the west of the highway, and we tried to guess which mountains we were actually seeing. I didn't realize that the Cascades include Lassen Peak and Mt. Shasta which are in California - so we actually started seeing the Cascades a few days before. They are beautiful.

Late that afternoon we reached the Columbia River Gorge. Lots of people were still out on the river boating, windsurfing, and water skiing. It looked like lots of fun. We crossed over the river to stay two nights in a lovely campground in Washington state. We were not close enough to see the river there, but we were surrounded by a beautiful forest.

Once we got to the coast, we experienced some changes. The weather was much cooler, the campgrounds more crowded, and there were mosquitos due to swampy areas in the campgrounds. We spent two nights in the state campground at Fort Stevens. My dad's cousin and his wife, and their two sweet grandchildren, came down from Washington state to visit with us on our only full day there. Michaela was so happy to have other kids to play with! We tried to go to the beach, but it was terribly windy. A short walk/bike ride away was a really beautiful freshwater lake with a sandy beach.

It was hard for Michaela to say goodbye to Evan and Lily! She kept talking about them and expecting them to show up at our next campgrounds. Bless her heart!

From Fort Stevens we traveled to Honeyman State Park where my mother was pretty sure we'd stayed back in the day. We weren't happy with the section of the campground we were staying in, and our RV had a "sanitation issue" that needed to be dealt with. So we cancelled our second night, and traveled south to the Coos Bay area where stayed in a beautiful campground on a marina.

Not only was the campground at Winchester Bay in a lovely location, they had great amenities, and shops and restaurants were within walking distance. There was a mile-long path around the campground for walking or bike riding. The sunsets were breathtaking. Our RV was repaired onsite, too. So that was super convenient.

Our last two nights of camping were spent at Klamath River RV park on the banks of the aforementioned river. We all remembered staying there before. It is a very beautiful and peaceful spot. One evening the whole campground, or so it seemed, got very excited when a mother bear and her two cubs were spotted jogging along the other side of the river.

That RV park was just minutes away from the Trees of Mystery. The only thing I remembered about it from when I was a kid was the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Michaela liked running along the path. They have a new sky tram that takes you up to a viewing deck, but the day we were there was cloudy and drizzly. So there wasn't much to see.

After that, it was time to head home. We spent two more days on the road, but we were just ready to be done. My mom and dad worked so hard before, during, and after the trip that they need a vacation from the vacation. As much as I wanted to like RVing, I just don't think it's the most enjoyable way for me to travel. I much prefer staying in an area, and having a home base from which to explore the points of interest. Like I said before, once we arrived at our campground(s), we were stuck until the next scheduled travel day.

The Pacific Northwest is absolutely beautiful, and I hope to see it again someday - differently!

Summer, Finally

Today is the first day of our summer break. I was actually thrilled to do my Trader Joe's shopping late this morning - no crowd! That is a summertime perk for me.

Looking back, I am so relieved to put that school year behind me. I just didn't have that special connection with my class this year that I enjoy most years, and it was really hard every day. I am hopeful that next year's class will be a better fit for me. On top of that, we went an entire school year without a settled contract. I'll spare you the details of that, but suffice it to say that morale was/is low. Such a drag.

Looking ahead, I've got seventy days of slower mornings (no 5 AM alarm!) and fun adventures with Michaela. So, how will we spend our time this summer? Here's the plan:

Swim lessons - last summer, Michaela and I started Mommy & Me lessons, but by the fall she had progressed to semi-private lessons in the "big pool". Grammy and Papa have been taking her to swim lessons all school year, and I almost decided to end them until I saw her in the pool last weekend. She just wasn't putting it all together, and I decided then that she needed to continue. Also, since I haven't been going with her, I didn't know what she's supposed to work on. Now that I'll be there, I will know what we can work on when we go swimming this summer.

VBS - unfortunately our church is not doing a traditional VBS this year, but I was able to register Michaela for VBS at another church in town. It's a church that Michael used to play at frequently on Sundays, and I did visit a time or two back then. Some churches don't include preschoolers in their VBS programs, but this one does. I have fond memories of VBS when I was a kid, and I hope Michaela will have a great time. In the future I will volunteer, but this year I'm going to enjoy having those three hours to myself.

School Skills Class - Michaela has aged out of the leveled classes at Gymboree, but they offer this class for 3-5 year olds. I'm only going to enroll her for one month because of our other plans, and it's just a once a week class. I hope it will be a good transition to preschool because Michaela will start that in September. I like that it's a drop-off class so that I can have some time to myself.

Camping - we are taking a two-week RV trip with my parents. We'll travel all the way to the Columbia River Gorge, then west to the Oregon Coast. We did this when I was a kid, and I'm excited to see beautiful Oregon once again.

San Francisco - we will spend several days in SF with our good friends Teresa, Toby, and Wren. Michaela is looking forward to the kids' museums and fun playgrounds, and Mommy is looking forward to time with friends, good food, and great wine.

Other summertime plans seem to be annual desires/needs like exercising, eating healthy, cooking, getting organized, Bible study, more regular church attendance, and more time with family and friends. Those things really should be part of life all the time, but I just don't seem to be able to do it all when I'm working.

When I was young(er) summer always used to seem so full of promise. Exciting things happened during summer - new friendships and experiences enriched my life. In fact, it was twenty years ago this summer that I fell in love with Michael. I don't have those same kinds of expectations of summer anymore, but it sure is sweet to have fewer responsibilities - if only temporarily.

Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world. ~Ada Louise Huxtable