32 Flavors and Then Some

On January 17, I will turn 32. Thirty was a breeze, 31 was a little tougher because I was "in my thirties," and I'm not sure yet how I feel about 32. Husband Mike always does wonderfully introspective things on his birthdays, like making lists of accomplishments and goals. I generally just shop. And eat. And sometimes bowl.

My birthday is odd in several ways. My mom was raised Presbyterian, dad Jewish, and although we never went to church OR temple, we celebrated every holiday from either religion that involved either giving presents or a big meal or both. So that means that winter was a blur of gifts - Hanukkah, Christmas, birthday - and then the rest of the year was one big dry spell. If I wanted something big as a kid, I had three shots at it right in a row ... and then a long wait.

Additionally, my sister and I were born two years apart on the same day. (I KNOW, isn't that crazy?!?) We didn't have a lot of actual fights about it, but let me tell you, having to share the one day that's all about you with your ONLY sibling just plain sucks.

So although I've had a few big bday bashes in my time, I generally spend my birthday alone. It's a relatively recent tradition, but one that I thoroughly enjoy. You may find this hard to believe, but I'm a major introvert: I recharge by spending time on my own. And although I may not be as contemplative as my hubby during my quiet lunches and trips to the outlet mall, I've come to enjoy this annual alone-time. It makes my birthday truly mine again.

All right, enough navel-gazing. Let's talk wishlist! I'll lay 17 items on you, in honor of being born on the 17th. I'm a size medium, dress and shoe size 8 and if any of you can make any of these things happen, I will be truly floored. I mean hey, if you don't ask, the answer is always, "no!" My P.O. box address is in the left rail. Birthday cards, mix CDs, and haikus will make me equally happy to anything listed below, too.

1. Free French Fries for life: I'm partial to Wendy's, but not overly picky.

2. A complete set of Garnet Hill's Asian Wrap PJs: I have the pink cherry blossom set and I love them truly, madly, and deeply. I am weirdly picky about PJs, requiring them to be cotton knit, have no buttons or trim, and not be binding in any way. My research leads me to believe that the folks at GH have nailed my personal PJ formula and it would delight me endlessly to have a drawerful of these babies.

3.Fluevog's Blind Faith Hi Helen: I tried these on last summer and swore they weren't "me" ... but they've lingered in my mind, and I'm pretty sure that I could rock them after all. However, they're just impractical enough that I can't justify buying. Oh, and there's also that whole shopping ban thang.

6. Kenneth Cole Motorway Flap in Ash: This is most perfect gray handbag I've ever seen, and now I can't find it anywhere in gray. Dangit!

5. Notecards monogrammed with my initials: All handwritten notes by me come on blank sheets of printer paper. Or on the backs of old photo prints from Husband Mike. I sign my initials SMc (small c!) and would love to have monogrammed notecards so that I can fool people into thinking that I'm a lady.

6. A heather gray cashmere wrap: It gets cooooold in my office, and my current wrap is getting full of holes.

7. The chance to help George Clooney: Most of my celebrity crushes fall on the craggy-faced Englishmen of Hollywood: Daniel Craig, Christian Bale, Tim Roth. But I have such a soft spot for the Cloons. He's a gorgeous human and, from what I can tell, a truly good soul. My one and only celebrity fantasy is about him, and since it's 100% clean, I'll share it with you all: I fervently wish that George Clooney would end up in my neighborhood, in need of some minor help - his car has a flat, his cell phone is out of juice, he needs to pee - and that he'd knock on my door and ask ME to help him. And I could say, "George Clooney! You're wonderful! I'd be delighted to help you." That's it. Please refrain from making fun of my lameness.

8. Liza Reitz's Ruffle Dress: SOOOOOO PREEEEEETY.

9. A command performance from Eddie Izzard: This would pretty much allow me to die happy.

10. Some interesting silver hoop earrings: I'm a big devotee of hoops and I've got the basics well covered. I also purchased a great pair of semi-tribal ones and a fun pair that have a slightly antique finish, but both of them are turning a greenish color. That's what I get for buying cheap! They were both in heavy rotation before they began to molt, and I'm having no luck finding replacements.

11. Long length hoodies: Like this or this or this. Now that I'm a convert to the Cult of Leggings, I'm always looking for tunic-y tops to wear with them. I love hoodies of all kinds, but have been jonesing for a longer one.

12. Black or gray slouchy socks: I love big, tall socks that I can sqwunch up atop my short boots. I've got navy and brown covered, but somehow forgot to pick up a couple pairs of tall black or gray ones. And there's no WAY I'm thrifting socks, people.

13. For my cats to speak English: JUST for a day, even. How rad would that be?

14. Kiehl's SPF lip balm in hue #30G and Aveda All-sensitive moisturizer and Aveda All-sensitive Cleanser: I'm almost out of all of these flavors of goo simultaneously. I use them all daily and trust them completely, yet for some reason buying expensive beauty products still drives me batso.

15. Chan Luu semiprecious stretch bracelet set: You're probably looking at these and thinking, "Geez, Sal, you could make those pretty easily." Believe me, I've investigated doing just that. They wouldn't look half so awesome, and would cost nearly as much anyway. I've lusted after this set for at least three years.

16. Some help paying down the 2 pair of Fluevogs I already have on layaway: Just call Leigh Ann at the Chicago brick-and-mortar store. I'll be doing so myself, if Grandma Dixie comes through with a check!

17. Black merino cowl neck from BR: Sadly, my cashmere cowl neck is getting a bit threadbare ... and it's a wardrobe staple.

For a considerably less selfish and materialistic list of things that would ALSO make me happy on my 32nd, click here. Thanks for indulging my birthday wishes!

Images courtesy solutionfm.com, Garnet Hill, StyleBell.

Already Prettypoll: Gymstyle

As someone who rails on and on about the connection between looking good and feeling good, I dress APPALLINGLY for my workouts. Sure, I have a decent pair of nylon pants and a moderately fitted black hoodie, but I wear loose, unflattering heather gray men's t-shirts and big, clonky-ass Reeboks with them. I've always felt that investing big buxx in clothing that is going to do nothing but act as a sweatrag makes no sense, and have maintained that philosophy for YEARS.

But I know that many would disagree. (Are your ears tingling, enc?)

What's your philosophy on workout gear? Practical or pretty? Comfy or cool? Or is it important to you to find clothes that are both athletically accommodating and aesthetically awesome? (And if so, where do you shop?!?)

Can Someone Please Explain ...

... why on earth I've been lusting after THESE for months?

Tuscadora Boots
via Sundance Catalog

And was excited once they went on sale and were finally affordable? I mean, seriously. How many pairs of clonky, un-feminine shoes and boots do I have to buy before I realize that I'm a GIRL who likes GIRLY SHOES????!?!?11/!!???

Eesh. It's a good thing they're no longer available in size 8, or I'd be sunk.

On Stylistic Bravery

"...what I've learned is that you will never please everyone with the way you dress, so it's far better to dress for yourself and attract the sort of people whose opinions you care the most about. What do I care if some stuffy, unimaginative person doesn't like my clothes? It's the interesting, creative people I really want to hang around with, and they are generally the ones who like the way I dress. If you always dress for yourself, and to express yourself, then the people who gravitate to you will be the ones who really get you."

~ Audi
Fashion for Nerds

Ban Week 12: $10 Spent on ...

... more nothing. Second week without purchasing anything, due to camel-colored coatgate.

Week 12 was the week of Christmas, and I wore this outfit to work on Christmas Eve:

Cream cardi via Banana Republic outlet, years ago
Cream lace cami via Banana Republic, years ago
High-waisted black skirt via The Mexican Shop
Snaky silver belt via ARC's Value Village
Sheer black thigh-highs by Hue
Kristen-Hi spectator pumps via John Fluevog
Faux pearls made by me

We only had to work half a day on Christmas Eve, thanks to our generous management, and MANY people asked me why the hell I was so dressed up. I had no real excuse.

The cami pictured here was a very expensive impulse buy about 4 years back. It's utterly gorgeous, with lots of depth and color to the creamy lace. I think it set me back $80 or something ridiculous like that and I don't think I've worn it in at least two years, maybe three. What with the recent lacy trend, I thought it was a perfect candidate for wardrobe revival!

I got rather a large amount of cash from my generous in-laws and granny, which - you'll be unsurprised to hear - was spent online IMMEDIATELY. Yup, on your advice, the advice of Husband Mike, and my own advice, I decided I could spend my gift money on anything I wanted. And having been unable to buy new clothing, shoes, and accessories for a full three months, that's exactly what I spend my holiday moolah on. In frighteningly record time.

On the off chance you're curious, I bought:

Diesel Go-go slouch boots
(as you already know from yesterday's gloat-a-thon)

Sequin skirt from Express

Floor-length full skirt from Express

Lace skirt from Overstock

Shell pearls from eBay

Kind of a lot of black and white stuff for a girl who rails on and on about color, eh? Well, these quasi-basics were all on the list, and even though I'm a little ashamed to admit how quick I was to purchase them all, I felt both pragmatic and satisfied with every single item. ESPECIALLY those boots, which I'd been lusting after since I tried them on in Chicago at Thanksgiving. Yum!

This spending spree differed from holiday blitzes of years past in several good ways:

1. I didn't spend my gift money AND a bunch more of my own money on top of it. I spent exactly what I was given, and not a penny more.
   
   
2. I didn't feel disappointed and empty after making all of my purchases, but instead merely felt excited to get them delivered to my back porch.
   
   
3. I didn't allow myself any in-person shopping, either once the gift money was received or after it had all been spent. I am much more inclined to overspend when faced with multitudinous bargains in person. By buying everything online, I could just narrow down my pre-selected wishlist items, and that helped me maintain focus. Since I didn't cruise the shops afterwards, I wasn't tempted to just keep spending even after the money was gone.
   

However, the fact that I bought all of this stuff before even DEPOSITING some of my gift money just proves to me that I am learning about myself ... but not necessarily changing. And a recent conversation with a girlfriend made me realize that the most I can really hope for - without petitioning outside help, perhaps from an actual 12-step program - is just to gain awareness. My urges are unlikely to change, and I will still spend like a madwoman when I give myself permission to do so. My goal should really be mindfulness and impulse control, not a total transformation of my thoughts and behaviors surrounding spending.

It was both enlightening and a little disappointing to have to reexamine my end-goal and pare it down. But better to understand what I'm reasonably capable of and achieve my goal than to set a pie-in-the-sky goal and fall short.

Stay tuned for more underutilized wardrobe fun!

I'M NEEDED IN MIAMI.

"MIAMI – State troopers are looking for a charity to take thousands of shoes that were dumped on a Miami expressway, tying up rush hour traffic. Lt. Pat Santangelo says the Florida Highway Patrol received a call about the shoes Friday morning.

Santangelo says he's not sure where the shoes came from. There were no signs of a crash and no one stopped to claim them. He says he hopes someone will take them because he doesn't want to send them to the dump.

Workers using a front-end loader and a dump truck were able to quickly clear at least one lane by sweeping all the shoes to shoulder, but delays were expected until they could all be removed."

This story found via Yahoo News/AP - click link for more images and video.

Image above by AP Photo/Alan Diaz.

This week I love ...

... when patience pays off.

Diesel Go-Go
(More/better photos here, iffen you're curious.)

When I visited the Diesel store in Chicago over Thanksgiving, I saw these lovelies walking around on a saleswoman. Having searched high and low for a pair of heeled slouchy boots that didn't look too cowboy-esque, I found myself drooling at the mere sight of these. I tried them on, and drooled yet more. Comfy, chic, and versatile, they could be worn with the shaft smooth-and-up or slouchy-and-down and were crafted from the sexiest, butteriest leather ever created. They were $400. And hot tamales, not only was I on a shopping ban, but I had never spent that much on a single pair of shoes before.

On Christmas Eve, Grandma Dixie came through with a generous holiday check. According to friends, family, and husbands, gift money = ban-resistant money! And, lo and behold, these boots were magically $200 on the Diesel website.

They are winging their slouchy way to me as we speak. And I'm preposterously excited to wear them.

Also New for 2009

Husband Mike signed a Tuesday e-mail to me as follows:

-Mike McgRaw
(I think we should capitalize the R instead of the G from now on)


Which fits perfectly because we're so damn RAW!!! Both of us. GRRRROWWWWWLLL!!!!!!!!! Fear our crazy rawness, you cooked people of the world. Aw yeah.

Love,
Sally McgRaw

I Resolve

I'm usually not a resolution kinda gal, but an important potential personal project sprung up in front of me at the gym last week. And who am I to deny a gym-related epiphany?

I want you to feel good about yourself. And I want to feel good about MYSELF, too. And I think I do a decent job of preaching the word to us both. But as I trundled around the track in a post-holiday haze of carbs and exhaustion, I realized that I am still neutral-to-judgmental about other women that I encounter in the flesh. I feel jealousy, pity, and confusion when confronted with other bodies. I get really, really anxious. I compare myself to each woman I see, as if all female bodies are in competition.

I'd like to knock that the hell off. I'd like to do that this year.

• I resolve to smile supportively at every woman who meets my eyes, be she big or small, tight or floppy, tall or tiny, old or young.
  
  
• I resolve to think of every woman at my gym as a fellow crusader for personal health! GO US!
  
  
• I resolve to conceptualize my body like a game of bowling: I'm playing against myself, and myself only. No one else's scores mean a damn thing.
  
  
• I resolve to identify one beautiful thing in every female body I encounter, and celebrate it either aloud or silently. If aloud, I will encourage all companions - of both genders - to do the same.

Are any of your New Year's resolutions related to your body or body image? How do you plan to follow through with them?

Image courtesy uyen.tran.

My, How I've Changed

I get a little weirded out doing posts that are super mememeMEEEEE-centric, but it's New Year's Eve and everyone's doing a little self-related mulling, right? I mean ... right, you guys? Tell me I'm not a big self-absorbed weenie for writing this post, OK?

OK. I'm gonna pretend you already said so.

I feel like my style has changed a lot over the course of 2008, and all for the better. I wanted to do a big-giant photo retrospective to prove it to you, but discovered that most of my outfit posts were published AFTER the change had really taken effect. However we do have this:

April

So I'm a big fan of the embellished skirt. It's been a wardrobe staple for me for years, and this is a classic example of a Sal-outfit: Totally cute skirt with matching top. And it's a formula that totally works, and I will continue to employ it at times.

But in reading more about style, and seeing more images of creative outfits from you amazing folks, I realized that I could expand beyond this formula.

July

Aside from being a little bunchy, this dress and its associated outfit are getting closer to to creativity. I know it just makes some folks cringe, but I liked matching my red shoes to red necklace here.

August

The only really adventurous thing here is that I'm wearing pink pants. But hey, STILL getting warmer. And doesn't Tiff look hawt in her pink pants?

August

Yeah. I mostly just wanted to show you my beloved seersucker dress and big floppy hat again. Though hat-wearing is also a relatively new thing for me. I mean, besides fleecy head-warming winter gear.

October

So this, I feel, was a turning point outfit for me. It was my first necklace pile. It was the first time I wore my grey suede booties with black pants. It felt elegant and interesting and unusual ... and it didn't rely on a piece of clothing that was, in itself, pretty and eye-catching. I mean, the cardi is bright and all, but it's not the same as an adorable embellished skirt that sucks up all the available style in an outfit. Know what I mean?

October

I took a lot of outfit shots in October, as you'll see. More hattage! Still need a hatpin for that bad boy. Or some way to velcro it to my hair.

October again

That shirt is covered with weiner dogs, in case you can't see them/don't remember me proudly stating that fact back in October.

Yet more October

One of my first creative layering jobs of the year. I still worry that this looks majorly 80s, and not in a good way ... but it felt like a worthwhile experiment that showed me how simple pieces are made interesting when paired in unusual ways.

October. Big shocker.

My first foray into tights with sandals. NEVER thought I'd try such a thing ... but now am wishing there wasn't a foot of snow on the ground so I could try it more.

October

Proof that, although my ankle-length tapered skirt collection MUST get chopped and hemmed, floor-length skirts can be fun and sassy. This was also one of my first shopping ban purchases, proving that clothing needn't be new to be exciting and fun!

November

As I mentioned at the time, I bought that crazily patterned dress 8 years ago. I was never able to pull it off until this year. I'm so excited to have found a creative way to wear it - thanks to E.

November

See? Still have to go for the cute-skirt-formula sometimes. And still love it. Just glad to have expanded my horizons a bit.

All December

You've seen these fairly recently, so I won't regale you with detailage. But I feel like these ensembles present yet more examples of creative pairings that work ... versus falling back on individually enviable pieces as focal points.

All December

You've seen these REAAAALLLY recently, so again, little comment except to say that I'm particularly proud of that last getup. It's pretty weird, I'll admit. But it felt really good to swan around my office in it and feel totally confident that I could pull off something that weird without looking like I'd finally misplaced my marbles for good.

I feel like I've grown stylistically this year to the point that I can create and wear unusual, experimental-esque outfits and feel and look great while doing it. And I have this wonderful community of bloggers and readers to thank for it. So, hey, THANKS, you gorgeous people!

Have you changed stylistically this year? What's different now? What do you want to do differently in 2009?