Workwear Week of 3/20/17

Spring has sprung! Monday was the first day of Spring and I made it my goal to wear floral every single day. Turns out I only have four work-appropriate floral pieces… whoops! I was hesitant when StitchFix sent me my first floral piece (the very pink floral top) because I was sure I didn’t like floral, but it turns out I was wrong.

Monday I rocked my new Old Navy tank, white ankle pants and nude flats plus my rose-colored light cardigan. Remember when I concluded that rose is my color? Again I got crazy compliments wearing this cardigan in a new way so it’s official… buy all the rose things! Rose pants, rose blouses, rose shoes? Yes yes yes!

On Tuesday I repeated the muted color Target floral shell to see if it looked good tucked into a black pencil skirt (it does) and I wore it sleeveless because it’s still crazy hot right now. I felt very teacher-ish in this shot because of the double-shoulder-bags-black-coffee look before I loaded into my car to go to work. Ha!

Another PLC Meeting, another dress! The weather was beautiful and overcast so we took our meeting to a Starbucks patio and it was fabulous. This is actually a maternity dress I bought during my last pregnancy and I think it worked really well with the mustard cardigan. Plus, it’s a pretty standard wrap style so I’m thinking I can wear it a bit more before I have to retire it?

You know what I love about StitchFix? They have so many shirts with great little details and I feel like in this picture you can really see the blue embroidery trim around the neckline in this picture. It just adds another great layer to this blouse. Some crazy weather flew in so I went back to my plum cardigan for warmth.

aaaaaand I’m all out of floral- sad day. But polka dots! Another awesome pattern filled in the gap. Black jeans, best ever ModCloth purchase neck tie blouse and my totally awesome PI Canvas bag for casual Friday.

Workwear Week of 3/13/17

Oh my goodness life is crazy right now! Too many birthdays. Too much preparation for state testing. Too many out of town family visits. I can’t keep up with anything! But I still got dressed for work every morning and I still took selfies so I’ve got some outfits to share.

I stayed home Monday since the baby had a slight fever and was incredibly fussy. That made Tuesday my first workday and I decided to keep it simple with my polka dot ankle pants, a sheer maroon blouse and black flats. Accidentally snapped my badge in the shot so had to blur out the details…

Wednesday is PLC Meeting day. As the Algebra 1 leader I like to look my most professional on Wednesdays (if possible) and dragged my favorite ModCloth dress out of the pre-pregnancy box. The weather is back in the 90s so this cardigan lasted about a minute. The dress is sleeveless and incredibly flattering so I felt comfortable even without my cardigan.

My mother calls this floral “old lady” but that’s definitely my fashion style so it’s perfect for me right? I love the color scheme in this blouse and it works with every cardigan I own so obviously I need to pair it with each one once right? This combo is black ankle pants, black flats, and a long teal cardigan that again did not last after the temps hit 90…

St. Patrick’s Day! Have you ever been pinched by a 15yr old? Because I have. Once. And I will never forget green on St. Patty’s day ever again. I didn’t feel like wearing my green sweater (too hot) or my newest green StitchFix blouse (wore it a lot lately) so I went with my green StitchFix and a white blouse, jeans, and gold flats. I didn’t even pretend to myself that it’d be nice enough for a sweater and went sleeveless all day.

That’s it! I think it may be time for some compilation posts to see what pieces I’ve been repeating the most? Can’t quite remember any more what I’ve already done…

Workwear Week of 2/27/17

Did you miss me? I was on Spring Break! Which means I wore pajamas almost every day… don’t judge. But I’m back with another week of teacher outfits for you.

 

Over the weekend I was a pinning monster and I saw an outfit I could execute immediately with my newest sweater from StitchFix. I felt professional, put together, and warm on this chilly windy day. What I don’t understand from the picture is how she doesn’t look bulky where the sweater is tucked in? Maybe this really only works if you don’t have a recently-delivered-a-baby stomach pooch…

Tuesday it was still really cold so I opted for another sweater. This one I purchased from Target about 8 years ago and I’m still wearing it today because I love the deep purple color so much. Matched it with my blank ankle pants and black flats. I’m still getting the hang of selfies and you can see the end of my side braid hanging out in this one. Whoops.

Wednesday was my favorite outfit this week! I can’t get enough of color so I’m always pairing weird ones together like this teal cardigan with my hot pink pants. Throw in polka dots (one of my favorite patterns) and how can you go wrong? P.S. taking my pictures outside is so much more realistic because you get to see me holding my coffee, car keys, and wearing my work/pump bag which is my life.

Polka dots back to back! No shame in my favorite print. Although I think it’s time to retire this maternity blouse. It’s not doing my post partum body any favors. I’ve worn this outfit with my mustard cardigan and my white cardigan so the only combination left is my navy blue cardigan and I loved it! Plus more coffee and this time paperwork.

Casual Friday I wore another StitchFix favorite with this bright green blouse, but this time I half-tucked it into my only pair of jeans. I took this picture before going to work, so I wonder if I suffered from pit stains all day? Hmmm… Also, shout out to any button-front blouse that can handle nursing boobs without gaping wide open.

This was technically the week before Spring Break (hey, I was on vacation!) so I’ll be posting another week of outfits that match a two week and 20 degree difference.

Workwear Week of 2/20/17

Is there such thing as a bad four day workweek? I don’t think so. My week was good, my lessons were great, and there’s only one more week before Spring Break! Hallelujah! I’m dying to have a week with my baby who is now three months old. Plus, I’ll have time to plan my toddler’s 2yr birthday party and hopefully complete some projects around the house.

I enjoyed getting dressed every day this week and received a lot of compliments. Taking the selfies was a challenge, but I’ve begun to realize natural light (instead of the fluorescent bulbs in the storage closet that I use to pump) are going to be a must from here on out!

Tuesday was a pink and blue StitchFix floral blouse, navy cardigan, and brown work pants. Standard work fare.

Wednesday was the highlight of my week. I’m starting to believe that looking good leads to feeling good leads to having a good day. Even my afterschool meeting turned out amazing since we opted to meet at a Starbucks and enjoy the fresh air on the patio. As for the outfit itself, I think rose might be my new favorite color to wear and I enjoyed mixing up my accessory game by going for big sparkly earrings. I liked this outfit so much that I thought I’d try something new and deconstruct it for you since it was hard to get all the little details in my selfie.

Thursday was more basic and all neutrals with my lace sleeve StitchFix top, black ankle pants and black flats. I felt sleek and professional and the outfit was easy.

Finally, I’m debuting my other window shopping purchase with this floral shell from Target (on clearance), my plum cardigan and some jeans for casual Friday. The quality of this picture over the others can’t be denied. I had one of the worst luck days by first forgetting both my phone and keys at home, then spilling coffee in my lap on my drive, and then my poor baby spiked a fever and cried for me all day forcing me to scramble to find substitute coverage last minute so I could go home after lunch. Despite all of that being put together motivated my productivity and I got a ton (almost all) of my grading done in anticipation of the end of the quarter.

Can’t wait for my holiday!

 

 

Workwear Week of 2/13/17

IT’S SPIRIT WEEK! As a Freshman teacher I take spirit week very seriously. Students need role models and if we want them to buy into our school community we have to show them that WE buy in too. Of course, that means my outfits were a bit wacky and include an outfit I refuse to share (Don’t “sweat” the small stuff, I’ll leave it at that). I also learned that there are a few more maternity pieces I need to put away into deep storage because not only do they not fit my not-pregnant body they were also completely unflattering.

Sunday we went out for my brother in law’s birthday dinner and had amazing burgers. I wore this simple ready in 10 minutes boots-jeans-tank-colored cardigan combo because it’s effortless and can withstand my crazy kids. You’ll see this outfit combination with each of my cardigans eventually because it’s a template I return to often.

Monday (not pictured). Sorry not sorry I am sparing you this one.

Tuesday was Valentine’s Day so the theme was pink and purple. I originally had a hot pink shirt with my hot pink pants but the newborn puked all over and I had to go with a backup. I did not realize how bad this maternity top looked on me and I will not be wearing it again…

Wednesday was SuperHero day so I took the opportunity to bust out one of my nerdy math shirts. Spirit week always includes some very unprofessional outfits. This one wasn’t so awful though.

Thursday was Tie Dye to signal diversity (different colors coming together) but I own ZERO tie dye so I skipped and wore a standard work outfit. My kids were disappointed which tells me I need to invest in at least one tie dye shirt for future spirit weeks. I wore this StitchFix patterned blouse on date night a few posts back and wanted to see if I could remix it for work and still have it look “different” enough. I think the plum cardigan was a great layer although the silky sleeves felt a little weird underneath the cardigan sleeves.

Friday I was off campus so I decided to debut my newest purchase from my Window Shopping: Patterns post. I LOVE this blouse! It has a cute cutout in the back that’s not so large that I can’t wear a normal bra and a really flattering neckline. I paired it with my white StitchFix maternity jeans (they still fit kind of so I’m not ready to let go) and I was channeling Spring vibes. The blouse was light and breezy and totally wrong for the cold windy overcast day we had after three days of sunshine- whoops! I was indoors all day so it didn’t matter that much but still funny.

There you have it! Another week of teacher fashion with some weird Spirit Week looks mixed in.

Window Shopping: Patterns

By no means do I have a minimalist wardrobe, but when I make clothing purchases I really try to find pieces that I can remix and incorporate with what I already own. Someday, I’d love a perfectly matched wardrobe of mix-able pieces (like a jumbo sized capsule wardrobe or a few really well put together separate capsule wardrobes) but I’ve never been the best shopper and it’s hard for me to “see” things that work without a lot of time to plan and visualize myself wearing and re wearing a particular item.

Add to my subpar shopping skills the fact that my size/body has been constantly changing for the past three years and it’s safe to say my wardrobe is a mess. Other than my quarterly StitchFix I don’t do any shopping at all, but now that I’ve lost all of the most recent baby weight (plus a little more) I’m feeling like it might be time to start rebuilding and buying a few good things.

With that all out of the way let me get to the point. I’ve been window shopping (browsing on my phone) and there are some trends I really want to try! I mostly own solids, stripes, and polka dots, but right now plaid and floral seem to be trending and I’m digging it. Here are some of the things I eyeballed:

I think I’ll pull the trigger and buy one or two of these items in the next few days once I’ve had enough time to mull them over and decide which ones will get repeated use. What would you wear? Any? None? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Workwear Week of 2/6/17

Last week had a bonus outfit and this week has one less-whoops! We had a district half-day training and while I originally put together a cute black jeans/blouse outfit my beautiful 2 month old decided to projectile vomit 5 minutes before it was time to leave so I had to quickly rinse and change. I ended up in jeans and a college tee (Wednesday is college rep day normally at my school but I skip it) which is fine because that’s life but I just didn’t feeling like snapping a pic since it was boring.

Monday I wear bright colors. This is now a thing I think. So I paired my newest StitchFix blouse with white ankle pants (that look terrible in this picture- yikes) and a chunky gold necklace. This top is so loose , flowy and comfortable. It’s my new favorite and I’m going to have to find more ways to play it off so I can keep it in rotation.

Tuesday I kept it simple with a sleeveless maroon blouse, black cardigan, and put the fun in my polka dotted maternity ankle pants. The waist on these no longer fit but I’m not ready to give them up since I don’t have a patterned replacement pair yet.

Thursday was a lot of fun for me! I stopped wearing this flannel because the cut looks terrible on my new hips, but lo and behold if you tuck it in it blouses in the best way possible and becomes a super cute top again. Go me! I like flannel but this is my only plaid piece and I’m not sure if I love plaid yet? Or really how to wear it in a professional setting…

Casual Friday put me back in jeans but this time I wore them with a black tank, green cardigan, black boots, and gold accessories including my StitchFix layered necklace from the Fix where I kept it all!

 

 

 

Workwear Week of 1/30/17

 

Oh man this week dragged. I’m not sure why, but I struggled with my emotions and leaving my babies every. single. day. It was so bad that I missed my first period class on  Tuesday and had to ask another teacher to sub for me. On the flip side, I’ve been marinating on a new business idea that I’m really hopeful about, looking into the opportunities having my Masters will bring (like community college adjunct positions) as well as planning some big changes to my curriculum and classroom style for next year to make Algebra 1 even better.

Also, did I mention I lost almost 11lbs of baby weight? Even my pre baby pants are starting to get loose and saggy. Having two babies in two years really does a number on a gal so I’ve got a lot more progress to make…

Anyway, let’s bring on the outfits!

It’s been 11 weeks since I’ve been on a date (newborn calendar) so it was great this past Saturday to meet up with friends for Happy Hour to celebrate the end of our fantasy football league (I placed 8/10 the husband placed 5/10 so we pretty much sucked). But wings, beer, and bedazzled winner bibs make everything better. This is a StitchFix top I had not planned on keeping but my toddler hid it so it didn’t get sent back. Might as well make it work right? Black jeans, black boots, and turquoise accessories (plus black eyeliner- say what?!) made me feel great this night.

 

I was not a fan of how my white cardigan look last week went, but I was sure I could make it better this week. A bright orange wrap blouse from StitchFix and a chunky gold necklace saved the day! I was much happier with this outfit.

Rock bottom day needed more color and a lot of comfort. I stayed home with my babies an extra two hours because even the thought of leaving made me break down into tears. I decided to wear one of my favorite sweaters and my polka-dot maternity pixie pants. I swear there’s polka dots down there! These are my only patterned pants and I’m tempted to try more…

Have I mentioned how much I love StitchFix? This another StitchFix top and I love both the brightness and the pattern which is weird since I don’t normally like florals. Paired with some neutrals (grey skirt and navy cardigan) and I was ready for after school meetings. Can’t help but think a nice pair of navy shoes would’ve worked better in this look.

Polka dots! This is a maternity shirt but it’s so float and great I think it works both ways- right? Mustard and navy is one of my favorite combinations so the mustard cardigan was a no brainer to keep warm. This is also the day I really started to notice the lost weight because I had to tie my pants with string to keep them up. It’s gonna  be belts every day from now on.

Not much to say here… except I still love my Seahawks! This is casual Friday (jeans) meets school spirit Footballs Friday (support your team). Plus I love the banter and connections talking football brings to my classroom.

That’s all for this week, but I’ll be back at it again on Monday.

 

Workwear Week of 1/23/17

I survived a full workweek… sort of. Friday I wasn’t in the classroom because of an all-day meeting at the district office. What I’m realizing as I get back into the swing of things is that my kids got really lazy. Some of them actually did NOTHING for the sub and have dug themselves some pretty deep holes. My teaching philosophy centers around learning as a continuous process and so I run my classroom through formative assessments. This allows students to recover their grades so long as they learn the material. I could get into this deeper, but this post is about what I wore so let’s get to the fun stuff!

Monday … the day where bright color is needed the most. To battle the Mondays I opted for some hot pink ankle pants from Old Navy and then to battle the hot pink ankle pants I tried to stick to black and white. I’m not sure I like how the white cardigan looks with the blouse (too late now right?) so I’m going to have to play around with other potential combinations.

Tuesday I went all black with my favorite plum cardigan and a bright green chunky necklace from StitchFix. Keeping it simple and comfy.

Wednesday I had a lot of fun with my favorite ModCloth blouse! Since my sweater was red I opted for a bright red lip stain too which was a ton of fun since I almost always stick to a natural neutral pink color. Can I just bring up the fact that this skirt was a mis-take? Our weather dropped 15 degrees overnight and my car was completely icy. Bad day to have my legs exposed- whoops!

After the blustery windy cold weather of Wednesday I knew I needed to finish the week with cozy sweaters so Thursday I paired my favorite nursing purchase from Motherhood Maternity with a plum tank (repeat on that color), blank ankle pants, my favorite two-tiered necklace from StitchFix and gold flats because you can’t wear your black flats every day amiright? I need to look into expanding my footwear options…

Casual Friday! PLUS I had an all day district meeting so was out of my classroom learning about the expansion and direction our computer programming /STEM program will be going. I’ve been teaching Java at my school for the past five years and built the AP Computer Science A track up from nearly nothing. Now it looks like we’ve got some big changes in our future as we make computer programming a fully fleshed four-year career path for our students and add the complete software development picture plus real world internship opportunities for our high school students. Now if only I could get more than 15 kids to sign up… Anyway I opted for another sweater (very old, probably from Target) a warm coat my husband bought me for Christmas a few years back (also from Target) black riding boots and jeans. P.S. these are actually maternity jeans (zipper-less with side panels) and I’m a little bummed I can’t wear them any more because after an hour or two of movement they started to sag in weird places without my huge preggo belly holding them up.

That’s about it for this week in old-lady-teacher-fashion land!

Workwear Week of 1/16/17

This week marked my first day back from an 8-week maternity leave. I was fortunate enough to 1) come back on a 4-day school week and 2) to fit into my pre-second-pregnancy clothes thanks to maintaining my healthy pregnancy eating habits even after delivery. That means I was able to bring down my work-clothes tub and have my pick of the litter! Plus I got to add my newest StitchFix goodies into my rotation (see my StitchFix review here). Without further ado, here’s what I wore and how my first days back as an Algebra teacher went:

Tuesday I wanted bright colors to brighten my mood as I said goodbye to my babies for the first time in 2 months. My toddler wasn’t even awake when I left so no goodbye kisses for mommy. This mustard cardigan and corral necklace (yay I can wear jewelry again!) did the trick. Not sure if I’m allowed to mix those two colors but I did and it made me happy. Coming into work I knew where we were in the calendar scope/sequence but had no idea what I’d be teaching or what materials I’d be using since normally the curriculum is something I create. I survived on adrenaline, anxiety and “you look so good!” compliments without breaking down and missing my babies too too much.

Wednesday I debuted my blouse from the latest StitchFix box and I LOVED it. The sleeves are a great length and the blouse doesn’t pull wide open at the buttons. Plus it was super convenient to have the buttons because they allowed me to nurse my newborn without having to undress and redress before work.

Thursday was cold and rainy so I went with all black and white, but added a pop of color through dark lipstick and made my unwashed hair work by putting it in a side braid.

Casual Fridays means us teachers get to wear jeans. Since the temp is actually below 50 I thought today was the perfect day for my new striped StitchFix sweater with blue jeans and my black riding style boots. I also paired this with my grandma necklace which was a keepsake my mother made for us when she passed away 10 years ago. The hormones had me feeling sentimental and emotional and having her memory with me gave me the strength to go to work.

I really do love being back to work, having a good reason to style myself, and even taking my storage room selfies before I pump. I’m already looking forward to what I’ll wear next week. See you then!