managing expectations

    One of the first things we learn in practical law school classes is that one our jobs as a lawyer is to manage the expectations of our clients.  This means making sure they know what to expect and what is in the realm of reality as opposed to the realm of TV or dreamland.  
    How does this connect with the blog?  Well, as it turns out studying for the bar sucks, a lot.  My routine as recommended by Kaplan is supposed to be this: in-class video from 9am-1pm, lunch from 1-2pm, homework from 2-6 pm, dinner/break from 6-7 pm, then more homework/reviewing from 7-9pm.  For the moment, I'm not sticking anywhere need to this schedule, and that's ok.  First of all because its the first week and I need to ease into it.  Second, because I like having a life.  Third, I don't want to burn out weeks before I actually take the bar.  Instead, my schedule, for the moment looks more like: in class video from 9am-1pm, lunch/break from 1-3pm, work (non-bar stuff) from 2-6pm, making and then eating dinner from 6-7:30pm, homework from 7:30-9pm, relax from 9-11pm, bed at 11pm.  
   I have managed my own expectations as to how much to work and when to work harder for studying for the bar.  What I haven't done is manage YOUR expectations of this blog.  You see, because I'm spending my mornings in a classroom in the law school, I am quite often cold.  This has resulted in wearing sweats to class.  I tried wearing jeans the other day and I was mighty uncomfortable.  So my rule for this summer is dresses or flexible waistbands, like the sweatpants I'm wearing today.  As a result, I'm afraid that you all might be expecting me to have tons of outfit photos with accompanying posts detailing my super cute summer wardrobe.  If that is true, I am sorry, but that won't be happening.  I'm hoping to have some cute weekend outfits and maybe an occasional weekday outfit, but I'm pretty sure my summer wardrobe will consist of sweats and t-shirts.  It kind of hurts me to admit that, but I would rather manage your (and my) expectations and exceed them rather than disappoint you all summer long.  
    Soooooooooo please forgive me.

I haz job

    Boys and girls, I have a job.  I interviewed about 2 months ago and got the offer 2 weeks ago.  The Fiance and I went to visit the office on Monday and Tuesday and we accepted the offer.  Its a small firm in a nice little town where I will get to practice the law I love, namely workers' compensation, personal injury and medical malpractice.  We're in the process of figuring out our living situation, where and when we'll be living there as well as other things like salary, benefits, commuting and of course a job for The Fiance.  Nonetheless, I am over the moon.  This is incredibly exciting and I wanted to make sure to share it with all of you.  Thanks for the support and believing in me. 

pretty dresses

    Tuesday afternoon, The Fiance and I were shopping at a great mall on our way back from a trip (more on that later) and I headed into aerie to see if I could get some cute undies.  I love their boyshort undies for sleeping, SO comfy! (sorry for the TMI).  So I was walking around checking out the different undies and the sales chick commented to me that she really liked my dress.  She said "I really wish more of our customers wore their pretty dresses to shop."  We then talked a bit about how having pretty dresses and not wearing them was a waste and that we shouldn't wait until special occasions to wear them.  
    I had this HUGE light bulb moment while talking to her.  WHY DO WE WAIT FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS TO WEAR OUR PRETTY CLOTHES?  I mean, really, why do we?  I started thinking about this and have come up with a few things.  
    Special occasions = cute.  This means that when a special occasion comes along, we want to look cute or extra cute or super duper extra cute.  Generally, this entails something new.  For this time of year, that also means spring/summer dresses.   Now, I'll be the first to admit it, I'm guilty of buying new dresses for special occasions.  Just in the past month I bought 2 dresses for my graduation weekend.  But the thing is, I didn't just put the dresses back in the closet in a garment bag awaiting the next special occasion.  I trotted it out on Tuesday instead.  I was originally going to wear it for an important meeting, but since the meeting took place the day before, I still wore the dress anyway.  It made me really happy to walk around in this beautiful dress on a regular day.  And it made me wonder, what if I do this regularly?  What if I wear pretty dresses and other pretty outfits just because?  So that's my plan.  I'm going to dress up and look cute just because.  And I like it.

Holes in my closet

    Now that my semester of not shopping is over as well as the uber busy graduation season, I wanted to share with you one of the things I learned from my shopping ban.  I have some serious holes in my closet.  HUGE in fact.  And now that I'll be entering the job market in August, I need to figure out how to fill these holes relatively cheaply in the next few months.   

My List
- blouses
- light knit sweaters
- blazers!
- cardigans in different colors, shapes and prints
- work appropriate skirts
- dresses (oh how I have fallen in love with dresses as of late)
- jewelry--it turns out that the reason I don't wear a lot of jewelry is b/c I don't have a lot of stuff that goes with different things.
- trousers, in particular ones I can wear to work as mine are all too big and really worn. 

How do you decide what holes are in your closet?  How do you decide what to fill first?

Feeling like poo

    So I have a sore throat and am in some back pain.  I think my body waited until all the craziness of exams, graduation and family visiting was over and then gave up.  At least I have nothing major that I need to do or prepare for in the next few days.  Hoping that I'll be ok by this weekend so that I'll have some outfits to post.

Necklaces!

   My uncle sent me a few of his necklaces and I wanted to share them with all of you.  I've posted one necklace so far on my Etsy site and plan on posting more as well as some bracelets.  I will also be hosting a giveaway of one of the necklaces in a bit.  

Let me know what you guys think!

Graduated

Family Circus

    So my parents and little sister are in town this weekend for my graduation.  This of course means we spent all day Saturday running around town shopping and running errands that  my parents needed to get done before they leave for Puerto Rico on Tuesday.  

LOVE the embellishments!

    












    It was super hot so I opted for a silk-cotton sleeveless tee and lightweight pants.  Other than the pants being too big (blame the weight loss) it was perfect for a very hot and busy day of running around with the family.  Among our errands was getting my sister's and my eyebrows done, going to Marshalls, Lowe's, Petsmart, Sam's Club, Costco, the liquor store, and getting my sister fitted for a new bra.  It was a LOOOOOOOOOONG DAY.  But at the end we got home and got to play with Bella, which made it all worth it.  (Also I made burgers) :) 


The Details:
Embellished Tank: LOFT
Pants: Gap
Flip-Flops: ON


Photos courtesy of mom using my camera

Start of Summer

    I wore this outfit last week for my last day of work.  I am taking the summer off of work in order to study for the bar exam at the end of July.  This, however, doesn't mean I get to slack off for the summer.  To the contrary, I will be attending bar prep classes from 9-3:30 every day (and some Saturdays!) from now until mid-July.  Sounds like a spectacular way to spend my summer, no?
    I took this picture on our porch overlooking the backyard.  As you can see, I have a small container garden.  I am really good at growing lettuce, but not much else.  My strawberry plants are currently doing well though, so hopefully I'll have yummy strawberries soon.  
    Unfortunately I'm still super tired and sore from this weekend (2 6+ hour drives and sleeping on a terrible mattress 3 nights) and have very little to say.  I did manage to look great for my sister's graduation only to not have a single picture taken.  Oh well!  I should have several this weekend as it will be my graduation. 

The Details:
Sweater: Loft (consignment)
Green tweed skirt: Village (consignment)
Nude heels: Nine West
Belt: Target
Necklace: Consignment

Congratulations Mo!

Congratulations Mo, I'm so proud of you!

Saturday Celebration

Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's celebrate)

    Saturday night The Fiance took me out to dinner to celebrate the end of law school.   We went to Longhorn Steakhouse where I ate SO MUCH FOOD!  It was incredible though and I'm really glad I wore a dress.  Had I worn pants I would have been terribly uncomfortable after eating so much food.  (Seriously though, AMAZING food and I was able to take home bread for Sunday's breakfast)  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had spied a dress  at the consignment store and that I was hoping it would still be there for the end of the semester.  Well, it was and here it is!  

    You can see it easier in the close up picture, but the dress is black and has tiny white polka-dots.  I wore the dark pink tank because I really had no choice.  This dress has a bit of an overlap at the bust, but its not a true wrap.  Also, as you can see, it is VERY deeply cut.  So I will be able to customize the dress by mixing and matching different color tanks underneath it.  
    I chose to go with pink for this outing for one really simple reason.  See that flower on the headband?  It's a very light pink flower made of ribbon.  Oh and I made it.   I decided a little while ago that I wanted to diversify my etsy offerings.  This headbands and others will be coming to my store sometime soon.  What do you guys think? 

The Details:
Dress: Gap 2007 (consignment store)
Tank: ON
Heels: Talbots
Necklace: Freshwater pearls strung by me
Headband: A-C's Crafts on Etsy (Coming Soon!)






Don't forget, if you mention Law School Fashionista at A-C's Crafts you will get 25% off!

DONE

    Ok, so I'm done with my exams (YAY!).  I have one group project left to finish up, but for all intents and purposes, I' done. Which means that I will be back to blogging.  BUT I also happen to have 208 items waiting for me in my google reader, so don't be surprised if I'm slow to comment for a while.  

Bravissimo dress

    Also, I have zero outfits from this past week.  That's not to say I spent the whole week naked, rather, I spent the whole week in sweats.  But that trend won't continue on to next week as I will be working from Monday through Thursday and then driving down to Atlanta for my little sister's graduation on Friday.  Speaking of which, I apparently jumped on the floral bandwagon with my graduation dresses.  Since my graduation consists of 2 days and I'll also be attending my sister's graduation, I figured getting 2 dresses would be a good idea.  May end up going to get a pair of linen pants and a blouse for my trip to Atlanta just in case that ends up working best.  Anyway, the second dress that I bought is to the right.  I'm really hoping that the Bravissimo dress gets here in time for my trip to Atlanta.  I would love to wear it to my sister's graduation.  But really the best about the dress is that due to the cut and shape, I should be able to layer a cardigan or blazer on top and wear it to work in the future.  

Talbots Dress

    The other dress that I got is intended to be my graduation dress.  I got it from Talbots a week ago and LOVE it.  I initially went to Talbots figuring that since the store caters to women and not teenagers, that I would probably be able to find an outfit that fits my body.  I was SO right.  I tried on several dresses that all looked really nice.  Talbots definitely designs their clothes for women with busts and hips, of which I have both.  I was quite surprised that I am a size 12, I expected to be at least a 14.  I guess my healthy living challenge is paying off.  Anyway, I will definitely be heading back to Talbots to shop as I feel comfortable in their clothes because they fit and are of high quality (even if a bit expensive).   

The perfect shoe

    AND THE SHOES!  I fell in love with these shoes the first time I saw them while playing around on Polyvore.  I was lucky enough to find them in the store so I could try them on with my dress.  They are also from Talbots and incredibly comfortable.  The description says that they have 3 1/4 inch tall wedge, but I'm pretty sure its closer to  2 3/4 as the shoe has a bit of a platform.  Nonetheless, the espadrille wedge was exactly what I was looking for.  The color, the heel height, the chunky heel (that won't make me sink in to grass on graduation day).  All in all, its the perfect shoe.  And if it happens to go on sale anytime in the very near future I may just have to buy another pair in black or brown.
    So yea, I highly recommend going to Talbots, or any other store you think is out of your age/comfort zone, as you never really know what you'll find until you go.  What are your favorite stores that cater to a different audience yet work for you? 

(This review (?) was completely unsolicited and most definitely not paid for)