fashion police shout out, new dress love, shoe craze, vote before the suitcase closes!

I am sure you are still dying to know more about the meeting or not meeting of another parent at Ed's orientation - that will come.  I promise.  Much more about orientation, in fact.

I begged people to advise my social-media-phobic self, and all (4) of you did, so well done fab-four readers.  Believe it or not, there were about 68 non-comment-makers who read that post.  So, now I invite my fab-four AND the shy folks (that's you Diane) to join this conversation.  I value your opinion.  I got this idea from a recent post on June's blog, which is undeniably hilarious. 

Did you grow up with sisters, who whether or not they drove you crazy- could at the very least be relied on to NOT let you leave the house looking silly?  My sisters are not fashionistas, and while I lived under their constant gaze and scrutiny as the little sister, I would not ask them for fashion input ever again.  When I got married I realized I had no one reliable:  roommate, sisters, mom, to wrinkle her nose or eww and ahh over a proposed outfit. 

Dress with no leggings.  Seen here
 in tangerine shoes that I probably
 shouldn't have shown you,
 because I would never wear
 them for more than 2 hours.
 In my old age,
I crave comfort.

I do have daughters who are old enough to share their opinions now, but I do not always trust their young mindset.  Do they get:  'that is too short for a woman of your age' thought process?

Curly dances at National Championships in Vancouver.  We leave on July 1st, and I usually get dressed a little bit nice for her big competitions.  Remember, I am working on a tell-all book about Irish dancing.  Answers are coming, friends.

So, calling all fashion police.  I invite you to join the squad that I am swearing in for special duty.  Translation:  I am packing and I just bought what I consider a great dress.  I am stuck on a few things: 

Do I need short leggings?  (consider that I do not like to be cold and I do not believe that Vancouver has temps similar to Chicago).  Also, I am not sure if the dress will hang as well with legging - because it kind of gets 'stuck' on the leggings, but I can deal.

Is it fine without leggings?  It is pretty damn sheer.  I don't know if you can tell in the pics (that had to be moved outside because it was impossible to avoid piles of crap in the background - and we tried multiple rooms).  Keep in mind that when I was a kid we had to wear a slip under a skirt if light could shine thru the fabric.  Dear God, when did I start sounding SO OLD!

I blew this up so you could see the shoes. 
Also, that is Mary Any's house in the
background on the right.  Feel free to throw
 imaginary rotten eggs at it or lasers.

Shoes:  I bought red, Mary Jane Mesophisto shoes.  They were supposed to be $225 and were marked down to $56.  If I don't wear them with this dress or on this trip, it makes no difference.  I am never gonna pass up a pair of orthopedic-like shoes that are should by definition be ugly, but are SUPER cute AND magically on sale.  Ever.  So the shoes will remain in my collection no matter whether or not I wear them with this dress.

Gray:  these are Naot's I think and offer decent support, but they do give my toes a workout because they are essentially flip flop design, but think heavy.  I do heart these shoes, but they are starting to look like I have been loving on them hard for too long.  (Curly hated them with the dress).

Tangerine:  these strappy sandals and NOT comfortable.  I have owned them for a few years, but that was just around the time that I recognized that my feet deserved more, and in turn my low back, etc.  I have red slide sandals not pictured, by Jambu.  Decent by not as intensely orthopedic as the red Mesophisto.  Not even sure if I am spelling that right, but dear God the packing and arranging and food prep I still need to do.  (ugh - this was supposed to be a short post and it is almost midnight!)

Enter the new red Mary Jane's.
 Too casual?  You kind of get an idea of
 how sheer it is here.  I feel slightly sad that
 my deck is the cleanest, most organized
 place in my home. 
Maybe I should sleep out here.

Is it a dress or a tunic?  I bought it at Nordstrom Rack, so the free-for-all atmosphere doesn't lend itself to gathering input and style advice from a well-versed staff.  For all I know it is a pool cover up stuck on a dress rack.  I saw it.  Mini thought it was awful.  I said, 'trying it anyway,' and we BOTH loved it on.  I haven't been shopping for a while and I almost wept with joy.  Clearly my life's frustrations could be alleviated with more shopping. 

Shoe price tag.  I mean,
 I know you believed
 me, but still.  It's photo
 worthy.  The sales woman
 could not initially find the
match to the shoe I unearthed
 in the sale room at Von Maur
(my happy place).  She made
 my night when she called me
 minutes after I had walked away.  

Red Mesophisto:  Love.  I am not sure if they dress down the pool-cover-up-turned-my-favorite-dress.  I own red fitted, cropped pants too and they will rock those puppies when I pair them together, so not to be offended if they are not the shoe du jour for the rock-star, sheer-as-all-Hell dress. 

There is one other striped fitted polo dress that I considered bringing on this trip and I will show the photo here (below - unless your version moves things around which I cannot be responsible for): 

Lots of cropping to remove
 the mini-Costco in my
  pantry as I
am posing in front
 of the open pantry door. 
I do love
these navy
Naot sandals.

I am not overly excited about the fitted aspect.  Otherwise I do like it.  I caution you that I am sucking the wind out of every square inch of my gut and begging my abdominal muscles to act all 6 pack-ish even if they would rather relax into the best imitation of bowl-full-of-jelly-belly.  So, not sure from a comfort standpoint, I can rely on the commitment of the abs for an all-day-best-behavior showing.

Navy-striped-leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination dress was marked down crazy low to $15 - probably the only reason it made it out of the dressing room.  (Did you just raise your eyebrows, gasp, and whisper:  'You tried that on first?').  Also, maybe part of me KNOWS my sisters would be appalled if I wore it, yes:  I am 'that' sister.  Sheer, rainbow love-of-my-life dress was marked down, but not like that.  (um, $75).  Only reason I can type that:  Coach doesn't read my blog.  Unless he is one of the shy 68 mystery readers.

Shorter posts coming - this is what I get like when I have a million things to do.  I focus on the least essential task -until the 11th hour.  Then come 11th hour it gets all kinds of ugly.  Embrace your distance, but vote while doing so.