The Seasons, by Alphonse Mucha
Colour lithograph, 1896
I was in the process of writing the code for this post and unceremoniously dumped a bowl of pasta on my lap. RIP carbs!
But anyway--this week's Style Imitating Art inspiration is compliments of Alphonse Mucha, whose beautiful artwork reminds me of a fantastical version of John William Waterhouse. The colours, the lines, and with this set, the group--everything is so well placed and has clearly been considered, but Mucha still manages to maintain some whimsy.
Send Salazar your SIA photos by Monday, November 2nd to be included!
Shades: Party City | Necklace: J.Crew Factory | Top: J.Crew Factory | Skirt: this one from Modcloth | Wedges: Target | Lips: NARS Funny Face
I ran (like legit ran, except for a few walks) my second 5k on Saturday, and managed to not die! My only goal was to make it in less than an hour, and my time ended up being 45:48! I'm really pleased, because I'm generally a pretty slow runner. If I had known I was so close to under 45, I would have pushed it a little harder--but regardless, I'm happy. I loved the race I ran (it's a small one in Cardiganland), and now I have a legit 3.1 mile course fairly close to where I live that I can train on! I'm already aiming for a 5k in January and I'm hoping to shave my time down to sub-40 by then. Ultimately, my official year long goal is to run the Great Smoky Mountains Half Marathon on September 10th, 2016. I might be insane, and I might have to walk parts of it, but I'm doing it. And I'm really excited. Doing the math, it makes sense--I can spend the rest of this year focusing on my 5k work, then start nailing down a 10k training program. The half marathon training program I've found is a 16 week program, and that leaves me with the first five months of 2016 to really get ready for that. I have no delusions of grandeur here; I know I'm in for pain and misery and torture and long nights at the gym and a lot of hours on my sneakers, but I'm kind of looking forward to it.
I mean, I'm going to hate myself immensely while I'm running. But I'm still going to do it.
It's Style Imitating Art time! Yessssss. This week's inspiration was Leopard I by Megan Carn. Let's get to it!
First up is Stephanie, who doesn't have (a lot of) leopard--but that doesn't matter! Her outfit still rings true to the painting, and even the backdrop matches!
Next is Erin of Loop Looks, who looks super sharp. I love that she licked a location that also matches this week's painting!
Noelle of The Classy Junk embodied this week's inspiration without the leopard! (Well, mostly.) I love that she still has a pattern in the same family going!
Carriehas a really cute top that emulates the same pattern as the leopard. It has a really cool vibe, and the colours complement the painting, too!
SIA co-curator Jen of Librarian for Life and Style found a light blue cardigan to wear with her leopard skirt. And red lips! Everything about her outfit works so well together!
And other SIA co-curator Salazar at 14 Shades of Grey is wearing burgundy, which I would have never even thought of. But Salazar knows how to class it up better than I do so I'm not surprised ;)
And then there's me! I dig this outfit, even if my pencil skirt kind of hung off me all day...
I love this week's entries. Everyone looks vibrant and bold (I guess leopard does that to you, even if you don't actually wear it), and these outfits are so stylish. Thank you all for participating!
Leopard I, by Megan Carn
Acrylic on canvas, 2015
I love Megan Carn's artwork. I recently found out about her after sending Bart to Framebridge for framing, and fell pretty hard. I love her eye for colour--so much pink!--but I thought I'd avoid the pink this time because even I don't own a whole lot of it. But I found this beautiful painting Carn made of a leopard, and I thought it would be perfect for SIA! Email me your photos inspired by this great painting by Monday night (October 19th) to be included!
Kesha
September 19th @ 9:45pm
Upper intramural fields, Clemson University, Clemson, SC
S. wore:
K. wore:
L. wore:
I wore:
Talk about usual suspects--all this crew has been on AC at one point or another for going to a concert with me! K. and I surprised L. with with a ticket to see Kesha with us for her birthday, and we were all stuffed into my Prius for the twoish hour ride to Clemson. The school's performance/production group brought Kesha in, and since she hasn't done a great lot of live performing recently, we jumped at the chance to see her live (again for most of us; this was L.'s first time). K. dumped an entire bag of glitter into her weave, and even now at work I find little clusters of purple glitter on the carpet and in the bathroom. But anyway--the show was supposed to start at 9, and when 9 rolled around, we were still waiting in line and my poor friends experienced their first fan crush. (Or maybe poor me, since it wasn't my first by a long shot.) We finally got around to getting into the field Clemson had blocked off for the show and the show didn't start until 9:45pm, but it was great. Kesha looks happy and healthy and sounds fantastic, and while her set was nothing new, it was still a lot of fun and involved an enormous blow up rainbow to celebrate gay marriage's legality. Kesha mentioned that she was sick all day and her doctor told her to cancel, so I'm really glad we didn't end up with another Miley situation, especially since we had to drive almost two hours to get to Clemson! And Kesha just ain't that kind. She made it happen, and it was awesome.
And as a note: of all the concerts I've been to, I've never been to one whose parking situation was as well done as Clemson's. The Intramural fields were all used as parking, and they were all very well lit (they have sports lighting so our pictures turned out great, and we were super safe!) Clemson's production club also had the police on hand to help direct traffic. This is probably peanuts to them compared to the games at Death Valley, but still--for those of us who are used to pitch black parking lots and sitting for an hour waiting to get out of the lot in the first place, the organization and setup of the concert were greatly appreciated!
Last month, I decided to take part in Nicole's small goals challenge. I did not do so great! But I'm going to be up front about it anyway. Here are the goals I set for last month:
Finish all stitchwork and beading on the Sleeping Princess. I did get this done! And I actually got it framed, which makes me really happy. I spent over a week looking for a frame and got pretty stressed out because it's a really weird size/shape, but I found one at Michael's on Friday that I missed on the first go round. Next weekend is when the fair starts! DONE.
Don't skip a day of training. I had to skip ONE day of training this month, because I was having some stomach issues, but I made that my rest day. So technically I didn't skip, I reappropriated. DONE enough.
Finish Between the World and Me and read The Wonder of All Things. Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt, who wrote one of my favourite books, was released partway through September, so I quit reading Between the World and Me for that. (No regrets, because Undermajordomo Minor is wonderful.) I did finish The Wonder of All Things, though! It was pretty good! Half FAIL.
Write and post at least one blog post per week, not including SIA. Fail. I was so committed to getting the cross stitch done that I basically ignored the blog. This one stays as a goal for October though. FAIL.
Paint the damn living room. Got it done! We painted the living room (except for the fireplace wall, which needs to be redone) a couple of weeks ago, and Tippy the cat moved in with Andrew. They're precious together. The living room is green screen green, and it looks great! I was kind of concerned about the green being too dark and bogging the room down, but it ended up looking excellent. DONE.
3 outta 5 ain't bad. 60%. That's...almost passing, and I guess my 3rd goal could be half complete, which is 70%, which means it's a C! Yaaaaaay. So here are October's goals:
Write and post at least one blog post per week, not including SIA. Like I said, it stays.
Submit five cross stitches to the fair. I've done five in the last year (whoa), and I want those tiny blue ribbons and $2 prizes for first place! (Uh, I hope. One ribbon would be solid.)
Clean my car. After New Orleans, my car was relatively clean, and after I took it to the shop, the guys who work there vacuumed it for me. But between life and a Kesha concert, my car is a mess inside. The rain has probably helped the exterior, but I need to vacuum and clean out the trunk.
Figure out what the hell is going on with my phone plan. A. and I share a phone plan, and it is $$$$$, even though employees there have told me it's the least expensive it could be, and I find that really hard to believe I tried downgrading our data last week and it ended up costing more! I also need to upgrade my phone--my dear sweet 4S is starting to go a little senile--and I've been putting off all of this because every time I go to Verizon, it's an hour of standing around. I just need to gather the chutzpah to go. I'm also still trying to decide what iPhone to upgrade to (I'm an iPhone fan and not ashamed of that) but I'm probably going to go all in and get a 6S, because I'll probably have it for the next 3 years. I'm not a serial upgrader.
Start working on a blog facelift. This is something I've wanted to do for a while. Header, font, colours, everything. It's just outdated. I don't expect to get it all done, but I have a header in mind that I really like the idea of, at least. And everyone has a white blog now. I want to be cool and have a white blog too!
So those are this month's goals. Let's see if I can do a smidge better this go round!
