Song of The Day: 8/25/11

One of my favorite singers of all time, singing one of my favorite songs of all time, in one of my favorite musicals of all time, during one of my favorite performances of all time. You might say this is one of the best blog posts of all time.

Therefore, I say to you: Enjoy!

(Sorry, had a moment.)

(On a completely unrelated note, I am in love with Alfie Boe's voice. I want it singing back-up for my life.)

There And Back Again: A Joplin Tale by Lauren Elizabeth (Part 3)

Please don't sue me for copyright infringement, Mr Baggins...

So here we are, back at Mt. Hope Church in Joplin. (Isn't the wet cement delightful?)

Day 3: Up at 6:00 and back to work!

Breakfast was weird. We were even more out of it than the day before. I for one kept spacing out and thinking, for some reason, about parakeets. I don't know why.

Miss Eve had all the "parentless children", as she called us (meaning kids whose parents weren't in Joplin) gather around her for a picture. I decided that, being a parentless child, I needed to make a fitting face. *pouts* (Top row, from left: Maddie, Miss Eve, me, Morgan. Bottom row, from left: Anna, Wil, Jameson.)

Sarah, Wil, Jameson and I did the bathrooms again. Mostly we just mopped and quoted stupid YouTube videos. We had a fantastic time.

Once again, we spent most of the morning and early afternoon in the distribution center, sorting clothes, cans, diapers, cleaning supplies and other items. We made a game of jumping on top of empty cardboard boxes so that we could fit them into the giant recycling bin outside, and a couple of us (not me) were brave enough to hop into some of the mini shopping carts the church had and ride down the wooden ramp outside the building. I thought about going, but the fact that half of the ramp is distinctly rail-less, I decided I'd rather be safe. Who wants to play Lady Bracknell with a broken arm?



Me and Maddie working in one of the pods. I REALLY really like this picture. :)



At one point, we headed outside to the sheds again to organize the baby items (diapers, food, wipes) into "pods", which stood on the opposite side of the lot from the sheds. We had an excellent time hefting out enormous packages of size 3 diapers to one another and yelling, "Wes! Zach! Come get the huge heavy box of wipes!" They were heavy. We couldn't pick them up, but our guys could.

Can I take a moment real quick to say something about our boys? Kay, thanks. Our boys are amazing. They're complete and total gentlemen, all of them. They're sweet, polite, funny, smart, talented, and have this habit of rushing in front of us ladies to get to the door first so they can hold it open. As an example of their amazing-ness, when I was working in the toiletry shed by myself, I had at least three boys offer to stay and help. Another example: Maddie and I were trying to carry this huge heavy box to one of the sheds, practically dropping it. Wesley and Zekery were riding to the sheds in the flat-bed of a truck, but when he saw us, Wesley hopped out of the truck, ran over, and took the box, proceeding to carry it to the sheds by himself. Maddie, Julie and I decided to make it a point to tell the boys whenever possible how amazing they are.

Boys: (And I'm talking to all of you -- Wesley, Wesley P., Wil, Jameson, Zach, Zeke, Robert, Joseph) You are fantastic people. Us girls seriously wouldn't know what to do without you. :)

Anyway.

When we were done, Miss Eve called us back inside. One of the local colleges (or was it a high school?) had heard about us, and what hard workers we were. They had had a memorial gathering for the victims of the tornado the night before, and the football stadium was a mess. They had asked for some volunteers from our group to go and help clean up. Wesley, Sarah, Anna, Maddie, Zach, Robert and I all went.

First we cleaned up the bleachers on one side, picking up trash and carrying the bags to the dumpster, Anna, Maddie and I singing Les Miserable at the top of our lungs. Then we migrated to the other set of bleachers, where Wesley, Anna, Maddie, Robert and I climbed up to the very top of the cement towers on top of the bleachers. Anna climbed back down, because she gets vertigo. I don't. I love heights. (We're pretty even though; I'm absolutely terrified of swimming in the ocean, and of anything that lives in it, but she loves the sea. I'm too busy jumping around and screaming "JELLYFISH!!!" any time I see a shadow. Also, my Uncle Johnny pointed out a school of sharks, as I suppose it's called, not fifty yards away from us. I'm never swimming in Florida again.)

Eventually, though, I had to come down, because they were wanting us to clean up in the parking lot and grass around the field. Zach, Robert and I stayed in the stadium to pick up trash on and around the field, while Maddie, Sarah, Anna and Wesley went to pick up around the parking lots.

Robert, Ezakiel, and me. I decided to pout for just one more picture. No more, though, after this I'm a very cheerful parentless child.

For the record, I did not know that it was legal to drink and smoke on the premises of a college football stadium. Now I know.

After we were done with that, we went to a field outside of the stadium to help roll up this huge plastic orange fence that was there for some reason...

 and when we were done, Miss Eve took our picture.

Aren't we just so hardcore? (From left: Sarah, me, Wesley, Maddie, Robert, Anna, Zach)

Then we hopped back into our car and headed back to the building, where we did a little bit more work in the distribution center, and then I decided that I was in truly desperate need of a shower, and it could not wait any longer.

After my shower (which, despite a rather noticeable lack of hot water, was divine), I went back into the distrib. center, ready to work. But where was everyone?

Everyone was back outside, reorganizing the baby items into the sheds, leaving the pods empty for more donations.

They had volunteered to do it, even after working so hard to get the diapers into the pods that morning.

Can I just say that my friends are amazing? 'Cause they so are.

I joined them, helping Maddie and Julie lift the huge boxes into the shopping carts so that the others could take them to the sheds for Jameson and Anna to organize. When we were pretty close to being done, we started giving each other rides in the shopping carts. I gave Wesley a ride, and accidentally almost tipped the cart over. Then he very "kindly" offered to give me a ride in return, during which he almost tipped me over. On purpose!!! Meany-head.

When we were done, we gave each other huge high-fives for being such hard, efficient, dependable workers, and headed back inside. We worked for a while more inside, until Julie decided that the huge pile of boxes against the wall had to go. We formed an assembly line, and got all the admittedly ugly boxes into one of the now-empty pods.

For a while it was just me and Julie organizing clothes in the distrib. center. At some point some other people showed up and we decided to form a massage train (which was wonderful) and then it was just me and Julie again for some time. Not that I'm complaining. No, we had an absolutely wonderful time doing inventory and discussing (teehee) boys.

Then they brought in this huge trailer full of furniture donations, and the boys helped to bring those in, while the girls brought in boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of cans. "Guess what, guys!... MORE CANS!!!"

But the work wasn't over yet! The other building, the part of the building that was actually where the church met, needed to be cleaned. I helped to vacuum a little bit, and then helped one of the ladies there who was getting ready for Sunday school classes move her things. Jameson, Anna, Zeke, Wil and I dusted and vacuumed the sanctuary, which had this in it...

Totally amazing, right? It's made out of scraps and pieces that people brought in out of their homes after the tornado. Whenever I needed alone-time, I liked to go just sit in front of it and pray.

Then I suddenly felt the urge to go pray and pray and pray.

I left the building, shoving my iPod into my pocket as I went. I turned on my favorite worship song ("Where You Go I Go" by Brian and Jenn Johnson) and just started praying, walking in circles around the outside of the building, just praying. Worshipping God, praying blessings over the church and the people in it, over the people of Joplin. As I walked, the sky grew darker and darker, the air got heavy and warm, and the wind picked up. The clouds, which had been there all day, started to look scary. I looked away and kept praying.

I'm not entirely sure why I had the sudden need to be by myself and pray like that. All I know is that, when I was done, when I felt that I could go back inside and start working again, the clouds were lifting, the air was cool, the wind had died down and the sun was peeking through again.

So I went back inside, and Jameson and I helped one of the ladies who worked at the church clean out the attic a bit, vacuuming and sweeping up sand and carrying teaching supplies down the stairs for her.

At that point, we were finally done. I was ready and happy to be able to rest, but... Something in me was sad.

This was our last day to work for Mt. Hope Church. Tomorrow, we would begin rehearsals on the new stage. We would perform, and then we would say goodbye.

I didn't feel that we had done half of what we could have for this church. There was so much more we could have helped them with, so much more we could do. I wasn't the only one who felt this way. For a while longer, Wesley, Julie and I wandered around, hoping someone would give us a job to do, but the work for the day was done. It was time to rest. I went to take my nap feeling sad and lazy.

This time I woke myself up (much to Julie and Anna's disappointment -- they had been planning to come wake me up with some extremely loud toy they'd found somewhere. I laughed at them) and ate dinner with the rest of the group. We played cards, talked loudly, laughed louder, and then split into groups. At first I stayed with Julie and Maddie, but then decided to join Anna, Wil, Wesley, Jameson, and two other volunteers who had come up with another group and watch them play their card game.

After a while Wil and I got bored and started looking at funny pictures on his phone. We showed some of them to one of the other volunteers, and he started to get the giggles. Then we came across this...

The kid could not stop laughing. He literally was unable to quit. He started laughing so hard that the rest of us started laughing, not at the above picture, but at how hard he was laughing.

Wil was wailing, Anna was squeaking, Britney (the other volunteer), Wesley and I were rocking back and forth, slapping the table, and Jameson was complaining about how his cheeks hurt.

Everyone else started to join us to see what was so funny. By the end, we were a huge group of teenagers rolling around in our seats, gasping for breath.

And then Miss Eve came over. Time to go! We were going to go bowling.

Into the cars we piled. When we got to the bowling alley we formed groups of five, paid for our shoes and lanes, and got ready to bowl. I was on a team with Wesley, Joseph, and three kids from the Stained Glass Theater -- Drew, Luke, and Emma. Julie and her team were in the lane next to us, so I was pretty happy with how it worked out.

Here we are, grinning for the camera. And yes, my flip-flops were on the table.

Wesley and Joseph were actually somewhat competitive (imagine!) but me and the kids decided that we'd rather have fun than compete with each other. We granny-bowled, gutter balled, and ran around giving people high-fives and yelling "EMBRACE THE GUTTER BALL!!!" Eventually, we got Wesley into it. It was amazing, and so much fun.

When our game was over, I didn't even bother to check the scores, I just high-fived Joseph. "Good job!"

"Uh, thanks. I didn't win, though."

"Oh! Who did?"

"You..."

"Wait..." I turned around to check the score-board, sincerely confused. "You mean I have points?"

Yes, Julie and Wesley laughed at me. I hadn't exactly been trying to win.

Oh well. Gutter balls are still amazing.

Our team was one of the first ones done, so for a while after that we hung out in the arcade section, being goofy. Then I wandered back over to watch the last team, Rebecca's, finish up.

Rebecca and Zekery were in the middle of a heated competition. Zekery had taught Rebecca to bowl. On her first try, she got a strike. After that, however, she found herself losing and getting gutter balls. I tried to tell her to embrace them, but Zekery was taunting her and being a pill. So, just like that, the student became the enemy.

I still don't know who won. I spent the whole game trying to hack Sarah's phone. It didn't work.

Finally we were done and headed back home. Jameson and Wil's moms had arrived, bringing with them my costume. I ran to hang it up, grabbed a delicious fudge egg from the cafeteria (perhaps not a wise choice at 11:30 at night, but what did I care?) and called my mom. I regaled her with the entire week's events, raving about my friends and the church and bowling and the people from Stained Glass and telling her how amazing everyone was. She chuckled at me, told me she was so glad that I was having such a good time, and bade me good-night. Happy, full of chocolate and love, I retreated to my dorm, where I talked with Julie for about a half hour, and then went to sleep.

Part 4 should be up on Saturday. I hope you're enjoying this series!

Outfit of The Day: 8/24/11 & 8/25/11

8/24/11 Today's outfit: 70's-style vintage button-up, vintage brown vest, long blue neck-tie, cut-off shorts, brown knee-highs. White sneakers! Hair: Messy ponytail.

Actually, my hair was only messy because at the time of picture-taking, I'd just taken a hardcore nap.

I really like the 70's schoolgirl vibe I had going there.

I hadn't worn cut-offs in forever -- it felt amazing. Like, oh hey, I can relax amazing.

My favorite part of this outfit is easily the vintage button-up. I got this as a hand-me-down from one of my mom's friends, and since then it's been languishing in the back of my closet because I couldn't figure out how to wear it. And then BAM! Vest and tie. And it's perfect. The colors seem to clash, match, and blind on-lookers all at the same time. It maketh meh happeh.

I love my almost-oxfords. I don't actually have any oxfords, so these look close enough that I can pretend they are. These "knee-highs" (I guess they're more like "calf-highs") are actually my dad's. He never wears them -- they just sit in our family sock-basket. And that's wear I found them, sad and crumpled into those little sock-balls, just waiting for some girl with a matching vest to come put them on and show them off. So, out of the kind and charitable nature of my heart, I borrowed them, and put them on. They looked awesome!

C'mere, let me tell you a secret. This is not really a tie!!! It's actually the sash-thing that ties my bathrobe up. I have a tie of the same color, but I couldn't find it, so I just grabbed this. But Ssh! don't tell anyone.

I got this vest at Goodwill. I believe it was for a Halloween costume of some sort, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is, this vest is right up there with my chocolate-brown skirt in terms of how essential it is to my closet. If an outfit looks unfinished and needs a layer, I will 9 times out of 10 grab this. The other time, I'll grab my short-sleeved denim hoodie, which you haven't seen yet. But this vest is easy, cute, and oh-so-wonderfully old-fashioned. It's fabulous!

Earlier in the day, I was of course barefoot (I would always go barefoot if that were an option), so Anna almost accidentally took this awesome picture of my feet. I just love the slight asymmetrical-ness of it.

One of my new favorite pictures of myself. I love it when my picture-smiles don't look fake. :)

8/25/11 Today's outfit: Light pink tee, short grey dress, zebra-print sash, white leggings. Barefoot! Hair: down and slightly frizzy. :/

So today was not the greatest day for picture-taking. It was raining this morning, so it was humid and the camera lens kept fogging up. But the sun suddenly (and terribly disappointingly) came out right behind our neighbor's house, so the sun was in the camera's eyes, figuratively speaking, so we had to switch spots. The sun was in my eyes, the shadows were a bit wonky, and we were in absolute mourning because the rain was gone. It hasn't rained for so long here... :(

Anyway, I do love this outfit to pieces. I've worn a similar one before (with a different shirt and belt) to rehearsal before performing IOBE at the Artisan, but today just felt like a wear-what-you-already-love kinda day, not an experiment-with-crazy-vintage-fashions kinda day. The outfit is almost entirely hand-me-down (am I the only person in the world who absolutely adores getting hand-me-downs? I mean, come on people -- it's free clothes!). The pink tee I got from a friends older sister, the dress from a friend of my mom's. The leggings are my sister's. The belt's mine, though. I bought it.

There's something very unique about white-leggings. The white-ness suggests spring, but the, erm, legging-ness suggests autumn or winter. It is currently neither. Am I out of touch with the weather lately? You bet your zebra-striped belt I am!

Speaking of which, I love zebra-prints. Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. They're like yellow, only in animal form. If yellow was an animal, it would be a zebra.

Um.

Isn't this one perfectly splendid? Maybe some day I'll work up the nerve to wear it on my head, like a turban. That would be Ah Maze Ing.

Another problem with pictures today: Humidity hates my hair. I mean, it doesn't just get frizzy. It sticks up in weird places, gets curly around my ears (behind them as well) gets stiff (stiff?! I know, right?), hangs in my face like a freaking pair of curtains, and is completely and utterly unmanageable. I have no control. French braids won't work. Curling won't work. Straightening (which I actually considered doing, and I never straighten my hair) won't work. Buns won't work. Even a stinkin' ponytail won't work, because my bangs refuse to move! And hats just make my hair static, which is even worse.

So yeah, I have no options. I just let it hang. I guess it doesn't look too bad, it's just annoying that I can't see out of my left eye. And that no amount of hair-flipping will get these bangs off my face.

Here's the full outfit. We had to move, because the light was in my eyes, and I just couldn't open them all the way.

On a side note, how do you like our garage door? How about our car tire?

Trying to part the curtains. :)

School's been going pretty well so far. The past few days have been mainly comprised of reviewing, reading, reviewing, and reading. The reviewing is because I have to start taking tests today, and I kinda don't want to fail. The reading is because I like reading. Also, mom wants me to read "Mrs Frisby and The Rats of NIMH", so...

I hope everyone else is enjoying this dreadfully slow transition to fall. It's still summer outside, but it's almost September -- hopefully we'll start seeing rain, chilly weather, and colorful leaves pretty soon!

Make 'Em Laugh 3

My dad showed this to me and Anna and our mom last night... We're still giggling to each other and yelling, "ALAN!" across the house. Enjoy!

Song of The Day: 8/23/11

One of my friends introduced me to this song on the way home from Joplin. I'd heard Florence & The Machine on the radio, and really really liked them, and loved her voice, but hadn't had a chance (or the motivation) to look them up. This song got me hooked. Thanks, Jameson!

There And Back Again: A Joplin Tale by Lauren Elizabeth (Part 2)

*Imagines Elijah Wood reading the above title*

*swoons*

So, here we are in the back lot of Mt. Hope Church in Joplin. You remember, right? We were here, working, unloading boxes and organizing diapers. And I told you I would show you some pictures. Here we are!

Here's Zeke-the-shade-rocker (otherwise and henceforth know as "Zekery") playing catch with one of the local volunteers' kids. This kid was adorable. So sweet, and sooo very hyper. He loved Zekery, though. And I don't think said Zekery minded. At all.

One side of the distribution center where we did most of our work.

The other side. (You can see my busted up flip flops on the floor. Those things didn't make it home.)

Wil, some of the other girls and I were working in the distribution center sorting out baby clothes. Granted, not the most excitng job in the world, unless you're a bunch of teenage girls who freak out every time they find a baby shirt that says something cute on it. And one teenage guy who finds the girls' freaking out hilarious.

We couldn't really help laughing over this one. I don't think the parents thought this one through. I mean... Their child had a baseball attached to his rear. And, while I love baby bum as much as the next squealing and cooing babysitter, this was just... Strange.

I also have a feeling that my mom did not have such scruples about decorating her child's posterior. I'm scared to ask.

SO true. Although I love Christmas.


Oh. My. Gah. We died.

So then Wesley comes in from working in the field all day (that's volunteer-speak for "knocking over houses") looking like this...

... and asking for hugs. Needless to say, we pointed him in the direction of the showers. "You've heard of 'em, right, Wesley? They're wonderful things, these showers. Perfect for cleaning up dirty, sweaty, stinky, lovable boys."

So he went. But not before I got a picture. *evil grin*

Wil kept leaving his hat all over the building. We took turns wearing it. It broke.

Well, he shouldn't have been leaving it everywhere!

After a while we had some lunch BACON.

Ahem. I mean lunch.

And Wil was so incredibly hot (despit the fact that the building had the air conditioner on full blast and the rest of us were all wearing sweaters) that he...

Dunked his head...

In a cooler of freezing water...

And while everyone else was ranting about how he could "get hypothermia and then what would they do", like the good friend I am...

I took pictures.

YAY for friendship and stuff.

That's the end of our pictures, but the day wasn't even half over yet.

After lunch, Willard Philmore up there (not his real name) went and got out his guitar, and we all sort of instinctively gathered around the table where he was sitting. He started playing "Revelation Song", one of our favorites, and we all sang along, harmonizing and worshipping. It's always amazing worshipping with these kids. Everyone gets into it, everybody just sings to Jesus, and if you cry, nobody thinks you're strange. I know, because I've cried during one or two of our worship/prayer sessions before.

We kept on worshipping for about another half hour -- the whole building (which is made up of one room) could hear us, including Miss Eve, our director, and she told me later that when we worship together it makes her cry, too.

Then back to business! This time we all head outside into the humidity and sprinkling rain (it was wonderful) to sort boxes of donations into their respective storage sheds. I worked in the toiletries shed, helping to organize the toothpaste from the deodorant and sending back all the baby food, which for some reason kept wanting to be brought to my shed.

It was hard work. The boxes were heavy, the shed was crowded, the air heavy and hot and hard to breathe, but I somehow had a great time doing it. One of our amazing guys (Zach, otherwise known as "Ezakiel" or "Zackson") came in to help me move boxes from one to the other, and between the two of us we got 'er done!

Then we did some more organization work inside, and, finally thinking we were done, I grabbed my book ("Jane Eyre") and sat down in the cafeteria section for some much-needed non-movement. But then over sidled Wesley, looking like a man on a mission. "Hey, Lauren, I know you don't want to move, but we're going back outside to re-organize one of the sheds so that the church knows where everything is, because right now it's a mess. We need as many people as we can get -- do you wanna help?"

I looked at him. He's got big eyes, and tends to unitentionally puppify them. And I unfortunately can't say no to puppy eyes on anybody, let alone my best guy-friend. I sighed. At least it was for a good cause. "Sure, I'll help."

He gave me a huge grin. That settled it. I couldn't change my mind now! "Just let me go and grab some softer shoes." The cement was eating my calves alive.

In a few minutes everyone except Julie and Maddie (who were kind of left to run the distribution center by themselves...) was outside, forming a sort of assembly line. Jameson stood inside the shed, handing out boxes to whoever was standing outside the door. That person ran and placed it in its designated pile (mens, womens, little girls, little boys, infants, or miscellaneous, like shoes or scarves or hats), then came back and got in line. Within minutes, the shed was practically empty, and we were placing the boxes back inside by section.

Julie and Maddie came out looking for us, and Julie, who had been trying to get everyone to do exactly this earlier today but had been unable, nearly started crying. "I love you guys!"

Finally we finished! And still an hour till dinner; I had time for a nap! I headed back to our dorm, plopped down on my mattress, and was asleep within fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, it only seemed like seconds before Julie was shaking my mattress saying, "Lauren! It's dinnertime!" I sat up, shook myself, and followed her to the cafeteria.

We had an excellent dinner, during which Maddie, Rebecca, Morgan and I were left OUT OF THE GROUP and had to SIT AT OUR OWN TABLE because there wasn't any room with the others. We made it very clear to them that they were not going to be forgiven; nor were they allowed to sit at our table. Then we sat and moped and ate grapes while everyone else played Apples to Apples. *sniff*

I did eventually tire of grapes and went to join the game. (So I have a weak will when it comes to sitting at the "lonely" table. Sue me!) They happily added me in next deal, and we played for about another hour. Then Miss Eve called us over to hop into the cars, we were going to see a movie!

My ears pricked, my tail wagged. What's that you say? A movie?
I ran to grab my camera, we piled into cars, and headed off!

As it turned out, we weren't going to see "Captain America" or anything. What we did was way cooler. One of the members of the Stained Glass Theater owned a huge old-fashioned movie projector, and we had been invited to go watch cartoons on it. Here, twist my arm. Twist it. Okay, I'll go.

On the way we stopped to pick up Joanna, and when we got there we got to meet some members of the theater we hadn't had the chance to meet before. It was awesome! Me, Robert, Wesley and Joanna all sat in a little clump as the cartoons started. Believe me, they were hilarious, and what made it even better was that the four of us all share a sense of humour, and we kept cracking up, making snarky side comments and cracking up even harder. Then "The Aristocats" came on -- Wesley and I freaked; we love that movie!

We laughed, whispered, and giggled all the way through, and then when it was over we dashed outside (it was freezing in there) singing "Everybody! Everybody! Everybody wants to be a cat!" at the top of our lungs. Then everyone stood in a huddle, cracking each other up on purpose.

Let me tell you. Wil's and Anna's laughs would make your day.

We were teasing them about it all week.

Ezakiel being a ham.

The moon was beautiful, but when it's dark outside and I turn off the flash setting, the picture always comes out blurry.

I hate flash.

Finally we all got back into our cars and headed home. My car sang worship songs all the way home; it was awesome. :)

We pulled up to the church, said a quick prayer together, and slipped into our dorms to get ready for bed and get some much-needed sleep.



Part 3 should be up on Thursday at the latest. :)

Outfit of The Day: 8/23/11

Today's outfit: Light blue polo, chocolate-brown midi skirt, patterned scarf (belt), deep purple vintage-style hat. Barefoot! Hair: down, straight, and natural.

So I'm thinking I need to make Anna work on her camera angles. She was laughing at me as we were taking these photos because I always choose to stand in the same spot, but she always uses the same angles, so the pictures are kinda boring.

This skirt makes me happy. It's long, knee-length, and flowy, and it floats when I twirl or walk down the stairs. I got it last year at Goodwill when I first started working up the courage to wear skirts rather than skinny jeans, and it's become one of my favorite items in my closet. It matches every top I own, is very vintage, and makes me feel like a princess. On top of that, it's the color of chocolate. (Which, granted, makes me rather hungry sometimes, but who doesn't like to be a little hungry for chocolate occasionally?)

Hand-me-down belt. It came with a skirt (which I love) but I don't actually wear them together. I wore them as a matching set once, as an early experiment with mixing patterns that went pretty well (red-striped button-up, patterned skirt, matching patterned belt tied in a preppy little bow around my ponytail), but for the most part I prefer to keep them seperate. Maybe I'll wear the skirt to youth group tomorrow.

Maybe I'll just wear cut-offs and a tee. I haven't worn cut-offs in about two months.

And now we come to my favorite part of today's outfit -- this fabulous hat I picked up at Plato's Closet a few weeks ago.

Last night as I was putting together today's outfit, I felt rather disappointed with it. I had the polo, the skirt, the belt, and it was cute, but it just seemed rather sad. You've seen sad outfits before -- those boring, monochromatic ones people wear when they're feeling tired of life, want to be invisible, and slouch? (Not the monochromatic isn't cool -- it can be a really fun, unique, edgy style, when the person wearing it has a little spunk in their step, rather than some slouch in their shoulders.) Well, that's what this outfit felt like. Tired, sad, boring. So I grabbed this hat and plunked it down on top of the old retired lamp-stand that I use to hang up my outfits, and voila! the outfit changed. It stood up a little straighter, smiled a little brighter, and it's cheeks glowed.

And that's how I feel in this outfit: spunky, cheerful, blushingly beautiful. I feel like Caroline Dester from "Enchanted April".

Which is not a bad thing.