It's finally not raining, but that means we'll be roasting soon.  I broke out the sandals this week, but I'm not really ready to give up winter colors yet.



A is more ready than I am.

Like most things, I like to purchase jewelry that is just a little out of the ordinary.  I like quirky things.  I like to get good deals too.  Jewelmint is the new jewelry "club" from Kate Bosworth and Cher Coulter.  You go to their website, take a quick style quiz, and receive a list of recommended pieces.  Each piece is $29.99, and you receive a list of new recommendations every month to choose from.

I've already mentioned that I'm super impressed with the Bare Escentuals skin care.  If you've ever been in a Bare Escentuals boutique, you know that the eyeshadow selection is overwhelming.  A lot of the colors look really highly pigmented, and I'm not 22 anymore, so wearing baby blue eyeshadow is not something I can pull off (and it's not something I'm convinced anyone should be trying to pull off).  I've been assured that although the eyeshadows look highly pigmented, they actually provide a wash of color that you can use various techniques such as "foiling" to build different looks.  I always wear a smokey eye because I feel like my eyes disappear if I don't enhance them.  Which means I usually have a nude lip, but I'll save that for another day.  I decided to try a smokey eye using purples.


The colors actually come across really well in the photo.  When blended, they look like this:



I've been wearing this almost every day, and I'm still really happy with it.  The blending of the Bordeaux and Smokin Pistol doesn't really come across here, but with my lighter brown eyes, I really like it.

Back in December, the kind folks at Eileen Fisher sent me a gray, cashmere cardigan.  When it arrived I immediately hung it up and stared at it.  You see, I've never seen myself as an Eileen Fisher kind of person, but this was a really lovely sweater.  When my husband got home and saw it hanging there, he said, "It looks like a librarian's sweater."  Now instead of making me vow never to wear it, I felt inspired.  I always wanted to be a librarian when I was a little girl, so now I had a librarian's sweater, and I was going to make the most of it.



I do have to say that I like the sweater better belted, but I didn't get any good shots of me wearing it that way because of afternoon shadows.  The bag and the watch are actually really bling-y but you can't tell in this shot either.

I have really dry lips.  Because of that, I always have some form of lip balm in my purse, but for some reason, when we were in the middle of moving recently, no lip balm.  And everything in the house was not where it should be, so no lip balm.  In desperation, I started looking around and came across this Sephora Girls lip balm in my daughter's room.



Frankly, I was not holding out much hope.  I mean, it's got a cartoon cat on it; how could it help my lips?  I am totally in love with this stuff now, and of course, they don't sell it anymore.

About three weeks ago I started using the new skincare line from Bare Escentuals.  I've been wearing their mineral foundation for a few years now and really credit it with helping get rid of my adult acne.  Even though my skin is far better than it was a few years ago, I've seen even more tremendous changes over the last few weeks.  Before starting to use it, my skin was always red and blotchy.  Now the redness is almost completely gone, my fine lines are much improved and the overall texture is so much softer.  It's especially noticeable on my neck where I'm starting to get crepey.  Now it's so much smoother.  I'm really happy with these products and glad I made the switch.


Photo from BareEscentuals.com

I picked this pearl out of an oyster when I was a little girl.  It was either at Sea World in San Diego or Ports of Call in San Pedro.  When the man working in the booth opened the oyster and saw this irregular grey pearl, he kept trying to convince me to pick another oyster because this one was so "ugly."  My parents were probably holding their breath waiting to see what I would do.  I had never seen a pearl that wasn't beige, so I thought this was the neatest pearl in the world, and there was no way I was going to trade it for another.



This pearl sums up my style pretty well.  It's quirky and a little odd.  I like classics like pearls but with a twist.  I didn't know until recently that the word "baroque" actually means "rough or imperfect pearl" while also meaning "elaborate."

This is my dad's shawl-collar lamb's wool sweater from the late-50's/early 60's.  He probably bought it around the time my sister was born.  I stole it from him in the early 90's and have been wearing it ever since.  He would have turned 80 on the Ides of March, and ever since his birthday, I've been thinking about him a lot, so I decided to wear the sweater this week.  I paired it with wide-leg black linen trousers and a color-block black and white blouse with my Louis Vuitton pumps.  I'm sure Dad would have just been shaking his head at me wearing his "old" sweater, but it made me feel like he was there giving me a hug, and sometimes I still just need a hug from my dad.