Tales From The Thrift: Holiday Edition

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone enjoyed a festive and happy weekend with their family, friends, or loved ones. I am ready to hibernate for a month now in my post-turkey-and-cabbage-roll* haze, but two of my best friends are visiting from out of town and about to descend upon my house for a girls’ mini staycation (with bonus kids and husband, haha!), so I actually have some cleaning to do. Bah-humbug! (Just kidding! Can’t wait to see you, ladies — and Chris Pratt!**) Since thrifting has pretty much “ruined” Boxing Day/Week for me, I’m not missing out on anything. But speaking of which, let’s take a look at what thrifting had in store for me over the last month or so.

Leifnotes tunic
Leifnotes tunic

Y’all know I love me some Anthro, but this was a hard pass. Not a huge fan of this silhouette.

no name sweatshirt
no name sweatshirt

Some days, amirite? In retrospect, I kinda wish I had bought this, because there are days when the message would have been so “on point”, as the kids say. The kids still say that, right?

U of A blazer!
U of A blazer!

The U of A is my alma mater, so I was stoked to see its crest on this blazer. No idea who would have worn this, but it’s cool. Quaecumque Vera!

MaxMara pumps
MaxMara pumps

Gold pumps are cool, but peep toes are not. I didn’t even try these on, but they were probably too small anyway. Also, missing a heel tip. Funnily enough, I spotted them in TWO different VVs over the course of a month. I wonder why the person ended up returning them. Ahh, thrifting mysteries.

Circus by Sam Edelman flats
Circus by Sam Edelman flats

These were hella cute, but I try to stay away from colourful round-toe flats, no matter how cute, because they don’t mesh with my style. I also love this aqua shade, but find it hard to wear.

7 For All Mankind coated jeans
7 For All Mankind coated jeans

I did end up buying these snakeskin-printed coated jeans by 7 For All Mankind, and probably shouldn’t have. They were only $7, so the regret doesn’t run too deep, but I’ll probably purge them at some point soon. They’re a bit too edgy for me, and the colour is definitely not in my palette. Sigh.

vintage edition of Pinocchio
vintage edition of Pinocchio

Hey, look! Sometimes I thrift really cool stuff … like this vintage edition of the kids’ classic, Pinocchio. I was actually on the hunt for old hardcover books to use as props for my office Christmas party when I spotted this gem.

the inside cover
the inside cover

Look at these colour illustrations! Amazing. Of course, I had to have this for myself. That’s right; this one isn’t for the kids — it’s for me. (Until they’re old enough to appreciate it, anyway.)

oh, and something sparkly too
oh, and something sparkly too

Oh, and I found something vintage and sparkly too. I’m also keeping this for myself … for now. My daughter is exhibiting early signs of magpie-itis, which leaves me feeling equal parts proud and worried. Dress-up time is going to take on a very different meaning in a few years.

Fenton/Fallon for J. Crew necklace
Fenton/Fallon for J. Crew necklace

Speaking of jewelry, I’ve been on a buying kick lately. I rarely thrift jewelry, vintage brooches excepted, because I rarely see good quality stuff. But after finding that awesome Stella & Dot necklace last month, I’ve been paying closer attention to the jewelry racks — and it’s been paying off. Here, I’m talking about the non-showcase stuff, which is usually hung in one giant tangled mess. Dig through it, peeps; treasures can sometimes hide in there. Case in point: this Felton/Fallon for J. Crew necklace. Granted it was missing one small rhinestone and one of the spikes on the bottom string, but I paid $3 for it. Both defects were relatively easy fixes. Michaels sells rhinestones in all kinds of sizes, and with a bit of tinkering, I glued one in place. (It’s not the same quality as the others, but it’s hard to tell unless you’re looking very very closely.) As for the missing spike, I just removed one of the remaining 3, to balance things out. Afterwards, I decided to remove the last 2 as well, as I preferred the way the necklace looked without them.

earrings!
earrings!

I also found some cool earrings, one modern and one vintage-looking, both very inexpensive. I used rubbing alcohol on the posts to sanitize them.

vintage aurora borealis rhinestone set
vintage aurora borealis rhinestone set

I love aurora borealis rhinestones, and was thrilled to find what looked to be a matching set (although they were sold separately) for $6 altogether. This set would run at least $40-$50 at the antique mall.

Sam Edelman "Opal" pumps
Sam Edelman “Opal” pumps

I really, really need to replace my much-loved and much-worn black Stuart Weitzman pumps, even though I’m having a hard time parting with them. (We’ve been through a lot in 6 years *sniff*) I thought these like-new Sam Edelman d’orsay pumps would be a good alternative, at least until I can find another SW pair. They have a 3 inch heel, and are quite comfortable. I do wish they were not suede, because black suede tends to show dirt and wear much more than patent or natural leather. However, for $8 I am not complaining.

Fluevog "Memories Truly" shoes
Fluevog “Memories Truly” shoes

Yup, my second Fluevog pair in as many months. I liked the retro vibe here, and the colour was interesting. Some lovely peeps on IG helped me identify the style; I always like to know the history of the things I thrift. These shoes are from the Spring 2009 collection, apparently. They are in pristine condition, except for some very light scuffing on the bottom sole. I can’t wait to wear them next summer … wedding, anyone?

Max Azria jacket
Max Azria jacket

This Max Azria jacket was a dubious buy, admittedly, but I decided to take the fashion risk. We’ll see how I feel about those origami-like folded sleeves next month.

Moulinette Souers dress
Moulinette Souers dress

My husband has a background in architecture, so I thought he would appreciate the print of this Anthro-brand dress. He was … not as enthused as I thought he would be. This dress is no match for Houzz when it comes to holding his attention. Few things are. Maybe if Mike Holmes was wearing it, it would be a different story …

Allison Wonderland dress
Allison Wonderland dress

Last but certainly not least, one of my favourite thrift finds ever. I gushed about this dress when I wore it, and you can read all about it here.

And that’s it for now. I hope the thrift gods have been generous with you this month, and if so — I want to hear all about it. And if not, tell me what you’re still hoping to find before the year is out.

* Cabbage rolls are a Christmas tradition in the Old Country. They would be sufficient to tranquilize an average person into a couch-potatoing stupor, but my family likes to embrace new traditions as well, hence the turkey. Double whammy.


** This is an inside joke. Sadly, Chris Pratt is not coming to my house. My friends and I had a very spirited debate over text for the last month about which movie we are going to see together. I am happy to report that, thanks to the crushing fist of democracy (and a 2-to-1 vote), Chris Pratt won. We are going to see Passengers.***

*** Edited to add: apparently, we are not. Reviews for this movie have been no bueno, you guys. The alternate choice, by unanimous vote: La La Land.

How Does She Do It

Editor note: I found this post languishing, forgotten, in my Drafts folder from about a year ago. It’s a bit wordier than I like my posts here to be, but I figured that, at this time of year, at least some of you might feel like reading something other than year-end wrap-up posts. But, never fret! I have some of those coming up too! So, read on at your own discretion. Or come back next week to see my favourite outfits of the year. Merry Christmas!

Right off the bat, let’s talk about the word that isn’t in the title of this post: all. I purposefully left it out because it can be terribly misleading. While I certainly have plenty of things on my plate – and some readers have expressed an interest in reading about how I juggle all of those things – I most certainly don’t “do it all”. More importantly, I know a lot of incredibly accomplished and successful men and women, and none of them “do it all” either. So, before we go any further, let’s agree to toss “all” out of the window. Nobody is doing it all, and if they tell you otherwise, they are lying.

How do I handle family, work, and life? Usually, by hanging on for dear life and hoping for the best. Recently, I was lamenting to a friend that I was dropping more balls than I was juggling, and she replied that as long as we give the dropped balls a swift kick now and then, they’re still technically moving. I think I may need to embroider that on a pillow and carry it around with me everywhere, so that I remember it next time I feel like I’m failing at this whole adulting business.

Needless to say, I don’t have any sage advice for other working parents (or anyone else juggling a lot of different and competing responsibilities), but I do have some ideas about the kinds of things that keep me sane and (somewhat) productive.

Prioritize Ruthlessly

Think of life as an infinite buffet, each of your activities as dishes, and the corresponding caloric load as the time required to do each task. As much as you might be tempted to try, you cannot eat your way through the entire buffet. Time is, sadly, nothing like a stretchy pair of pants; there is only so much of it in a given day, and it can only accommodate so much. So you have to make choices and, in some cases, compromises. (Some things in life are like vegetables – not the first thing you’d reach for, but necessary to your overall well-being. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can pay someone else to eat your veggies for you. Take house cleaning, for example.)

The key, of course, is making choices that maximize the enjoyment you get out of your most precious commodity, time. Sometimes, doing that comes easy. Often, it doesn’t. For some people, doing all the necessary grown up things, which are about as enjoyable as eating kale, doesn’t leave much time for anything else. For others, narrowing down the choice of fun activities is worse than choosing between chips and chocolate. I have no words of wisdom to help with that, I’m afraid. The choices each of us makes are deeply personal and subjective, and much like I wouldn’t presume to tell you what you should eat every day, I’m not going to even try telling you how you should prioritize your time.

But here’s the more important thing: the most content people I know are those who are able to make their selection from the life buffet … and then completely ignore the other options. They don’t second-guess their choices, and most importantly, they don’t listen to others second-guessing their choices either. This is abso-freaking-lutely hard. We are constantly bombarded with unsolicited opinions about what we should, and shouldn’t, be doing – as parents, as spouses, as professionals, you name it. For some people, tuning out these voices comes easily. Me, I have to work at it. (Let’s just say that I’m glad that internet forums and mommy blogs weren’t around when I was of a more impressionable age.) I still second-guess my choices. All. The. Damn. Time. but I’m now aware not only of the habit itself, but of the negative impact it has on my enjoyment of life, and I try to cut that ish out whenever it starts eating away at me. I’ll say this: it does get easier as one gets older.

Let me return to my analogy for a minute. It’s not just the dishes you pick that invite scrutiny and unsolicited opinions. It’s also how much of each dish you put on your plate, and how you hold your fork while eating it, and how you deal with the leftovers. Put in those terms, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Let’s put it another way, with an example: people will judge you on your choice to have (or not have) kids, on the number of kids you have, on whether you stay home with them or go back to work, on how soon you go back to work, on how much or how little you work once you’re back at work … and on every single other aspect of your parenting, no matter how minute and insignificant. If I could sum up my two cents: don’t let someone else try to prioritize your life for you, and don’t waste a minute of your time and mental energy wondering if you should.

Embrace Routine

Bo-rrring! Amirite? I am a creature of routine, so I didn’t realize until recently how big a role it plays in my day-to-day productivity. It’s just how I’ve always operated. The realization came when I was sitting in a seminar on brain health, which focused on strategies to maximize the potential of our decision-making powerhouse, the frontal cortex. One of the things that the speaker mentioned was reducing the amount of decision-making in our lives. How do you do that? Bingo: routine.

To understand why routine is so useful, it’s important to remember that our frontal cortex is involved in all of our decision making, no matter how complex or simple. Your frontal cortex does not distinguish between the types of decisions that you might have to make in a given day – whether they involve, say, life or death calls on the operating table, or ordering coffee at Starbucks. Your frontal cortex also gets tired easily, and once it’s tired, it tends to shut down and require a certain amount of “downtime” to recharge. And this is why eliminating, as much as possible, extraneous or unimportant decisions comes in handy.

How much you can “routinize” your life is, of course, up to you. Here are a few examples of the kinds of things that I do:

Pick out what I’m going to wear to work ahead of time (Sometimes weeks in advance; if I have a chunk of free time, I’ll sit down and brainstorm ideas, and write them all down. I like to be creative (and have a blog to keep alive) and rarely wear the same exact outfit. If you’re less concerned with sartorial novelty, developing a master list of favourite or reliable outfits means that you don’t have to keep repeating this exercise unless/until you add new pieces to your wardrobe, and need new combinations to incorporate them into your rotation.)

Eat the same breakfast every day. In fact, I generally eat the same things most days. (Research seems to suggest that this can also be a strategy for weight management. People who eat the same things every day apparently tend to fluctuate less in weight over time.)

Have a make-up routine. Bonus: I can get ready for work in under 15 minutes (and that’s only because I’ve got the whole thing down pat after years of daily practice).

Have a well-established bedtime routine with the kids. This ensures that I have a guaranteed block of time in the evenings for other things (work, blogging, writing, etc.).

There are certain parts of my life that don’t lend themselves to reliable routines (ahem, work), and I try not to stress or over-think those too much – key word here being “try”. It helps to remember one of my husband’s favourite quotes, from Mike Tyson of all people: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

It Takes a Village (but, especially, a supportive spouse)

Duh! Trite sayings do not become trite without a reason, after all. Problem is, we don’t always see other people’s villages, if you know what I mean. And many of us, having internalized the “must do it all” superwoman narrative, immediately assume that the people who appear to have everything together, do so without any help. Save yourself the heartache of the comparisons that flow from that (almost certainly) wrong assumption. One of the hardest things I learned as an adult was to ask for — and accept — help; had I not plunged into parenting like a non-swimmer diving headlong into the deep end of the pool, I might still be struggling with that lesson. (Nothing like the sheer panic of first-time parenting to motivate some quick learning.) There is a stigma around the admission that, at various times and for various reasons, we may need help — from family, friends, co-workers, professionals, public bodies, strangers. As I get older, this makes less and less sense to me. The asking for and giving of help (with grace and respect on both sides) is what brings us closer together as a society and as communities. I have never judged someone for asking me for help; it took me a long time to realize that I was judging myself for asking. I still do it, to be honest, but I’m working on it.

Of course, there is an implicit privilege in having a village upon whom to call. Some of it is luck, no question about it. For example, I have a close relationship with my parents, who are healthy and happily take an active part in my kids’ lives — pure luck on my part (thanks Mom & Dad!). Some of it takes planning and investment (financial or otherwise). I live ten minutes away from my parents (and my in-laws), by design; it’s not the neighbourhood I might have picked in different circumstances, but it makes life infinitely easier. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to choose my husband as my partner in life. Part of it was luck (some day I’ll share the story of how we met), and part of it was planning — looking into the future, at the life I hoped to have, and realizing that we could build that life, together. At the risk of sounding like I’m practicing my Oscar acceptance speech, I could not have accomplished all of the things I have without his support; my hope is that he can say the same about me.

Because, yeah, being part of a village is a two-way street. You have to give help, not only ask for it. Another difficult lesson is learning not to keep score — especially in close personal relationships. Life has its seasons, and that is true of everything. Some seasons, you will need more help and have little capacity to give it. Other seasons, you will be called upon to give and give. Nowadays, I try to simply remember to trust that help will all balance out in the end.

But this is just one perspective, and I know that while mine is certainly not unique, there are many others out there, rooted in different experiences and values. I would love to hear from you about the things that help you keep the balls in the air and chaos at bay, whether you are a working parent or not.

Cold Snap

Coat, J. Crew (thrifted); sweater, J. Crew Factory; dress, Gabby Skye (thrifted); boots, Bandolino (thrifted); bag, MbMJ; scarf, Joe Fresh; necklace, Stelle & Dot (thrifted)
Coat, J. Crew (thrifted); sweater, J. Crew Factory; dress, Gabby Skye (thrifted); boots, Bandolino (thrifted); bag, MbMJ; scarf, Joe Fresh; necklace, Stelle & Dot (thrifted)

The temps have been positively frigid lately (minus 30 Celsius), which means my weekend style game has been definitively non-blogworthy. Thankfully, we had a reprieve last weekend, and the warmer weather coincided with a girlfriend brunch date. Given that eggs Benedict were on the menu — literally — I went for comfort chic. My take: sweater over a loose-fitting dress, plus fleece-lined leggings. Add a cozy scarf, and swap out my ubiquitous parka for a chic wool coat, and I was ready to brunch in style. I was also ready for spring, which is sadly still too, too far away. Meanwhile, Christmas is way, way too close. How did that happen, and where did the rest of December go?

sans coat
sans coat