Sunday Outfit Challenge: The Casual Romantic

Today started out fantastic weather-wise. I got up to pick blackberries and just get some general exercise and Vit-D. 

This little guy sang me a song this morning!

So onto my outfit. Marijke chose "The Casual Romantic". I definitely consider this a challenge as my dress sense is not overly girly. My main plan for the day was visiting a craft and vintage market in town with a friend so the outfit had to be suitable for that too. 

I think I was pretty successful as per below. The top (which has embroidered flowers that are not very visible in this photo) is vintage and bought from Etsy and the headscarf comes from another vintage market in town. The skirt is GAP, bought from someone on E-Bay. Shoes are just plain old Tom's. 

Here is a closeup of hair and make-up. The hair is actually so easy to do (learned how on Pinterest) and looks really fancy and romantic. I did some nice purple shadow on my eyes and a pink lip and blush. Cute, right?

A lovely outfit for a lovely day. I helped a friend find stuff for a costume party and found Marijke a T-Shirt I really wanted so I am well pleased!

Our next weekday challenge will be completely different: we will unleash our inner assassin! SWYF powerrrr! ;-)

Thanks for reading!

The Outfit Challenge, Round 3.

Hello all!

Day 3 of the outfit challenge! The choice was up to yous truly again this time and I decided on finding inspiration in one of the 4 elements. My friend chose Earth and I chose Water!
So here's the outfit against the very sexy backdrop of the bathroom at work. The skirt is a dark blue linen one, calf length from Fat Face. I am wearing blue Tom's as well. The top is H&M and the scarf is of no particular brand, just a silk scarf from my growing collection. You can't really see it but the top and the scarf both have a very watery feel due to patterns and little light reflecting sequins on the fabric.

For make-up I chose a basic smokey eye in dark green with a lip gloss. Darker than I usually wear so it gave my colleagues a bit of a start.

I am enjoying the challenge. This was a fun outfit to wear and this challenge is a reason to experiment, with my clothes as well as my make-up. And it gives me a reason to blog! 

Thank you for reading!

Outfit Challenge, Round 2

Chirp, chirp! My friend at http://ethelandilearntosew.wordpress.com chose today's theme which was to be inspired by a bird. So today I picked my brain and my closet for options. I settled on a relatively simple outfit, suited for the easy going-ness of Sunday, inspired by...

The English Robin!

I don't have much in brown in my collection so I just replaced with black. Here I am (photoshopped the messy balcony background away :-P)! The hair is not looking the best as it was still wet from showering. I did take the opportunity to do my eye make-up to match the outfit. 

My turn to come up with round 3. Time for the thinking cap!

The Outfit Challenge, Day 1

So, as promised in my previous post. Here is the first result of the outfit challenge. I got to pick the first theme, which I decided was "subtle cosplay." I decided to cosplay Tara from Bufy the Vampire Slayer. Although it's more an outfit inspired by...than a cosplay. But that's okay. So in below photo, I am on the left and Amber Benson as Tara is on the right. Please excuse my terrible posture, it was early.

Make ALL the changes, do ALL the challenges!

Long post ahead!

A few weeks ago I finally accepted that I am not able to solve my problems on my own and saw a doctor about it.

If I was to label my problems, I guess mild depression or dysthymia would be appropriate. Basically, since about October 2012, I have been sinking. I started taking less joy in things, became less tolerant of people's mistakes and pushed them away and/or withdrew from social situations as a result, including terminating my Facebook page. I do not regret that last one as I continue to read more and more about how manipulative Facebook really is as a social media site but it has made me realise how reliant people have become on it. If you don't shove profile pictures and status updates down your 300+ friends' throats, you get forgotten about. And that is exactly how I feel a lot of the time. Forgotten, ignored, passed over. To avoid feeling like that, I withdraw, I alienate myself to give myself a sense of control. Reaching out to people to me reads as desperately begging for the attention of people who have no interest in me.  Fortunately for me, I do have support in the form of a husband and some REAL friends so I am not always the social pariah.

They say your outlook on life is a reflection on how you see yourself. I have never had particularly high self esteem. Insecurity creeps in at any given opportunity. This has also led to me not doing much as I never believe I will do it well enough. My tolerance for learning if very low as the low competency at the start of a learning process makes me very anxious. I am far from an optimist so I am inclined to think that if I show no talent at what I am learning, I will never improve.

So for a long time, my life consisted of working, watching TV and occasionally throwing in some things that might make it look like I have a life. Most of the time I enjoy those things, especially when they have a low level of responsibility, but it's not enough and my life feels stagnant. I feel stuck in my situations, which is another thing eating away at my motivation. Why make an effort to do things if I am stuck anyway, right?

But I want to change, I have always wanted to change. If I had spent half the time I spent making to do lists actually doing stuff on those lists, I would be so productive!

So, I went to the doctor. And now I am taking antidepressants, 20mg of Citalopram a day. I am in my third week of them and my mind is not exactly blown by the effects so far. But I have heard it needs time, so time is what I shall give it.

And admittedly, I have been doing a bit more. I have started several challenges with my friend (find her in all her fabulousness at http://ethelandilearntosew.wordpress.com/), adding that necessary accountability. And it's fun! My challenges for the moment:
- The water challenge, basically drink as much water (herbal tea counts) as possible. 3 litres a day is the aim.
- The 30 day yoga challenge. This can be found on YouTube. I am on day 3.
- The outfit challenge, friend and I set ourselves and each other outfit themes twice weekly and post the photos here.
- The blog challenge. A minimum of one blog post a month. Obviously the outfit challenge will cover this but I am hoping to add another post on top of them.
- The creative challenge. This we run via Pinterest. Make something, Pin it. Updates on Sundays.
- The frugal challenge. I need to save more money. This one has no real structure yet. Just spend less money overall. I have plenty of unnecessary expenses.
- Declutter challenges. Sell/give or throw away as much as possible. Especially when buying something new. Do not let stuff acummulate.

These things give my free time a bit of structure and make me feel productive. And some of them will obviously have beneficial effects on my health.

So there it is. I have been hoping to change for a long time now, but I might just be at the start of something.

If anyone has any questions (about citalopram, or anything), please feel free to ask!

Thanks for reading!