How Was Your Christmas?

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful time.

We had our own little celebration at home. The Kid "ordered" Christmas dinner - roast chicken and rice. He is lucky, he gets presents twice - for Christmas and for New Year's. He is always waiting for the holidays with great anticipation. Too bad Christmas day and January 1st are normal working days. This year holidays are on the weekends which is an added bonus.

My pre-Christmas week was not what I expected. I was going to go shopping, prepare all kinds of tasty treats, blah-blah-blah. Didn't happen. My work mate's son got really sick, pneumonia and some stomach virus. So she didn't come to work all week. Guess who had to work for two! Eight till seven 3 days in a row and then 2 normal days till five. Non-stop phone calls, customer service, paperwork, nightmare.

Anyway, her kid is fine now, and we're back to normal. But now my husband lost his job. Good thing this year is almost over and I'll drink copious amounts on the 31st just to say "good riddance".

I'm posting 2 outfits just to brighten up this post.

This one is from last Thursday. Turquoise jumper and some pearls to mark the end of the working week.


The jumper has puffy shoulders and small buttons running down the sleeves.


And this is what I wore yesterday. Not as colorful but with stripes. I've had this Zara dress for a couple of years. Wore a trench over it outside and a work shirt indoors.

Close up of my stripey scarf and a coral "stick" necklace.

Here's dreaming about better life :)

Christmas Less Than a Week Away

This year holidays snuck up on me. I've been working a bit more than usual and suddenly realized that I haven't completed my Christmas shopping! Oh horror!

At least we decorated the house (finally). I didn't put up the tree before as I was afraid that someone white and fuzzy could kill it before the official festivities. There he is, pretending to be asleep. Part of the decor.


Because of Snooker the bottom of the tree is pretty bare. Why can't he be as well behaved as the Dog?

My tree-topper, Santa's head. A gift from a dear friend in Canada. Thank you, Val!

Some more special ornaments. The angel.

And Santa with reindeer on a hot-air balloon.

The stairs to the office and the bedroom. I bought this thing (what is it? A garland?) for my Kid's very first Christmas, he was 6 months old. So the garland is 11 years old and still looks good.

As we don't have a fireplace, this is the next best place for Christmas stocking. In the meantime it's stuffed with paper, but it's going to change next weekend.

This house is also gift from Husband's friend in Canada. Thank you, Dave! He made it himself. WeI brought it to Israel and enjoy it every year.

Here is Snooker again. I couldn't help it, he looks so cute. Especially in this setting.

Around this time of year I especially miss Canada. I loved all the Christmas craze, the music at the malls, the mad rush of the Boxing day sales. Oh well, at least I have my own little Christmas in this country.

Staying Pointy

In my previous post I mentioned pointy and round-toe boots. So to prove my point (ha-ha) I wore these booties the very next day. They are really pointy. The heel is not too high, so I could walk to the bus in them after 6 hour day (mind you, mostly sitting at the desk).

The rhinestone thingy is shiny and pretty, too bad it's always hiding under pants.

The total look was black and dark grey. Straight pants, simple turtleneck, grey jacket that flairs out a bit on the bottom.

I felt really slim and elegant. Heels helped of course.

That day I painted my lips with bright red lipstick. It's Christian Dior "Celebrity red". Nice name for it. It's really strong and glossy, I love it but don't use it too often. I'm more used to dark pinks (like Chanel "Mademoiselle") or corals (MAC Cindy). Or beige. Or something. But not red. So this was a brave day for me.

This is my necklace. It's actually kind of a rope, you just wrap it around your neck like a scarf.

This is what it looks like. I like it, the only drawback is that it catches individual hairs and pulls them. Putting it over a turtleneck helped a bit.

So you might have noticed that I've started taking the bus to work. Hubby got a new job and needs the car now. It's not so bad when I work in Rehovot, but if I have to go to Ashdod office, the bus ride is 45 min one way. I have to take something with me to munch on because I get car-sick, I usually take a banana, it has the most lasting positive effect (i.e. no queasy feeling). But now I get to walk around a bit more. With the car you just drive to your building, park it and you're done. This way I get to see the people and "air myself out" so to speak. Which is nice. I might even break out my leather gloves for the evening bus-wait, and I haven't worn gloves in 10 years! Yeah for gloves!

Is It Camel?

On Tuesday there was no chance to go into the kiddie room and take my own pictures. So I went back to Zara and snapped a couple.

Tuesday was "camel day" to celebrate the head-to-toe camel trend. This is the best I could do, meaning blue jeans and pewter boots. Actually I bought this sweater under the influence of internet - someone posted a Chloe's all beige ensemble on her blog. Result - money spent. I'm so easily manipulated.


Beige sweater with brown suede - what is it? A trench? I'll call it a trench. It has a great leopard lining but it doesn't show... Next time.

See my bag? It's almost the same shape as LV Speedy and judging by the photos I saw, it doesn't keep it's shape just as Speedy doesn't...

This is me posing at home. Sideways, to look slimmer. I think it worked.

The sweater has some "ropes" attached to it. Not a good idea to get hooked on something while wearing it.

Looking at my winter shoes and boots I realized that almost all of them are pointy-toed. Two pairs of my boots are round-toed and this is one of them.

But I'm not about to run to the stores and overload my credit cards. I'm going to wear pointy-toes as if nothing happened! Maybe I didn't get the memo. Did you?

Storm, Day Three

Just a quick post to catch up. Today I wore my "stormboots", they were a bit more useful in the rainy stormy weather. Added black leggings and a long sweater-tunic and I was set.

I love the color of this sweater, it makes me look brighter somehow, my eyes become more blue than grey. Of course nobody can see my eyes in this dumbass photo. But you can see my kabbalah rings!

I've been at this office since 8 am and it's almost 7 pm. Exhausted is the word!

Here they are, my heavy duty boots. They make it so easy to run for the bus at the end of the day.

Seriously, people got knocked down by this wind yesterday! A woman was practically thrown onto the road and got hit by a car because of it. I'm glad it's over.

Flower Pants

There is something seriously wrong with the weather this year. First we had the hottest summer in God knows how long. Then the hottest driest autumn ever. Then we had the fire. And now the storm. It started Saturday and is supposed to finish today. Maybe it's over, I don't know, I'm still at the office. Anyway, Saturday was just windy and dusty. All the windows were closed but you got dust and sand in the house anyway. On Sunday it was super windy and sometimes rainy. After the rain my umbrella had dusty streaks on it. And today it was just pouring rain all day. The wind in Ashdod (closest to us seaside city) reached the speed of 120 km/h. Some people got hurt.

This is what I wore on Sunday. Gray and pink, classic combination. Only there is nothing classic about these jeans. But I like them anyway.

Looking at the photos I'm thinking that the top should have been a little longer. I'll try it next time.

This was my jacket. Now I have to clean it from dust.

And the best footwear to run away from the rain. I sure know how to pick them.

To complement the color scheme I grabbed my pink umbrella with black trim and black and pink paper shopping bag for stuff I had to carry. One thing for sure - in the gloomy weather I wouldn't get hit by a car - you could see me miles away.

What to wear

This week I worked every day. I'm sure it sounds crazy to most of the folks out there, because they do work every day. But I used to work just two days a week, then three. Last month I managed to add another half a day (about 5 hours) to my schedule. And now my last day at home is gone. It's temporary, until one of the colleagues comes back from sick leave. I don't mind the addition to the paycheck but...

Anyway, this is what I wore on Tuesday, my newly added 5-hour day. Horizontal stripes! I didn't have the opportunity to take some pictures at work, so did it at home after I came back.


Mmm, fuzzy picture. But you can see my pearls a bit better. And slightly puffy sleeves.

This is the best dress length for me, I think. Just down to the knees.

And the next day I went blue and yellow. Or indigo and mustard.

The jeans have gold stitching that matches perfectly the color of the sweater. Isn't it something? My comfy heeled mules made it easy to walk from and to the bus.

Another shot of yellow and golden stitching.

And a splash of purple. I saw this combination in the catalog of the shop I bought the sweater and the jeans from. The girl on the poster had a purple scarf around her neck. I couldn't find a "stand-alone" photo to post here, but this is my take. I found this scarf at a second-hand store. Bonus - it has little yellow flowers. Too matchy? Maybe. Especially with the amethyst ring.

This week is supposed to be cold. Forgive me, people from countries with real winter. I wasn't mocking you, I promise! For Israel plus 5 centigrade is almost freezing temp. So what will I wear? We'll see.

Hobo Boots

I went outside of my comfort zone and bought myself some new boots. I think this is what the internet calls "homeless chic". They look like I've had them for about 20 years, trudging through the mud and running after freight trains... You know.

The biggest plus was their price. They are not leather, so they were cheap as chips. I had my doubts, that is sweaty feet and stuff. But I've worn them 3 times already and they are perfect. Comfortable and not sweaty at all, I wore them for my 11-hour work day and was happy as a bug.

This week the weather finally turned wintery and we had our first rain. So what happened? I wasn't ready. I have nice jackets, a beautiful new Zara trench, some stylish pieces that I could wear. So what did I wear? This old thing purchased in Vancouver 15 years ago. It's light as a feather and wrinkly to begin with, so you can roll it up and stick it in the bag if you have to (I didn't have to, it was cold).

Here is one outfit with the aforementioned boots. With the cardigan.

And without the cardigan.

And now for a bit of humor. Went to a department store the other day and found these T-shirts. Looked closely and saw something interesting.

Had to look again. No mistake there.

And then found another one.

Nice, eh?

But here something really nice I saw in a magazine called Mama-Info. Sweet sweet babies.

Doesn't it make you feel all warm and squishy inside?

Fire

You've probably heard on the news of the national disaster in Israel, the fire on mount Carmel and around it. Our "Little Switzerland", beautiful forests are gone, perished in the fire. Huge nature reserve, artists' villages among other things you can or rather could find in the area. The fire keeps spreading in spite of all the effort. More than 40 people dead.

I'm grateful to the international community, all the countries that sent people, equipment, materials to help us out.

Please pray for us.

Photos from the sites: www.haaretz.co.il, www.ynet.co.il, www.walla.co.il