Childhood Obsessions

A week passed by and I didn't post. I took these photos last Thursday and Friday. But I had to work on Friday which I usually don't, and it took all the wind out of my sails. Saturday was spent doing nothing except a bit of clean up and watching "Angels and Demons" which I liked. Surprise! I didn't like "Da Vinci Code" that much.

This is what I wore last Thursday. Forgive the lip biting on the photo, I was concentrating on positioning the camera, sucking in my stomach and all that stuff.



My skinny-ish jeans, a plain white wife-beater, floral jacket and red suede wedges. Rings and blue topaz earrings (too delicate to be seen).

Here, my mouth is relaxed. And so is the stomach.

I like the 3/4 sleeves and the flower pattern of the jacket. It's light enough for the weather.

Close-up of the fabric. Goes well with jeans, don't you think?

Couple of shots from Friday. I was going for the monochromatic look... First thing I did in the early morning - spilled some chocolate pudding on the scarf and pants. Washed the scarf with dishwashing liquid right away, rubbed the stain on the pants with alcohol (which left an even larger stain all around the chocolate stain...)

Wore my Aldo giraffe print pumps. They became comfortable after thorough 24-hour stretching session at the cobbler's.

After work on Friday I popped into the Nine West shop (should stop doing that, really) and bought myself a treat. Donley suede military inspired lace up booties. Blah-blah-blah, they offered a 200 NIS discount. Discounts like that are not to be ignored. I realize that when you convert it to USD you only get about 50 bucks or maybe 54 depending on exchange rate. But here you can feed your family for almost a week on that money (provided that they don't eat much of course). Anyway, it's all excuses, but the booties are super comfortable, I wore them to work the other day, took a bus there and back, walked from the bus and back on uneven pavement - and I lived to tell the world about it. Now if only I could find a decent picture of the booties! Never mind, I'll take one myself.

But the title of this post is not shoes, it's Childhood Obsessions. Let me introduce you to one of my little obsessions. Ever since I was about 10 I loved... pens. I could walk into a stationery shop and stand by the pens display for hours. I would also change my handwriting from time to time, copying my friends styles.

I stopped experimenting with the handwriting years ago, but I still love my pens. Here is one of them, a purple Monteverde. Behold the magnificence (is this a Faux Fuchsia-ism? I think so. Credit!)

Isn't it pretty? Nice and fat and heavy. I drag it to work with me and cringe if someone borrows it even for a second. Yes, I'm greedy like that.

Another fave of mine is this Swarovski pen. I bought it at the airport one night, while picking up my friend. You can't take me anywhere (and leave me alone for a minute). Out of all the things the Swarovski stand had to offer I chose a pen.

But of course! It has crystals inside! And I found the replacement refills for it here! Mini-Cross refills. Got ya!

While lots of people use PDAs and all kinds of other techno-gizmos to write down their appointments, I prefer the good old pen and paper. Here is my organizer or diary. My husband calls it my brain. I think he might be right. So does it mean that I have a pretty brain? With roses and stuff?

Trust me, I don't have roses on my brain. I have... shoes! That's right!

Skinny wannabee

Guess what was the "centerpiece" of my outfit today?

You're right, the Coco necklace again. This time I wore it with a white twinset/black detail. Matchy-matchy. But I wore red shoes! You can't see them of course.

Here is another crooked picture, I was trying to capture the necklace. Am I obsessed?

I used to take my photos in the elevator with my previous Nokia phone-camera and it worked really well. But now, with Sony-Eriksson, I can't do it anymore. It fusses too much, auto-focus is a real pain. I still have the Nokia but the phone part of it is not working, and I'm not going to carry two phones with me just to photograph myself in the elevator, for Pete's sake!

Here is the blurry elevator pic. Black pencil skirt, as you can see. It's a bit tight right now, I really need to do something about it!

I wore my old ring today. The stone is opalite. The internet says that it's also moonstone but I don't think it is. I haven't worn it for a long time but today it fit just right.

We have a fashion-chain here called Crazy Line (or should I say "Fashion House"?) They make clothes for real women. I don't like all of their stuff, but at the same time I have a lot of Crazy clothes in my wardrobe. What do I mean when I say "real women"? In my slightly slimmer days their size Small was a bit roomy on me. Not anymore.

Anyway, they sent me their new catalog and what do I see? Skinny jeans! Now, I'm one of those women that look like an ice-cream cone in skinnies, including ample muffin-top, thanks to the super-low-rise style. And my thighs look like sausages to me. But I was curious and went to the shop anyway on my lunch-break.

These lunch-breaks will kill me, I either overeat or shop!

I tried them on and... bought them. The rise is normal, the pant-legs are slim but not sausage-tight. And the price was OK plus I got the membership-discount.

Here is a photo from their website www.crazyline.co.il:

The model is tall and skinny, of course. I can never look like that. My legs lack at least half a meter to be that long! But I can wear the jeans with longer tops and tunics instead of leggings, which is way more forgiving. I think. And Lord knows, I have enough high heels to pull off something similar. I'm planning to wear them tomorrow and I'll take some pics.

The Coco Necklace

Finally, the day when I wore my Coco necklace for the first time. I ordered it from the Red Phoenix Emporium and it arrived within 10 days. That's faster than ebay stuff from the US!
Here it is (forgive the fuzzy cell-phone picture).



I've been going through my wardrobe, trying to figure out how to wear the necklace, and then I decided not to complicate my life. Because ideally I'd have to replace everything. Like today on my lunch-break I wondered through the shops at the mall looking for tops and dresses of good fabrics. But what did I see? Lots of t-shirt fabrics and button-down cotton things. This is what's available. No silk, no decent chiffon (some chiffon but cheap looking). It's OK for the hot sweltering days, but come on!

Anyway, today I paired the necklace with an OK-quality stretchy top and black pants.

I didn't take a full length photo just because today was all about the necklace. I'm in love!

A Day in the Life

My Kid likes to take pictures. Last weekend he took about 400 photos, mostly of the sleeping dog and cats. I had to edit the "collection", deleting all things out of focus and endless repeats of Boomer snoring on the couch. While I was doing that, I decided to put together some pics that he took last Saturday while on a trip to Ashdod with my parents. This will give you an idea of where we live and what it looks like.

First they went to the beach. In the summer it would be packed with tourists and locals. But not in November (though tourists from colder countries would consider this beach and swimming weather).



There, an old couple enjoying the sun. And a container ship (Ashdod port is Israel's main cargo port, it's huge).

This is Moroccan culture center. Inside there's a bunch of shops, couple of restaurants. Looks pretty.

A close-up of a weird looking building. To me it's something you might see in "Blade runner" only in the sunlight, not the rain.

This picture Kid took from the car. Typical Ashdod street in a residential area on a Saturday. Nobody around except some children. Lots of parked cars.

After the beach they went to "Tiv Taam" - the largest chain of non-kosher stores in the country. Used to be that you could buy "exotic" things like coconut milk and brown sauce (that's HP sauce) only here. Which is not the case anymore. They have a large selection of booze. Their prices are not cheap but we still like to go there. This is probably the only food store open on Saturday and it gets quite packed.

Nice display of fruit and veg.

And again. It's the season of persimmons.

Living in Canada and Greece I always fondly remembered how cheap fruit and veg were in Israel. I remember leaving a shop in Corfu with a baggie of vegetables - couple of apples, a bunch of parsley, some tomatoes and cukes, possibly an avocado - and it cost me 18 euros!!!! I was in shock. Since then prices in Israel have gone up, but I can still pay 10 euros and drag 2 - 3 full bags home. Good stuff.

That's it for our mini-tour. Back to clothes tomorrow.

Alternative use of the Zara shop mirrors

Do you ever swap clothes with your Mom? I do sometimes. The other day she asked me if I wanted a couple of button-downs, one sleeveless, the other one with sleeves. Who am I to say no?
So I was thinking how to wear them, because they are a quite loose-fitting (read one size too big). And so far I came up with this.

Picture taken at the elevator. I think it has the best lighting.

Sleeveless shirt: Josepine Chaus
Jacket: Issue (bought in Vancouver in 1994 and forgotten deep in the closet for the last 10 years. Resurrected due to the "boyfriend" trend). I rolled up the sleeves, if you can see that.
Jeans: Golbary
Bag: Nine West
Booties: Episode
Green flower and scarf. Flower is just for show, but the scarf is there for a reason. Wanna guess? Right, to keep the neck of the blouse clean. I know, I'm sorry.
Zebra bracelet and an oversize ring

Here I took my picture in the Zara store. The weird expression on my face - I'm making sure that nobody is looking.


Here is a close-up of my booties. They are black suede with patent stripes. I love them, these are my 10-hour shoes.


After work I drove to a consignment shop in a nearby town. My friend and I took some clothes over there. Funny, all the stuff I thought they'd take - they didn't. And they took the things I didn't think they would.
There was some stuff in the shop that I liked, but due to the ree-e-eally slow work this month I decided not to spend any money, plus I don't need any more junk. My friend though... Among other things she got a nice chair and a small carved marble table. And we went home happy. Her with her purchases and me because I didn't spend any money. It's a great feeling, I should do this more often.