A Plant Focused Post

 Behold! Some new plants were left in the lobby of my apartment building the other day:

Note reads: Adopt me!! (I'm very needy) I need more than usual humidity!!

The top left is Stromanthe and the bottom right is a Rattlesnake plant. The are both in a bit of poor shape, but I hope I can help them out. They both had sticky-notes on them. The stromanthe had "Adopt me :(" on it and the rattlesnake plant had a note explaining that it's quite a needy plant and requires high humidity (you can see it in the photo above). 

Gardening is a hobby of mine, I have many indoor plants. Then, there are all the plants on my balcony that form a vegetable garden during the warmer months. Last year was very experimental in determining which plants will do well on our north facing balcony. Squash and relatives did poorly. Beans did the best, so quite a few of those were planted this year, along with a tomato plant and some leafy greens like kale and swiss chard. A variety of herbs were planted this year too. Last year, I planted different sorts of herbs within the same pot but they didn't fare well. This year, I planted each herb separately so that they can be watered and exposed to sunlight to meet their individual needs. We do get sun on part of the balcony in the morning and all over in the late afternoon, so the plants aren't in total shade all day. The tricks to herb gardening are slowly revealing themselves to me with time.

I've got quite a few drying out right now for use throughout the year.

My herb drying setup, at the moment.

The mint plant, started from a cutting I took in the woods near my old apartment is very prolific. I've cut it back and dried those cuttings several times this year already. It makes a very nice tea. The dill plant seems to be doing well, seems less is more when watering it. This was the first time I'd picked any of the dill, so will see how the plant rebounds. Basil does well to have its leaves pruned frequently.

Cherry tomatoes. I didn't grow the plant that produced these from seed myself this year. The ones I did died by the hand of a neglectful babysitter whilst I was away during one of my adventures this past spring.

Crab apples! 

In foraging news, a tree nearby was filled with nice looking red crab apples. Very shiny. Very bitter. Tried cooking in boiled water. Still somewhat bitter and very sour. Perhaps they need to ripen on the tree a bit more because I know that crab apple jam/jelly is a thing. Wild purslane was also discovered. May go and pick some this week.

And here is my coordinate for today:

Jumperskirt: Dot Stripe JSK
Bolero: Angora Bolero
Blouse: Themis Blouse
Socks: ??
(Everything is Innocent World)

No hair accessory for no real reason, I suppose.

My smaller MeLikesTea petticoat is pink (in a shade which I totally love) so it kind of shows through some of my dresses, such as this one. The size is perfect for casual wear, but the colour presents a problem. Perhaps I should buy another petticoat in a plain colour... How many petticoats does one need, though? Bah.

New Shoes x 2

There has been a need for a classy pair of pink heels in my lolita wardrobe for quite a while. Cotton Candy Feet has some really cute styles. The problem is that there are too many good options! It's taken a few months, but I finally decided on a pair. It came down to choosing the pair with the name I liked the best. Fairy Ballerina Glitter Shoes was the winner! How can you go wrong with fairies, ballerinas and glitter?

I chose the light pink option. Here's a picture showing some my dresses I plan to wear them with:

Top Left: Toys Museum 
Top Right: Whimsical Vanilla Chan 
Bottom Left: Unbirthday 
Bottom Right: Dolls Tea Party 
All Angelic Pretty

(Yes I did some doodles on this collage. Trying to let my creativity out a bit more.)

In other news I found a super cute Angelic Pretty blouse for sale secondhand online and I bought it! 

It's the Decoration Ruffle Blouse from 2009. It has detachable sleeves! It wont come with the detachable ribbon on the front but that's okay because I can just make it myself. It will be my first completely blue blouse. The blue blouses I have are both striped. It is always funny to me how I've been in the fashion so many years but some things that feel like they should be essential (e.g. a plain blue blouse) I just don't have. Something else I don't have is a white bag. Probably, I need two. One for classic looks and one for sweet looks.

Since it's an order from Japan, I picked out a few other items too. Gotta make it worth it. ^^; (goodbye money *watches money flying away*)

I also got these shoes for more casual lolita looks in a local store! They had a few other pastel coloured shoes as well, but I resisted them. I wish pastel colours could stay in fashion for a long time...

Top row (left to right): Fantastic Carnival, Happy Bunny, Marshmallow Bunny, Toys Museum
Bottom row (left to right): Melody Toys, Toy Parade, Toy Fantasy
All Angelic Pretty

They'll go with many of my dresses! :D Personally, I think combining sneakers with lolita is super cool. It makes the outfits look way more casual.

Weekend Adventures

On Friday afternoon my husband and I went berry picking. I recalled seeing raspberries growing along a nearby path last year. They're black raspberries, actually. There weren't too many ripe fruits, lots of unripe ones. Still, we had a small haul.

The raspberry bushes are feisty! Foraging is a lot of fun, so I don't mind the minor scrapes. I put these into pancakes the next morning. Saturday is always pancakes for breakfast and then I save the leftovers for Monday to make the first day back to work a little more fun.

After berry picking we went to go see Nope, Jordan Peele's latest directed film. There is something special about a horror film directed by a person known for comedy. Hopefully, he will direct more films! I am also hoping that there will be a director's cut of Nope because there was an entire subplot that was removed.

On Saturday afternoon we went to a festival. It was 30 degrees but I really wanted to wear lolita fashion anyway and so I did. Parasol came to the rescue!

Parasol, headbow: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
Blouse, socks, wristcuffs: Bodyline
Bag: Angelic Pretty
Necklace: Sweet Dolly House
Shoes: An*Tai*Na
Skirt: Design replica of Angelic Pretty Cross Ribbon Skirt

My natural hair looks okay with the giant head-eating-bow. Why doesn't my longer hair? A mystery. Speaking of hair, I am thinking about growing mine out again. 

An old school style felt suited for the festival. Sometimes, when out in public "going back to basics" seems best. Quite a few people complimented my outfit. One girl said she really wanted to get shoes like mine. I wish I had told her to "DO IT" and encouraged her but I was a bit overwhelmed :< Hopefully, I inspired her in some way because another lady had said she felt it was inspiring that I was just wearing whatever I like.

The only problem with a parasol is that you have one hand less free. Not terribly ideal when you are also trying to hold a Korean rice veggie dog (which was very delicious by the way!). I also had this Chinese charcoal baked bun filled with sugar and topped with sesame seeds. Wish I'd taken photos of the food but alas. >__<"

With all the events of the weekend, I feel like I've fully recovered from being ill. I'll be back to the office tomorrow (Monday) but I don't know when I'll return to the gym. Trying not to be too concerned about losing my gains. Maybe it will be fun to see where I am at and start again, who knows? 

Bunny Pocket OP

A goal I had a few months ago was to not buy any more lolita for quite some time. I've stuck to this goal!

Angelic Pretty announced they were re-releasing the Bunny Pocket OP, though. This was worth breaking from my embargo on lolita fashion. 

So then, I spent a lot of time thinking about which colourway to ask my shopping service to purchase. All the colourways are wonderful, I'd be happy with any. I'm always partial to blue, but the first time I saw this dress was in Shelby Cloud's video and hers was pink. So pink has a special meaning for me. The red x white or black x white combo also were super cute. After much deliberation, I put in an order with a shopping service listing the order of my colour preferences, in case my number one choice was unavailable:

#1. Sax

#2. Pink

#3. Black

#4. Red

The Dot Michelle Katyusha matched the dress really well. I requested they purchase it in the same colourway as whichever dress they managed to get.

Sadly, the dress sold out instantly. At 11:00 PM EST I refreshed the page and it was sold out. I never even saw the dress in stock! Only the listing preview page and then instantly sold out! Totally bonkers.

Hopefully, it will also be sold at Angelic Pretty USA, but it wasn't even listed on Angelic Pretty Paris' webstore and I think Paris usually lists at the same time as the Japan store. 

It's always so hard to gauge what level of interest a dress is going to have, especially now that I don't use Instagram very frequently. 

...

To think I spent all this time trying to choose a colour and also whether or not to try for the Japan store or to try and wait for the USA store. All that worry for nothing! I can't help but laugh a little.

I am back from my many adventures!

I've been sick for the past week. I was supposed to go to Trotcon and even had a Fluttershy inspired egl coordinate planned out. :( Actually, I didn't get very sick. It was like a mild cold. But I did feel very tired. 

It was really nice to just spend an entire week at home feeling obligated to do nothing. :D

I managed to get some things done. For example, a button had popped off my Cherry Cat jumperskirt from Innocent World. The button seems to have been sucked into the void of nothingness because it has entirely disappeared. Months of searching have yielded no results. I sewed on a clear button as a replacement. The buttons are mismatched now though. Maybe now that I've gone through the effort to replace it, the missing button will return.

The results. Not too noticeable hopefully?

Cherry Cat is one of my favourite dresses. The cats are sort of wonky looking but it reminds me of the wallpaper border of my childhood bedroom. The dress is also very simple. The ease of wear that comes with such simplicity combined with the nostalgia makes it a go-to.

Mouse (soon to be a victim?) carries a cherry away.

On the topic of mending, I repaired the burn holes near the cuffs of this sweater. This sweater was left downstairs in my building's lobby, as things often are. It's sort of a leave and take situation. Quite a bit of my muggle clothing is sourced from here. It's fun to find new clothes for free that are in my size. I guess whomever owned this before must have been a smoker? Thought I don't recall it smelling like smoke.

Before.

After

Why is there no full view photo of this sweater? Who knows?! This is really just for bookkeeping for myself maybe. Or maybe to prove to myself that no, this blog (as a whole) isn't just about lolita fashion. It's about my life. Something like that.

In that case, here's as close as a worth photo I have of myself "wearing" the sweater. It's wrapped around my waist. This image looks hella flat, but I am actually at the top of a very big rocky hill (or perhaps you could call it a small mountain). It's a very remote location, very cool to go somewhere so remote.

Me in my iconic field hat. I had to make a few repairs to it this trip. It's ten years old now!

It's been quite a while since I've worn lolita. This spring/summer has been filled with traveling. Although last week was spent in quarantine and could have presented an opportunity to wear lolita, I preferred to wear clothing that I could fall asleep in at any moment. I did indeed sleep a lot.

But the food supply has run low and I feel pretty well now so I visited a grocer. It's quite hot so I went for a super cute look instead of lolita. I have discovered that wearing a wig is as good as wearing a hat to keep the sun off one's head :P 

This dress is from Peiliee Shop

I'm happy with how this fit turned out! I think it's very cute. 

Otherwise, I've been playing the Sims 4 a bit and watching both Fargo and My Dress-Up Darling. 

Also, I have this bubbling feeling of nostalgia! I don't know why. Maybe it's just because it's summer??

 

It's June AlreadY!

I've been away and travelling a lot so I haven't had much of a chance to wear lolita. 

I did wear lolita a whole lot over the Easter weekend, and I'd meant to post about it but never got a chance.

Part of the problem is that it's not a smooth process to transfer images from my smartphone onto my computer to write these entries. 

These Converse shoes are from Poshmark! They will go well with very casual coordinates.

This is what I wore to church today. There was no time for a proper photo. In addition I wore a satin pink baseball hat and an Angelic Pretty purse. I actually had to run to church in order to make it on time. It must have been an interesting sight to any observers. These Converse came in handy!

A friend and I were discussing the use of the term lolita. I don't want to use this term anymore. Personally, I don't want to deal with misconceptions. Instead, I'll refer to it as jfashion (when talking to muggles). I think this works, because my style is perhaps not strictly lolita anyway. 

Hopefully, there will be other opportunities to wear lolita before the month is over. I'll be attending Trotcon next month. I plan to make a Fluttershy themed coordinate!

Goodbye to my hair, hello to pining over dresses yet again and will I ever stop obsessing over cooking?

March flew by really fast. I was pretty busy the whole time but I can't exactly remember much of what went on. My last post was the only time I wore lolita in March. Surprising!

I didn't get a chance to make the headdress to match Doll's Tea Party yet. I am unsure of when I will have enough free time to do it.

Recently, I decided that I want to be less interested in cooking to have more free time but so far I have failed. T__T 

I also cut off all my hair finally. I feel a lot better about my appearance now. This means I had to break out the wigs I've kept stored away for so long in order to wear lolita (in a way that makes me happy with how I look. I am not saying one needs long hair to wear lolita, I am just super critical of myself). 

Here's my trying out a wig for the first time in a few years.

Does it obviously look like a wig? Does it matter when it comes to lolita anyway?  XD

This FINALLY gave me the push to trim the bangs on the other two of my wigs. I think I did a much better job than my attempt with my pink wig years ago. I will probably try to fix the bangs on that pink wig, if possible. Additionally, I hope to get a wig closer to my natural hair colour.

In other news, the most recent Baby, the Stars Shine Bright Release is killing me because I told myself I'd buy no more lolita this year. But... LOOK !!

Scallop hem tartan check jumper skirt set

I feel like that crying trollface meme. Or the Spongebob "I don't need it" meme. An almost-the-same dress in a different colourway is currently sitting my closet. I just love the way it looks though!!

Last week, I revisited the idea of potentially selling off some of my wardrobe, but confirmed once again that I love everything I have. 

Along the lines of cutting off my hair, I am also working on building muscle in my upper body to help with the dysmorphia. This means I need to eat a lot more protein, which is probably why I've failed to banish thoughts of cooking and recipes from my mind. And to take it one step further in the hypocrisy I might be creating some recipe blog posts. Originally I was putting recipes on a separate page but I have never been totally pleased with that format so I am going to start adding them as regular posts. 

Kind of concerned about dresses no longer being able to fit my arms but IG will cross that road when I get there.

Bye for now~