Monday, October 26, 2009

Workin' At the Carwash Yeah!


Sorry, bad 70's flashback with that song!

But I had to! My skirt today is of the carwash style, in that is has panels that swish back and forth.

I had a different skirt on this morning, and as I started to head downstairs, one last glance in the mirror told me I needed to change. I am b l o a t e d and the other skirt was only emphasizing it.

I got this skirt at Catwalk 4 years ago. When I made the purchase, I was still working at my last company, and having to wear suits everyday. It was a total impulse purchase, but I love this skirt. It has Chinese bottles on it, and I like to think they were herbals or from ancient Chinese pharmacy. I love the swishing of the panels, and Ben was kind enough to capture the skirt spinning in action as I scuffed up the bottom of my new boots.

What did she say?

Yes, they are new. Well, rather this is their maiden voyage. However, they are actually 2 years old!

Here is the sad story. I purchased these at DSW 2 seasons ago. They were fine when I tried them on in the store. The first time I attempted to wear them, one of the zippers got stuck! I had to wrestle it off of my leg, and tossed them in the closet in disgust, I had every intention of taking them back to DSW, but you know what happens with the best laid plans!

I planned on wearing my other black boots today, but when I went into the closet, I spied these. I asked Ben if he wouldn't mind fighting the zipper. As I was asking, I was playing with the zipper and got it unstuck! I was almost in big trouble, however, when I put them on this morning. Instead of the zipper getting stuck in a part of the boot, it caught my tights! After a significant amount of time, the zipper went up; I was not taking them off at that point!

The sweater is a cropped black cardigan that I wore over my Banana Republic cami.

I really am enjoying finding different jewelry to wear. These earrings were free; they came along with an eBay purchase I made last year. How nice!

I hope you let me keep the skirt because I love this one! The vote below!

Now, I promised 1frugalqueen my bread recipe from yesterday. (Click her name to check out her awesome blog!)

The bread is from The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook by Tosca Reno. It is really easy and delicious!! I made the whole batch yesterday so I could freeze some of the bread, but you may want to cut in half as it makes 4 large loaves!

Schommer's Whole-Grain Bread

5 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup organic honey
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon Sea Salt
3 tablespoons yeast
11-12 cups whole grain flour

(for the record, the recipe also calls for 1/4 tea ascorbic acid. I don't know why it is needed; I have made this bread several times without it! Also, I only used about 10 cups flour yesterday.)

1. Combine all ingredients except whole grain flour. Let stand until the yeast is dissolved and starting to rise.

2. Coat your hands with oil to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. Add flour 4 cups at a time and knead for 10 minutes. (I mixed all of this in my Kitchenaid stand mixture with the dough hook. Easy!)

3. Shape into loaves or buns and place into pans. Let rise until double in size.

4. Bake at 325 degrees for 30-35 minutes until golden on top.

5. Remove from oven and turn onto cooking racks immediately.

I enjoyed this so much this morning for breakfast! Toasted with sunflower seed butter with sliced banana. Divine!!

Enjoy!

Thanks for checking in!

xo

Kel










7 comments:

  1. Can I tell you how glad I am that the first picture is showing the panels of a skirt and not pants? ;)

    Really like how you belted over the cardigan...very slimming. Ya look great! Suprise, suprise....

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  2. I like the skirt! It's quirky and looks like something I would wear; I recently finished sewing a kimono-style top in pinks and greens. I had cut out the pieces a year and a half ago in a size 24 and had to go back and re-cut everything to an 18, and then take the whole thing in when I was done!

    Those earings are totally cute, too. They remind me of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh rose, one of my favorites.

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  3. Oh No! I just voted and the majority wants you to get rid of the skirt! I really like it!

    ps, I just took a second look at the bread recipe, and I have everything I need to make it except the yeast.. hmm.. how many loaves/servings does it make?

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  4. Almk - I am a little shocked at the votes so far too! I always get a ton of compliments when I wear it :(.

    The bread makes 4 loaves! There are 16 servings per loaf. My calcs are about 97 calories per serving; in the book she has 83. Amazingly good stuff!

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  5. Awesome, thanks for the calorie/serving info.. I might just have to break out the Kitchenaid.. I've had it for over 4 years and never used the bread hook.. in fact, I don't think I've made bread since 2nd grade! :)

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  6. Kel I am glad that's a skirt, too. I was a little concerned at first. I think this outfit is adorable and if everyone aufs the skirt, maybe you could turn this into a non-vote day. You could accidently delete the vote thing. Lots of things could happen that would result in you getting to keep the skirt. :)

    Thanks for the recipe! I have a Kitchen Aid but I've only used it to make cookies and haven't tried the bread hook yet.

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  7. Kel, the thing I think about in the first picture is a skort. I know this is a skirt, but it looks slightly like a skort in that pic and I don't have good associations with that fashion trend. I like the bottles and where it belts is really cute, but how it falls on your hips is not the most flattering I've seen you in. Since you get so many compliments on it I would say keep it, because clothes do tend to sometimes look better in real time. I foudn this out with a pic on FB recently. I wore this really cute shirt and it has even been photographed well in different lighting and angles, but in the FB photo, I looked terrible in it. My first impulse was to throw it out when I saw the pic. I'm still not sure about it. That one picture has damaged my view of how I look in that shirt I used to adore.

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