Last week of summer-work dressing and...

Two weeks ago marked the end of my summer job and this past week marks the beginning of my regular job.

I'm tired, a bit crazy, overloaded with paperwork but very happy to continue working on my passion and to have a job that allows me to support my family and enjoy having some medical benefits; and sometimes a little extra to go out and have fun.

This is what I wore on my last week of slacks-only summer work attire:

Orange Crush shirt is from Target and its my homage to my favorite soda; well I must say "besides Coca Cola".

Isaac Mizrahi  capris from his Target line.

Kenar cardigan  and Converse tennis shoes both purchased at Marshalls years ago.

No name purse from a no name store (sorry I don't remember where I got it).

Thrifted belt. Necklaces from Bealls Outlet and bracelets from Steinmart.

My Sweetheart, made in Cambodia and already worn red pants.

Old shirt and cardigan from Target.

Converse tennis, thrifted 5 months ago.

This photo is the no-flash version..

Necklaces: the first two are from Bealls and the last one was just thrifted last month.

Bracelets: some are from Steinmart, some are thrifted  and others from my local Indian store.

Sun 'N' Sand purse.

Prospirit shirt, made in Mongolia (I have this shirt for so long and I never read the label until now).

Evie cardigan, made in Hong Kong and purchased at one of the stores at Broward Mall in Plantation 4 years ago.

Worthington long shorts, made in Indonesia and also purchased in Broward Mall.

My old trustees Easy Spirits Mary Janes purchased about a century ago at the easy spirit store here in Plantation, Fl.

My necklace is from Steinmart and its probably about 6 years old.

Bracelets from Claires, DOTS and the silver ones are from all the places that I have lived.

Andy Wharhol's  soup purse.

Worthington pants, made in Guatemala. They are the same brand and I purchased them in the same store but they are made in two far-from-each-other parts of the world!


Swaui blouse, made in The USA (with the strange name you would think otherwise) and thrifted back in March. 

Necklace and bracelets are from Steinmart and are about 4 years old.

Rampage purse also from ages ago.

Thrifted belt.



I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my followers and the loveliest, super kind, witty, stylish and smart ladies that always take time out of their busy lives to comment on my blog.

I believe in personal connections no matter how far we are from one another and I have genuine love and admiration for all of you.

I'm going to be taking a few months off from blogging because my life is a bit complicated (in a good way) and busy-crazy right now.

I'll have lots of photos and outfits to show when I come back and I'll will miss reading all of your amazing blogs.

Con Amor,  

A dinner and a birthday...

Part I


My good friend Laura invited me over for dinner at her house two Thursdays ago.
I have known Laura since our kids were in the 6th grade, and she always has been a very giving and caring person to me and to my daughter.

Her son and my youngest daughter are still friends as they move on into their senior year in high school and Laura and I contemplated how we are going to manage all the time, expenses and emotions that this school year promises to bring us.

I enjoyed a walk back into memory lane, good food and spending time with all the family pets. We can't have any pets because of my oldest daughter allergies and asthma so whenever I get the chance to spend time with other people's pets; I do enjoyed it tremendously.

This is Laura's backyard and close to the area where she was grilling the chicken.
I love this orchid and its the first time that Laura's plants are growing because as she herself put it "if she planted it,  it usually died"!

I prepared the salad and helped setting up the table. 
We ate and talked about the kids time in middle and in high school and how fast its all happening and how unprepared we both are to deal with high school graduations!

This are some of Laura's family pets that I adopted for the evening:

This is Eva, she is Goldy's daughter with the neighbors black Labrador.
The neighbors house and Laura's connect by their backyard so Eva gets to see and hear her dad bark all the time.

This is mama Goldy.
She is very playful and wants to be center of attention all the time.

This is the man of the house he was Goldy original mate.
He is the oldest one and the most calm and collected of the three. I love his face; its shows his beauty, peace and maturity.

This giant ball of yellow and orange fur is Poo Bear!
He is huge and somehow agile at the same time. They don't understand why he is so big because they don't overfeed him and he's being checked by the vet. I guess he is just born to be big.
He is their Garfield, well not really he's way more loving than Garfield.

I wore:
Boundaries skirt is a 100% cotton, just thrifted at my Salvation Army store.
To The Max shirt,  made in The Philippines and purchased with the skirt.
Merona sandals from the Ft Lauderdale Salvation Army store at the beginning of July.

New York& Company purse, a gift from an old friend back in 05 or 06.
All the bangles were also purchased the same day that I got the skirt and the shirt.
Necklaces: the longer one was thrifted, the double one was made for me by one of my old supervisor and the one with strings is from Steinmart.

PartII


This past Thursday was my niece's birthday and I decided to wear the same skirt because it felt like a Thursday skirt!

We had great fun, the girls playing the new Harry Potter game for the Wii while we cheered them on.
We also tried to see if the girls remembered some of the our earliest memories of their times together and of the games they used to played.

We had some pizza (sorry we ate it before any photos were taken) and the most delicious cake from Sweet Art By Lucida located in Pembroke Pines. We love, love their cakes and have purchased them for all of our birthdays.

My niece also has a giant goldfish as a pet.
He comes up to the top of the tank and she pets him like he's a dog!

I wore:
The same skirt as two Thursdays ago; the recently thrift 100% cotton Boundaries skirt.
Old Navy top, 100% cotton, made in Mexico and thrifted two weeks ago.

Steve Madden studded sandals.
Worthington purse.
Necklaces and bracelets are from Steinmart, DOTS and thrifted.



Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week,

Summer reading...

This summer I've been so busy working and doing my living thing that I read fewer books than usual; as a matter of fact some of the books in this list were my 2nd or 3rd read. Some of them because I love them so much that I needed to read them again and one is because I needed to re-learn some skills that I have not used for a while.

The Art of Sign Language by Christopher Brown.
I purchased this book back in 2007 when I worked with deaf students to improve my skills back then after taking sign language classes all the way back in 2004. This summer I worked with interns that have some hearing impairment and I needed to re-learn this skill.

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.
It's one of my all times favorite books and this is my 3rd or 4th time reading it. I also love the 2005 film version even though there are some major changes in the movie plot in comparison to the book.  I think that Liev Schreiber did a great job with the screenplay and directing the movie as well as the natural and heartfelt acting of Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz (the lead singer of the amazing band Gogol Bordello).

House and Philosophy, Everybody Lies by William Irwin and Henry Jacoby.
I bought this book as a present for oldest daughter during her House obsession stage and this is my 2nd time reading it.
Its funny that I introduce my girls to House, Doctor Who, Glee, Japanese animation, the new Sherlock Holmes and many more things that they really got into it; and that I move away from it while they remain loyal to. 

Rollins Stones Interviews by Jann S. Wenner and Joe Levy.
I got this book about 5 months ago, its a compilation of some of the magazine's interviews from 1968-2004 and its co written by the amazing and I-always-want-have-an-affair-with Joe Levy!!!  Some of the interviews  included are: Jim Morrison, George Lucas, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, The Dalai Lama and Bono.

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat by Bill Watterson.
I adore Calvin and Hobbes!!! The simplistic and humorous everyday events from a point of view of a child and his tiger stuffed animal. I can tell you that I remember vividly when I was 14 1/2 (back then those half were very important) and I stopped caring or believing in my stuff animals. And I can also tell you that I remember vividly when I realized that a stuff animal, a figurine, a book, a poster, etc do have a powerful sentimental and emotional value and we shouldn't lose sight of that childhood love of inanimate objects.

Classic Album Covers Of The 60's by Storm Thorgerson.
I purchased this book back in 2007 and I had never finish reading and/or looking through all of it. It has the artist name, album name, the record year and the cover designer name at the bottom of all of the photos. So imaginative and cool covers and many artists that I know and love and others that I never heard of but learn about after seeing their album cover some 40 something years later.

This is how the photos were set up to have a nice pink background!

I hope that you have a wonderful week,

Some old places, some new photos...

A couple of weeks ago on one of the hottest weekends this summer I decided to visit my Mami.
I gathered my kids and my niece and drove to Miami Beach to get some good food and to spend time in the city with my mom.
We visited many places that we've been before and some new ones. We took the city bus around and stopped to buy some stuff, stopped by my mom's favorite clothing store, laughed and sweated like crazy and had some delicious food. 

This is all the darn construction on The MacArthur Causeway on our way to Miami Beach.

The Miami Children's Museum with a Romero Britto sculpture at the entrance.

My youngest daughter took the last two photos while I was driving  and once we got to my mami's place we left the car in the parking lot and walked for around 10 minutes to the bus stop.

Miami Beach buses cost only .25, are usually on time; and I don't have to worry about dealing with crazy drivers or paying anywhere from $2-$25 for parking.

Our first stop was this CVS pharmacy around Collins Ave.
Love the palm trees and the all the excitement of people on the streets because the area where we live is mainly consider a suburb, so we have to drive everywhere and we hardly see people walking around except  when we go out to Downtown Ft Lauderdale.

This is the CVS pharmacy; as we can see it's open 24 hours and has everything inside from food, drinks, bikinis, sandals, books, detergent, medications, etc, etc, etc.

The cashiers all knew my mom and some of them remembered the kids (my girls and my niece) when they were little.

I'm not a tourist but I'm not a local either so this window of small tourist related stuff got my attention.

This building is across from the CVS and this sculpture in the front has always make me think?
Who is this warrior supposed to be? Is he a local Indian mix with European? Is he trying to defend the building or the area?
Why is he so big and the ship so small? How come he looks like he goes to the gym a lot? Why are his nipples so perfect? I mean please someone explain this things to me!

The New World Center Gardens are part of the New World Symphony building
design by Frank Gehry and another place we visited back in March.

I got this peachy beauty while waiting for the bus to pick us up to go to Macys.

I guess that Fanny and Edmund could have retired here!

This building is right across from the Miami Convention Center where we went to Art Basel
back in January of this year.

This the Temple Emanu-El Dove of Peace.
We were here back in February we saw a Seraphic Fire concert.

This used to be the last of the Burdines stores until it was closed back in 2005.

Burdines was a chain of stores that started back in 1896 in Florida. The stores used to have some funky colors and flamingos as part of their interior decorations.

As you can see all the funkiness is long gone!!!!!

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE AND THEY DON'T KNOW ME OR HAVE ANY AFFILIATION WITH MY BLOG; THEY WERE JUST IN THE WAY.

Here I'm waiting for the bus to takes back to the area close to my mami's place so we can eat.

I wore:
Talbots skirt, thrifted las month.   
One of my old Target shirts.
Gold and gold-like necklaces, bracelets and earrings:
some were bought retail, others were present and thrifted.
Purple bag, a present brought to me from India from my close friend Shefali.

Took this photo while walking to my mami's place.

I see this building all the time and I love the art deco colors and structure underneath the windows.

This is one of the few houses that are still around the area; most houses have been turn into two or three storage sized condominiums.

The house's entire outside walls are covered with bougainvillaeas.

This arroz amarillo (yellow rice) and fricase de pollo ( chicken fricassee) done my mom's way.

Of course good and tasty vegetables; they looked good, tasted better and are very good for ones body.

This is my plate before consumption; I eat cilantro with everything and everyday if I can.

This is a way to end a hot Sunday visit to Miami Beach!