If It Floods, I’ll Be In Black

Happy Monday errrbody!  How was your weekend?  Ours was nice and relaxing which is awesome, but we didn’t get anything done that we wanted to, like the ottoman (but I did get foam for it).  A story some or all of you are all too familiar with, huh?  But, it’s ok.  All in good time. 

So, before I get to the good stuff, let’s talk about my computer.  It literally (and I mean the for real “literally”…not just throwing that word out there on this one) takes my computer (Anthony’s college laptop) five minutes to start and reach the home screen whereupon it takes it another five minutes to connect with our camera, read the pictures, download the ones I want, and move them to where I want them.  A few minutes later, it’s finally pulled up Windows Live Writer so I can start putting my thoughts down on screen while I’m wrestling with it to open the internet (it takes at least five clicks into the icon, opening and closing until it decides there’s really no “error in opening the internet”.)  By that time I’ve just lost the will to bother after waiting for eternity to pass and naptime is slowly slipping away.  That’s the only time these days that I can open it up because it’s battery is beyond dead and it only lights up when plugged in but can’t be plugged in when the girls are up because they take the long, black cord for a toy and yadda, yadda, yadda…    Here’s hoping SANTA brings me a brand new laptop for Jesus’ birthday…pretty please ‘Ole Red Suit, pretty please!  So, coming full circle and back to the point of this complaining rant, can anyone recommend a good laptop?  Something you use and has treated you well? I’m a die-hard consumer reports reader so I’ll be checking them out too but what do you use and do you like it?  I’m a simple person and don’t need lots of bells and whistles.  Just something that let’s me type away and go online and that sort of thing.  Our budget is $500, no more and preferably less.  Spill the technical deets and help a girl out!

Ok, now that that’s off my chest and onto yours…I have this large pile of maternity clothing waiting in my alterations pile and with only seven weeks left until baby boy makes his debut, I realized this past week that maybe I should get on the ball and pull out the sewing machine.  I’m going to go all crazy (and probably curse myself later) and aim to get one piece done per day.  I’ve already got four finished pieces in my stash thanks to a little extra me time this past week so really that shouldn’t be too hard.  So, pardon the temporary deviation from home DIY as I plow through some fashion DIY. 

A pair of black crops are the first to get some tucking.  I had a split-second break down a couple of weeks ago trying to find something decent and dressy enough to wear to church.  My legs hadn’t seen a razor in a couple of weeks (don’t tell me I’m not the only one) so a dress was out of the question.  I realized I had zero pairs of maternity dress pants and my black belly band is MIA at the moment…not to mention that I’m carrying really low so belly banding any of my nonpregnancy pants is almost impossible these days lest I rip through a zipper.  So, while Anthony was home with the girls this past week I went thrifting and found a few pairs of maternity dress pants to alter.

These are from Motherhood Maternity and they’re uber stretchy and full panel.  Here’s what they looked like on pot belly here before the alter(c)ation:
 

They fit me until about mid-thigh, where they went all boot leg crop on me.  I used the same technique I used to take in these boot legs.  Since I only had to take in the legs, there wasn’t any messing with the panel or anything.  Here’s what they look like now:
 
I paired them with a maternity cowl neck, a black blazer, some faux suede pumps (all Target), a squint, and a hunch to my left for Mass yesterday morning.  And I don’t know why my hair look so dark in this picture but did you notice I cut two inches off it?  No?  It’s ok, my hubs didn’t either.  Long is long is long, I guess. 

I actually wasn’t thrilled with how they turned out in the minutes after I got up from my sewing machine and tried them on.  The stretchiness kind of makes them feel cheap to me but after putting them on again yesterday morning before mass my heart was changed.  They’re the comfiest maternity pants I now own and I’ve fallen in love with them.  I put together a few other outfits with them for future reference when I’m crying on the closet floor with nothing to wear in the coming weeks:

Tunic/Dress (?):  Hand-me-down from me seesta
Boots:  Target (If you have slim calves like me, check out Target’s boots!  They’ve got a few pairs that aren’t as wide as most.)

Umm, maybe I’m the last to know but did you know that if you wear a sweater (or sweater vest…whatev) over an UNBUTTONED, non pregnancy button down, it totally works?!  Needless to say, the button down below is only buttoned at zee bust and hanging wiiiide open over the belly…but you’d never know, would you? 
 
Crazy.  Oh and I know, I really, really need to take those buttons off the sweater vest asap (should I just delete them period or replace them with some gold somethings?).  Either way, it’s from Gabriel Brothers and the blur is Cecilia emerging from a closet raid:

All of the impeccable photos in this post are courtesy of i. Phone.  It never fails to capture.  :)

Anyway, I’ve got some shorts, two dresses, and a plaid number ready to be blogged so here’s hoping I can crank out a few posts this week!  Stay tuned!!