What I’m Wearing…
* Plaid coat by C/MEO Collective… last seen here also seen here
* Old black turtleneck sweater
* Vintage Levi’s (which I’ve had since the ’90s)… I slit the ankle hem somewhere in the late 90s/early 00s – see all vintage levi’s posts here
I’ve listed a few pairs of vintage levi’s on Poshmark, where I’ve been trying to consistently list all the things I’ve been meaning to for the last 3 years :/ 😆 It might take a while, but I’ve been listing approximately 3 things a day. I don’t know why it has to take 2 hours to list 3 things, but this is probably why I continually put it off. Anyway, check back frequently, as MY PLAN is to list everything! I’ve also included newer versions of cute vintage inspired Levi’s jeans in the shopping widgets below.
* Ferragamo bow bag
* Old Skool Vans, always a classic… giving a casual retro vibe here, although a platform version might look even cuter. It’s so funny because this feels so 90s to me, yet in the 90s when wearing similar items, it felt very 70s. Go figure.
* Vintage black sunglasses
* Title: Stone Temple Pilots – Interstate Love Song … for obvious ’90s reasons 😉 Waiting on a Sunday afternoon… For what I’ve read between the lines… Your lies… damn these are relevant lyrics… I don’t think I ever truly paid attention to the lyrics though 🤔 …I was IN LOVE with Scott Weiland (of STP) in the ’90s. I saw them perform once in the Universal Amphitheatre I think, for KROQ acoustic Christmas 1994 – I think! Anyway, I ended up inching my way to the mosh pit, remember those? through the crowd and to the gate at the edge of the stage and locked eyes with him during their performance. I’m sure he was high AF, knowing what we know now, but I was 18 years old then and it was my mission to just be as close as possible to him. At the end of their set, I asked one of the security guards standing in between me and the stage, to grab a cigarette butt from the ground the singer flicked mid-show AND THE SECURITY GUARD DID IT FOR ME! I lit it and puffed it and then put it out and saved it forever 😂 I’m sure I still have it somewhere. I put it in an old plastic film container… remember those? I cringe when I think about it now because ICK, GERMS, lol, but at 18 I wasn’t thinking about germs, only sexy rockstars I had no business being around… Man was I naive then 😏
I know I’ve had these jeans since the ’90s, which I thrifted back then and so I flipped through my old photo albums to see if I could find any pics of me wearing them and this photo above brought all the feels… I’m 99% sure I’m wearing the same jeans there as I am now… I think I was a senior in high school here, yes, it was after the ’94 earthquake where we lost our house and I was living with my best friend (and cousin, Kelley and her family) and oh how I wish I still had my natural, pre-dyed, blonde highlighted from the sun hair and my big puffy cheeks I used to HATE, lol… I think I actually went out with my then-much-older-boyfriend to the Viper Room because-his-friend-was-the-doorman-and-could-get-me-in and I met Johnny Depp that night after he played on stage with his band, P (if I recall correctly)… and I actually walked up to him and shook his damn hand and told him how great he was… If only he knew I was 17 😬 lol, he would have kicked me out of his club, and rightly so. 😂 Have I told you this story before? I feel like I have… honestly, I have so many stories, lived so many lives, been blogging here for so long, I’m not even sure what I’ve shared and haven’t. Oh well, who cares 😉
This is the last winter look I hope to share because while it did snow a few days ago (last Thursday) and has been freezing ever since, the weather was so warm the week prior, that I was on my deck in a bikini enjoying the sun as it heated me up and warmed deep layers of my skin… oh how I love that warm baking in the sun feeling! Don’t worry, I rarely stay out in it longer than 40 minutes (20 minutes each side) and I always cover my face.
Anyway, I think I actually wore this outfit just BEFORE the storm because the grass is so thick and green and alive now, compared to the shaggy brown grass seen in the photos.
And since I’m already talking about the ’90s (not really, but I needed a segue), I’ve recently watched The Last Dance on Netflix, which if you’re not familiar, is a docu-series that chronicles the rise of Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls, and was actually released in 2020, but reason’s unknown to me, I decided to watch it now.
It prompted me to buy the book Winning by Tim S. Grover, who was MJ and Kobe’s personal trainer (and more) who I was already familiar with because I read his book Relentless a few years ago and related to the material in a way that I don’t think I ever had with anything prior, so I figured Winning would be inspiring as well. For the record, it was good, but I enjoyed Relentless more AND listed to an audio version of it recently as well just as a refresher.
I used to watch a lot of basketball with my ex-husband, and haven’t so much since our divorce, although I do miss it, basketball mostly, because it’s my favorite. My ex and I talked a lot and related many things in life to sports… and in conversations about how I felt anyone could do what I do if they just worked hard enough, he’d disagree, tell me I was absolutely wrong, that I had something that others didn’t and then tell me I was like MJ and Kobe and that’s why I could do what I did.
I NEVER understood his point of view on this and felt that I wasn’t doing anything special, that I just worked hard, and so I thought if anyone did what I did, they could do what I do as well… and that’s where he’d correct me and say but people can’t and don’t do what you do. I honestly and truly did NOT understand it at all until I watched this docu-series and could see just how Jordan’s mind worked and how THAT was what my ex was referring to and THAT’S how I was different.
Whether he meant it as a compliment or not (because let’s be honest, as great as these champions are, there’s a level of determination and discipline in their lives that sort of shuts everything and everyone out, and I have that too 😬 ) …and I think that is what he was referring to and not comparing me to the literal best athletes of our time.
It’s not that I am SO DRIVEN to success or that I’m SO FOCUSED on achieving that I can’t be bothered… it’s that I LOVE THE GAME, I LOVE THE CHALLENGE, I LOVE THE WORK and that’s how I want to spend my time – DOING WHAT I LOVE. And I truly LOVE when I am on a journey towards something… yes, it’s the WIN and accomplishment that sort of drives me, but as soon as I reach it… I’m onto the next. This is why I think blogging was so in my wheelhouse because every day was a new little challenge towards something much bigger, if that makes sense, and I could see it play out in the short term and the long term, and loved the challenge of it.
Do I think I’m the best at what I do? Not even close, but I think I do have a similar mindset in a way that has separated me from anyone I’ve ever known… and have always felt different in almost every way – ever. I’ve never fit in in the way you’d think I might based on external assumptions. I can and will work at something until I excel at it, in a way that I would prefer to be home alone working on whatever I might find myself obsessed with in the moment and that is where my focus is until I’ve hit my goal. I’ve been confused when people seem almost upset and in an accusatory tone and an eye roll, snap “… what CAN’T you do?” The truth is, I just spend a LOT of time doing things I love to do until I get good at them! This again, is why it seems logical to my brain, that if anyone put in the same effort, they would also be good at those things.
And maybe this is just a huge negative, selfish character trait that doesn’t often leave room or space for a lot of relationships in my life, and probably why my ex-husband and I worked and lived so well together. We could basically be alone doing our own thing, but together in the same house, for hours – years even… I did’t really realize this until after we were apart and maybe even comparing situations since, which have needed more of my attention than he did. I didn’t understand how I was or who I was, in that way I guess, until now, but I definitely look at everything in my life through this lens and probably have high expectations for the people who are in my life… and by people I mean, the men in my life, my partner, boyfriend, husband, etc., and didn’t even realize it. As Michael mentioned at the end of episode 7, just before he needed to take a break because he was brought to tears, “…winning has a price and leadership has a price and I pull people along when they don’t want to be pulled along and I challenge people when they don’t want to be challenged… once you join the team you play at a certain standard, and I wasn’t going to take anything less …[I] never asked them to do something that I didn’t do… it is who I am… it’s how I play the game, it’s my mentality”. He expected his teammates to bring the same effort to the game as he did, and I feel that 💯. Doesn’t everyone?
These are the reasons though that prompted me to choose to live on my own at this point. For the last 7 years, since I turned 40 (I’ll be 47 on June 1st) and got a divorce and opened a few bars/restaurants and have been in a relationship and situations that didn’t allow me the time to spend focusing on whatever it is I do and instead focus on life’s daily little circumstances and emergencies, and because of it, I have felt a huge loss of self and have felt that I’ve literally accomplished nothing in the past 7 years… which I know is not completely correct, I mean, we have been in business for 5 years at this point, made it through the pandemic and with business partners (vs solo) all in a way I’ve never experienced before, doing things I’ve never done before and learning new skills along the way. Most restaurants don’t make it past the year mark, and while this year has been hardest so far due to the weather and overhead costs rising due to inflation, etc., we’re still making it happen and I’m currently thinking hard about new and more creative ways to make the business a different kind of success, but again, none of this is how I’ve been successful in the past and though it has brought its own set of challenges to overcome, I miss that feeling of working so hard on something I love that it’s pushing me to challenge myself and grow and create and learn and level up in a personal way and become a new version of myself.
In the past month or so, I’ve thrown myself back into this version I love but in a new way, working on myself like it’s a job, in a way that’s challenging me to heal my trauma and grow and level up, again… and I think through the emotional ups and downs, it’s finally paying off. I had an idea the other night which sparked that feeling… the feeling I had when I started this blog and began focusing on it like my life depended on it – because I loved it, and I wanted to… it’s all I wanted to spend time doing and I think I’ve been somehow trying to force it back to what it was, when the landscape of the internet is so different now than it was back in 2008-2009 and even 2012-2016, when I was truly hitting MAJOR financial goals with it as well. It’s just never going to be what it was and I’ve accepted that now – compared to just being hard on myself for not putting the focus and work in that I once had (in the last few years). But I also don’t have the motivation anymore for it, even though I do still have love for it, the atmosphere is just not the same and so I have to stop holding onto the past and keep it as a little hobby vs it being my sole business/focus. And, I’ve been searching for something new for a long time and just haven’t been able to get there… so I think the hard work I’m putting into my mental healing and self development work is going to be the thing that gets me to whatever the next thing is that brings me that same challenge and excitement and focus and love and wanting to spend every single moment working to turn it into to something special… That’s what I’m looking for now. That’s what I’m looking for ALWAYS. ♥️
One more quick little thing I’ve started doing lately that you might like too… I’m a HUGE list maker… But I hate a TO-DO list because it feels like everything on it is a CHORE, and so when I started reading WINNING (not that this is in the book, but the book did inspire me) …I changed my TO DO list to MY WIN LIST.
Each night before bed I’ll sit down and after my journal entry, I’ll write “Monday’s Win List…” or whatever day it is at the top and then list all the things I WANT TO GET DONE instead of things I HAVE to DO… and then the next day when I wake up and read it, I’m so much more EXCITED (almost giddy, literally smiling) to do the things on it with a higher vibration and positive frequency because they all feel like WINS.
So each time I check something off, I smile thinking to myself, ANOTHER WIN TODAY, WHAT ELSE CAN I WIN! Because life is seriously made up of little wins… that eventually equal BIG changes. And so I thought I’d share with you guys after doing it for a while – just to make sure it works. And it totally does 😃 Try it! I dare you 😘 What’s on your WIN LIST today?❤️
Happy Monday Lovecats!
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