on embracing vanity

pic from weheartit

You may not realize it back in Jersey, but here in the Lone Star State, spring has sprung. Last week we had highs in the 80’s, and it’s been lovely. The grass is green and the bluebonnets are out. Naturally this is the time of year to unpack your cute sundresses that have been put in storage during the cold winter months, and I was super excited to do that a few weeks ago. It’s like going shopping, but it’s free, and you already know that (hopefully!) everything fits! We have a fairly casual dress code at my office, and last Monday I wore one of my springy dresses to work. It’s a black dress with off-white Mexican floral embroidery. Cute, casual, goes well with my Frye Target knockoff boots. Yay! It’s meant to be worn with a belt, and oh man, I have the perfect belt to go with it… but I see in retrospect that it’s perfect for a Friday night… not so perfect for a Monday morning. The belt kind of hikes up the skirt up a little more, til it’s pushing towards not-so work appropriate. I didn’t realize this until I was literally grabbing my stuff to walk out the door that morning, and I saw that my tattoo was peeking out a little bit from under the dress. Eeek! I made a split second decision to just keep on trucking in my outfit since I already had it on, and spent the rest of the day kicking myself. I should have changed clothes and run the risk of being 10 minutes late. When I got up for a mid-morning restroom break I saw myself in the full length mirror here in the office. Now don’t get me wrong, even with the belt raising the hemline a bit, I still passed the middle school “is it longer than your fingertips?” test, but after having realized, ‘oh shit, that IS really short for work!’ I spent the rest of the day totally self conscious and paranoid, and that's pretty much never fun. DAMMIT.

You know what the problem is? I don’t have a full length mirror at home. I’d initially intended to buy one, but then talked myself out of it, reasoning that I know what I look like from the thigh down. And I do. But it turns out, it's helpful to see it in context. (thighs = metaphor for life. It's all about the big picture. PUT IT CONTEXT, PEOPLE!) Now if we are being honest, I'm probably gonna go with a cheap piece of crap from WalMart or Target, because that's what the budget allows at the moment. But it never hurts to look, does it?



This one from CB2 is my favorite. I like that the wood frame is chunky but streamlined at the same time. It's on sale right now, knocked down from $299 to $199... but that still falls outside of my budget of zero dollars, so I'd better keep looking.



This one from West Elm is a little more understated, but I dig it. There is already a lot of wood in my bedroom (that's what she said) so maybe the sleeker narrow metal edge would be a better match. But the $300 price tag has deemed that this mirror will not be coming home to live with me either. Bummer.



And this one from Spiegel doesn't really qualify as a full length mirror, but it does qualify as awesome, so I thought I'd share it. Well... maybe "awesome" is over-selling it just a bit, but I like the shelf, and I think it would be nice in an entryway. Our apartment almost has one of those, and at $79, the price is way more manageable than the other two. None of that actually helps with the issue at hand though, so I guess I'll have to keep looking for a looking glass.