say AAARG! to the dress

My oldest stepson is 25 and getting married this March.  I adore that kid.  He lived with us during high school and for a few years after, and even with the teenaged him in our history together, I still love him.

Rose is going to be a bridesmaid--she has a lovely dress in a soft apple-red chiffon.

My husband is the father of the groom--he has a stunning tuxedo rented with apple-red vest and tie.

Me?  I'm the stepmom of the groom and I am left to fend for my fashion self while finding something attractive, appropriately festive, and flattering, that coordinates with apple-red but isn't red, black, or white, also which won't duplicate his or her mom's dress color or style (as of yet unselected), but will coordinate with his and her mom's dress color and style.  Also, it should fit me.

I thought I'd found a dress that fit the bill.  On sale.  From J. Crew.  But available only online.

To wit:

Lovely, no?

Unfortunately, it arrived Friday and (with great excitement) I opened the box.  Much like Schrodinger's Cat, the possibilities were endless until I opened up the darn thing.

Turns out the chiffon is sort of crinkle textured (read, looks more casual) and the size is smaller than expected (which is probably a nicer way of saying I'm bigger than I expected--I ordered the smaller of the 2 sizes in range since I'm working on losing a few pounds, but, well, there is a difference between "snug" and "honey, shouldn't that thing be able to zip?").

So, now I just need to decide what's worse.  Not eating for 6 weeks (cringe, plus just plain a bad idea) or (cue horror music) going back to shopping for a dress that works...

these boots

<----these are my boots.

Weird to me how you can think something fairly simple like, for instance, "black dress boots" and then get to a store with tons of choices all of which fit the description and somehow none of them are really what you want.

Fortunately, then I found these, which are exactly what I had in mind.

Tall, kind of sexy, heels but not too spikey, not so wide at the top that they gap open (a more common problem for me than you'd think, especially given I'm 10-20 pounds overweight, not underweight...), no studs, buckles, or other gee-gaws.  Ah! These are just what I wanted.

We watch our money in our house so I can't just run out and get whatever fashionable thing strikes my fancy.

And, to be honest, over the past 11 years that I've been a mom, my sense of self as a fashionable, put-together person has faded out a whole heck of a lot.

And, still being honest, lately I've been really yearning to get that part of myself back.

This year, for my birthday, that same 11 year old and my dear husband got me these boots.  I picked them out.

Ah! That felt really good!