Things I did in India

I know, I've been promising photos from India for ages. Well now I'm finally sharing some of them. These photos are just a brief snippet of what I did and saw. I was in India for 15 days and traveled to 5 cities via 4 trains and 5 planes. It was exhausting, but fascinating as well.

I visited Old Delhi. The traffic, sights, sounds and smells were overwhelming.

I rode in a bike rickshaw. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. I wish I could travel to work via bike rickshaw everyday.

I went to the Taj Mahal. That's the money shot.

Then I played on a see-saw and rode down a slide with the Taj Mahal in the background. How many people can say they've done that?

I also took some cheesy, touristy photos.

Oh and I saw a cow inside a store. Yeah, no big deal.

Then I went to Varanasi, home of the Ganga River where many people travel to cremate the dead and then scatter their ashes in the Ganga River. This is the view of the ghats (aka steps) that lead down to the water. There are nighttime ceremonies conducted by Brahmin priests which is what this is a photo of. This is also where my tour guide insulted me.

We took an early morning ride of the Ganga to see a very different side of river life.

People bathing in the Ganga. I was freezing sitting on my boat so I can't imagine how cold these individuals must have been.

People also wash clothing in the river. This is a photo of sari's drying along the waters edge. It was one of my favorite sights of my trip.

Goats, heading home from the market. They're awfully calm considering they're likely on their way to be slaughtered.

I visited a Hindu Temple. It was the first time I'd seen a swastika used as it was originally intended for. It was pretty cool.

The decoration at the City Palace was unbelievable

With a guard at the City Palace in Jaipur. The big vessel in the background is the largest silver vessel in the world and was built to carry water from the Ganga to England for a king to bathe in while he was on holiday.

This was in Jaipur and it's where the maharajah's ladies would sit and look out on city life through the windows. On my desk at work I have a things to see before you die page-a-day calendar and this was one of the sights listed while I was away. Kinda amazing right?

I went to a gorgeous fort. And wore tevas. Please, you can't judge me any more than I judge myself.

I went to a monkey temple which was fascinating and scary all at once. Wild monkeys are scary.

I met some cute school children who asked me to take their photo.

This is an Iraqi synagogue in Mumbai that has been there for over a 100 years. It was beautiful, I'd never seen a shul like it before in my life.

I splurged my last few days in Mumbai and booked myself at a nice hotel. I spent a lot of time at the pool. It was lush.

The next set of India photos will be things I didn't do in India. To be continued....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Although it pains me to admit this since I relish any occasion to dress in some sort of themed outfit, I forgot that today was St. Patrick's Day. Oops. It wasn't until I got off my subway station at work and was swarmed by Staten Island teenagers resplendent in green that I realized "shit it's St. Patty's Day and I'm not wearing green." Well I'm wearing this, so there's a bit of green but not enough to really count. I lived in Dublin and love the Irish (although not those that run the NYC St. Patty's Day Parade) so it's particularly disappointing.

I did however rock a green outfit last week so shh, lets all pretend I'm wearing this today.

I think everything I'm wearing has been featured before on my blog - no I take that back, I can't find the vest anywhere. The dress is from Old Navy, the vest and tights are from Target, the boots are Laila Rowe, the necklace is Betsy Johnson and the hair piece is from the Bust Craftacular.

Who do I Love More Than Words?

This girl.

And today she turned 30. Sadly because the entire continental US is in between the two of us, I wasn't able to be there to celebrate with her in person. So instead I am just going to publicly declare that this woman is the best friend I could have ever asked for. And even though she considers a black t-shirt dressing up, thinks bike bags are fashionable and laughs at what I wear on a very regular basis, I don't know how I would ever get by without her. I love you.

Sometimes it's the Little Things That Make the Big Difference

Like changing the part in your hair. Seriously. All I did was give myself a middle part and tie my hair back a bit and folks just could not stop commenting to me about it all day long. I even got stopped on my way to the subway by someone who wanted to give me his number. Which I kindly declined, but kudos to him for trying. Wish as I may, I could never be that forward. I really do wish, but I just can't do it.


I happen to like the whole outfit and I'm enjoying this incarnation of the dress way more than the last time I wore it. The dress is from Anthropologie, a store that I love and is shockingly good for inbetweenies, but it is also ridiculously expensive. So I'm going to take this as an opportunity to brag that I got it for $10, down from $78. Are you impressed? I am. Also, this dress (which is basically an elongated sweatshirt) is not worth anything close to $78.


The leggings are from Target via a Friday Fats post and they're kind of stretched out but as usual I don't have the heart to throw them (or any of my other clothing for that matter) out. The boots I got at the Camden Market in London and the belt and necklace are both from Primark. I always thought the belt was a butterfly but now I think it may not be. What say you?



Photo credit goes to my work-wife Nicole.

It's all About the Scarf

Remember how I said I knew I was tempting fate by running head first into spring? Well it came back to bite me in the ass and it only took about 4 days of lovely weather to do so. But I'm going to pretend for a few minutes that it's still nice and I haven't spent the last 3 days walking around with big hair and rain boots and share with you a photo from earlier last week when the weather was lovely.

My skirt and blue fishnets are from Old Navy, my top is hand-me-down from my friend Jamie, the jean jacket is Svoboda via Re/Dress as is the button on the jacket, the earrings are from Topshop, my sneakers are keds and may actually be from high school and the bag is Botkier and trust me, I got it like all my fancy handbags at a sample sale.

What makes the outfit interesting and special is the scarf.

I've already told you that I'm not really a scarf person and I never really know if I'm wearing them correctly. However I recently bought this scarf in India and I am obsessed with it because the entire design is hand blocked. Yup, you heard me, it was all done by hand.

While in India I went to this village called Sanganer that is famous for its handmade paper and textiles. I visited factories that made both and I bought this scarf at the hand blocking factory I went to. It was one of the absolute highlights of my trip and I thought I'd share a few photos from my visit there.

First you choose what pattern you like from a variety of blocks

Then it is dipped in the ink that you see on the right in this photo

Then this exceedingly talented man showed me how you press down on the fabric, hitting the block with a hammer to get the right outline. He also explained to me that you must use the same block, dipping in different colors to get the full design.

This is what the finished products look like. Now do you understand why I'm so obsessed with my scarf? The entire design was done by hand. Absolutely amazing.

Publish Post

Spring is in the Air

Spring is coming and if you couldn't tell from my beaming smile I am overjoyed about this. The last few days it has been sunny, in the high 50's and everyone is walking around New York in a chipper mood. I've put away my down comforter, am sleeping with the window open and had a beer outside the other day. I know I'm getting ahead of myself and soon there will be a bitter backlash, but for now I'm just running head first into Spring.

I am also loving the opportunity to whip out some of my spring clothes that have been hiding in the back of my closet. You saw this dress and hoodie combined before during my September month of 30 dresses. The dress is a size 12 from H&M and the hoodie is a medium from J. Crew. The dress I got from a Friday fats sale and the hoodie is a hand-me-down from my lovely friend Mirka. Believe me there's no other way I would have ever thought to try on a medium from J. Crew otherwise. However every time I wear it it's a good reminder of how you should ignore the size on the tag and always try things on.






My headband was purchased at a crafts fair in Savannah for a pittance of what I would have paid in New York. I really should have bought more because this headband always brings a smile to my face and to the face of others.




Candy shoes are from my beloved Office and they're definitely among my top 5 favorite pairs of shoes, which much like my headband often make people smile as well. I couldn't seem to get a shot that properly highlighted the colors in the shoe, so here's a link to another photo that shows the color a bit better.


Photo credit goes to my co-worker Joshua who didn't quite understand what we were doing, but graciously did it anyways.

No I did not get this top in India

I wore this yesterday and all day long people at work kept asking me "did you get that in India?" To which I replied "no, I got it in Mexico."

Back around Thanksgiving 2008 I was in desperate need of a post-election vacation so my friend Tom and I went on a roadtrip in Mexico. We spent too much driving in the desert... and not enough time doing this...


But I digress, back to the shirt.

I got the top in Mexico, in some random town in Baja and like many articles of clothing that we (or maybe just me) tend to buy while abroad it has mostly sat in my drawer and rarely been worn. I don't seem to know how to wear it - I've tried belting it and wearing a cardigan but yesterday I just decided to let it flow and hope that paired with skinny jeans it didn't make me look pregnant. I'm fat, I don't care about looking bigger than I already am, but I really don't like looking pregnant. But it's such a pretty top and the embrodiery is so beautiful that I just went for it, pregnancy look be damned. Plus, the white highlights my Mumbai tan.


I've paired the top with some skinny grey jeans by Z. Cavaricci via Torrid (oh how I longed for a pair of Z. Cavaricci's back in 5th grade, these are much cuter than the ones I coveted). The shoes are from Old Navy, the earrings are hand-me-downs from my dear friend Ateqah and the headband is repurposed from a cardigan.


Photo credit goes to Deuel...I think. This was just taken yesterday, I'm not sure why I'm losing my head so much but I am. Oops. I blame it on jetlag.

Sickeningly Sweet

I'm back from India! Once I've gotten over my jetlag and have uploaded my photos I'll post some of the best ones and share some of my thoughts, but for now thank you for all of your comments over the past few weeks - I'm sorry if I haven't responded to all of them. Until then, here's a quick outfit of the day for everyone.



Here's a confession, I felt like an impostor in this outfit. A farce, a fake, it just wasn't me. I'd had a vision of how this outfit would look in my head and when I actually put it on the outfit both didn't look like how I'd envisioned and it wasn't quite me, but I kept it on anyways in order to try something a bit out of my comfort zone.



Truth be told the whole outfit was just too sweet for me. It felt like something that girls who live on the Upper East Side would wear. Also it incorporated a solid button down shirt which usually make me break out in hives so that also added to my discomfort. The only reason I even own that button-down is because it was a hand-me-down and I figured I should keep it in my closet for work related functions.

The skirt is from Lane Bryant and may just be the first article of clothing from that store that you've seen featured on my blog which is kind of hysterical considering it's the store for fatties. Aside from bras I tend to not shop at Lane Bryant, but I passed by it one day and got sucked in by this bright, poppy skirt in the window. I love it the pattern but I never know quite what to wear up top which is where the inspiration for the outfit came from. The hand-me-down button-down is either from Gap or Old Navy and the tank underneath is a hand-me-down as well but from someone else (hi James!).



The tights are from Target, the shoes are Office, the belt is from Peacock's and the headband is from H&M. In my attempt to be more comfortable in the outfit I added my new bad ass earrings from Brookadelphia. I've talked before about them and my concerns about online purchases from them, but I got these in person at the 2009 Bust Craftacular so no ordering issues. A reader told me that he had ordered from them after seeing their products on my blog (with no problems I will add) and when I mentioned that to the owners they actually remembered it since he was their very first ever order from that state. I thought that was kinda cool:)



Ok I'm soon going to bed. Jetlag can be a bitch.

Look where I was featured

Since I've been out of the country I've been out of the fatosphere loop the past few weeks. Responding to a readers question I ended up on the Fatshionista LiveJournal webpage earlier today where the top posting caught my eye. Apparently a shit for brains "fatshion" website had posted an article with some helpful "tips" for fatties about what we should wear. You know black, baggy, shapeless clothing. What fun.

The website also very helpfully put together a list of what fatties shouldn't wear. In pulling together their what not to wear list they had taken a bunch of photos from the fatshionsta flickr pool without permission from any of the women whose photos they used. Knowing my penchant for tight, bright and patterned clothes I automatically wondered if I had been one of the lucky fatties chosen. The blog has since removed the posting but kept up the comments so I wasn't sure if I had made the cut.

Over on Fatshionista the wonderful Stichtowhere challenged all of us fatties to post our loudest, most outrageous outfits that would make all the hateful folks over at BBsize cringe in their black mumu's. So I posted this

One of my fellow fatshionistas kindly told me that I had in fact been featured in the original post (which is cached here if you're truly interested). They chose this photo of mine

I can't wait to get home and put together an outfit that will shock the editors of BBsize even more. Until then I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep on wearing one of the 3 tops I brought with me on my trip. For shame. At least my nails are bright.