NCsquared at the Food Truck Rodeo

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! We celebrated the unofficial end of summer by eating delicious food at Durham’s Food Truck Rodeo and having a night in with our neighbors on Sunday and by watching a lot of Netflix on Monday. It was pretty awesome. Luckily the weather was great all weekend because we had to turn off our air conditioner yesterday due to a possible freon leak — the house started to smell like band-aids every time the air would kick on, so weird — and the techs are coming out this afternoon to check things out. Other than that, we had a pretty uneventful weekend.

But this is my end-of-summer outfit. Warm enough for a sleeveless blouse and close enough to Fall for cute open-toe booties. Wearing boots in the summer can be super stylish, but I’m just now getting comfortable wearing them in warm weather. It actually took me a while to come around to wearing booties at all, which is silly because they *are* so stylish. They’ve become one of my go-to shoe choices.

On Monday morning, while Nick and Sebastian slept, I drank my coffee on our back deck. The air was crisp and the morning dew lightly coated the patio table and chairs. The birds chirped and playfully hopped through the branches in the trees. The sun peered through the clouds, creating a sweet halo of light around the yard, and it was pure bliss. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but this is my favorite time of year. While I am very ready for Autumn, I’m glad we still have several weeks of warm weather here in NC. I don’t have to put up my tanks and tees just yet, but I can break out the comfy sweater cardis. I really love those things! And I love those beautiful, cool mornings!

Coffee on the deck, enjoying the beautifully cool morning

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed your four-day work week. I know I’ve already started counting down for this weekend when I can relax all over again 🙂

Blouse: Old Navy | Jeans: Gap | Shoes: Madden Girl | Jewelry: Old Navy | Watch: Target

Linking up: Start the Week Stylish | Link up on the Edge | Spread the Kindness

When I say that these are the perfect shorts, I mean it. They’re stylish (I can pair them with just about every shirt in my closet), they’re comfortable (not too short), and they don’t look too bad all wrinkled! I used to hate wearing shorts in the summer because they always felt too short so I’m getting a lot of use out of these. I love them so much that I have to make myself not reach for them every time I leave the house in the evenings/on weekends.

How cute is this necklace? It was my very first Mother’s Day gift from Nick and he did a really good job, even though I picked it out 😉 I wish the chain was slightly shorter so I’ve been looking for a new one without much luck. I often have that problem with necklaces: instead of an extender, I need a shortener. Such are the perils of being a short person.

I tied my t-shirt to give the outfit a little more visual interest. I think I like tying my shirts more than doing the half tuck because the tie seems to look better on me, with the short torso and all.

Shorts: Target | Tee: Old Navy | Shoes: via Rack Room | Sunnies: Target | Necklace: Etsy

I returned some Christmas/birthday gifts and with the extra cash, I headed to Target to shop for purses and instead found this scarf. I was drawn to it immediately because of the beautiful colors and floral pattern, and I knew I had a lot of stuff I could wear it with but especially these cobalt flats. Like most of us, I usually try to match or coordinate my accessories and this combination was surely a match made in heaven.

this combination was surely a match made in heaven

I wore this outfit to tour a few day care centers near my house. Why was I touring child care centers, you might ask? Because on Thursday I accepted a job offer to work in the Development unit of a local women’s health organization as their development and program coordinator! I can’t tell you how grateful (and relieved) I am that they hired me knowing I’m 8 months pregnant AND knowing that they’re giving me maternity leave when I’ll have only been there for, like, a month. It only took me three months, which was only half the time it took me to find a job when I graduated from my masters program. This is definitely going to make life easier for my little family.

Back to the outfit: It was so nice in NC yesterday that it got too warm for the scarf. In fact, I removed it completely when I took Mia for her late afternoon walk. Now that I’m going to be working again, Nick and I did some shopping over the weekend for office-appropriate clothes should be able to wear both now and after the baby (with the help of my trusty belly band) and I can see myself wearing this scarf with most of the outfits that I bought. That means you’ll probably be seeing it a lot more on the blog!

Sweater: Banana Republic | Jeans: Mavi maternity via Stitch Fix | Scarf: Target | Shoes: Old Navy | Earrings: Spencer’s

Yesterday I talked about how my go-to formula lately has been sweater (top) + jeans + boots. Here’s another example of how well that works. It was almost 70 degrees so I got to wear a tee under the cardigan and I’m not complaining.

I wore this outfit to my doctor’s appointment the other morning and I told my midwife I was concerned that I’m not gaining enough weight. She said my belly and Baby S are measuring just fine, BUT I should start eating more peanut butter, avocados, loaded baked potatoes, ICE CREAM AND COOK OUT MILKSHAKES. Pretty much all of my favorite things… and it’s doctor’s orders! This pregnancy thing isn’t so bad 😉

It was totally warm enough to not wear the cardigan but it wasn’t too warm that I was uncomfortable in it, so I mostly left it on.

You can see the tip of my sock, which I think is cute. I hate the advice I’ve seen some bloggers give that your socks should never be visible but there really isn’t anyone looking down my shoe so I see no reason to worry about it. Plus, it could give a nice, unexpected pop of color.

Tee: Gap | Sweater Cardigan: Loft Outlet | Jeans: Liz Lange Maternity via Target | Boots: BP Trolley via Nordstrom | Necklace: via Le Tote

My fall and winter maternity formula has been sweater + jeans + boots. Completer pieces may vary.

Even though I don’t have an office to go to anymore, I feel that I’m more productive if I actually get dressed instead of staying in my pajamas all day. I wore this to run to the UPS store and to grab a quick lunch. It saw very little daylight but it did see me do some laundry, get some freelance work done, and prepare for a job interview, so I’d call it a win. Plus, I liked it enough to want to share it. I’ll be putting it on repeat for the next few weeks, at least until the sweater doesn’t fit over the bump anymore. You can see in some of the photos that I’m not too far from that. Also, I debated whether to wear this necklace because you can barely see it in the photos but in real life I think it looks nice, so no regrets.

Here’s the evidence (below) that my bump is almost too big for this sweater. See how my tank top is showing underneath because it’s longer/fits over the bump better than the sweater? I won’t be able to wear it much longer. Le sigh.

The weather has been very spring-like lately so it hasn’t even been that cold. If this keeps up, I might have to change up my formula to cute top + jeans + boots/flats sooner than expected. But, really, who am I to complain about beautiful sunshine and 60-degree weather?

Sweater: J. Crew Outlet | Vest: Banana Republic | Necklace: Old Navy | Jeans: Liz Lange Maternity via Target | Boots: Steve Madden | Sunglasses: Target