Sara, Author at livelovesara

What to Wear in Amsterdam Outfit Options Plus Size Edition

February 17, 2017Sara 2 Comments

I’m kind of excited to coast in to the weekend for two reasons:

1. The weather is supposed to go up to 10°C + which means we can spend some real time outdoors and open all the windows to air everything out. I hope this means we will get an early spring. I love spring.
2. It is a long weekend. Monday is “Family Day” which is a designated holiday to spend time off work with your family. The only bad part is that everything we may want to do as a family is going to be filled with a million other people with the same idea.

On to today’s post. These are the 24 outfit options that I put together from the What to Pack for Amsterdam packing list. The list was by Instagram request, for a 14 day June trip to Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris. The selections are plus size as per request and the 24 outfits (with room to make more) will take you through all kinds of activities (minus really formal or adventure tourism wear). The options do cover dressy dinners, walking, sightseeing, shopping, and a variety of temperatures. I hope these suggestions give some good ideas of what you could wear and pack for Amsterdam.

How is the weather where you are right now?

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What to Pack for Amsterdam – Plus Sized Edition

February 15, 2017Sara 4 Comments

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What I Wore This Week

February 13, 2017Sara 3 Comments

It’s Saturday night and I have one kid cleaning her room, and one in the tub and Tom is out of town for the weekend. This is about as much alone time as I get. And how I am taking advantage of it? I’m writing a blog post. Pretty exciting huh? If I had planned properly I could have bought a bottle of wine and some kind of dessert while I was out today. Unfortunately I don’t think my food delivery app SkipTheDishes offers either of those.

My house is full of collectors. Tom is a major collector, has been since the day I met him. I introduced him to Ebay and it all went to shit after that 😉 There was one point in out first apartment together (it was a really good apartment and was only $400 a month and I keep slapping myself for leaving it) that our living room had an actual store display counter in it to show off his Kiss collection. The girls seemed to have inherited that gene and our house is definitely showing it. I need to figure out a better way for everyone to display their collections without adding to the clutter of the already small condo. I think something that integrate the tv and gaming systems, (with hidden storage for all the crap we don’t have a home for, but also shelves along the top for display the collections. Here is the hitch, we don’t have a lot of wall space. Our living room consist of one wall with the windows that have small sections of solid wall in between each. Another wall is the balcony doors. Everything else is open area with no spot wide enough to encompass and kind of shelving unit except one spot that is about 2.5 ft wide and 7 feet tall ( it would be higher if it wasn’t for the heating duct). I’m not sure if I am going to be able to fulfill that tall order.

For the girls, their whole room kind of needs and overhaul. We bought them a bunk style bed when we moved here to save on space but they are really wanting two separate beds now. Merle says that Roo drops too much stuff on to her bed from the top bunk and Roo wants something a little easier to get up into and keep tidy. This is going to take a lot of planning to pull this off in that tiny room, and I think a lot of condensing and getting rid of furniture/items is going to have to happen. It’s so easy to have these grandiose plans in your head, not so easy to implement them with lack of space and a small budget. I need to search for some small space bedroom ideas for kids. I’m sure Pinterest has tons.

Do you have recommendations for small-space decorating sites?

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What to Wear on a Danube River Cruise Outfit Options

February 10, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

Did anyone do anything eventful this week? I found it kind of just flew by while I watched the news and picked my jaw off the floor on several occasions. Just when you think it can’t get worse it does, I guess I should stop being shocked. What I am really enjoying in these low moments are the bands of people who are coming together. It is so inspiring and gives me hope. There are so many more good people than bad, we just have to have a louder voice.

Now after that bit of emotional purge I am showing the 24 outfit options that I put together from the pieces of the What to Pack for a Danube River Cruise list. The cruise takes place in April for 8 days, so the weather will be cooler in general. Even more so on the water and during evenings. If you are someone who can’t tolerate cold at all you may want to bring a long sleeve thermal shirt/leggings to layer under your clothes. If you come from a place that experiences colder winters you should be fine.

I put together 24 outfits but there is room to make a lot more when you take in to account that you can switch up looks by layering the blazer over. The black sweater has a removable cowl neck so you will have two different looks with the sweater, the scarf is reversible to black, and the clutch has removable strap to make it a cross body. These small changes make everything more versatile. This cruise incorporates one really dressy dinner which is why I included heels. On most occasions I would have included another pair of flats instead of the heels. I hope this gives you some ideas for an early spring cruise on the Danube River.

I’m spending this evening drawing The Chipmunks and Chipettes for my 6-year-old. I promised her I would if she had a good week and she did. I kind of wish I promised one not 6 though :/ Any great plans this weekend?

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What to Pack for a Danube River Cruise

February 8, 2017Sara 4 Comments

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What I Wore This Week

February 6, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

The top photo is of the book I was talking about a few weeks back. The drawings in it are amazing and really great outfit inspirations. You should check it out even if you can’t speak Japanese or French, the drawings speak for themselves.

We went on the weekend to fill Roo’s eye glasses prescription (there was a slight improvement so yay!) and while we were there Tom decided that he would get his eyes checked so he could get some glasses (neither him nor I have bought new glasses in years. We are long overdue) and the eye doctor noticed that he had a hole in his eye (sounds gross but it’s only something you can see with ophthalmologist tools and special lights). They said that it has been there for years and that it is probably from wearing his daily contacts for more than a day before tossing them, which is something I have warned him about a million times but that is another story. She said to give contacts a break for a few months and she will see if it heals when he comes back. As soon as I heard that I thought Fuck. He’s going to milk that for as long as he can.

This is what my future is going to look like:

Me: “Hey Tom can you….”
Tom: “I can’t do that because I have a hole in my eye.”

Me: “Your laundry didn’t quite make it into the bin.”
Tom: “That’s because I have a hole in my eye.”

I’d ask you to pray for me but I’m not religious.

I had one of those moments at the mall last week wear you see something that you want to buys so badly but know you don’t need it. So you muster up the willpower to walk out the store and decide that if you still want it that much in a few days you would consider buying it. I have been really, really good with my clothing purchases lately. I’m proud of how pared down my wardrobe is (it’s like 1/4 of what it was 3 years ago) and have been very stringent in keeping it at certain number of items but I have loosened those reigns somewhat. I gave myself permission to shop a little as long as I make conscious purchases vs impulsive. If I find myself impulsively shopping again I will tighten those reigns again. It’s kind of like a diet, if you try to remain to a too strict regime you will end up resenting it and probably rebelling. I ended up buying the shirt (Floral embroidered top above) and actually dreamt about the shirt that night (lame, I know) so I figured I made a good choice.

If anyone remembers my struggles I was having finding a secular science curriculum for Roo (we homeschool). We have found success with Ellen McHenry’s stuff. We just wrapped up The Elements and are moving on to The Brain next week which I am sure Merle will also enjoy because she loves learning about the human body and tagging along for studies. So if anyone is looking for a great, fun, and in-depth science program that is secular this one scores high for us. Note that I buy most of my curriculum in PDF form because I like the fact that I can load them on my iPad and print them as many times as I want so I can’t comment on shipping.

My Ancestry DNA just switched to “processing” today which is exciting. I have no idea how long that step takes, but the results comes next.

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