livelovesara - An over 40 Style and Travel Blog

What I Wore This Week

May 31, 2016Sara Leave a Comment

We seemed to have bypassed spring and went straight to summer over last week. When most people think of Canada they think that it is cold all the time, or that our summers don’t get very hot. They do. In Southern Ontario where I live it’s not a dry heat either. It’s the super humid, air so thick you can’t breathe kind of heat. Where you stick to the furniture, your hair goes really frizzy, and you don’t want to venture out of the air conditioning. Last week and this weekend the temperatures hit 38°C (100°F) which is way past my comfort zone and makes me worry what it’s going to be like in July and August if it is this hot now.

This led me to reevaluate my wardrobe and find another hole, some lighter fabric tanks are missing. I was able to find a nice lightweight, loose tank with crochet (I think it’s crochet) straps and border across the top at Value Village on Sunday. I think this will be a nice comfortable option to wear on days like today.

I love Value Village but you really have to dedicate time to it because there is so much to go through. I was lucky and found the top relatively quickly because Merle usually doesn’t wait patiently after a certain amount of time and I get rushed and miss things. Thrifting has really been a lot more misses than hits for me lately which is probably due to the quick season changeover and everyone having the same idea as me. Sundays are usually our dedicated thrift days. I go through and purge the apartment during the week and we make a donation on Sundays as well (I aim for every Sunday but I usually like to wait until the donation bag is full first which sometimes takes a few weeks). When I moved the rooms around last weekend I was able to get rid of a lot of stuff, and for every medium bag (ours is usually one of those blue Ikea bags) that you donate you get a card for up to 30% off your purchase. Purge, donate, and get 30% off your purchase. Sounds good.

Do you like thrifting?

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Exceptional Customer Service from Ikea

May 30, 2016Sara Leave a Comment

Reunited with her friend she thought was lost forever.

For the many years that I worked in retail it was repeatedly drilled in to our heads that a person who had a bad customer service experience would tell twice as many people about it than they would when they had a good experience. Today I am going to tell a lot of people about a good experience I had this weekend at Ikea. On Friday we made a quick trip to there to pick up some bedding because we were having guests and while we have lots of sheets, we are quite slim in the blankets/duvet area. Merle brought her favourite stuffed animal, a chipmunk she named I.T. Bone with her. She brings him everywhere. Everywhere. So it was bound to happen right? After 4 years of bringing him everywhere we were bound to lose him at some point and that point was Friday.

I don’t know if it was because it was wasn’t as busy as usual on Friday morning or because shopping at Ikea brings out the part of you that wants to run in to every fake room setup and try out all the closets, bathrooms, and kitchens. Whatever the reason at some point as I was following the arrows to the designated area I wanted to go, and the girls were weaving in and out of places looking at everything like they haven’t been out of the house before, and we lost him. I didn’t realize until we reached the warehouse part so when we tried to retrace our steps it was pretty much impossible to remember every nook and cranny that they passed through. I knew looking was pointless but I thought that maybe someone had found him on the floor and placed him up where he could easily be spotted. I was hoping anyway. Nope. This is when reality set in for Merle and she realized he might be gone forever and she got really quiet and cried. We went through a few more times, but when I realized that searching was futile I checked out our purchases and made a stop at the lost and found on the way by just in case someone turned him in, but to no avail.

Tom works near that Ikea and promised her that he would stop by daily to check the lost and found since the guy who helped us said that sometimes it takes a few days for things to show up and be brought down there. I was kind of feeling powerless which seems like and over reaction over a stuffed animal but when it’s your child and it’s something they treasure the most in the world you do what you can so I went on Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t know which one was the best avenue so I posted a similar post to each (well, twitter has a character limit but I got the gist across) I tagged Ikea Canada in my Twitter post and then posted to the Ikea Canada Facebook page. I received a response via Twitter really quickly letting me know that they had contacted the store where we lost it and they will be in touch once they hear back. They said it probably wouldn’t be until Monday but I heard back today (Saturday) at noon that he had been found and was in the customer service office waiting for us. I messaged back with the time we would be there to pick him up and we did. When we got there everyone was polite, courteous, and seemed happy that they found him for her. This meant a lot to us.

While this may not seem like a huge deal to some people this was huge to a 5-year-old little girl who felt like she lost her best friend on Friday.

So thank you Ikea for going above and beyond what I was expecting. Thank you for helping ease her heart that day. We won’t forget.

Your loyal customer before, and now even more so,

Sara

What to Wear on a Mixed Climate Trip

May 27, 2016Sara 2 Comments

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What to Pack for Multiple Climates

May 25, 2016Sara 4 Comments

If I could put together a ready-to-go suitcase filled with whatever I would need for up to a week in an unknown climate this is potentially what I would do. This was a question that was asked via email from a woman who recently became a flight attendant (I so wanted to be one in my early 20’s and still kick myself over not pursuing it). She said that she is on reserve which means that at any time she can fly off to any destination for up to 6 days. It could be hot, cold, in-between, or all three at one time, so what would I bring if this was up to me?

I wanted to stay around the 10-15 items of clothing number (excluding undergarments and pyjamas) plus shoes. First I would stick to a really neutral palette. A mixture of dark and light tops, with a colour thrown in. One silk camisole or tank, one t-shirt, one long sleeve, one white blouse, and one colourful dressier top.

For bottoms I would bring one pair of black pants, a dressy denim, a boyfriend style so they can be worn cuffed and are airy if it is hotter out, and a skirt. One pullover, and a cardigan for layers or light coverage and a jacket. I would bring a swimsuit, a scarf that is big enough to be also used as a swimsuit cover, a hat, and a light dress.

I would also include leggings or knit tights (not shown above) to be able to layer under the skirt and dress to transition through different weather. Three pairs of shoes (a boot of some kind, sneakers, and sandals or flats), two pairs of pyjamas, and undergarments (also not shown).

If you stick to a basic list like:

camisole or tank
t-shirt
long sleeve
blouse
colourful dressy top
2 jeans (one casual one darker denim or trade one in for shorts or lightweight pants)
black pants or dress pants (black is always easy to dress up in a pinch though plus it hides stains well)
pullover
cardigan
a skirt in your preferred length (could also swap for shorts or another dress but a skirt gives more options)
dress
swimsuit (or not, but it would be nice to have just in case)
jacket (the type of jacket would depend on how unaccustomed you are to colder temps and style preference. I tend to wear my leather jacket with layers until it is -10°C when I switch to my winter coat.)

You can see that it is very generic so it is really easy to reach in your closet and grab each of these pieces in a hurry as long as you pay attention to the colours you are putting together. Every closet has at least one option of the above, but probably more so you can change it up for variety.

If you really wanted to be prepared by keeping a suitcase pre-packed and ready to go by the door you could lay out each piece into outfits beforehand and take a picture so that you can refer back to it if you can’t figure out what to wear. I do this when I put together the outfits that can be made with each packing list. It is to show you how many options you can get without bringing your whole closet and avoids the “I have nothing to wear” problem. Quick, easy and to the point.

Outfit options for this list will be in the next post.

Do you have a go-to packing list that would cover multiple climates?

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What I Wore This Week

May 23, 2016Sara Leave a Comment

This weekend was Victoria Day weekend which is the long weekend that introduces the summer weather and becomes the countdown to summer vacations in Canada. Since it was a long weekend I decided it would be a brilliant idea for me to swap rooms with the girls. I have wanted to go it for some time, but man did I regret it once we got started. Tom was bitching because I asked him for his universal Allen key tool so I could disassemble the girls Kura bunk to move it.

Disclaimer: if you have one don’t disassemble it because the fighting the ensues made lead to divorce.

Oh man did we fight (not because of the tool). He mistook me asking for the tool to mean that I wanted help moving the beds (which it didn’t because I would prefer to do it solo since he complains non stop). This led to difficulties getting it through the doors which led to more fights. I moved things around for 10 hours before I quit and went to bed finally. I attacked the rest of it on Sunday and have reached a level of being 90% completed. I must say that I am rather enjoying the finished product though. The switch made much more sense and I am noticing the benefits of having more places to put things. I do need to go out and buy some black out shades for this room since vampire me can’t sleep with a sliver of light. I also need a big box of command strips so I can hang up all the pictures that we have. Aside from these two small things I think it was a good choice because it seems that everything has a place to go now. A lot of it being in my new walk-in closet (insert crying emoji) so I don’t get a nice beautifully organized walk-in but I do get less clutter. Beggars can’t be choosers…

Does doing household chores/tasks with your significant other bring out the worst in you both?

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What to wear in Ljubljana Slovenia

May 20, 2016Sara 2 Comments

Outfit Options 1-10

The links to every piece in these 30 options for What to wear in Ljubljana , Slovenia are found directly below:

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