I know it sounds like a cliche, but autumn is my favourite season to dress for which ultimately makes it my favourite season to make packing lists for. I would completely fill my wardrobe with sweaters, boots, jackets, scarves and live in them all year if I could get away with it. So needless to say when the stores start turning over from summer to fall I get excited and inspired to dress for fall.
This weeks packing list is for Bruges, Belgium which has to be one of the most enchanting cities ever. I’ve come to the conclusion that while I think of my dream home as some uber modern penthouse flat, or an open concept industrial style warehouse apartment; I would really like a medieval stone house along the canal like in the header photo. Talk about one extreme to another 😉
I built this list a little different than usual. I usually pick a few neutral pieces, then add in some colour to round it out. This time I started with this fabulous purple jacket and then built everything around that. The rest of the pieces are mostly neutral in colour but some have a print to break the monotony that can go along with a small wardrobe when you want all the pieces to work together. Add in some shoes with one or two in a fun colour or print (I love leopard with purple and these leopard flats are Vionic’s which are super comfortable for walking), some weather appropriate accessories, and you have a well-rounded packing capsule. This list is requested for 3 weeks but you can easily get more out of these pieces.
My birthday is right around the corner which means that summer is on its way out. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand I hate the heat, but on another I am not too sure that I am looking forward to cold and snow just yet. We had such a mild winter last year I have a feeling that it is going to be brutally cold this winter. I wish I could move some place more temperate for the season. Oh well, at least I don’t have to buy a new winter jacket or boots for me this year. I think the girls jackets will still work but they both may need new boots. (I can’t believe I am thinking about this already).
Can you believe that summer is more than half over?
Does anyone else constantly have cold hands, even when it’s a million degrees out? It probably doesn’t help that the central air blows out directly above my desk, but it is making me type in slow motion. I’m a little stir crazy today because there is an air quality advisory so we stayed in. Merle recently discovered that several of her Playstation games have the ability to go online to play with other people and that she can use a microphone to talk to them. She also thinks that she has to talk really loud for them to hear, so it’s hard for me to focus 100% since her Playstation is about 4 feet from my desk 😉
This request came from a while back. It has taken me longer than I hoped to play catch up so I am finally getting to it. It’s for a mom with 3 young children going to Italy for 4 weeks for September-October. She wanted a smallish capsule of pieces that should carry her through and transition through the month. Depending where you are in Italy you are going to see varying temperatures, especially at this time of year when it is making the transition to fall. September usually starts of in the low 20’s and will slowly decrease as the month goes on. Night time, rain, and being on water will also drop the temperatures so it is best to be prepared.
Having 3 young kids to travel with also means that the clothes need to be no fuss, and easy to wear so I stuck with basics and added pieces in. I decided to add a swimsuit last minute because I figured that at this time of year the weather can be unpredictable and you may find there are more than a few beach weather days on the trip.
I put together a full 30 days of outfits from these pieces which can be found in this post. I will link it as soon as it is posted.
The accent colour I chose is yellow, because I am really liking yellow at the moment. Do you have a current favourite colour to wear?
I just want to start by saying ugh. My contact form apparently isn’t sending me everything when it is submitted. I just received 6 messages that were dated from the beginning to middle of June that never went through until now. If one of those messages were yours than I am so sorry I missed them. I wasn’t ignoring you. I try to respond back to every single message and I am feeling really bad right now. I think I am going to just remove the contact form and leave my email address there instead to avoid this problem. Once again I am sorry 🙁
Every once and awhile I like to revisit some old packing lists to update them or see what I chose, and how my choices would be different this time around. This time I went back to one of my most popular lists from a couple of years ago, Santorini, Greece. What I like about my choices from that list was the addition of colour. I guess I was feeling more vibrant then. It’s a fun, warm weather list, but in hindsight I included too many shoes and bags and would change that this time.
For this list my choices parallel nicely in some areas and differ a lot in others. Greece can be really, really hot depending on the time of year so slight adjustments might need to be taken into consideration if you are travelling during the peak hot season. Maybe an extra pair of shorts, and a couple of sleeveless tanks would round it out nicely.
I just walked in the door from a really long outing with the family today (Tuesday). We were out for longer than we have been out in one day in a long while and I was totally hoping it would knock the kids out but it seems to have energized them. I’m ready to sleep though. We hit up the museum where we each had our favourite parts; Merle was in geode heaven, I am all about the Middle Ages, Roo thrives on Greece, and while Tom isn’t a huge museum fan I think he secretly liked some parts because I caught him reading lots of information plaques and taking pictures. Maybe I will win him over 😉 Then we hit up the big Value Village where we found some books, and then we went out to dinner. Now I am writing this blog post while eating my leftovers and trying to stay awake. Maybe I’ll rewatch Friends in the background to keep me alert.
This week I have a packing list for a 2 week road trip in summer than starts in California and goes to Arizona. Arizona is pretty bloody hot right now so I didn’t bother adding any type of light jacket. The thought behind this list is comfort, and I may or may not have included an extra shirt or two in case the heat is so intense you sweat through them all before laundry time 🙂 The breakdown is as follows:
Finally a big tote to easily throw all the car crap in quickly when needed, and a regular shoulder bag.
I made this quite a casual list because car travel needs comfort. If will have any situations that require something more dressy than black pants, and a black shirt then you will have to adjust the options accordingly. I will put together the outfit options from this list for the next post.
What are your go-to’s for a long road trip? I get car sick easily (it sucks) so since I can’t read then music is the next best thing. I would say a good playlist is a top rank for me, along with books and an iPad for the non driving parts.
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