Snow and Jacket II

We finally got shoveled out.  School was canceled on Thursday and Friday.  We ended up with 22" in our front yard of blowing, grainy, snow.  We closed the office early on Thursday.  I finally got to the office at 11 on Friday. 

 

Drive way to the family manse (mom's-not mine).

This picture was Thursday early afternoon.  We had only gotten about 10" at that point.

It's pretty but I'll be glad when it's gone.

Jacket Colletion II

This is one of the jackets I got mostly for fun.  It's an old GAP jacket - wool, green with camel and navy plaid with a small red stripe (comes across more like orange in the bottom photo). Three button on both front and sleeve, no vent.

I wouldn't usually have gone for this, but like I said - it's fun. I think it will look great with jeans on the week end or "casual" days at the office.  I wore it with khakis and a camel color cashmere v-neck sweater and white broad cloth button down.

 

  

The pictures don't do much for it - again the office lights.

But take a look at the pockets and sleeves.  If it weren't for the small darts at the waist, the lines would go all the way down across the pockets to the bottom and across from one sleeve to the next.  The cheaper brands today don't pay attention to that today.  It's fairly heavy and thick, good for the cold days.

At the moment it's pressed at the top button.  

I think I'm going to re-press it as a 3/2. 

Maybe. 

If I'm ambitious.

More later.

DAG

Good winter day to you all

Woke up this morning to a blanket of white.

It's really much prettier than it comes across in the photo's.

Across the street and into the valley.

Happy winter.

  DAG

One of the new collection

So here's the first of the jackets I picked up in said previous post.
I know - nothing special.  It's from Jos. Banks but I think it's "older".  It seems to be fairly well made.  It only has two buttons but it is 100% wool and I liked the colors.  This was taken in my office so the lights throw a strange color on it, but it's black and kind of a bronze small houndstooth.

No ticket pocket or anything special - but again, I liked it and it was $6.99.  How could you go wrong.

DAG

OMG I can't believe what I found

I had a day off last week and another this week so I decided I'd take a stab at the thrift stores.  "G" over at An Affordable Wardrobe has great luck finding great deals.  But he lives in an area with "money'd" people.  I don't find much very often.  Well, between the two trip to three different stores I've ended up with 7 sport coats and two dress shirts and I spent about $45 for everything.  I'm going to save pictures for another day but the "pud'n on top" was when I found a J. Press navy blazer that actually fit me and was in pretty good shape.  Shhhh...my wife doesn't know about them yet.

More to come...

DAG

Go Red for Women

Houndstooth & Paisley

Sounds like a nice mens shop doesn't it - Houndstooth & Paisley.

It's been a  little while since I posted and decided I'd post something satorial since that's part of my new years resolutions.

We had a staff meeting yesterday, which we do every month, but I decided instead of wearing a suit and taking the chance of wearing the same kit as the boss, I would go the sport coat and trouser route.

I knew I wanted to wear the lambs wool houndstooth  and deiced on olive green trousers.  Pleated front with cuffs.  They are both Chaps, but not the "Chaps by Ralph Lauren".  I'm guessing he sold of the rights to the brand or something since you can buy Chaps in most major department stores now.  And that's exactly where I bought these.  The jacket and trousers were both on sale, both 100% wool, pretty well made and I liked them.  The great part is that I paid less than $100 for both of them.  I ended up with two suits the same way, but that's another story.

The puzzle was the tie.  I have a chocolate brown paisley with some rust colors that go quite well with the slight windowpane plaid that's in the houndstooth pattern but thought I wanted something a little more exciting.  So pouring through the ties I came across a paisley that was more on the gold side with brown paisley.  I thought it didn't look too bad so what the heck. 

This is what I came up with:

I have to say - I got more compliments from this outfit than I ever did with the other tie.

DAG

Coco Chanel and Trad Pets

I tend to lean toward the conservative side of life for most things.  That would include pets.  If there is such a thing as a trad or preppy pet.  I'm sure TWA over at "Are you a preppie?" would be able to tell us.

Anyway - growing up we pretty much stuck with Black Labs, Beagles and the occasional Basset Hound.  We did have a German Shepard once too. Oh - and a medium sized poodle brought home after the vet made a call to my soft hearted mother when it's owners wanted it put down because it barked too much.  The poodle not my mother. (My soft hearted mother is another story).  May favorite pet as a young adult was a Beagle/Terrier mix.  We bought a new hunting dog and the breeder gave us the runt for free.  It seems a male Terrier got mixed up with the female Beagle - but that's for biology class.  She was marked like a Beagle but had fur like a Terrier.  My father thought it would be funny to be tromping around hunting yelling for "Rosebud".  So she was named!  She truly was a great dog.  She eventually passed of old age and never did hunt. 

So time passes - I married my wife and we had decided not to have pets right away.  Well as fate would have it, we got pregnant and got our first dog the same year.  A Springer Spaniel named Audrey.  Actually her AKC name was Audrey's Little Princess.  Not given by me but by the original owner (another long story).  A few years later we found out the local dog catcher had found a White West-highland Terrier.  We named her Maggie.

Maggie and Audrey left us both the same year. Audrey one January morning and Maggie on a September afternoon.  At that point we decided we had enough with pets.  We still had "Boo" the black cat and Tommy the Turtle who turned out to be a Thomasina.

So where is all this leading - well that soft hearted mother of mine decided that our daughter needed another fuzzy bundle of joy.  Thanksgiving, 2008 -  I receive a call from said mother:

"I'm in big trouble."

"Why - whats wrong?"

"I went to check out the dog I told you about and decided I couldn't leave it with the breeder."

So - a little 1lb ball of fur was looking at us through the door of a portable kennel.  It turned out to be a toy version of a Phantom Poodle.

So what's conservative/trad about a poodle - nothing unless your daughter names it Coco Chanel.

Coco is now just over 1 year old, and weighs in at a whopping 5 pounds if she's been eating a lot.  I have to admit that having a small dog is very convenient for a change.  She eats less, poops less and is much easier to scoop up to travel with.

DAG