Hey Cats!
For some reason, I am exhausted this week! I’m not sure if it’s because I had a busy weekend, if my regular 6-hour sleep schedule isn’t going to cut it any more, or if it’s because I haven’t been going to the gym regularly anymore. But I should probably start going to the gym again, for a variety of reasons. I’ve been wanting to join a gym, but I can’t find one with an indoor track, and I’m just going to have to convince myself to start running on the treadmill, which could take some time. The treadmill is just so boring, though. I feel like you run forever, but you never get anywhere! The rec center at school kind of became my second home, and I’m going to have a hard time finding a place that I love as much as I did. Nevertheless, I need to go somewhere, so I’m just going to have to suck it up and start paying for a membership. Ugh. But I digress.
For the longest time, I knew that I wanted to get a Lilly Pulitzer shift dress for graduation. I wanted something classic, Southern, and grown-up, and a Lilly shift had all of those qualities. In November when I started looking, I had my heart set on the Janice shift dress in Shorely Blue.
It was perfect, and I was so excited about it. But, it was definitely expensive, and I wasn’t doing a great job at saving my money. Around spring break, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be able to afford it. While I was at home for spring break, I went shopping with my mom and sister for Easter dresses, and though I wasn’t happy about it, I started looking for graduation dresses, too. I couldn’t find anything I loved (for graduation…I found about 5 I wanted for Easter…I had two different looks I was going for, okay?) at the first few places we went, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. The next day, my mom and I went to TJMaxx to look for a new top to go under my suit, and I thought I would browse the dress section while I was there, just in case.
AND THAT’S WHEN I FOUND IT. I saw the recognizable, bright-colored, juice-stand print peeking out of the rack, and I literally ran to it. They had my size, but there was one problem…it was a maxi dress. My mom was like “I don’t think this is going to work,” but I dragged her into the dressing room anyways-you can’t get what you want if you don’t even try.
I tried it on, and just as I expected it was WAY too long for me. But it fit perfectly everywhere else, and it was beyond gorgeous. I loved it, my mom loved it, and I had to have it. I twirled around in it for a while, and then I had an epiphany. “What if I cut it off and make it a shift dress?”, I asked my mom. She thought it was a wonderful idea, and we spent the next fifteen minutes in the dressing room deciding where we could cut it off, if the alteration place could actually do it, what to do with all the extra fabric, and of course, what shoes I was going to wear. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not really, but graduation has come and gone and I’m still just really excited about it.
Here’s what the dress looked like when I bought it:
Please disregard the HUGE MESS that is my closet at my parent’s house. I was going to take a better picture of it, but I forgot until I was at the alteration shop and the lady held her scissors up to it and said “there’s no going back now!”. So this is the best I’ve got. Anyways, don’t you love it? I will admit that it made me a little sad to cut off all that extra fabric, especially since it had that beautiful lace trim on it. But my mom and I salvaged the fabric and I’m thinking about making a skirt out of it! Also, since this was at TJMaxx, I’m pretty sure it’s out of season. I don’t recognize this print, but I still really love it!
And here’s what it looked like after alterations:
I’m obsessed. Still. I will seriously wear this thing as long as it fits, because we all know that Lilly is timeless. I was so happy to find it, especially since my dreams of a Lilly dress were crushed by my financial irresponsibility. Speaking of, you’re probably wondering how much I paid to make my graduation dreams come true. The dress itself was $80, and alterations were $20, so $100 total. Still not cheap, but significantly less than buying my first choice! I’ve never been one to tweak clothes to my liking, because most of the time, alterations are kind of a hassle, and it seems easier to me to just find something else that fits how I want it to. But do you remember Monday’s talk about not settling? Yeah, this was about the time in my life that I decided not to settle for anything I didn’t really want, and I decided that yes, that even applied to my clothes. Also, I really like the idea that probably no one else has this exact dress. I’m definitely going to start searching for more bargain pieces that I can tweak to my tastes. This is a great way for those of us who are extremely picky to customize our wardrobes without spending a fortune!
That’s all for meow!
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