Work wear for under $100? Challenge accepted

Disclaimer: I was given a Target gift card to purchase work wear and accessories. All opinions and wording is my own, unless otherwise noted.

When you work from home there is often the tendency to wear what ever you lay your hands on first thing of a morning. Be a work-from-home mum and the tendency to wear something comfy & that hides a multitude of stains is more so. I’ve had quiet a few days when I can still be found in my pjs at midday.

When I was offered the chance to shop at Target and see if I could get something stylish yet practical for under $100 I thought challenge accepted!

Now our nearest Target is about 40 minutes away BUT thanks to the wonders of the internet & online shopping I was able to browse the City Dressing range of women’s wear in the comfort of my own home. I selected a few pieces, wrote down the names & then a couple of days later headed into Launceston to go check out my wish list

First on the list was some new underwear, cause your underwear is the foundation of any outfit looking great! I really love how the underwear at Target is so affordable and in a great range of styles and sizes. I mean you can get a new bra for as little as $7.50 and new undies from as little as $5 a pair! So undergarments sorted. No I’m not sharing what I bought but you can check out the styles of bras and undies online. Next stop tops & trousers.

I decided to go with trousers just cause I’m not really a skirt person. I wear jean a lot, and even though the IT industry can be pretty laid back as far as work wear goes, I decided to get something a little more professional. I have quite a few pairs of long length trousers so checked out the 3/4 lengths and capris. I also wanted something not black as 90% of the trousers I already own are black. Ended up picking the City Dressing Linen Crop Pants
OMG these pants are super comfy. Great for work, chasing that super active toddler AND even heading out to a spring/summer bbq/party/drinks with mates/blogger event. AND they only set me back $24.88
If you prefer longer work pants, the City Dressing range has lots of great options and prices start from a cheap $20

The selection of tops in the City Dressing range varies from shirts to tops that will take you from work to after work. I could have spent hours trying on tops. In the end I selected 3 – the City Dressing Striped Short Sleeve Shirt; the City Dressing Ruffle Top With Necklace; and a black & white spotted sleeveless
I ended up picking the City Dressing Ruffle Top With Necklace. Casual yet dressy enough to meet with clients.

Now accessories, since the top came with a necklace I didn’t worry about getting another. I looked at a few things but what I was looking for wasn’t available in my local Target so I decided to accessory shop online. I picked up a new phone wallet and a new belt. And cause I really like it I added a new ring.

So my outfit for under $100

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City Dressing Linen Crop Pants – $24.88

City Dressing Ruffle Top With Necklace – $39

Phone wallet – $15

Belt – $15

(underwear & ring purchased separately)

Shoes are my own

So there you go. Can you get a work outfit – that will work if your a mum of an active toddler and/or take you out after work – for under $100? At Target, the answer is yes you can!

20 Days: Days 6-10

I actually managed to keep up this time so here are days 6-10

Day 6 was the bathroom. Love that our bathroom is fairly small so stays pretty tidy so it was just a quick once over.

Before

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and after

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Day 7 and we cleaned out the fridge. And I managed to declutter my cookbooks. I’ve scanned the recipes I use often and the ones I want to try so now I can get rid of some cookbooks.

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Day 8 was cleaning the sunroom which is Miss K’s playroom. This room is such a pigsty with paper everywhere & stuff gets dumped there before getting taken to the office.

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Day 9 was cleaning out the junk drawer and organising my calendar & diary

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and finally day 10 was cleaning the oven. I hate cleaning the oven with a passion but I have actually been keeping up with cleaning it so it was a pretty easy job this time round.

The Winter Blogathon 2013–Update

Still very wrong typing that 😉 but with the weather we’ve had in the last couple of days it could be winter.

So the blogathon is over and I’ve managed to do heaps and added a few more things to my original list:

  • Write up some blog posts and schedule them.
  • Catch up on reviews or other posts.
  • Brainstorm ideas for blog.
  • Clean up your labels/tags
  • Backup your blog (& FB & Twitter)
  • Start Project Life series (& scheduled to post at the end of January)
  • start work on series I want to do in 2nd half of 2013
  • Set up blog planner in diary
  • clean up and sort emails
  • clean up evernote
  • set up blogging app on ipad
  • start to create my own blog planner printable
  • make sure my blog & sm branding is consistent – it’s my birthday today so I’ll be working on this one tomorrow
  • add a pinterest mouseover button to my blog (see above)

Loved getting so much done over the weekend and look forward to the next Blogathon in June. Learnt lots to with the mini challenges and found a heap of new blogs to check out.

Happy Australia Day!

Today is our national day. A day to celebrate Aussie pride. To have BBQs and cold beer and maybe even listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100. Oh and to watch the cricket if there is any on. Maybe even a game of backyard cricket. To give thanks to that British mob who came here years ago. To celebrate we live in a pretty free place where we can say and do pretty much what we want (within reason of course). To some it is a day of mourning and loss, not a day of celebration.

We’re celebrating Australia Day this year pretty much as a normal weekend (except maybe for the little bit of planning for my birthday on Monday & it’s a public holiday woot!). We’ll have snags for tea. Hubby has his mate coming round to play the Doctor Who RPG and I’ll be playing round on the internet 😉

I did try out a couple of new recipes I’d found on Pinterest – No Knead Cheese & Onion Beer Bread by Not Quite Nigella; and homemade butter in the food processor.

First was Not Quiet Nigella’s beer bread. This was the first time I’d seen her site and will be going back to check out some more of her recipes.

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(note the great Tassie beer)

Chuck it all in the bowl and mix is pretty much all there is to this recipe. Put it in a loaf tin and bake for 45-50 minutes.

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Serve warm with butter

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I thought this was the perfect chance to try out another recipe – homemade butter in the food processor. Can’t credit myself for this recipe but I did Australianise it a bit (we don’t have heavy cream here – I used Thickened cream and it worked fine)

2 cups thickened (or pure) cream. Has to be full fat cream – the more fat the better apparently
pinch or two of salt, optional
Pour your cream into the food processor. Put it on high. Check it after 2 minutes. If it has started to separate all good, if not give it another couple of minutes (mine took about 3 1/2 minutes). It should look like this

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If it looks like that, pour off the liquid – this is your buttermilk: keep it, you can use it to make pancakes and other stuff. Add about 1/8 cup cold water. Replace lid, pulse 4 times. Pour off the liquid. Repeat.

Place your butter in a strainer and allow any excess liquid to drain. There are heaps of suggestions to drain your butter online – squeezing it between butter paddles, putting your butter on a marble board and squeezing the liquid out with a spoon – I lined a colander with a clean Chux cloth over a bowl and let it drain in the fridge.

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Put it in a bowl and stir in your salt if desired. And there you go – homemade butter! Should last about 3 days

I was going to make lamingtons but realised we didn’t have enough flour. So lamingtons will have to wait 🙁

The Winter Blogathon 2013

Ok so it feels really weird typing that as it is the middle of summer here in Australia. I posted the other day I’ve signed up for the January blogathon and this is my official kick off post.

Biannual Blogathon Bash

“You know all those items on your Blogging To Do list? Those things you’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t had a chance? Now’s your chance to get a large amount of them done!”

First I’d like to say hi to my new readers who may be checking out my blog for the first time thanks to the Blogathon. My name is Caroline (aka Nightwolf) and you can read a little about me here.

What’s on my To Do list? Well……

  • Write up some blog posts and schedule them.
  • Catch up on reviews or other posts.
  • Brainstorm ideas for blog.
  • Clean up my labels/tags
  • Backup my blog
  • Start Project Life series
  • start work on series I want to do in 2nd half of 2013
  • Set up blog planner in diary
  • clean up and sort emails
  • clean up Evernote
  • set up blogging app on ipad
  • I’m sure I’ll think of something else over the weekend

You can keep up to date with everything related to the Blogathon on Twitter by following the #blogathon2 hashtag.

20 Days – Days 1 to 5

The Organised Housewife

It took a little longer than I thought to get the first five days done. Life (& bushfires) happened.

Day 1 was focusing on the kitchen. This is what I had to contend with….

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Hubby was out helping his sister defend their place from a bush fire so I gave Miss K some play dough, some paint with water and chucked on ABC 4 Kids and she was happy to play while I got stuck into the kitchen. I was sooo tempted to pull everything from the cupboards and sort them but I managed to restrain myself lol.

Here’s my task list for the day and here’s my clean kitchen

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Day 2 – the master bedroom, or as it’s commonly known in our house – the dumping room.

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I struggled with this room. Not so much getting all the clothes put away but all the scrapbook stuff that makes it’s home in our bedroom. I’m still slowly sorting it out and working out what I want to keep here (Project Life, wedding album, Journal Your Christmas) and what will go to the scrap room at Mum & Dad’s. So not 100% clean but much better than it was before.

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On to day 3 and we’re in the laundry

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Our laundry is usually pretty good so it was just a quick clean and tidy. Gave the washing machine a good clean as well.

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Our lounge room frequently looks like a bomb site & day 4 this was my focus

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I have to admit, did a little more than was on the list cause I was getting sick of all the mess. Swear our lounge room will never be clean til someone grows up & doesn’t drag all her toys out here.

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Finally a nice easy day focusing on the floors & the pantry. No floor photos but here’s the pantry.

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I did go a little overboard in the pantry and decided to recover the shelves. OMG remind me never to do that idea again. I’d love to have the money to pull out all the shelves and replace it with something from Howards Storage World or IKEA.

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If you’re doing the challenge, how’re you faring? And for the record, here’s my kitchen bench after 5 days (which is actually 15 days total *sigh* – hopefully the next five days will be a bit better)

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I may have signed up for this…..

Biannual Blogathon Bash

The Biannual Blogathon Bash. It’s a chance to get a start on all those things on your blogging to do list. There are 2 a year – January and June. The event will take place on a weekend and will run for 72 hours. 8am Friday to 8am Monday EST.

I’ll be back Saturday morning (unless I’m still up midnight Friday – the challenge starts 8am Friday in the US which is about midnight here) with my list of blogging tasks I wish to accomplish over the 72 hours.

Would love to know if any other Aussies are taking part.

Fox in Flats #HairDare

Last year I was pretty crap at keeping up with the amazing Fox in Flats Style Dares. I’d occasionally do one and then last 2-3 days then stop. This year one of my goals was to do more of the Style Dares & do all 7 days.

The first dare was “Wear your hair in a different style every day for 7 days in a row”

I usually wear my down mainly cause I can’t be bothered doing anything with it, unless we’re going out somewhere special so this was lots of fun.

day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 day 7

1. Simple plait | 2. Half up, half down | 3. Plait & bun | 4. Messy ponytail | 5. Alice band | 6. Wet curls | 7. Side plait and updo

Looking forward to the next style dare.