No, the hot flashes and hell’s furnace are not the same thing. The hot flashes are, well, hot flashes and hell’s furnace? That’s where I’ve been working for the last week…
THE STORY
…I posted a shot of my outfit on Instagram last Wednesday and it was the last one of the week. As I had explained in the caption, that was it. No more outfits for the week and definitely no shots for the blog. Why? Because the temperature inside the school was so insanely unbearable that I decided to throw in the proverbial towel; although I really couldn’t because I needed it to constantly wipe the dripping sweat off of my face. By 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning I had removed all clothing that I could get away with without getting arrested, including every single piece of jewelry. The rest of the week I didn’t even bother. You read that correctly. Zero effort was put into getting dressed for work because there was no point. I pulled out the loosest fitting things I could find; no layers and the bra was swapped out for a bralette. The only jewelry was my wedding rings. Makeup was the bare minimum and I did nothing to the hair other than twist it up in a clip.
The reason for all of this insanity is simple. Every day the temperatures were in the low 90’s and the humidity made it feel like the upper 90’s. On the morning news the local weatherman always has a graphic with a list of descriptor words for the day’s weather. The top two each morning last week? Oppressive. Unbearable. Trust me, the man knows what he’s talking about.
You might be wondering why this all should matter if I’m going to work? Unless one is employed in say, a steel mill, air conditioning is typically omnipresent nowadays. Nope. We have no air conditioning. I do not mean that it is temporarily out of service and the air conditioning fairies are working feverishly to repair it. There is no air conditioning in the middle or high school. I kid you not. It would be the perfect place to hold a hot yoga class. Or perhaps get your sauna on. But the conditions are not exactly optimal for being shut in a room full of teenagers while attempting to teach them stuff. No siree; hot, sweaty, lethargic 13 year olds are not your ideal audience for a math lesson.
Now for the fun part; hot flashes. And not the quaint little baby sweats I’ve had off and on for the last year or so that I thought were hot flashes. I’m talking full-blown I want to tear the flesh off of my body hot flashes. If you haven’t had the joy of the experience, it’s kind of hard to explain. It’s like someone has poured gasoline on your insides and ignited it. And the unbearable heat spreads slowly from your mid-section out to your extremities. I mean, you can actually feel it spreading outward. And it’s just so damn…hot. They’ve only really just started in the last few weeks. I have maybe three a night and then one or two throughout the day. Couple the hot flashes with the hell’s furnace that was my classroom and I truly just wanted to dive out the second story window. But the whole me being a role model thing kinda made that a bad idea.
THE OUTFIT
Fortunately I had a few outfits that I had shot previously on backup. Tuesday I did wear a really cute dress to work which I attempted to shoot after work. If you looked up “hot mess” in the dictionary, one of those pictures would be there. The dress was stuck to me in places that a dress should not be stuck, my makeup was down in my cleavage and my hair…I can’t even with the hair. I’m all for keepin’ it real friends, but I prefer real as in what I look like on a day where I made an effort as opposed to real as in what I look like after I’ve push mowed my entire yard under the midday sun.
I wore this floral halter top a few weeks back for a girls’ night out. I happened upon it a couple of months ago on clearance at JCPenney’s for around $10, and since the colors were so in your face summer-like I couldn’t resist. It was a cool enough evening that I was able to reunite with my long lost love…a.k.a. the best distressed boyfriend jeans ever. To ward off the air conditioning induced chill (which I would have killed for last week) I threw the hot pink kimono over top. They were kind of made for each other don’t you think? I stuck with the flatform sandals as opposed to heels since my foot has been acting up and I figured it was probably a good idea to not anger it any further.
THE TIP
As much as I love heels, I have a variety of flats, kitten heels and wedges to choose from when my high heels aren’t loving me back. I have found that even with a bum foot I can still wear shoes with some height as long as they are either a kitten heel or a wedge, preferably with a bit of a platform in the front.
THE LINK UPS
Check out the weekly link ups I participate in for even more fashion and style ideas…
Top: JCPenney (Similar); Kimono: H&M (Similar); Jeans: GAP (Similar); Sandals: JCPenney (Similar)
