Natural

Some days I just find myself slammed with work.  I'm finding that it's happening a lot more frequently since I started my job at an institution a little over an hour away from where I live.  While I make use of my drive to listen to audio books, few historical monographs are made into audio books.  So I just have to accept the fact that I'm spending 7 hours a week in the car this term.  That's 7 hours a week that cannot be spent writing articles, reading articles, grading student papers, or revising my dissertation.  Somehow it always seems to end up causing me to have a Sunday or a Thursday (days that I don't have to teach) every week or so when I have to work on both teaching and research to the point where I feel like my brain is about to burst.  One of my former students would call this a case of "hurty brain syndrome."

Yesterday was one of those days.  I had a lecture to write, papers to grade, applications threatening to push me into the pit of despair, and a book to re-read before my class the next day.  It was a day that I might have spent in pjs or old sweats - except for one thing.  My fiance and I have a long-standing Sunday brunch tradition.  Realizing that scrambled eggs and pancakes might be my only chance to see the outside of my house for 24 hours, made me take a shower and get dressed.  One could argue that precious time was lost during those moments of showering, dressing, and eating eggs, but I say this was my only tenuous hold to sanity during a stressful day of work, work, work.

I knew I'd need a look that could be put together quickly and was comfy for a day of work on either side of brunch.  So I wore skinny jeans, tall brown Fluevog boots, a long sleeved shirt, and a long sweater.*  I only wore blush, mascara, and CoverGirl lipstain, and I just used a little Aveda phomollient styling foam in my damp hair to create gentle waves as my hair air dried (and as I sent some work-related emails).  It was a very casual and natural look.

* Footnotes

Jeans - Old Navy on sale

Shirt - H&M

Boots - John Fluevog (Reward to myself for completing two dissertation chapters)

Sweater - Filene's Basement

When you're working from home for the day, do you tend to go ahead and dress (up) or do you like to wear comfy sweats or pajamas?