Secondly - my Public Service Announcement for the Day/Week/Month/Year:
Clean out your dryer lint - the lint screen and the outtake hose! My neighbor across the street had her dryer catch on fire earlier this week. Not a fun experience at all. Fortunately everyone is ok. Which brings me to my next point - don't turn on your washer/dryer/dishwasher and leave the house...unless you are 100% sure that everything will be perfect. This will be a definite mindset change for me!!
Enough lecturing...and back to regularly scheduled blogging...
How much time do we waste on just the clothes, yu know, the shirt/sweater/pants without stopping to consider the outer and the under and the with? I'm certainly not going to pretend to be an expert on the underpinnings to put with an outfit (that's why we have Cleo's blog, Trousseau Adventures). But I am pretty comfortable talking about the "outer" and the "with" stuff...at least as it relates to my style.
Sometimes it is really is all about the outerwear and accessories. Remember in Silence of the Lambs when Hannibal Lechter made the comment to Clarice about "your good bag and your cheap shoes"?
We do love our clothes...but if you're throwing on a crappy coat or cruddy shoes, it will ruin the whole look. And when it's cold, rainy, snowy, or just not 75 degrees outside, most of what others see is your outerwear and accessories.

Starting with the outerwear...How many coats do you have? How many do you wear? How many are actually flattering on you? Which ones improve your outfit instead of actually competing with it?
I do try to make sure my outerwear at least works with my outfit for the day - if not actually taking my look up a notch. In fact, if all I'm going to be doing is running errands, it's easy to just slip on a plain, simple (i.e., typical me) outfit, but add a coat that is either bright/happy/cheery as the focal point of the outfit - yes that would be the Winnie coat - or in warmer temps, the green Gap corduroy coat I wore today. Conversely, I find that my charcoal gray heather hooded car coat from Bloomies 10 years ago (aka my pregnancy coat), adds wonderful texture to ensembles. It all depends on mood. And weather. But you don't have to spend a fortune on coats. It's something to work on over time. And the way sales happen so soon in the season...you hardly ever have to pay full price, unless it's something that you are just *dying* over. But the great thing about coats is that when you talk CPW (cost per wear), you get a lot of value for your money because you were them so often.

Shoes? Bags? Hats? Sunglasses? Oy, I could go on for a while...but it's been a crazy busy week, and I'm done. Good night all! No, I'm not going to bed quite this early, but will be pretty soon. So I will probably try to catch up on blog reading until my eyelids close...
Polyvore from March 2:

3/2/10 by HeidiGblog featuring J Crew