Random roundup + What's Up Wednesday

The last Wednesday of January! Already! How the heck did it get here?! I feel like I'm still recovering from the holidays, and poof! The year is almost 1/12th over. Anyhoo, it is time once again to link up with Mel, Shay, and Sheaffer for What's up Wednesday! I decided to mix my life randoms with my random outfit selfies I've accumulated lately just to keep it interesting. You can always follow me on Snapchat (carylee07) if you want the latest randoms, including real time snaps of what I'm wearing every day for work! As far as today's post, I'm only picking a handful of the What's Up Wednesday questions to answer for the sake of time, but let's get started!

Top: Gap | Necklace: BaubleBar | Skirt: Express | Boots: Vince Camuto

What are we eating this week: 
The one thing that sticks out in my head is some candied bacon we had at trivia night this weekend. I've mentioned Beast BBQ a couple of times on the blog before. It's hands down my favorite BBQ place in the St. Louis metro area. We went to a trivia night this past weekend and everyone brought some snacks to share. His cousin picked up some candied bacon from Beast and it was UH-mazing. As many times as I've been to the restaurant, I've never tried it. Believe you me, it will become a staple every time I go from now on.

What we have been up to:

This past weekend was pretty fun! It was busy but relaxing at the same time. Saturday morning was fitness filled - I took a Pilates class, jumped on the elliptical for a half hour, then went back to the studio to practice teach. Needless to say, I was ready for brunch and I devoured some breakfast fried rice, brussel sprouts and beignets from Cleveland Heath. I got dressed for some blog photos before heading out for trivia later that evening. I've only been to trivia one other time and this one was such a good time! It helped that our table was made up of a fun bunch of people. We continued the party at Foundry afterwards. We haven't been out like that for a long time, so I really enjoyed myself. I'll go into more detail about what we did on Sunday in a post later this week, but we ended up going to the St. Louis auto show, which turned into a fun day date with the husband!

Dress: Express | Necklace: Stella & Dot "Rebel" | Tights: DKNY | Boots: Naturalizer

What I'm working on:

My life is consumed with Pilates, if you couldn't tell. Lately, I've been obsessed with working on my Control Balance exercises on the mat. I think I might do this more often - focus on one specific exercise that I want to improve and document the progress along the way. But look at the difference one month can make?! It's exciting. It's not perfect, but I love seeing the improvement.

And then semi-related, I've also FINALLY memorized the full sequence of mat exercises from Level 1 through Level 5. I bet you didn't know there were set sequences, huh? Well, in classical Pilates there is a set sequence for both mat as well as reformer. Depending on your studio, they may or may not actually teach them this way though. I've had the reformer sequences memorized basically since I started the program in October. It was killing me that I only knew the sequence for Level 1 mat, so I forced myself to learn all 5 levels. I recorded myself reading the exercises for each level and played them back to myself as I was driving to and from work one day so I could listen to it over and over and memorize it just like you would learn the words to a song! The good thing about the mat sequences is that the exercises don't jump around depending on the level, which happens a handful of times with the reformer repertoire. So really, it's just a matter of understanding at what level each exercise gets introduced. Anyway, this all may not make sense to you, but just know that it's a big feat for me and I'm happy to cross that off my list of things to do!

What I'm excited about:

The first week of March is our company "family reunion." We used to have them every other year or so, but as the company has grown, the time between each reunion also seems to grow. The last one we had was in DC 5 years ago. This year is in Nashville, which was also where it was held in 2009. I know some people dread things like this, but I'm really excited. It always gets me rejuvenated and it's nice to spend time with people out of the office. I do actually like my coworkers. :) There's a lot of behind the scenes prepping that I'm helping with, so it's very top of mind for me at the moment. Plus! There's an awards dinner on the last night and we get to dress up. That part in and of itself is SOMUCHFUN! I love dressing up because I never really have a reason to do it otherwise!

Jacket: Express "minus the leather" | Top: Gap | Necklaces: Kendra Scott "Cami" layered with Kendra Scott "Carole" | Skirt: Express (option) | Fleece lined tights: Target | Wedge Booties: Sam Edelman

What I'm watching/reading/listening to:

I was ranting on Snapchat one morning about how I hate my commute, specifically when I have to drive myself to work. The husband and I work together which means he's usually driving us to work and I can catch up on social media during the 45 minutes each way. On days I have to drive myself, it's torture. I don't think I could live this far from the office if we didn't work together. Spending an hour and a half to two hours in the car every day does not seem like a good use of my time. It's suffocating. I tell you all of this because Gina gave me the idea to listen to books on Audible. I finished The Couple Next Door and got about 4 hours into The Girl on the Train. 

The husband listened to both as well. We both really liked The Couple Next Door. Super juicy! He was less impressed with The Girl on the Train. He felt like the book was going a little slow and asked if we could just watch the movie so we could find out what happened sooner. Ha! I went ahead and agreed. I didn't necessarily think that the book was slow, but I just felt like it was really dark and sad and I was afraid if I listened to it for the remaining 8 hours that it would start creeping into my dreams, and I don't like that. I think I've mentioned before that my schedule is pretty intense, so when I do read, it's normally something light and airy like a romantic comedy. So, while I liked both books (and movie), my next audio book won't be as heavy.

Necklaces: Premier layered over Paperdolls Boutique | Top: American Eagle | Tank: Grace and Lace | Leggings: Spanx seamless printed leggings (also here) | Booties: Vince Camuto "Kathleen"

What I'm wearing:

I am at that point in the season where I'm done buying winter stuff, but I'm not quite ready to buy spring stuff either. My inherent job as a fashion blogger is to keep you guys in the know on the newest and best pieces! Since I haven't really shopped this month at all, I feel a little less relevant on social media as if I don't have good content to share, especially since I've been shopping my own closet, pulling out old favorites that are no longer available. That's basically the case with all of the outfits in this post - oldies but goodies. Hopefully you can still pull some style combo inspiration even if a lot of the exact pieces I'm wearing are no longer available. 

What else is new?

Not much else to report that I haven't already shared on the blog! We did receive a bit of good news though. Long story short, but our beagle was having back issues. She would cry out when you tried to pet her. The ER vet told us it was an infection in her spinal tissue and put her on an anti-inflammatory and pain meds. When she finished the meds, we took her to our normal vet for follow up X-rays. They sent them off to a specialist to review who came back with a LONG laundry list of things they potentially saw "wrong" with her - the majority of which didn't even have anything to do with her spine. They recommended that we take her to the same referral clinic where our rat terrier has been going. Which is an hour away from the house. Of course she's worth it, and it's better to be safe than sorry. She had an ultrasound done and they told us that she is absolutely fine. SUCH a relief and such good news.  Petie, our rat terrier is also doing well! His chemo doses are now down to once a week and the doctor is very happy with his health! Yay for healthy pups! Knock on wood that is remains that way for as long as physically possible!!

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These are always lengthy posts, but I it's nice to share these updates with you. It's also nice to have them documented so I can look back on them at a later date. Life has definitely been busy between work and travel (two trips this week, eeeek!) and Pilates and blogging. I can't possibly imagine adding a single thing onto my plate, but so far, I've been surviving and that's all that matters! Little victories! Thanks for reading! Happy hump day!

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Linking up with: What I Wore Wednesday,

Mel, Shay, and Sheaffer for What's up Wednesday