Dressy

I have, in the past year or so, become a lover of dresses.  I'm not exactly sure why I made the shift from a jeans and skirt wearer (not at the same time - I've never gotten into that layered look) to a wearer of dresses.  Part of the reason, I think, is that I find them fun to wear.  I think my appreciation of dresses came about in response to watching Pushing Daisies; Chuck is such a lovable character, and her dresses make me extremely envious.  Another part is that they are easy and compact, so when I bike in to uni I can just put one thing (and a bra) into my bag instead of worrying about various component parts of outfits requiring both tops and bottoms.  And after I shower, getting dressed is so easy - sure, I save maybe 1 minute by not putting pants on, but that's 7 minutes over the course of a week.  (I'm mainly joking about this.  I'm not so important as to need that extra 7 minutes for anything useful.)

Anyways.  Most of my dresses come from second hand shops, because I have a hard time parting with my money in large quantities.  This will become even more pronounced in the coming weeks, as my job search has thus far been unsuccessful and my current contracts will soon be over.  Boy, do I miss the scholarship gravy train!  I poo-pooed $6.75 an hour for full-time PhD-ing when I was getting it, but I'd definitely take it without complaints right now!  Job woes aside, I do like to go to shops and, more often, websites, and stare wistfully at various dresses.  Every now and then, I part with my highly valued money and buy a new dress.

This discussion of fashion is meant to segue smoothly into my mention of a new website, ecolissa.com.  This website seriously tempts me to fork over some money and get a dress.  This is for a few reasons: (1) the dresses are soso pretty; (2) the owner, Melissa, is vegan, and I like the idea of supporting vegan business-people; (3) the products are made from environmentally friendly materials; and (4) the exchange rate is really very good at the moment, so ordering things from the US is not nearly as big a decision as it sometimes can be.

Looky:

Or this one:

The site sells women's clothing and accessories, all "fashionable, eco-friendly, and vegan".  And, here's the kicker, if you use the coupon code "eco20" when you check out, you'll get 20% off your purchase.  And if you live in the US, shipping is only $5. 

For me, it's a matter of drooling over the pretty-pretties until I get a job offer, at which point I will definitely take advantage of Melissa's generous offer of a discount and get myself something.  As a reward, ya know?