What A Beautiful Mess

Have you ever been listening to a song, and suddenly have the lyrics just hit you, like "Holy crap, was this song written specifically about my life?"  I'll have to happen occasionally, but usually only with like a line or two, but never a full song...until I listened to "A Beautiful Mess" by Jason Mraz.  If you haven't heard this song before, I'm not surprised...I think I only have it because I downloaded Jenna's entire iTunes library after my old computer crashed, and it just happened to be playing on shuffle one day.

 But this song so perfectly describes me, it's scary--but not so much in an obvious way, but in a "you know me better than I know myself way", which makes it even scarier.  I did a little Googling to make sure I wasn't missing some "hidden" meaning, but what I found was that it's just a song about a girl and how through all her flaws, the man still believes she is the most beautiful and wonderful person in the world--it's about finding the love through the mess of everything else.

Here's some sample lyrics:

You've got the best of both worlds

You're the kind of girl who can take down a man

And lift him back up again

You are strong, but you're needy

Humble but you're greedy

And based on your body language 

And shoddy cursive I've been reading

Your style is quite selective

Though your mind is rather reckless

Well I guess it just suggests 

That this is just what happiness is

I consider myself a strong woman, but I will admit, I can be needy.  And, as you have seen, I do have a selective sense of style, but my mind is reckless, constantly runs at 100mph at all hours of the day/night.  It even describes my horribly bad handwriting (which yes, is usually in cursive!).  See, I told you--SCARY!!

And the part that gets me the most, and I'm sure this is true for anyone who is in a long-distance relationship, is this:

And through timeless words and priceless pictures

We'll fly like birds, not of this earth

And tides they turn and hearts disfigured

But that's no concern when we're wounded together

And we tore our dresses and stained our shirts

But it's nice today...oh the wait was so worth it

Now, I'm not a big crier, not even during chick flicks, but I almost get a little teary-eyed at the end of this song.  Being in a long distance relationship is hard, not going to lie to you about that one, when all you have are words and pictures  to keep you strong throughout your time apart, but I hope, in the end, "the wait was so worth it"...

But trust me, once you listen to this song, you'll be in love with it too, it tells a great story--"It's like we're picking up trash in dresses"--take out the bad in something that is truly beautiful deep down.

And, onto the outfit of the day!  It was dreary and foggy all day, and I wasn't even in the mood to try to add color, so I guess I went 'dreary' as well.  I tried to brighten my day with some yoga, which always helps.  And I was super excited because I successfully completed a headstand--which is a lot harder than you may think!  So, the rest of my day seemed pretty bright :)

 I'm going to share with you one of my many fashion rules:  wide-legged pants should be worn with a "tighter" top, to avoid just looking "wide" all over.  This top is pretty billowy on it's own, so in order to make it work with these jeans,  I had to belt it.  You could also tuck it in as well, but these jeans hit me too low on my hips, so it wouldn't look right.  One of my "wish list" items is a pair of high-waisted, wide-leg pants...it's a little bit of a risk, but I think they look so classic on everyone who wears them!

Blouse: Ann Taylor
Belt: Banana Republic
Jeans: American Eagle
Boots: Simply Vera (Kohls)
Rings: Atlas (Tiffany--right hand); Boston Store (left hand)
Watch: Michael Kors

Paired with my green faux-leather jacket (from The Limited) and my favorite leopard scarf (purchased in New York City)

CHEERING ON MY SPARTANS TONIGHT--GO GREEN!  GO WHITE!  BEAT BUCKY!!