Sometimes you just pick the right thing to wear, and life is good.  It’s hot outside and you opted for your loose shorts instead of jeans or something like that.  Congratulations!

And sometimes you get it wrong.  Today unfortunately falls into that second category.  I look cute, so that got me halfway to a good outfit choice.  The other half is pretty vital though.

I threw on my favorite black dress this morning, then added a button-down shirt and a wide black belt to prevent the shirt from looking like it belongs on a sloppy 12 year-old.  It’s kind of a Katharine Hepburn look.

Did I forget to mention dinner last night?  Hmm.  A friend and I tried a new (to us) lasagna recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  We had fun cooking, and even though dinner happened around 9 P.M., it was tasty enough to make up for that.  A few bites away from finishing my gigantic serving, I started to feel like a cow, a pig, and a giant block of cheese had settled in for a nice stay in my stomach.  The Pioneer Woman is used to feeding hungry field hands, and I’m just a hungry librarian.  As it turns out, we don’t have the same dietary needs.  I now know that following that particular dinner choice, you should under no circumstances wear a tight belt.

But Hannah, you say, why don’t you just take off the belt?  This is silly. If I take the belt off, I’ll be wearing a black dress with a floppy, sloppy, shirt that has no right being in the same outfit with my cute suede shoes and my pink headband.  Maybe this is one time when I believe in pain for beauty.  You won’t hear that from me often, so soak it in (and use it against me when I talk about being practical).