Read My Lips, It's Fab on a Dime

Hello style lovers, welcome to another post. How was your week? Fabulous? Yes!! Mine? A good mix of happy and sad. Happy because I celebrated my twins’ birthday on Tuesday the 6th and sad because my partner teacher, a great friend of mine passed away. That was the breaking news on Monday morning the 5th of October. My principal and vice principal walked into my classroom about 7:30am both wearing long faces and I was like uh oh, I must be in trouble. They broke the news and it felt like the walls caved in. All three of us sat on the rug and I sobbed my heart out.

When I got myself together, I went down my contacts list and called or texted everyone that knew him directly or indirectly and told them the news in hopes that someone would say ‘well that’s not true, I just saw him, or I’m here with him or that was a bad joke they played on you, he is ok. No luck, the reaction was the same with each conversation, text message and voice mail. It was either (and I read this off of my phone) 'Wow, what a loss’, ‘You are kidding right’, 'You are lying, OMG', 'No way!!!!!!’, ‘So sorry for your loss’, that must be hard, are you ok?, ‘Unbelievable’, ‘He was so full of life’, 'He was a great teacher’ etc. Really guys, no one was going to say the words I hoped to hear. Bummer. Bummer. Life sucks sometimes. All I could utter was 'it’s so surreal'. Words failed me time and time again and my response stayed the same, 'its so surreal. I must have said that at least a million times. It still is so surreal.

Great support from the school district sending out substitute teachers to relieve the kinder team that day and all week as back up for whenever we felt like we needed to step away to breathe, talk, cry or do whatever. Councillors have been on site all week as well.

Gary was different things to different people, to me he was great friend, my confidant, my prayer buddy, a selfless friend, a good man and an amazing colleague. My heart bleeds. A gentle giant that gave his all to everything/everybody. Jeez God must have needed an extra angel.

Gary Golden, you will be missed forever. This post is for you. Not sure if I'll be able to speak at your funeral on Tuesday the 13th cos I'll be a wreck. But I thank the Lord for the opportunity to know and work with you.
Rest in Peace.

My wonderful principal, my amazing colleagues, so glad we have each other to lean on as we try to make sense of this craziness. Juaneta you are a rock and a blessing, love you always girl! What a week! I've turned to food and candy for comfort. What comfort foods do you turn to when challenges hit?

On the style diary, it's another Fab on a Dime look. You know what’s funny? Last year when this lip print dress in a beautiful shade of pink from the Alice McCall RTW collection hit the runways of Australia SS 14/15 fashion week here, I was one of those that ooh’d and aah’d, drooled and couldn't get enough of it. Hard as I tried and believe me I did, I couldn’t resist it so as you can imagine I snagged one and added it to my arsenal as soon as it hit stores. Oh to be a fashionista, nothing passes you by!!!

I wore it to an event in San Diego last summer and everyone loved it. I was totally shocked to see it at Shein, and thought it'd be great for another installment of fabulous on a dime and to promote breast cancer awareness this October. After all even though it's officially Fall, Summer weather persists in my lil corner of the planet. And that Summer sunlight hit and lit me all the way up as you can see, hehe. I paired the dress with pink bow shoes, a pink bag and a blazer to ward off the ~~mild Fall chill~~ direct heat of the sun on my skin.

Your thoughts?