1-2 After receiving so many Pure Collection catalogs, I finally decided to try three different items (two silk-satin blouses and one dress. I'll show the latter two later.). Here is the silk satin tee, in Dawn Mist, and I really love it a lot. Yesterday, I wore it with my old American Eagle grey skinnies and a pair of silver sandals by Palm Beach Co. I wasn't able to use the YLF Collect feature, and have added a link and photo. Here: https://www.us.purecollection......-shirt.htm

3-5 My siblings and I were invited to the home of family friends where we enjoyed a delicious Indian dinner courtesy of another guest's visiting mother, which included chicken vindaloo, tasty peas and colorful basmati rice. I brought an appetizer of curry chutney dip which was a big hit. I'm attaching a view from the table, too.

I chose a comfortable neutral outfit, with a jacket, since we were dining outside. I wore a new slash-neck sleeveless knit top and I'm still trying to figure out what color it is! It looks steel grey in some lights, teal green and blue-grey, too! I added black Talbots riding pants and an old black tuxedo jacket with a gold necklace and double-post earrings.

The shoes have their own story: The first time I met one of the hosts, he was wearing skeleton shoes to a Gatsby party! He's quite unforgettable.

To add some humor to the evening, I spray-painted an old pair of metallic GAP foldable travel flats black, and then I hand-painted (with the help of the Internet) my own skeleton motif. My sister got in the act by serving her dessert wearing some skeleton gloves. It was a fun night!

6-7 Next up, is skylurker's inspiration. I really liked skylurker's pretty blue dress she posted with her white dress and red-coral one, here: http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....ng-colours

This was in response runcarla's challenge, and caused me to look in my closet for something similar. I decided it was time to wear my navy Boden Erica dress with my navy-grey Sam Edelman sandals. I wore it to my French class at my friend's home and carried my Lands's End navy and white striped book bag. btw, I was delighted to see that J. Crew had a similar one on their website, recently. This is where I need help: skylurker has such unique and pretty shoes that give her dresses a wonderful note of sophistication and interest. I wonder if there are other shoe alternatives you can suggest for me with this dress. Since I'm a petite, anything to high-vamped shortens me and isn't flattering, with this length of dress. I welcome your thoughts here.

8 I don't normally wear red, white and blue together on any day, yet Angie's ensemble ideas were so easy and fresh that I had to partake in July 4th, which ended up being enjoying a field mushroom pizza at a local pizzeria.

Thanks for taking a look and your suggestions and observations are always welcome.