Eye of the Tiger Summer

When a tiger is stalking its prey, it has a moment when it turns its head to the side, cocking their heads to the side and reveal eye-like spots just before striking.  This process is two fold: 1.  It distracts the prey.  2.  It allows the tiger to zero in and strike.  From this comes the saying, "Eye of the Tiger."  It means you are intensely focused on a goal.  This summer has been one of intense focus on the construction of our house.  Instead of building an entirely new structure as we planned when we moved out here, we have been adding on some space and reorganizing the existing place.  When we were touring our house with the realtor, we noticed that one of the ceiling panels was newer than the others.  After asking about it, we were informed that a tree had fallen on the roof several years prior but had been duely patched.  Didn't seem like an issue, so we moved ahead with the purchase.  

After moving in we noticed that an entire 1/3 of the house had no electricity...because of that tree fall.  After a year or two we noticed a window directly under that brand new ceiling panel would leak during heavy rain.  At around five years in the home, the entire ceiling in that same 1/3 of the house started to leak when it rained even a little.  Turns out, that spot wasn't properly patched at all and we now had big, big problems.  So, we had to make a decision about how to move forward and repair/renovate was the route we took.

Two years ago we put in some new floors, paint, etc and at the end of that hard work, that's when we noticed the leak.  We spent the winter planning and then last summer we began the addition.  We excavated, hand dug, hand mixed and poured concrete, measured, cut, drilled, and on and on and on.  This summer it was time to put on a new roof and the timing was critical so that we didn't get a torrential downpour while the roof was ripped off.  That meant we had to time out each phase of construction as closely as possible and wow is that hard to do when you have never done this type of thing before.

Every weekend for the past the past six months or more, plus every spare moment in between, we have worked on the house.  For all this time though we've had this intense focus, the eye of the tiger, we've done nothing else but build, build, build.  Now, it seems we are nearing the end...of phase one. Thankfully phase one was been the most challenging and physically demanding.  I'm hoping things go more smoothly after this, because I've made a vow to myself that once this is done, we won't ever do it again. We'll just kick back, relax, and enjoy what we've built.

As far as today's outfit, obviously this adorable tiger print suited the theme well.  It's never failed to amuse me how perspective can change in an instant.  One moment you see the a certain thing, or even the whole world one way, and then the paradigm shifts on a dime and everything is entirely different.  I've window shopped Modern Millie at least half a dozen times over the past year and I've seen this Tiger shirt dress and always passed it by.  Then one day I saw it and thought it looked like the cutest kitschy print and from a brand I love and trust and I just had to have it as part of my autumn wardrobe.  Eva Rose is a reasonably priced brand that always has adorable prints and very good quality, plus I love supporting smaller businesses like Modern Millie.  So this post is all tied up in a neat little bow.

Outfit Info: Tiger Dress by Eva Rose from Modern Millie