Mad Hatter

The other day, I was out to lunch with my friend Andrea and we wandered into Anthropologie after eating.  We found these fun hats and it sparked today's post:

Doesn't Andrea look so cute?!

I love hats.  I'm not sure I look great in them, but I don't really care. My sister Katie got me into wearing hats when I was a kid.  She gave me this cool pink straw hat once when I was visiting her at the beach.  I loved it... I wonder what happened to that hat?  Anyway, I used to have a lot more hats, but in an effort to (attempt to) be less of a pack rat, I've gotten rid of quite a few of them.

I've kept the important ones of course... Being that I live in the west, I did keep my cowboy hat, and a couple of baseball hats, and my gardening hat and of course I still have beanies to keep me warm in the winter.

Cowboy Hat

Baseball Hats

Gardening Hat

Winter Beanies

David's Special Hat... :)

Me wearing a hat I made for my sister out of sheepskin from a pattern of a favorite hat of  our dad's

My favorite hat for the past few years is one that Katie bought for me in Ireland in 2007.  It's an Irish sailor's hat.

This hat has been quite a conversation starter over the years.  My favorite story of this hat was during a brief time living in Helena, Montana.  I moved up there to see if my relationship with David was going to work after doing the long distance thing for 6 months.

He moved to Helena right out of Grad School when he was hired by an international software company who wrote tax software for different branches of government.  The State of Montana was one of their clients.  David was put in the Helena office, so that's why he lived there.

I was planning to start Grad School myself the following September, and it was January and I had no commitments, so I packed up my car and moved to Montana and got a Temp Job.

I was assigned to the Montana State Fund, workers compensations insurance.  It was, well... Anyway... My first day, there was a blizzard and I showed up in my puffy Northface coat and my hat.

I checked in with my supervisor, and then was given a tour of the facility and introduced to the rest of the people on my team.  During my tour I met Myrna.  I could write an entire book about Myrna.  It would be called, "S#!t Myrna Says", and I know it would be a best seller.

Myrna was in her late 60s when I met her.  Spritely, slender, and full of it.  The first thing she said to me was, "You're cute."  This was followed by a group of somewhat forgettable older ladies clucking away in response and one replied loudly, "And she's got a hat." The ladies clucked some more...  I was beet red with embarrassment.  Myrna proceeded to make me get the hat to show them, and then she paraded me around the office and introduced me to everyone making me bring the hat.  All I wanted to do was hide.

Myrna became a great friend to both me and David while we were in Helena.  She is a legend in our household, and I have many more tales to tell of her... for another time.

xox -A