Adventures in Thrifting Part 33: Elephant Parade & Spread the Kindness Link Up On the Edge #829

Happy Friday, y’all! We made it through another long and tedious week. It has been absolutely crazy around here these past few weeks. It all started with the insanity of some awful text messages my son received from a classmate three weeks ago. After a police report was filed and I had more phone calls with the school than I ever cared to have, that nightmare situation has finally calmed down and hopefully resolved for good.

My child was fine throughout the ordeal, but it was an incredibly stressful experience for me as a parent. The high level of stress naturally led to a breakdown in my immune system which eventually transitioned into a terrible head and chest cold that tormented me for the entirety of the following week. Now as the third week is coming to a close, I’m feeling much better except I’m completely exhausted. Like the kind of exhaustion where walking feels like I’m wearing weights around my ankles and each step forward feels like it requires the strength and energy of a super hero.

The good news is…I am a freaking super hero! The evidence is in the fact that I’m still standing and getting one heavy foot in front of the other in addition to attending sporting events, driving kids to all the places they need to be, and cooking for a party of thirty followed by baking cookies for an entire football team. But like I always say, if you’re not doing, then you’re dying. So I just keep doing all the things with a smile on my tired face!

But enough whining from me. Life is life and it delivers us all sorts of unexpected things at inconvenient times. We can improvise, adapt, and overcome or we can simply lie down and quit. But my momma didn’t raise no quitter so here we are.

Now let’s talk about one of my favorite de-stressing activities…adventures in thrifting!

I have long been a fan of elephant motifs so whenever I spot something featuring the image of elephant, my interest is immediately piqued. They are just such fascinating and beautiful creatures that universally symbolize strength, wisdom, longevity, protection, and family loyalty across many different global cultures.

The elephant-headed deity Ganesha is worshipped in Hinduism as the god of wisdom and prosperity, patron of new beginnings, and remover of obstacles. In Buddhism, a white elephant represents purity, spiritual power, and mental strength. Chinese cultures believe that elephants can bring good fortune, peace, steady growth, and the ability to discern right from wrong while Japanese folklore connects elephants to wisdom and the spirit world. Often viewed as reincarnations of respected tribal leaders, elephants symbolize leadership, communal wisdom, sovereignty, and strong matriarchal family bonds in some African traditions. People from Thailand and Myanmar view white elephants as deeply sacred symbols of power, royal prestige, and divine blessings for monarchies.

For me, elephants represent quiet strength and confident stability. They are social, intelligent, and inherently peaceful by nature and generally avoid conflict until they can’t. Then they tap into their size and strength and let their powers be known. Much like I did when I was confronted with the unacceptable text bashing of my child. We always use the term “mama bear” to describe how human mothers voraciously defend their children. But I think I prefer to be a mama elephant instead! Cool, calm, peaceful, and quiet with the ability to stomp and crush if necessary.

Now onto my elephant parade outfit. I found this fun elephant print ruana on a thrifting adventure about three years ago and knew I needed to have it. The neutral colors have made it a versatile addition to my wardrobe, making it very much worth the $6 it cost me.

I paired it with these newly thrifted elephant print joggers that cost $8 and a striped peplum tank top that I picked up on sale from Old Navy this summer. I wore and photographed this outfit way back at the end of June and found the pants were actually a bit too warm for the summer humidity but I do think they will be a great addition to my fall and spring wardrobes.

I kept the entire outfit in this same neutral black, white, and tan color palette adding my black rope sandals, a tan straw hat, leopard print flea market earrings, my preloved wooden elephant necklace, my secondhand wooden zebra necklace, and a very old black chunky beaded necklace that I bought at Talbots probably 25 years ago.

Other than the trousers being too warm, I absolutely loved the way this outfit came together and will surely wear it again in the spring. While these pants would be wonderful for a fall outfit as well, I think our very short-lived autumn weather has already passed as most nights and mornings now are dipping down close to freezing temperatures. I’m going to blink and there will be ten feet of snow on the ground…not the climate for elephants!

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I hope you all have a terrific weekend ahead! We will be attending a local Punkin Chunkin’ event tomorrow morning. Archie’s school technology club has built their own trebuchet to hurl a pumpkin into the St. Lawrence River.

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee