On helping me buy things

1. For high school graduation, my parents gave me a watch. After about four or five years, the clasp started to go and never quite worked right since, despite a few repairs. It finally snapped for good one day in 2009, and some enterprising stranger wandering down the stretch of 16th Street between Kalorama Road and V Street must have snapped it up for good. I hope only that said stranger had a small enough wrist. Anywho, rather than admit to my frugal-ish parents that this incident happened, I have been pretending that using my cell phone to tell time is really just so much easier. And most of the time, that is just as easy, but sometimes, there is part of me that misses having a nice timepiece on my wrist.

But aside from my lingering shame at losing something valuable issues, there is also the problem of my specifications regarding watches. One, there must be twelve numbers or twelve marks indicating numbers. I don't want to have to squint at the space between six and nine to figure out if it's seven or eight o'clock. Two, not digital. Three, no aesthetically ugly round mini-clocks clogging up the face of the watch ((see, e.g.) Four, none of what kids these days call bling. Five, not ridiculously overwhelming on a small-ish person. This looks gosh darn close to aesthetically y ideal, but unfortunately happens to be very much on the expensive side. So is there something suitable out there that I have missed?

2. Occasionally, fashion blogs tell me that I am supposed to like the concept of jewel-toned, printed, silky blouses to wear to work in winter. I can dig the general concept of bright color under a neutral-ish suit jacket or with dark pants. But then things get complicated. One, sleeveless examples of the genre seem to be extremely popular. Except that this largely defeats flexibility; one either has to keep a jacket or sweater on over them, even when it's slightly hot, or restrict wear to less formal days at the office (and yes, I'm well aware that in office environments sartorially more conservative than mine, sleevelessness might render them unwearable all together.) So cap sleeves or not overly long sleeves are ideal. Two, the print must not be hideous. Three, no low V-necks; this is not so much out of an abundance of conservatism as the very real problem that any given neckline will look much lower on me than on someone the same size who's 5'8 (or even on the 5'4 woman who's near the top of the normal petite height range.) All of this together seems to prevent me from buying any blouse in the category I want, although maybe I am missing some. Ideas?