It's (was) my birthday!

Well I turned 26 on Sunday, friends. I'm trying not to feel old :) Haha.

Hubby and I had a super fun weekend. I took the weekend off work and we spent it just lounging around the house and spending time with friends and family. On Sunday we went out to lunch with my family. In the evening we went to see "Gnomeo and Juliet" which normally my husband would not see with me (not in theaters at least) but you know, it was my birthday so he had to do what I wanted to do. (I'm really acting my age with this movie choice, huh? Hehe.) Seriously, it was really cute though. I liked it. Just a light, fun, silly movie. Then Sunday night we met up with a bunch of friends at a low key bar for a few drinks.

Overall it was a super fun weekend. I love birthdays :)



shirt, skirt, and belt: thrifted
sweater: Suzy's Deals (sort of like Ross)
shoes and tights: wal-mart







Hubby bought me this new purse for my birthday (because I told him too. I was with him when we picked it out) You guys heard of it? It's that Miche Bag thing. It has a base bag with different outer shells so you can change the look without moving all your stuff. (Mostly I like it for the storage space saving factor.)

I LOVE purses and when I learned about this one a while back I thought it was a cool idea. I spent a lot of time going back and forth about whether I would actually like/use it though. Husband thinks it's a novelty comparable to a pet rock. He thinks I'll like it for about a year or so and then be totally over it. (Although I'm sure that's a much longer infatuation than anyone ever had with their pet rock)

He might be right. But I sure do love it now! :)



Happy Tuesday, darlings! xoxo

Insert title here.

I'm running on empty today, friends. This will probably be one of those all over the place, rambly sort of posts. (I'm getting good at those! ... And did I just make up a new word?? Rambly? Why yes, I think I did.)



Apparently I really do love these boots! I keep trying to put outfits together with other shoes in my 30 for 30 and it always comes back to these! lol. Oh well. It will be very hot here soon making boots entirely out of the question so I might as well enjoy them while I can.



dress (worn as a shirt): thrifted
sweater and boots: wal-mart
belt: thrifted
jeans: Macy's (lable is Style&Co)
necklace: Silpada Designs



You guys ever bought a pair of jeans that felt like they fit perfectly while in the dressing room and then you bring them home and they don't fit right anymore? Yeah. Of course, we've all done that. Well these are those jeans for me. I went back and forth between these and a smaller size but decided these were right. They're not. They're too big around the waist which is why they bunch up all weird. Boo. I almost never by anything at department stores too which make these extra disappointing for me. Double boo. ... maybe I can shrink them? We'll see.

I just made a new rule for myself: I'm not wearing these boots at all for the next seven outfits. Yeah. Seven. I do love them, but I'm sort of getting sick of them while looking at these pics! ... ok. That is all.

xoxo :)

So what's the deal with "thrifting" anyway?

I don't pretend to be an expert on thrift store shopping, because I'm not. In fact, there are a lot of girls out there who have a much better eye for this stuff and are not only able to scope out the awesome thrift store items but are able to magically transform the not-so-awesome ones into something entirely fabulous (which I'm not so good at). Even so, most of my clothing is second hand in one way or another. So I thought since so many of my items for this 30 for 30 are listed by me as "thrifted" I'd do a little clarification on what I mean by that, as well as give a few tips and tricks that I use when I go thrifting.



jacket: thrifted (Name Brand Exchange)
skirt: thrifted (Name Brand Exchange)
shirt: thrifted (Name Brand Exchange)
belt: thrifted (Goodwill)
shoes: wal-mart (sale)
(P.S. I wish I were wearing knee socks that peeked just about my boots. Oh well. Next time I wear this I will!)



So let's start with the clarification part (this outfit is a great example): although I list most of my cloths as "thrifted" that's not really an entirely accurate description. The cloths I'm showing here were all bought at a store called Named Brand Exchange, and while it is (mostly) second hand, it's more like consignment than thrifting. The traditional thrift store like Goodwill, D.I., or some small local thrift store run by your community or church, take in cloths as a straight donation and put almost all of what they receive on their shelves to sell to the public. Stores like Name Brand Exchange, on the other hand, take in used clothing in exchange for money or store credit. They are more selective about what they accept meaning that you, the shopper, have a lot less sorting to do to find that really great piece (score!) but it's still much cheaper than buying things brand new. I think Name Brand Exchange is local to Arizona only, but you can check out similar stores in your area. Plato's Closet is another that I'm familiar with. Another fun thing about these stores is they usually have a small selection of new items like accessories, which is where I find a lot of fun and funky tights like the ones I wore yesterday.



So how about the tips part? Here are three simple one's:

#1. If you're overwhelmed by thrifting, start at a store like Plato's Closet first. I can pretty much always walk into that place and find something I like. Sometimes it's name-brand (like today's bebe jacket) sometimes not (like today's skirt). A lot of the stuff I get there is labels like Express and Forever 21. They carry Seven brand jeans a LOT. So there ya go. Start there.

#2. Accessories are extremely easy to find at thrift stores, no matter what type of thrift store you're frequenting. You still have to sort, but all the belts and scarves will be together and the ones you love will really stand out to you making them an easy find. Purses are the same way, although I will admit I don't usually buy second hand purses because it kind of grosses me out. Hey, I won't judge if you do, though. In fact I'll probably be green with envy over your super cute new purse. (anti-bacterial wipes are awesome)

#3 Shop with purpose. Personally, I love walking into a thrift store with absolutely nothing particular in mind and just sifting through racks and racks to see what treasures stand out to me. But, if you're not used to thrifting it can be a little daunting. If that's the case, go thrifting with a particular item in mind. "I'm looking for a plaid jacket or blazer in earth tones" That way you just need to glance for the particular shape and colors you're looking for. You might even find that something different jumps out at you. "Well here's this blazer but it's not the type of pattern I had in mind. I never thought I'd like something like this but it would go great with such and such!" .... You get it.

So there ya go! If you're not into thrifting yet, there's three easy tips to help you break into the thrifting world. (Like I've mentioned before, I do it mostly to save money, but I also think it's a ton of fun. And I love the recycling aspect of it too.) Happy hunting, everyone! ... well, once the 30 for 30 is over, at least ;)

Pattern on Pattern

I gotta say, I sort of love this outfit. I think this is the first time that the 30 for 30 has encouraged me to put an outfit together that I might not normally put together otherwise. I love this shirt but with so much pattern and the unique shape of it I usually just wear it with jeans because I don't know what else to do with it. I'm tired of jeans, though. That's right, I'm breaking out of the denim box, friends. And I like it.



shirt: thrifted $7
skirt: thrifted $7
black under shirt: ross $5
boots: wal-mart $7
tights: Name Brand Exchange (more about this tomorrow) $3
Happily Ever After Outfit Total: $29!





Hannah over at Thought and Musing talked about breaking rules of this kind yesterday. (She was inspired to rebel by Elaine) I guess I'm a day late on the whole thing :)

So how was your Monday, darlings? I was lucky enough to not have school or work (what!?) so Hubby and I went to lunch at out favorite middle eastern restaurant, a place in Tempe called Haji Baba. It's seriously so good. If you're not familiar with middle eastern food you should look up a restaurant in your area. And try the tabouli. And the kabob koobideh. And the dolmades. And kibbi, if they have it. (My favorite!) MMMmmmmmm. Yummy! ... Afterwords we went for a little drive in the mountains that lie just behind our house. We stopped at a little reservoir by the Salt River and watched the sunset. It was a really nice afternoon/evening. (It was an impromptu drive so I didn't have my camera with me :( I promise I'll take outfit photos out that way sometime so you can all see how beautiful Arizona is beyond the block wall in my back yard!)

Hope you are all enjoying the start of your week! xoxo

A New Plan

Well I spent some time over the weekend thinking about the blog and trying to come up with a plan. When I think about it I find I really like fashion blogs best when they seem like they are in real time. As in the outfit photos are taken on a day to day basis and posted within a few days of when they are taken. But.... as we've already covered, I'm finding that's not really realistic for me. At least not right now. So here's my new plan: I'm going to take all of my outfit photos for the upcoming week in one day, on the weekend. That will give me a chance to plan my wardrobe a little and think about what I will be wearing the following week, plus it will be much easier for me. But instead of posting all those outfits that same day, I'll just continue to do one post a day featuring one of the outfits I got pictures of over the weekend. I'll probably prepare my posts in advance and maybe just make minor changes during the week if something comes up that I want to talk about.

So there ya go. The Plan :) I just wanted to put it out there so anyone reading my blog on a regular basis knows what they're getting. One more thing to keep in mind with this plan: doing things this way I may not end up wearing all the outfits I prepare the following week. What I mean is, the only place I go on a regular basis is school, but if I have a cute idea for an outfit that's not really practical for school I may still want to put it on the blog. So I suppose you can think of my outfit posts as more of things I would wear and will wear at some point when it fits with where I'm going and when the mood strikes. Does that make sense? :)

And that's a perfect intro to today's outfit ;) I didn't wear this last week, and don't plan on wearing it to class this week. But I think it's such a cute outfit and I wanted to play around with it yesterday when these photos were taken. My birthday is coming up (this coming weekend) so I think I'll save it for some event we do over the weekend. (I love birthdays)



dress: thrifted
black slip: wal-mart (it makes the bottom layer of the dress, because like many very cute dresses I find while thrifting, this one is too short for me.)
belt: thrifted
socks: wal-mart
shoes: payless
tea time necklace: e-bay



It was a little chilly yesterday when we took these photos because it was rainy, but usually it's warm enough in Arizona this time of year to wear something like this.



So there you have it, friends. We're back on track!.... well, sort of! I'm still really behind on the 30 for 30. This is only outfit number 10. Yikes! I'll get there, though.... eventually.

I still have some more work to do as far as a blog schedule. Like I've mentioned before, I want to include some other things in my blog, but I'm not totally sure what or how to do that. I'm going with this plan for now, but I'll spend some time brainstorming some other things and come up with a posting schedule when I figure it out.

Happy President's Day, everyone! I hope you all have today off work and are enjoying the heck out of it! :)

M.I.A.

Obviously I've been a little M.I.A. lately. From the blog, at least. I had totally planned to play a little catch up and get some outfit photos taken/posted earlier this week, but it didn't happen. So I thought I could do it today, but I just got out of school, I have to leave for work in an hour, and I have to grab myself some sort of lunch/dinner. Plus I need hubby's help for outfit photos and he is currently on a clean-the-house-kick. You know I am not about to interupt that! So here we go friends, a little text heavy post.

I know outfit photos should be just a quick snap-snap sort of a thing, but I feel like it's been harder than just that. I gotta say, I'm feeling a little uninspired towards this blog lately. I was so excited about it a couple of weeks ago when the 30 for 30 started but I'm starting to feel a little blah about the whole thing. Not about the actual cloths so much. I'm still having tons of fun with that. It's just more about the posting and working to build my blog. I think I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed in general. But, that probably isn't saying much because anyone who knows me personally can tell you I have a tendency to become easily overwhelmed... like really easily!

I'm taking on a new challenge right now, as well. I've committed to doing an obstacle race at the end of April called The Warrior Dash. The whole thing is a little over 5K with obstacles as well. I'm really excited about it! I completed a marathon last year and then that 5K that I posted about just a few weeks ago, but I really didn't take a competitive approach to either (more about that some other day, maybe). I did train for the marathon, (rigorously!) but I did nothing to train for that 5K. (As in I had been sitting on my butt for 3 months prior to that event.) Anyway, the point is I really want to hit this warrior dash hard and take a more competitive approach to it, which means I need to start training very soon. I feel like I have very little time in my life, though.

I'm starting to get a little stressed about school too. I got a B on my Bio exam (woot woot!) so I'm feeling less pressure there, but I'm seriously starting to fall behind in my math class. I know the reason is because I haven't been committing as much time out of class to it as I should. Honestly I only get my homework done like maybe one third of the time (Hey, that's math! I just wish it could all be that simple. Sigh) I have class five days a week and work five or six days a week. So that's 35 hours a week at work, 12 hours at school, 10 hours that I should commit to studying outside of class, 5 hours a week to train for the warrior dash, plus I do best with a lot of sleep so schedule in about 9 hours a night there, and I have to make time for hubby and friends and family and my own down time..... How many hours are in a week again??? (I know there are people out there who are a LOT busier than I am, but I just don't know how they do that and stay sane! I don't think they do. I think all those people must have just lost their mind.)

Part of my struggle with the blog is that the only time I can really take outfit photos is in the 2 or 3 hours that I have between school and work, but hubby isn't always here to help me at that time. I can use a tripod and timer but that takes WAY longer. Plus, I really need to be investing that time in studying instead. (Like right now. I should be doing math homework right now) I did pretty good with keeping up on outfit photos at first, but during that time I did not do well at keeping up with math homework! Which is obviously more important.

Anyway, I'm playing with the idea of just doing one post a week, probably on a Sunday, where I post multiple outfits. I'll be doing that this Sunday at the very least, to show all you darlings what I wore this past week. I love blogging and I'm really enjoying getting to know other bloggers. It's a great community that I want to be a part of! I'm just not sure how much energy I have in me to commit to it. I might spend some time brainstorming ideas for other things I could post during the week that would be quick and easy for me but still a fun read. What do you think, friends? Will you all still read if I just post once a week? Any tips or tricks to share on how you keep up with your blog?

Thanks for putting up with my rant! Keep an eye out! I promise I'll be back soon, whatever I decide! xoxo

Busy busy busy!

As some of you may know already, I work as a server at a restaurant while I'm going to school. Which means today is a very very busy day for me! Usually I'm off work on Monday's because I have class all day and into the evening, but since tonight is Valentine's day my work asked me to come in as soon as I could after school. So anyway, the point is that today is a busy busy back-to-back school work day for me. I wasn't even planning on posting today, but I got out of class a tiny bit early so I thought I'd just pop in and say hi. Hi, friends! :) I didn't take outfit photos today and don't have time to now. I also might not get outfit photos in tomorrow either because I have another back-to-back school work day and I need to catch up on some studying. But I promise, I am wearing cloths and they are within my 30 for 30 challenge. I think I might just do a catch up post later this week (like maybe Wed or Thurs) where I post the few outfits I've fallen behind on.... Obviously I'm still working on this picture taking with blogging with life routine. How do all you girls do it!?

Anyway, I must run to work now. So I'll leave you with this picture of iguanas locked in a love embrace. You know, since it's Valentine's day and all :)

I'm not sure where this pic came from originally, but I'll give Karla, my Goodreads buddy, credit for sharing it with me. Thanks Karla! ... Don't know about Goodreads? Check it out. It's a fun site. I'd be your buddy on Goodreads too, if ya want :)

Have a happy Valentines Day everyone!! Give your lova lots of smooches!