super 70s

since these pictures, i have gotten a haircut.. in case you were wondering.

i found this dress a million years ago at the goodwill, but then it got buried under all of my dirty clothes and i totally forgot about it. actually, i think i found it the same day that i found my boy scouts shirt. ;)

i'm pretty sure i didn't think that my face was in this picture.. but it's kind of hilarious.

then, when we finally washed it and i re-rediscovered it, i realized that it was more of a tunic length than the cute summer dress length i had assumed. which is weird. dresses are neeever too short for me. but this one is. so i just went dramatically 70s with my look, which i liked a lot. i'm not totally sure how else i'll ever be able to style this, but we'll see! i love it. besides the length, it fits perfectly.

this was the first outfit that i wore in 2013. :) on this day, i met up with one of my best friends from college, jeff, and his (new!!!) fiancé (you may remember jeff from my halloween post). i had never met her before, and he's never ever in town anymore, so it was pretty nice to get to have grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee with them. after that, austin and i got to see our new house!! we'll be moving in february and i. can't. wait. i'm already dreaming about moving around furniture and wall art and everything. eep. this year kinda rules already.

necklace: thrifted in high school
cardigan: pacsun
dress: vintage
leggings: ae
socks: ae
boots: frye

how has the first week of 2013 been for you?

if i had an instagram, #4

man, black friday week really took it out of me. i've been exhausted and cranky and at work laaaate every night for the past week. we're in peak season, and i'm feeling it, haha. i thought i'd stop in and share a couple of tidbits from my day-to-day. :)

lately, i've been spending as much time as possible with these two. kendall as a mom is my favorite version of kendall that i've known. i love her so much. and obviously i'm obsessed with avery. obviously.

lately, this hat basically never leaves my head. i've been all about feeling constant cuddles with my sleeplessness and this hat, paired with a thick, knitted scarf, are my favorites.

i also learned how to do some make-up. this is dramatic, i've never worn make-up before in my life! what in the world. now i'm obsessed.

this is my friend jennifer. she moved back to her motherland, which happens to be utah, to go back to school. i stole her from my previous job to come to ae with me, and i'm gonna miss her a lottttt. wah. i'm so sentimental about everything that saying goodbye to people is always the weirdest and worst.

and now, at 3 am, i am going to go to sleep. tomorrow (today) and thursday are my days off this week, and i plan to sleep, hang out with kendall, wrap some presents i've been waiting to get in the mail, and figure out why my car's rear tire has been losing air. ;) <3

happy halloween!

trick r treat

halloween is my favorite holiday. it's austin's, too! unfortunately this year, celebrations were just not in order. i closed at work saturday night and i close again tonight, so i'm probably just going to end up wearing a little hat with ears and calling it a day. for today, i thought i'd share my faaaavorite halloween that austin and i have spent together, ever.

first of all, my costume requires very little explaining, but austin's requires a lot. so, i was the morton salt girl:

i literally owned every item for this costume, except for the umbrella that i borrowed from a friend, and the salt canister which i bought, emptied, and used as a purse for the night. this picture was taken when we were meeting up with austin at his work, a local coffee shop, to see his costume and do some homework (which is why i had the bag).

now, my best friend at the time (who i miss soooooo much. so much.), jeff, is this real cool guy who dresses straight out of the 1940s. it's perfect and awesome and i love it. so for halloween, we all thought it would be so cute if jeff and austin dressed up as each other.

that's jeff on the left dressed as austin and austin on the right dressed as jeff. oh man. it was a confusing night for me, to be honest.

jeff served me some coffee.

austin didn't look like himself.

is it weird to say that they smelled like each other? i mean obviously they did, but i also think it's weird to say that. i don't know. either way, it was a confusing night and i didn't end up liking them dressing like each other very much beyond the initial hilariousity of the whole thing. seeing jeff in "normal" clothes was so perfect! we bet him he'd get a million numbers. ;) ;) i can't remember if he did or not, though..

and just because last year's costume was a DREAM. COME. TRUE., i'll share one of the two pictures that was taken of us ( :/ ):

i've been obsessed with wayne's world for as long as i can remember. and i've wanted to do this costume for probably just as long. i'm hoping to resurrect and upgrade it one day, because i know we can do better than this. and we already own the hat! :)

what are you dressing up as this year, so i can live vicariously through you?! <3

late night rambles

super into all of the new accessories at work (ae) right now

lately, i've spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of person that i am or that i want to be, and what parts of my life i want to put emphasis on. i am finally back working in the one retail job i've felt at home in, and now i want the rest of my life to make sense for me, too. in a lot of ways, i think i've really been coming into my own in the last few years, but i never want to stop pushing myself to be better, happier, and more comfortable in my own skin. this may be coming about solely because of the change in seasons, but i think i can feel a big change in my whole life. cheesy!

so, although these days i'm happy with the majority of my life, i've really, really felt like i've been failing in a couple of ways: in my friendships, and in my reading (i know).

i've been trying to fix my lack of communication with my friends, whether it be a 30 minute skype before work with becca, a sweet little craft date with amanda, and hopefully soon plans with kayla, i'm really trying! i want to spend more time with friends, and less of my free time watching tv (which is really hard with EVERY SINGLE SHOW I WATCH coming back on! ah!) or doing the dishes (sometimes i feel like all i do while i'm at home is wash dishes? although austin would disagree, haha). i just really miss my girls, y'all. so i'm hoping i'm on the right path to remedying the damage i accidentally did while transitioning jobs and being lazy bones!

would you believe that i'm STILL reading "geek love" ????? remember this post? i was (and still am) SO excited about those books. i just.. stopped reading. for no reason. i'm hoping to change that tonight, right after i finish this post. i'm not going to pressure myself into finishing in a certain time frame or whatever, but geez. i can't believe i let myself slip so much. it's annoying and embarrassing and i miss reading so much!

i can't wait to make more time for these two things (because they're two of my faaaavorite things). does the fall ever have you thinking about changes you want to make? <3

our trip to chicago/renegade

the most flattering photobooth pictures ever? probably.

mine and bekuh's chicago trip was so perfect. it was basically the quintessential girls' trip.. lots of chatting, shopping, and eating. i had been harboring a lot of reservations about the trip as a whole and they were almost all gone from the very beginning. as a warning: this post is a modgepodge of my cell phone pictures, becca's pictures, and bekuh's pictures..

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the twelve hour drive seemed to go by preeeetty quickly, which helped. we only stopped a few times, for coffee and mcdonalds. ;) of course.

i went with my own advice and wore a cotton dress, leggings, and boots.. my minnetonka fringe boots, to be exact. it was perfect for driving! i didn't need to make the switch to the passenger seat until a little bit before we got to the city (i had asked bekuh earlier if she could do all of the city driving for me.. i'm a baby).

the first night, i was exhausted but also just so happy to be reunited with becca! we drove around to find a parking spot (i was really nervous about where we were going to leave my car for three days), and then ordered a pizza (obviously - we were in chicago) to eat in becca's apartment. i hadn't gotten to see this apartment yet, so it was nice to be able to piece together all of the pictures she had sent me of it. ;) and also to go through her closet! it was huge and awesome. i want to share a closet with becca one day.

lately, i've been waking up at the crack of dawn (even if i'm still sleepy.. annoying), and chicago was no different. i got up and took a shower before the girls were awake. this was the outfit i wore to renegade!! only i took off the tights for the daytime. the skirt is vintage, found at an amazing vintage attic sale that bekuh and i went to a couple of weeks ago, and the shoes are becca's. :)

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mine and bekuh's feet on the platform, waiting for the l

originally, we were hoping to meet up with katherine (my lovely package exchange partner) for donuts before renegade, but there was construction on the l that got us to wicker park right when renegade was starting. our first stop was the tumbleweeds booth, where there were THREE be(ca)(cca)(kuh)s surrounding me. it was ridiculous. we all oohed and ahhed over the glasses that they brought with them, and bekuh and i both left with some pretty sunglasses.. :)

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at first, we thought it'd be best to do a walk-through and see everything before we started buying, but that quickly dissolved, and we just started checking everything out. there was so much to see! and we even realized that we missed a few booths that we were looking forward to, but it was seriously impossible to navigate around all of those people.

we had lunch at a really cute cafe right off of the festival.

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after about 6 hours (!!!!!) of shopping, we figured it was maybe time to head back to becca's to refresh and go over our purchases. i got a few gifts for family and austin, and my favorite finds (besides my sunglasses, omg) were these little things for our house:

these prints caught my eye early on in the day, and i'm glad i remembered to go back for them. i had been envisioning a tattooed lady/tattooed man print pair for hanging over our bed, but these changed my mind completely. :) they're from methane studios, and you can buy them here and here.

this tea towel is, hands down, my favorite thing that i bought in chicago. it's ridiculous! it's a tea towel with little naked ladies on it! ahhh i'm obsessed. i almost never want to use it so that it's never dirty, but. yeah. it was from bespoke uprising.

this tea towel is a little more traditional. ;) i couldn't pass it up, it was so stinking cute. i actually bought two things from the little canoe, but one is a gift, sooooooooo. i love everything she does, though.

via becca :)
waiting on the l to go shopping, day 2

the next day, we decided we'd be doing more shopping. bekuh was super excited to visit a topshop, and i was looking forward to picking up my dream sweatshirt from an urban outfitters. :) we got so lucky this day, with sales and things we had our hearts set on fitting and being cute. becca took us to an urban surplus store, which was nice because i could get a few things for austin on the cheap.

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this trip came and went SO fast, and i'm so glad that i stressed so much over getting to take it. it was necessary. i wish i could have had more time with becca, but i know we'll see each other again soon. ;)

renegade was everything i thought it would be, and i'd love to go to another one next year! hopefully this time with austin in tow, so i can do more home goods shopping.

<3

we're back !

i have so many thoughts and things to share from our chicago trip, but i just wanted to pop in and post this picture of me and my girls. this is us sharing a two-seater on the l. :)

thank you, becca, for letting us take over your teeny tiny precious perfect apartment. thanks for handling my car parking neuroses like a champ, thanks for letting me sleep in your bed and being the sweetest about my kitty allergies, thanks for letting me borrow your shoes, thanks for taking us to the cutest restaurants and being cool with my being a serious granny, thanks for being my favorite girl forever.

thank you, bekuh, for the 24(+) hours of constant conversation in the car. thanks for going with the flow when i know you're a planner, thanks for being up for such a silly adventure and being so awesome with my annoying schedule, thanks for letting me borrow your tights!, thanks for encouraging me to go for some of my most favorite goofy purchases, thanks for having the best sense of direction, thanks for constantly pushing me to remember just how much is out there for me to explore (whether you know it or not).

seriously, i missed austin more than i thought i could and i kinda want to go ahead and plan on taking him to renegade next year, but this girls trip was PERFECT. i was sleepy and my sinuses were not feelin it a lot of the time, but we ended up loving renegade more than i thought we would and even the parts of chicago i was nervous about ended up being fun (and yummy).

i'm excited to see bekuh's pictures and to write a more descriptive post at some point. <3

lunch with kayla

in what seems like a new tradition, kayla and i went to a locally owned business for lunch this week. this time we tried roanoke's first food truck! (aw)

we both got the lunch special: half of a chicken quesadilla and half of a nutella/strawberry crepes. nom nom.

i really love these little dates that we take. i rarely go out to eat these days, and it's fun to try new places with kayla. we got to eat in the middle of downtown and people watch, chat in the sunshine, and ... eat nutella crepes. hello.

and don't forget about the part where kayla has the cutest stinking kitten in the world. aka, i come SO CLOSE TO TOUCHING HIM EVERY TIME EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT WILL MURDER MY EYEBALLS AND MY LITTLE NOSE. but seriously look at him:

it actually took everything that i had to not snatch him up. stupid allergies. i'm not even a cat person at all!! but chipper kills me every time.

in summation: kayla rules, trying new food is really cute, i don't like cats but i love chipper. <3

becca

becca was in town last week, and i was lucky enough to for real see her like four times. it ruled. it didn't fully pull me out of my never-ending funk over stressful grown-up stuff (could i BE more vague? whoops), but man oh man who knows what kinda mood i would've been in if she hadn't been in town.

every time we see each other we create these silly alternate lives where we live together in chicago and can take each other's outfit photos. ;) considering all i do is take pictures of her while she's talking, i don't know if it'd actually work out.. but it was nice to have her around for mine.

i really like her, and i'm forever the happiest that american eagle introduced us so long ago. :') <3

FREE CAKE

last week, i got to spend a few hours with my friend kayla, seeing her PERFECT new house (seriously, my standards for our next place have raised exponentially), meeting her sweet new lil kitty, and walking around her neighborhood.

we watched some tv after she gave me the grand tour. mostly we talked about how weird drew carey is as the host of the price is right, and she schooled me in some of the games.

it wasn't long til we started getting pretty hungry, and it just so happens that she lives about 3 blocks from my favorite restaurant in town, wildflour, so we were excited to take a little walk to get something to eat. it also just so happened that everyone getting lunch that day would also get a free piece of cake! this may have had a little something to do with it being our restaurant choice. ;)

even though both of our sandwiches were so good and filling, we couldn't turn down dessert (especially free dessert.. obviously). this place had SO many options, though. it took us pretty much our entire meal to decide which cake to get. eventually, we made our choices: i got key lime cake and kayla got strawberry cake. mine had little stripes of key lime pie filling and kayla's had surprise walnuts! but they were sooo good.. i've literally been thinking about going back EVER SINCE.

after our bellies were full, our walk back was a little bit slower, so i snapped a few pretty pictures of the neighborhood.

i always think my neighborhood is the end-all, be-all of quirky, pretty, and homey neighborhoods in the area, but kayla's is giving mine a run for it's money!

and, even though i'm not a kitty person, little chipper melted my heart.

i'm looking forward to spending a little more time on this side of town now! <3

lucky in friends

unfortunately, i think sometimes i forget how lucky i've been when it comes to having a really great group of people surrounding me at any given time. my friends are a constant in my life, and i'm forever grateful for my luck in that respect.

most of my best friends have moved since we first became close, but i still consider them important pieces of my life (and generally assume i'll see them again someday). :)

even these days, with everyone being SO busy, and usually knowing that we won't see each other for a few weeks at a time, we continue to keep up with one another's lives, and i'm super thankful for texting in that respect. ;)

as i looked through my facebook for these pictures, i noticed how many of my friends i haven't been so good at keeping up with, which is sad. but i know that those types of things happen, and i'm so happy to have had those people in my life for as long as i did.

i've been seeing so many blog posts lately about how hard it is to make friends, and i wish i could collect all of those people and share my friends with them, because i can't even put into words how obsessed with my friends i am.

<3

road trippin' with becca

late last week, becca and i took a road trip to richmond.

sometimes you just need a little bit of a break with your best friend. the actual circumstances taking us to richmond were not awesome, but we made it relaxing and enjoyable all the same. originally planning to leave friday morning at 5am, becca's mom angelically offered us up a hotel room for thursday night, so we got our hairs cut and were on our way.

there were some slight gps setbacks, and we arrived around midnight. i think i passed out in bed soon after, while becca worked on a paper.

the next morning, we took full advantage of the free breakfast, and even though the room was FULL (like every table full) of a family headed to a quinceañera, the coffee was good, there was bacon, and i really like cereal.

after we took care of some business, we headed to a nearby starbucks to talk literature.



not really. kind of. becca worked on a paper, i made notes for the store, and we sometimes discussed literature. then we went shopping! we both got lots of perfect things and took advantage of those big summer sales deals and it was just so good to go shopping with my best friend. i needed some new clothes for my new job, and i'm sure you'll end up seeing some of my spoils here soon. :)
then we left to go home.

the floor at my seat: my shopping bags, my purse, my overnight bag

i'm pretty sure i just say this every time i see becca, but i'm so glad i get to see her as often as i do. she'll be back in town in a month or so, and i'm planning a trip to her for september (for renegade! with bekuh!), so our long distance best friendship isn't actually as dire as it sometimes seems.

i'm mostly posting both of these pictures to show how inconveniently unphotogenic we can be at times. sometimes we're so cute, sometimes we're not so cute. to be fair, we'd been awake since 6:30 am, shopping all day in the heat, and driving for 4 hours when we took these. :) <3