Ellie Excitement!

Excuse me while I totally spaz out for a minute!

I am going to spend all of next week STALKING my mailman, because this top from Ellie is on its way to my house!



If you follow my blog's Facebook, you know I basically had an existential crisis trying to decide what to pick. I'm pretty happy with my choice, even though I'm probably kind of dumb for picking something with long sleeves when I'm about to move back to Florida. But I couldn't pass up those cute netted shoulders, and what I expect to be SUPER soft material! (I've wanted to live in basically everything I've gotten from Ellie so far!)

I'm so obsessed with this collection, I want EVERYTHING. I'm pretty happy I'm at least getting a top, though! (My top is at 27 seconds in the video below.) I seriously think their collections are getting better and better each month. I'm not sure my poor fashion loving heart can take whatever comes next!




I'm *still* working on my review of my stuff from the Coral Crush collection. I should have it up any day! (I know, I've been saying that for ages!) I just had to share my excitement over this particular top, because I think it might be my new favorite thing. And also because I'm procrastinating packing. But mostly out of love!

Fashionable Frames

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Coastal.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have to admit that sometimes when I'm putting an outfit together, I almost wish I didn't have 20/20 vision, because a cute pair of glasses would make the perfect accessory to bring what I'm wearing together. I have a couple of faux pairs with clear lenses, but it's just not the same. I was asked to check out the Designer Eyeglasses at Coastal.com and share my fashionable opinion with you, so let's do it! 

The Derek Cardigan Eyeglasses are seriously cute and totally on trend. They've been seen in music videos by artists like Alicia Keys and Flo Rida, and are all over Instagram outfit posts! 

I think this might be my favorite pair from the collection. They're such a quick way to add a quirky, retro vibe to an otherwise not so exciting look! I'm always a fan of fun, feminine design. 

 

A peek at a few of the other styles offered in the collection. I love the little icons below each pair that let you know if they are for men, women, or both, since it can be hard to tell when shopping online! I had fun browsing through the selection, and couldn't help but picture outfits that would look cute with each style of glasses.

My favorite thing about Coastal.com is that they also give back! For each pair of glasses purchased, they donate a pair to a person in need via their "Change the View" charity project. How great is that? Gotta love shopping that you can feel good about!

Waterfall Trail (Again!) - With Vlog!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to go do the waterfall hiking trail in Branson one more time before the weather got scorching hot. (You can read about my first time on that trail here!)  I decided to make a little video of it for you this time!

Humble apologies for how bumpy and shaky it is, but I was mostly filming while walking. I also look a MESS, but let's see you go do a hike with sweaty sun and kamikaze bugs flying into your eyes and tree limbs attacking your hair and come out looking pretty, ya know?




I used the anti-shake thing on Youtube to eliminate a lot of the bounciness from me walking, but it seems to have made it a bit more blurry. Sorry about that!

A question for those of you who are outdoorsy: What is the best way to clean muddy shoes?

My beloved trail shoes are getting a little funky. They're made for kind of rough conditions, but I'm so worried I'll mess them up washing them! Anyone know the right way to do it?

This is unfortunately the best photo I got of what I think were crawdads? I find them so creepy!

I'm fairly doubtful that I'll get the chance to do any more hiking trails before I move back to Florida. I'm running short on time, and temperatures have been in the 90s which is just too hot for it to be fun. If we get a nice "cold" snap of low 80s, I'll probably take advantage of it, but the chances seem slim!

If you want to see a hiking trail video that is MUCH better than mine, check out the video that my "little brother" Mike made of his week hiking through Ocala National Forest. You can find that here! 

Bloglovin!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

As much as I've tried to ignore the fact that it's happening, Google Reader will be going away at the end of this month! I've checked out several other ways to follow my favorite blogs, and so far Bloglovin seems to be the winner. Use the link above to follow me there - I'll add a widget in the side bar soon, too!

The past is here!

In an effort to get everything in one place, I imported all of the posts from my old "Insert Witty Title Here" blog to this one. You can now find (almost) everything from 2000-2007 over in the archives!

Resort 2014 Fashion - Round 2!

I posted the first batch of my favorite items from the 2014 Resort season collections yesterday, and now I'm back for round two! I had really expected to be able to fit everything in one post, since there's not usually all that much from Resort that I find comment-worthy, but this year there turned out to be quite a bit!


Oh, Michael Kors, you know I love a good giraffe print. This is lovely.



I can't figure out how I feel about this outfit, and I like that. The dress almost feels like it's made out of shiny wallpaper, and the snakeskin (I think?) shoes are an interesting compliment. I can't decide. But I do love when dresses have pockets! (Ports 1961)


This Rachel Zoe look is almost painfully stylish. Ugh. I also wish I knew who this model was, because she's stunning.



This Rag and Bone dress has a sort of Hugh Hefner bathrobe look to it, but still feels kind of luxurious (in that I think it would be fun to wear).



HOW perfect is this Sachin + Babi dress? I'm in love. Perfect shoes, too.



This dress is from Sachin + Babi, too. I'm not as in love with it, but I realllllllly love that little peek of sequin fabric at the bottom! Adore.



Obsessed with this fabric that keeps showing up in the Tory Burch collection. (This collection also includes some really masterful mixing of prints!)


This look from Trina Turk is just so appealing to me. It's super wearable, but thoughtfully pulled together.



This Versace dress is *delicious*.



Flipping through this Zac Posen collection is like walking through a sculpture garden. The shapes are just incredible.

Did you have any favorites this season?

Resort 2014 Fashions

It feels like forever since I've done a fashion week post! I can't even tell you guys how good it felt to dive into style.com tonight and get lost in pretty things. I know that Resort doesn't get as much attention as the other seasons (I'm admittedly a Fall person), but I've been so starved for fashion goodness that I'm pretty darn excited about it! (And following my recent trend, I started this post about 10 days ago and then totally forgot to finish it! Blogging fail!)


I have a serious crush on this Elie Tahari dress! It doesn't feel "resort" to me, but I'd love to wear it!

Time to Grow

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Miracle-Gro for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Now that Spring is almost over, I'm seeing a ton of fun garden projects on Pinterest and other social media. I've been a little bummed since the fact that I'm moving in a couple of months means that I won't have very long to enjoy any gardening I do here before I leave. However, after checking out the seriously cute Toyarium on Miracle-Gro's The Gro Project, it occured to me that I could do something small and portable and still indulge my desire to get my green thumb a little dirty! 

Since I'll be living in an apartment with cats, my plant possibilities are pretty limited. I not only needed to pick something that can survive in a windowsill, but that will be safe if one of the cats decides to chew on it. (A lot of household plants can be toxic to cats!)

I started with this cute cat planter that I came across while cleaning out the closet a while back. I've been waiting to figure out a good use for it, and this seemed like the perfect project! If you don't have a cute planter to use, I've seen some great unique ones made by cutting a hole in plastic toys so that they can be filled with soil!

Supplies assembled! I would have prefered to use potting soil, but I only had three days to write this post, so this came straight from my back yard. (Miracle-Gro makes an organic potting mix that would have been perfect!) Thank goodness catnip doesn't need to be planted very deep- just getting this much was a major chore given how rocky the soil is here! I thought I might need to do a layer of rocks at the bottom of the planter to fill up some space, but it ended up being more shallow than I expected. All I had to do was a layer of soil, sprinkle on some seeds, and then top it off with more soil!

 

It's now sitting in my living room window with the open side facing the sun, ready to start growing!

Check out The Gro Project for gardening project ideas and tips! They have products like the LiquaFeed All Purpose Plant Food Advance Starter Kit that make it super easy, even if you have a busy schedule. I think I'm proof that you don't need a ton of time, money or space to get something growing!

Current Events

Today I realized that the current news stories in Orlando perfectly sum up why I miss my city so much. Here are three things in the news back home that bring me great amusement:

1. Tropical Storm
I've been joking about how lovely it is that as soon as tornado season is over, I'm leaving the Midwest just in time to get to Florida for hurricane season. It looks like the storms are getting an early start this year, though, since we already have our first named tropical storm! Nothing too exciting seems to be happening yet, but Orlando is getting a crapload of rain.


2. Bear in a Tree


image source

One of the major news stories yesterday was this little bear fellow that felt like hanging out in our lovely downtown area, so he just picked a tree and enjoyed the view. You can read the whole news story here.


3. D'oh!
I've been loving all of the pics of the new Springfield expansion at Universal, where you can now have a beer at Moe's Tavern, eat a Krusty Burger, or visit my favorite shop name, Lisa's Teahouse of Horror. I'm a huge Simpsons fan, so I can't wait to visit this new area as soon as I'm back in town!


photo via Inside The Magic's Flickr.

Fun Disney Vlogs!

I recently got sucked into watching a TON of Disney College Program vlogs on YouTube. It's funny- most people make like a dozen videos *before* they begin their college program, talking about their phone interviews and packing and all that, but then as soon as they actually move to Florida and start work, their vlogs either totally stop or drop down to once every couple of months. (The same thing happens with blogs!) It's super frustrating to get all invested in someone's story and then have them just disappear!

I thought I'd share a few CP vloggers that I've come across that I thought were especially awesome!