Wearing White before Labor Day!

Yes, I still follow that old-fashioned rule. What can I say? It's been taught to me since birth.
Seeing as next Monday is Labor Day, I've been wearing white pretty much every day.

Here's my outfit yesterday for our open house at work.. I liked it. :)

Blazer: White House Black Market
Shirt: Express
Skirt: Anthropologie
Shoes: Jessica Simpson

Houston!

For the weekend of the 4th, I decided to visit one of my very best friends, Alicia, in Houston. She will be moving to Taiwan on July 18. Here are a few pictures of our last time together (until I go visit her next March, hopefully!!).

 She's so cute!

Outfit details:

Dress: Anthropologie

Shoes: Gianni Bini

 Notice this is me standing crookedly... Not the camera being held crookedly...

I love her!!!!

I also saw the future home of BHLDN. You couldn't see anything but, just seeing the boarded up windows that said "BHLDN" was still very exciting. I now know where exactly I'll be going to look for a wedding dress..whenever the heck that happens ;).
It was right next to this place:

And just for kickies, here are some peonies (one of my favorite flowers) from a shower I threw a couple of weeks ago:

Happy weekend!

Anthropologie Wants...

I want...

Expanding Universe Tank

Conestoga Corset

Epilogue Blouse

Lunar Cycles Top

Level 99 Denim Pencil Skirt

What's on your Anthro wishlist?

Bring it, Humidity!

So I had an excellent outfit day yesterday.
My hair was obedient despite the 98 degree weather and 100% humidity.
My makeup did exactly what I wanted it to do.
AND I had an awesome dress on in my color.
And I'm finally starting to get a tan. I've been working on it every weekend out at my parents' house because I'm in a wedding in September and really need a tan to pull off the color. So yay!

Coral is my color. Again, sorry for the bad quality of the pictures.. I have yet to master the art of taking pictures of myself.

I am now making the humidity work for me. I half curl my hair so that it's half wavy and the humidity helps it. This will be my hairstyle for the next 4 months.. maybe..

Outfit details:
Dress: Anthropologie
Slip: Anthropologie
Shoes: Vince Camuto

Something For Myself

I think it's good to treat yourself every now and then. Now, my usual gift to myself is shoes, but this time I treated myself with a skirt. Not just ANY skirt, the Patagonian Maxi skirt from Anthropologie.

I have longed for this skirt ever since it came out, so in honor of my new job, I bought it for myself. It's every bit as awesome in person. It's long enough to wear my 5 inch heels with and you can pull it up and wear flip flops with it. I am in love. 

Here's how I styled it today:

I wore it with an American Eagle tank, a necklace from Clockwork Couture, and a lacy vest from Buckle. And I wore my 5 inch gladiator Jessica Simpson shoes under it. It was a perfect outfit for this smoldering heat here. It got up to about 103 degrees today with about 100% humidity. HORRIBLE. But, the skirt was nice and breezy. All I can say is thank you LORD for air conditioning!!

And I had a butterfly on my pinky today:

Looking for an Easter Dress...

My mom makes everyone in our family get a brand new outfit for Easter every year. It's a really big deal. We take about a million pictures after church.

Here are some Easter pictures from the past two years:
Easter 2010

 My family couldn't take a normal group shot last year...

 Myself and my cousin..

Last year's dress is probably my favorite dress I own. It's Anthropologie and it fit me like a dream (shoes were Clockwork Couture). It's definitely going to be hard to top this one.

Easter 2009

 This was another Anthropologie dress..

All the ladies (my aunt Susanne, me, cousin Gracie, mom).

This year I have not been able to find anything! By this point I usually have had a dress for months, just staring at me from the closet, waiting to be worn. I saw that Anthro just released some new dresses.. Here are some I'm looking at..

Anthropologie Parading Hues Dress

Anthropologie Mompos Dress

Anthropologie Approaching Blues Dress

And then there are a few from ModCloth that are lovely..

Across The Pond Dress

Gardens of Versailles Dress

Ballroom Bliss Dress

You can see my dilemma.. I just don't know what to do this year! Help!

St. Patrick's Day!

I am definitely one of those girls who dresses up and goes all out for random holidays.. St. Patrick's day happens to be one of my favorites. First off, I LOVE Ireland, my mom and I visited in 2008. Secondly, I love green. Thirdly, I'm part Irish..

Anyways, this year I decided to cook an Irish meal for the family.

Here is the recipe for the Steak and Guinness Pie I made.

This is what goes inside the pie (steak, bacon, onions, peas...). The Guinness makes an AMAZING gravy. Let me tell you..

Here I am with the finished product..

Here it is on the table.. I must say, this pie was scrumptiously delicious. It was hearty. It was yummy. It was Irish. I highly suggest you try it out. The only downside was that my family gobbled it all up and there were absolutely no left-overs.

I made Whisky cookie balls for dessert. They were also fantastic. (I'll post the recipe at the bottom of this post.) We had Bailey's Irish Cream with dessert as well.. So I guess we had the three most popular Irish drinks at dinner (Guinness in the pie, Jameson whiskey in the cookies, and Bailey's).

Here's my green for the day:

Shirt: Express
Cardigan: Express
Jeans: Miss Me
Shoes: Anthropologie

I just love these shoes. I bought them on sale last year and have only gotten to wear the once, so I decided St. Patrick's day was the perfect day to air them out.

And here's my whole family decked out in their green. We're nerds together, at least. :) And I kind of forced them to wear it....

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!!


Here is the recipe for the cookies:

Recipe: Irish whiskey balls (no-bake cookies)

Ingredients

• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 2 cups vanilla wafer cookies
• 1/2 cup Irish whiskey (preferably Jameson)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon corn syrup
• 1 1/2 cups pistachios
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• Optional: green food coloring

Preparation: Grind together white chocolate chips and vanilla wafers in a food processor. Add powdered sugar and process until combined. Add the whiskey and corn syrup and process until crumbs form a mass. Add pistachios and pulse until nuts are coarsely chopped and throughout mixture. Optional: Add a drop or two of green food coloring to give the balls a St. Patrick's Day holiday color.

Form 1-inch balls. Place sugar in a shallow bowl and roll balls in sugar. Store in wax paper-lined airtight container in a cool dry place. Let balls sit for a few days before eating for best results.

Makes 48 balls

I'm still here!

I just realized I haven't posted in February yet... The temporary hiatus was due in part to the job search.

I had my first interview yesterday! I didn't take an actual picture yesterday, but here is what I wore with a few changes:

I went with black tights and purple boots and a black turtle neck under the sweater for the interview... Didn't want to scare them with my eclectic-ness yet but a girl can't go wrong with Anthropologie. :)

My band had our first big show this past Friday night. It went REALLY well! We were there for three hours and we had huge turnout!

This is the only picture I have from the show, it's from someone's cell phone.. I wore a dress, skinny jeans, and some boots.. I'm not gonna lie, it was a great outfit. :) I'll definitely be wearing it again and will post pictures and details.

And is anyone else excited for the Anthropologie wedding line BHLDN?!! I am so glad that I'm not married yet so I can have an Anthropologie wedding (after I find the man, of course). Eeeee!

Photoshoot Take 1

So the band had an amazing photoshoot planned this past Thursday but Christopher (guitar & vocals) got horribly sick. :( But Melody and I still had some fun with the photos.. When it's just us we call ourselves "Romeo & Lassie". I know it sounds weird, but "Romeo" is the name of my violin, and "Lassie" is hers. Yes, I name all of my important inanimate objects...
Here are some of my favorite shots from the day (they look better after you enlarge them):

 Romeo.

My dress and sweater are Anthropologie, socks are Target, shoes are Urban Outfitters. The red jacket is Miss Sixty.