[Quotable] Mother Theresa's Prayer

I came across this again today and thought I would share because it's lovely.

 

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

We can do no great things - only small things with great love.

[Life] One Thing

Hi everyone!

Hope you've been having a great week. Just stopping by to share some photos from the last few weeks. I'm scheduling this post ahead since I'll be traveling all day Thursday but wanted to share something anyway. Enjoy!

I'm part of a dance team and we did a performance at Harley-Davidson on Sunday. Love you Lea, Faith, Ruth, April, Kristi, Sharon, and Karen!

I'm the grillmaster!! Honey-garlic glazed chicken on the grill!

My doggie!

Hahaha...

This is where I spent my week.

Last Friday night was drinks at the Wrecking Bar with Lea

My cooking space of choice

My favorite seasonal beer!



*Don't you know, this ain't livin'
It's just survivin'*

[Outfits] Devil With a Blue Dress

Been a little bit since I put up some outfit posts and (as per usual) they're piling up on my various cameras. So enjoy!

Basic tee and jeans combo...I find this is always a good go-to. What's your favorite go-to outfit? What accessories could I have added to spruce it up?

Tee - J. Crew
Jeans - Express
Shoes - Target
Watch - gifted
Necklace - Macy's

I love a great watch. What is your favorite accessory?

Close up of my fave watch!

I love the look of a long sweater with skinny jeans - kind of replicating the idea of a tunic and leggings, no?

Sweater - H&M
Jeans - Elle (Kohl's)
Bracelets - F21 and a local boutique

I also love love love the stacking bangle trend. Although, I find that I have to take them off at work because they're annoying. Does anyone else find the multiple bracelet trend bothersome for day to day activities?

Shoes - Shoe Carnival

Tell me...how bad do these shoes look here? Maybe I should have chosen differently? Suggestions?

The shoes look awfully odd here. But I thought they looked cute in real life!

Please ignore my awful expression. What do you think of rouched tops?

Green tank - H&M
White tee - Express
Jeans - F21

I really like the rouched style, but I think not every rouched top looks good. I like this one particularly. What do you think?

Ripped jeans: what do you think of them?

White tank - H&M
Brown sheer top - Express
Jeans - Charlotte Russe
Sandals - Old Navy

See? More stackable bracelets!!

Bracelets - F21 and gifted from India

Sorry for the crappy photography here - this was the outfit I wore to fly to CT for work on Monday so I had to take the pic in my hotel room mirror. I'm really into blazers and scarves. And for whatever reason my hair made it through the flight looking just like it did this morning. That never happens!

Top - Ross
Blazer - Burlington Coat Factory
Pants - Charlotte Russe, old
Scarf - some random market in London
Leather ballet slippers - Gap
Sunnies - Boutique
Rose Gold watch seen previously
Black and white bracelet - New York and Company

My super talented friend Lea made me these adorable earrings. I often check out what she's made every time I head over to her place. I wish I was more creative so I could do that sort of thing. Do you ever make your own jewelry or accessories?

Necklace - Kohl's
Earrings - homemade and gifted from my wonderful friend LMA!

Thanks for stopping by!!

*Wearin' her wig hat and shades to match

She's got high-hell shoes and an alligator hat

Wearin' her pearls and her diamond rings

She's got bracelets on her fingers, now, and everything*

[Shopping] Lift Me Up

One of the biggest reasons I started this blog to begin with is that I had been doing a lot of shopping recently and wanted to share some great deals/finds that I had come across. The outfit posts are fun, but day to day I'm often more proud of what I've been able to find for a great deal than how I pull everything together.

There may be a lot of stuff in this post. Let it be known I usually don't buy this much at once; these are just the things I've purchased in the last 3-4 months that you may still be able to find in store or online!

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start? Sound of Music fans?):

I have an insane love for envelope purses right now. They are not practical for my everyday life (I really need a purse with straps for the day to day) so I generally use envelope clutches when I'm going out. I had purchased this one back in January because it was exactly what I was looking for, but I had been on the lookout for a black one because I wear a lot of black and I really am not personally a fan of navy with black. Some ladies can pull it off, but I just don't.

Vintage clutch

When I found this black and snakeskin print number at Kohl's, on clearance for $10.80, I just had to scoop it up!!

Kohl's, $10.80, not available online but you might find it in store!

Next up is a summer fedora. I love hats and my hubby always compliments me when I wear them, so I like to have them in my accessory wardrobe! He especially likes fedoras so I was looking for one that was lightweight (you have no idea how hard that was to find!) and straw since Atlanta summers can be brutally hot. I found this one at Target.

Here, $12.99

I love thin summer scarves, and I found this adorable one at Walmart of all places.

$3.97 (sorry there's no online link)

Shoes. While at Target, looking for some cute flats, I decided to try on the shoes that I pined for in this post. They didn't have my size so I decided to give the next size down a try since someone had told me that they ran big. And it WORKED! So I got my coveted shoes and I'm ecstatic.

Love, $29.99

I also picked up a pair of cute leopard flats. I waffled back and forth on whether to get the leopard or the black but I figured you can find cute black flats more easily and that I would be able to find some elsewhere. I may end up going back and getting them at some point but I haven't yet.

Here, $19.99

I also went on a bit of a jewelry spree. Got a whole bunch of new bracelets.

Forever 21, here, $5.80

I got this one in orange and in blue:

Forever 21, here, $1.80

Got 2 of these to stack:

Forever 21, here, $3.80

H&M, $4.95 (I think?)

H&M, $5.95 (I noticed when I took this picture
that this pair is missing a bead. I'll have
to figure out what to do about that!)

H&M, $5.95, Love this cobalt color!

H&M, $4.95 (love that the dangling stars
hang down from behind!)

I also got a 4 pack of large round stud earrings, but since I started this blog draft 3 days ago, they've taken the image I was going to use off the H&M site, so I'll have to take a picture. They were silver, gold, leopard, and zebra prints. So cute!

Update picture:

H&M earrings, $3.95

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I'm traveling for work this week and have limited time. I'll try and get an outfit post up tonight but who knows. :)  Happy Tuesday, all!

*This road is anything but simple

Twisted like a riddle*

[Shopping] What I Didn't Buy

Just dumping off some pics of fitting room not-quite-disasters from a recent TJ Maxx trip. :)

I was wishy-washy on this. I liked it but then I wasn't sure if it was
flattering enough to justify the $40 price tag. I decided to think about
it and go back. I did go back to try it on again but it was gone.
Decision made for me!

I really liked the fit of this dress, which is surprising, since tubey-type
dresses generally don't look right on my oddly proportioned figure.
However, you can barely see that around the bust there is a sparkly
type band, and it wasn't big enough to fit properly over my girls,
so it was a no. Bummer cause it was dirt cheap clearance.

Haha I love my face here. This is my "I want to love this dress but
it's not quite right!!!" It's an adorable Calvin Klein, but the problem
was in the midsection - you can see it's a bit baggy. The next size down
was too tight on my chest. If it wasn't $40 it might have been worth
buying and paying to alter, but that would have almost doubled
the price. Not worth it.

I'll be posting 2 more shopping trip posts soon with stuff I actually liked and bought. :) One for accessories and one for clothes.

[Shopping] Sin Wagon

As I was reading through my RSS reader the other day, I came across this article from the Frisky titled "7 Things I Can't Help But Buy Even Though I Already Own Something Just Like It". The author speaks to the nature of obsessive buying, even though the thing you're buying may be ridiculously similar to something you already own. The idea hit pretty close to home.

I love fashion - clothes, accessories, everything. I always feel like there is something out there I just HAVE to have. In my case, I don't often buy things that are exactly like something I already own, but I have a penchant for obsessing over items that I have plenty of but this one is different or special because I don't have this color, or the pattern is just so different even though I already have 3 blue-hued pattern scarves. I feel like I need to have one of everything when it comes to some items. It can get bad. My biggest offenders?

Scarves.
Jeans. (I own multiple pairs of each style of jean because there is something identifiably different about them)
Hats (oh, gosh, how I love hats, even though I don't get nearly enough chances to wear them)
Jewelry.
Nail polish, sometimes. I go in waves on that one (I'm currently on a ridiculous spree).

Do you do this? What are some of the things you obsess over??

*Well now I've been good for way too long

Found my red dress and I'm gonna throw it on

...'Bout to get too far gone*

[Thoughts] Pinterest.SIGH.

Pinterest. It's the elephant in my proverbial social-media room. As I start to build this blog, I'm trying to also build accompanying Facebook, Google+, and Twitter accounts. Specifically on Facebook and Google+, I've been making it a point to start posting discount links and codes to add a little reason for folks to go there. But Pinterest. Pinterest, pinterest, pinterest. I've been avoiding Pinterest.

It started when I went to the Pinterest website and was just assaulted by a visual cacophony of images with no rhyme or reason to them. I had no idea what I was looking at or what to do with it. It was like opening the door to a messy closet and immediately slamming the door shut to make sure nothing falls out and no one sees. And I reacted in the same manner - I left the page.

Over the next couple of weeks, I revisited Pinterest a few times. I really wanted to see what this thing was that nearly every single human being I know was talking about. But I just didn't understand it. And honestly this wasn't a surprise. I don't like to be confronted with large masses of things. I like order. I like structure. I like knowing there is an end point or at least an end goal. And Pinterest appeared to have nothing of the sort.

But it's Pinterest. And everyone is talking about it. So I finally "applied" for an account (which I think is a ridiculous practice that only propagates a superiority complex by some early adopters) and when I was so graciously granted one, I went back. AND I STILL DIDN'T GET IT.

So I had a friend explain it to me. "Oh, it's where you just collect images of things." WHY, pray tell, would I want to collect images of things? "Well, it links back to sites so if there are things you want to reference you can go back." But, isn't that what my web bookmarks are for? Or am I now living back in 2000 with my antiquated bookmarks? (Haha, that sentence made me smirk when I typed it. To think the year 2000 was long enough ago to reference it this way!)

Friends are obsessed with the site. They complain with an "exasperated" smile about how much time it takes up and how it's more of a time-suck than Facebook (a statement to be met with *shock!*). I'm usually ready to jump on a social media phenomenon of this caliber.

I tried. I really did. But I'm not on Pinterest. You may never see a Pinterest link appear on the right hand column of my blog. People follow my dormant Pinterest account and I giggle every time I get the email that so-and-so is following me because I know they may never see a single pin. You know, since I'm not really on Pinterest. At this point I have no desire to be on it. And I still JUST DON'T GET IT. But you know what? I'm finally ok with that. I don't have to understand everything. (Lord knows I will never understand such things the male brain or the Apple obsession). And I have no problem with folks who are completely into it - we all have our things. It's just not for me.

So sorry, ya'll. No Pinterest here.

[Quotable] Food for Thought

via Real Simple