What is it about this time of year?

Right around back to school each year, I start getting into Fall mode. I don't know why that is. I've just always been an autumn girl: it's cool enough to drink Caramel Apple Spices (my FAVORITE) and wear plaid and my favorite boots, but it isn't so cold and gross that we're trapped inside for days on end. Right now though,  it's still 100 degrees where I live and it is, after all only August, but back to school for me immediately equals flannel and scarves and buying a new pair of moccasins. For whatever reason, August means Fall and Fall means October, which is my favorite month of the year.

Now that I'm in Fall mode, I'm working on planning a girl's trip up to Apple Hill, maybe some wine tasting and a bunch of other fun, fall only activities, which for you, my readers, means a whole lot more fun content coming at you. With any luck, I'll have a new phone which means better pictures and a whole lot more interesting reading for you, which I hope you will enjoy immensely.

For now, I'm going to indulge myself by posting my Fall wish list for you to check out as well. Enjoy, guys!

Moccasins- I LOVE moccasins. I would wear them every single day if I could. I bought myself some GH Bass ones for this season but they weren't exactly what I wanted. Target has good moccasins but they usually don't last me more than a couple of seasons so it doesn't seem worth it to spend $20 every year getting a new pair. The hunt continues.

American Eagle Midi Shorts- This might seem sort of random but I'm in need of some shorts. Most of the ones that I own currently are a tad on the short side and are 5 years old or more. So I'm hoping to get some of these longer, more colorful shorts on sale now that Summer clothes will be on their way out.

Gray Jeans- I had a pair of these last year and loved them but they got a tad too snug so I gave them away. Old Navy has some pretty cute options right now and for around $19, too.

Quilted Vest- Any hardcore Pinterest girl has her eyes on this J. Crew vest that comes out every Fall only to be retired by Mid November. Not being one willing to spend $110 on a vest, I'm thinking any quilted vest should get the job done.

Quilted Jacket- I love the look of them. They're always so warm and comfortable looking and they go with both dressy and casual outfits too.

Flannels- Despite transitioning my wardrobe into a more preppy direction over the last year, I am still a flannel girl. I love plaid and the warm softness of flannel has always been my favorite Fall staple. 

This sweater! I am obsessed. I saw it at Gap when I was there last week and it is the softest  thing I've ever felt. It was $55 but it's on sale right now...so I'm trying to decide if I should go for it or not. Decisions decisions. 

Well guys, those are what I've got my eye on for this Fall. What about you? 

Beauty hacks for the lazy girl

I do not claim, by any stretch of the imagination, to be any kind of beauty expert. However, in my decade long pursuit of cuteness, I have learned what does and what does not work for me as far as different products are concerned and so, I have thought I should share them with you just in case you too are of the lazy persuasion.

This first one might seem a little weird, but it definitely has worked for me and that's shaving my legs with Nair. Let me just say, I'm super lazy about shaving my legs. That probably sounds gross but to be fair, I have blonde hair on my legs and it takes forever to grow back, I'm talking like two weeks before I have noticeable stubble and a month before I can actually see the hairs. Because of this, I never really got into the habit of having to shave my legs regularly and so got really lazy about having to do it. My little sister actually recommended the Nair Brazilian Spa Clay formula to me a few months back and I used it traditionally a few times and was impressed with it. However, one morning while getting ready for an interview, I decided I really didn't have time to wait 10 minutes for the Nair to work and then scrub/rinse it off with the special sponge. Instead, I hopped into the tub after it had been on for about 3-5 minutes and started shaving, using the Nair as shaving cream. Because the formula had already started to go to work on my hair, shaving was much faster and it lasted even longer without stubble.

Alright, next is one that probably seems like more work, rather than a hack, but just go with me on this one. Fill in your eyebrows, ladies. Unless you have no eyebrows and have to literally draw them on with pencil, I think shadow is a whole lot more natural looking and my absolute favorite is MAC's Omega shadow. It has matched every single hair color I've had over the last 5 years (and there have been a lot, let me tell you) and I still have a ton of it left. Not only does filling in your brows make you look more polished overall, but I feel like it makes me rethink my eye makeup when I'm doing it.  Brows instantly make your face look for finished so you don't need as much eye makeup to complete your look. 

These are my top two beauty hacks that I stand by. I never shave my legs unless I use Nair and if I have makeup on, my brows are filled in. It's the third step in my routine and a must when putting on my face. 

Hope you enjoyed. Let me know if you have any hacks that you swear by as well. 

Am I a "real" blogger yet?

After months and months of seeing them on blogs, in YouTube videos and all over Instagram, I finally caved and bought my first pair of Jack Rogers sandals this weekend. And no, not full price, are you kidding?! I got them at TJ Maxx on sale for $29! But not the single strap jelly sandals or even the black pair that has been floating around my local TJ Maxx store for months. No no, legitimate leather Jack Rogers sandals. While I'm pretty sure they're the just the classic style, to be totally honest, there are like three styles on the website that look exactly the same to me.

I'm not normally a super trendy girl. In fact, my favorite pair of shoes is a beat to death pair of Roxy flip flops that I wear almost every single day. They're dirty and one has a chunk out of it after being packed for the Dominican Republic but I love them because they're comfortable and fast and pretty much match with anything. In the case of these shoes though, I just couldn't help it. The pink and white were so jaunty and summery looking on the shelf (and to be honest, I'm trying to revamp my style to be a little more adult now that I've graduated college) that I couldn't resist trying them on. Gosh they were so cute. I looked down and knew they had to come home with me.  

Now, even though I'm in love with the shoes, we're currently in the breaking in phase which I'm not really in love with. They seem to put pressure directly on my heels which is kind of annoying. Since I live nowhere near a beach, I'm wondering if regular water will help break them in the same as the ocean water all the blogs online suggest. With any luck, wearing them for a week or so will help them break in a bit better and I won't have to worry about annoying heel pain for very long. 

Despite that, I'm kind of obsessed. And yes, that is a different tattoo than was there the last time my feet were featured on this blog. 

Cheers, guys!

A Day Out in Healdsburg

A couple weeks ago, my mom, younger sister and I all headed out to Healdsburg, California for the day. The backstory here is that my grandma passed away 11 years ago on August 1st and she used to spend her summers in Healdsburg as a kid. Her parents had a cabin there and she and her mother would go up for the summer and her dad would work in the city during the week and hit the cabin on the weekends. Anyway, long story short, we headed out there for the day as a nice thing to do to remember her on a not so fun day. 

We left earlier and still managed to hit a ton of traffic on the way because of the construction on 80, but once we got there, the afternoon couldn't have been more pleasant. It was about 85 degrees there (and 108 at home, so we were definitely not complaining) with a great breeze blowing the whole time we were walking around. 

By the time we arrived, it was lunchtime and the three of us were starving so we went to The Wurst restaurant, which had great reviews on Yelp and was right off the main square where we were planning to spend the day. It has a great...rustic atmosphere...kind of like Low Brau in Sacramento. I really liked my food, the other two weren't necessarily thrilled but they don't get as excited as I do for new food experiences. I ordered the Spanish Harlem Choriso with sweet peppers and caramelized onions. I LOVE chorizo so any time it's on the menu, I order it and I was not disappointed by the choriso at The Wurst.

YUMMMMM!

Next, we walked around the corner and hit a kitschy little shop and I bought the cutest sunglasses (to replace my knockoff club masters that met an unfortunate end in a port-a-potty on the Fourth of July) and proceeded to wear them around for the rest of the day. Somehow, I managed to not notice that they were red in real life, but I really haven't cared and have worn them pretty much every day since. 

I was SOOOO excited to go!!

Our next stop was Moustache Baked Goods which I was STOKED about. I watch a LOT of the Cooking Channel and most especially Unique Sweets, which is where I heard about Moustache Baked Goods. I got The Mistress (meyer lemon olive oil cake with blackberry sage jam filling and blackberry cream frosting) and my mom got the Out of Towner (chocolate cake with coconut and macadamia). My sister got four of their macarons, which she really liked. I loved my cupcake, Mom on the other hand, not so impressed. 

Awkward photo fails. I was trying to get a group picture and my little sister looks into the camera and says, "Mom, are you smiling? Aren't you having a good time? Do you even LOVE us?!" and we all lost it laughing so I snapped a picture and put them together. 

We stopped to eat  in the town square and it was beautiful. Nice and shady, with lots of little families doing the exact same thing we were doing, just hanging out and snacking. 

After that, we wandered for another half hour or so, in and out of shops until we had seen everything we wanted to see. After that, we headed to the river where my grandma used to hang out and spent a little bit of time there before heading to Santa Rosa where we wanted to hit up the Charles M. Schulz Museum. 

My grandma also lived in Santa Rosa when I was a kid and we went to the ice show that Charles M. Schulz organized every year a few times at the ice rink there. However, we had not been back since my grandma moved out to Sacramento in the late 90's. So to our shock, this beautiful museum has been put up and we had a great time exploring, reading the different comic strips and taking in the different exhibits. It was really interesting and the place is gorgeous. We want to take my dad back in a few months once they've gotten their new exhibits in.

Outside the museum, they have little props for visitors to take photos with. Sooo, I posed. 

This was out in the courtyard with a few other exhibits. I thought it was so cute!

This is a little shadow box wall that his wife put in during the museum's construction. Story goes, she exchanged these little shadow box pictures for years with a friend via post and saved them all to be used in the museum. It's hiding out under the stairs so I was glad I found it for us to look at. 

The museum closed at 5 so we headed across the street to the original museum and ice rink complex. Not too much to see and unfortunately, both the ice rink and the Warm Puppy restaurant inside are showing their age, but it was nice to go in and take a peek.

The sun is ridiculous, but this is me with "ice skating pimp Snoopy" as I named him.

Finally, we went to the Vacaville outlets on the way home and scored some major deals at the J. Crew Outlet before having the worst dinner ever at the Tahoe Joe's there (we have dubbed it Outlet Joe's due to the service and quality discounts that seem to be going on there).

A final selfie with Charlie Brown before heading home.

All in all, it was a long, exhausting, but really fun day for us girls before my sister heads back to school later this week. 

Just a little obsession post...

I just was scrolling through my Pinterest fashion board and came across this girl whom I must have pinned months ago an was immediately struck by how pretty she is. 

For some reason I'm just straight obsessed with this little hipster Snow White lookalike. 

Maybe it's because I've been planning to cut my stupid lions mane lately or maybe it's because she's of gorgeous skin and minimal makeup. Either way, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture and wanted to share. 

My Top 6 Favorite Bloggers ♥

About a year ago, I got hooked on Pinterest. Mostly for the recipes but then I got into it trying to find the absolute best ombre hair look for me. Which I did. But in the pursuit, I managed to find several bloggers whom I have continued to follow and love seeing new posts of theirs pop up on my Blog Lovin' app every day. (I'm still not on there...I can't even find myself. Go figure) Some of them are new, some of them are long time faves but each brings a fresh perspective and I love seeing what they have to write about each time they come out with something new. 

The College Prep. If you haven't already found Carly online, what are you doing with your time on the Internet? No, but seriously, I love her blog and she is super approachable and relatable. I've sent her emails and literally every time I've gotten a response from her. 

Her blog features a lot of different content from beauty (which she admits to being not an expert at) to guest posts by her friends about success at work or mistakes to make by the time you're 25. It's always something new and different with a fresh perspective and I always love to read her On My Radar posts because I almost always walk away with a new YouTube video to suggest to friends. 

The Daybook Blog. This was the first blog that I found on Pinterest and immediately read about a year's worth of previous posts because I loved her style. Sydney Poulton is a 25 year old blogger living on the East Coast who probably has the most adorable family I've ever seen. Her son is literally the cutest thing in the entire world. 

I love reading her lifestyle posts, seeing her style posts, and pretty much anything that quotes her nearly three year old is absolute gold. If you haven't found her yet, I'm totally fine with you clicking out of this post and going there now. 

Sloppy Elegance. This blog is my most recent find. Also named Chelsea, this girl is literally my soul sister when it comes to decorating her house...and her personal style is to die for too. She doesn't do a lot of actual written posts, mostly photos but I love her style and love seeing her pop up in my feed.

Gal Meets Glam. I have a confession to make...I'm obsessed with her hair. I don't know what it is, but I will be showing pictures of her cut and color to my stylist when I go in in September. I mean, she obviously has more to offer than just hair, her blog is rad and I love seeing the way she styles things as well. But, I definitely am girl crushing on her hair. 

Kaylee Daily. I found Kaylee...maybe a year ago. Probably around the same time I started reading Sydney's blog and couldn't get over how much she reminded me of my friend, Regan. I mean, they both love glitter and unicorns and the resemblance is a little more than striking. But once I got past thinking, "holy crap, it's Regan" every time I saw a picture of her, I loved her cute little family with all her weenie dogs and her style is adorable as well.

Mangoes and Palm Trees. Ok this one is personal. This is my friend Jullieanne's blog that she started about 2 years ago. I'm a foodie for sure and I love reading her recipes...and also living vicariously through her trips to Disneyland. I highly recommend trying out some of the things she has there. You won't be sorry. 

June Favorites

Holy cow, where has June gone?! I feel like I was just in school waiting for graduation to happen and here it is nearly July. Anyway, I've discovered some things this month and I thought I would share them with you in case you were looking for new things to try out.

Let's start with food, shall we? Since that is pretty much my favorite thing in the whole world anyway.

-Chocolate Almond Milk. Ok, I'm really not sure how in the 2 years that I've been drinking almond milk that I have never tried the chocolate flavor but I picked it up on a recent grocery trip and sweet Georgia peach is it good! Back before my life sucked and I had to start eating nondairy things, I would ALWAYS have a glass of chocolate milk when I was craving something sweet but was way too full to eat dessert. Now I can still do that. I did it tonight, in fact. And it was delicious :)

-Vegan Cream Cheese. Much like the chocolate almond milk, I've been aware of this stuff for a while but I never tried it because I've heard such bad things about other vegan dairy substitutes. I really didn't want to try it and be let down. But I picked up a tub at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago and I have been able to eat bagels for the last month with something other than hummus on them (which is good because hummus only works on savory bagels). I will definitely be picking up more.

-Chocolate Sea Salt Almonds. Another recent find when I was at Target shopping for other things. I was ACTUALLY looking for the rosemary and black pepper almonds that I love but they were out and I grabbed the chocolate sea salt to try. Overall, they're pretty good. Not SUPER chocolaty but still good for a protein-packed sweet snack.

-MINT! In an effort to drink more water, I bring a travel cup to work every day and I've been LOVING putting mint in my water cup. Initially, a friend of ours had sent my mom home with a few springs out of their garden. But I started adding the leaves to my water and they were pretty much gone in a week. After a few days drinking regular water, I realized that I missed it. So much so that I got a mint plant at Home Depot so that I can just grow my own mint and not have to worry about running out. So long as I water it ;)

That's about it where food is concerned. Let's go on to the girly stuff, shall we?

- Pixi h2o Skin Tint. As one of the laziest female humans in the world when it comes to doing makeup or putting things on my face, this stuff is literally Holy Grail status. It is light, airy and despite being water-based, stays on all day and has solid coverage for my acne scar covered skin. I've been having a lot of trouble with my skin lately and a lot of that I've attributed to wearing makeup. This stuff hasn't broken me out, yet *fingers crossed* and every time I put it on I see myself in the mirror and think, "damn, my skin looks amazing".

-Pacifica Persian Rose perfume. For some reason, since like mid June, I had been wanting a rose perfume to wear for the summer. However, most of the rose perfumes out there smell a little too geriatric for me. Lo and behold, I snuck into Whole Foods one morning to pick myself up some dairy free ice cream and decided to swing into their cosmetics section and found this perfume. It's so good. It smells like rose and lime and is just so great for summertime. I've not worn anything else since I got it...in fact, I won't put on makeup for the day but I'll roll this on before leaving the house or I feel naked.

-Anything orange. I don't know what it is about this spring and summer but I have been loving just about anything with a tint...or more...of orange to it. From Bang lip color at Urban Decay, a gorgeous poppy orange-red shade, to creamsicle colored nail polishes, I've been loving anything orange for summer. I even pulled out my Cream Soda blush from MAC to use. It's a gorgeous peachy shade that goes great with any summer color I'm able to pick up. I haven't tried full on orange lipstick yet, but rest assured, I'm sure it's coming.

And finally, let's talk entertainment.

Since it's the off season for most of my favorite shows right now, I've been looking for new things to watch during the week and boy, I've found a lot of new shoes and a couple of new favorite movies as well.

-The Night Shift. This is the new ER drama series on CBS that I'm obsessed with. The drama, the characters, the full on views of actual medical situations, I LOVE it. Plus, Eoin Mackin is back on TV and I couldn't be more excited about it.

-Undateable. Also on CBS, this comedic gem has me addicted. I watched one episode and proceeded to devour Hulu's entire selection of episodes after that. I would explain more, but you really just need to watch it. I've been telling all my friends to get on the bandwagon too.

-The Real Girl's Kitchen. This is Haylie Duff's cooking show and I'm seriously girl crushing on Haylie right now. Every episode I watch, I decide that we definitely should be friends. The food looks delicious and it's a nice combination of actual recipes and background stories as well. Not gonna lie, her cook book, of the same name, is on my Christmas list already.

-Maleficent. Ok, I HATED Sleeping Beauty as a kid. In a movie all about her, Sleeping Beauty is like the least interesting character and maybe says what, like 5 lines the entire time? Needless to say, other than her attraction at Disneyland, I wasn't paying that princess any attention. However, the Maleficent movie was one of the best things that I've seen from Disney in a while. At least live action wise. I loved it so much that I've already preordered it on iTunes for when it comes out. P.S. The little girl in the picture is her daughter Vivienne. They used her to play young Aurora so she wouldn't be afraid of Angelina in all her Malificent makeup. How cute is that?!

Well, that's it for June. We're now pretty into July so I will definitely have some favorites from this month as well. Keep your eyes out :)

That Time I Crossed Something Off of My Bucket List

I'm pretty sure everyone out there has a bucket list. Whether you call it that or not, everyone has a list of things that they want to do before they die...or "kick the bucket" as the film of the same name so gloriously proclaimed. Mine is pretty normal I think...go to Greece, touch all 7 continents at least once, parasail...oh wait...I JUST DID THAT! Feeling rather adventurous the other day, I packed up and hit Tahoe for a day trip and decided that parasailing was something I just HAD to try.

Lake Tahoe is only about two hours from where I live, making it the closest water to us. Anyway, one of my friends (who you may recognize from my wine tasting pictures) and I drove up to the lake for the day to hang out and enjoy our day off. We were planning to hang out, have lunch, drink a little and lounge around on the beach...maybe rent a stand up paddle board if we were feeling a little adventurous. Just a pretty lowkey day. 

Except about 10 minutes into our lunch at The Beacon in Camp Richardson (SO good!), we see a parasail float by. We decided maybe we would like to try that. So to our phones we went and found a $55 parasail ride (which is a pretty solid price compared to other parasail options I've seen) and called. Somehow on the crazy busy week of the 4th of July, they had an opening at 1:30. And that was it. We were off to Ski Run to sign paperwork and meet the boat. 

Now here's the funny part of the story, we assumed, being people who have never parasailed before, that you land in the water when you're done and the boat picks you up. So we show up at the boat in bathing suits and just bathing suits. Granted, we already had them on under our clothes, but still, compared to the rest of the group on the boat...we were a little underdressed. 

The process itself is pretty simple. You get strapped into a harness and a life vest and then you head to the back of the boat and get strapped into the parachute. You sit on the back and once it catches the wind, you're off. We went up at 200 feet and it was honestly one of the most peaceful experiences I've had in my life. You're just up there, floating watching the water underneath you. 

Luckily, one of the guys on the boat was nice enough to take a TON of pictures for us. So we have plenty of documentation of being in the air. 

Once you're done, you just hang out on the boat while the rest of the group goes up. It was super relaxing and the guys had great taste in music so even sitting around watching other people go was fun. We're going back this week actually to go again. So there may be even more pictures. Or I'll do a week in the life of my phone post and you'll see them there. For now, here are the pictures from the first time I went :)

The before, sitting on the boat. 

Pretty sure he's telling us to keep our legs bent and not stand up so we don't get a para-wedgie. 

Ready for takeoff!

 And then you're up!

 

 Meet our captain, haha!

 

 Oh yeah, they dunked our feet. I thought Connie was going to freak out. 

As you can tell by her legs (on the left), she wasn't happy about it. 

Obviously, I had to take a picture with the mermaid fountain.