Spring 2014 Wish List

First day of Spring is finally here and I am excited about the possibility of warmer weather being on its way! Even though I gave up shopping for lent, here are my top picks for this spring that you best believe might be waiting in online shopping carts to come my way the day after Easter!

ONE // TWO // THREE // FOUR // FIVE // SIX
What spring trends are y'all loving right now?

Five Five+Fashion Poll

Praise! We have reached another Friday sweet friends and the weekend is upon us. Anyone have any exciting plans? Sunday morning I'll be up bright and early to go to the 26.2 with Donna marathon here in Jacksonville, Florida. Now don't go thinking I will be running...nope, nada. I'll be the girl cheering on all those runners at the finish line with my pretty glittery sign! :-) I'm excited to be linking up with Darci again today for Five on Friday.
One// Care Packages My heart is so thankful to have a wonderful man in my life who still after 4 years of dating knows how to surprise me! Since the beginning of the year, Josh has been sending me a letter each week to read in the mail but yesterday when I got my "letter" it was an entire package. I opened it up to find my favorite sour candies, a homemade card, three letters, and a new Wake Forest sweatshirt. I am truly lucky beyond words!

Two// Social Media Change You might have seen here, but in a few days I'll be deleting my blog social media sites and strictly using my personal ones! I'm ready to be real with y'all and feel you should know the real me. So why try to hide behind a second Instagram/Twitter account when it is just much easier to have you follow the real me :-)

Three// Winter Whites Okay y'all, I need your 110% honest opinion. How do you feel about wearing white in the winter time? Take this little poll below to let me know your thoughts and look out for a little post with the outcome next week!

Do you think it's okay to wear white before Easter?
	Yes, 110%
	No, no, no
	Depends on the location/event
pollcode.com free polls

Four// Bachelor
So I did myself in and looked up the ending of the Bachelor...all I can say is I'm shocked. If things end up the way Reality Steve has predicted they will, this season could end VERY interestingly. 

Five// Spring

Spring weather has arrived here in Florida and I've been soaking up every little bit of sunshine that I can! This girl needs to do some major shopping for short sleeve shirts so that I don't look like a crazy person wearing all the sweaters that are packed in my luggage! Happy weekend loves!

Stylin' and Profilin'

With winter in full swing across the country, I constantly find myself day dreaming of warm spring weather and days weeks spent by the ocean this summer. Anyone else with me? A fashion obsession that has come about in me the past few years has been sunglasses. Okay, who am I kidding? Sunglasses used to drive me nuts! When I traveled overseas in high school I refused to wear sunglasses because I always thought they would get in my way of "seeing the world". It was not until recently that I found a style of sunglasses that I loved! I've started researching the style and brand that I would like to buy when I come off the road in May and I can now officially add Warby Parker to my wish list!

 Palm Canyon Collection

When I discovered Warby Parker, I fell in love with their new line of eyeglasses and sunglasses that have just been released in their Palm Canyon Collection. They've refreshed some of their best-loved frames in a Palm Springs palette of mesquite, acacia, ironwood, and sand. The design and constructing of the patterns took over a year to perfect and no two pairs are alike. Currently I am swooning over their Winston style sunglasses in Cognac Tortoise and would do anything to add them to my spring and summer wardrobe! Aren't they just darling? And don't worry, for those of you that need prescription lens in your sunglasses, Warby Parker offers that in any of their shades for both men and women. 

Winston

I'm also eying their Preston Red Canyon eyeglasses and wishing something this beautiful was around in elementary school when I had to wear some not so stylin' lens of my own!

Preston

One thing that makes me love this company even more is their mission to "build a company that does good in the world". For every pair of sunglasses and eyeglasses that they sale, they provide a pair to someone in need. Did y'all know that a pair of eyeglasses can improve someones productivity by 20%? As an educator, that just blows my mind! 

Warby Parker

Oh, and did I also mention that with both their sunglasses and eyeglasses you can pick five pairs, have them shipped to your home, and for five days you can try them out to see which ones you like best? You then select the style you want, pay for it, and the rest are shipped back to Warby Parker for free! How cool is that?

Home Try-On

Now that I am done falling in love with this company, which design is your favorite? I also want to remind you all that my first giveaway ends tonight at 11:59PM EST. Don't forget to enter for your chance at winning your very own copy of the awesome book, Blog Inc.!

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Monday Coffee Talk

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about a consistent blog post that I wanted to do on a weekly basis and this weekend it finally hit me..."Coffee Talk" on Mondays! This will be my one rambling post a week to share with you just about anything I'm enjoying over a cup of coffee! 

Lilly Pulitzer Sale: Did anyone else have their alarm set early this morning to wake up in time for the big Lilly sale? I made sure to log on last night and be sure everything in my account was correct so that this morning I could just shop away! Did y'all get any good deals? If you have not already headed on over to the sale check it out via the link below:

New Year Cheer Sale

The Bachelor: Y'all, Juan Pablo is back tonight aka I can sit and swoon  watch as he finds his dream woman! I know, if you're like my parents you are probably thinking A) that show has so much drama and B) the track record of people finding love on that show is slim to nothing. However, I just can't get enough of it! Please tell me some of y'all out there are just as obsessed with this show as I am? It is literally marked down on my planner every single week...yep, Monday nights at 8:00pm I'm free for you Juan!

Current Dog Obsession: My current dog obsession is with English Bulldogs. Josh has always loved them and wanted one but I didn't fall in love with the breed until the past month. A pet store back home has had an English Bulldog puppy in the store for a few weeks and we've played with him twice. Needless to say, I'm hooked and want to buy one ASAP when I get off the road.

Devotional Book: Josh and I are starting a new devotional together today and I am so excited! This book is one we picked up a few years ago but have just never gotten around to going through it together. We decided before I left to come back on the road that we would start this today to make us feel close to one another since we are hundreds of miles apart. I'm excited to spend time with God these next 8 weeks learning how to love him more and support Josh in his faith walk!

Via 

I hope y'all have the best Monday possible! For those of you who are getting this nasty winter weather right now, stay save and warm. I'll try and send you some warmth from good ole South Carolina. Don't forget you still have a little over a week to enter my giveaway for your own copy of Blog, Inc!

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Hottest Deals in Fashion

Yesterday I may have dragged the boyfriend with me to go do a little new year's day shopping! I was told a few months ago by a sweet friend in Georgia that on January 1st every year, Dillard's department store puts their entire store on sale for 50% off. She informed me that this was not really an advertised sale but that I had to try it. So with my heart set on this "huge sale", Josh and I ventured to the mall this morning. Well, to make the correction, the entire store is not on sale, just the clearance items. However, the catch was around 80% of their store had been placed on clearance so aka almost the entire store really was on sale!!! (My heart was smiling!!) Everything that was marked as clearance was an additional 50% off the lowest price. If you follow my instagram account, you saw that I scored a beautiful $149 dress for just $26.07! Is that a deal or what? Since I am fixing to hit the road traveling again on Saturday and won't be able to shop much anymore, I decided to create for y'all a list of some of the biggest online sales that I'm loving right now. Let me know what you think! 

Jcrew.com is having 40% off final sale items through January 7th with the code SHOPHAPPY.

Factory.jcrew.com is also having 40% off clearance items through January 7th with the code SALE40.

Anthropologie.com has 25% off their sale clothing and accessories with 50% off their home sale. Use code WARMUP.

Nordstrom.com is having another semi annual sale with up to 50% off online purchases! 

Bananarepublic.com has 30% off sale items with the code BRGOOD30 till January 6th!

I also decided to link-up with Showered with Design and Happiness is Not a Destination for the month of January to do their Inspire Me 2014 Blog Challenge! They've listed great ideas for almost every day of the month so hop on over to find a prompt you would like to write about! 

Today's prompt for January 2nd was: What did you do for New Years?

My answer to that is not a whole lot and I was perfectly fine with that! Josh came over to my family's house and we all spent the evening together eating a wonderful home cooked meal, playing games together, and watching Modern Family till our stomachs hurt so much from laughing. At 11:50pm we turned the channels to watch the ball drop and then I was able to share a little new year's kiss with my favorite boy! Originally Josh and I were going to attempt to go to Charleston for NYE but with my work having me go back out on the road this Saturday, I decided to spend NYE right at home and soak in every minute I could get with my loved ones!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a copy of Blog, Inc!

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Trendy Thursday

Fall fashion is something that I gush over every year. Sadly with my job of traveling with a suitcase, I won't get to participate in any cute fashion statements this fall (since I'm limited to 50 pounds and trying to save money), but that doesn't mean I can't dream right? So instead I created two outfits of inspiration for you all:

Growing up, I was always told that red was a color of confidence but until this past year I didn't really like wearing the color red. Now that fall is here, red and burgundy are the two colors I am crushing over. Isn't this a cute outfit to wear to work or your next interview? Not to mention the new Kate Spade bag that I would love to add to my Christmas list ;-)

 Who doesn't love an over sized sweater paired with boots and a big bag? Not to mention I threw in a red statement necklace! This Tory Burch boots are already on my Christmas list as well!

What are your favorite colors to wear in the fall?

Fall at the Ivy

As I believe I mentioned in my last post, my job has me stationed at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) through next Monday. For those of you that don't already know, UPENN is an Ivy League school and being here has just blown my mind. Campus culture is so different here from the public university I attended in North Carolina, but at the same time I love it! If you are ever around Philadelphia, I highly encourage you to take a walk through the UPENN campus. From the moment you step foot on Locust Walk, you feel as if you've been transported back in time and thrown into a movie. The buildings are old architecture and every walkway is lined with big oak trees.

Today I had the chance to attend some classes in the fashion design program, which of course I could not turn down. We were each given the challenge of creating an outfit in 30 minutes using clothing from three different name brand stores. Catch was the entire outfit had to cost between $500-$750. We also had to use neutral colors and pick one accessory to add a pop of color too; hint the orange clutch! Now while I am no where close to having the money to buy this outfit, I'm hoping it might give you some inspiration for an upcoming fall shopping trip! Let me know what you think!

Jeans: J.CREW ($168)
Top: J.CREW ($98)

Jacket: LOFT ($108)
Heels: Anthropologie ($158)
Necklace: LOFT ($34.50)
Bangle: LOFT ($16.50)
Clutch: J.CREW ($158)