Monthly Favorites: May

This month's favorites are a bit of a haphazard mess, but here goes!

Milk Bottles –

When I saw this set of 6 milk bottles at Marshall’s I instantly fell in love. I was never able to get behind the drinking out of mason jars trend, but these give a similar hipster vibe while paying homage to the milk bottles of yore (does anyone still say “yore”?). The price couldn’t be beat either: $9.99 for a 6 piece set?! I was sold!

Glasses Cleaner –

Confession time. I’ve had this little gadget for years now, but I never leave home without it once summer (and sunnies season) arrives. I keep a heavily diluted mixture of Windex in the little spray bottle to give my lenses a quick clean with the help of my lint-free cloth. And, should a screw come loose, I have a small screwdriver to put it back into the place. The best part? Everything fits easily into my bag!

Colgate Optic White –

I’ve always been self-conscious when it comes to my teeth, for one reason or another. First, I had bucked-teeth, then braces, and now I’m always fixating on whitening them. I’ve definitely seen some change since I started using Colgate Optic White. I brush my teeth per usual and then apply the Optic White gel. It feels a bit gummy for a few minutes, but then I don’t notice it. Until I can afford professional teeth whitening, I’ll definitely keep using this.

Succulent –

Back in February when I did a design inspo post, I mentioned my love of succulents. Well, I finally got one! It’s a fairly large one that has now taken up residence on my book case, but if I can keep him (yes, I’ve decided it’s a him), then maybe I’ll get a few small ones for my desk.

Audrey Brooke Ballet Flats –

 I’ve been in desperate need of a pair of black ballet flats since my pair fell apart last August. I’ve tried to replace them since then, but each pair I bought ended up destroying my feet and left me hobbling down the sidewalk for days. I was having issues. What first attracted me to these flats was that the leather was soft which boded well for my feet (admittedly, they did end up requiring one good wear to be broken in still). I’m not a huge fan of pointed-toe shoes, but these looked so polished because of it. I’ve been wearing these to work non-stop and love how versatile they are. You can dress down in a pair of jeans or look smart in something a less casual. I'm loving Audrey Brooke right now!

Monthly Musings: May

May was a bit of a stressful month, so I fell a bit behind in my reading of basically everything (books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, you name it). I'm hoping that June will be a bit more relaxing and a bit more productive.  This month's picture is a shot of the Hudson River.

• 19 Burgers You Really Need To Make This Summer - Admittedly, I leave all the grilling to my mother (Brittany + Propane + Fire = Catastrophe), but I couldn't resist these burgers on Buzzfeed.  Since I don't eat beef, burger season can be a bit of a bust for me.  This list had some great vegetarian options though!  The smoky sweet potato one has my name all over it.
• Charlotte Elizabeth Diana is Royal Baby's Name - The moment most of the world was waiting for finally happened on on May 2nd!  The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a girl, who was officially named two days later.  I love the name, especially the fact that she is named after the People's Princess and her late grandmother.  
• Today Is the 151st Birthday of All-Around Feminist Badass Nellie Bly - I love reading about bad-ass women from history, and Nellie Bly was a new name for me. According to the Mother Jones' article, "she was a trailblazing journalist, an unwavering champion for women and the working poor, and a brilliant muckracker. One of her most famous assignments was for the the New York World where she posed as a mentally ill woman and exposed the horrors of a women's asylum on Blackwell's Island. [...] Bly also achieved worldwide fame with her 1889 trip around the world, which was inspired by Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days." I think someone needs to write a novel about her, if they haven't already.
• Every Best Picture Oscar Winner, Ranked From Worst to Best - I love movies and the Oscars, so this article was right up my alley. I've seen almost all of the movies on this list, but I was stoked to see some of my favorites in the top 10 (#8 All About Eve, #7 Gone with the Wind, #1 Casablanca). What do you think of the ranking?
• 50 Best Travel Quotes For Travel Inspiration - Quotes for people suffering from an incurable case of wanderlust, like me.
• #TIPSTUESDAYS: My Props and Backgrounds for Blog Pictures - Frock Me I'm Famous is one of my favorite blogs on the internet, and I love Hayley's #TIPSTUESDAY feature.  I got some great inspiration for props and backgrounds from this post!  Here's hoping I implement some of Hayley's ideas with half her success!
• “Game of Thrones” could learn from “Mad Max: Fury Road” - I've read a lot of articles on (warning: spoiler alert) Sansa's rape since the episode aired, but I thought this was an interesting look at the episode. I was horrified by the scene and agreed with many of the ire-filled rants immediately after the episode aired, but I liked the objectivity of this one.

Photo-Challenge: Macro-photography

I’ve completed my first photo-challenge! Woo! This month I wanted to focus on macro-photography, which happens to be a personal favorite of mine. Macro-photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size, according to Wikipedia. For these photos, I used my Nikon AF-S DX Micron 40/2.8G lens.  Since everything seemed to be blooming, it was hard to not take advantage of the gorgeous flowers and greenery for this challenge.  But I did try to throw some other images into the mix.  So what do you think?  Which photo is your favorite?

I haven't figured out what my photo-challenge for June is yet, but I'm certainly open to suggestions!

Life Lately

It’s been a hectic/crazy/stressful couple of months for me, so I’m hoping that things will begin to even out. I remember thinking that nothing could get more stressful than finals week when I was hammering out 60-80 pages in 10-12 days. Then I didn't have a job until 10 months after graduation and thought that was the most stressful situation I could be in. Then the last couple of months happened. I’m not liking this adulthood stress trajectory…

Mom went for her annual and suddenly had to have bunch of tests because of some abnormalities. If you read my post on Angelina Jolie, Cancer, and Me, then you know that my mom’s side of the family is high risk for gynecological cancers, so yeah. Mom redid the gene tests because they check for more markers than they did years ago, so we waited for ages to hear those results. If Mom had the genes, then both my sister and I could’ve had them as well. Luckily, that test was negative. But Mom also ended up getting a mammogram, some weird ultrasound thing, and a biopsy. Mom and I can be somewhat fatalistic, so we were both fearing the worst. We waited, fretted, and waited some more. Thank goodness all the tests came back negative. BUT STRESSFUL.

With my family’s preoccupation with Mom’s health, everything else kind of got put on the back-burner. I was horrible about eating well (lots of take-out, unhealthy snacking, etc.), so I gained back some of the weight I’d lost while keeping my resolution to eat healthily. I’ve since jumped back on the healthy food bandwagon though! I’m also contemplating doing a teatox to give my healthy lifestyle a bit of a jump-start. The problem is that I hate tea with a fiery passion. So we’ll see how that goes.

Work has been worky but is already slowing down for summer. Summer in publishing means half-days on Fridays and that someone is always on vacation. Little actual work gets done, the response time between emails lag, and I end up doing a lot of filing, reading, and organizing until September. I’m looking forward to Summer Fridays though and hope to go on some mini-adventures that I can blog about!

On a more positive note, I’ve been busy planning France (as you already know). Having different trips and advance tickets to buy gave me something to look forward to while everything else seemed to be going downhill. I can’t believe that France is only 66 days away! I’ll start working on finalizing my itinerary in June.

As far as blogging goes, I feel like I’ve been slacking off as far as being part of the community lately. I’ve been posting content, but I haven’t been taking part in chats or commenting on as many blogs as I would like. I’ve just been so overwhelmed with other aspects of life and also enjoying the gorgeous weather that I’ve been a bit “meh” about sitting inside on my laptop. I plan to start turning things around on that front though!

Anyway, this weekend is Memorial Day Weekend (yay long weekend)! I’m hoping to take a lot of pictures of random things but new content won’t be posted until Monday. Don’t hate me! I want to enjoy the long weekend, de-stress, and hopefully get a little sun. I think my system needs a bit of a re-boot, don't you?  I’ll see you Monday!

So how about you? Have you been dealing with anything stressful recently?

Wardrobe Wishlist: H&M

I’ve been talking about how I want to buy some spring/summer pieces to freshen up my wardrobe for a while now, so I decided I’d do my first wishlist post! I wanted to focus on one of my favorite brands—H&M. Their clothes is affordable (yay savings!), chic, and age-appropriate. A lot of the time I feel like certain brands cater to tweens/teenagers or mothers, but H&M does an amazing job at creating looks for 20 and 30 somethings. For this wishlist, I definitely had outfits for my vacation in mind, but I also wanted pieces that I could easily wear to work (publishing is fairly casual). The pieces I chose just seemed effortless to me. And yes, before you ask, I do really like the color green!

1) Teal Jersey Dress // 2) Black Patterned Jersey Pants // 3) Green Sleeveless Blouse // 4) White Belt // 5) Red Sunglasses // 6) Large Brown Hairstyling Ring // 7) Orange Patterned Sleeveless Dress // 8) Turquoise Dress with Lace // 9) Light Pink Short-sleeved Dress