I make it pretty well known on the blog that I'm a big fan of discount online retailer Shein. However- one thing that I had never tried from Shein prior to now were any type of pants or leggings. The under $15 price on these worried me a little bit, but I was pleasantly surprised in how much I loved them! I'm styling them today in this athleisure look, and sharing a bit about what my summer routine outside of work has looked like.
Thank you to Nicholle from Nicholle Sophia for these photos!
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Top c/o {old, similar here} // Leggings c/o {under $15!} // Sports bra {old, similar here} // Sneakers // Lipstick c/o Smooch by April //
This is the perfect example of an outfit that I'd wear both to work, and then later to the gym. I love being able to wear athleisure outfits to work on days that I want to workout after! (The only difference is I would probably throw on a sweatshirt for work... no matter how casual your workplace is spaghetti straps in the office probably aren't a good idea- haha!) I still can't believe that these leggings from Shein are under $15. What a fantastic deal!
Now to talk a little bit about my summer schedule... or perhaps I should say lack-thereof? Life-wise, everything for me was turned completely upside-down when I moved to Vermont in April to begin my post-grad career! I've struggled with time management throughout the past, and with having such a demanding work schedule I knew that I had to do something to organize my time outside of work. I read a great older blog post from one of my favorite bloggers, Katey from Chronicles of Frivolity, who said that after she graduated college and first lived on her own, something that helped her to organize her time was to designate each weekday for some sort of task or activity (outside of work hours). For example, some days for fitness classes, one day a week for errands/boring adult tasks, one day for appointments, one day for seeing girlfriends after work, etc. I thought this was such a great idea and initially I tried to implement this into my new life in Vermont.
Although it worked well at first, it fell apart kind of quickly for me. I talk more about this in my bi-monthly post-move updates, but I haven't really had much of a social life since I moved here, and when I do it's usual very infrequent and last minute plans. Something else that's been going on this summer too is that I've had a lot of company visiting. This has been a lot of fun and has helped to keep my spirits up, but as I don't get time off from work right now, squeezing in multiple visitors around my insane work schedule has proved to be a bit stressful.
All that goes to say- the little out-of-work schedule that I've made for myself has completely gone out the window! Including other things that I was enjoying doing after work, like cooking regular dinners and going to the gym a few times a week. Part of it is that work has really picked up- summer is the busiest time of the year for radio events. This week I work close to 60 hours! I've been feeling a bit burnt out between working so much and running my blog, that when I am home, I've been very unproductive and usually just mindlessly playing on my phone or sleeping. You know that you're burnt out when you don't even have the attention span some nights for Netflix- haha! Another thing is that on days when I do have energy after work, I've been trying to enjoy time by Lake Champlain outside. Vermont has such a short summer and I'm very much a hot weather person, so I feel like I'll have seriously guilt feelings to spend extra time indoors that I don't have to in these short warm weeks.
So after all of that- my question to all of you is: how do you stay productive and on-track in your personal life in the summer months? Do you take a "summer vacation" from some things like cooking, apartment tasks, and the gym? Or do you still hold yourself accountable to your normal routine, even with a super busy work schedule (or two super busy work schedules in my case) and warm weather? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Doing this whole adulting thing is new to me, and I think we can all learn from each other!
After taking last week off, Midweek Ramblings + Recent Purchases + Current Wishlist will be back for tomorrow's Wednesday blog post!
God Bless,
xoxo Annaliese (or Charlotte XO on the radio!)
