Life Update: WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE!!! 🏡

      I am beyond thrilled to share the most exciting life update with you today. As of yesterday, we are first-time HOMEOWNERS! 2025 has been really been quite the year so far. I thought that finally getting a new career opportunity in May would be my biggest life update of the year, but I think this might even trump that. 😊 

Maggy London Dress Try-On + Discount Code!

      One of my favorite parts about my new career path is finally having a job with a more formal daily dress code for the office! I have been absolutely loving putting together daily Business Professional outfits for work. A dress brand that has quickly come on my radar over the past month is Maggy London. I was so excited to get an email from the Maggy London team to gift me a couple of their pieces, and I have an exclusive discount code to share with you today, too!    

Wedding Wednesday: 3 Months Out Checklist + Q&A

       This year is flying by, I can't believe we are now less than three months out from our wedding! Let's catch up on the planning that I've done in the last few months, and what I need to knock out in the final months of being engaged. 

Wedding Wednesday: 6 Months Out Checklist + Q&A

     It's time for another Wedding Wednesday! May 16th marked six months until our wedding day. It's really starting to go by quickly now! I knocked tons of wedding to-do's between my first checklist post (at nine months out) and now. Let's get to it!

My 2024 Word of the Year.

      I usually try to get my Word of the Year post published before the end of January each year, but it totally escaped my mind this year since the first month of this year was so busy with wedding planning. But better late than never, right? 😊 I am really excited about my 2024 Word of the Year. This year's is such a good fit for my current life stage, and it also has such a positive connotation attached to it. I'm also sharing a few photos of one of my favorite casual winter outfits! 

Wedding Wednesday: 9 Months Out Checklist + Early Wedding Planning Q&A

       Welcome back to Wedding Wednesday!! We are officially nine months out from our wedding month... November 2024! (Yes, this spring and summer lover is going to be a late fall bride! Who would've thought?!) I thought it would be fun today to share a little checklist of things I've done so far and things that I'm hoping to do between now and the six-month mark. We got engaged less than a week before Thanksgiving 2023, so with the craziness of the holiday season I didn't really start wedding planning until after New Years. But we sure got a lot done in January, which I feel really good about. I'm excited to share my first wedding planning checklist here on the blog today!

A Couple Health Updates.

      The first half of 2023 brought some frustration and uncertainties when it came to my health. Luckily nothing has been serious enough to warrant hospital stays or anything like that, but everything still brought me anxiety.  Not only was there health anxiety, but financial anxiety as well from having not-so-great health insurance and a lot of medical bills in a short amount of time. I am so thankful now that one of the things seems to be on the road to healing, and the other thankfully ended up just being a scare that never turned into anything further. But it was a really tough first half of the year with these things going on, if I'm being honest with you! 

      Writing blog posts of a more personal nature like today's is always cathartic to me and can also help bring a natural sense of closure with life events. I'll give you a heads up that today's post is pretty lengthy! (I'm not offended if you skim since it is lengthy. 😉)

     

A Different Type of Moving Announcement!

     I've shared a lot of moving related announcements on the blog over the past decade. In fact- the whole idea of starting this blog was kind of based on the idea that I had just moved far away for college, from Maine to North Carolina! And in the years since college, there's been many more long distance and local moves within the various places I've lived for radio jobs. 

      Today's upcoming moving announcement isn't related to school or my career. I'm not leaving my current radio job, nor leaving the Virginia Beach area. It's a local move from one apartment to another. But it is a very big deal, and something that I might not have expected I'd decide to even as recently as a couple of years ago. On July 8th (this weekend!), I'll be moving into my boyfriend Ryan's apartment! 

This picture of Delilah in my apartment always makes me smile!

101 in 1001 List: 6 Month Update

      It's now been over six months since I kicked off my latest 101 in 1001 bucket list! I like doing check-ins a couple times a year to see how many goals I've managed to accomplish, and to plan which ones I'd like to tackle next. I am proud of how many I've knocked off in the first six months. Definitely a strong start I think!

A Month of Dinner by Larson Folkerts - Recipe Booklet Review

       I love cooking and baking, but sometimes feel overwhelmed taking the time to cook from scratch on weeknights. I stay pretty busy in my M-F life; between work (and sometimes having weekday evening work events), Junior League commitments, working out, spending time with Ryan, meeting up with friends, chores in my apartment...etc! I'm not even a wife or parent yet and I already feel pretty busy most weeknights. 

     I am a connoisseur of cookbooks with a decent sized collection on my bookshelves, and I also have many food blogs that I enjoy reading. But even with all of these recipes at my disposal, sometimes I still feel overwhelmed and too pressed for time to jump into anything. I can't tell you how many times I've tried a new cookbook recipe thinking it will be quick, and two hours later I'm still working on it. For years now, I've been looking for an organized "database" of sorts for recipes that are actually both quick and delicious that I can easily turn to on busy weekdays. Something that's easily accessible and doesn't involve digging through cookbooks or food blogs when in a pinch. For a couple years I really enjoyed doing the Hello Fresh meal kits, but their prices kept getting higher and higher. 

     What has finally helped to solve my weeknight dinner recipe dilemmas? The A Month of Dinner recipe booklets by Larson Folkerts! I have been loving these for the past six months, and it's about time I finally write a dedicated review of them on the blog. These recipe booklets have helped so much with my weeknight dinner woes, and I think they can help you a lot too!

My 2023 Word of the Year.

      I've been picking a Word of the Year for the past several years, and it's always fun to watch the year go by and see how that word played into my experiences, goals, and memories of those 12 months. For 2023, I actually struggled a little bit with picking one! But I finally did make a selection, and I'm excited to share it today. 

Kicking Off My Second 101 in 1001 List!

      I couldn't be more excited to share and begin my second-ever 101 in 1001 bucket list! I began my first list in September 2019, and it wrapped up this past summer. I was able to complete 43 out of 101 items, which I feel like wasn't bad for my first time doing this. (I also think Covid happening in the middle of it didn't help- a lot of the items on the list were off-limits in 2020!) By the way- you can see my first 101 in 1001 list and all of the updates over the years HERE!

My First 101 in 1001: Final Update

     This post is coming a few months late, but that's due to my blogging break this summer. Hopefully better late than never for my final update on my first-ever 101 in 1001 bucket list!! 

Why I'm Glad I Joined Junior League - My New Member Year Recap.

       One of the biggest highlights of the past year for me has been joining my local chapter of Junior League! Junior League (JL) is a worldwide women's community service organization, and I had always wanted to get involved at some point in adulthood. Moving to Virginia Beach last summer seemed like the perfect time to finally join. I can say with certainty that joining Junior League Norfolk-Virginia Beach absolutely has 100% exceeded any expectations that I had about JL before joining!! It's been the most positive experience, and as my New Member year is coming to a close, I wanted to recap everything on the blog! 

How to Make a Bachelorette Party *Extra Special* For the Bride-To-Be! 💍

      I am currently planning a bachelorette party for the first time! Last month, I reached out for some bachelorette planning advice on Instagram Stories, and wow did all of you former brides and former maids-of-honor deliver!! I received so much good advice that I wanted to round it all up and share it here on the blog, as I know I can't be the only person out there who is planning a bachelorette party for the first time and wanting to make it extra memorable for the bride-to-be.

     

The "Southern Belle in Training" Origin Story: How I Fell in Love With the Southeast.

      2022 is a milestone year for me in a few different ways. June will mark 10 years since I graduated from high school, and September will mark 10 years since I started this blog! (This year will also bring some smaller 10 year milestones: like it being 10 years since I joined Instagram as @miss_alk, 10 years since I got my belly button pierced, and 10 years since I made the mistake of perming my hair for the first and only time. Ha!) But my first milestone that turns 10 this year is one that happened in January 2012- probably right around this exact week. And that would be the day that I had the epiphany that I  needed to move to the South for college.

My 2022 New Year's Resolutions + Word of the Year.

     New year = new goals! I'm excited to share my 2022 resolutions with you today, as well as my word of the year. And we will also check in to see how my 2021 goals turned out. (Spoiler: although I didn't share it publicly in last year's resolutions blog post, my top resolution for 2021 was to move and get a new job. CHECK! 😊)

Duolingo App Review + My Story with Learning French.

      My pandemic hobby that I'm most proud of and that I've stuck with the most consistently is practicing the French language on the Duolingo app. In August, I hit my one year anniversary of using Duolingo, and I'm proud of myself for continuing on for this long! I wanted to share a  review and some thoughts about how much I like Duolingo. I apologize in advance for how long this post is- I had a lot to say!

What I Can't Stop Procrastinating On.

      I've found that I am a lot more likely to do something that I need to do if I share it publicly on Instagram or my blog to hold myself accountable. Working my way through my first 101 in 1001 bucket list has really affirmed this! For the past few weeks, I've been trying to find the motivation to do a few last post-move tasks here in Virginia Beach. I'm still looking for that motivation, so today I figured I'd share these things with y'all in hopes that it will be the kick I need to actually do this stuff. Ha! 

3 Months in Virginia Beach - How It's Going So Far!

      I can't believe that it's already been three months since I moved to Virginia Beach! I feel like I blinked and the first 90 days went by. Although I share small day-to-day updates week week in my Midweek Ramblings posts, I thought it might be good to get all caught up on how everything has really been going since I moved here. (Spoiler alert: very good!)