My 10 Favorite Pinterest Recipes.

     I feel like trying a random recipe from Pinterest is the definition of the phrase "You win some, you lose some." You just never quite know what you're going to get with a Pinterest recipe! I've had some of the worst cooking and baking fails of my life from pins that looked enticing. So why do I keep using my recipe boards for so much of my cooking? Because for every fail, there's been a lot more recipe wins! I've found some of my favorite recipes of all time from pins. Pinterest is also really convenient! I have a large cookbook collection, but nothing beats pulling up a recipe on your phone.

     To save you the hassle of possibly trying a recipe that's no-good, I've rounded up 10 of my favorite Pinterest recipes, with direct links to each pin so you can save them for yourself! A bit about my cooking habits: I love rice based dishes (which you'll see evidenced here!), and I love spicy food. I'm trying to get better about eating more vegetables... but that's a work in progress. Many of these recipes below can be made meatless though! 

    1. Quick and Easy Black Bean and Rice Burritos - This is the Pinterest recipe that I make the most often! If you read my Midweek Ramblings posts where I give a "Recipe of the week," you've definitely heard me reference this a lot. These burritos are super easy to make and a very affordable (and tasty) vegetarian meal! I love making a cheesy burrito for dinner, and I add in hot sauce since I like spicy food. Then the next few days for lunch at work I bring the beans, corn and rice mixture to heat up!

    2. Light and Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup - A great winter soup! It's also just as good without the chicken if you want a vegetarian version. I add a lot of red pepper flakes to it since I like spice.

    3. Italian Herb Meatballs - BEST Italian meatballs ever. Seriously- I think they taste better than a lot of restaurant meatballs. This is my favorite thing to make when I have company for dinner! I accompany the meatballs with a homemade spicy Arrabiata sauce from a cookbook of mine and penne pasta.

    4. Italian Roasted Potatoes - I don't make these as often as some of the other recipes here, but they are delicious! A great side dish to make for a fancier dinner. FYI - the recipe does make a pretty large portion, so I recommend making this is you have company over.

    5. Salsa Verde Chicken Pasta - This is a fun and spicy take on mac n cheese! Personally I prefer this without chicken. 

    6. Korean Beef Rice Bowls - After the burrito recipe above, this is the Pinterest recipe that I make the most often! I was able to buy the Gochujang sauce that the recipe requests at my local grocery store in the ethnic food section.

    7. Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs - This is a totally different type of meatballs than the recipe above, but these are really good, and fairly easy to make!

    8. Garlic Honey Ginger Glazed Salmon - In all honesty, I find fish kind of intimidating to cook and most seafood recipes to be hard to make for just one person (since I live alone), but when I do make it I cook salmon using this recipe! It's very easy and absolutely delicious. 

    9. Banana Cinnamon Muffins - I make muffins regularly. Homemade tastes so much better than store bought, and they're so simple to make! In addition to being a tasty breakfast item, I love baking muffins for road trips or work snacks. Banana muffins are a great way to add some fruit to your day and these are my favorite banana muffins.

    10. Cinnamon Apple Muffins - When I don't make banana muffins, I love making apple muffins! Especially in this season with apples from a local orchard. This is another simple fruit muffin recipe.


     Now here's my request from you! If you enjoyed this blog post, would you leave me a comment below with a link or two to some of your favorite Pinterest recipes? I'm always looking for more to try, and we can keep this going!! I can write a future blog post in a few months after I've tried the ones y'all leave me. 😊



     God Bless,


     xoxo Annaliese
   

Easy Galentine's Day Party Ideas.

     February might not be my favorite month weather-wise, but it does bring a holiday that I do look forward to! No, it's not Valentine's Day... it's Galentine's Day! In the words of character Leslie Knope from the TV show Parks and Rec, "Oh it's only the best day of the year. Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast style." The airing of this episode a few years back is when Galentine's Day I think first became a mainstream thing. Anyways, who doesn't love a day to dress up in red and pink, eat sweet treats, and celebrate the special bond of friendship between girlfriends? Sign me up please!!

      I've had a few fun Galentine's Day celebrations over the last few years, but the best part is they were all very low-key. One year my Big in my sorority and I had a movie night, another year one of my best friends from college and I got all dressed up and went out for a fancy dinner "date" in Uptown Charlotte, and last year a few girlfriends and I went out for a Galentine's brunch- which would have been a very Leslie Knope approved activity! This year, Galentine's seemed like the perfect time to finally host a get-together at my apartment. I love entertaining and have been wanting to have a party for awhile since moving to Vermont, and what better time than a girlfriends' get-together for Galentine's?! I was especially excited to celebrate this year since it took me such a long time to meet and make some girlfriends here in Vermont (which you know if you've been following my post-move update posts!). 

    Anyways, I'll be focusing on how I planned the party in today's blog post, in hopes that it might give you inspiration if you'd like to do something similar with your girlfriends for Galentine's Day! Vermont's weather has been so unpredictable this winter, so I planned the party a couple week's before February 13th/14th, so that it could be rescheduled closer to then if needed for weather. Luckily, the weather ended up being great this weekend so no cancellations were needed. 

     When I plan a party, I like there to be two themes. One theme for the occasion, and one for the food. (The rest of it doesn't need to be over-planned- let people have fun and mingle and enjoy what a get together should be. 😊) Obviously the occasion theme for this party was Galentine's, and spending time with girlfriends. Most of the girls that I was inviting didn't know each other, as I don't have one specific friend group here in Vermont. So I was really excited to introduce the wonderful ladies I have finally met to each other. I decided the food theme would be a cookie swap. Each girl could bring a dozen cookies, so that there would be plenty to eat at the party, and also plenty to swap with each other and take home. Easy peasy right? 

     I purchased a few different pink beverages at Trader Joe's (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and set up some easy Valentine's decor on my dining table. I purchased the table cloth, plates and cutlery at my local Dollar Tree, and the fake floral centerpieces pictured below I made from this Pinterest tutorial! Everything for those was purchased at Dollar Tree as well. 

     My Galentine's cookie swap party was a lot of fun, and it might be an annual party tradition that I continue in the years to come! My friend Anna is a very talented cake baker and decorator, and she made the most beautiful pink and white cake that completed the array of sweets. (Anna just started an Instagram page for her amazing cakes- check her out @thegoldencrumb!)

     

     If a cookie swap party isn't your cup of tea, here are some other easy ideas to celebrate Galentine's Day:

•      Go out to brunch (very Leslie Knope approved!)
•      Have a DIY spa party 
•      Have a chick flick movie marathon 
•      Old fashioned slumber party! 
•      Have a crafting day to make handcrafted Valentines cards 
•      Host a fancy tea party, or go out for a high tea if a local hotel offers that!
•      Have a group Skype date with out-of-town friends

     Here's to the love of friendship, and celebrating our best girls! Have you celebrated Galentine's Day before? Are you planning anything fun for this year? You might have seen a little peek at the outfit that I wore for my Galentine's party on my Instagram stories... I'll be doing a full blog post on the outfit coming soon!

     God Bless,

     xoxo Annaliese 

Decorating My First Christmas Tree.

Photography by Deeana Kourtney Photography

     Now that it's officially December, I feel like it's finally appropriate to share these photos of my Christmas tree! No shame in my game- this has been up in my apartment with lights on since November 1st. I think that might be one of my new holiday traditions in adult life- getting the tree up the day after Halloween! The Christmas season goes by too quickly, and while there are some things that I don't mind waiting on until right before Christmas (*cough cough overplayed Christmas music*), I am all about getting decorations up as early as possible. 

     Since this is my first year of living in an apartment, it's my very first time getting to decorate at my own leisure for the holidays! My dorm rooms in college never had much space. I had a one foot tall silver tree from Hobby Lobby for the past few years, and would always decorate the door to my room with a holiday garland, but that was about the extent of my college decorating. Now that I am out of school, I was too excited to finally have the chance to decorate my little apartment, and not just a college living situation!

     My decorating inspiration for Christmas came from Emily Gemma from The Sweetest Thing. I've been obsessed with Emily's Christmas trees for a few years now as I've been a longtime reader of her blog, but the one that she and her husband John had in their home last year was absolutely unbelievable! I had all the heart eyes as I read that blog post from my dorm room- haha! My tree is green obviously so it couldn't be quite identical to Emily's tree, but I was definitely inspired by the colors, and using ribbon embedded in the three and building a 3D unique sparkly tree topper.

     My tree was actually given to me by my sweet blog photographer, Deeana! She and her husband moved into a new home this year, and had the opportunity to buy a larger Christmas tree. So she gave me their old one! I think that it was the perfect size for my living room. 

     All of my ornaments are from Hobby Lobby or At Home, but I've linked some in similar colors and styles here below. Have you already decorated your home for the holidays? What is your decorating style?

    Hope that y'all will be having a great weekend. This was a very long and weird week for me- more on that in next week's Midweek Ramblings post. On a happier note tonight I will be attending the last of four blog events that I went to this week- I'll try and share a recap post of everything soon! So much happens at this time of year!

     xoxo Miss ALK

Tried and True Pinterest Dinner Recipes.

      There were many things that I was looking forward to about moving into my first apartment this past spring. I couldn't believe that my days of communal laundry rooms, late night fire drills, closet-less clothing storage, and claustrophobically small shower situations were finally over. However, what surprisingly proved to be the absolute greatest thing about having an apartment was the kitchen situation! (Yes- despite that I'm a fashion blogger, my kitchen even beats my walk-in closet for me, can't believe I'm saying that!)


      I absolutely adore cooking and baking- especially baking! I have barely had the opportunity to do either of these things during the past four years while I was in school. The lack of a kitchen access was definitely one downside to living on-campus. Now that I do have a kitchen, I cook and bake all the time! I usually bake some sort of a treat to take with me through the week to school and work as snacks on Saturday or Sunday nights (depending on my schedule), and I try and cook dinner at home on most weeks for the majority of weeknights. It both saves money, and is fun and relaxing for me! I joke all of the time to my friends that I am the world's most single "housewife". ;-)



     I would like to start blogging more about my cooking and baking adventures since it's become such a hobby of mine this year. I thought that sharing a Pinterest recipe round-up post might be of interest to y'all! I do love cookbooks and own many, but usually I prefer to try recipes directly from Pinterest. They can be kind of hit or miss though- I've had some that have turned out to be big hits, and others that have been flops. With Pinterest sometimes you never quite know what you're getting.


    I've done the hard part and actually tested all of these out, but here are some Pinterest recipes that I have deemed to be "tried and true." I would definitely recommend adding any of these to your recipe boards! If y'all would like, I can continue to share Pinterest recipe round-ups as I continue cooking my way through my Pinterest boards. :-)



*Korean Beef Rice Bowls - This might be my favorite dinner recipe of all that I've found and tried from Pinterest since I moved into my apartment! These are very easy to make, and SO tasty. The leftovers are also delicious. I love spicy food, so I always add a lot of red pepper flakes. Also- I've never made mine with the Gochujang (Korean ingredient), but they still come out amazing even without that.



*Garlic Honey Ginger Glazed Salmon - My go-to recipe when I have company for dinner! It tastes much fancier than it is to make! The sauce on this is so delicious (and again- I can't stress how easy it is).



*Sesame Ginger Turkey Meatballs - These are a really unique twist on meatballs. They have such a delicious seasoning blend in them!! They would not be good in traditional spaghetti and meatballs, but are amazing on their own, or served with plain pasta or rice. 




*Slow Cooker Thai Chicken Soup - Can y'all tell that I like Asian influences in my food?! Haha!! This soup really does taste just like Thai curry, it's so good! Since it is a slow cooker soup, it does make a very large portion. I've stopped making it often because it often makes too much just for me to eat, but would be great for having people over for dinner (or for anyone who lives with more than just themselves!).



*Italian Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Potatoes - This is such a tasty side dish!! I have served it before when I've had company over with the glazed salmon recipe that's linked above. It makes a lot- so if you live by yourself you'll definitely have leftovers!!



*Easy Indian Chicken Biryani - A fairly simple Indian dish!! I am not a fan of raisins so I omit them in this recipe, but if you don't mind them then they would add a fun touch of sweetness to the recipe.



*The Best Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup - Another great slow cooker soup option! This would be ideal for a sick day, or for some cold weather comfort food. As with the other soup I shared, my only downside on this is that the portion is huge!




     Happy cooking!! Please let me know if you would like to see more cooking/baking/adulting/apartment living type blog posts. And stay tuned for a fun outfit post tomorrow- we're almost to Friday!



    xoxo Miss ALK

Junior Year Dorm Room Tour!

 

     So this is a blog post that has been a very long time coming (considering that I moved into college for junior year at the end of August!). I did a dorm room tour post during my sophomore year (which was my first year at my current college), and it got a lot of positive feedback. I have been excited to show y'all my room for this year, but I have put it off for a few reasons! The first is that I will be honest and say that I'm not exactly a neat freak. ;-) My side of the room is usually pretty messy, so I had to wait until a weekend when I actually cleaned my side to take these pictures. And secondly, although the dorm that I live in this year is nicer than my old dorm in many ways (No more communal bathrooms! Whoo!), one major downside to my new building is that the lighting is terrible. Both the natural and artificial lighting!! That is why I rarely take pictures for Instagram from inside of my dorm room anymore, and when I do they're highly edited. Anyways, on the afternoon that I did these pictures it was an exceptionally bright afternoon, I had still had to use the flash on my camera for many of them.

     First up- my "closet!" Another thing that I hate about the building that I currently live in is the fact that we don't get real closets. It makes no sense to me- last year I lived in dorm for sophomores, transfer students and exchange students... and we had HUGE closets. (You can look at last year's dorm room tour post here!) But now that I am living in an upperclass dorm all that we have are these little armoire things which kind of remind of the pieces of furniture which often hold TVs in hotels. Haha! Anyways, mine is absolutely stuffed to the brim! #fashionbloggersprobs. I keep all of my winter coats on command hooks by the front door of our dorm room (which is actually on my roommate's side so won't be shown in the post), and I have about 75% of my summer clothes in a huge Rubbermaid tub underneath my bed.
      You can see that on the floor of the "closet" I keep some clothes folded- those are all of my workout clothes and my winter vests! In the drawers under the "closet" are all of my t-shirts, swimwear, and cold weather accessories like gloves and headbands. Above the closet are my crafting and scrapbooking supplies! Back when I was crafting for my Little last semester I kept some of the craft supplies for her up there as well. The large Charlotte Russe bag is what I keep all of my holiday decorations in. :-)

     This is my bureau! This is always probably one of the messiest areas of my room- I always try and keep it organized but it just never stays that way. ;-) My TV is on my bureau (since my bed is right across from it), and I keep all of my earrings, bracelets and rings there as well. And vitamins/medicine! Gotta have all that. Behind my bureau I hang any cards or letters of encouragement from family, friends and sorority sisters. Some of these notes go back to a few years ago when I was in high school! I love my card wall, and it has gotten so tall that I have had to start hanging cards in other parts of the room.

     To the left of my bureau is my desk! Both of the windows in my dorm room are on my side of the room, so my desk gets good light at some times of the day (like I said earlier, the natural lighting in this building is weird). I am unique in that I never do homework at my desk! As you can see from the pictures I have kind of turned it into a make-up vanity area. I also keep a lot of my decorations on the shelves. My desk space adds a lot of color to my room, and I feel that it really shows off my personality! (PS- the Valentine's balloon that's in these pictures was from my roommate, isn't she sweet?)

     This is the first year that I had a shoe rack, and I have it to be so useful! I can't remember if mine is from Target or Walmart, but I know that both stores (and probably anywhere like Bed Bath and Beyond) sells shoe racks that are this size. I keep all of my necklaces behind the shoe rack on command hooks. They are somewhat organized by color.

     And here is my bed and my little attempt at a gallery wall! My bed this year is lofted, and it's the first year of college that I've ever had a lofted bed. It took a lot of getting used to at first (during the first few weeks I used to have to do a running jump to get into it), but now I honestly love having an elevated bed. My bedspread is actually the bedding that was in my bedroom at home in Maine when I was little!! And my comforter is Ralph Lauren (my mom found it at TJ Maxx two years ago).
      This year I tried to make a little gallery wall with various decoration things that I had saved up, and I'm so happy with how it turned out!! It features a couple posters, some shopping bags from my favorite stores, a canvas, and my Lilly Pulitzer painted "A" from an Etsy shop. To the right of it are a bunch of pictures of my friends and family. The bottom of the pictures start at my sophomore year of high school, and the top pictures end this past year at Christmas Break!
      Weird fun fact about the pile of stuffed animals on my bed: all of those are stuffed animals that I've gotten since high school graduation, and none of them have names. All of my beloved childhood stuffed animals are somewhere at home in Maine. :-)

     Lastly, here are a couple little things that I stuck on the front door of my "closet." I don't really like to leave any spaces in my room uncovered. Some of the decorations on my "closet" include my recruitment name tags from sorority recruitment this year, concert tickets and tickets to various school events, stickers, etc... it doesn't take a lot to be creative and find things to decorate dorm rooms! :-)


      I hope you enjoyed the tour of my dorm room! It might have looked itty bitty from the angles that I took the pictures at, but my room this year is actually quite large. I didn't show off my roommate's side in these pictures, but between our sides together and our little "entry-way" (which has our microwave, fridge, and where we keep our coats), our room isn't that small for a double room. If only I just had a real closet!! A girl can dream...


     xoxo Miss ALK

Southern Snow Days!

     A couple of weeks ago, it snowed about half an inch here in Charlotte, and my college had a snow day. I couldn't believe the fact that classes were actually getting cancelled when the grass on the quad was still quite visible under the "snow"... but it happened. I figured that was the most snow that I'd see in Charlotte this winter, and that was fine with me! Oh, how I was wrong...

     Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina is currently getting hit with a Southern version of a blizzard!  The snow began on Tuesday morning, but since it was a wet and mild snow all of the morning classes and the annual spring convocation were still held that day. But all Tuesday night classes were cancelled, and then yesterday (Wednesday), we had our second full snow day! And today it is still storming outside, so we are having our third snow day of the semester. Snow days were a common occurence for me in high school, seeing that I'm from New England. But they're something that I thought I'd only see down here maybe once a year, if that? Certainly not three times in one semester (so far)! 

     So what exactly does one do on a Southern snow day? I am here to fill you in! :-)

The snow beginning to fall on Tuesday

     I had set an alarm for 10:30 am on Wednesday, but after waking up with a headache, I decided to forget about waking up and go back to sleep. I ended up sleeping until 1 pm! But hey, how often do I have the chance to do that?!

     Once I was up, I bundled up as much as I could and headed to the caf for the snow day brunch, and then to our school's bagel shop to get a hot beverage, as they were the only other eatery that was open on campus during the storm. A chai latte was necessary to get through the snowy weather!

     I spent the afternoon watching Netflix and also catching up on last weekend's sermon from my chuch here in Charlotte. I had such a busy weekend that I slept in too late to attend the Sunday services, so I'm happy that this church posts all of the sermons online so I could still tune in! I had a few homework assignments, but nothing was due the next day so I decided to put everything off. :-)

     By early evening, there was over three inches of snow! Being from Maine, this doesn't seem like very much, but for North Carolina this was a BIG storm! Even up North though no one messes with freezing rain, and the fact that it had already started to freeze over was leading everyone to guess that we'd have the next day off from school as well.

     I went to dinner with some sorority sisters, and like all sorority girls of course we had to take some snow pictures!!

     After dinner, a bunch of friends came over to my room. The mix included a sorority sister, a CRU friend, and various friends of theirs, including some girls that I had never even met before! But we decided to watch what is possibly the best movie for bonding girls together... The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and by the end I felt like I knew everyone a lot better. ;-) Because of my weird schedule this semester I don't have friends over in my room that often anymore, so it was fun to entertain and have the room full of new and old friends! We then watched a bit of the Olympics, and while that was going on I got to try out some Pinterest-inspired nail art designs on some of the girls:

Dream catcher nails

Bow nails

This design is supposed to be lemons for "Pink Lemonade"

     

     I had a wonderfully relaxing day, and I'm so thankful that the power stayed on!! Since winter weather related power outages don't happen much in the South, my dorm isn't hooked up to a generator, so I would have had to leave my room and head to a different building for goodness knows how long. I'm praying that the power continues to stay on through our second snow day tomorrow! 

     At first I was a bit angry about the snow, because it means that my Valentine's plans had to be cancelled. Even though those aren't supposed to happen until Friday, I highly doubt that the roads down here will be clear by then. I was supposed to have a fun girls' night with two good friends rom my former college, but we just decided to postpone our plans until next weekend! I had a cute Valentine's outfit picked out for an OOTD post, but that will just have to wait a few more days. :-)

      How's the weather where all of you are at? If you're also in the Carolinas, stay safe until everything clears up!! 

     xoxo Miss ALK

My first Pinterest craft!

     Like many female users of Pinterest, I have a board just for DIY's and craft ideas. All of these pins are projects that I would love to do someday, but it's hard to find time to craft with my school schedule (and after school activities like being in a sorority, etc).

     But a couple of months ago I decided that it was finally time to tackle one of these projects! The one that I chose to do was a Lilly Pulitzer print inspired picture frame, which involved painting an interpretation of the popular Chiquita Bonita print. Despite the fact that my mom is an artist, I did not get her painting genes, and painting has never been something that has come easily to me. But this tutorial looked easy enough, and I decided that if I took my time and wasn't afraid of mistakes then I would attempt it!

     It took me over two months (and packing all the supplies midway through the bring them home in my suitcase), but I finally finished my frame last night! I am very pleased with how it came out!!

     And here is the link to the pin with the tutorial: I found the tutorial to be very easy to follow, even for someone like me who is definitely not an artist!


     Now that I have officially completed a Pinterest craft I am just dying to get started on another! I think that my next big craft project though will be to make a scrapbook for my freshman year of college (last year). Scrapbooking was a passion of mine in high school, and I definitely still have enough supplies to get back into it!


     Have any of you completed any Pinterest crafts lately?


     xoxo Miss ALK

Summer of Something New blog challenge: Week 2

     Happy belated 4th of July everyone!! Hope that you all had a great holiday. I spent the beginning part of my day working at my day camp job, and then I headed to the beach with my parents! My mom's side of the family has an annual 4th of July party in a nearby beach town. My extended family is small but is was wonderful to see everyone. And one of my cousins announced that she and her husband are expecting a baby this winter! I ended my day with going out to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants with a co-worker from the day camp. Is it un-American of me to eat Mexican food on the 4th of July?! Haha. I was very grateful to have the night off from work and to have some time to relax! I have been working a ton of hours the past couple weeks so I haven't had much time for friends and family.

     But highlight of the 4th was the fact that I got to be "twins" with my grandma:

Beach cover-up: Talbots

     Anyways, now onto the main subject of today's post: week 2 of the summer of something new challenge! I was originally working on a Pinterest craft project that I found, but due to my crazy work schedule I didn't have the movitation to finish it. Hopefully that will be next week's "something new." The thing that I chose to do for this week was half inspired by Pinterest and half by the 4th of July- I did 4th of July nail art!

     If you go to my Pinterest you will see that I have been pinning a few nail art designs with anchors and nautical themes lately. I decided that if I stared at some of my favorite nail pins for long enough, I could hopefully try and replicate the design on my nails! For my toes I just wanted to do my own thing. Here are some pictures of the steps that I took! (Ignore the fact that the polish job was very messy at first- I later cleaned up my nails with q-tips and polish remover!)

The finished product on my new favorite summer sheets! :-)

     The stripes on my big toes didn't come out as well as I hoped, but I didn't think it was too terrible for someone who has terrible handwriting and isn't good at fine details. ;-) And I love the way the anchors came out! The anchor design was much easier than I thought it would be, and it's definitely an idea that I will keep in mind for future nail art endeavors!

     My nail art got me in such a 'Merica mood that I had to wear a festive 4th of July outfit as well!

• Tank top: 579 stores (August 2012)
• Shorts: J. Crew (March 2013)
• Belt: Forever 21 {came with a different pair of shorts} (January 2013)
• Sandals: Target (May 2013)
• Earrings: Belk (September 2012)
• Bracelet: Christmas gift from my former boss :-)

      I didn't have time to shower and formally "get ready" for my dinner out after our afternoon at the beach. My hair was a damp and frizzy disaster, so I decided on a simple bun. The length that it's at now makes it hard usually to stay up, but since it was damp it held just fine. I also used gel to make my bangs disappear. ;-) That's why I love side bangs- it's not hard to disguise them! I'm not usually a bun person but I think it worked alright with this outfit.

     I'm obsessed with this cute ruffled tank top that I got last summer. It literally matches everything and was one of the best basic pieces that I've ever bought! Lately I've been tucking it into various pairs of shorts and pants, like I did here. 

     I love the way that these J. Crew shorts fit my body! I've worn them a bunch since I got them this spring at a J. Crew outlet down south. Since the tank top is so "ruffly" I decided against wearing a necklace, so instead I wore a bracelet with a nautical touch and patriotic colors, and some small red hoop earrings. I had gotten those earrings last fall to wear to games and spirit events at my former university since one of the school's colors was red. Glad that I can still get some use out of them! 

     Be sure to check out these blogs today to see more Summer of Something New posts:

• elle-oh-vee
• Forever Convinced
• The Shore Life According to M
• Gina Alyse

     Also- be sure to check out my blog tomorrow! I don't usually post on the weekends but I will have some exciting news about my first ever group giveaway!

     xoxo Miss ALK

I've finally caught the Pinterest bug.

     I tried as long as I could to stay off of Pinterest. When it first became popular a couple years ago, I refused to make an account. When college came along and all of my college friends told me how much they loved it, I still managed to stay away. I always joked with friends and said I'd make an account when I got engaged someday, since Pinterest seemed like a useful tool for wedding planning.

     But then a few nights ago, I started thinking to myself What if I don't get engaged until 20 years from now? Or more? What if I never get engaged? Will I have been missing out on tons of Pinterest fun?! (Seriously, this is what I was thinking.) I happened to be more than a little bored that night, and sp before I knew it, a few computer clicks later lead me to a brand new Pinterest account waiting for me to explore.

     Well folks, it took about 30 seconds for me to be HOOKED. This is why I tried to stay off of it for so long! I knew that I would probably get addicted, and now I happily am. Luckily I have two summer jobs to keep me from being on it 24/7, but I've really enjoyed putting some boards together and following my friends and favorite bloggers over the past few days! I know that joining Pinterest will come in so handy for the Summer of Something New blog challenge, and in fact my "new thing" for this week comes from an idea that I pinned.

     I thought that I'd share with y'all a few of my favorite fashion pins that I've found so far! I especially can't wait to use the sorority recruitment style tips in a few months. :-)




   
      How cute are these outfits? I've already gotten so much outfit inspiration from Pinterest, and I can't wait to purchase some of the pieces that I've seen when I start my back-to-school shopping next month!  And the best part about Pinterest is that fashion is only the tip of the iceburg... I also have nail art and make-up boards, and boards for humor and faith. I haven't even gotten into recipes yet! One thing that I will try and hold off on though is a wedding board... ;-) I want to spend enough time on there that I don't need to start planning something that isn't happening for a looonnngggg time. I think I should work on meeting, dating and getting engaged my groom first, haha!

     I've followed many of my favorite bloggers on Pinterest already, but if you're on there and I haven't followed you yet, follow me and I'll probably follow back! I've added a Pinterest button to my social media icons, or you can just click here!

     Today marks the start of another busy work week for me. I have switched my schedule a little bit so I'm working mornings at camp, and nights at my retail job, which will give me a nice relaxing break everyday in the afternoons. Wonder what I'll spend today's break doing... Pinterest perhaps?


     Happy Monday!


     xoxo Miss ALK


     P.S. The winner of the Qoileez! giveaway is entry #6, Emma!