Fashion, Travel & Lifestyle Blog || Est. 2012 || Virginia Beach, VA
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!
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.
Williamsburg is one of America's most historic towns, and (without traffic) it's under an hour away from where I live! Christmastime in Williamsburg is especially charming. There's something special about a very classic and historic area being decked out for Christmas. Most of the buildings within Colonial Williamsburg participate in an annual wreath decorating contest. All of the materials and decorations for the wreaths have to be naturally sourced, and things that would've been around in the 1700s. So that means no Christmas lights, modern ornaments, or tinsel! Instead, you'll see lots of pinecones and sticks, fruit, shells, and more natural items. You can read more about the history of the wreath contest here!
I had to share some festive photos with you from a recent day trip to Williamsburg a couple weekends ago. I feel extra lucky this season as I also got to go back to Williamsburg for another day trip this past weekend, so I got to see all of this twice!
Oh goodness- I am feeling so over winter fashion and ready to full break into the spring section of my closet. It's felt like a very long winter in Virginia Beach. While this past week has brought some really nice mild temperatures, the first three weeks of February were all very cold for the most part. Winter fashion has never been my favorite, but this year I've been especially uninspired with winter clothes. I feel like next year I might have to really overhaul this part of my closet- ha!
Anyways, here are my work outfits (and one airport outfit) from February:
Oh my gosh- was this month like the longest January ever for anyone else?! I honestly didn't think there would ever be a January longer than 2021, but I think this year might actually have it beat. After an unseasonably warm December, January in Virginia was both cold and snowy. Brrrr! I also knew more people than at any point in the pandemic who had COVID this past month, which kind of added another layer of uncertainty and frustration to the month.
Kind of continuing with how I felt at the end of last year, this month I still felt very "meh" about a lot of things in my closet, and a lot of the work outfits I put together this month. Winter fashion is just not my favorite- what can I say? The first outfit below with my snakeskin midi skirt is probably my favorite one that I wore this month.
Today marks six months since I moved to Virginia Beach! I wrote a pretty lengthy post-move update at the three month mark back in October. Today's post definitely won't be quite as long, but I am still excited to share a recap of the first half-year I've spent living and working in Hampton Roads!
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! 😊)
This post is going to be very short in comparison to most of my monthly work outfit round-ups, because I'm publishing it pretty early in the month! I leave tomorrow to go home to Maine for Christmas for the rest of the week, and for the last week of December all I have planned on the blog are my annual Year in Review posts. So today was the day for me to share this months work outfits, even though December is only like halfway done- ha! Also- can you tell that I upgraded my phone halfway through this month? I can totally notice a change in photo quality on some of these!
This December in Virginia Beach has been unseasonably warm. There's been multiple days in the 70s (!!), a ton of days in the 60s, and I think the coldest highs of the month have been in the 50s. My type of December!! I'm so here for this.
Happy December! I wanted to share this casual holiday look with y'all today, and a few thoughts about this holiday season being a lot more normal than 2020. So much to be thankful for and excited about this month!
This has been the most wintery month ever in the almost three years that I've lived in Charlottesville. I've never seen so much snow and so many consecutive days of freezing cold temperatures in a one month period in Virginia. Brrr! I have to be honest- the weather and some other things this month made it tough for me to get excited about my work outfits like I normally do. You'll find more than a few days in the outfits below where I just threw on snow boots or UGGS, a sweater, jeans and called it a day. But, I did try to look semi-cute for at least a few days of the month, and I'm already more excited for March work outfits!
Today kicks off the third week of February- which historically has been one of my very favorite weeks of recent years! And no- it actually has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, although I am a big Galentine's enthusiast. I'm actually quite a big fan of the whole month of February (not just the third week!), and I figured that finally deserved a blog post.
What's the cure to a long and cold winter season during a pandemic? A.) lots of PINK, and B.) heart balloons! Am I wearing this outfit anywhere soon that's not this Richmond parking decor for these photos? No. But did it bring me so much joy to wear it for the sake of the blog and share it with you today? YES! And I think we all need more joy right now... 😊
Here's all of my work outfits from the first month of the year! It has been a snow-less month in Charlottesville, but it has still felt very much like winter. The first half of the month was pretty mild, but the last week or two have been pretty cold. This has been one of the harder months of the pandemic so far for me- between the cold weather making it hard to do safe activities outside, and the steadily rising cases in my area, it's easy to feel discouraged some days. But I'm hanging in there! I hope you are too.
Fashion trends come and go, and I do my best to keep up with them. I think my personal style is like 50% classic (preppy, timeless and feminine), and 50% trendy. While there are usually some trends each year that I love, I've found that in recent years there's more and more that I'm not into. (Maybe that means I'm getting old?! 😉Haha.) Let's start off this week on the blog by chatting about the three current trends that I personally *don't get*. And I'll also share one that I've been surprisingly loving! That one is is something I'm wearing in these photos- can you guess it?
I am a big fan of resolutions with the start of each new year, but if I had to be honest I had trouble for the first couple weeks of 2021 narrowing mine down for this year! Life still seems so uncertain as we are in such a difficult part of the pandemic. I didn't want to make resolutions that would be unrealistic for how the rest of the year ends up being. But after a lot of brainstorming, I finally came up with some that should be good goals to work towards- pandemic or not! I'm also going over last year's resolutions, and sharing my word of the year.
Although I have no plans for New Year's Eve this year, I still wanted to dress up in a pretty and sparkly outfit at home to celebrate the end of 2020. But in true fashion for this year, there was a bit of a mishap with the outfit I was hoping to wear at home. Fortunately, I got these outfit pictures before that happened, so I can at least share what I planned to wear with you today!
It's my last month of work outfits for 2020! I feel I should start off this month's post by saying I feel very grateful to still have had a reason to share work outfits with you from March until now. I've continued going into work at the radio station this whole year during the pandemic. While there have been moments of anxiety with still physically going to work (especially this month when we saw our first positive cases at work), overall I think it was very good for my mental health to still physically leave my apartment M-F for work rather than working from home.
This month I definitely dressed down a little more often than I normally do for work (a lot of jeans and sweaters thrown together) but I still tried to look presentable! In January I'm hoping to style more of my favorite winter dresses and skirts with tights for work outfits. I also included the ugly sweater outfit that I wore on Christmas Eve morning!
Last month, I purchased my very first designer clothing piece! While I do have a couple of lower-priced designer shoes and bags, I'd never had a clothing item that could be considered designer before. I am so excited about the gorgeous sweater that I ended up getting from Olivia Rubin, so wanted to write a full review of it! If you're new to my occasional Designer Diaries series, it's where I review purchases that are big splurges and share if I think they're worth it or not. It is rare that I get fashion items that are very expensive, and I try to be very thoughtful about those purchases, which is why I like to review them after using them here on the blog!
