Belated Holiday Style.

Sweater: American Eagle Outfitters || Shirt: Talbots || Skirt: c/o Oasis || Boots: DSW || Tights + Socks: {old} || Purse: Target || Necklace: Charming Charlie || Bracelet: {Local boutique} || Lips: eos lip balm

     Finally getting to share my first outfit pictures taken on my new DSLR camera! Due to the fact that after Christmas Maine's weather turned frigid (as unfortunately expected), I actually had my mom snap these photos in the Maine Mall! (Yes- it's called The Maine Mall because where I am from there is only one mall! Haha!) The lighting actually wasn't terrible in there though, and I liked how there were still a few Christmas decorations up. 

     So typically I actually like to stick to traditional fashion rules. I am a dedicated no-whites after Labor Day girl (with the exception of certain winter whites of course!) for example. But in the case of this outfit, I feel like I was breaking a rule! To me, this outfit just screams "holiday style." The combo of the grey and wine colors, all of the sparkly bling, the layers...  however, I wore this outfit after both Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years! So that means Holiday style season was over. ;-) Maybe 2015 will be the year that I start breaking the rules in the fashion department?! 

      One note about my sweater- I have had this sweater since 10th grade! I used to be a big American Eagle Outfitters fan in early high school. I loved this sweater so much that my mom and I actually both had it, and then she gave me hers, so I had it in two colors! (This one might have actually originally been hers!) One of the nice things about being home for Christmas break was that I re-found some old high school clothes and realized I actually still liked them (like these sweaters!). I haven't liked the way that AEO's styles have gone in the past few years though so I don't shop there much anymore, except for jeans. Still adore their jeans! 

     Did you enjoy wearing holiday styles during the holiday season this year? Or after? ;-)

     On a different note, this week is my first week of school for my second semester of junior year! I have a crazy first week, but I'm really happy to be back in North Carolina and on some sort of a schedule again! I am most productive when I am living on a schedule. :-)

     xoxo Miss ALK

Guest post: Favorite Carolina Beaches

     This post is sponsored by Bradford Luxury Apartments and Townhomes

Favorite Carolina Beaches

Are you looking for a quick weekend getaway with plenty of sun and relaxation? One of the perks of living in Cary, NC, is the fact that the beach is just a short drive away. Enjoy a weekend off with the sand under your toes and the sea stretching out in front of you. Here are some of the beaches that are rated well and within a short drive of Cary.

Myrtle Beach

You can't discuss the Carolina's best beaches without discussing Myrtle Beach. The beach that draws the huge tourist crowds, Myrtle Beach provides ample accommodations for its residents. These white sand beaches have multiple free access points, more than any other beach in the nation, and are lined with shops, golf courses, hotels, restaurants and nightlife spots. Myrtle Beach is located about three hours south of Cary.

Wrightsville Beach

About an hour closer to Cary, Wrightsville Beach sits just to the north of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. The draw of this beach is the excellent surfing waves. An added bonus that makes your trip to Wrightsville so appealing is the fact that it has fewer tourist traps than other popular beaches.

Corolla Beach

If you are looking for the secluded beach experience, then take the four-hour drive to Corolla Beach, North Carolina. This is the spot to see North Carolina's famous wild horses grazing among the sands, and you will be hard pressed to see much in the way of development crowding the beauty of the beachfront.

Folly Beach

If you wish to escape the crowds of Myrtle Beach but want a bit more comfort than Corolla Beach offers, then take a trip to Folly Beach in South Carolina. This beachfront community is known for its laid-back lifestyle. You will have ample opportunities to relax! Yet, the city offers restaurants, shopping and other amenities that will mean you do not have to "rough it."

With oceanfront experiences stretching from South Carolina to North Carolina, and all within a half-day's drive of Cary, your next weekend away is sure to be relaxing. You will return rested and rejuvenated, ready to tackle everything that life throws your way. Plan your weekend away to one of these beach destinations today!

This article was contributed by Bradford Luxury Apartments & Townhomes, which is a new, upscale living development that recently opened in Cary, NC, which is within easy driving distance to all of these beaches!

     xoxo Miss ALK

My only New Years' Resolution.

     I usually fail miserably at New Years' Resolutions, and that is my excuse against not making them. I have always kind of fallen under the belief that life changes can begin at any point in the year or on any special day (such as birthdays, anniversaries, or after starting at a new school or new job, etc), and don't necessarily have to begin on January 1st.

    But this year, I am making only one resolution. And I am determined to keep it. I am holding myself accountable not only to me, but to God as well. Here's what my resolution is:


      To attend church every week in 2015, and for weeks when I absolutely cannot, listen to a sermon online. 

     To some of you, this might sound like a simple resolution, and others of you might not understand the significance. Allow me to explain a little bit more about why I feel so strongly about doing this.


     During my freshman year of college, I found a church that I loved. And it certainly wasn't only loved by me! A large enough student population attended that the church had its own special college small group that met Sundays before the services. I absolutely loved attending. Not only did I find myself grown a lot in my faith and spiritual maturity during this year, but I was accountable to attending church because at my school I was responsible for heading up one of the carpools to church.

Just a few of the girls that I attended church with during my freshman year at my former college!

     When I transferred colleges to go to school in Charlotte at the start of my sophomore year, one the first things that I knew I had to do was find a new church to attend. After church-hopping at a couple different places, it didn't take me too long to find a wonderful new church home (which I was so thankful for!).

     But unlike my freshman year, attending church wasn't a community activity for me at my new college. My new church was a mega church and was technically very large, so the numbers of the church weren't the problem, but it was just finding fellow students at school who shared my faith. I did have some Christian friends last year, but they all already had churches of their own that they attended. The great thing about Charlotte is that there are so many wonderful churches... but it just made it a little harder for me since I couldn't find anyone from school that I knew who went to my own church!

     So I went all of last year by myself. In some ways, I learned that it can be good to attend church alone sometimes. It can sometimes be easier to get into the worship music and also easier to fall into deeper prayer when you're alone. But I truly missed the companionship of having friends to talk to about the messages learned from the sermons, and as the school year went on my attendance got more sporatic because without having a carpool group I didn't feel like anyone was pressuring me to go!


      This year (junior year), during the start of my fall semester I only made it to church maybe two times. I am quite ashamed of that now! Every weekend I would just sleep in on Sundays, and on Saturday nights (another time my church offered services), I was always babysitting. I never completely gave up on my faith, but church attendance just stopped being one of my priorities, which now makes me very sad to think about.

     In November, I started going to church weekly again. It was at the same time that my church was doing a sermon series all about the persecuted church around the world. (You can listen to the sermon series here!) This series touched me deeply. As I heard story after story of believers around the world that were literally risking their homes, freedom, and lives just to come together in fellowship and to worship the Lord together, I felt so guilty for the fact that I had not been making attending church a priority. People had been risking it all to do something that I was taking for granted all of the time! What a blessing it is to live in a country like the United States where I am free to attend church and worship the Lord publicly. I should be taking advantage of this as much as possible- not ignoring it!

     It was shortly after this that God also blessed me with finding a couple of friends from school who attended the same church as me! (Weirdly they had been attending just as long as I had but since it's such a large church we had never bumped into each other. :-) ) I started attending church each week with my friends, and just like my freshman year at my former college, it made me feel that much more accountable to attending church since I had people to go with.


     So a combination of all of these things has lead me to make my only resolution of 2015 to attend church every week of this year that I can. If there is a week when I absolutely cannot go (such as traveling, sickness, finals week, etc), then I will absolutely make it a priority to listen to a sermon online. In this modern age of technology, why not use it for good purposes such as "attending church" when one cannot physically attend?!


     I am excited to see how regular church attendance will help grow my faith in 2015! This is a resolution that I am absolutely determined to keep. I started it off by attending church at my home church here in Maine this past Sunday! It's my last Sunday there until the summer, but it's always nice to be back to visit. :-)


     Did you make any resolutions for 2015? I would love to hear them!


     xoxo Miss ALK

Pink & Purple (& Plaid & Pearls).

Shirt: Izod || Jeans: American Eagle Outfitters || Cardigan: L.L. Bean || Boots: UGG Australia || Coat: Lands' End || Sunglasses: LOFT || Earrings: Icing || Necklace: J. Crew Factory || Ring: H.J. Greek || Nails: (Base) NYC New York Color in Mulberry Street & (Top) Sinful Colors in Holiday Rebel || Lips: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Temptress 

     These are some of the last outfit pictures that I will ever post that were shot with my old camera! :-) (I am still a little bit behind with posting things since my computer was out for repairs for a couple weeks.) So anyways, expect to see a big difference in my photo quality soon! But I was still pretty happy with how these turned out. My photographically (is that a word?) talented mom took these pictures for me at one of my favorite local beaches in my hometown the day after Christmas! We were blessed this year with having some very mild weather for the holidays. I'm talking high 40s and even 50 degrees- which never happens in Maine during the winter! It was absolutely perfect weather for taking a beach walk.

     For this outfit I am featuring two of my fashion related Christmas gifts! My parents got me both the shirt that I am wearing and the pearl necklace as well. In the past year or so I have gotten a lot more into wearing button-up shirts, as the layering and styling possibilities are almost endless! And the necklace was one of my favorite Christmas gifts and such a surprise to receive! It is the famous J. Crew Factory multi-strand pearl necklace, and I shared that I really wanted this necklace in my Christmas Wishlist blog post for 2014. Here is the thing though- I never mentioned to my parents that I liked this necklace (nor do I think I ever sent them the blog post- that was more just something fun that I wrote for my blog!). But sure enough they read the post, and surprised me with this necklace in my stocking. :-) Here is a candid picture of me right after opening it!

      Did you get any fashion surprises in your Christmas stocking this year? :-) 

     xoxo Miss ALK

2014: My Year in Review.

     After a very long couple of weeks, my computer is finally back to me from the tech repair shop! (It still has to go back briefly this week to get the battery replaced, but that will be a very quick fix. :-) ) I am so happy to be able to blog again! In the time that I didn't have my laptop I kept brainstorming many ideas for blog posts, as well as shooting OOTDs! So lots of new posts will be up for the whole month of January!

     And what better way to kick things off then with my review of 2014? I have loved reading many other bloggers' 2014 in review posts that were shared before the new year! Mine is coming a little bit late due to my computer issues, but hey, better late than never right?!

     I'm going to be starting off by sharing my favorite OOTD from each month of 2014, and then in the second part of the post recapping some of the highlights that happened in my personal life from each month of the year, and sharing some more personal pictures. :-) First up is 2014 in fashion!


     January

Technically this is December 2013 as this is from my family's Christmas trip to the UK- but it wasn't blogged until January 2014. ;-)

     

     February 

     March

     April 

     May

     June

     July

     August

     September

    October

     November

    December

 
      Thank-you to all of you who have followed along and encouraged my pursuit of fashion blogging during 2014! With receiving my DSLR camera for Christmas 2014, I am so excited to continue to improve the quality of the fashion photography on my blog in 2015, and to also continue to bring all of you great style on an affordable budget! :-) And I am also so grateful to the wonderful brands that I got to collaborate with in the last year- I loved getting to style and review so many wonderful items!

     And now onto some personal highlights from 2014!

   Many of you know that one of the biggest blessings in my life during the past year was my internship at Charlotte's location of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation! I am blessed to be able to continue my internship in 2015. :-) This picture is from my very first day at my internship in January 2014!

     My favorite part of my internship is the hands-on radio experience and getting to meet the sweet hospital patients (Seacrest Studios radio stations are located in childrens' hospitals!)... but getting to meet celebrity visitors that come to the hospital can be a perk too! ;-) One of my favorite guests from my first semester of interning was Dave Coulier, aka Uncle Joey from Full House!

     Another interesting highlight from Winter 2014 was experiencing my first Southern "blizzard." In other words, 3 snow days from school for 4 inches of snow! ;-) Quite the experience for this Maine girl! Here is me, my Big, and another sweet sorority sister of mine throwing what we know out in the snow!

    The start of my Spring Break was quite the adventure! My sweet friend Shara flew down from Maine to spend a few days with me at school, and I surprised her by having her friend Meredith, (an equally talented photographer and also one of the sweetest girls!), who is from Viriginia, join us for two for two of the days. Before Meredith's surprise arrival, Shara and I had already had a busy couple of days! She had met some of my school friends, visited my internship, and we had managed to get both free Chick-Fil-A AND won a giveaway at H&M to win free outfits (read about that here!). Once Meredith joined us the fun continued! We took a day trip and went hiking in the foothills of Western NC to visit some amazing waterfalls, and then on the second day we had a super fun photoshoot in Uptown Charlotte. Honestly those few days were some of my best memories of the whole year!

     My Spring Break fun continued after my time with Shara and Meredith in Charlotte! During the second half of the week, my dad and I took an amazing trip to the Dominican Republic! It was filled with warmth and relaxation. I am so excited because my dad and I are returning to the DR for part of Spring Break this year!! :-)

    April brought ADPi's biggest formal of the year, Black Diamond! My dear friend Ciera, one of my closest friends from my former college, was my date! We had a great time together... and then in turn, I was her date to my former college's Spring Formal during the last week in April!

    So when I think of April 2014, I think of fun times at two great formal events! :-)

   
    Here is a picture that never previously saw my social media! (Not even my personal Facebook!) In early May, right after I came home from college, I got to play the Mad Hatter for an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party at an art gallery in my town! My mom worked at this gallery during summer 2014 and during the tea party event in May she and I both dressed up and helped serve tea to all of the children and families who came. Sometimes being home from school means having interesting experiences like that! :-)
    May was in general a pretty quiet month for me though! I caught up with all of my friends here at home, unpacked from school, worked on my blog, and waited for my work hours to pick up.

      One of the biggest highlights of my whole summer was #BloggersTakeBoston, which happened in June! In short, #BloggersTakeBoston was a fun little blogging meet-up that I helped plan with blogger Ashliegh from The Darling Daily for us and a couple other Her Campus Blogging Network bloggers in the beautiful city of Boston! And best of all, my real life (and fellow blogger) bestie Katie got to join me! Such a fun day.

    The rest of the summer brought me lots of work hours, and lots of beach time when I wasn't working!

    A fun beach photoshoot with some of my favorite Maine girls happened just before I went back to school!


     And once I got back to school for the Fall semester- everything went by way too quickly! This semester was very challenging in some ways, I had some very difficult classes that pushed me to my limits, and for the first time in all of college I had various situations that I felt were really challenging my faith and everything that I stand for at different times in the semester. But on the other hand, I met so many amazing people this fall, and I also got a lot closer to many people that I knew last year but didn't know that well before! Many people that were formally acquaintances are now some of my bestest friends!

    Overall, even though it was certainly a challenging semester, I can say at last that my college now feels like my college. After being a transfer student it took a long time to get to this place, and I am so thankful to be there at last! Here are some snapshots from my fall:

     2014- you were quite the year! 2015 certainly has a lot to beat, but I know that it will be equally wonderful in its own way. I can't wait to see what's in store!

  
     If you made it through this very long post, thank-you! :-) Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for lots of new posts soon!


    xoxo Miss ALK