SATC Reminder to Just Live Life

-Carrie (and basically everyone else according to google)

Okay, I know that this is not originally from Sex and the City. I also know it is not Sunday! I just remember Carrie quoting this in a voiceover and it really stuck with me. When I went to google it, I was reminded how much of a bottomless pit it really could be so I didn't try to attribute it further. 

Anyways...

Hey, remember that one time I was a blogger? Sorry I have yet again been MIA but I feel that this quote pretty solidly summarizes how life has been for me. I got home from beach week on Thursday, started moving all my stuff into the new house on Friday and Saturday, finally saw some of my besties on Sunday, and today I was diagnosed with Pink Eye (blech!). I just haven't had a down moment and most of my friends are leaving this week or at the end of this week for the entire summer so I am savoring every second I can have with them. 

Bigger news is that tomorrow morning (probably when most of you are reading this) I start my internship with Women On Course. I guess one plus side of having an (extremely mild) case of Pink Eye is that I am more concerned with having a bum eye than anything else. I am so excited about this internship and I just cannot wait to get started. Back to the quote though, I really love this one. I was so busy with little things and I really hadn't planned my weekend or day, which is strange for a compulsive list-maker like me, and I realized how much I just went out and did stuff and saw people instead. I have been so busy but it has all been with menial tasks that are never-the-less, important. Relationships with friends and family cannot be sacrificed and that is so easy to do in the hustle and bustle of the school year. 

The first few days of summer break were so nice without a schedule. I really feel like I just lived instead of checked things off and, honestly, it was just as rewarding as crossing an item off a to-do list. Of course, reality is going to start to set in and I am going to create a schedule again and get back to my routine, but these couple of days reminded me that there is more to life than that. Enjoy your summer, take a break, you deserve it.

I know I am personally excited to plan my bedroom at my new house and my apartment for next year...seriously, it is going to be a saving grace with all my friends from home scattered across college campuses around the country. 

Live life to the fullest, because we only get one shot at it.

xoxo,

SSP

Toes in the Water

Hello from North Myrtle Beach, SC! I am sorry I didn't blog the last two days but I had a crazy weekend and now I am in Myrtle with basically all of UVA for Beach Week until Thursday!
I am writing this post from the Krispy Kreme I found while searching for a Starbucks. I just saw that "hot and fresh" sign and couldn't resist, plus they have free wifi (aka I never have to leave). I left the hotel because for some reason I really like to wake up early at the beach and 8:15am during beach week is so dead it's not even funny. Seriously, I sat on the balcony for a bit and saw 6 people on the beach, one of whom was a middle-aged man with a metal detector (I just don't get that hobby).
Anyways, I hope everyone is having a good week either home from college or finishing up finals! If you are at beach week, make good choices ;)
Since I didn't post a Monogram Monday, here is a preview of next week's post! Also, I will do a monogram post on Thursday night (Great Gatsby themed...it's gonna be epic)

Peace, Love, and SpeeGee on, Beach Week 2k13

xoxo,
SSP

Wrapping up the Year

I am posting this while I am prepping for my last final of the year. At 4pm today, I will be officially halfway through college! I cannot believe how quickly it has flown by. Right from my final, I will be Raleigh bound to see my cousin graduate from NC State. It is still hard to believe that she will be done with college, it seems like just yesterday we were stealing my momma's shoes and pretending to own our architecture firm in New York City while living with our New York Yankee husbands!
Highlight of the week: I have to take my fish to my final because I will be checked out of my room and my car is too hot for him...Chubbs is quite the adventurous fish!

Monday

I cannot convey how sorry I am for the rainy Monday curse I seem to have imposed on everyone. I spent the entire day in the library (from 7:30am-6:30pm) and then studied more after that for my exams on Tuesday. Since it was a rainy day and I was going to be spending it's entirety studying, I didn't bother trying to look cute...

Tuesday

If you're going to fail an exam, you may as well look good doing it, right? I had 2 exams on Tuesday and was so nervous for the first one that I showed up in the building of the exam at 7:45am...for a 9am exam. I was the first person in the building, seriously, most of the lights weren't even on. Getting there early did help to calm my nerves though. Again, it rained...it's like Mother Nature knows how awful finals are.

rain coat: Momma hand-me-down // shirt: J. Crew // jeans: Gap // shoes: Sperry // watch: Target // bracelet: Fornash // necklace: Etsy

Wednesday

Oh, it rained again. I took Wednesday off of studying because I only had the Friday exam left and I was exhausted from Sunday-Tuesday of allergies, studying, exam taking, and packing. Basically I blogged all morning and then had lunch with one of my littles. Then I spent the evening with one of my friends who is going abroad next semester...so bummed she isn't going to be here. All around, a nice relaxing day between finals stressing!

sweater: H&M // shorts: J. Crew // shoes: Sperry // earrings: J. Crew // bracelet: Fornash // watch: Target (old) // necklace: Forever 21 (old)

Thursday

I finished packing my room this morning and now I am sitting in the library with a friend trying to figure out what the heck our professor is going to ask us about on our final tomorrow. Have I mentioned that I dislike cumulative finals? Because they stink. 

dress: Walmart ($12...no shame) // bracelet: Fornash (you tired of this one yet?) // shoes: Jack Rogers, because I live in these over the summer

Friday

Finally done with school! I am so excited to leave and go to Raleigh and then Myrtle for beach week with some of my sisters! If you are still taking finals, good luck and for those of you who are done, congrats on surviving another year! Also, good luck to K&N in their district championship lacrosse game tonight!

dress: TJ Maxx // necklace: Darling // bracelets: Fornash // shoes: Jack Rogers

xoxo,
SSP

Who Wore It Wednesday: Met Gala 2013

Finally some down time from finals week to cover the greatest fashion night of the year, The Met's Costume Institute Gala, or Met Ball/Gala. This event is the toast of the fashion season. Sure, Hollywood award shows and red carpets have celebrities traipsing about decked out in all their designer gear, but this even is special. The Met Gala is all about the fashion. Looks tend to be more true to what the original runway design looked like and the designers often strut down the red carpet with their celebrity models. If you want to read more about it, I found a wikipedia article on it (what doesn't wiki cover?).

If I could sit here and review each of the looks for you, I would, but that would take all day (and I can't blog because allergies are giving me the sniffles). As for my opinions of the outfits, I do not approach the Met Gala the same way I would an awards show, like the Oscars. This is a costume gala and therefore I do appreciate some of the more out-there styles. Basically, if you are looking for me to criticize Miley for rocking a punk rock look to the "Punk: From Chaos to Couture" exhibit opening, it isn't going to happen. I do still love the traditional looks, but I am more forgiving with the crazy ones too.

Best Dressed

The looks I featured here are, by no means, the only looks I loved. I was much more impressed with the turn-out at the gala than I anticipated, so I just picked some of my favorite looks from my favorite categories. 

Best Dressed: Sarah Jessica Parker in Giles Deacon (dress) and Phillip Treacy (headpiece)

Congrats to Sarah Jessica Parker for being my favorite dressed celeb on the red carpet, and no, this is not just because I love SATC. In fact, SJP often flubs the red carpet, but something about this event really agrees with her. This is the second time she has claimed the title of my favorite Met Gala dress, the first being 2006 when she strolled hand-in-hand with Alexander McQueen in a dress made from his family's tartan. Girl, you embraced the costume aspect of this event perfectly and still kept it couture. 

Favorite Dress of 2013?: Uma Thurman in Zac Posen. She looks fabulous and I am just absolutely drooling over the way the dress flows and its color.

Punk Rocker: Miley Cyrus in Marc Jacobs. Haters gonna hate, but MileyBird rocks the punk rock look in accordance with tonight's theme. Any other night of the year this would be just grunge but tonight it's perfect.

Disco Ball: Kate Bosworth in Balmain. Great mini dress overall, and the subtle geometric patterns make it interesting to look at.

Adorable: Hailee Steinfeld in Donna Karan Atelier. She looks so cute in this age-appropriate dress and was the best dressed in a tea skirt hemline. J-Law looked good in hers but it was a bit boring and she looked super bored on the red carpet.

Asymmetrical: Kate Beckinsdale in Alberta Ferretti. I am super OCD about my hemlines but the pleating and waist ruching on this dress make it less harsh to look at and still interesting. Also, why doesn't Google Chrome think "ruching" is a word?

Great Train: Blake Lively in Gucci Premiere. The train on this dress is stunning. I love the satin feather look it has, again a seemingly simple dress that is still intriguing to look at.

Best Floral: Anna Wintour in Chanel. How could I not include the Vogue editor-in-chief who puts this event on. Kim, take notes on how to wear floral from Anna, she looks great!

Best Cutouts: Miranda Kerr in Michael Kors. This was a toughy because Emma Watson looked fabulous in her cutout dress, but the tiebreaker goes to the lady who has had a child and still rocks this look. I also love the metallic clutch as a great pop to this outfit.

Goddess-esque: Dylan Lauren in Ralph Lauren. Can Ralph adopt me? The founder of Dylan's Candy Bar looks amazing in this white gown. I love the subtle metalic details that catch the light in certain pictures. Katie Holmes also wore a great Grecian pleated dress, but I just liked Dylan's a bit more.

Little Black Dress: Giselle Budchen in Anthony Vaccarello. Personally, I am not a huge fan of her, but she looks amazing in this dress. It has the perfect amount of punk rock edge with the hardware and I love that she was having fun on the red carpet, almost as much fun as Kristen Stewart always seems to have ;)

Red Hot and Real: Maggie Gyllenhaal in Calvin Klein. She kept it simple and added a fun statement necklace. Red is a tough color to rock on a red carpet this big but Maggie seems to hold her own. It's a great dress that is hot enough for the red carpet and still acceptable for smaller events and galas. 

Men's Wear: Elizabeth Banks in Atelier Versace. There were several men's wear inspired pieces but most kept it simple and black. I love that she went for the tuxedo jacket mini dress. I know it has been done before, but the gold coloring and those fringe sandals make it unique.

Worst Dressed

There were a ton of train wrecks. I decided to stick to mostly A-list celebs and ones that I was disappointed with, not just that completely flubbed. I mean, does anyone really expect the Olsen Twins to dress in something that isn't vintage and 3 sizes to big for them?

Worst Dressed: Kim Kardashian in Riccardo Tisci

Who on earth dressed her? I am not kidding, this is so bad. It looks like Kim broke into an old lady's house and stole the curtains to make this dress. Oh and Kim, covering yourself literally from neck to fingertip does not hide weight gain or flatter a curvy pregnant woman if the dress is that tight and the thigh slit is there. Maybe you were going for the Heidi Klum pregnant, knockout dress, but it didn't work.

What Happened: Beyonce in Givenchy. I expect more out of this woman. She tore up the red carpet last year, but this unbalanced dress with the horrible matching thigh-high boots was not okay. SJP rocked the thing-highs under a dress, B did not. 

Happy or Sad: Kristen Stewart in Stella McCartney. Here's a shock, Kristen Stewart scowled on the red carpet. I seriously want to shake some emotion into this girl, ugh. This onesie/romper is a total no go. There is nothing flattering about it and her expression fails to sell it at all.

Vampire: Nicole Richie in Topshop. Nicole looks like a vampire and not in a Twilight sparkely and pretty kind of way. If it weren't for her fake-baked skin tone she would seriously look like the Corpse Bride. I see the attempt at a punky edge to a white dress, but the results just aren't there.

Tight and Bright: Lisa Marie Falcon in (no one cares because it's ugly?). So basically this is a middle-aged woman in a too tight dress with her bra exposed, just a hot mess that reflects several of the other disasters I saw.

Frumpy: Gwyneth Paltrow in Valentino. Maybe this is her response to the backlash over her side-bearing cutouts in her last red carpet appearance  but it isn't working for me. She has an amazing figure and usually takes advantage of it, but not in this dress. It actually kind of reminds me of Sleeping Beauty's gown...not in a good way.

THE Train Wreck: Madonna in Givenchy. Sorry to share this. It was really just too awful not to. I really don't think I need to explain the 50 shades of ugly this outfit is.

What were your favorite and least favorite Met Gala looks?

xoxo,

SSP

Monogrammed Dorm Room

This weekend, in addition to being completely sidelined by my allergies, I sent over half of my dorm room home with Momma. I am going right from my final on Friday to Raleigh for NC State's graduation and I absolutely cannot pack all of my stuff into my Toyota Highlander. Realistically, we were going to need two cars to move my room anyways (as you can tell, I have an excessive amount of clothing) so this just allowed me to see Momma for a bit. I know I saw her last week and I will see her again this weekend, but we haven't had any time to just hang out and finals always make me anxious and homesick.
First thing about Monogrammed Monday, Charlottesville peeps, I am sorry for being the reason it has rained almost every Monday since I wanted it to the day after Spring Break. I promise I won't wish for anything like that again. Anyways, today is all about a super easy monogram DIY. I love wall monograms and especially the lasered wood ones that are super popular now, but being a girl on a budget calls for more economically friendly options.
The monogram on my wall could not have been easier or more inexpensive to create. Seriously, it is the wood letters from Michael's and some paint. I wanted to add a personal touch to my room and all my accents are pink and green. Then I saw the Lilly paper lanterns at the bookstore and I decided they were necessary to frame my monogram. This acted as an awesome headboard since I didn't actually have one. Also, I added more decorations to the walls later because my room felt like a jail cell. Cinderblock walls, really? I am not going to miss this room, at all, mostly because I literally live at the farthest, most isolated point of grounds. 

old picstitch from right after I decorated 

I will do a dorm decorating post later in the summer when I have some time. For now, I have to turn on my self-control app and get some studying done for my 2 exams tomorrow!

xoxo,
SSP

Fashion Friday: Mega Catch-Up Edition!

So I finally have a moment to breathe and of course I am going to spend it catching up on this blog a bit. So much has happened over the last two weeks and I was totally out of pocket driving back and forth to my house twice last weekend! Now is time for finals and packing up and getting ready for summer. The end of the year is always so bittersweet, but I am really excited for beach week with some awesome sisters and my internship this summer

Last Week Roundup First!

Monday:

The weather did that thing where it refused to be especially warm despite the time of year. I usually don't like wearing skinny jeans tucked into my cowboy boots, but I actually liked this look. And of course, one of my go-to Ralph Lauren button ups...seriously, I'd be lost without these.

top: Ralph Lauren // jeans: Gap // boots: Ariat

Tuesday: 

Long live the boyfriend jean. How about we keep these around forever because they are the most comfortable things ever. I love the Gap ones because they have the super soft wash so basically they feel like pajamas! 

top: Target // jeans: Gap // shoes: Steve Madden // necklace: old // bracelets: Fornash // belt: boutique around home, but they have these everywhere

Wednesday:

The. Chambray. Dress. making it's debut. I love this dress, you just can't beat $12 at Old Navy (I think it's back to full price now). Target also had a bunch of chambray dresses when I went in today, so there are plenty of options out there!

dress: Old Navy // bracelets: old // shoes: Jack Rogers

Thursday: 

I love basic black and color. It is so easy to take this basic outfit and change it however you want. This blazer is perfect for this time of year because it's just cotton so it is light enough for mid-afternoon and casual enough for everyday wear.

blazer: Target (last year) // jeans: H&M // shoes: Jack Rogers 

Saturday:

During the day I was just in a running skirt because I had to go pick up my race packet, but I got to go to the capitals game that night! I love hockey, seriously, I could watch it all day. I hadn't gotten to go to any games because the lockout conveniently ended just in time for me to go back to school so I was over-the-moon about this game. For those of you wondering, the Caps beat the Bruins 4-3 in overtime! 

top: Caps store // jeans: American Eagle // shoes: Target (last year)

Sunday:

13.1 miles DONE at the Nike Women's Half Marathon! Did any of y'all run it too? I ended up hurting my foot so I couldn't actually run the whole thing (ugh) but I was still happy that I finished. It actually marks 6 months until the Marine Corps Marathon that I am running in October. Anyways I ran this with a couple of sisters, well I would've run more 'with them' if I knew how to click buttons and sign up for corral groups (I was in the 12-14 minute mile pace...whoops). For those of you who don't know, the finishers of this race get a special Nike Tiffany&Co. necklace for finishing the race instead of a medal. After the race, I drove right back to C-Ville since I had to finish 2 papers!

Monday:

First of all, I honestly thought I was going to fall on my face walking down stairs because I was so sore. And then I drove 2 hours back home so I was doubly cramped haha! That's right, after turning in my papers, Katie and I drove home to see our brothers' lacrosse senior night. It was an amazing game and I am so glad I went. They won in overtime and K had 4 goals (N is on defense)! I am so proud of them, seriously, they are amazing men and I cannot believe all those boys are graduating and going off to college!

I wore K's jersey and pin (could it be any bigger?) and Momma wore N's..also, they announced me as "Megan" when we walked N, luckily they got it right when we walked K!

Oh, and today I found out that K got first team all-district and N got honorable mention...heck yeah! Also, I did not anticipate wearing a red jersey when I brought home red pants for those of you who saw those pics on facebook...

Tuesday:

Pink and Yellow is such a happy combination. I think I am going to have to start wearing it more because I just love it so much. Got really creative with the Ralph Lauren button down...again. This button down is a bigger and looser fit though, you know, for those days when you just want to be really comfortable.

top: Ralph Lauren // jeans: Gap // shoes: Jack Rogers // bracelet: Fornash

Wednesday:

Stripes and mint, another combination that will be getting more action in the near future. As you can tell by now, 3" J. Crew chinos are my go-to short and can add so much life to any outfit. This bracelet I am wearing is Fornash and just feeds my starfish jewelry addiction. I didn't realize that I have so much starfish jewelry until recently, but they are great because it's a subtle enough touch of summer that it can be worn year round.

top: H&M // shorts: J. Crew // belt: Gap // shoes: Jack Rogers // bracelet: Fornash

Thursday and Friday:

I went back to my favorite study spot yesterday and rocked leggings and a t-shirt both days. I had a really hard final this morning and just needed to not think about my outfit. However, usually I go for the "if I am going to fail, I may as well look good" approach to exams, just not today. I also engaged in a little retail therapy as you can see on my instagram. Just walking around Target puts me in a better mood, a gift card and amazing clearance prices only further that happiness. 

Have an amazing weekend! And I promise that I will try to put up a couple of posts next week!

xoxo,

SSP

Checking In!

Sorry I have been MIA. I will be back this weekend, but I have had a crazy last weekend/week and am trying to catch up. Plus, this week kicks off Finals Season! 

how gorgeous is the view of my new study escape?

And for all of you lovelies suffering through finals too, you can do it! Just think, summer is right around the corner!

You is kind.
You is smart.

You is important.

-Aibileen Clark (The Help)

xoxo,

SSP