punk rock princess

When it comes to giant, poofy, tulle skirts, my answer is always, "YES."  I mean, come on, why the hell not, amirite?  So what if this is a totally impractical outfit for daily wear.  Sometimes you just have to put on a giant skirt and rock the hell out of it and feel awesome about it.  Go on, girl, g'head with your bad self.  That being said, you may want to rethink your giant poofy skirt aspirations if it's over 80 degrees outside.  About 5 minutes into this shoot I was sweating balls and feeling very muggy inside my fortress of tulle.  Luckily beads of sweat don't show up too well in photographs.  Plan your tulle adventures accordingly, people!

skirt

/courtesy of

shabby apple

:: top/courtesy of

spotted moth

necklace/francesca's collection ::

shoes

/courtesy of

modcloth

shades

/courtesy of

bonlook

forgetful seasons

ou know summer has arrived when you start getting a sandal strap tan lines.  I did a bunch of gardening with these sandals on, so I had a nice dirt layer "tan-line" but then when I took a shower to wash off the dirt, the lines didn't go away.  Officially summer!  We've been barbecuing and gardening and farmers market-ing like summertime pros.  Summer always throws me for a loop.  I'm so used to bracing for cold when I leave a building, and now when I go outside it's perfectly warm and pleasant.  Now I have to brace for going into buildings with overly ambitious air-conditioning.  I think I prefer that kind of bracing though. Washingtonians are notorious for complaining about the weather regardless of what it is: rain, snow, sun.  They can find a reason to hate it.  Nine months of complaining about grey and rain and then the first week of hot summer weather and we're all, "Waaah! It's hooootttt."  I went to Target the other day to buy a fan and the entire shelf of box fans was empty.  I'm pretty sure Washingtonians forget that summer exists every year.



dress/modcloth :: sandals/courtesy of moorea seal :: necklace/courtesy of musana jewelry

don't worry, be yonce

ridays at my gym are leg-day and last Friday I wore this shirt because I knew that Queen Bey would get me through all the squats and lunges.  Alas, I am still sore three days later.  Oof.  Even the power of Yoncé can't heal 170 calf raises.  Yowch.  On Saturday Dan and I drove up to spend the afternoon with his parents and grandparents and I'm pretty sure I was walking around with the same hobble as his 80+ year old grandma.

I didn't really mention it here on the blog, but if you follow me on Instagram you know I was home in Alaska last week.  My mom is trying to clean up the house now that the nest is empty of all the kids, and after living there for almost 20 years, it's a tall order!  A lot of our stuff is still there being stored, so I went through boxes of my old stuff and tossed a ton of stuff and picked a few things to save that will eventually get shipped down here.  It was an interesting few days, sort of reliving my entire life through all the knick knacks, journals, and photos I'd squirreled away over the years.  Everything from my preschool teacher-parent journal, to boxes of fancily folded passed-notes from my BFF and high school ex-boyfriend.  Stuffed animals, homework, horse show ribbons, yearbooks.  It was interesting to be confronted with so much of my past all within a couple days.

On my last night in town, I dumped out the box of notes from my high school ex-boyfriend on my bed and decided to read them.  All of them.  I knew it was a toxic, unhealthy, manipulative relationship, but reading over a year's worth of his notes all in a few hours was, well, heartbreakingly illuminating.  I found myself both ragingly irate at how he treated me, and devastated for the girl I became while I was with him. I sobbed for her, surrounded by a pile of crumpled, scrawled notes.  I wept for the precious time she wasted trying to manage his emotions and psychological issues.  I cried thinking about how powerless my parents felt watching him writhe his way into my life. I watched, retrospectively, as he tried to shrink that wild-hearted girl into a little safe box where he could control her.  And then I wiped the tears away and the next morning took every last note and burned them.  At first I felt compelled to watch them crumble amidst the flames until ever last one was consumed, but then I decided I wouldn't waste another second of my life on that boy and walked away as they smoldered.

I've done a lot of burning-things activities over the years at retreats, camps, etc., but being able to physically burn that relationship away, even though it was a relationship I hadn't given a thought to in years, burning away all those manipulative words... it was good.


 
top + jacket + shoes/courtesy of modcloth :: tights/target :: bag/courtesy of fossil
 

#FLASHBACKFRIDAY // saturday market

his outfit shoot has always been one of my all time favorites.  It's just in the alley behind my old apartment, but the dreamy sun, dandelions, and the outfit together made this such a fun shoot.  Thinking back to this time, I used to wear so many more hats!  I just noticed all my hats hung on my closet wall the other day and I don't think I've worn any of them since I hung them there!  Perhaps my hat wearing days was just a phase.  This little boater hat looks totally cute in these photos but for some reason I feel like if I wore a boater hat now I'd look ridiculous.  Maybe I'll take that as a challenge to grab this hat off the wall and try to style it up again!

Saturday Market // May 20, 2011

Lately I've been feeling spread too thin. For being technically unemployed, I am doing a hell of a lot of things. This week I've been driving back and forth to various locations, trying to get blog designs completed, stressing about where I'm going to put all my things once I move out of my apartment, working on this blog, trying to maintain a social life and so on and so forth. I'm tired. Let's be real, I'm pretty bad at multitasking. Supposedly girls are wonders at multitasking, but this girl has a one track mind and when I try to diversify, I just end up failing at everything I'm trying to juggle. Right now I have too many commitments and not enough me to fulfill all of them and it stresses me out. Mainly because I don't like failing. I don't like admitting that I can't handle it. I'm competitive, I want to be the best at everything I do, I want to make people proud of me... but sometimes I need to remember that I also need to stay sane.

I think this summer will be good for me. I'll be reeling in some of my overcommitments and I'll be existing more in the real world than the blogosphere, and though I'll probably miss spending as much time as I do now reading my favorite blogs, I think it'll be healthy for me to take a bit of a step back.

dress/courtesy of modcloth :: skirt/vintage via delightful dozen :: shoes/kensiegirl

hat/claires :: shades/vintage

Today I helped with a little fundraiser market for camp, which was pretty fun. I was in charge of the facepainting/hair wrap table. If you've been to my facebook page you've seen my Bowie-inspired facepaint! There ended up not being very many kids at the market though, so I only did facepaint on... me. And I only did a few hair wraps, but it was still fun.

This skirt is from Veronika from the Delightful Dozen. When I saw it I fell in love! It's such a lovely shade of light blue and the vintage cut is so great. It reminds me of something my Mom would've worn when she was my age.

sweet potato steak tacos

ummer days are here, which means barbecues, campfires, popsicles, and tacos are at the top of my must-have list these days.  The thing I love about tacos is that the options are pretty much endless and they're great for throwing together leftover ingredients.  Dan worked for a local restaurant as a cook last year and their kitchen focused on south and latin american inspired dishes, which meant lots of tacos.  He made us lots of tacos during that time but now that he doesn't work there, we've fallen off the taco wagon.  I took it upon myself to get back on that delicious wagon and threw together these babies last week for a scrumptious, fresh dinner.



Ingredients (yield: 6 tacos):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 sweet potato, peeled + diced
1/2 onion, diced
1/4 green and/or red pepper, diced
1/2 c fresh corn
1 tbsp chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
salt + pepper
1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 lb round top steak, thinly sliced
salt + pepper
1 tbsp butter

corn tortillas
lettuce, chopped
shredded/ crumbled , cheese (your choice, cotija is my favorite on tacos, but for these I had aged cheddar on hand)
avocado, sliced
tomado, diced

1. In a pan on medium heat, heat olive oil and add sweet potato and season with salt and pepper.

2. Saute for about 5 minutes and then add onion, peppers, corn, and garlic.

3. Saute for another 25 minutes or until the sweet potato is cooked through and soft.

4. In another pan, heat butter over medium heat.  Add steak slices and season with salt and pepper.  After about 2-3 minutes, flip the slices and continue grilling until cooked through, another few minutes.

5.  If you'd like to heat up the tortillas, heat another pan over medium with a 1/2 tbsp of butter and cook the tortilla for a couple minutes, flipping once.

6. Once everything is done cooking, assemble the tacos and enjoy!