What I’m Loving

A little weekly roundup of things that have caught my eye!

1) College Prepster’s Bedroom…and PJ’s!

I just think she’s adorable. Carly recently added this Anthropologie wallpaper to her bedroom wall, and I’m in love with the print, the colour…it’s all good! I wish I could do something similar–but I think the RA’s might frown on wallpaper in a dorm room. 

I do, however, plan on adding some comfy PJs to my fall/winter shopping list. I love that the ones featured here have a long sleeve top and shorts on bottom. Paired in a cute flannel print, they’re the perfect loungewear for cosy mornings spent doing homework and watching Halloween movies. 

2) Fizzy, pretty drinks!

 

Moscato Blueberry Cocktail

The Sarasota…so pretty!

Now that I’m 21, I find the prettiest, sparkliest drinks are catching my eye on Pinterest. My go-to is Moscato with cranberry sierra mist: it’s fizzy, fun, and a pretty pink color! These picks are a little more labor intensive, but they’re all lovely and look delicious! Maybe I’ll play mixologist this weekend. 

3) Reading Plays…

All of the plays. I just found out that auditions for next semester will be in two weeks. The same weekend that my show goes up. Oof. So I have been scrambling to read some new scripts. I’m a big fan of the stuff published by the National theatres of England, Ireland, and Scotland. They’re amazing, and the stuff is new and visceral and a little crazy. All good stuff, and a little outside the box. 

Hope you all have a good weekend! I’ll be spending mine with friends, celebrating the end of a long week, and in rehearsals, of course 🙂

Another Year Older

I turned 21 on Monday! I’ve been having to remind myself that I am, in fact, now 21 ever since. I love that feeling of birthdays: you always expect to wake up and the world will have shifted, something will be illuminated. You’ll be another year older, and another year wiser. Usually, that doesn’t happen. But with 21, I have to admit, I do feel a little different.

As a society, we build up this birthday so much. Visions of drunken debauchery danced in my head as I planned my quiet, small gatherings with friends.  I even had the thought: am I doing this wrong?  Wow. That is how permeated we’ve become with the idea of a crazy, wild 21st. My friends, thankfully, reminded me that it was my birthday. I could spend it in any way that I saw fit.

So we had a fall celebration, complete with popcorn, candy corn, orange dark chocolate, and homemade dark chocolate yogurt brownies. There might even have been some hot cocoa with Baileys.

I am excited for this year. 20 brought challenges in many forms. 21 is sure to bring more. But I feel like I’m finally beginning to know myself. Even when I don’t know exactly what I want, I can recognize that I’m on a journey, and the present moment is just as important as the coming ones.

I’ll be posting my Bucketlist for Age 21 soon!

I Dream in Tory Burch…

Tory Burch happened to have a Friends and Family sale the other day. I was immediately excited–till I realized that the beautiful footwear I was lusting after was still a little out of my price range. But this fall, I’m enjoying even dreaming about owning a pair (or two or three) of her gorgeous designs.  What is calling your name?

Ballet Flats.

The Serena 2

The Caroline

The Caitlin Studded

The Serena Lizard Printed

The Boots.

Bristol Riding Boot

Rosalie Riding Boot

Milan Wedge Bootie

 

 

A Little Resting Now and Then…

brings peace to the wisest men. I’m taking a liberty with the Willy Wonka quote here, but you catch my drift. I’ve been feeling off the past four days: the worse kind of sick, where you’re just tired, achy, and gross enough to want to stay in bed all day…but not sick enough to actually do so. I think it might be a combination of a minor cold and exhaustion, so there really isn’t much medicine for that…besides rest. Not one of my strong suits.

You know I’m feeling bad if I skip my runs, and I took four off days in a row. FOUR. That is almost unheard of. Every day, I told myself I’d get back out the door. But then I would climb the stairs to my room, feel absolutely exhausted, and remind myself that sometimes the most helpful option is to just let yourself take a break.  Note: I only came to this realization after frequent anxious texts to my wonderful mom, along the lines of, “But what if I lose my mile time?” Ridiculous, silly, and a good reminder that there are far more important things in life than working yourself so hard.

I had my first loop back in the running shoes today…and felt GREAT. I wasn’t miserable. I wasn’t achy.  I was just happy to be out running again.  It’s amazing: taking the couple of days off actually brought back the joy that attracted me to a running routine in the first place!

Gotta love life’s moments of realizations.

Adventure is out there

I’ve been planning for my next summer. It’s a little scary in some ways…the last summer of college! But I am so excited about the world of opportunities that are open to me. Thinking about studying abroad makes me realize the whole world is open: I could pick up tomorrow and leave for Botswana or cypress or Latvia or cancun. And I would be fine. The world would keep on spinning. I forget sometimes that I have a world full of freedom. An absolutely beautiful thing to realize when you’re 20…I have a whole life to go on adventures and change lives. True beauty. Adventure is out there.

Hope for Today

It’s been a stressful couple of weeks, y’all. School has really kicked into high gear. I feel like I’m always saying that, but there’s something different about the balance of classes and rehearsals this year. In the past, I was busy rehearsing and running from thing to thing. Since I haven’t begun rehearsals yet (they start Friday! I can’t wait!), I’ve had more unstructured time. Note that I’m not saying free time. I feel like I’ve spent more time doing homework and trying to stay on top of things than ever before, but it gets overwhelming when the time is unstructured. Even though I’m an organized person, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. 

This post from MindBodyGreen could not have come at a more serendipitous time.  It made me feel so much better about life in general, and reminded me that, yes, there is life outside of college. And I am doing a good job. Sometimes you need that little reminder to get you through the week.