Happy Monday loves! Can you believe today is the last day of August? Where did this month go?  I was worried about Erika making landfall this week but it appears we got the worst of her over the weekend even though she's not even a tropical storm any more. You gotta love the unpredictability of hurricanes/tropical storms. You never really know what they're going to do until they're pretty much on top of you. Speaking of the weekend, linking up with my blogger bestie, Biana, for our weekend recap! 

Friday night was extremely laid back for me. I made an amazing prosciutto pappardelle meal for dinner. I started to take pictures to post it as a recipe but just like every other time, I failed to take a picture of the finished product before devouring it so... maybe next time! Other than that, I curled up on the couch and enjoyed some relaxing time. 

Saturday I woke up early (ok, I do that pretty much every day) and I'm glad I did. The weather was GORGEOUS! I woke up and took Novie outside and was pleasantly surprised to find the temperatures in he mid-70's and and not incredibly humid.  Mid afternoon we headed downtown to do some tailgating for the Orlando City soccer game. I hadn't been to the new stadium (my alma mater, UCF, used to play in the same stadium YEARS ago) so it was cool to see how it had changed. Unfortunately we got a TON of rain so the game was delayed multiple times due to bad weather, the parking lot we parked in flooded pretty badly, and the winds were so bad that someone's tailgate tent went flying and of course smacked right into our car.


It wasn't the greatest game, but at least we didn't lose. We didn't win, but we didn't lose. We did however get 3 inches of rain and I left the stadium looking like a drowned rat and I'm pretty sure my sandals are ruined. Next time I'm breaking out the rain boots.

Sunday I did some grocery shopping and reading/movie watching since the weather was rainy all day. I am definitely ready for fall around here, this rain every day is getting pretty old. Not to mention I'd love some weather not in the upper 90's! We have our first home football game this Thursday so if it wants to cool off before then I wouldn't complain!

Hope everyone has a great week! I'll leave you with Taylor's new video because she's amazing and I'm obsessed with that song! Can we talk about how gorgeous she is with brown hair?!

 

Happy Friday dolls! Hope everyone had a fantastic week! I'm finally starting to feel a bit better so I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit this weekend. Thank goodness for draft posts otherwise I probably would have only posted like once this week! 


4. Apparently I don't own a single purple shirt. Or dress. Or skirt. Nada. Guess purple isn't my color. But I'm going to an Orlando City Soccer game on Saturday and their color is purple so I picked up the Flowerista color by Essie. So perfect for the game and it looks gorgeous in person!


5. Guys, soup season is RIGHT around the corner and this tortellini soup looks amazing! Is it too early to to make soup? I mean, we're supposed to get a hurricane on Tuesday. That means soup is ok, right? I don't know where my justification came from there but I'll take it!

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend! See you on Monday!

Happy Friday eve dolls! Thank you for all the support and kind words yesterday. I thought I was ready to publish that post but then after I re-read it I started bawling so maybe I wasn't quite ready but I'm getting there. I appreciate all your support, you guys are the best! In the meantime, today I'm sharing with you another look from my Charleston trip that you may or may not have seen on my Instagram account while we were gone! I wore this outfit out on Friday night when we went out for drinks with all of the other blogger ladies and even though I don't usually wear crop tops, I am in love with this outfit!

I wrote about these shorts on one of my Friday Favorites posts way before I ever got them but I'm so glad I did because they are the perfect shorts to wear out on a casual or dress occasion, not to mention they're incredibly comfortable! I am a little sad that they're under $10 now but I guess summer is coming to an end so I shouldn't be surprised! I think I wore this outfit out on the hottest day while we were in Charleston so I melted a little with the quarter length sleeves but it'd be perfect in the fall!



I'm not going to lie, I've written this post multiple times over the past few months and just never published it. Although those times it was different from the way I'm feeling now so now looking back it's almost like a private look into my feelings throughout the course of this journey. I'm usually a fairly private person on my blog, don't get me wrong, I blog about real life and things I do but I try to keep my friends (who aren't bloggers) and family private from here for the most part which might be part of the reason I never hit publish on those posts or it could be because it made it less real if I didn't say it to the whole world. I feel like I'm handling it pretty well now so I decided to finally hit publish.

For those of you who don't already know, my grandmother passed away this weekend. She was my last living grandparent and the one I spent the most time with growing up. As an only child I used to spend every summer with her and my grandfather in Bar Harbor, Maine for the majority of my childhood. I haven't gotten to see her much lately, but when I talked to her on the phone, she could talk your ear off. I don't know how many times I had to get off the phone with her strictly because my cell phone battery was dying and not because we had run out of things to say.

I found out my grandmother was sick on Mother's Day this year. She was diagnosed with colon cancer but at the time we didn't know how much longer she had left to live. I didn't call her right after I heard the news because I hard a hard time not bursting out crying but when I called her the next day you would have never guessed she was sick. She sounded exactly like her normal self, I can still hear her saying "Why hello there little one" (something she's said to me since I was extremely little even though I'm not little any more and she has younger grandchildren now) when she figured out it was me. It was hard to be sad for her by the time I got off the phone because she was so upbeat and positive about the whole thing. As weeks went on I started noticing her health deteriorating and she seemed tired more often. Several stints in the hospital later I found out in July that she only had three months left to live. It hit me again that this was really happening but things happened so fast from there that I didn't really have much time to process it. A little over a month later my grandmother passed away in a hospice before I ever even got the chance to go up and say goodbye in person. My mom made it out to see her a few weeks ago and because of technology I got to FaceTime with her one last time. The last few weeks were especially hard, watching her deteriorate so quickly when we thought we had more time was rough. Part of me thinks that she wanted to speed up the process and that she was ready to leave this earth. My grandmother passed away on her 63rd wedding anniversary. I like to believe that she left when she did because she had a date planned with my grandfather to celebrate. Love you.

Thank you so much to everyone for all the kind words, texts and messages. I know I said it yesterday but I truly do have such an amazing support system and have found so many amazing long-term friends through blogging.



First off, I want to give a huge thank you for all the thoughts and prayers yesterday, you ladies are so amazing. I have met so many wonderful, thoughtful, strong and kind women through the blogging community that sometimes I don't know what I would do without all of you. Your sweet texts and messages yesterday really put a smile on my face so thank you again! I wrote this post while on the plane back from Charleston otherwise I still might not be ready to post today but I'll hopefully be back fully tomorrow.

Tribal print has been done a million times before but I love that it's still such a popular print right now and seems to be going strong for fall as well! I love everything from the colors to the different patterns and how versatile it is. You have so many different options for wearing it which is why it was pretty funny when myself, Biana and Amanda all got dressed one day during our Charleston trip all wearing a different version of tribal print.

I wore a strapless tribal print maxi that you probably remember seeing on Zelle a few weeks ago. I absolutely fell in love with that maxi so I ran out to get it, especially after seeing the price point. I knew it would be perfect for walking around Charleston and versatile enough to be worn out to dinner or drinks sometime. The material is lightweight enough where it wasn't too hot (especially since I wore this on our hottest day in Charleston and the day we did the most walking) and it's super comfy. Be sure to heave over to B's blog and check out how she rocked the tribal print while we were in Charleston!

Happy Monday loves. I had a rough weekend but not wanting to skip the link up with one of my favorite people, Biana, I decided to share my weekend in pictures today. I didn't have an overly eventful weekend any way so there's not really much to talk about but I hope you all had a great weekend. 

Thank you so much to B and Kate for checking in on me this weekend and a big thank you to Kerri for coming over and sitting around in yoga pants and drinking wine with me to make me feel better. As much as it sucks losing at games your commentary was just what I needed.

Happy Friday dolls!  We finally made it! Is it just me or did this feel like the longest week ever? Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration but I felt like it was Thursday on Wednesday so my days were all off. But the weekend is finally here and I plan on doing plenty of relaxing to try to kick this cold I have, completely out of my system. Speaking of, thank you for all your sweet get well wishes and suggestions yesterday, you guys are amazing! MUAH! Since it's Friday, let's link up with Amanda, for our Friday Favorites!

1. Since my post on Wednesday about the shoes that will always be in style, I've been on the hunt for the perfect Valentino Rockstud dupes. I want the flats and the kitten heels and I am extremely happy that I found BOTH for amazing prices on Amazon! I'm definitely getting these flats (I just can't decide between nude and red) and these kitten heels!


2. I have a confession. I am obsessed with this stuff and I've only been using it a week. No seriously. It. Is. Amazing. I mean, Princess Kate uses this stuff. It has to be good, right? I plan on doing a full review when I've been using it for a month or so but I am totally in love so far. It's expensive but worth every penny.

3. When Karly posted that it was 60 degrees where she lives yesterday I got extremely jealous. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT a fan of cold weather so I love where I live but I miss fall like crazy. It was my favorite season and now we skip right over it. Fall in Cincinnati is so gorgeous (as you can see from above) so I really start to miss it this time of year.


4. I finally got my mermaid Alex & Ani bracelet (thank you Amanda!!) so my next one needs to be this adorable penguin. Since penguins are my favorite animal this definitely needs to be added to my collection. I also kinda love this.


5. Finally, I want this mug SO bad but I don't want to have to order it. Why is there not a Nordstrom within a 100 mile radius of me?!? It's not like I live in a tiny city or something. Stupid Florida Mall. I'll probably end up giving in and getting in, especially for when it gets to be cold out and I drink more hot coffee and tea!

Alright, that's it for this week! Hope everyone has an amazing weekend, I'll see you all again on Monday!



Happy Friday eve pretty ladies! I am a bit under the weather today so I'm taking the day off from blogging to relax, and recharge and hope I get whatever I managed to catch out of my system before the weekend. I don't know if something is going around or whether I managed to pick something up while traveling but either way it is no fun being sick in the summer! The lovely Biana advised me to gargle with warm water and sea salt and that's helping but if you have any other suggestions for a sore throat feel free to throw them my way! I need to be better by Sunday for a friend's birthday brunch! I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully) sharing my Friday Favorites with ya'll!

Trends come and go, in fact it was Karl Lagerfeld once said "Trendy is the last stage before tacky" but true style lasts forever. I've gone back and forth between loving trends and wanting to buy pieces that are timeless but the one thing I prefer to buy that is timeless is shoes. I love a good pair of shoes but I'd rather spend a little more and get a great pair of shoes than spend less and get a pair that will be no longer in style in a year or two. Here are a few shoes you can buy any time of the year and know they'll still be in style 10 years down the road because they truly are timeless.

1. The Christian Louboutin Pigalle Pumps. Whether you go for the black or the nude, these pumps have been around for 11 years now and are still very much so in style and don't look like they'll be going away any time soon. 

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2. The classic Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. This sneaker has been around since 1917 and has only had minor changes made to it since then. The beauty of Chuck Taylors is that they go with anything. From jeans and t-shirts, to dresses and even wedding gowns, Chucks definitely aren't going any where any time soon.

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3. The Valentino Rockstud Collection. I blame bloggers for this one! This collection was introduced in 2010 and now consists of pumps, flats, bags, sandals and even boots. Yup, you read that correctly. The Rockstud Chelsea boot is already predicted to be one of the must-have fall staples. 

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4. Hunter Rain Boots. Yup, you can never go wrong with a pair of Hunter wellies! No matter what color you choose they are sure to brighten up a rainy/snowy day. They're perfect for any season and look cute with any outfit. Hunter's have been around for 150 years so have no fear, these aren't going any where!

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Happy Tuesday lovelies! Hope everyone's week is off to a fantastic start! So, as most everyone in the Midwest knows, it's festival season. One of the things I love about Florida is the festivals we have. We might not have the same fairs I used to go to when I lived in the Midwest but we have a festival for everything. From the Spring Beer Fling to Ribfest there truly is a festival for everyone but one of my favorites is the Summer of Rum Festival. Located just outside of Tampa in Ybor City, the Summer of Rum Festival celebrates National Rum Day in true pirate style  for the third year in a row.

The Summer of Rum Festival is an inside and outside experience (which was great considering we had some gross weather) where you can visit several different "Rum Zones" and try cocktails like the classic daiquiri, mojitos, mai tai's, rum punches and so much more!



 In addition to the "Rum Zones" there were different vendors from Caribbean food, clothing and accessories and of course a cigar vendor. I mean, you can't have a a rum festival at a Cuban Club without cigars, right? There was also live entertainment featuring multiple bands and even a Polynesian fire show to keep you entertained while walking around and trying things!