braids

Watching a lot of Game of Thrones has made me want to put my hair in braids more. I'll watch some tutorials probably soon to attempt some of the looks from the show. I wanted to share this hair inspiration with all of you!

I'm sort of joking with the last picture. Man, they've got some great hair on this show. I'm going to go recreate all of these looks now!

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

a productive and unproductive week

As the title suggests this week I was pretty productive and unproductive. Uh, wait, whaaat? You probably asked yourself. Well I'll tell you. Monday was Memorial Day so all I did was help get a dinner ready for my cousins. I guess that's pretty productive. The rest of the week was either spent crying because of the Nats, applying for jobs, watching Game of Thrones, or trying to clean my room (it never really gets anywhere). You can decide for yourself which of those were productive and which weren't. Yesterday I had to get my dad from the doctor's because he had a procedure to break up a kidney stone so I picked him up but earlier that day before I got him I spent time with my amico going into every single store in Tysons 2. We didn't buy anything. So you could say the productivity balanced out the un-productivity. That's alright, right?

It's finally Friday so you know what that means!!

Likes:
1. The bathrooms are finished!! The bathrooms are finished!! No strange men walking around my house everyday!
2. Getting thank you notes written and putting them in the mailbox
3. My panama hat :-))))

Dislikes:
1. Cleaning my room - it's a never ending process
2. Hormonal breakouts
3. Waking up later than usual

Tonight my sister and I are going to see the Nats play. Let's hope we actually get a win.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

A summery patriotic-y cute outfit

I wore this outfit for a Memorial Day party last weekend and I decided that it was perfect for just about every summer event. Fourth of July? Great. Firefly outfit? Perfect. Going out in DC outfit? Oh yeah, definitely! It is the bees knees, the cats pajamas, and could be a normal person's pajamas. Ok, here is the outfit.

The hat is from h&m, the dress is from h&m, the sandals are from Target (they're from last summer but there are similar styles there now!), the nail polish is Essie's A-List. 

The dress is so easy to wear and so comfy. It is great. Also very inexpensive. I was going to say cheap but then you'd think it was, well, cheap. I was and am still in love with the panama hats from J Crew last summer and now this spring/summer but they are $60 and I do not have $60 to spend on hats so those will have to be a no go. I found this one at h&m for a fifth of the price and I said to myself, "This is it! This is what you've been waiting for!" I got it and there has been absolutely no buyer's remorse. The quality is not as nice as the J Crew ones but I am still very happy. 

I'm really looking forward to wearing this around town this summer. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

Really Good Recipes #2

Over the weekend we had family coming over so my mom decided to make a big Memorial Day meal that included barbecue chicken, roasted vegetables, and other delectable side dishes. She didn't know what to make for dessert so I said I would find something on Pinterest to whip up. What I found I already knew I loved because we had made it before. This is the most delicious, decadent, chocolatey goodness bar anyone could ever imagine. Be warned: you will want to make this right away and then eat all of it in a matter of minutes. I am not exaggerating. Proceed with caution.

Double Chocolate Oreo Brownies

Ugh, these are so good. We served them with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream and everyone went gaga. A riot almost broke out they were so delicious. Ok, so I am sort of kidding but they are really good. Here are the ingredients:

1 package of Oreos, crushed

3/4 cup of butter

14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk

12 ounces of mini chocolate chips

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  

2. In a food processor or blender or in a plastic zip-lock bag crush up the package of Oreos into crumbs. If crushed in a zip-lock bag, place crumbs into a large bowl.

3. Melt the butter and pour into the crumbs. Mix well into the crumbs. Take the mixture and completely cover the bottom of a glass 9x12 baking pan pressing down the cookie and butter mixture to create the bottom layer crust.

4. Pour the condensed milk into a bowl with a cup of the chocolate chips and put in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt the chocolate. Afterwards pour the mixture on top of the cookie crust. 

5. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips evenly over the chocolate and condensed milk layer. 

6. Put in over for 10 minutes. Once done, take out for 30 minutes on a cooling rack, then place in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

7. Take out, cut into squares, enjoy!!

It is a really easy recipe and have I mentioned how good it is?? I'm going to try and resist eating more of it now. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline  

Good Guide

During my Dead Week trip to Myrtle my friend told me about an app she really liked called Good Guide. It is an app that grades products based on how good it is for the user's health, the environment, and society. My friend said she checked it before she bought anything and it made me super curious about the products I had, loved, and bought a million times. It is a really great app because it tells you the ingredients that are in the products and which ingredients are low, medium, and high health concerns. It is amazing how many of these are in products that I use. I was shocked. It is also really great because it also tells you healthier alternatives to the products that do not rank so high in the health category.

There's also a website!

There are a few, good and bad products, I wanted to post about that really surprised me and will definitely affect the way I shop in the future. Here are the products:

Covergirl Lashblast Mascara: This product surprised me because it got a rating of zero for health. Zero??? I've put this on my eyelashes so many times. What makes this so bad?? I looked through the ingredients list and the one ingredient that gets the worst health concern is actually an ingredient that hopefully will be substituted soon with something better. If you go look up this mascara on the app you'll see what I mean. I will wait to repurchase this until that ingredient is taken out.

Monistat Soothing Care Skin Protection Powder-Gel: You might be wondering why I would look this product up but I actually use it as a primer before foundation. Many of the ingredients (almost all) are the same as the Smashbox Photo Finish primer, a primer loved by all gurus and bloggers alike. This product surprised me, 1. because it got a 10 on health, and then 2. because it got a 3.2 for environment and society. The 10 is extremely good. This was the first product I've seen with a 10 rating for anything but the 3.2's are so low. That's horrible! Although those are some pretty low scores the 10 is amazing and it works great as a primer.

Method All Purpose Cleaner Spray in Lavender: I always thought cleaning products were absolutely horrible for the environment and for your health but just about everything Method product I saw got over an 8 rating for everything. That is amazing. We use the all purpose spray at my house and I always loved using it because it never made my head hurt. Now I know why! The hand soaps also got a great rating.

Nars Blush in Orgasm: I didn't think that this product would get any high ratings (I looked up the Urban Decay Naked pallets and they all got horrible scores) but it did get a great rating for environment. It got over an 8 for environment which brings up its overall score so much because the other two scores are nowhere near it. According to the app, the Nars company is ranked in the 25% of all companies due to it's environmental practices. Who knew makeup products could be better for the environment than your face.

Go look up some of your favorite products and see how they rank! It will definitely make you rethink repurchasing some things.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

Happy Memorial Day!

I kind of took a few days off to spend time with friends and family. Normal posts will start again tomorrow. Here's a picture of my and my new love as an "I'm sorry" for not posting in a while.

Until next time,

Caroline

Winter is coming

My mom and I started to watch Game of Thrones today. We only watched the first half of the first episode because she had to get ready to go into DC. We'll watch the second half tomorrow. Hopefully things don't get too interesting after tomorrow's half or else I might try and watch it without her. She doesn't know how to find the episodes so I'm pretty much the only way to find anything at the moment.

Now I finally (sort of) get this meme!

There's not too much more I'll post about today. I've been getting slowly back into running so soon there will be an update on that. I haven't done too many outfit posts recently so I'll get back into those soon too. Woo, much to look forward to on TLS. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

When is enough enough?

The word enough is just a weird word. I don't really like the ending 'f' sound that the -ough makes. Also, I don't like the way it's used. "Is that enough?" or, "I've had enough," or, whatever else you say with enough but it just is not my favorite word. Its like, you can't have enough of a good thing but then too much of a good thing is too much or you've had enough of a bad thing but how much is enough? I'm not really sure what I'm saying. Does this make sense?

Because of certain events that have transpired in the past few months I just have to ask myself, when is enough of this enough? This goes for a lot of different things. When do I have enough makeup on my face (I can go overboard, sigh), when have I had enough food (I can also really go overboard), did I run enough (not usually a problem)? Finally, and this is kind of the worst, when have I had enough of people's actions that make me or other people feel bad. There is only so much I can take. I have a friend who doesn't really treat another friend so great and that makes me feel horrible. When will enough of that be enough for me? I felt the need to say something a few months ago but that didn't help at all so now what? It clearly wasn't enough!

I think I've had this problem where I know I'm fed up with something, I've definitely had enough, but I don't act on it. I bottle it up and it eventually blows up. It's a problem that I think a lot of people have too. It's just scary sometimes to be honest with people. I guess to stop being this way I and everyone else have to channel our inner Meridas and be brave. Ha, like the movie Brave! Btw, I need to watch that again. It's a good movie.

Why can't everyone just be sincere and kind to each other?! #asktwitter

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

really good recipes #1

I've been making dinner a lot since I've been home and I wanted to start a series called "really good recipes," which will feature the better dinners I attempt. One day I'll be at that blogger level where I have a nice camera and I take step-by-step pictures for all of my lovely readers but that day is unfortunately not today. But, I do know lots of great recipes!!! I wanted to share what I made last night because it was so good.

chick peas with spinach and eggs with a strawberry and cucumber salad

I saw this meal on my favorite YouTuber's vlog channel . Her boyfriend does these cooking videos and this was his latest creation. I told my mom what he made and she immediately thought we should make it that night. So we popped on over to Giant to get a few of the ingredients. We modified the salad dressing because we couldn't get one of the ingredients but instead we used a salad dressing my mom had already made that was a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, salt, pepper, and mustard and it turned out amazing. It was especially good with the strawberries. This is the video he made. I think just about everyone would like it. 

                      

I really want to make this again. Everyone loved it. Even my little sister who is sometimes a picky eater (not as much anymore but boy, does she not like Pad Thai).

Try it out!

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

May 2.0 (??) Spotify Playlist

I'm not really sure why but last year I didn't make a May Spotify playlist. How did this happen? I have an April playlist and then a June 2.0 but no May...this is very odd because I was definitely still listening to Spotify in May. It is for sure a mystery but we're just going to pretend like last year I made a May playlist and be done with it. This playlist was kind of put off but I never forgot about it! Better late than never, right? Here's the playlist in all of its screen shot glory:

As you've probably gathered from previous posts I am going to Firefly next month. I am using this playlist as an opportunity to binge listen to some of the bands going to really get in the mood. Now, that being said, Disclosure, Nico & Vinz, Calvin Harris, and St. Lucia won't be there, I just love these songs. Nbd, nbd. Everyone else will be at Firefly and they're all on my list of bands I want to see. This is just the beginning of the playlist so if you have Spotify and want to hear the rest of it you can search my name and I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find me. Don't even ask about me putting some sort of link to the playlist, I have no idea how to do that. 

I need to eat something. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

I haven't failed just yet!

I know this is late, but, there are still 20 minutes left of today! I haven't stopped the consecutive posts just yet! Today was busy. I woke up early, went to church, went to DC for a Nats game, came back, made dinner, threw a baseball stress ball around for a long time, and then just about passed out while watching the Red Sox and the Tigers with a special friend. I'm ready to go to bed.

This upcoming week I am FINALLY going to finish the unpacking. There are a few piles of things around my room that I really need to find someplace to put. It is going to be a struggle. Pray 4 me.

Good job to me for getting this done before midnight.

Until next time,

Caroline

Firefly

In almost exactly a month I'm going up to Dover, Delaware for Firefly Music Festival. It's four (three and a half?) days of music and bopping around with the framily. The last festival I went to was Freefest, which funnily enough I am wearing the shirt I got from that festival right now! It was so much fun. I got to see Vampire Weekend for the first time and so many other cool bands. Before that was Lollapalooza. That was probably the best weekend of my life. It was also almost 4 years ago, what?! I saw Lady Gaga, Phoenix, and Arcade Fire. It was incredible. Those were just the headliners! Spoon was there, MGMT was there, and Rogue Wave was there. I still can't believe that weekend happened.

Anyhoo, this festival should be just as good. Here are some of the bands I will hopefully catch:

Day 1:
Local Natives
RAC
Kodaline
San Fermin

Day 2:
Arctic Monkeys
Band of Horses
Airborne Toxic Event
Sky Ferreira
Cash Cash
High Highs

Day 3:
Outkast
Imagine Dragons
Cage the Elephants
Kaiser Chiefs
MS MR
tUnE-yArDs
Geographer

Day 4:
The Lumineers
Childish Gambino
City and Colour
Phantogram
Washed Out
Dan Croll

There's who I'm going to try and see while I'm at Firefly. This list seems daunting at first but I think it's doable. I'll probably be dragged to see other bands that I don't really know but hey, I can be open minded about these things! It's going to be a really good time. I'll write more updates when the date gets closer.

Can it be June already?

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

TLS turns 100!

100 posts ago I was just beginning the journey that was my last semester at college. Now the semester is over, I am semi-employed, and the posts just keep on coming! Here are some goals I have for myself and this blog for the next 100 posts, and BEYOND:

I want to learn HTML so I can make this page a little spiffier. I might have to watch a few YouTube videos to help me.

I hope to keep writing everyday. I wrote two days ago that I was going to keep this up for three weeks straight. So far I'm doing a good job.

I am going to make a schedule for the types of blog posts I want to create.

I am also going to take some more time to edit my posts better. Sometimes I'll go back and find grammatical mistakes and smh at myself. Hopefully there will be fewer smh moments in the future.

So there are the goals I have for myself and TLS. Let's hope the next 100 posts are even better than the last.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

unpacking stuff

Over the past few days I've been unpacking all of my college stuff into my room at home. I have a lot of stuff. I also have a lot of clothes that I left at home that I have to deal with now. Also, my parents redid our bathroom so there is stuff from there that is now inhabiting my room that I have to do something with. There is just a lot of stuff. I know my dad would be unhappy to hear this but I took this week to do some unpacking instead of going out to find another job (please don't disown me, dad. I really need to take care of this stuff). It has proven to be quite difficult and is making me a little crazy.

Stuff in general makes me crazy. Especially stuff that we just throw out. At school there were huge dumpsters by my apartment where we could throw away all of our trash. So much trash was in there. It was disgusting. That trash just ends up in land fills or in the ocean or is burned. Oh gosh, our graduation speaker was this woman who was really big on the environment and was telling us these scary facts about trash in the environment. That's all I could think about afterwards. I think she said that there was a pile a trash in the Pacific that was twice the size of the United States. Ah, that is really scary. I remember feeling the same way after I saw the movie Wall-e. Not good.

But if I don't throw away this stuff then I essentially become a hoarder. I don't think I can live as a hoarder right now. Maybe when I'm older and senile but now while I'm still a young pup. Something that is good that we're doing to get rid of some of the unwanted stuff is donating clothes to places like Purple Heart and AMVETS. I feel much better donating clothes than just throwing them away. At school we also had these giant give away bins that incoming freshmen could look through and use for their first dorm rooms. I think that was very smart to do. The only problem I can see with that is where all this stuff will be stored until then. I hope my school has that already taken care of.

If I become a hoarder please someone slap me out of it. I'm going to try and get my mind off of this.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

April Favorites

I was supposed to post my April favorites yesterday but I thought yesterday's post was more fitting yesterday than today so we're doing a little bit of a switcheroo. I think April was a good month for me product-wise. I had some really good luck with makeup and then also some good luck with body products. I just had lots of good luck in April in general (towards the end of the month). I went to the beach, I graduated with better grades than I thought, I had a lot of fun with friends, it was a great time. Here are some of the products that helped make April molto buono:

1. Rimmel BB Cream Beauty Balm in Light - I got this for my trip to the beach. I was pretty much out of my Revlon Nearly Naked foundation so I was on the lookout for another lighter coverage foundation with SPF. I found this and decided that I liked BB creams for summer so this would do. I really like this! I like how light it is but gives a pretty good amount of coverage. If I keep getting darker I want to get this in the next darker color.

2. Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal Eyeliner in Brown - these are the best eyeliners in the drugstore. I haven't tried too many high-end eyeliners but I bet these are probably just as good or better. I love the taupe color and I love the nude color Scandal-eyes so even before I got this I knew I was going to love it. I also needed a brown eyeliner so it was a no-brainer. I highly recommend to everyone.

3. Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey - everyone should know now that I love the Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains so it was just a matter of time before I got hooked on another. I wore this for my Grad Ball and for my graduation ceremony and it was perfect. This will probably become my most worn lip product this summer.

4. Vaseline Total Moisture Aloe Fresh lotion - I got this lotion before I left for the beach because it specifically stated that it had aloe in it. I am pretty notorious for getting pretty burned so I thought this was also a no-brainer. I also didn't want to pile on aloe and then lotion so, killing two birds with one stone, you know. I ended up not getting too burned but it still soothed what ever happened to be burned.

5. NYC Smooth Skin Bronzer in Sunny - I wore a baseball hat almost every day at the beach. I was getting a lot tanner but keeping my face out the sun so I used this bronzer a lot to attempt to match my face to my body. I think this bronzer did a pretty good job at warming my face up and not making it look orange or muddy. Also, with a $3 price tag it doesn't get much better than this.

and a sneaky one...

6. Marc Jacobs Perfume in Daisy Eau So Fresh Delight - I just got this as a graduation present and it smells amazing. Also the bottle is too cute. I am so delighted with it...hehe.

That's what I was loving for April. I hope May turns out to be just as good as the end of April. I hope.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

Now what?

So that was my last semester. It's over. What do I do now? I'm going to try and stick with blogging. It will be therapeutic while I get rejected from jobs left and right. It will be a fun little journey we can all go on together! Like The Hobbit!

I've heard that if you keep up with something for three weeks afterwards it will become a habit. I'm going to try that with post-graduation blogging. I guess it started yesterday so three weeks from yesterday we will see how far I've come. No skipping days, Caroline.

So now what for today? Here's what's on the agenda:

1. Finish unpacking
2. Eat at some point
3. Exercise at some point
4. Figure out what to do for the rest of my life at some point

So nothing too big today. Ha, just kidding on that last thing. Sort of.

I really hope this is therapeutic.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

I graduated!

Yesterday was Mother's Day so I decided to spend the day with my family instead of writing anything here. Sorry guys. Well the day before Mother's Day was my big day. My graduation ceremony!

My little sister is the tallest one...sigh.

I got up early, processed to where the ceremony was held, got my diploma, then proceeded to sit in the pouring rain while everyone else got their diplomas. It was not as fun as it sounds. Thankfully I put my diploma under my chair so it didn't get wet but I think some were completely ruined. Eh, not good. After the ceremony my family frantically packed the car. It was scary how fast it all happened. After that we went to lunch downtown. It was a really nice time. Once we finished they drove back home while I stayed the night to say goodbye to everyone. It was awfully bittersweet. I still kind of feel like I'll just be going back to school in August so everything shouldn't be sad and then I remember that's not happening.

I don't really want to keep writing about it because it's making me sad. Bah, I'm going to miss being at school. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Ok, now I'm really sad.

My sister and I are going to go for a run soon so I'm going to cut it here.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

Grad Ball + Packing

Grad Ball was so much fun last night. I got to see a lot of friends, dance around, and look snazzy. My roommate curled my hair and I put on some pretty earrings, I felt great. I got there a little while after the event started thinking I wasn't going to want to stay there the whole time but I stayed until the very last song. It was a blast. Here are a few pictures:

Photobombs were everywhere.

These are our serious faces.

My favorite, just so flippin' joyous. 

It was a great way to end my senior year of college. What isn't the best way to end my senior year of college is what I'm doing today. The dreaded packing attempt. It is so difficult when there is the internet and other fun things! I got most of the stuff off of my bedroom walls but then there's all my clothes and then the kitchen and then our Christmas tree...oy vey. 

And since it's Friday:

Likes:

1. Grad Ball

2. Being sort of tan

3. The beach

Dislikes:

1. No more college

2. Not remembering my bike lock password 

3. Super hot days in May

I'm going to try and get back to doing some sort of packing. Ugh, halp. Please, 

Until tomorrow (when I graduate!!!!!!!),

Caroline

I just got back from the beach

So finals ended and I went to the beach for a week with my friends. It was a good time. I got tan/burned and enjoyed my company. Tonight is our Graduation Ball so in a short amount of time I'll be getting dolled up to go out and do whatever it is you do at a Grad Ball. I am so exhausted this is where I'll end my post. Tomorrow I'll post something that's more fun.

Until then,

Caroline

Fourth and final day of FINALS

It's my last day of finals and I am in the library at 9:10 at night...this is NOT COOL. I think I am one of 10 people in the entire library at this moment. I wasn't afraid to take this picture because I knew no one was around to see/hear/whatever. 

This is me right now. I have a paper to finish and then I'll be done. Could it just be asexual and just do itself? Is that joke even right?

Well I wanted to post something. I'm sorry it is a little lackluster. I've been studying for my two hardest exams all day. SUE ME. Tomorrow I will be away at the beach. Ah, I can hear the waves crashing into the sand now...wait, stop, I have to finish this stupid paper.

Until tomorrow (when I'll be happy),

Caroline

p.s. my eyelashes look fake and I'm kind of loving it.