Hi friends!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted so I wanted to pop in and give some quick updates. I love my blog so much even though maintaining it takes up more time than I seem to have these days, but every time I think about letting it go, I just can’t do it. Life feels pretty routine lately and I doubt anyone is interested in hearing about the monotony of our days, weeks, months, etc. so I haven’t had much to write about–although I have toyed with the idea of doing a day-in-the-life post. What do y’all think?

Anyway, through the monotony, we’ve still had some cool things happen so I’ll share what we’ve been up to lately for those who are interested.

It should come as no surprise that someone who enjoys putting together cute outfits for herself so much that she started documenting them on a blog in grad school would also enjoy putting together cute outfits for her kiddo. When I was pregnant, I had little daydreams of dressing Sebastian up like the little kid models you see on Pinterest, and doing these cute little mommy + me outfit posts. Obviously that didn’t happen because, like most new moms, I barely had time to shower after Sebastian was born, let alone time to plan fun and elaborate outfit posts.

But then S got a little bit older and entered the “I DO IT” independence phase. This is a great milestone for him and crucial for boosting his development, self-esteem, and independence. And one of the things he has started to do is dress himself. First it started with him independently putting on the clothes I picked out for him and has slowly morphed into him picking out the clothes, too. While I sometimes feel a little disappointed about not always getting to put together cute outfits for him, I have learned a lot from my almost-4 year old about what it means to wear clothes and get dressed. And I’m appreciating a whole new word of cute!

Jammies and sneaks

By now I’m sure you’re all familiar with the home delivery style boxes like Stitch Fix. I’ve been doing Stitch Fix off and on for several years now, and I like it but not enough to do every month; I usually scheduled a Fix whenever I’m feeling like I’m in a rut (and have some disposable income), so maybe every 6 months-ish? I also did Le Tote for a while but their options were so limited because they had very few petite pieces so nothing ever really fit. Anyway, I feel like I haven’t had much luck with my past few Stitch Fix boxes so I decided to finally try Trunk Club. It’s the same concept: they curate some items for you, mail them to your house for you to try on, and you keep what you like and send the rest back. A few differences are that they send you 6-10 pieces (instead of 5 like Stitch Fix) and they let you view what they’re sending you ahead of time so you can swap things out if you don’t like the piece (much like Le Tote). It was like the best of both worlds so it sounded great to me!

I actually found out about Trunk Club through Nick because it started out as a men’s styling service and then added women’s when they were bought by Nordstrom. Nick had pretty good luck with them so I figured I might have some good luck, too. I really liked that I could speak directly to a stylist who asked me lots of questions about my lifestyle, how I currently dress, and what I was looking for in a box. I was really excited about the process and got my first box last night.

Finally, an outfit post!

I’ve written about how my lifestyle has outgrown a lot of my clothes, so I’m working hard to clear my closet of any item that doesn’t make me feel like a million bucks every time I wear it. I’m also trying to live a more minimal life to focus more on experiences than material things. It’s harder than it should be due to the emotional value I place on things. I’m working on that, as well. I don’t think I’m quite ready for a capsule (or minimalist) wardrobe yet, but I might be moving more toward that direction.

You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve taken a short break from blogging. That’s partly because I had a lot of work to do as the summer session and my internship came to a close, but partly because I’ve been a little unhappy with my clothes and with blogging lately.

I started style blogging because I was really inspired by the amazing bloggers I’ve been following.  I was really excited about my outfits and wanted to share that with others. I felt good, I was getting a lot of complements and, most importantly, I felt comfortable; I felt like myself. I’m sure this happens to all bloggers, especially when starting out, but soon I started to feel like I was trying to keep up with the Joneses, and that I was dressing for the blog instead of dressing for me. I was doing way too much shopping (read: spending too much money) and purchasing pieces that I didn’t really like because I thought they would look good on the blog. And that’s not what I wanted my blog to be. I want it to be about having great style with easy, inexpensive pieces.

From a recent shopping trip

So, I’ve still been getting dressed these last couple of weeks but without constantly wondering if what I was putting together was cute/trendy/stylish/whatever enough for the blog, and the result has been great: cute outfits, a few complements, more confidence and comfort. Throughout all of this, I’ve also tried to take a good, hard look at what my style really is, and I’m thinking I’ll do a closet inventory post soon to get rid of the pieces that aren’t really me so that I can show you outfits that I really love and feel completely comfortable in. So, if you’ve followed me on my journey thus far, I am so thankful to you, and I hope you’ll continue to follow along. I have some cute outfits that I’m excited to show you!

source: Pinterest