No. 19 The Typical Carl Perkins Reference

 (dress-Best Friend's Yardsale, belt and earings-thrifted, shoes-vintage)

I wore jeans and a v-neck tshirt today.

I gotta say, when I dress down for whatever reason (running to the store for milk, dropping off my sister somewhere, waking up late for school, etc) I never really feel like myself.
I almost feel like I don't want to see anyone and I don't want them to see me.
I feel like I pass by so many random faces at school I leave a 2 second impression and I want that impression to be a positive reflection of my personality, not negative or indifferent one.
I mean, you never really know who you're going to meet!

This outfit (which I wore very recently to a family barbecue) is more of what I should be doing more often!

(This post kind of seems like I'm putting too much emphasis on appearance, but keep in mind I typed this all in my vneck and house shorts with my hair in a messy ponytail, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, so I feel it's all balanced out really...)

:)

Boat Eye

 (Blouse-Ross, bowtie & belt-Forever 21, shorts-thrifted, shoes-payless, floral hairpins-RiteAid)

I skipped Photo Friday last week :/ fail! But I have to admit, school is totally kicking my butt. I thought after 6 classes my first semester, then 5 classes my second, then an everyday class over the summer, that this semester with only 4 classes would be a cakewalk.

I.Was.So.Wrong.

I feel like this is the busiest I've ever been, trying to schedule interviews for my journalism assignments and staying up late to do astronomy homework and trying to catch up with friends! Soo busy busy.

But I did have a tiny bit of time today to take some outfit pictures! I realized I always get dressed with the intention of it becoming an outfit post, but then I totally hate taking the actual pictures of myself...
...how does that even make sense?

But I WAS proud of my hair today! I did a wet set (which I rarely do, I prefer hot rollers) and it really came out nicer than I expected so I molded the curls with some hairspray into a twist in the back and pinned it.
(These were taken at the end of the day so it got a tad bit frizzy)

 Finally! I found pins that show up in my dark hair.

I'm off to do some laundry and homework so I won't feel guilty for staying up late to watch the rest of  season 4 of Mad Men :)

Take Care!

Kiwis and Chocolate

 I've been meaning to post about this for a couple weeks now but I keep forgetting... I won a giveaway Kerry from His Girl Friday hosted a while back and I was just toooo excited to be getting a package from so far away!
btw, how cute is this packaging??

It came with :

*a little kiwi that makes real kiwi sounds!

*an awesome necklace

 *a ring

*card wallet

*milk chocolates

*pineapple lumps!

The pineapple lumps were my favorite part! To me they taste kind of like bubble gum if bubble gum was 1245 times more awesome. I'm trying to eat them really slowly because I want to make them last, because really, how often can a Cali girl like me say she has candy from New Zealand??

Lol, thanks again Kerry!

They Don't Call 'Em Challenges For 'Nothin

Today is the last day of my summer vacation.
For most people that means they have some laundry to do, a last couple laps in the pool and packing backpacks for the next day.

But for me?

I have to cringe and swallow my pride to blog about how I did not conquer my 35 in 31 challenge.
It turned out to be more like a 14 in 31 Challenge actually.

Which, now that I think about it, isn't tooo bad. I mean, if I hadn't started the challenge at all, those 14 projects would probably still be sitting in my sewing box. So I'm going to go ahead and give myself a fraction of a pat on the back and just let the blogosphere be hard on me instead. Without further a-do here are the last 10 projects I finished up:

Day 6: Project 6

The Yellow Gingham Blouse

This blouse was an X-large but I never turn down gingham, so I took it all apart, took everything in, and put it back together.

Day 7: Project 7

The Navy Skirt

Another thrifted find, this skirt was super long so I shortened it with a scalloped edge. Well, once I wore it and washed it a couple times, the edges looked less wavy and more tinkerbell-esque, so I made it straight again.

Project 8

The Dress That Started it All

 This is the first dress I ever sewed. It was a skirt I found at Goodwill my sophomore year and I hand-sewed the darts and zipper. Its probably the least attractive dress I own because of my novice sewing from back then, but I still love it to death because it was my first.

The only thing I figured I'd do to salvage it a little was to add some snaps to the zipper wouldn't stop falling.

 Project 9

The Black Gingham Belt

Not so much a sewing project as a "why in the world don't I wear this belt?? Oh yea, the buckle snaps off every time I wear it! Had to hot glue that...

Day 12: Project 10

The Cream Top

No I didn't count the skirt twice, I actually had to fix this top too. It used to be my mother's but she never wore it much because the top part was really loose and leaning forward in it was a total no-no. So I took the top in and now it is appropriate for all occasions! Lol.

 Day 20: Project 11

The Little Blue Polka Dot Dress

My grandmother brought me this XXL polka dot dress from Goodwill because she knows how much I love having all that extra polka dot fabric. So I basically used it to make a whole other dress, but shorter and cuter. (please excuse the non-modeling of the dress, I promise I'll wear it sometimes soon! lol)

Project 12

The Wedding Hair Accessory

and

Day 26: Project 13

This hair thingy is getting it's own post later because it has a somewhat interesting back story :)

As for the bow tie, well I had fabric left over from my romper and I've always wanted to make a bow tie, just never had the motivation until I saw one at Forever 21 for 8 dollars. I thought to myself "Psh! I could make that for FREE!" (I shouldn't psh, I bought it anyway LOL)

 Project 14

The Seashell Bracelet

My last project is actually one of my favorites. I've had these tiny little seashells for a really long time and never knew what to do with them. Finally I figured I'd just braid a bunch of sewing thread into a bracelet and tie them on. I used a tiny little screw driver to make holes in the shells and simply looped them through like tiny little buttons :)

I'm sure you're thinking "wait, that's all you did in 31 days?? How LAME-O!"

Well, it's really not :) These are actually the only projects I finished, but I made tons of progress on other projects that need a little more time and they'll be finished too, I just didn't feel it was fair to include them if they weren't finished. That doesn't really count at all!

Hope you'll stay tuned to see what other things I do manage to finish between new schoolwork and adventures! <3

No. 18 Summer Show: Jazz Festival

(top-forever 21, cardigan-wet seal, jeans-pacsun, belt-tillys, shoes-payless)

When my favorite local ska band got to play at a middle school's jazz festival, I took it as the perfect opportunity to save some shoes! If plaid flats aren't perfect for skankin' around to some awesome ska music, I don't know what is.

Summer Shows: My Chemical Romance and Circa Survive

 This show was a weird one for me. Not the show itself, which was spectacular, but the overall experience of it was personally weird. I loved MCR's old stuff, from back when I was in 8th/freshman year. The new stuff is way too Glee/dancey for me so, to be truly honest, I was more excited to see Circa Survive again than anything else.

(I had to give myself a sharpie-tattoo of my signature Hippo with a mohawk and tie, throwin up a peace sign.)

The kickoff to the strangeness was when we got to our seats and I had some guy come up to me (it was insanely dark, I had no clue who he was,) and go, "Patricia?" Turns out he was an old classmate of mine I knew from 3rd-6th grade! I suddenly got self-conscious.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I kinda like to let loose at concerts, and knowing there was someone I knew standing 4 inches away from me, who knew me back in my long-hair-and-Harry-Potter-glasses days, was just tooo weird.

Then Circa Survive came on and I totally got over it. Lol.

Later on though, some weird feelings came back when this song started to play:


I honestly can't remember if I've ever talked about this on my blog but, I was a very depressed kid when I was in middle school. I mean, walk home everyday from school crying, contemplating suicide constantly, completely withdrawing from life, depressed. My entire 7th grade year was a complete nightmare, and I honestly don't like to think about how close I was to doing something stupid. And I remember this song and Good Charlotte's "Hold On" being played more than any that year. Hearing that song live was just, a really surreal experience.

Towards the end of the show, this next song started playing, and I swear I could not handle how amazing I felt hearing those first few keys and lyrics...


The song just reminded me of being a freshman, hanging out with my friends, singing this song at the top of our lungs during our morning PE classes. I remembered how happy I had become being able to start over in high school.

"When I was, a young boy, my father, took me into the city, to see a marching band...."

To feel the emotions I attached to each song in such a short period of time was a little overwhelming to me. I started to tear up and in a theatre full of hundreds of people I was grateful it was so pitch black. Knowing what I had almost done in 7th grade also knowing how happy I was going to be in high school made me so happy that I had pushed through my depression.

There I was, standing next to my best friend (my sister), a guy I knew when I was a little kid, hearing songs that reminded me of some major life moments, I just can't explain it. I was just so happy to be apart of that moment. To be able to look back on the person that I was in elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to who I was, standing there right then, this person had become, it was all triggered because of these songs, and this experience, and it was absolutely amazing.

And if you don't believe that it had been a rough night, the evidence is all in the hair.

Summer Shows: Aiden

This is the first post of five that will be recapping some of the awesome concerts and shows I went to this summer!

Aiden has always had a special place in my heart because it takes me back to my middle school days when I was trying to find my style and in turn, finding new music by watching music videos on Fuse and wearing waaaay too much black eyeliner. When me and my sister found out they were coming to town we were pretty excited. Die Romantic will always my favorite song of theirs because it was the first one I ever heard and really opened up their type of music to me.




I always loved We Sleep Forever too but the video still scares the bajesus outta me. Dolls=NOT OK.

I basically wanted to keep my outfit simple because it gets reeeally hot in the venue. (Jerry's Pizza in downtown Bakersfield is pretty much famous for it's basement, where countless of awesome bands have played, and for how FRICKIN HOT it gets down there.) I had to take these tights off within 5 minutes of being there, no joke.

 And to satisfy my 8th grade self, waaaay too much eye makeup :D

 The show itself was pretty iffy for me. I mean I LOVED the way Aiden puts on a show, seriously it was fantastic, but the audience was really off putting. I'm all for mosh pits and walls of death, that's pretty much routine, but when you have actual fistfights breaking out and grown men drunkenly kicking at group of girls to make them move, yea, that's pretty much not ok. None of that happened during Aiden, mostly during the opening bands, but once Aiden did finally come on, I had already moved to the back to escape claustrophobia and just let my sister do her thing. (She's pretty much the toughest little girl I know. She once got trampled in a Taking Back Sunday show and had the most insane bruises to prove it, but came out ALL SMILES. She can hold her own in ANY crowd, I never worry.)

By the time the show was over and all the fake fog had settled, I had a really great time enjoying the show despite having to watch it covered in sweat from the back of the basement. As the crowd parted for everyone to leave, I made my way to the front where I knew I'd find my sister.

As I walked forward through the crowd I noticed I was in someones way, who was walking in the opposite direction as me. I looked up, RIGHT into the face of the lead singer himself, William Control. Dripping in sweat and smeared eye makeup he gave me a half smile.
"Great show" is what my mouth said calmly, even though my 8th grade girly mind was saying "OH MY GOSH YOU ARE AMAZING AND OH MY GAWD STANDING SO CLOSE TO MY FACE"

He leaned in and whispered in my ear as he passed by, "Thank you." Never in my life will I forget how raspy and amazing his voice was and how I could feel his breath on my cheek. I'm usually not super star-struck anymore because I've seen so many bands and know a lot of musicians, but I TOTALLY geeked out when that happened.


My sister found me by then and was going on and on about how she was RIGHT in front of him and how he had grabbed and held her hand and hugged her because she was so close. We were both geeking out a bit, and agreed it was a show to be classified under the "great" column.