Milestones

Hi guys! So, I'm a big dummy and thought that this was my 100th post.  I planned to do a little about me question and answer thing as a way to commemorate the milestone so you guys could get to know me a little better.  It turns out, Blogger counts even draft posts that are not published yet as "posts" as well, so uhh... happy 99th post to me!?  Isn't it strange how we celebrate occasions that ends in zero, and occasionally, ones that end in 5, as the most important?  Why is the 100th post more important, and more of an occasion to celebrate, than the 99th post? Or similarly, I celebrated my 25th birthday this past year, and it seemed like a huge deal.  However, the upcoming 26th birthday does not seem noteworthy at all.  I am all about acknowledging milestones and celebrating accomplishments throughout your life, but I just find it strange how we place perhaps unearned importance on certain occasions if they end in a zero. So anyway, here I am, and I am going to celebrate my 99th post if you guys care to join me.

 

Outfit Details:

Dress: vintage/ shortened by me

Necklace: old-gift from mom

Purse: gift from R's mom 

Heels: Ross

Belt: Forever 21

I really wish you guys COULD join me. I have met so many beautiful, kind, and inspiring ladies from having this blog this past year.  I cannot tell you how awesome it is to get emails throughout the day telling me that someone has left me yet another nice comment.  It really helps boost you up even on the bad days.  On that note, I am going to answer a few questions that the lovely Shanti of Casual Glamour tagged me in. 
What inspired you to start blogging?
I honestly did not even know this type of blog (being fashion, lifestyle, and photography-centric) existed until about a year and a half ago.  I stumbled upon a few favorites such as Delightfully Tacky, Steffy's Pros and Cons, and A Beautiful Mess, which were all beautiful and brimming with creativity, and I was instantly hooked.  Around that same time, I also had just started my own vintage shop on etsy, and saw that some of these ladies, like Steffy from Steffy's Pros and Cons, were using blogging as not only a creative outlet to showcase their style and photography, but also as a promotional tool for there own shops.  I was inspired by the idea that you can have a blog about style and fashion that is also sustainable and affordable by showcasing outfits that centered mainly around vintage and thrifted items.  And voila, here I am!
Describe a fun weekend for you.
A fun weekend for me would be the trifecta of adventurous, productive, and relaxing in equal parts.  Living in Boulder, Colorado gives me great access to the mountains and other beautiful areas outdoors.  I love to go on mini weekend adventures such as a mountain drive exploring with R that ends at a brewery for lunch.  I also really like working on my shop during the weekend, as I do not have much time to do so while working full time during the week, which is where the productive part comes in.  Lastly, especially on Sunday evenings, I like to just relax and have no plans! Some yummy food and vegging with R is the perfect end to a weekend in my book.
What are other hobbies/ interests you have?
I love this one and wish all my blogger friends would answer it, as it so often happens that we get in the habit of only discussing certain limited aspects of our daily lives on our blogs.  So here are some little things about me that you may not have known!  I play the keyboard and piano, and have since I was 6.  I played tennis all growing up and in high school, and still love to play with my family (who also all play) when I see them.  I love cats especially, but all animals really.  I did foster care for our local animal shelter for about 7 years and cannot wait until I am older and have my own place so I can do it again!  I had a jewelry shop on etsy before I had my vintage shop, and still love making things when I feel inspired.  I love food. I have been a vegetarian for 10 years, but could never be a vegan because I love cheese too much.  I usually like eating pretty healthy during the week, but I absolutely love taking a night to get a huge burrito or pizza, staying in by myself, and watching the trashiest of television shows on my laptop.  Lastly, I must mention the obvious ones: I really love photography, thrifting, and writing this blog! I am thinking about starting another blog about inspiring houses and places that I see so I have a place to focus on photography besides outfit photos. Would you guys read a blog about the photography of pretty houses? I don't know if its too small of a niche to be interesting or not, but I sure do have a lot of ideas buzzing around in my head!

Okay, I think I am going to leave it at that for now! I would love to hear about some of your hobbies or little facts I may not know about you in the comments! Also, I should mention, these photos are actually from our first night in Cozumel before going out to dinner.  A tropical thunderstorm was about to roll in, as you can probably tell by the ominous sky and me trying to keep my dress in place in the wind! The dress is vintage and used to be ankle length but I gave it a little makeover and loved the results! It will soon be up in the shop. I am off on spur of the moment road trip  to camp at the Great Sand Dunes National park for the long weekend, and cannot wait to share my adventures with you upon my return.  Thanks for reading and hope you guys have an amazing weekend!
xo Hannah

La Plaza Downtown

Good Morning! I hope everyone is having a great start to their weeks.  I am in good spirits knowing I have a three day weekend coming up.  I am currently deciding if I want to do something like a little cabin in the mountains, or just save that money and do some fun things around here instead.  Leaning towards the latter since I just came back from Mexico two weeks ago, but my wanderlust has no end and I feel restless until I am planning my next little adventure. Sometimes I think I should become a travel agent because I love planning trips, but with so many online booking sites, I feel like that industry is crashing.

Outfit Details:

Dress: c/o American Apparel

Scarf: vintage/ thrifted

Sandals & Purse: gift from mom

      These photos are from the afternoon of our trip where we decided to venture to the downtown area of Cozumel.  It was beautiful, with the shops on one side of the street and the beautiful water on the other.  It was a ghost town though, as there was no cruise ships in the harbor and we went in around 3 so the dinner crowd was not out yet.  That and the fact that it was about 5 million degrees! I am really glad that we saw the town and went into some of the little shops, but honestly it was really hard to be walking around when all you wanted to do was be in air conditioning inside, or at the beach swimming.  I absolutely loved the bursts of primary colors that they use to decorate the store fronts and the plaza with.  After about an hour or two we decided to hunt down some fish tacos and Margaritas and call it a day.

      The funniest part of exploring downtown was witnessing the rivalry between the fisherman and pelican you see in the photos above.  The fisherman would catch his fish and prepare them on the rocky beach each day, and mister pelican would know exactly what time to show up to try and poach his dinner.  The fisherman was throwing scraps to the other gulls you see flying around, but the pelican hovered in the distance for awhile, and then behind the man's back, slowly shuffled closer and closer.   When the man spotted the bird he started screaming Spanish obscenities at the pelican, waving and kicking. Let's just say you could tell they were well acquainted!

Dockside in Cozumel

Hi Guys! Are you ready for another round of Cozumel pictures? I sure hope so, because there's a lot more where that came from! This is also the second post in a row where you get a little snippet of seeing R on the blog, pretty exciting stuff huh?  He's a little shy and usually prefers to remain behind the scenes, but since he is who I was traveling with I thought he should make an appearance.  Also, I am always lagging behind him taking pictures of everything I see, so most of my pictures are of his back while he is walking ahead of me. He walks at a normal pace. I stop every 30 feet, snap a few pictures, sprint to catch up, and repeat.

 

Outfit Details:

Shorts: thrifted

Orange Top: Boutique in Boulder, CO

Head Scarf: Vintage/ thrifted

Swimsuit: Target

    So, I was hesitant to really put bathing suit pictures up on ye olde' internet for the whole free world to see, but come on guys, this is literally what I was wearing for 90% of my time there.  You can't take yourself too seriously! Most of these were taken on the two piers right off the beach of our hotel.  The water was so clear that you didn't even need to put a snorkel mask on to see all the fish, you could just peer off the dock.  There were also some bird friends who you can see my thoroughly harassing.
    On that note, and in honor of not taking yourself too seriously, I will leave you with this photo.  This is what most of the outtakes that I don't choose to include on the blog look like- really really really good looking. Also, there's a bird on my head.
xo Hannah

    

Exploring the Shoreline

Another week to tackle! The great thing about having vacation pictures to share with you guys is that I don't have to worry about taking outfit pictures for a little bit.  Though I guess a smart person would stay ahead of the game and have a few saved up for later!  I have to remember that I am spoiled with this great summertime light and that it doesn't always stay light so late like this.  It's amazing how quickly I start taking these little seasonal things for granted.  Are you guys ready for fall or still trying to hold on to summer for all its worth?  I think I am finding myself somewhere in the middle, as this summer was unbearably hot, so something in the middle will be nice!

What I Wore:

Dress: Gift from Mom

Sandals: Reef

Necklace & Scarf: Vintage

Sunglasses: c/o American Apparel

Anyway, these pictures are from my favorite day of the vacation.  R and I woke up, got breakfast, and then decided to go on an exploration walk along the coastline.  As you can see, the water was stunningly clear and the most amazing aqua blue.  We found ourselves coming upon a bunch of abandoned buildings that were both sad and beautiful at the same time.  R said that people would think it was strange that I had a roll of hundreds of pictures of dilapidated, overgrown buildings and only a few of our actual nice hotel, but I find the broken places have so much more character. 

    The building that you see here was my most favorite and standing inside where I guess the restaurant and bar used be under the crumbling beams and palm roof looking at the ocean was amazing. The second picture is a view of the building from a distance and the rest are from inside.  At first, we only felt comfortable exploring the large open patio area, but then we decided to go back and brave the old kitchen areas and around back.  I have about 20 pictures of R peaking hesitantly around corners while I am following behind with my camera.  The scariest of all was the abandoned mens and womens room- I am not sure why, but when I turned the corner and saw the restroom signs I decided it was time to turn around quickly!  I am not sure what happened to these beautiful abandoned places- whether they got hit my a storm and never rebuilt, ran out of money, or some other reason, but they were in abundance and I would love to research more about what happened to them.  For now though, I will just leave you with these images while I daydream at my desk at work about being back there right now.

Happy Monday!

xo Hannah

Postcards from Cozumel 1: Hi Low

Hola! Unfortunately, I am back from my vacation to Cozumel! It was great, but way to short!  I have a ton of pictures that I cannot wait to share, but I thought I would start out with an outfit I wore to dinner on our last night and a few shots from around our hotel!

Outfit Details

Dress: Romwe

Heels: Nine West via Ross

Necklace: gift

Earrings: Forever 21

     I have been saving this dress to wear on this trip even though I got it in the beginning of the summer when I won a $40 giveaway to Romwe.  It is one of my top favorite pieces that I own right now as I love the big floral print, the interesting color palette, and the hi-low cut.  I happened to pack TWO peach color dresses as my nicer dinner outfits, totally not realizing our whole hotel was peach colored as well.  I matched literally everything around me, something that has been happening to me a lot recently!

     We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called El Cozumeleno and it was my first time staying at this type of place.  I was so excited about the unlimited food and drinks aspect, but the food actually turned out to be quite terrible- and I am not picky! That was pretty much the only downfall of the vacation though, everything else was great! The beach and water were stunning, and that is where we spent most of our time - lounging, swimming, reading, and relaxing.  We also did some exploring, both downtown and along the beaches by our hotel, but I will save that for later! I hope everyone had a wonderful week, and I am thankful I only had to survive yesterday and today at work before the weekend!

xo Hannah