Catching Up: This Sunday

This weekend has felt like a nice blend of going out and doing things around town and staying in to relax. I've been making it a point to visit the gym more regularly (I'm just so much happier after I've exercised), and so am hoping to hit up the treadmill later today as well! 

Yesterday evening we had some sweet friends over for dinner and their three kiddos tagged along too! I met these friends back when I was in college in California, and we hadn't seen eachother for 6-7 years. Isn't it so great to reconnect with people?! Since that time, they have had three beautiful children and I had so much fun holding their youngest who was nine months old-- so stinkin' cute! For a comfy dinner at home, I wore another one of my favorite cotton plaid button downs and the gray high-waisted Charlotte Russe skirt I've worn in a previous post. I wore my satin house ballet slippers around to keep my feet cozy. 

Excuse my #showerhair! :) Also, one of my favorite things that I made last night for dinner-- and that if you've never tried you should go make right now is an Ambrosia dish-- I use the FoodNetwork recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ambrosia-recipe.html  (Except I substitute in walnuts instead of pecans). I think I ate more than half the bowl myself.

For today's Sunday School class, I picked another comfy floral dress that I've owned for a long time. This one is from Ralph Lauren that I picked up in a Macy's back in college...and I paired it with another one of my favorite Kohl's cardigans. For Sunday School, I just wore my favorite comfy tan flats...but put on my caramel heels for a bit more flair at home! :)

xo,

Shannon

Catching Up: Last Sunday

When I started writing, I was hoping to make daily entries into my blog. I'm sure we all know how that goes...I'm so bad about overestimating the time I'll actually have available each day to get things done. Sometimes it feels like work just takes over life...sometimes I'll make exercise a priority and feel exhausted when I get home...and sometimes I just forget. Isn't that how it always is though? So I wanted to share two of my favorite outfits from this previous week... this floral dress & cardigan combo I wore to teach my second Sunday school class at our new church. I ended up with ten kiddos which was a pretty big surprise, and I felt pretty overwhelmed trying to keep my eyes on all of them! We also saw the movie The Secret Lives of Pets after church (my husband and I are kids at heart), and although we liked it, we are definitely bigger fans of Zootopia!  

In my closet...

 

I've had that floral dress for probably six years now, but I'm pretty certain I purchased it at a Ross back in California. Mostly, I remember it as a dress I wore while working abroad in the Czech Republic and we went to the border of the Czech Republic and Austria. I have a photo somewhere of me straddling the border (standing in two countries at once!), and so that's what I always think of when I wear this dress! My sweater is from Kohl's, and my shoes are from Old Navy.

Then Monday rolled around and I had a tough time getting out of bed! So I threw on this comfy burgundy wrap dress from Old Navy and managed to make it to work early. 

xo,

Shannon

Birthday Weeks & Stella-brations!

This week included my 25th birthday, and also my puppy's first birthday, so it was a week of celebration (amidst a more ho-hum work week).

My birthday!

For my birthday, I wore a coral dotted dress (from Ross) with my light nude Charlotte Russe suede heels. My husband and I went out to dinner later in the day, so I changed into a red polka-dotted Bettie Page dress from ModCloth.

 

 

For my sweet puppy's celebration, I wore a white cold-shouldered shift dress (also from Ross), and my slip on nude heels (again, from Ross... can you tell where I shop most of the time?)!

xo,

Shannon

Sunday Clothes & Summer Barbecues

Today was my first day volunteering at my church's Sunday School, and I was assigned to the elementary school classroom. I really enjoy working with kids, and I just love the feeling of being back in environments that remind me of my own childhood-- I even like organizing materials into manila folders that I can use in lesson plans. There were only five little ones in the class today, so it was a pretty easy group to manage, which I think was good for my first time back in the swing of things!

 

Later on today, we're having a small barbecue with our neighbors, and I'm looking forward to spending quality time with my hubby and our friends.

 

Today I wore a white jacquard-style fit and flare dress that I picked up around Christmastime at our local Kohl's, and am wearing a caramel colored wrap heels that I recently ordered from Charlotte Russe. I really like these heels because all of the straps and the back zipper make your foot feel really secure in the shoe-- unlike some heels where I feel like the front part of my foot is about to fall.

 

 

xo,

Shannon

Dinner Dates & New Shoes

Both Wednesday night and yesterday night I had dinner out (and both times at Italian restaurants too)! On Wednesday, my husband and I went out to dinner with our two friends, their mom, and their absolutely adorable three-year-old daughter. They're also a military family and are moving out of state next week, so it was a nice chance to say goodbye and send good wishes along for their move. One of the worst things about being in the military is the fact that you have to say goodbye to people so often...but one of the best things about the military is that it's likely that you'll see them again at a duty station in the future.

Then yesterday, I got to go down towards DC and had dinner with one of my friends who lives/works down there. Having lived in Maryland for close to a year and a half now, I feel like I should have explored Washington DC a little bit more-- it seems like there are a lot of great things to do down there. At the same time, I feel like I often avoid it just because of the traffic! Oh well...

For Thursday night's dinner I wore one of my favorite summer-time dresses. I just love teal/blue combos...I have a couple of dresses with similar color schemes. For last night's dinner, I also picked a dress--this time a purple floral wrap dress!

Wednesday night's dinner outfit:

Dress: Ross // Cardigan: Target // Ballet Flats: Old Navy

Thursday Night's Dinner Outfit:

 

Dress: Vera Wang (Kohls) // Camisole: Kohls // Shoes (New!): Charlotte Russe // Purse: Michael Kors (Ross)

 

 

xo,

Shannon

 

 

Interview Outfits & Casual Date Nights

Today I had a professional interview, which...even after all of the interviews I've done up to this point, still scare me to death. So much of it for me is that I want to impress people and I want to make people happy, and so I think I have this ingrained fear of letting people down. I then come home an overanalyze all of the things that I think I did wrong, and fret and fret (every single time). Which is all terrible advice and I hope that as interviewees, you all are absolutely nothing like me. I hope you have confidence in how much you bring to the table, how bright your future is, and that an interview is a two-way street in every respect.

Along those lines, here is my most recent interview ensemble. I was a part of a professional sorority as an undergraduate student, and we took professional dress very seriously (for good reason--it's so helpful to go into a room with your head high knowing that you have the proper attire to take control and lead). For our sorority professional dress, we had black/gray/navy suits (pants/long skirts) and long sleeve muted color button downs and closed toed shoes. I still follow a lot of those same reference points, but I like to tone down the look with a slightly softer blouse and a patterned blazer or professional looking cardigan.

For my outfit, I am wearing a blazer that came as part of an ensemble suit at Ross-- I seriously can't say enough good things about the professional wear at Ross. I've gotten so many formal, beautiful professional suits (especially in their sale section) for less than $40. One of my favorite suits that I used back in my graduate school interviews was $16! The skirt I wear for most professional functions is the black high waisted pencil skirt from Express. I really like the cut and length of this skirt, but I do have a complaint that it always seems to twist around a little bit. At one point today it went from being a back-slit skirt to a side-slit skirt...if that moves around to the front, there is definite potential for embarrassment! I'm also wearing a white crepe zip front blouse that I got from the Burlington Coat Factory. I have the same blouse in different colors that I got from other stores too, it's one of my favorites because I think the zipper adds just a hint of professional bling! Lastly, I've got my trusty old Payless heels...they're short, comfortable, easy to walk in, no frills, etc. but add just a little bit of heel to add in some confidence.

I'd love to see some of your interview looks too! And any special nerve-calming interview tips you might have. :)

 

My interview outfit:

Then, I came home from my interview, kicked off my high heels and had some puppy playtime with Stella!

 

Lastly, I swapped out my pencil skirt for a cute little Sonoma Style Cargo skirt I just picked up from Express and tossed on some Charlotte Russe nude faux snakeskin heels for a date night with my hubby!:

 

Date Night Look

 

xo,

Shannon

Coral Dresses & Sunday Soup

What makes you happiest on the weekends? Is it getting out and pushing your limits exercising, staying inside trying new recipes and relaxing, getting away for a few days to a new, fresh location? I feel like I don't necessarily have a favorite type of weekend...I do know that all of my weekends involve cleaning. I'm such a neat freak, and so I like to start fresh no matter what every week, and that includes catching up on laundry, cleaning the floors, cleaning the kitchen, etc. etc.

 

This weekend, we went to cheer on our neighbor's kiddos in their soccer games, and took our puppy to explore one of the local county parks/beaches. Today we slept in, went to church, and made some yummy soup for lunch. Pretty lowkey overall. I alternated between wanting my weekends to be intensive spurts of productivity and just wanting to relax and stay in so that I'm refreshed for the week ahead.

 

Today I wore a coral lace-type dress that I picked up from Ross (London Times?), and a ruffled cardigan (also from Ross). These light grey suede heels are ones that I ordered last week during a Charlotte Russe online sale-- they were ~$15!

 

 I tried to take a family photo before taking some of my own photos, and my husband and puppy decided to play chase instead! #puppyproblems :)

xo,

Shannon

Pintucked shirts & Puppy kisses

As I've talked about a little bit before in my blog, right now is a time of major transitions in my life (professionally). I feel that as women it can be very difficult for us to find the right balance between our home/personal life and our professional life, and recognizing the different times throughout the course of our careers that that balance will not be even...sometimes it will be a 70%/30% divide or vice versa. And it's been very challenging for me to understand how I want to structure that balance for myself.

 

I've found that sometimes, as one-half of a married couple (where my partner also has a demanding, location-restrictive career), I often feel like I am less flexible in my options than I was at an earlier point in my professional path. Unless I'm comfortable living apart for awhile, my transition and ability to search for careers is geographically limited by my husband's position. I'm not going to lie, I definitely find that frustrating. But at the same time, I do want us to stay together as a family. Most of my work to date has been academic/research-based, and I'm often surprised by how many women in my career field place their work ahead of living in the same state/area of the country as their spouses. If that's the right decision for them, then that's certainly the right choice. But for me, I would be miserable living without my husband for 5-6 years at a time, even knowing we would be together in the future. I married him because I want to be with him...because seeing him every day makes my world brighter, and because doing things for him brings me joy and fulfillment (moreso than I experience in my profession). It's a tricky balance.

 

In conjunction with those thoughts though, my professional struggle has more to do with finding the right position where I can find happiness in a career, which I haven't found (to a great extent) up to this point. I've been challenged, I've felt accomplished at times, I've felt like I've learned things...but truly happy at work? Not really. If I could go back to meet my 18 year old self, the single most important thing I would tell her would be to follow her own happiness. To follow the things that bring you joy outside of what you think people want you to do/feeling like you should make people proud/seeking prestige. If you find your happiness, who gives a sh*t what other people think? ;)

 

On that note, I went along with my favorite fashion theme today. I just love the feeling of a pretty feminine top and a flirty a line skirt. I'll switch it up one of these days...

 

My top today was from Lauren Conrad's line for Kohl's last summer-- I love all of the peasant tops that come from her collections. My grey a line skirt is a recent Charlotte Russe acquisition, and my shoes I just found at Ross (they're Calvin Klein) and they're so comfy!

 

Stella (my puppy) wanted to get in on the action too-- as usual! :)

xo,

Shannon