packing boxes!

Hey guys! Life has been extremely crazy and I've kind of fallen off the blogosphere. I've missed y'all! I just wanted to update everyone and let you know what's been going on with us lately.

I've been working hard at school. And Nate's studying hard and working hard. He took a test the weekend before last to get certified in Business Analysis and passed on the first try which was super exciting! He had put so much time preparing for it and put so much energy into it, so I'm super proud of him for passing.

We're also getting ready to drop off our Operation Christmas Child boxes. I haven't been blogging about this as much as I've wanted because things have been so busy, but we're almost ready to drop everything off now! Our goal was 50 boxes originally. Due to some changes we made in our budget, we ended up cutting our goal back to 25, which we met! We had a lot of help from our family and friends and have managed to exceed that goal! My parents helped us purchase a TON of things to put in the boxes. And our AWESOME friends Ben and Heather contributed two more boxes. And then Nate's mom and sisters filled ELEVEN more boxes. The wonderful Laura and her husband over at unpunctuated life. are also filling boxes for OCC. So even though we had to cut our goal in half this year, we still ended up almost reaching fifty with the help of everyone who joined in the cause! And it was so great to work together with everyone and see everyone help out in their own special way! :)

 

Here I am filling boxes.

And here's the assembly line Nate made!

And here is Chloe "helping out." Really, she's inspecting what's going in the boxes to see what she can sneak back into her crate.

This has been such a great experience and we've learned a lot. We definitely want to do it again and we know much more about how to do things better and more effectively next year. We're really excited about dropping off the boxes so they can make their way off to the children!

I'm going to try and start posting some more. And hopefully I can get another "Thrifting Thursday" post up again this week because I found something AWESOME I want to share with y'all. Hope everything is going well with everyone! Miss you guys!

thrifting thursday - born to be "thrift-y"

Hey guys! Long time no see! :) I'm finally starting the new thrifting series, which I am pretty excited about. I thought a good way to kick it off would be with a guest post from my friend Jessie over at Aimless in Wander. We went to grad school together and I thought she had great story connected to thrifting, so today she's going to share it with y'all. Hope you enjoy! And don't forget to stop by her lovely blog and say hello! :) 

My story of what it means to "thrift," why thrifting is so important and how it has changed my life and can change yours, begins with my mother in 1984, the year I was born.

My mom raised me to "thrift"....
She was a single parent my whole life and so of course, we didn't have much money but she wanted me to have cute and comfy clothes to wear as a child, and stylish, trendy clothes to express myself with as an adolescent and during my teenage years…..just like any parent would want to do. She would find higher end thrift stores that had seasonal sales and wait until they were doing their 50% off sales in preparation for closing until the next season's opening. The one store that we shopped at all my life (and still do to this day) is called "The Children's Exchange." They sell second hand clothes for men, women and of course, children and over the past 8 years, they began selling second hand household goods and furniture as well. They have been open in Columbia for 25 years and have changed locations about 5 times that I can remember, but the same ladies have always run it. They have watched me grow up and been there through good times and bad in me and my mother’s lives.  One of these particularly good times was May 2010, the month and year that I got married.  One of the women from the Children’s Exchange, Liz, had worked in her uncle’s florist shop as a young girl.  In as much, she has a plethora of knowledge about flowers, arrangements and has her own beautiful garden at her home.  When she learned of my upcoming nuptials, she asked who was doing my flowers. When I informed her I planned on doing everything for the wedding myself (as we were on a tight budget) Liz offered to designed and create the flower arrangements, bouquets and boutonnieres for my wedding…for free. She even took me, my mother and other members of my wedding party to a local florist wholesale shop (where she had connections) to help advise me on what flowers to choose and so forth.  I offered to pay her for her time and skills in doing all this, but she refused repeatedly saying she just wanted to be part of my wedding after being part of my life for so long. Below are some pictures of my bouquet, arrangements and the bridesmaid’s flowers.

 

Over the past 4 years, my mother has become what I officially call, a “Goodwill Huntress.”  The things she finds at Goodwill are AMAZING! It sort of became her therapy to go every day after work to our 3 local Goodwill stores in search of those “killer” items. She’s got it down to a science, spending about 30 mins or less at each store each day and I could write a book telling you all the awesome stuff she’s found. I haven't had to go shopping for new clothes or shoes for about 2 years...at least! Every time I need a new piece of clothing or shoes or something for the house or even if my husband needs something new, my mom always seems to have this knack for finding it in a few days at one of the locations. 

I, like my friend and fellow blogger Stephanie, don't like to wear what everyone else is wearing. I hate buying clothes from places where things are produced by the thousands and I know I am going to see this same shirt on someone at the grocery store.  Heck I work at a child development center where our staff numbers top off at 17 people and I have seen people more than once walk in wearing the same shirt or with the same purse over their shoulder.  Yikes.   

By shopping at places like Goodwill, or your locally owned thrift or second hand stores, you can make your own style, on your own terms, with your own budget. Not to mention the added bonus of not adding to the carbon footprint by supporting big business fashion factories (but that’s another blog post…) If you are like me, you don’t need your style choices validated by seeing on TV or in a magazine that what you are wearing or decorating your house with is “trending now” or in a Kardashian’s living room….blah blah blah…

You, dear reader, spin your own wheel of fashion and design destiny each time your step into an ambiently lit thrift store ready for “the hunt”….and if people are lucky enough (and savvy enough,) they will join you on your journey.

 
Closing thoughts before you turn off this computer and run to your nearest treasure trove…..Even now at Goodwill, my mom knows many of the employees by name (just like at the Children’s Exchange) and one night a few months ago when I stopped by the Goodwill because I saw my mother’s car there, she introduced me to some of the employees who passed by and they were all very excited to meet me and went on and on about how much they loved my mom. It was a touching experience. Not only can thrifting change our lives, but by thrifting, we can change someone else's life too, in so many ways.

Happy Thrifting!

why i thrift.

So. I get pretty passionate about a few things, and one of them is personal style. I'm a big believer in putting time, effort and thought into how you look everyday because I believe that how you choose to present yourself to the world speaks VOLUMES about who you are as a person.

Because my personal style is so important to me, I have developed quite an, um, fondness for shopping. I love clothing, accessories, shoes, make-up and all you can do with them! I'm a pretty artistic person and because don't always have time to sit down with a paintbrush and canvas as my creative outlet, I have found that I can funnel some of that creative energy through the way I dress.

In order to keep my individuality and to be able to constantly satisfy that part of me that wants to be creative with my personal style and use it as a way to express myself, I have had to really stop and look at how I shop, and had to be very intentional about the way I do so. One of the biggest intentional choices I have made in the past year is to start doing as much shopping as possible at thrift stores. And as I have become a more avid thrift store shopper, it has become something in which I very strongly believe. I no longer do it just because I can find some good deals, or because there are really great unique pieces in thrift stores. There are SO many more reasons why it's important to me. And this post is going to be the first of many where I hope to start sharing this important part of my life with y'all.

But for today, I just wanted to show you why it TOTALLY pays to thrift. I don't know how many of you go to your local thrift stores or buy clothes from them. But I do know that I personally know a lot of people who have attached quite a stigma to shopping at a Goodwill or something similar. And I used to be the same way. Promise! There was a time when I only shopped at the mall and you would have had to have paid me money to get me to go in a thrift store. But after some time and after a good bit of heart change, I realized I was TOTALLY not above wearing someone else's clothes. And that I am no better than the people to whom I'm donating clothes. And I'm doing a lot of good for society and the environment by helping produce less waste when I buy re-used clothing. And I'm doing a lot of good for my family when I'm saving money on clothing. And when I spend less on clothes, I have that much more to put toward things that are more important.

But anway. Enough preaching. Here are some pictures of some stuff I wear that's either vintage or thrifted. Please excuse the quality - I took them with my iPod!

So here's an outfit I wear pretty regularly. This is a vintage 80's shirt from Goodwill for $3. And I've had at least three people ask me where I got it.

Can you guess what was thrifted here? If you guessed the dress, shoes and purse then you're right. I got them all from Goodwill together for $10 total. The dress is a Target brand, which I normally don't buy at thrift stores, but it was in perfect condition. This goes to show, though, that you can find a wide range of items.

Here is a vintage 80's sweater I got at Goodwill for $3.79. It's still in excellent condition and it is totally my style. Finds like these are why I thrift. Because I know I'm not going to find them anywhere else.

So if you've read this far, I am not at all trying to sound all braggy-braggy. I'm not trying to be, like, "Look at me! I buy used clothes and that makes me better than all y'all who don't!" I'm really just trying to share something with you guys that's important to me and help y'all understand WHY it's so important. And maybe, just maybe, if you've never tried it...you might get the guts to do it. Because, if nothing else, I think it's a ton of fun just to go try on some of the crazy clothes you might find and get some good pictures! And Nate and I like to go on the weekends together and see what kind of random things we can get into. Because you really never know what you'll see or find at a thrift store.

And if you're interested in more information, here some links you can check out:

The Tyranny of Trends (a great article on fashion, trends, and the impact on society)

Adored Austin (one of my favorite bloggers who is a serious thrifter)

my edit. (another of my favorite bloggers who is thrifting inspiration)

Thank y'all for reading! And please leave comments! I would love to hear what you have to say on the subject. And any questions you might have. I want to keep this topic going, maybe even start a "Thrifting Thursday" or something. Who knows? But only if I feel like it'll go somewhere! It's kind of a leap from the personal blogging that I've been doing, but it's something that's been on my mind for awhile now. So FEEDBACK PLEASE AND THANK YOU! :)

such a bookworm.

According to Amy over at Crazy, Random Happenstances, the BBC believes that the average person has only read six of the one hundred books on this list. I thought it would be interesting to see which ones I had read, so I went through the list as well. And I figured I'd share the ones I have read in their entirety with you. Some are parts of series that I'm still working on so I didn't list them. I did better than I thought I would have! And I saved the list on my computer, so now I have a goal to work toward in completing the list. It's definitely full of quite a few books that I want to have read at some point in my life.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible
 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Dracula - Bram Stoker

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Ulysses - James Joyce 

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

Persuasion - Jane Austen

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 

A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

   Charlotte’s Web - EB White

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl  

So, I have 25 down and only 75 more to go! 

How did you do?