outfitted:: purple ruffles and cargos (and the blond debut)

So, here it is everyone. The blond debut. And it's straight, too, thanks to my awesome stylist, Jenn at Trim Salon, who battled with my hair for a good 30 (maybe more??) minutes, armed only with a brush and a blowdryer. Sadly, while I do have similar weapons, I do not have the patience or the skills to straighten my hair like Jenn does, so my wild and wavy hair has been back to doing its wild and wavy thing for the past several days now. And I'm left with only these pictures as a reminder of the short-lived but happy times my straight hair and I had together.

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{Shop}:: top, lc by lauren conrad, kohl's (purple not available online- check the brick and mortar store); cargos, american eagle (older than dirt); earrings: old and not a clue where I got them; bracelet: sun sugar studio; sandals: madewell silverlake sandal

outfitted:: peach and red

I wore this outfit last week to go fill out all of the paperwork for my new job. Said paperwork also required a drug test. Every time I have to take a drug test, or even hear the words drug test, the following incident I recently witnessed at a nearby pharmacy will forever come to mind:

Irate customer storms up to pharmacist.
Pharmacist: "Can I help you, sir?"
Customer, waves a paper wildly in pharmacist's face, points to it, and says: "I want to know why THIS [prescription] drug didn't show up on my drug test, but COCAINE DID!"
Pharmacist:  (Blink. Blink.)

Clearly (and shockingly), this customer has never had to take a drug test before.

Also, this is the last post where you'll see my non-blond hair (well, my non-light blond hair, since I guess this is still sort of dark blond).

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Shop:: top, loft (last season); skinny red jeans, lc by lauren conrad at kohl's; earrings: sun sugar studio; bracelet: j. crew; shoes: aerosoles (several seasons ago)

what i did on my summer vacation

I go back to work tomorrow, 12 weeks after getting laid off. I haven't had this much time off from work since I was 14 or 15 years old. And while I did stay busy with my grad school class and a few other projects, I still managed to squeeze in some nostalgic summer fun. If it weren't for that little thing called income (or the lack of it while unemployed), I could have easily imagined I was 14 again (save for the fact that those Saved by the Bell reruns were not nearly as entertaining as I remembered them).

So here are a few things I did on my summer "vacation":

Played with nail polish:




Bought Revlon Moondrops Lipstick in 24K Orange, purely because it was one of the first lipsticks I ever bought as a teenager:




Caught up on some mindless but entertaining reading:




Ate way too many Freezee Pops:




Made some friendship bracelets (similar pieces will show up in my jewelry shop soon, after I finish refining them):
taken with my iphone



Visited my favorite city:




And spent a lot of time with these adorable faces:
taken with my iphone


Just because I managed to have some fun on my unplanned summer vacation doesn't mean I wasn't productive. In addition to my fun, I also:
1. Updated the design of this blog and posted regularly.
2. (Soft) launched my business and marketing website.
3. Launched Sun Sugar Studio, my new jewelry line.
4. Created my 35 Before 35 list.
5. Painted our living room, dining room, stairway, and upstairs hallway (walls, ceiling, and trim).
6. Updated my resume and got a new job.

Overall, it gave me a lot of time to recharge from some pretty awful experiences, start some long overdue projects, and get ready to start a brand new chapter of my life (and close those old ones that aren't even worth re-reading).

I have a few posts pre-scheduled for this week because I don't know how much time I'm going to have between the new job and working on my final project for class over the next two weeks. Then, I leave for a long weekend, come back for two days, and then head back to the beach for short week/extra long weekend trip, so posting could be light for the next month or so until I get back into the swing of things.

Happy Sunday and happy summer!

All photos by me.