so this is the new year

I'm back from the dead! Hooray!

I'm not making any promises that this will be a permanent return because sometimes there's a good show on Netflix and I'd rather just watch Ugly Betty and snuggle with my husband then write a post, but I am going to try a little harder to fill this little corner of the internet with the things that I'm really into lately and someday my kids will read it and say "Wow. My mom was a huge nerd." Thanks, future child. It's genetic - so have fun with that.

I still want to talk about hair, nails, clothes and shoes - you know...the important things.
But I also wanted to try some fun things about some of my other interests and I hope you guys will have fun with it too.

In the meantime, I brought you a photo of the feeding frenzy that was my holiday break. When we visit Jonathan's parents, I always treat it like some foreign land that I'll never see again so I obvioulsy have to have 2 desserts a day.

Hope you all had wonderful holidays and that you're as excited for 2014 as I am!

You can follow my daily shenanigans via instagram, twitter, pinterest - or you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

let's talk about shoes, baby

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen my recent shoe purchase.

I'm in love.

I've wanted a pair of Korks for a while, but had a hard time justifying them because I'm not a big clog person (Say that out loud - it sounds gross and makes me laugh. Sorry.) and I've just recently embraced the idea that some wedges and *gasp* even some heels can be comfortable for all day wear! These puppies are comfy.
Although they are bit loud on the concrete/wood floor at work - there's just something about a click clack of heels that makes me feel like a lady. yaknowwhatimean?

The purchase of these shoes also mark my maiden voyage to my local Nordstrom Rack that just opened! I know that some of you big city dwellers are like "What's the big deal?" but I'm telling you that decently priced Nordstrom goodies are the best thing to happen to this small, recently deprived (but not anymore!) area of Northern Utah.

Sorry to my wallet in advance. And sorry to Jonathan for all of the Saturdays that I'm going to make him come shopping with me.

Any shopping trips where you've scored some sweet goods lately?

Thanks for reading! You can follow my daily goings on via instagram, twitter, pinterest - or you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

a purse to call home

 I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of a purse hoarder. I have a bunch of different bags in different colors and materials, but they always seem to be the same size. Super huge large extra double big.

I used to joke with my friends in high school about categorizing my purses my the number of heads I could fit in them. To explain, we were all big theatre nerds and thought this was hilarious. We actually tested this big pink purse I carried around most of high school and found (by convincing people to stick their head in my purse at the same time) that it could fit 3 heads at one time. We were weird

Then, once I hit college, I stopped carrying a purse and just used my backpack for carrying my essentials. It got kind of annoying on the weekends when I'd go out with my roommates and need a place to put my lip gloss or my keys, but one of us was usually the designated purse carrier and we'd toss all of our junk in the same bag and fish it out at the end if the night. Again, weird.

Now that I don't have a need for a backpack and am no longer in the never ending quest for the biggest possible purse, I've found a happy medium.

This picture doesn't do it justice...it's the perfect, bright red.

I just bought this purse from Target on Saturday. The size is perfect-not too big and not too little. I also have a thing for brightly colored purses. I tend to wear a lot of neutrals- so I love using accessories like fun shoes or bright purses to add some color. I also love that the strap can be shortened for wearing on the shoulder or lengthened to wear as a cross body.

Here are some other fun bags I've been loving lately.

Rebecca Minkoff

Michael Kors

Marc Jacobs
(for those wanting to take out a small loan for a purse)

Do you guys love purses as much as I do? Any fun bags you've been wanting?

Thanks for reading! You can follow my daily goings on via instagram, twitter, pinterest - or you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

happy halloween!

Happy Halloween!
Jonathan and I decided to go all out this year.

I was Marie Antoinette's head (post guillotine of course) and Jonathan was a luchador.
My hair was incredibly tall (think Amy Winehouse's hair times 10) and I made Jonathan's cape!

Here are our costumes from Halloween 2012.
Dinosaur and Shark.

Have fun and be safe tonight!
What are you dressing up as for Halloween?

whip your hair

I am lucky to have been blessed with a mother who is basically the greatest woman alive. This same woman is also kind of old school in her ways - so I grew up seeing my mother wash, dry and style her hair every single morning (even on weekends).

So - every morning from about 7th grade until 12th I would get up, wash my hair, blow dry it and then straighten it.

Honestly, I'm kind of exhausted even typing that process out.

It was merely by freak accident that my hair suffered little to no damage from this daily rigamarole.  I even went blonde my senior year and my (naturally brunette) hair didn't fall out!

blonde baby. this is my senior photo. feel free to mock.

Once I got to college, I realized that I needed a new process. It was too time consuming to spend every morning with this insane routine (that took me about an hour from start to finish) just for my hair!

This is when I'm pretty sure I fell into a time warp and landed in the 90s because I discovered mousse and entered what I like to call my "crunchy" phase.

this wasn't even the worst. this was just the only time it was documented.

The thing that is so funny to me is that this whole time I thought - "Mousse is what is making my hair wavy. My hair isn't wavy at all!" Because when I was younger and even through high school - my hair, when naturally dried, was pretty straight.

But as my natural color reclaimed it's property on my head - my hair was starting to slightly wave with just the tiniest bit of help.

It wasn't until...I met my husband in 2010, that I realized if I just washed my hair, put in some sea salt spray and let it be that it would give me what I wanted.

awwwww

And now that I've gone a good long while without any real heat treatment for my hair...I actually get some legitimate curl in my hair. The other day I found a tendril that had done a little ringlet all on it's own!

What's the story of your hair evolution? Do you have a daily routine?

p.s. I know this was a dreadfully boring post. I'm sorry.

It's "busy season" at work and I'm just too tired to talk about anything other than the stuff that comes easy...like my hair.

So please, take it easy on me and I'll be back to better content soon. :)

silver lining

It's been a busy week around here. Here's a song and couple of random facts for your Friday.

Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley

• The lead singer of Rilo Kiley, Jenny Lewis, was Hannah (the daughter), on Troop Beverly Hills. If you haven't seen this movie, then you need to. It's 80s brilliance.
• Jenny Lewis used to date Blake Sennett (also of Rilo Kiley). You can see his face on 1:17.
• Blake Sennett was Joey the Rat on Boy Meets World. And if you haven't seen Boy Meets World...then I'm sorry. We can't be friends.

Now watch the video, ya filthy animal.
And have a great weekend.

what's in a name?

When I was in third grade, my teacher (who was one of my favorites), read us this book about a boy who didn't like his name - so he decided to give himself a new one. (If I remembered the title I would share it, but I'm coming up with a blank. Anyone know the book I'm talking about?)

The moral of the story was basically that you should like who you are (even your name) as you are. But being the stubborn child that I was - I felt a secret kinship with this boy from the book.

I didn't like my name.

I wanted to change it.

Later that week, we got to choose a name to go by for the whole day - and I think that was to show how confusing it was to have someone calling you "Bernard" when you're actually a "Jake."But, I missed the day that we got to choose a new name to go by. My older sister was getting married.*

So not only did I unnecessarily pick out a new name for myself (Samantha) - I also sort of missed the point of the lesson.

The reason I picked Samantha was because of (and this is a direct quote from my 8 year old self):  "all of the nickname options!" Sam, Sammy...uh...Mantha? Basically there were two. But I thought that the possibilities were endless!
In reality, I had this really good friend named Samantha at the time and I kind of idolized her. She was SO good at soccer (something that I spent a lot of my time doing in third grade) and she was so pretty and cool without even trying! She was a tomboy and all of the boys would let her actually kick the ball at recess.
It wasn't the nickname options - it was because I thought there was something in the name Samantha that would make me all the things my friend was. When in actuality - I had some of those qualities already.

Now that I'm older, I'm learning to embrace being a Natalie. Sometimes people spell it differently and give me the secret french H (which I don't mind) or they call me Nicole, Nancy or Natalia. But at least there's that cool song by The Killers, right? And, as you can see above, I can always find personalized jewelry.

Do you ever wish you had a different name?


*While at the wedding I convinced my parents that is was a school assignment and they had to call me Samantha even though I wasn't at school. This lasted for about 10 minutes. My poor parents. I was kind of a tyrannical child.