I'm So Fancy...but you may not already know

Hello!
So I just got back from a very interesting weekend "getaway" in Lansing for the MSHA (Michigan Speech and Hearing Association) for their annual conference. This conference is for undergraduate and graduate students who are Speech Pathology majors and also for actual Speech Therapists who are coming to learn more about the field. Essentially, I had to be dressed professional every day and on top of my game, as well as listen to some pretty dense presentations. It was a really neat experience, and I also got to bond with some of my fellow girls in the major. I wore a lot of cute outfits but my favorite one was this one!

me and one of my fellow speechies with my pink blazer and circle skirt

I can't take actual credit for the blazer and skirt since I borrowed them from a friend... but I can take credit for pretending to be Elle Woods in front of this pretty window in the conference hall!

That's right. Blondes are smart.

I definitely felt good about myself after attending MSHA because I found the information really interesting and I understood a good amount of it even though I'm only on my first year in this major. I guess that's a good sign going forward! The only bad thing was that the hotel was extremely sketchy and filled to the brink with annoying tween boys. Other than that though, it was a super neat weekend!

my nametag :)

Also... this summer is gonna be sweet. I just got tickets with Olivia and our other friends to go see Book of Mormon in Chicago shortly after I get back! I am so excited to make more memories with my friends and do some really special things. I am going to make a separate post later about our developing summer bucket list too. Much to look forward to!

Love,
Cecilia

It's Enough For Me

"Should this be the last thing I see, I want you to know it's enough for me."

~Tenerife Sea, Ed Sheeran

Late night blog post time!

I wanted to make a post today, but it's so late because I've been out all day. The past few days have been pretty eventful and have made my spring break more interesting! My break has gone by far too quickly! Although there's technically one day left, I'm calling it pretty much over because tomorrow's agenda consists of sleeping in (duh.), doing laundry, and doing all my homework that's due Monday. Can't wait to do that...

I feel like this photo makes me look a lot cooler than I actually am.

While the weather has been consistently cold over this whole week (we're talking no higher than 35 degrees cold.), the nicest day was probably Wednesday, so my family and I took the opportunity to go downtown Chicago! We visited the Adler Planetarium, which is a place I'd never been, and I thought it was pretty interesting. We got membership passes, so we will definitely be back there again soon. 

I also spent some time with my friends who are here recently! My friends and I are all into film, so we like to make short films during the summers, and lately we've been discussing the projects for this summer! I won't give any details about the projects (top secret!), but we've been looking for beautiful songs that could play during the films, preferably original songs, so as to avoid copyright infringement. My friends came across a beautiful cover of this song and absolutely adore it! It's so perfect!

The sun was out today wooo!

Today was spent celebrating my younger brother's birthday (which is actually today! Well, now, technically yesterday.), and he wanted to have his friends and family together for a bowling party. It was pretty fun, and I even ended up winning our first game against my siblings, which was a huge surprise because I'm actually terrible at bowling! Later, one of my brother's friends showed up, and he ended up being the only one... I felt sort of bad because none of his other friends could make it, but they seemed to have a good time and seem to be pretty close, so I'm sure it was fun for them and my brother had a good birthday! 

old kohl's sweater • thrifted collared top • old shorts • Charlotte Russe sunglasses

OH! One last thing! A few of my friends and I, including Cecilia, made plans last night and bought our tickets to see The Book of Mormon on Broadway in Chicago! I'm extremely excited to not only see the show, which I've been wanting to for a while (I love musicals!), but also to spend some quality time with my friends downtown! I haven't had a day in Chicago with my friends recently, if at all, so I'm super stoked! Summer seriously can't come fast enough.

With love,

Olivia

Keep the Snow From Falling

"I still feel summer's warmth when I'm with you, you keep the snow from falling like a ray of sunlight shining through."

~Seasons of You, Everett Coast

Hey!

So spring break is underway, and let me tell you, it does not feel like spring at all. We got a few inches of snow yesterday, and while the weather channel assured us that it wouldn't stick, IT STUCK. So there was snow on the ground all day today, and it didn't get above 35 degrees at all! All my friends are posting about how they're at school or on vacation and I'm stuck on spring break with nothing to do while it's freezing outside!

I had to take pics inside again because it was so cold and gross outside!

Other than the weather being strange, my break has been pretty nice so far. I've gotten to relax a lot, which is really great since school has been pretty stressful up until now. Although most of my friends are away and I can't see them, I am hanging out with the people who are here, as well as my family. Despite the gross weather, my mom planned out fun days for us for today and tomorrow! We spent today ice skating and then eating lunch at a cute local diner. I love those cute little places that you can find only in your town! 

I finally tried high-waisted pants...and I actually love them!

Look who decided to crash our photo session...

I'm pretty excited for tomorrow too! My family and I are going downtown Chicago to check out the Planetarium, and possibly another museum if we have time. I've never been to the planetarium downtown before, so I'm pretty stoked. I find astronomy beautiful and the only science that is interesting (in my opinion of course!), so I can't wait to see what's there! I also hope to eat at a fun restaurant while we're in the city - can't pass up the opportunity for more cute little local food joints!

thrifted Forever 21 top • thrifted pants

Well hopefully the rest of Spring break is fun, even if the weather disagrees! Tomorrow should be a great day, and I'm hoping the rest of the days are also great, even if I don't have plans!

With love,

Olivia

Fundraising and cuteness!

Heyo!
So I've had a pretty insane week. And unfortunately, there isn't too much exaggeration in that statement. Between everything I had to do for school, some problems with a student organization I'm very involved in and Relay for Life on Friday, I've barely had time to catch my breath! Luckily, while it was somewhat stressful, this week has done more good for me then bad. But first, I'm gonna talk about Relay!


If you've heard of Relay for Life, then you probably have a basic idea of what it is. It's an all day and all night event that raises money for cancer research. Usually done at some kind of university, campus or gym setting, everyone has a "team" (since I'm in college, the teams consisted mostly of student organizations) that sets up a booth of their own choosing around a giant track. The idea is that you have people sitting at the booths, raising money by either having a game or selling an item such as baked goods or crafts. In addition, you are ideally supposed to have one of your team members walking around the track at all times. They also have cancer survivors and caretakers give speeches and certain traditions, such as a survivor's lap. I did it with NSSLHA (National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association) and we had a game where you guessed an animal sound from a recording and sold cookies and cupcakes. The NMU theme for the event was Welcome to the Zoo, so we all kinda dressed up like various animals and painted our faces as well as other people's. We had a super cute booth as pictured below! Needless to say, it was wonderful.

She was a good sport. 

Our super cute booth

In addition to that, I've been volunteering weekly at UPAWS, our local animal shelter. As I've been doing so, I've got some really good pictures of some of my favorite dogs, particularly today.. I'm just gonna leave them here for you to enjoy.

A little fluffball I loved.

He was so photogenic.

beagles have my heart.
 

 This is a pretty short entry, but I'm sure that I'll have a longer one next week! I am going to Michigan Speech and Hearing conference this weekend so I'll probably have a lot to say about that. Until then, live, laugh and remember that even when life sucks, puppies and kittens exist. 

Much love!

Cecilia

Let's Bring 'em Back Around

"Do you remember those summer days? I could use a few more right now, let's bring 'em back around!"

~Bring 'em Back Around, The Farewell Drifters

Hello!

I really wanted to go take some pictures outside today, considering it's the first day of spring and all, but it's actually a lot colder today than it has been lately. This makes me sad because although I love winter, I am so ready for some nicer weather! In a way, this song has that nostalgic feel that I've got for spring and summer (this band is not very well known, but I found them on Spotify and love their sound! Definitely check them out). 

I also wanted to wear something spring-y today, with light colors and patterns and whatnot, but it just doesn't feel enough like spring yet. However, I think that kind of worked out because I just bought this dress yesterday and could not wait to wear it! I've been stocking up on cute clothes for the warmer weather and I just can't wait to wear them! Ahhh!

The cold weather caused me to take pics inside my house. Ugh.

My other cat, who probably hates me. 

Also, my spring break began today! This week long break is really much-needed. Although all of my friends had spring break already and won't be here while I'm on break, I'm gonna try to make this break fun and relaxing. I plan on not focusing on school at all! Just hopefully the weather cooperates and I can find some fun things to do!

thrifted Forever 21 dress

So here's to a great Spring Break 2015! The spring breaks the past two years have been amazing (I went to Disney both times...), so I'm not sure how this break will measure up, but I have high hopes that some fun stuff will happen. I'm kicking it off by going to my school's spring play tonight to see my lovely friends perform! Can't wait!

With love,

Olivia

She Moves In Her Own Way

"I love her because she moves in her own way!"

~She Moves In Her Own Way, The Kooks

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I love being festive and celebrating every little thing, so even though I am not Irish, I wanted to get into the spirit of the day anyway! However, I've been wanting to wear this red dress for a while and didn't want to pass it up, no matter how much crap I would get for not wearing green. I thought I would just do my own thing (which reminded me of this song)! But at the same time, I love the color combo of red and mint (not red and green - that is just too Christmas...), so I thought that a mint cardigan would be good enough? I don't know if it's really that green, but no one questioned me, so I think I'm good!

It was so nice out today!

I felt really good today, and I think it was this outfit that made me feel so confident. In fact, when my friend (who was also dressed super cute!) and I were walking around at school today, we got so many comments on how cute we looked! We kinda matched because I had a bow in my hair and he had a bowtie on, and I kinda wish we had taken a picture because we were lookin pretty fly.

I later went on to get a chocolate mint shake from Portillo's which is a must around St. Patrick's Day! Portillo's is a restaurant that is popular around the Chicagoland area, and they have the BEST shakes. Since mint is my favorite flavor of anything, I couldn't pass up this festive treat, despite the fact that it is not healthy in the slightest (it tastes at least 1000 times better than a Shamrock shake, just for the record). 

It had to be documented on Snapchat, of course.

Dress from Ross • Thrifted Mossimo cardigan • Thrifted shoes • Icing bow

So today has been a pretty great day! I'm hoping it just gets better from here! I'm going to my old high school to see my brother perform in his band concert, and that just makes me miss band. I've played the flute for almost 10 years now, but my school doesn't have a very good concert band, so I've had to put my flute-playing on hiatus. I really hope I can find a way to keep playing in the future because I miss making music so much! Anyway, hope the rest of the day is fantastic! 

With love, 

Olivia

10 Fun Facts about me!

I thought I would do a fun post today since it's a BEAUTIFUL day up here in the U.P.
So here are some fun facts about me! If you wanted a deep post, sorry to disappoint you. Maybe next week.

1. I hate mushrooms
Quite honestly, I feel that they were created in Satan's own secret lab

2. My dream job is to create a Theatre Company for children and adults with speech disorders
There IS one in new york, but that's specifically for children who stutter. I would go in whole taco with it and say all are welcome! We would also do therapy and singing there.

3. My favorite color in the whole wide world is mint. A lot of people know this. HOWEVER, the reason why it's mint is actually because I couldn't choose between blue and green

A wild Cecilia, in her natural habitat (Target)

On my 18th birthday, I was gleefully wearing my mint dress.
The hugging kinda grabs focus but this was the only one I could find of me in it.

4. Related to above photo: I love love love my friends! Seriously! If you're someone who I call a friend then I probably appreciate you beyond measure. I always try to enter relationships of any kind wholeheartedly so basically I've got a lot of room in my heart for people who choose to include me in their lives :) I would post pictures under this one, but then I'd have to go through so many to choose.

5.My favorite style choices are usually a dress and scarf combination of some kid. If weather doesn't permit, I like cardigans or big sweaters and leggings too! In addition, I love a beanie or a nice knit hat with my big nerd glasses.

In my backyard. Feeling fly.

In front of Munising Falls, being a fashionable explorer!

Nerd alert!

6. I have an addition to Starbucks. It's getting slightly ridiculous, and gets progressively worse the more stressed I am.

7. I am a single hopeless romantic. Even though sometimes I get cynical, I do believe there's somewhat for everyone.

8. I'm Wisconsin raised and fairly certain that my blood is actually hot cheese. (That was also a Cards Against Humanity reference which is one of my favorite games)

9. I have the cutest fat beagle ever as well as a sassy poodle mix. Dog person all the way.

10. I love public speaking. I did speech team in high school and I enjoy giving presentations and plan to use it to my advantage in college!

I'm Good

"Livin' life just like I should, wouldn't change it if I could, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good." 

~I'm Good, The Mowgli's

Hello!

Do you ever just have those times where nothing seems to go right, and everything just seems to fall apart? Sounds depressing, but that's pretty much how the entirety of last week was for me. A lot of really personal stuff in my life went wrong and I felt completely defeated, and then on top of that, our entire town was grieving because of three local high school students committing suicide within a few days of each other. So needless to say, last week was not a really happy one.

old sweater • thrifted skirt • Icing bow • Target socks

My lovely cat Toby, who makes me smile, even when life sucks

Outfit of the day, featuring my kitty :)

Despite everything that's been going on, I've been trying to stay positive. I've always been a pessimist, but for now, I'm trying not to let anything bring me down anymore! I've been listening to this song a lot lately, and it just makes me feel happier (seriously listen to it! It just makes me feel so good!). Just thinking positively, surrounding myself with the best friends in the entire world, and eating a crapload of chocolate really worked in making me realize that everything's gonna be okay, and that I'm good. 

I just had to run out and quickly snap a pic of this black squirrel - they're pretty rare, and I'm grateful I had my camera on me!

Whoever invented skirts with pockets deserves an epic high-five.

So here's to hoping this week is amazing! I've got a couple of things to look forward to, like I'm going to see my school's play this weekend, and some of my friends are on spring break, so I'm going to spend some time with them while they're home! Being apart from my friends has been really hard throughout the school year, but it just makes the time that I do get to see them even more precious. I seriously couldn't ask for better friends in my life!

With love,

Olivia

About Cecilia!

Hello! I'm Cecilia! Also known as Cece, Cdawg, Cecils, Cecil, Ccmcgee, or sometimes, even just C. 
I'm really excited to start this blog with my wonderful friend Olivia. We've managed to remain friends through middle school, high school AND now college! Gotta give us some credit for that...especially middle school. Yikes.
So I'm gonna take this opportunity to introduce myself. Here is a photo of me being all cute with this random snowman in Chicago this past spring break.

The snowman was like who is this girl??

When I'm not posing with random snowmen however... I'm probably doing something else! I go to Northern Michigan University in the Upper Peninsula. This is my freshman year, and so far it's been quite a journey! My major is Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences with the goal to go onto Grad School and become a Speech Therapist. I hope to either work with children or at a hospital in a Brain Trauma center because I really like neurology.  I'm also minoring in Theatre, which is my other passion and has been for quite awhile and maaaybe Psychology if I can squeeze it in. Other things I do at school are my job, I'm a tutor at our writing center on campus! I also participate in Student Government and volunteer in the community so I'm pretty busy. I'm also pretty happy though since I love what I do!

much accurate.

A theatrical production in which I was a clown and my friend, a dragon head.

"Body Talk" by Tanya Palmer

#goals

Lucky for me, my school is located in one of the most beautiful areas in Michigan so there's plenty to explore when I'm not doing homework or other activities!

On top of Hogsback Mountain. Boy was that a climb.

It kinda snows a lot up here.

I also love hanging out with family and friends. My friends up here at school are fantastic and I'm sooo grateful that I met them!  I really miss my friends and family back home when I'm here

though, since my school is about 6 and half hours away from home. However, I always have a great time when I come back!

Olivia and I at "Shrek the Musical"

Like Olivia, I also love traveling and adventure. I plan on living a life full of those two things, and hopefully fall in love and have a super cute dog at some point as well. I hope to post on here about various things such a style ideas, random rants about things I care about and maybe even some jokes if you're lucky.

Till next time!

Cecilia :)

 

About Olivia!

Hello!

My name is Olivia, and I am super excited to be starting this blog! I thought it'd be a great way to document my life as well as my personal style. I've wanted to do this for a while, but I also thought it'd be fun to go into this with one of my close friends, so this blog is for both myself and my friend Cecilia! We will both be posting from this account, so enjoy posts from both of us!

First and foremost, I'd like to make a post about myself and who I am! 

This is what I look like, enjoying the lovely Illinois winter!

I live in northern Illinois, and I am currently on my first year of college. I go to a small community college, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but hopefully this blog will give me something interesting to do! I am currently working on my gen eds, in attempt to transfer to a university in a couple years. My dream is to become an animator after getting my bachelors and masters in animation! I've been an artist for as long as I can remember, and I can't think of a better way to spend my life than creating art.

My latest painting, with a quote from a movie I love, Moulin Rouge.

Besides art, I also love theater! I have been acting in plays ever since I was in middle school, and it's something I just do for fun. I can't wait to be in another show, and hopefully I will get to do another through my school next year.

Cecilia and I have been in numerous shows together and bonded over a love for theater.

My other interests include music (I've played the flute for almost 10 years now), Disney (I hope to work there someday as an animator!) and traveling. Although I've never left the country, I have a love for adventure and exploring new places! 

Majestically looking off a cliff on my last vacation.

This post is rather short I know, but this is just my background info! In the future, I will post more about my life and give updates and such, but most of my posts will also be about my style and outfits. This year I've gotten really into discovering my personal style, and although I really don't know much about fashion, I thought it'd be fun to share my style with the world cuz why not?? I'll also post about life events, share stories and photos, and probably about music I've been listening to. I'm just going to post whenever I feel like it or whenever I have a cute outfit I want to share, so yeah! 

Cecilia should be posting her first post sometime later today!

With love,

Olivia