The other day was a really big deal in my little life. I finally got an iphone! Now I felt pretty behind the loop when it came to technology, but my parents told me I really didn't need to be able to email where ever I was and facebook was a treat not a necessity. And honestly I just couldn't argue with them. But over the summer I spent lots of time traveling (and living) in places with no internet access and missing school and work correspondences.
So when my mom called me and asked if I wanted a bike... I said no, I just wanted an iPhone and ta da!!!
So after getting my iPhone the first thing I did was go get a Lilly cover for it (navy bloomers, if anyone is interested) and it has been glued to my hand ever since. (On a side note I really like this cover, its not hard but not gelly or sticky either, and it still fits in my pocket!)
So far I am loving Whatsapp, Instagram, and of course Twitter!
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."John 15:13
Thank you to all of those who laid down their lives for friends they never met in the World Trade Centers, and to those who have laid down their lives trying to protect our future.
... CRAFT. Turns out crafting is a pretty pearl girl/ sorority girl thing to do!
And I'm not just saying that, we joke that we are getting a degree in crafting! A great night here at school is movies, best friends, and whatever item you can find to craft!
I have been (im)patiently waiting to craft until I felt like I was kind of caught up on school and unpacking and since I was in class from 9 until 5 today, with only one class tomorrow I decided tonight was the night.
Ever since middle school, I have taken great pains to decorate my school supplies. I try to do something different every year....
This is last years...
Looking a little worn these days...
Tonight I was feeling brave and decided to try my hand at painting Lilly...
I was okay with how it turned out!
Do you ever personalize your binders or notebooks? What have you tried?
When it is rainy and cold outside it is easy to revert to hoodies with sweatpants tucked into rainboots, but if it rains for a week straight that is just no fun!
I am taking a class at a nearby college that is co-ed and so I'm finding that I actually want to make an effort! Even if it is raining! And for the record I don't just get dressed because there are boys, I mean.... well, okay maybe that is a minor part of my reasoning. But seriously... just minor.
So here are my ideas for a style that can't be washed away!
Hunters... No explanation needed
Dubarry's! Actually riding boots but they are so beautiful, I wear mine all the time!
I could never choose between Hunter's and Dubarry's! They are both very versatile but I get tons of use out of them both.
I normally go for the dark well fitting jeans... you don't want bunching in your boots, and the lighter the fabric the faster they will dry during class! There are many things in life worse than soggy pants, but I am not ready to put it up there on things I enjoy either.
Today, I went for the long sleeve t-shirt. Simple, fits well under a rain coat, but still looks neat and tidy!
J. Crew has some of the best in the business...
A color like this will brighten up your day and your space :)
A scarf will make your outfit a little more polished while still working for indoor and outdoors!
The obvious choice is Lilly. #wishlist
A quality raincoat is a must in the south! In the west, the temperature drops suddenly when it rains and so a heavy waterproof coat will do just fine... however here in the south you can be getting rained on and sweating at the same time so weight is a very important consideration.
I'm a North Face girl. I have this one.. "octopus blue"
But I really like this Mountain Hardware One!
And now we only need one thing to finish up our look....
This is my FAVORITE umbrella that I picked up randomly at Gap one day. Brightened my day today thats for sure!
How do you keep feeling cute in the rain? I would love some advice since we are currently in a flood watch...
Here we are less than a week into school and I feel like I am already behind! It has been pouring rain though due to all the tropical storms and I must say I love it.
The rain means I have an excuse to wear my comfy clothes I haven't seen all, listen to slow songs, and lock myself away in the library or room to study and get stuff done.
It has been a tough adjustment getting back into the school routine and today at least, the rain matches my mood.
But I always think of rain as cleaning the slate, a time to take time to tidy things up and knowing that tomorrow is a fresh day.
Growing up, one of my goals was to have everything of mine match. We are talking same shade, style, everything. In fact if something didn't match I used to just put it away in a box rather than enjoy it.
The problem with this was that I have a VERY hard time making decisions and I would change my mind every couple of years about what exactly I wanted my style to be. So in the end I ended up with not matching things since my parents would not let me change my room every couple of months (which looking back I totally understand!).
But now I'm living in my very first apartment and I have to say that I am learning to mix and match. I bought some very cute pink bowls to go with green and white plates.
Not mine.. but I love these!
My room is far from decorated but I'm actually liking my blue bedspread combined with pink, orange, and quilted pillows. (I will post a room picture later).
I call this colorful...
Someday I want to have a collection of mismatched mugs. While I still think its important to keep an theme or style, I am starting to embrace the Lilly concept of "live a colorful life."
I know I have been very reflective lately, but I can't help but think that maybe my learning to mix and match and give up the pursuit of the perfect looking room is a metaphor for something bigger in my life. I am trying to mix and match my passions and responsibilities. Sometimes as college kids we are told to focus on how our life will look on a piece of paper, what will we have to put on our resume? I have always let myself be a one dimensional person, afraid to let myself be the horse-girl and a prep and a nerd all at the same time, because I wasn't sure that all those things matched.
I have this mug in my bathroom to remind myself :)
This semester, I am going to mix and match not only my room but myself, embracing all the different colors that I am made of.
Do y'all like to mix or match? Do you ever feel like you have different personas?
Hello! I missed blogging so much, but I was having the time of my life and really wanted to focus on all the opportunities I was getting. There will be much more on my summer later (and I hope y'all will share some summer experiences with me too)!
I had a totally blonde moment (I'm not even blonde naturally...) and mixed up the days of the week that school started! I needed to be at school on Monday not Tuesday, but it was about 10 o'clock on Monday when I figured that out. Needless to say my life was in complete chaos and I was an exhausted mess by the time I got to school. All I wanted to do was curl up in my bed or beast through my unpacking.
This stressed me out.. big time
However, at a small school especially we have so many traditions like opening convocation and first step, and I was surrounded by some of the most amazing girls and some of my best friends who I hadn't seen in months.
So what was I to do?
After some reflection I realized that I needed to put on my Lilly (I didn't even get a shower) and go celebrate with my school, take pictures with my senior friends who were popping champagne on front quad, and make an appearance at the block parties. I needed to go make dinner with my closest friends in our new apartments and catch up on our lives. I needed to let loose and visit the frozen yogurt place, facebook stalk new crushes, drive around singing country songs at the top of my lungs and watching the outdoor movie "Gnomeo and Juliet" with my roommate of 3 years.
Somethings that I have come to learn this summer is that a perfect looking life can be a false front. Having my room completely unpacked, adorable, and full of new craft projects is not going to make me happy.Getting a little bit more sleep isn't worth not supporting my senior friends, these are after all the last time they get to do these things. College is short, and while there are many things we have to do, don't forget to enjoy the moments with those you love the most.
So here is to a room that is still not completely unpacked, a roommate who is sharing her toilet paper with me since I have yet to make it to the store, and a wonderful junior year!
"The fact that this is hard for you makes me even prouder. I didn't raise you to be a quitter and I'm glad that you take your responsibilities seriously. But sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and that needs to come first."
- Prep or Bust's Daddy
So by this point some of you already know that after much self-reflection and many tears, I quit my internship. I might blog about it another time when its not so new and raw.
So I packed up my bags, and hit the road, heading to an Eventing barn in Georgia. I got a job there through my friend and the second adventure of my summer will be accompanying and caring for 12 world-class horses in New Jersey. I will be living in a nice RV with two girls, sweltering in the heat, and hopefully (fingers really crossed) loving every minute of it!
A bunch of the previous blogs were scheduled posts, and since I'm not there yet, I have no idea if I will be able to blog or not. Please be patient with me... after all I'm making this change for me and blogging cannot be my top priority anymore nor can I sit around and blog like I did at my previous job.
Follow me on twitter @PrepOrBust to follow my adventures and hopefully you will be hearing from me soon!
Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers... this summer has turned into a roller coaster I never saw coming.
We are approaching (or have passed for some) the halfway point of the summer. This means that we are recovered from finals, have worked on our caffeine addictions, and I know in my case absolutely and completely ready to go back to school. While the thought of all-nighters in the library does not sound appealing, the thought of being reunited with my best friends, moving into my apartment, and the back to school wardrobe and school supplies sends me into a near giddy state.
There are some other things I am anxiously awaiting as well…. And the one that I have been guilty of daydreaming all together too much about is football! And this is why…
1. The Look
Would happily wear either of these Lilly's to a game!
And the boys never disappoint in the Vineyard Vine school ties and jackets!
2. The Team Spirit
Nothing like a common enemy to pull everyone together!
3. The Tailgate Truck
I am a sucker for a nice boy, and a nice boy with a nice truck doesn't hurt.
4. The New Profile Picture
Lets face it... we love any excuse to fit a whole group of ridiculously good looking people into one picture and post it for everyone on facebook to see!
5. The Weather
I love love love fall in the south!
Why would you not want to be outside to enjoy this?
Anyone else looking forward to tailgating? What are your favorite parts?
This is such a fun article, published in April of 2011. I miss Virginia
If you happened to attend college in the early 1980s, then you probably remember The Official Preppy Handbook. Izod shirts and pastel sweaters were experiencing a fashion moment at the time, and the book arrived as a wryly affectionate satire of a culture where the house wine was a gin and tonic, “summer” was a verb, and a man could appear in public dressed in wide-wale corduroys embroidered with a repeating motif of Irish setter’s heads, and no one would laugh.
Though the Handbook largely concerned itself with the northeastern preppy, the breed’s Virginia cousin was entirely recognizable in the book’s pages and even accorded the occasional nod. And in fact, though we were much more likely to summer at the River instead of Nantucket, and we considered Princeton about as far north as we’d be willing to go for an Ivy League education (or better yet not go north at all when we had better options right here at home), Virginians were confident that we could out-prep the preppiest Groton grad with one hand tied behind our Lily Pulitzer-clad backs.
For one thing, timelessness and tradition are cornerstones of the prep ethic, and it’s not for nothing we named ourselves the Old Dominion. There have been Virginians with a preference for things the way they used to be since the first Jamestown colonists stole a last fleeting glance backward to the receding shores of England—and in most matters your traditional Virginian has always considered it safe to trust in the principle, “What would Mr. Jefferson do?”
And then, of course, we had a cradle-to-grave arc of preppy bona fides. They began with the engraved Jefferson cup at the christening and ended with ham biscuits handmade by your family’s longtime cook for the decorous reception following the funeral. In between, we had debutante balls; we had cotillion; we had fox hunts, and the Middleburg horse set; and Sweet Briar College—school colors pink and green; and Easters Weekend at the University of Virginia, a fraternity party so over-the-top epic that students road-tripped here from Dartmouth like Chaucer’s pilgrims making their way to Canterbury. We had single-sex Episcopalian boarding schools, and seersucker suits in summer, and we never wore socks with our boat shoes. And, let’s face it, there has always been something ineffably preppy about an old Virginia accent, the kind you’d hear from a senior English literature professor at a UVA faculty party or a Garden Club of Virginia hostess during Garden Week.
But that was then. Three decades later, it’s a whole new world—which, as it happens, is the subtitle of True Prep, Birnbach’s cheeky return visit to the Biff-and-Muffy set, published in 2010. If change is anathema to the preppy universe, then the alterations wrought since Ronald Reagan took to the White House, and MTV to the airways, would seem to signify a veritable prep-pocalypse. And though True Prep gamely tries to muster the same carefree air of breezy confidence that marked its predecessor, in the face of a 21st century landscape of McMansions, reality television, and the spittle-frothed invective of the blogosphere, it gives off a faintly shell-shocked quality, like George Plimpton trapped in an episode of MTV Cribs.
Simply put, things have changed—and yet life isn’t all bad. Timeless, unchanging values lose a lot of luster if you’re one of those people tradition traditionally has kept outside of the gates, and the intervening decades indeed have seen a welcome diversity enter the ranks of the elite and the powerful. Look at the Supreme Court. Look at your alumni magazine. Look at those Harvard dropout billionaire techno-geeks Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Look at Barack Hussein Obama, the Columbia- and Harvard-educated mixed-race son of a single mother, widely regarded as the preppiest POTUS since Kennedy (never mind those Yalies George and George W.).
And speaking of private education, the prep school was once the unquestioned preserve of the prepster—“prep” being short for “preparatory.” If you’re over 40 and you ever sang “Jerusalem” while wearing a blue blazer, or climbed out your dorm room window after midnight to go joyriding with your day-student friends, then you remember when being a kid with respectable SATs and a decent GPA from a good prep school meant you could expect to gain admission to at least one of your colleges of choice. If you were particularly ambitious, you might spend a few hours practicing test questions from the SAT manual. If your family surname appeared regularly in any of the colleges’ alumni magazines, you could safely start mentally hanging posters in your future room on the freshman quad.
Today, winning an acceptance letter from a top-ranked college or university requires an 18-year campaign of strategizing that begins with getting into the right preschool and culminates in a four-year high school orgy of IB and AP classes, SAT prep, private tutors, and a six-hour nightly homework load married to a grueling schedule of extracurriculars, all carefully calibrated with an eye to appeasing the capricious gods of the admissions office. Last year nearly 26,000 applicants vied for about 1,300 spaces in the Yale class of 2014.
And then you have to pay for it—about $650,000 (more if boarding school figures in the picture) for a 17-year run from kindergarten to an Ivy League degree. And that’s before you add in the contributions to the annual fund and that 10th grade French class trip to Paris. Little surprise that financial aid is now a prominent talking point in the application process, and that boarding schools, in particular, have welcomed a growing number of international students (11 percent last year, according to the National Association of Independent Schools) whose families have the means to pay the bills.
And what of those summery idylls at the beach? Today “summer” is no longer a verb, it’s an anachronism. Daddy’s tethered to his iPhone waiting for an important client call, Mother has to meet with the decorators to order the new Subzero refrigerator and Viking stove for the 1,500 square-foot kitchen addition, and anyway the kids are scheduled out to 2015 with test-prep classes, internships, service projects and field hockey camp.
So where does that leave us here in Virginia? Dare we look? Are Lindsay Lohan and the cast of Jersey Shorestorming the gates of the Town & Country Cotillion? Have the fox-hunting fields been paved over and populated with big-box stores? Are people wearing tank tops and Daisy Dukes at the steeplechase races?
The good news, if you hold tight to timeless traditions, is no, no, and no. And the good news, if you don’t, is that everything is nevertheless not quite the same. Virginia may still rank hands-down as the preppiest state in the union, but we are not altogether what we used to be. You might say that the stereotype has loosened its rep tie.
Take fox hunting for example. Riding to hounds is still very much alive and well in Virginia—we not only have 19 hunt clubs (considerably more than any other state), but also the headquarters of the Masters of Foxhounds Association, which is located in Millwood. “It’s definitely as popular or more popular than it’s ever been,” says the association’s director, Dennis Foster. But these days the sport is no longer entirely the purview of landed gentry, he says. Most of its participants are middle-class city dwellers who stable their horses elsewhere and join a hunt club for the chance to get out in the country and ride across private, undeveloped lands that otherwise would not be open to them. Maybe they hunted as kids, and maybe they didn’t. Foster himself took up the sport in his 30s at the invitation of an acquaintance; since then he has participated in nearly 400 hunts in 11 different countries. “I think it’s common now,” he says, that people are starting when older. What’s more, the fox is pretty much out of the picture. What most of the hunts do these days is chase coyotes. “This is an evolution in the last 10 years, because the coyote is taking over,” says Foster, adding, “There are very few hunts that actually catch a coyote. You’re talking about a small wolf here.”
Foster points out that though fox hunting is a tradition that traces its roots to Virginia’s colonials days, today’s fox hunting clubs are also an important force in the very contemporary issue of land conservation—fighting suburban sprawl, protecting the habitats where wild creatures thrive, and preserving the character of Virginia’s woodlands and rolling pastures.
Another institution apparently in no danger of closing up shop is the debutante ball. Blakeley Sisk, a 13-year senior from St. Catherine’s in Richmond and now in her last year at Auburn, was one of 31 young women who happily stepped up to be presented at last summer’s 54th Bal du Bois at the Country Club of Virginia. But these days the debs are called “sponsors” and participating is more about getting together with friends you haven’t seen since high school graduation rather than announcing your eligibility for marriage. Yes, the young women still wear white gowns and master the traditional Bal du Bois dance called the ‘Figure.’ But if that sounds like a laughable throwback to another century, note that the Bal, sponsored by the Junior Board of Sheltering Arms Physical Rehabilitation Centers, raised $100,000 for Sheltering Arms in 2009 (2010’s report has not yet been released).
“This is a tradition with a lot of women and their families,” says Sisk, explaining why she wanted to take part. “It’s not something that defines our society any more, but it’s a really fun experience, and it’s about service and giving back to the Richmond community, and it was definitely something that I had always wanted to do.”
Tradition holds strong in sartorial matters as well. We’ve never stopped wearing seersucker here. It is often paired with a bow tie. Sometimes with a gin and tonic. In Charlottesville, Eljo’s Traditional Clothes (please don’t call them “preppy”) has stayed in business for more than 60 years selling blue blazers, gray trousers, and natural shoulder, two-and-three-button undarted traditional-fit suits.
Myles Thurston, who owns Eljo’s with his son Trent, says, “Most of our suits are the same style that we sold 30 and 40 years ago. Styles change, fashions change, but the traditional, University-style clothing called Ivy League has never changed. And there is no reason to change. It is a classic, timeless look and you can wear it until you wear it out.” But you can also order from Eljo’s over the Internet now; the business has worked with customers as far away as Japan, where the Ivy look, you may be surprised to learn, has enjoyed a cult-like following for decades. And in the past few years, it has enjoyed one of its periodic revivals here in the U.S. as well, particularly in men’s fashion. Outside of its traditional community of wearers, the prep look has gone all post-modern hipster ironic—a little more body-conscious, a little less country club, and, dare we say it, sexier.
You can still expect plenty of blue blazers and Vineyard Vines skirts at our single-sex schools, however. Bastions of tradition, they continue to hold the line in Virginia. If the forces of coeducation have whittled away at their ranks (Episcopal, W&L, VMI), we still have our stalwarts like Woodberry Forest, Madeira, Hollins, Sweet Briar and Hampden-Sydney. “Single-sex schools are—de-facto—way preppier than coed,” avows True Prep—and a visitor to Hampden-Sydney, where the school’s mission is “to form good men and good citizens,” is immediately struck by how quintessentially collegiate the place looks—tranquil and bucolic and stately with its brick buildings and rolling lawns and classical architecture. It is a place where a lively student crowd turns out, in coat and tie, on a Sunday evening, for the weekly debates held by the Union-Philanthropic Society, the second-oldest debating society in America. It is a place where a bell is rung by hand to signal the end of each class. It is a place where you’ll find unrenovated classrooms straight out of the nostalgia book, with glazed-brick and plaster walls, dark wood trim, vintage roll-up world maps, and original slate blackboards from the 1930s complete with dusty wooden chalk trays. And it is where the Career Development office helps sponsor an annual etiquette dinner to prepare seniors to navigate the complexities of formal dinners in high places.
Hampden-Sydney’s director of publications, Thomas Shomo, class of ’69, and author of To Manners Born, To Manners Bred: A Hip Pocket Guide to Etiquette for the Hampden-Sydney Man, which is given to every new student at the college, says that what has remained consistent at Hampden-Sydney across centuries is a clarity of mission. “There are many institutions of higher education that have only the most tenuous connection to their founding purpose,” he says. “Hampden-Sydney College opened in 1775 as an undergraduate, liberal arts college to educate men. The definition of what constitutes the liberal arts has changed, but the college has not.”
Matt MacFarland, a senior from Lynchburg, who is writing his English honors thesis on the myth of Orpheus and minoring in classical studies, says, “It’s the cultivation of tradition that makes this place so appealing.” He notes that it’s impressed upon students that they are responsible for carrying on those traditions—of scholarship, of brotherly comradeship, of honor and civility and personal integrity. The honor code is taken very seriously here, and every new student has to stand up individually in front of a college assembly to sign a card pledging to abide by it.
Still, says MacFarland, even if a football game here “is like a time machine,” doing things a certain way just because that’s how you’ve done them for 200 years isn’t always the right course to choose. And, indeed, the winds of change have reached even unto the distant hills of Prince Edward County. A first generation college student himself, MacFarland notes that despite its perhaps once-deserved reputation as a rich, white, Southern-boy’s school, Hampden-Sydney today has a student body with fewer fraternity members and far more diversity. The college president and the president of the student body are both black, the assistant dean of students is a native of Serbia, and students come from more than 15 countries around the world, including Nepal, Jamaica, Germany and China. Though the men are still men and the women still guests (in the words of a vaguely controversial unofficial school motto) the women are also professors. And the student organizations include the UNITY Alliance, which seeks “to foster a safe and supportive environment for all members of the Hampden-Sydney community regardless of sexual orientation.”
In short, the ideal of “the Hampden-Sydney man” today represents what True Prep likes to imagine the world could be, a place where all are welcome who are willing to embrace those old-school prep values like civility and respect and integrity.
Not to mention the fashion sense. “I never owned a blue blazer before I came here,” says MacFarland. Now he has one, and camel hair and tweed jackets too. And come those warm days of late spring, look for Matt stepping out once again to greet the season in style. In seersucker, of course.
In high school, I went to extreme efforts of collage-ing and modge-podge-ing my planners. They were probably the best-looking and least used planners in the school (by my very unbiased opinion). I loved the concept of having a planner but somehow I never got around to really using it consistently.
Last year, my sophomore year of college, was CRAZY busy! I had days where I had to pick and choose what I was actually going to do off my to-do lists because there was just too much. Full of phone numbers, addresses, assignments, meeting with professors, and even some notes about Gossip Girl and Grey’s Anatomy (Hey, we all need study breaks Mom!).
Right now I’m in the awkward-summer-between-planner-stage, its like they think we students don’t need planners in the summer!
So the nerd in me is already looking at which planner I should get for the fall! Here are some of the ones I am considering…
From http://www.maybooks.com/
And you can personalize how you want the inside!
So cool!
How do you stay organized? Do you have a planner you love?
I have always loved big, beautiful hats! I always watched the derby with my family, and admired the hats. I wondered though if people wore hats anywhere else because I sure saw no hats like that at home.
So before foxfields this year I seriously debated getting a hat. Unfortunately, I have a very small head, and so the vineyard vines didn't fit me and I looked a bit like the little girl playing dress up and swore off hats all together.
But while my family was here, my mom convinced me to try some on and to my surprise I loved them, when they fit I actually really love how I look in them! Turns out my grandmother was a hat model in Savannah and New York, so I guess I have her to thank.
Hats are great for the beach, tailgates, and any outdoor activity! Perfect way to control your hair in the outdoors and prevent sun-damage on your pretty faces!
These are my favorites from Marley Lilly!
Wish my head was big enough for this one from Vineyard Vines
Last week I was really unhappy. I hated my job, my spare time, and how lonely and ostracized I felt alllll the time here. I made calls about other jobs, working student jobs actually. My favorite fall back is to go back to the horses even though they really haven't worked out for me lately. I was sad about the idea of leaving Hilton Head but I felt like my summer was a waste. Sure beaches, warm nights, and living in a resort town sounds amazing, but its very hard when you feel like you don't have anyone to enjoy it with.
So my parents came into town and while my Mom was a teensy bit more understanding, because of my bad attitude I was in for a lot of those really-fun-roll-my-eyes-crying-mess-life-talks. But at some point during the weekend I decided to stop being defensive and try listening to what my parents were saying. I've never been the kid to get a lot of "life-talks" so it was hard!
What we decided as a family was that I needed to re-prioritize my life, learn to be happy by myself, find a way to challenge myself intellectually, and find more things to do. So step #1. Get a job! I don't want to go out and party in the evenings? My parents adore that, but it gets really lonely. I didn't want to waitress so after some careful thinking I applied to a Lilly and Vineyard vines store. And I got the job today! Its something I know about, I will be surrounded by fun, new people, and between my paycheck and the discounts I am so set to have the best back to school wardrobe ever! (Can I just say I am really really looking forward to fall at school!!!)
My family is full of readers.... I mean yesterday we went to take a few minutes to poke around Barnes and Noble because we had some extra time and it was air conditioned. I walked out with 4 new books and I have no idea how many the rest of my family got! My mom is my very very best friend... she knows everything! So she knows how much I have been struggling to find a healthy relationship with food. So yesterday she got me .....
I started it yesterday about 4 pm... and was done by 9 am... and it was the 4th of July.
I loved it! It was a book filled with quality information about nutrition and the mentality around eating. It was presented in a fun, easy to understand, and relatable way. I honestly already feel myself thinking differently about food. I cannot believe the impact it has made on me already and I'm excited to continue towards the path to a healthy lifestyle.
I highly recommend this book to everyone! In high school, college, or post-college!
My parents are flying in this evening! They have not been to Hilton Head and I can't wait to show it off. I am really falling for the island. I am very lonely and wish some of my awesome #twitfam (please follow/ tweet at me! @PrepOrBust :)) was actually here to help me enjoy it but the beach just never gets old!
That beings said... I am going to put my computer away and make the most out of my family's trip so forgive me for not posting over the long weekend. I thought I'd leave you with some silly facts about me...
The Fast Five
1. I love being called by my first and middle name. In fact my parents intended me to be called by both but somehow it rarely happens.
2. I am very very rarely spontaneous. Most of the time, I plan things carefully so they appear spontaneous.
3. I regularly delete friends from facebook. Lets ‘face’ it, we were never really friends and I’m tired of your stupid status updates. “Oh, you want to be my friend now? You didn’t even acknowledge me in high school, why would I let you stalk my life now?”
4. Horses have always been my true love. I have had several boys brave enough to ask me if they came before the horses. The answer never really went over well…
5. A lot of the time I think I am prettier in a sweatshirt with no make up and a ponytail then when I am all dressed up.
What are your plans for the weekend before the 4th?! I would love to hear them! Anyone get the lilly firework pattern? I adore it.... and plan on taking my parents to the Lilly Store here.
I have an eating disorder. No, I don’t puke up what I eat. No, I do eat three meals a day. No, I don’t binge. But I do spend altogether too much time on any given day obsessing over food. How many calories is this? How many fat grams? If I eat this now, will I be okay with just yogurt for dinner? If I don’t eat until 8, I can probably make it until bedtime without feeling too hungry. It is a problem.
I’ve always been a picky eater… I like my pizza with only cheese, my chicken sandwiches plain, and wish I could still eat off of plates with the little dividers. This makes me prone to thinking and planning my meals since I have often gone hungry instead of trying a new dish.
My issues with food did not really start until last fall. I always ate whatever I wanted when I wanted and while I didn’t have a 6-pack never really worried about it. I lived with a family during the summer that ate out at restaurants 3 meals a day and I put on more weight than I was comfortable with. At the end of the summer, I immediately began dieting and shed it all quickly. But the time spent staring at the scale and the nutrition labels became a habit.
I have wonderful friends at school, but they have their quirks when it comes to food as well. We have the one with 47 food allergies, the one with krohn’s disease, the vegetarians, the binge eater, and a couple that suffer from serious eating disorders. Food and nutrition and exercise was a regular meal topic. Menus had to be looked up online for nutritional information before we went out to eat. When we weren’t eating, we were generally talking about food or planning our next meal. We would share whether we were succeeded or failing when it came to our healthy habits and would tell each other what we ate at each meal. A dinner out at my favorite pizza place would turn into hours worth of guilt and hating myself and my body. A cupcake at the local bakery became more torture than a treat. I would try to enjoy it, only to hear from my friends (who are tiny) that they can’t believe they ate that or heaven forbid they didn’t go to the gym today.
I honestly didn’t realize how food had begun to control my life until I went home and my mother called me out on it and I have been working on balancing my habits this summer. It is a frustrating process, eating is still mostly a chore and annoyance. I still plan my meals for the whole day before I even eat my breakfast, and carefully watch and compare how much my friends eat when we go out to dinner. I am terrified to have sweets in the house, and spend too much time looking at other girls bodies. I am still trying to figure out what hungry actually feels like (that’s how confused I got about food) but I made cookies tonight and didn’t bother to count how many I ate.
I am a healthy college girl. I wear a single digit size, exercise at least a couple times a week, and like vegetables as well as a fresh pizza. I am a beautiful me.
Girls, just because you eat doesn’t mean that you don’t struggle with your relationship with food. Your fear of or desire for food should not control you. I think a truly beautiful and healthy girl listens to herself, and both her needs and her wants. We need to allow ourselves to actually eat when we go on a date (and it can’t be your only meal of the day) and bake cookies with friends.
Does anyone else struggle with this stuff? How do you keep yourself grounded in a world that equates a number on a scale or a tag with true beauty?
I got a very exciting international the other night. It was one of my very best friends calling from Australia where she moved to be with her boyfriend that she met while vacationing in Europe. (I know... sounds more like a movie trailer than real life). But she was calling me to ask me to be her bridesmaid!
This is a first for me. I am only 20, but at home the cool thing to do is get married and while I have had close friends get married, L is older and I am in complete support of the marriage! After I had my little teary shrieking moment we moved on to talking about all the details there are.
But my mind kept wandering back to when we met in 2005, at a youth equestrian test. We studied horse parasties together, were obsessed with the movie cars, she had to teach me how to do t9 texting....
Where does the time go?
I am so thrilled for her, but at the same time it hit me that I am really becoming a grown up. And I'm not sure that I am ready and equipped for it. I also don't know if I really want it... being a child was so much fun. I know we couldn't drive, still had cerfew, and were in middle and high school. At this point I am even feeling nostalgic about college and I just passed my halfway mark! Eek
But aren't there parts of 'childhood/teenagehood' you miss? When did you realize you were growing up?
So a fun tradition I just recently learned about is the cooler painting tradition. This is one of these times when I truly appreciate that I have not just moved geographically, but I have entered a culture in of itself complete with a checklist of traditions to be observed and enjoyed. Something that fascinates me is the southern belle and beau interaction. Generous boys spoiling girls with their time, money, and adoration, and the girls returning the favor with handmade gifts, and their precious time, presence, and love. I have to admit the first time I learned anything about the painted coolers was when a boy I "talked" (def: dating but not labeled) to posted pictures of one he received this summer on facebook.
I don't know how I missed them before... but I am now obsessed. I am going to paint one for myself (for practice of course) but I'm making myself finish my dads belt first!
This has not stopped me from collecting ideas however.... These are some amazing ones I have seen.
Personal favorite!!! Y'all should follow @PotsAndPearls
on twitter! She's fantastic!
Check out this page on facebook for about million other ideas!
Have any of you painted coolers? I would LOVE to see yours or hear ideas for mine :)
