sad news.

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BUT ACTUALLY.

I broke my camera this weekend.  Fail.  Therefore, I'll be taking a bit of a blogging break until it's fixed slash this week is over and I have time to breathe again.

It's the start of basketball season!  Let's go Eagles!

man-magnet dresses.

Or as I like to call them, the freakum dress.

Ala Beyonce.

You know it...the dress you put on when you want to be noticed.  Well, Refinery 29 has compiled a list of this season's man-magnet freakum dresses.  To be honest, I was kind of surprised by some of their selections, but others are bangin'.

Here are the dresses that have received the style princess seal of approval.

Hello, beautiful.  I love everything about this dress.  It has a great cut and the lace paneling makes it just revealing enough.  Also, I was super psyched to see a dress like this in the Refinery list because I had just purchased a dress with sheer paneling.  So much love.

Cute, simple, and flattering.  This ASOS dress certainly is fabulous...and fairly reasonably priced.  I think I may have to get myself one!

Okay, I love little red dresses.  And I really love this little red dress.  It's clingy without being too clingy. Dress it up or dress it down.  Either way, you've got a winner.

I was beyond thrilled when I saw this lacy number on the list.  Why?  I have one!  This one in particular is by Alexa Chung for Madewell, but mine's from H&M.  Funny story, though.  One night, I wore my dress out (read about it here!) and my roommate, Brandon, told me that it looked like a dress from the Alexa Chung collection for Madewell.  I think I did a good job when purchasing my version and I highly encourage everyone else to go out a buy a lace dress too!

What are your favorites from Refinery 29's list?

halloween.

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I love Halloween.  I always have.  I think it's because I love costumes and dressing up.

Okay, it's because I love dressing up.

The candy helps, too. ;)

Let me tell you a little story about past Halloweens...

We're going to go back to high school to begin our tale this evening.

It all started with my friend Kaitlyn's Halloween party sophomore year of high school.  I needed a costume, but had no idea what to be.  I found what I thought would be a cute and not too scandalous little red riding hood costume.

WRONG.

The costume came and it was...well, incredibly short.  I wore it anyway because I couldn't be costumeless!

The last picture received more Myspace comments than any of my others.

And thus, my obsession with short Halloween costumes began.

Junior Year:

junior year with hannah!

I was quickly discovering what Cady Heron said in Mean Girls.

"Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girl can say anything about it."

SENIOR YEAR:

aka the year that cannot be topped.

amanda and me.

Boom.  French Maid.

Which I wore for Halloween freshman year of college too.

annija the cat and me, the french maid.

roommates katie and katherine.

annija, becky, and abby.

I think what I love most about that costume is the big butt bow.  So precious.

Last year, Halloween rolled around and I was determined to top the french maid.  Quickly, I realized that I wouldn't be able to do that.  I did come close...

MADONNA.

me, big, annija, jason.

Like a Virgin.

I was also a Hooters girl one night because I literally had to run out of dance practice and get ready in ten minutes.

me, reese, and alex, a fellow hooters girl.

More Madonna:

dance team!

pujbear the roomie.

Here are some things I've learned last year:

1.  Underwear is not outerwear.  I don't think I'll ever wear a bustier as a top again.

2.  Don't accidentally leave your white booty shorts at home.

3.  White shoes are destined to get ruined.

4.  Earrings get lost easily.

5.  Wear clothing.

I bet you're all wondering what I'm being for Halloween this weekend, aren't you?!

I'm going to leave you hanging!

Bon Voyage!

outfit of the day: october 24.

It was nice outside.

Until I decided to go to the library.

And my cheetah flats got soaking wet.

Whoops.

sweater dress:  h&m; belt:  forever 21; headband:  j. crew.; pearls:  emmaus jewel shop.

small obsession with this headband.

And yes, I photoboothed both of these pictures.

Don't judge.  It's been a long day.

curling hair...with a headband?!

Preposterous, I thought.

There's no way a headband will curl my hair.

But Jen over at Food, Love, & Life proved that it works.

So I tried. Be prepared for dreadful pictures...

all curled up!

The next morning...

BAM.

It actually worked.  I'm shocked!  It doesn't give me the spiral curls I usually love, but it's perfect for a quick curly fix!

spiral curls = big fan.

Curious how to do it?!  Check out this video:

My only warning...if you have long, thick hair like I do it's going to get verrrrry hard to fit all of your hair around the headband.  Don't worry, though!  Mine looked really messy from the back, but all the curls turned out great!

If you try this technique, let me know!  I wanna see pics :)

outfit of the day: october 20.

It was freezing last Thursday.

Brrrr.

It was truly the district's first day of fall.  I even had to reach for my jacket.

shirt:  l.l. bean.; skirt:  j. crew; nail polish: urban outfitters.

tights:  ??; boots:  aldo.

headband:  j. crew.

jacket:  urban outfitters.

I loooooved this outfit.  And it was totally perfect for the weather!

life updates.

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oh hey.  guess what i'm doing right now.

...I feel like one of these occurs every week after a weekend of fun.

I kind of like it.

SO, FRIDAY.

We'll start with what I wore.  No pictures because I was lazy...so here's a list instead.

Navy Minnie pants from J. Crew, white v-neck from Express, Navy Schoolboy blazer from J. Crew, blue and green tartan headband from J. Crew, Sperrys, and pink silk scarf from Disney World.

I love not having classes on Fridays.  It means I can go do fun things.  This Friday, I packed up my beloved Anthropologie bag and climbed aboard the 32 bus to Georgetown for the day.  I did some shopping (well, mostly window shopping) and came home with some great stuff.  I also treated myself to a cupcake at Baked and Wired while I read some of True Story by Michael Finkel for my Journalism Ethics class (which is what I should be doing right now...but I slept for 11 hours last night and I'm wide awake and procrastinating instead!)

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It was really great, actually.  For those of you who don't know, Baked and Wired is a great little cupcake shop on a Georgetown side street that sells HUGE cupcakes.  They're pretty darn good, too.  I had the Raspberry Cloud, which is a lemon cake with raspberry frosting.  Here's the thing, though.  As good as the cupcake is, I'm not impressed by it.  What I mean is the Unporked Elvis tastes just like my mom's banana bread and the frosting is just as good as the kind I make from scratch.  For the price, I'd rather get a Georgetown Cupcake solely because their frosting is in a league of it's own.  I've never tasted anything like it before in my life.

As my good friend Lauren once said, "The cake is only as good as the frosting."

#thingsthataretrue

Don't let me dissuade you from trying Baked and Wired.  I do really enjoy their cupcakes!  They just don't top Georgetown Cupcake in my opinion.

Continuing...I stopped by J. Crew to pick up these babies...:

minnie pant in khaki!

...And visit my friend, Ben, who was working!  Trying on the Minnie pant was such a good life decision.  And I don't make too many of those!  #kidding

(wow, i really need to stop hashtagging things in my blog, on facebook, and in real life!)

After my day long Georgetown adventure, I headed back to Tenleytown to have dinner with Annija and Rebecca at Angelicos!  I can't believe it took me this long to eat there.  I love it!  Puja and I would order from there all the time last year.  They have the best sandwiches, pasta, and pizza.  Mmmm.

After dinner, Annija and I got ready to go to a halloween party.  We came up with our costumes at dinner and I think they turned out just great!  And holding up with Halloween tradition, my shoes fell apart just like last year :(.  Picture of last year's ruined shoes in this post.

i was barbie and she was a hippie.

us with groucho marx!

me and reese :)

way blurry, but i like it.

SATURDAY:

I didn't do anything of significance.

Fast Facts for the rest of the week:

• Baking birthday cupcakes for my friend Kara tomorrow...errr, today.
• HALLOWEEKEND!  Can't wait to wear my costume :)
• Life is incredibly stressful when it comes to school and activities.  It's almost like I have no time to do anything fun for the next two weeks.
• I have finally seen the light for my reporting class.  Thank goodness.
• I did well on my midterms, so that's good!
• I have so much baking to do next week...
• Basically, I'm super busy but super happy!

Hope everything's going great for you princesses!

outfit of the day: october 19.

October 19 was a Wednesday.

It was raining.

I swear, it rains every Wednesday without fail.

And for some reason, on Wednesdays I decide it's a good idea to curl my hair.

Yeah, no.  Not a good idea when it's rainy.

This Wednesday's curls held up pretty decently.  I was going through the messy-but-still-curled look, so I guess it worked.

Yup, a full body shot.  I think this is a first.  I wasn't lazy today and actually pulled out my tripod.  I was, however, lazy in execution and had to do a bit of cropping.

Anyway, here's a traditional closer up version of the cute buttons and belt on my dress!

dress and belt:  forever 21; sweater:  j. crew; headband:  j. crew.

I wasn't wearing shoes when I took these pictures.

Confession:  I wore my Sperrys.  Again.

I really need to go shoe shopping.

american madness!

American Madness is the celebration of the basketball team's beginning of the season!  Each year, the dance team and cheerleaders perform a combined routine.

I thought we did pretty well, especially considering that I was deathly ill.

You can watch our video here.

And if you're feeling up to it, like the American University Dance Team on Facebook!

life changing news.

(all pics via google images)

I won't be returning to American come January.  Instead, I'll be a student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

I received my official acceptance a few weeks ago and I simply cannot wait to go!  Of course, I'll miss many things about the States, but this is one opportunity that I simply cannot pass up.

Edinburgh (pronounced ed-in-boro) is breathtaking.  It's just like living in a fairytale.  I really cannot contain my excitement.  I've never been out of the country (besides a trip to Jamaica when I was two) and I'm beyond excited to experience Europe.

After all,

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Fast Facts:

• Pippa Middleton graduated from Edinburgh!
• J.K. Rowling penned the first Harry Potter novel in an Edinburgh cafe, The Elephant House.
• I will be traveling all over Europe from January to May.
• I will have friends in Dublin, London, and Rome!
• I plan on visiting the following:
• Dublin on St. Patrick's Day (duh)
• London
• Rome and Verona (ooh so specific)
• Paris and Disneyland Paris (this better happen)
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Brussels
• Oslo

In other words, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now you know why I've been busy stocking up on tartan. ;)

shoes.

After analyzing my recent outfits, I realized that I desperately need winter shoes.

I'm not quite sure how this happened, but I really have no winter shoes.

I've got my trusty chestnut riding boots, red cowboy boots, leopard print flats, and a variety of heels.  And my Uggs, but we're not going to talk about those.  Desperate times call for desperate measures...

But that's it.

Here's what's missing from my closet:

Black Flats

classic reval ballet flat in black at tory burch, $195.

I've never had a bigger crush on a pair of shoes.  I look at this page of the Tory Burch website literally every day, just like a high school girl stalks her crush's Facebook page.  It's kind of sad.  I desperately want a pair, but JanBan says $195 is too much for a pair of plain old black flats.  Life is sad.  Maybe she'll change her mind?  If not, I might have to take matters into my own hands.

Oxfords

cwik oxford in grey at aldo, $50.

Mmmmm.  I love oxfords.  I have a great pair of black and white Michael Jackson style oxfords that I got for a mere $10 at Charlotte Russe last year.  I absolutely love them...except for the fact that they're covered in fratgrime.  And for those of you who know, SigEp grime does NOT come out of anything.  Ever.  Therefore, a new pair of oxfords is completely necessary for day-to-day style.  These come in a variety of colors but I'm really feeling the grey.  So much love.

Loafers

moorehouse in cognac at aldo, $80

I love these.  Loafers are such a classic shoe and a necessity in any preppy girl's wardrobe.  I absolutely love the color of this pair and the cute tassel on the front.  Precious.

And just for fun...

Leopard Flats

koool-p in leopard at steve madden, $89.95

I'm in desperate need of new leopard flats.  I have a pair from Target that I wear all the time.  Unfortunately, they've taken such a beating and are starting to fall apart.  I guess it's time to invest in a better quality pair.  The only problem is finding the perfect leopard print.  Lucky for me, I found these Steve Maddens.  Perfection.

Bow Flats

karisma flat in blush suede at steve madden, $99.95.

I don't think I could've found a more perfect shoe for myself.  The light pink color coupled with the bedazzled bow just screams Abby.  #styleprincess  I think I found my shoe soul mate.

What kind of shoes will you be buying this winter?