Treat Yo Self

I love to shop.

There I said it.

I am a college student with a tight budget but I love to spoil myself when I have the chance. I never let one of those chances pass by without taking full advantage of it.

Over Christmas Baublebar was having a sale and I jumped right on it. I had some Christmas money and my last pay check stored away. I splurged, what I consider splurging at this point, and bought a pretty pair of earring. I cannot wear them around campus and to some sporting games because they are my schools colors!

On top of that I was a lucky winner of Hoasting and Toasting's latest give away. Brittany was giving away several pairs of earrings from Lisi Lerch. I do not have the best of luck but was so excited to hear I won the giveaway! They are a beautiful pair of purple jewel cluster earrings. 

Overall I am so excited to bring these new earrings into the new year with beautiful new outfits. Look out 2015, I'm coming for you!

The top, purple cluster earrings are from Lisi Lerch

The orange and blue dangle earrings are from Bauble Bar

Amalfi Horn Drops Earrings

Button - Czech Purple

XOXO

ZMH 

Have you shopped at either store? What pieces of jewelry are on your wish list? Do you ever treat yourself?

Hello Break!

HELLO CHRISTMAS BREAK!

I have been on break since the 10th but I have just been taking time to relax and do some fun things. I have also been trying to organize this blog so that I can hopefully start blogging every week day (I know I keep saying this but it will happen! Please have faith and patience in me). 

Any way, this past week I spent about 4 days in Chicago with R. We had so much fun! Since we are kind of poor college students we tried to keep this trip as low cost as possible which is hard to do in the city. We did a lot of window shopping and exploring. We did take a trip out to Alder Planetarium. Neither of us had been there so it was fun to try something new. We did not go and see a show there unfortunately because it was really really expensive but we looked at all the exhibits and learned a lot about space. After that we popped over to the Art Institute because that is our second home. It was free admission so the place was packed. The museum was all decked out for Christmas and it was so pretty. I really enjoyed the miniature rooms because several of them were re-done for holidays, it was adorable!

One of the days we went down to the Magnificent Mile and looked at all of the really expensive stores. I have this goal that one day I will be well off enough that I will be able to go into those stores and actually be able to buy something instead of just drooling all over it. We peeked into the Kate Spade store, the Chanel store, and the Louis Vuitton store. Everything was packed with people buying Christmas presents, it was a little overwhelming.

We wrapped the trip up by stopping into Old Town and going to a cute little French bakery. While there I picked up some of the best macaroons that I have had since being in France. They were so good. Old Town was a little busy with people doing some last minute shopping but there was a whole bunch of holiday cheer. It made me very happy.

Instead of going out to eat all the time like we usually do we took this time to try and cook by ourselves. It was an adventure to say the least. I made tacos and beans for us one night which was really fun. Then every morning for breakfast we had eggs, bacon, and toast (breakfast/brunch is both R's and mines favorite meal). Then R made a really good green chicken chili in the crock pot! I ate so much of it I thought I was going to explode, haha! 

On Friday I got to meet up with some of my Blue Lake co-workers and it was so great to see so many familiar faces again. I missed all of them so much. It was great to see Rachel after her trip down to South America. I was so happy to hear about her wedding engagement and hear about all the plans she is cooking up. I felt right at home again and it made my heart full with love and cheer. This get together was the cherry on top of the perfect ice cream sundae.

Over all it has been a pretty great break so far but I'm sad it's going by so fast.

I have another great piece of news! Tomorrow I get to see one of my friends from when I was little! She moved out to Arizona with her boyfriend before summer started and I haven't seen since then. We have kept in touch and she has been very happy with the move but man I miss her like cray. I'm so glad I get to see her tomorrow and catch up! I can't hear all about how living in the desert has been treating her. 

XOXO

ZMH

The view of Chicago from the front steps of Alder

Me at the Christkrindle market

The Art Institute was all decked out

Miniature room

Another miniature room

R's view from the 16th floor of his place 

Kate Spade store

Hey there Coco

It So Is a Neutral

First of all let me apologize for the late post today. Ny next two days are packed with meetings, appointments, work, and school. But let's move on from those stressful things and have a (somewhat) serious conversation.

Today I had to take a trip up to Grand Rapids to the Apple store (bright and early morning) so that they could look at my phone. I have been having issues with it freezing and being all wonky. Luckily they kind of fixed it, it will survive until my upgrade in December. ANYWAY...

That's not what this post is about. After my trip to the Genius bar I stopped by the Gap in Holland. Now it was just my birthday and my Aunt's spoiled me with gift cards and money with the note of "Go buy yourself something nice!". Well you don't have to tell me twice to go shopping! While I was in Gap I was lusting over all the beautiful cardigans because well I'm a sucker for a bright colored cardigan. Unfortunately I did not walk out with one but I found a nice light weight knit sweater in a really pretty steel grey color.

Still not the part of the post I want to get to. Besides this sweater I walked out with the cutest and most comfortable pair of shoes I think I have ever owned. They are smoking slippers in a beautiful leopard print and they are fuzzy/hairy (do I have to brush my shoes everyday now?). 

For as long as I can remember leopard print has been one print I am always drawn to. Now when I was little I obvious had those tacky child clothing pieces with weird funky colored leopard print on them. Besides that I haven't owned anything leopard, I have always admired it from afar. 

Lately a lot of my favorite bloggers, my friends, and family members have been having the argument as to wether leopard is a neutral. My stance? YES! It is such a neutral it's crazy. I feel like you really can't pair it with anything bad. The tans and blacks in the print are really settle and alone those colors would go with anything. Many friends of mine argue this point but now that I own a leopard print piece I can finally prove them wrong. Needless to say these shoes are not leaving my feet (until it starts snowing). 

What are your thoughts on leopard print? Are you a fan? Do you think it's a neutral? 

XOXO

ZMH

My lovely shoes