Mar 27, 2013

How young is too young?

Have you guys seen all the controversy going on about Victoria's Secret lately?

Supposedly, they were going to come out with a new line called 'Bright Young Things' that was targeted at tweens and early teens. It sounded like it was going to be very similar to the PINK line, with underwear that had sayings like 'call me' and 'feeling lucky?'.


But now, within the past day or so, it seems like Victoria's Secret is backtracking, saying that the 'Bright Young Things' was supposed to be just a slogan for the PINK line, and that it was never going to be it's own line for young girls. 

So who knows where the truth really is...I tried to research it a little bit, but there's so much 'he said, she said' coming from VS, and outraged parents, and everyone else that has an opinion, that I'm not really sure what's true or not.

But either way, it got me thinking. How young is just too young for Victoria's Secret?

I have to admit, when I first heard about it, I was a little bothered. I mean, I know that the 12 to 16-year-old age group is a huge market, and lots of companies want to target them and  get them to spend their money. But do we really want to encourage girls at such a young age to go out and wear lingerie? I mean, a VS executive talks about knowing that girls at that age just want to be like older (college-aged) girls, and that's what they're trying to provide them. But I think there is a HUGE difference between a 14 and 19-year-old...

The Victoria's Secret PINK Facebook page still says they are targeted at college girls...but it's pretty clear that the line is popular among much younger girls.

Anyways, all of this got me thinking about some of the too suggestive stuff that I remember when I was in middle school and high school. I know we all remember some of the super-suggestive shirts that places like Abercrombie had. 



I remember any time I shopped there, or even at Hollister, my mom would make me run everything by her to make sure it wasn't inappropriate...even while I was in high school. And I don't think I ever bought any shorts from A&F...I mean, they barely had any material to them, they were so small!

And who can forget the trend that happened when I was in middle school that involved  girls pulling their thong out of their pants?? Remember the ones that had butterflies or whatever on the back and people would hang them out? Um, ew. 


Remember when this was trendy?

I remember being at the mall, and seeing girls very close to my own age walking around with their thongs hanging out. Even at that age, I was appalled by that and thankfully had no desire to be a part of that trend.

I know that there have always been stores or trends that were offering (what I feel are) inappropriate items for a certain age group, and that's not going to change. Victoria's Secret is no different than any of these other brands. And I admit, I probably started shopping at VS during high school. For the most part, I don't think there's anything wrong with shopping there at 16 or 17. But I know that at that age, and even still to this day, I don't buy some of the more suggestive stuff. I don't think I've ever owned a pair of underwear that had writing on it until this year. I never owned a pair of those shorts that said 'juicy' across the butt, either. I think the first (and only) pair of underwear I have ever had that had words on them, are ones that I just bought this year that say 'I <3 boyfriend.="" my="" p="">

Anyways, I know this post was all over the place, but I just wanted to see how others felt about this. I don't think that there's any completely right or wrong opinion about this issue. I understand VS marketing towards younger people...they have money to spend, and VS is a business. But I also understand parents being upset. I can imagine it's hard enough as it is to raise kids in our society. We are so saturated with 'sexiness' everywhere you turn..how do you shield young girls from that, without making them feel like they're uncool? 

I think that's the main thing that bothers me about this issue. I remember wanting to wear more A&F clothes when I was younger, because everyone else was wearing it, but I wasn't allowed to. How do you keep young girls from wanting to be too sexy for their age when that is what's popular? How does it affect their self-esteem and their social interactions with other kids when they aren't allowed to partake in these trends? I know there's no easy answer to these questions, and each family has to find the right balance for what they're ok with, and what's taking it too far. I'm just thankful that it's not something I have to deal with, because I would be lost!

Mar 20, 2013

Oh, how Pinteresting!

First off, I'd like to apologize for all the link-up posts lately. I swear this won't be a normal thing. I do have stuff to say--ya know, my own opinions, thoughts, and stories. 

However, at the moment I am a little stressed, all over the place, and I feel like I'm just running blindly through each day and accomplishing nothing. So needless to say, the creativity is lacking at the moment.

 But I'm hoping I will get settled into some sort of a routine here soon. Now that I'm not working the crazy hours at the restaurant, a routine should be a lot easier to come by. 

But for now, here's yet another link-up post...I mean, I guess they're better than nothing, right?




Gorgeous use of color

if your shorts are too tight just cut the seem and insert lace!

So Pretty!

No Joke!

mint jeans and chevron


What are you loving on Pinterest this week?



Mar 18, 2013

St.Patty's Weekend Shenanigans

The struggle is real today, y'all. I have no idea why it's so bad, but it is. Like, this bad...



Now don't get me wrong, I love Starbucks. But I try to stay away from there. Mainly to control my obsession. And because it can get expensive. I try to be happy with my few-cents-a-cup coffee at home. And because holy calories. I don't like just straight coffee, and I always get something flavored that's loaded with who knows what. But today it was a necessary evil splurge.

Ok, I know everyone knows about Google Reader closing blah blah blah. But I felt it necessary to join the crowds and tell you to go follow me on Bloglovin' with the link below, or by clicking on the little heart over where all my links are. 

Follow on Bloglovin

Now, on to the fun stuff. My weekend shenanigans time. 


I spent a few days last week in Athens with B, but I had to work Saturday and wasn't planning on going back to Athens after. But a little begging from a few friends had me changing my mind when I realized it would be super lame if I missed out on the all the fun. (Not to mention this post would have been super boring...again.)

I don't know if y'all noticed or not, but this weekend was absolutely gorgeous. B worked until around 2 on Friday, and we decided there was no way we were wasting that amazing day inside. We met downtown so I could do a little shopping (since I had no clue I was staying all weekend when I went, I had nothing but t-shirts and comfy clothes because we had no plans-big mistake-so I was in desperate need of a cute top for Saturday night!) After finding the perfect green shirt, which I have no pictures of, we wandered around to a few of our other favorite stores. When our parking meters expired, we left and headed to 'the fish store.' B wants to have a fish tank in his house, but he doesn't really have the time to devote to starting one up (or the money--of course we want a saltwater tank!) So instead, we just like to wander around the fish store and pick out all the things we want. I want a lot of live coral. It's amazing. 

Afterwards, it was getting close to dinner time, so we headed back downtown. We stopped by our favorite bar, Magnolia's, to see our friend that was working and have a drink before dinner. I decided since the weather was so nice, I would bring back one of my favorite summertime drinks, and oh. my. gosh. I forgot how good it was! A little Bacardi Dragon Berry with Sprite and a splash of cranberry = summertime in a glass. So delicious. After a drink, we headed over to Dirty Birds for the second Friday in a row, and had some more of their awesome wings.


Dirty Birds' menu, my awesome Dragon Berry drink, my Dirty Ranch and Garlic Parm wings.

Afterwards, we realized some of our friends were eating there too, so we joined them for more rounds of drinks and a few games of pool. We finally called it a night around midnight (since we had basically been out playing since 2 that afternoon!) But it was a super fun day and I want that weather back..now!!

Saturday morning we both had to be up early...I had to head to work, and B was headed home for the day to see his dad's new boat. Which they ended up taking out on the water. Super jealous. 


The new boat.

I did some boring promo work in Atlanta, and then headed back to Athens for the St. Patrick's Day festivities. We had lots of fun, and I took zero pictures. Oops. We went to a cd release party at 40 Watt (some people B and my best friend, Sam, grew up with played in the band) and it was basically a big redneck high school reunion for them. They were both reminded why they are so thankful that they moved away for school and got out of that small town--I know that feeling! After the show, we barhopped for awhile and wound up at The Grill until about 3am. All I have to say about that is feta fries. Oh man. Unfortunately, my drunk self apparently didn't see the need to document these, but let me tell you, they're to die for. Especially when you are not sober. I haven't had one of those nights in a long time, and it was so much fun!

Sunday we slept in as long as we possibly could, and then headed to brunch at Porterhouse for their famous brunch buffet. Neither of us had ever been, but everyone told us it was a must. And they were right! They had everything you could want for breakfast, including omelettes and pancakes made right in front of you. Then they also had lunch selections, including a roast, fried chicken, meatloaf, salmon, and more. We ate until we hurt. No joke. Then we went home and were super lazy all day. Well, until we went to dinner at Square One...where we ate until we hurt again. So that was literally all our day consisted of--food. And it was pretty much the best day ever.


The kitchen area at Square One, the view outside to the awesome patio...to bad it wasn't quite warm enough to enjoy it.

OH WAIT. I forgot something super important and awesome. At some point Friday in our wanderings, we stopped by the gas station to get something to drink. While paying, B decided he wanted a lottery ticket. He had no cash, so I handed over $5, and we got some random scratch off that the cashier picked out. We checked it when we got back in the car, and we won a ticket..woo. So B ran in and grabbed our free one, but we never checked it. We actually forgot about it until Saturday morning. When B saw it and scratched it off, he started getting super excited and I had no idea why. When I finally got him to actually form words, he said we won $500. For real. I had to see it with my own eyes, but he was right. We were both stupid excited. I mean, I never win anything. So yeah, it was great. 


The winning ticket.

So, there's my super long recap of my weekend. But hey, at least it was more interesting than last weekend!




Mar 11, 2013

My [uneventful] Weekend [with pretty much no] Shenanigans



As my extremely long post title explains, this weekend was kinda lame. Not going to lie. And since it was so lame, I have no pretty pictures to share with you guys. I'm sorry. I promise to work on remembering to take more pics so my blog isn't just a lot of words. Because that's no fun.

I spend most of my weekends working, but during the week I usually have a few days off. So of course when I do, I go visit my boyfriend, B. It was his spring break week, but he had to work, so we stuck around Athens and hung out every day when he got off.

Friday he got off early, so we had a nice late-afternoon nap before dinner. We wanted to try out Herschel Walker's new place downtown, but even though it was the beginning of UGA's spring break week, there was still a super long wait. B was craving some wings, so we wondered around until we found Dirty Birds, another new wing place that opened up in the old Wild Wings space. The food here was a little bit pricey for wings I thought, but they were surprisingly yummy! I had the Garlic Parm and Dirty Ranch (buffalo and ranch sauce mixed together..yum!) and both were very tasty. The old WW space is awesome, so I really hope this place does well and lasts there!

Saturday morning, B and I both had to be up bright and early for work. He had to go into the office for a few hours, and I was leaving to head to Buckhead to do a few tastings for my internship. So my day consisted of hanging out in a liquor store begging people to try our product, and then doing it again at Whole Foods for awhile. Not that fun. Then I headed home to have dinner with my parents at our favorite Mexican restaurant. And then I think I was in bed before 11...Saturday nights when you move away from college are so exciting, right?!

Sunday morning I had to be up early to work again, this time at the bar. I have had the pleasure of opening almost every Sunday from Day 1 of the restaurant. But because of recent events, it was also my last Sunday (or any day) working there. I got home around 7:30, had a little dinner, watched the new episode of Revenge, and called it a night.

Exhilarating weekend, right?!

Mar 10, 2013

My first Sunday Social!


I'm linking up for the Sunday Social for the first time...so here's my answers to those five questions today!

1. What is one movie you are terrified to watch? Not a lot of movies scare me...I like scary movies. However, I despise slasher movies, like Final Destination or Saw. I do not like to see all that death and blood. No, thanks.

2. What is one TV show you've always wanted to get into but haven't yet? Hmm, this is hard. I watched Hart of Dixie for a few seasons, and I really want to catch back up. But I can't think of anything I wanted to watch that I haven't at least seen a few episodes of. (Clearly I need to get a life...haha)

3. What is one daring activity on your bucket list? Honestly, I am not that daring. I have no desire to ever do anything like skydive, bungee jump, or anything else crazy. Probably the most daring thing I have on my bucket list is to try about 5 new foods a year. I am an insanely picky eater...to the point I even annoy myself...and I am trying my hardest to change that by trying new things.

4. Would you ever travel alone? I never really have, other than road trips to go visit family a time or two (but that doesn't really count!) But I think that I would do it if I had to, I'm just not sure it would be something I would do of my own choosing.

5. What activities do you like to do alone? That kind of depends on my mood. But I always like to read alone, and watch all my fav tv shows...because I can't stand it when I get interrupted! And occasionally I like to shop alone, too.

Mar 7, 2013

Overwhelmed

I am extremely overwhelmed right now. 

I just sent in my resignation to my job. Without a sure-thing to take it's place.

You're probably wondering why I would do something so stupid drastic. So I guess it's time to get a little personal here...

Once upon a time, I graduated from college with a degree in PR. Immediately following graduation, I had an awesome internship that wound up lasting about 5 months longer than I originally planned. It was supposed to be just a summer thing, but the person over me left her position while I was interning, so I basically took her position to finish out the rest of the year. I was interning at a chamber of commerce for a town that was located on a lake, so summer and fall was their busiest season. Because of that, they didn't want to go through the hiring process and bring someone new in during that time period. So, I filled in while they waited. I applied for the position, and over the course of a month or so, and several rounds of interviews, they had it narrowed down to myself and one other lady. And unfortunately for me, I wasn't chosen. The other candidate had previously owned her own business, and had 20+ years of experience in the business world. And with a chamber's primary focus being to grow the business community, she was obviously better equipped at doing that.

So, I continued working at the job I had been working all through college (and even during my internship period), while searching for a full-time job. I started off looking in Athens, where I was living and didn't want to leave, but it didn't take long to realize that opportunities in Athens were limited, and my job search expanded to Atlanta and the surrounding area. During this time, my job was cutting hours (I was working in retail, and it was the slow season). By the beginning of the next summer after I graduated, I knew that my one part-time job was no longer enough to support me living in Athens on my own (especially since it was time to start paying back student loans), and that it was time to make a move. So I made the very tough decision at this point to leave Athens, and move home. Home being a small town west of Atlanta. Not cool.

Thankfully, my best friend from high school had a job opportunity for me bar tending at a new place in Buckhead, which I immediately took. My first thoughts were this will be fun, I should make lots of money working in that area, and hopefully I will make some good contacts that could potentially lead to a "real" job. Because at this point, I had been out of school for a year, and job opportunities in the PR industry were few and far between. None of us imagined when we graduated high school in 2006 that by the time we graduated college in 2010 (or later, if you took a victory lap like me!) that the economy would be so very  bad, and that finding a job would be so very hard. So of course, I took any opportunities that were handed to me, and this one came along at exactly the right time.

At first, it was all good. We worked lots of hours when we first opened the restaurant, but we made lots of money and had a pretty good time. Everyone was excited about the new place and we quickly became a new 'hot spot,' so we stayed busy and made even more money. And since I was living at home, I finally had a new sense of financial freedom that I hadn't had in college. (I don't know about you guys, but I was constantly broke while in school!)

But then things started going downhill. Y'all, my boss is was crazy. She was young, had no managing experience, she's immature, and I swear she had multiple personalities. I have never worked for someone so rude and disrespectful and demeaning. She was constantly flying off the handle over the most random stuff, and no one ever knew how to act around her. It quickly became miserable. I'm talking, there were days I cried at work because of the way she talked to me or miserable it was. I was literally almost sick to my stomach each day that I had a shift there because of how bad I didn't want to go. I absolutely hated it. And I know that the majority of my coworkers hated it just as bad as I did.

So, after several events over the past few weeks that are all long stories on their own, I finally got to my breaking point. I have lost all respect for my boss, and I am tired of being miserable. And today, I quit. 

I do have an internship right now, doing PR and events for a company in Atlanta, that pays me a small amount. And I have another opportunity in the works that will hopefully pan out. So say a prayer for me, please. Say a prayer that I made the right decision to get out of a toxic situation, that I will be financially able to survive right now, and that the opportunities I currently have will lead to an amazing career for me (or at least a good full-time job).

I know this post is long and SUPER boring, and I'm sorry. But I just have so many emotions going on inside me right now, and I know my family and boyfriend are tired of hearing me whine about this situation! But I had to get this last little bit out. I believe that I did take that job for a reason, and that there were lessons to be learned during my 6 months there. I believe that God had a purpose for me being there, even though I don't know right now what exactly the purpose was, or exactly what lesson I was there to learn. I imagine at some point down the road, it will probably become clear. But for now, I am just thankful that I had the job to get me through a tough transition period, and I'm even more thankful that now it's over.



Mar 4, 2013

Monday morning dreamin'

I will go ahead and admit it now...I listen to country music. Like, 80% of the time. And I love it.

Kenny Chesney's new song, Pirate Flag, just recently hit the air...and I love it, too.


And on this Monday morning, I have to admit that this song has me dreaming about being anywhere but here. I mean, right now it's freeeezing outside, it snowed most of this weekend, and it's March in Georgia. Not cool. I am ready for spring, and warm weather, and cute, bright clothes, and the water!

All of those things would be great. But what this song really makes me want to do is escape to the islands forever. We all know that's what 99% of Kenny Chesney's songs are about, and the more I think about, the more I've decided he may be on to something here. I have been daydreaming about giving up the city life, the 'real job,' and grownup responsibilities, and instead living a carefree life somewhere on the sand.

I probably wouldn't have a lot of money, but then again, if I was living somewhere like this, I don't really think I'd need much.


Sea Turtle Sunset, Tobago Cays, The Grenadines
<3

sunsets make my heart melt.


Where are you dreaming of escaping to on this Monday morning?