Where Have I Been? (+ a little surprise discount!)

Image via Taylor Swift Tumblr

Hi there! Gosh, even those two words feel so foreign to type out. It's been a week now that I haven't posted? Shame on me. That's seven days too long. If it wasn't already clear, I've been kind of busy to say the least. This past week has been complete insanity and it's a miracle that I've somehow pulled through and am somewhat together.

I figured that since I was away for what has felt like ages, I should probably fill you guys in on what exactly has been going on with me. It's going to basically be a recap of my week, so if you're not interested in that but are interested in the surprise little discount at the end, go ahead and scroll down. I don't mind. :)

Monday was the release of 1989 and for the sake of tradition, I waited until after school to go to Target to get myself a hard copy of the album and listen to it on a CD player, all while reading the lyrics from the booklet. If you follow my Twitter, you'll know that I was cursing myself soon after because having to wait was not cool.

That day, I also had to film some clips for a French video where we had to write the ending of a play we've been reading (Fanny by Marcel Pagnol if you were remotely interested, which I'm sure you aren't) and act it out. I'm perfectly fine with writing a script and maybe doing a presentation, but filming something takes ages and editing takes ages to do. Let's just say that the hours spent filming after school were anything but fun and light-hearted, but rather stressful and, well, stressful. In the end I think we had fun though, but that's about all I can say for that.

So after all of that, I was finally able to go to Target and get my hands on that beautiful, beautiful album that is 1989 (by Taylor Swift if you didn't already know) and just died as I was listening to it. Picking favourites from that album would be like picking my favourite child, but I can say that if you were to only listen to, err, five tracks out of the 16 on the deluxe version, you should check out Style, I Wish You Would, Wildest Dreams, Clean, Wonderland, and You Are In Love. But if you can, listen to them all because they are MAGIC. 

Basically, I don't really have any excuse for not being able to blog Monday night other than I spent the better part of my time listening to 1989, then discussing it track-by-track with B, watching Taylor on The Voice, and listening to 1989 once again. As you can see, it was a very, very productive night. ;)

Tuesday wasn't anything excited since all I had to do was work and school work. Wednesday was a bit more interesting, I guess. I was able to head back to the gym and do a nice workout that finished on a relaxing note with yoga. There's this thing at the end of that class called "Relaxation" where you just lie down on the yoga mat with the lights dimmed and it's an exercise to clear your mind and relax. Oh, and closing your eyes is also encouraged, so I've always been in danger of accidentally sleeping sometime within those 10 minutes, aha. Thankfully, I didn't do anything of a sort this time and it was just so... nice. It was really refreshing to not have to worry about anything (except falling asleep, of course) for a bit of time.

Thursday was probably one of the most insane days ever, only second to Monday. As you might know, I started this online fashion magazine at my school, and as you might know, there are usually lookbooks in said-magazines. Naturally, I planned one for our first ever issue coming to computer screens and cellphones near you in a few weeks. Leading up to it, I was incredibly nervous about the whole thing and I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to make it work at all.

Thankfully, I have some really amazing friends and brought together a dedicated and passionate group of people who just made the whole experience a lot more fun and the whole photoshoot a hell of a lot more successful than I would've ever imagined it'd be. It was freezing cold and I was outside (very stupidly) without a jacket on for two hours, so that wasn't very comfortable to say the least. But hey, Kate Upton did her Sports Illustrated cover wearing basically nothing in the Arctic, so I really shouldn't be complaining.

Friday was Hallowe'en and I was pretty excited to hand out candy to the little ones who were going to go trick-or-treating around my neighbourhood, but unfortunately for me, there weren't that many of them. I obviously didn't go 'round asking for candy this year, and I didn't last year either since I'm fifteen and that would just be really weird of me, especially with a younger sibling. My brother did end up going, but he didn't get nearly as much of the candy and chocolate that I so dearly love (ex. Maynard's, Reese's, Kit-Kats, and Coffee Crisps) as I'd hoped for.

Just as a quick side note, my lovely friend who I'll just call C celebrated her 16th on the same day, so happy belated birthday to one of the most wonderfully candid, incredibly thoughtful, and unbelievably understanding people that I've had the pleasure to get to know this past year.

Saturday was just kind of insane since I had Spanish bright and early in the morning. After three hours spent sitting in a classroom, I headed downtown to the vintage show that comes around semi-annually in my city. I originally had plans to go with C, but she had to cancel in the end. 

Not that I don't love her, but when I got home on Friday, I was kind of glad that I was going alone because I needed a break from people and needed to spend a few hours not really caring about anything except clothes, honestly. I think it's really healthy to take some time off from dealing with other people and having to upkeep a certain persona just to focus on yourself and your own health instead of a friendship or relationship. Obviously, by that I don't mean ditch all the people that you're lucky enough to have in your life and only come back to them when you need them (because that wouldn't be very nice of you), but just remember to take care of yourself and not burden yourself with things that you know you need to take a quick break from.

Anyway, I didn't end up taking photos from the event because I was just too lazy, tired, and into the music that I was blasting in my ears as well as the beautiful clothes I was surrounded in to even think of it. I did, however, get a dress for the awards night coming up at my school next week which I'm pretty excited about, some chunky shoes, and a gift for C which I think she liked, so that's pretty good. Photos of how the stuff looks on me will be posted shortly, maybe in a future Style Diary, wink wink. All in all, I just had a nice relaxing time there and it was definitely something that I needed.

But yeah. Sunday wasn't anything that exciting other than how I was able to go to BodyCombat at the gym (insert my excited Taylor Swift-esque face here) and attended a cooking class with my brother. It wasn't exactly a cooking class since he was the only one cooking, but we were fed at the end, so it was pretty great. What he does is he prepares all the food beforehand and just warms it up and plates when it's time for the class as well as run through the recipe with us, so there's that "class" element in there. It was a maple pumpkin creme brulee class and he accidentally overcooked one batch and had to make another one, but he served us both just so we could taste the difference. Basically, we got two creme brulees for the price of one and it was pretty fantastic and if I'm honest, I think I preferred the overcooked one, actually.

That was pretty much my week. I'm hoping to get myself back on the blogging train again and actually blogging, you know, since that's what bloggers do. But thank you so much to those of you who still stick around, even with my unpredictable posting schedule. Thank you thank you thank you so much!!!

Oh, and another side note. There was a certain someone who I didn't know read my blog (but who actually does) who said hi to me this morning totally unexpectedly, so just a quick shoutout to Ellen because you are cool, my friend.

If you thought I'd forget the discount, don't fret because here it is. I was contacted by PicStick recently to review their photo magnets (which will be coming soon) and I also have a coupon code for 25% off for a set of 9 photo magnets. All you have to do is enter the code "STYLE25" and it expires tomorrow, so if you're interested, get at it!

If you have any requests, please feel free to bombard me with them here. Thanks guys. Very much appreciated.

Thank you so much for reading!

- J

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