A Little Man who Didn't Like Flan

Haaaaaaappy Monday loves! Not. Mondays are pooey. ;) Anyway, I was just thinking about the influx of traffic and readers to this lil' space of ours lately and I realized that I haven't really done a "formal" intro of myself for our new friends! I mean, I know I've got my handy dandy little tabs up top that do a pretty good job of introducing my weird little self, but I feel like the only real information that can be gleaned from my tabs is that I'm, what I like to lovingly refer to myself as, "adorkable". Haha, kidding. Kidding. I don't think anyone actually thinks of me that way, but I am a dork. Anyway, I thought I'd put together a fun little list of five random things about myself so any new readers can get to know me a little better. Here goes...

1. The only two foods I ever crave in life are, Orange Juice...and Flan. I'm sort of obsessed with them. OJ just makes me happy, and I mean the juice not the person. Haha I'm so punny. ;) And, well, flan is...flan. I mean, who couldn't love that caramely gooey good stuff?! I know who, Ben Stiller. Anyone remember that movie, "Envy", he was in with Jack Black? Ya know, "VaPOOrize". Ringing any bells? Well, there are multiple flan references in that movie. Check it, here's one.
2. I frequently daydream about being on The Voice. I would pick either Adam or Blake as my coach and I would try out with this song. Still contemplating what I would wear, though...Anyway, that's how thoroughly I've thought it out. ;) Now if only I could sing...
3. I'm very particular about the cheese that I like, but if I could, I would subsist on cheese sticks and queso fresco. I love those suckers. 
4. Bed time is my least favorite time of the day. I never sleep well, and I just kind of think it's boring. I'd rather be doing other things. Crazy much? Yes, but I never claimed otherwise. ;) 
5. I invent my own catch phrases. I have a few of them listed on my "isms" tab, but right now I'm playing around with "donka schoen". I mean, I know it's already a phrase in German, but I'm playing around with using it as a verb. For instance, "I'm going to go all donka schoen on your butt", or, "Don't get all donka schoen on me". I'm also playing around with using "das auto" in place of "that's funny". Whenever my sister says something even remotely amusing I'll chime in with my, "das auto".  I guess I have a thing for the German language. :)

 

top: F21 (super old) similar
skirt: West Fourth Street (sold out but I'm loooooving this option and this option)
shoes: h&m
readers: F21 similar

I wore this look yesterday for church. I was going for a classic "50s school teacher" look, which actually ended up working out perfectly because one of my fellow Sunday School teachers got sick and I was asked to teach the lesson last minute. The outfit planning part of my brain secretly knew that was going to happen. ;) Really, though, the whole night before I had been feeling that I needed to study the lesson as if I were going to teach it, but like a little dummy, I ignored it and sho 'nuff I was asked to fill in a few hours before church. Recognizing promptings of the Spirit can be hard sometimes, but I'm definitely never doubting myself again. If I feel I need to do something I just gosh dang gotta do it. :) Anyway, I've had this skirt for a while now and I'm still just as in love with it as ever. I love it's color, movement, shape, and most of all modesty. It's hard to find a cute modest skirt these days! :) Also, these heels? Yeah, they're pretty much the highest heels I have EVER worn in my life. My foot is SO arched in them!! Every time I take them off I get a case of Barbie Foot for a couple of hours. Don't know what Barbie Foot is? Eets joost when your feet get stuck in that arched position. Anyway, these babies are definitely a challenge to walk in without feeling like I might loose my balance and plunge forward to a tragic death at any moment. 

Much love!

Diva is the Female Version of a Hustla

Sigh...you guyssss...Hugh Grant in "Sense and Sensibility" just slays me. He just looks so awkward, and adorably dashing! I love it! Not to mention that "Sense and Sensibility" is basically the story of my life. Next to "Pride & Prejudice" (which I read 1,001 times a year) and "Persuasion" (which I read 1,000 times a year) it's my favorite Jane Austen novel! If ever there was a book character that was the exact image of myself, it is that of Miss Marianne Dashwood. She is rather impolite to the advances of any man whom she isn't interested in, or that is being forced upon her, considers any man above the age of 24 to be on his deathbed, swoons and is stupidly smitten by any attractive fellow, reads obsessively and dramatically, plays the piano, and is foolishly/ridiculously romantic to the core of her wee little heart. She is the perfect representation of myself. ;) Also, there is hardly any other movies that I can watch with such frequency as "Sense and Sensibility", "Pride & Prejudice", and "Emma". They never get tiring, and I adore every second of them. There never was such a literary genius like that Jane Austen. Woman after my own kind. I adore her. That is all. My weird schpeel is over. :)

sweater: h&m similar
pants: h&m
purse: h&m similar
rings: h&m similar
cuff: c/o Chic Wish 
shoes: F21 similar

I actually had planned to share a different outfit with you all today, but alas, I was experiencing some technical difficulties with it so it will have to wait for another day. Sad, Sad. I wore this particular look a couple of weeks ago when the weather was still quite on the chilly side. Anyway, when the weather isn't quite cooperating with the Season, a fun way to still Spring up an outfit is by adding pops of bright color, like with this bag! :)  Also, just as a completely unrelated side note, when my sister and I street diva/thug talk at night it's hilarious! We've got our "Diva is the female version of a Hustla" persona's down to a T. ;)

Much love!

Blog Design 101: In Post Tips & Tricks for Better Photos

Alright loves, it's time for the last installment of the "Blog Design 101" series! So far we've talked about creating your own header, installing your own "about me" widget, and creating clickable social media icons. This last one is just going to be an all encompassing post about how to tweak tiny little things about your posts with simple bits of code! Let's get started!

Now, I think it's safe to say that photos are probably the most important element to a blog. They're what draws a reader in. In other words they're the "catch"! Being the most important part, means that our photos need to be as top notch as we can make them, right? Right. Now, my biggest pet peeve when visiting a blog is seeing photos that are bunch of different widths and heights. I just think it looks unprofessional and messy. It just irritates me to see some photos be portrait and others be landscape. It looks odd. Not to mention that having photos of all random different sizes slows down the download speed, and I don't know about you guys, but if photos are taking too long to download I just move on. If we're getting technical, you could just fix this by editing all of your photos down to the same size...but that would take forever! AND, sometimes, they still won't post at the same height and width. Lucky for you all there's a quick fix to this! Just by copying and pasting in the simple code I'm about to give you into the CSS of your blog you can tell blogger to automatically resize all of your photos to the EXACT width and height that you want! How stellar, right? You'll never have to worry about resizing again because blogger will do all the work for you! Now, to install this just head over to Template>Customize>Advanced>Add CSS and paste in the following code,

.post-body img {width: 740px!important;
height: auto!important;}

The highlighted areas are the areas you'll want to change to fit your blog. The first number is the number of pixels wide that you would like your photos to be. Anywhere between 700-900 is a good standard size. I like to keep mine at 740 because it's the width that works best with the rest of my blog. Now, the second highlighted part, is your height. I like to have mine set to "auto" because it allows the photo to be it's natural height and doesn't compress it into a size that will distort the photo. Feel free to play around with it, though, and find what works best for YOU. However, I would still recommend setting it to auto.

Now, have any of you ever noticed that annoying little drop shadow that is put around your photos in blogger? I know, I sure did. This is what I'm talking about.

It's kind of hard to see in this photo of my faux blog, but those of you who have noticed it on your own blogs will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, to get rid of it just go ahead and enter the code I'm about to give you below the Resize Code you just entered in.

.post-body img, .post-body .tr-caption-container, .Profile img, .Image img, .BlogList .item-thumbnail img {
  padding: none !important;
  border: none !important;
  background: none !important;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important;
  box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px transparent !important;
}

Now, onto the last item of business! Have any of you ever noticed that Blogger auto-enhances some your photos? I noticed this a little while ago and I was suuuuper bugged by it. I mean, if I wanted my photos auto-enhanced I woulda gosh dang dunit myself. And now I got all hill billy on you all. See what irritation does to me?? ;) Anyway, Dana explains how to turn this off better than I ever could so head on over to this post!

Oh, and I lied! There's actually one last thing! I know so many of you out there are constantly wondering how to center your tabs, I mean, I was one of the wonder-ers myself once upon a time! Anyway, as an added bonus, here is the code you need to install into your CSS to take care of that in a jiffy!

 .PageList {text-align:center !important;}
.PageList li {display:inline !important; float:none !important;}
body { text-align: justify; }

I hope this Blog Design series was helpful, it sure was fun to put together! Let me know if there's anything else design related that you've been a hankerin' to learn and I'll see if I can put together another tutorial!

Much love!

Lazy as a Daisy

denim jacket: F21 similar

skirt (worn as dress): inherited from my grandma

belt: American Eagle similar

necklace: American Eagle

sandals: F21

PC: ropastoriniphotography.blogspot.com

Sorry about the lack of photos today folks, there were some really excellent shots but they were just too grainy. I know even these are a tad on the grainy side, but focus on the coolness of the captures rather than the grainyness. :) Anyway, since we have a lack of photos I figure we can get away with a lack of text. Also, I'm just lazy...and it's Tuesday. My day off!!! Yeah, yeah! Holla! Oh, and, ya know what? This dress? It's actually a skirt. Shhh! I love the idea of reinventing pieces in my closet! Especially this year that I'm not shopping (and failing this month, but we'll do better next month). Also, peach and turquoise? Best color combo EVAH!!!!!! Also, I have some MAJ outfit posts (mostly featuring Chic Wish, eep!) coming for you in the next couple of weeks! Be excited! Or not. ;) 

Much love! 

Black Balloon

Eeet ees Monday my dears. Bleh. That is anything but a boom-shack-a-lacka. In fact, it's more of poop-munch-a-sucka. Yeah, I just made that up. And, yeah, it makes absolutely no sense. Oh wellsies. How were all of your Easter's? Mine was pretty dang lovely. I had a nice old time spending time with my fam and celebrating Chirsts birth, life, and atoning sacrifice! No bunnies or eggs por moi. :) In other news, it's interesting how the complete disarray of my backyard can actually end up looking preeetty interesting and cool for photos! The men in my fam are slacking, but when it comes to the backyard, I don't mind one bit. ;) I feel like I've been completely lacking in the entertaining writing juices lately, and it sucks. Well, for you guys, anyway. I have no problem with being boring. ;) One thing I'm certainly not lacking in is emoticon usage. I wink waaaaaay more than is strictly healthy in this here blog. ;) See? I just winked again. Mostly to convey that, yes, I know that grammar was awful and I did it intentionally to be stupidly humorous. Life without emotis just isn't worth living you guys!! ;) I'm incurable. Anyway, as the date for the Goo Goo Dolls concert draws closer and closer (debatably) I'm starting to get more and more excited! Eeep!! I've been obsessing over "Black Balloon" lately. One of my favs of theirs. Although, "Name", will always be my ABSOLUTE favorite song of theirs and one of my top three favorite songs of all time. It's just one of those songs that never gets tiring, never fails to make my heart go pitter pat, and that I've been in love with for the better part of 17 years (since I was 5). It's ma jam. Even, though, my sister claims that slow songs cannot accurately be referred to as "jams". She always reminds me of this when a slow song that I fancy comes on and I yell, "Dis ma jam!".

top: Old Navy
boyfriend shorts:  h&m similar
sandals: F21 similar
hat: JMR similar
necklace: gift from my baby seester

I know you're all probably ready to shoot this hat by now, but I just looooooove it! So...#sorrynotsorry! ;) Just kidding, I actually loath that hashtag with all the force behind my beating heart. Things just got intense in here guys, ohhhhhh! ;) Anyway, I'm just going to come out and say this. I've sucked at my shopping challenge this month. Majorly. I've shopped a TON. I feel just terrible. Terrible. Really, though, I'm getting that icky "I spend too much time caring about clothing" feeling again so I am absolutely, positutely, 100% resolved to sticking to my challenge in May. The reason I'm fessing up now is because I got this top at Old Navy a couple of days ago, and even, though, I feel bad about breaking my challenge, I'm absolutely loving the shirt. I sized WAY up when I bought it because I wanted it to have that "extra slouchy" look, and for the most part I think it was a good decision. I love the slouch. The only thing is that my torso is entirely WAY too short for it. A little tucking in action, though, and it's allll good. Anyway, that's all. BOOSH!

Much love!

Get Goo Goo over this playlist! Just a few of my favs!