summer style...

As of late, I feel that my fashion selection has become minimalistic in the sense that I ALWAYS wear an American Apparel Deep V-neck shirt, skinny jeans, chunky jewelry and flats. Ask any of my friends and this is what you will see me in 95% of the time. I spice it up now and then, but generally this is all my wardrobe consists of.

I was recently browsing this site my friend Mark turned me onto called Lookbook! I have fallen in love all over with fashion and below are some of the following inspirations for what I am going to strive for my summer look to be. Along with my ever growing love of native american colors, fringe and garb, hopefully some of the following pieces will make it into my collection.


I will begin at the top. I can not express how much I would DIE to have my hair look like this! I have been growing it out for years and will continue to grow it until it gets to this length and then I will get it this color. Everything about this shouts beauty and to have the texture and waves in my hair that this girl has is wonderful!

Middle section. The light colors, matched with the hippie chic look of this girl makes for an airy, boho look that screams summer! Coupled with my love of chunky jewelry, and a lot of it, I will be on the lookout for flowey oversized shirt dresses and t's. Also notice the long hair again with headband look! WANT WANT WANT

Finish. Gladiator Wedges. Enough said!!! I think that these shoes could polish off any look! Jeans, shorts, skirts and dresses, these shoes are made to be worn all the time, and I must find a pair for me! The ones pictured above are perfect! Plus, this skirt and purse are too freaking cute! Jeffery Campbell come into my life with your entire collection of shoes! Thank you!

So, over the course of the summer, hopefully I will be able to say that some, or all, of these pieces have made it into my growing collection of fabric and looks! What is your inspiration for summer fashion?

xo

"We were the kings and queens of promise. We were the victims of ourselves. Maybe the children of a lesser god. Between heaven and hell."
-'Kings and Queens' by 30 Seconds to Mars

usa, usa, usa...

WORLD CUP is upon us and I could not be more excited! Today I watched the US men's team tie England in a 1-1 match. INSANE!!! Now I know it is kind of ironic, but to be honest, if the American's were to be knocked out in a round and England was still in, they would be the team I would root for. But since, the American's showed up and played, and we are still in this thing, I am USA all the way!

The new love of my life is the starting goalkeeper for the US, Tim Howard! First, he is an amazing keeper. Without him in goal today, the game would have been ugly and not in our favor. Second, he is pretty hot for 31! Deff a Billy Zane vibe with more athleticism! Delicious. Third, he plays for our home team! Geeze, how perfect!

Being a keeper myself, I know I am being bias but he is one of my favorites on the team! Who is yours?

xo

mermaids and cops...

The other week I had gone to a flying squirrels game with my family and some family friends. Danielle and Rich have a son who plays little league with my brother and we all rode in their car to watch some baseball. Some side notes to this story. Rich works for the county Sheriff's office and used to be the guy who would train all incoming new recruits to become Chesterfield County Police Officers. Since giving up his training duties, he has come across some hilarious stories, and the one he told coming home from the baseball game is priceless. It goes like this.

"Officer Brown recently started the new class of recruits for the police academy. They all came into orientation thinking it is going to be a walk in the park after the first day of no yelling and nothing but help when trying to get accustomed to police procedures. After they are issued their uniforms on the second day they get a rude awakening when all the fun and games are over. Hell and drill time start immediately. It is Officer Browns job to get up in the newbie's faces and yell and scream and whip them into shape. From day one, there was one girl who stood out as not being able to cut it as well as the rest of them. Freshly 21 with all the hopes in the world to become an officer, she was practically in tears after the first round of yelling was over. Lets call her Amy. After the first week of training, each new recruit is issued their police vehicles. All vehicles need to go through inspections from Officer Brown before being allowed to do anything with them. Apparenlty, Amy had not completed the inspection of her vehicle properly because Officer Brown went off on her again.

Officer Brown: "RECRUIT! HOW MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE HAVE YOU SPENT WANTING TO BECOME A POLICE OFFICER?"

Amy: "All my life SIR!"

Officer Brown: "AND EXACTLY HOW LONG HAS YOUR WHOLE LIFE BEEN?"

Amy: "Since I was 11 years old SIR!"

Officer Brown: "WELL I SUGGEST YOU GO BACK TO BEING WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANTED TO BE BEFORE YOU WANTED TO BE A POLICE OFFICER NEW RECRUIT."

(No answer)

Officer Brown: "AND WHAT EXACTLY IS IT THAT YOU WANTED TO BE BEFORE BECOMING A POLICE OFFICER?"

Amy: "I wanted to be a mermaid Sir!"

(You heard that right, a mermaid! At 11 years old)

Officer Brown: "A MERMAID!!! WHAT IN YOUR MIND MADE YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR FINS AND PICK UP A GUN RECRUIT!?"


From this point on I am busting out uncontrollably in the car laughing at this most recent story from Rich. His delivery of the whole account was spot on and since then I have told sooo many people this situation. What is even funnier, is that Rich actually found a mermaid book in the dollar store to give to Officer Brown to relate more to his new recruits! What a riot this man is.

Anyways, thought I would share this little story with you all!
xo

"Let's leave these lives tonight, you can find us by the trail of our insides, they were left at the scene of the crime. We've tampered with evidence, finger prints were left behind..."
-Make a Run For It by Hit the Lights

it hurts so good...

I sincerely apologize for the lack of posting as of late. I promise that I come to this blog at least once a day with all intentions of writing a witty and note worthy post, but blank as soon as I hit 'New Post.' So after my friend Justin informed me of my absence, I figured I would throw something down onto the computer screen and hope it comes out ok.

This past weekend my friend Hannah was in town staying with me which made for some fun times. She got in Wednesday night and the weekend kicked off on hump day. We went out to see Sex in the City 2 with a bunch of gals from my work. (Side Note: When I go out to girls night, I don't like to wear my uniform from work because I feel very frumpy in a blue polo and khakis. So this particular day I ran home at lunch time to grab a change of clothes when all of a sudden someone is at my door ringing the bell. "Really?" I thought to myself. I only have 5 minutes before I have to get back to work and someone is wasting my time. Come to find out I needed to save my neighbor by helping get her car out of her garage because it was stuck on the automatic door when she backed out. Needless to say I was flustered and late getting back to work and did not have the best of ensembles for the oh so stylish evening... womp womp)

Thursday night my friends band, Jonas Sees In Color, was in town playing at Canal Club so we met up with MB and Mikey for dinner at Bottoms Up Pizza before hand. I have to state this: Their pizza is freaking delicious! Their drinks are wonderful too! I suggest the Topicolada! YUMMY! After dinner we went to the club and sadly there were only a handful of people there for the show. Either way, Hannah and I rocked out and it was good to see friends finally home from being on tour for so long.

My weekend festivities continued Friday night with a trip downtown with Hannah and Justin to Richmond's "First Friday's." This is an event that takes place on Broad Street, where local art galleries open their doors with new exhibitions for the month and street vendors and musicians all come out to have one GIANT block party. It was a blast walking around looking at artwork. I must say that in one of the galleries, I found an artist who seemed to be ripping off my beloved Robert Parke Harrison and his work. I tried to find him but he apparently was not at the exhibits opening so I plan on sending an email with inquiring questions about his work. We concluded the evening with drinks and food at Uno's because they have Happy Hour all day every day! Yeah, you heard me! Cheap drinks make for a very happy Jenn.

I woke up Saturday and went out to get pedicures with Hannah before my little brother's baseball game. I have to say that this was one of the best decisions of the weekend. I know that is a sad revelation, but I needed one real bad, and if anyone knows me, I hate feet in general so mine always have to be well kept and somewhat pretty. Anyhoos, bro's game was great minus the fact that it was a bajillion degrees and I got burnt sitting in the shade with SPF 50 on! Yeah, this is the girl who burns no matter what. So right now I have a lovely red triangle on my chest. Classy, let me tell ya. The afternoon carried on with shopping on Cary Street and a night out for my friend Deanna's Birthday! I hope everyone had a good time because I know all in all I did.

Bone picking time starts NOW: I love being able to go out with all of my friends in a night, and not have only a select few be able to join. It is so much better when everyone is together so this night in particular was awesome in that respect. However, the night was not awesome when my tab at the bar came to $20.50 for 2 drinks! WTF! I had a John Daley in a little glass. How on earth does that come to $10.25 a drink? I know Firefly Vodka is a little pricier, but really? I would not go back to The Fan House on this principle alone. Someone please explain this to me.

Today was relaxation day... or so I thought. Up until 9:30 tonight my day consisted of spending time with Dad and Christian and shopping. At 9:30 tonight I decided to start my P90X workout videos. That's right, for an hour all I worked on were my shoulders, arms and upper back muscles, which mind you are weak as shit to begin with. The only way I am typing this blog right now is that my hand were not effected in this process. I literally can not move from the neck to mid back. I failed half of it because along with day one shoulder exercises, I should have done the Ab Ripper X video as well. I got half way in and decided against it.

All in all it has been a very busy weekend but wonderful at the same time! This week I am going to work on getting together with Justin to start a video blog where we talk about random things and answer any questions anyone has for us. I think it will be a very fun experiment to start and keep up with! So, if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or email me at jmontrose1@gmail.com, or check out Justins Blog!

xo

"Weekend warriors, and our best friends. The writers weren't kidding about how all good things must end. Then again some things, then again some things are far too good, some things are far too good to go ahead and let go..."
-"Down and Out" by The Academy Is

p.s.- I am going to set a goal of including more pictures of me and my adventures in the blog.

long live elon...

I can not believe that a year ago this past weekend I myself was an Elon graduate. Being there this past weekend for the 2010 graduation really drills into my head that I am in the real world and I have to start trying to figure out at least some sort of path direction for my life to try taking. I have yet to find a new job, a new city, a new adventure to try out while I am still young. I was sitting in Starbucks this morning with my friend Hannah who just graduated Saturday and we started to make a plan of places we could live based on climate and personal preferences. Hannah and I originally were planning on taking a European vacation in the fall and have tacked on being roommates in the near future to this budding adventure. She is an amazing person with an open mind to completely new and creative things.
Our top 5 city choices of the moment:
1. Boston Mass.
2. Denver Col.
3. Seattle, Washington
4. Anchorage Alaska
5. Providence, RI

We literally sat for over an hour going through Wikipedia on all of these cities and decided that they all had the climate's we would be most willing to live happily in. So with that said, I am going to start a job search in each of these places and see what I can come up with! If any of you readers have connections or advice on any of these places, please fill me in!!! All of you should know by now that my love for a Boston accent or a burly Alaskan man will completely swing my biasness towards those two towns, so please feel free to sway me other ways.

By the way, the picture above is of me holding my Oak tree sapling that was already dying by the time I was leaving graduation. A little tid bit about Elon is that when you come to Elon as a Freshman, during commencement you receive an acorn (Elon means "Oak" in Hebrew). Over the next four years as you grow as a student, the university presents you with an Oak tree sapling upon graduating to symbolize your start into a new chapter, and wherever you go, you are supposed to plant your oak tree so that there are reminders of Elon all over the world! It was one of those little traditions about Elon that made everything feel perfect about the four years that I spent there.

xo

"I hope you had the time of your life..."
-Good Riddance by Green Day

im a lush, and i love it...

I was totally going to do a rip off of a Taking Back Sunday song in my post's title, but I realized I would be a liar if I said I hate wine! I LOVE WINE!

I am currently on vacation in Myrtle Beach where my most favorite winery is. Carolina Vineyards has the best wine EVER!!! I bought 7 bottles today, yes 7. One Strawberry flavored, one Cherry flavored, one Blackberry flavored and FOUR BLUEBERRY! OMG DELICIOUS!

You are all probably thinking I am a total wino, but seriously, I only get down here like two times a year and must get my fix. I got to taste test 8 different ones today for only $2. How awesome is that. It helped that the girl behind the counter loved my hair and was from the town I went to college in. She gave me and my mom like 2 extra tastes of wine!

Needless to say I will be set for the next couple of months with a wonderful selection of deliciously sweet wine! The rest of my trip here will be filled with walking, shopping and ohh yeah, THE BEACH! Is anyone going on a fun vacation this summer?

Beach hair+ my new fishy ring+ awesome condo= happy Jenn!!! (P.S.- my fish has 2 front teeth and I named him Edgar!)
xo

"Why don't you tell me about the sunsets in Sweden and the laws of Eden and how you were the rock of Gibralter, and how they called you Foxy!"
- "0% Interest" by Jason Mraz

martians in the closet...

I know that I have told this story to a bunch of people recently, but I thought I would share with the rest of the blog world the crazy stories I hear working in a Physical Therapy clinic. This next story taking the cake.

So a few weeks ago one of our younger patients, she was 27, came in for her appointment at 5:00 and started off her usual self. She doesnt show many emotions and is kind of snotty at times, but I have learned what she likes and does not like so it is easier to talk to her. I go ahead and set her up with heat for the first 15 minutes and do some other things around the office. When she was done I ran her through the exercises and then waited for the therapist to come work on her. She started to tell us a story of one of her co-workers...

-The other day at work this lady Linda got a phone call from her adult son. (He's mentally handicapped which is why he lives at home.) He told her, "Mom, there is a martian in my closet and I am feeding him skittles." Now Linda gets calls from her son at work randomly sometimes, and with his handicap she didn't think much of it. However, this day she continued to get calls from him saying the same thing. "There is a martian in my closet and I am feeding him skittles." Our boss went up to her and told her to go home and check on him to make sure everything was ok. Linda said she got home and went around the house to check and make sure everything was ok. When she got to her sons room she looked in the closet and there was a little person in the closet. Come to find out the little person was a census worker who happened to be in the neighborhood going from door to door. The son had somehow gotten them into the house and into the closet.

At this point we were all astounded and quite frankly did not believe the story. Our patient swore that the story was real and we all started cracking up. From there we had sooo many questions we needed answers to and didnt get them. Like:
- How did the little person actually get in the closet?
- Were they willingly taking the skittles and eating them as the day passed?
- Did they not have a cell phone to call for help?
- Did they decide they wanted excitement in their life for the day?

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? hahaha

Anyways, we sent our patient back to work to get all of the detailed information, and come to find out she was feeling better and didnt need physical therapy anymore. So the world and I might never know the answer to these questions.

xo

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now (wish right now, wish right now)"
-"Airplanes" by B.o.B featuring Hayley Williams