I am officially halfway through my exams and I have my eyes on summer break. What does that mean to a stressed out college student? It means I'm ignoring my exams today while I drink a milkshake and eat an entire small pizza from Domino's. Hashtag Beach Body?

But in all reality, I really do have a few summer goals for myself. I don't necessarily have to achieve them all, but I'd like to make some decent progress on each of them!

Summer Job & Loans As any college student these days, I have more than my fair share of loans. Unfortunately, I have to defer the next couple of years of loans. Because of that, I want to try and pay off as much of my current loans as possible. I've been really lucky the past two years, my parents have helped me a lot with the payments, but it's time for me to help out too. I want to make as much money as possible over the summer and go with the 50-30-20 plan for saving and spending: 50% goes towards college loans, 30% goes into my savings account, and 20% is for spending on shopping or going out or whatever. 50% seems like a lot, but while I'm home, I don't have any significant costs, so it's not really as much for me. 30% for savings is the money I want to keep for an emergency, should I have to get home quickly or something. I don't know what I'd use it for, but it's always good to have the just-in-case funds. That last 20% is just enough for me to pick up a couple books, go out with friends for half apps, or if I want to go anywhere while I'm home. I don't plan on doing much, but can't hurt to have a little cash on hand for fun!

The Blog Like I mentioned in my Birthday Wishlist, I want to start self-hosting over the summer and I want to find a new design for the blog. Aside from that, I want to dedicate more time to writing engaging content, reaching out to viewers, and trying some new stuff. I feel like my writing on these posts has really increased over the past few months, my personal voice has been coming out and it's really great. I want to try to move towards a lifestyle-niche with a broader span of posts to engage as many readers as possible. I want to use Facebook groups, Twitter, Pinterest boards, anything I can to try to not just bring in more readers, but start a conversation with my readers too, finding out what you all like and want to read more of! As for new stuff, I've got a few ideas for new projects and new features that I want to try out for the near future. 

Voice and Video Speaking of new projects! I've recruited the help of my sister to experiment with some new options this summer including a podcast and videos. Preliminary thoughts? The videos won't happen for a while. It's a big thing to jump into on a lot of fronts. First of all, creating content, filming, and editing requires a lot of dedication, time, and effort. While I am certainly dedicated to the process, I have to put my time and efforts towards school first. Though, I think O would be great for YouTube (hint, hint sister!). As for voice, I've been on a big podcast kick, especially the SourceFed Podcast. Inspired by that and the Philip DeFranco Show, I've been tossing around the idea of making a 30-50 minute podcast, talking about current events and my opinions on them. Why? Because I really struggle putting into into words in a concise manner for the blog. And I really like to talk/debate in an informal manner. O and I have very differing views, so I think it'd be fun to try out a regular discussion-type podcast on all types of current events. Sort of a replacement for the short-lived weekly SOTU posts.

Fitness I know, I know, I say this every time, but I really want to work on my fitness this summer. I was doing so well this semester! Not so much towards the end, but progress! I was losing the fat and for the first time in years I was happy with my body. Thanks to allergies and finals and me, that progress hit a bit of a plateau/roadblock and stopped for a while. I'm slowly getting back into it, and I'm super determined this summer! I've been setting more realistic goals, which you'll hear about in an upcoming fitness post, but the Marine Corps 10K in October is definitely top of the list!

Freelance Writing Those of you who know me know that I've recently become an avid follower of Jim Chapman. I love his daily vlogs more than his main channel videos, and I've started reading his blog more and more often. Between that and his GQ series, I've become more enamored with freelance writing. I've always loved writing, I mean obviously, I do it for fun here. Getting paid to write would be pretty amazing to me. I don't quite have the creative chops to be a fiction writer like I wanted to be when I was a kid, but the idea of freelancing like Jim does a bit really piqued my interest. So this summer, I want to take a few online courses, brush up on the more profesh writing skills, and try my hand at a little bit of freelance!

Closet This one's going to be short, since I've got a post coming up about it soon. But I've been trying to redo my closet, simplifying my wardrobe, and maximizing each item, all on a super tight budget. It's going to be a work in progress for a long time, but I'm excited to revamp it all. I'll be buying and selling on Poshmark, my new window shopping obsession. It'll be a super fun challenge with plenty of blog posts along the way!

So with all that, and then a ton more, I have one busy summer ahead of me. What about you, any big exciting plans coming up?

I've got to get back to studying now, I'm so close to done!! Until next time,

Writing to you from M, Personally

Blog Friends College Life Future

8:11 AM

(Used with permission from The Navy Blazer)

It's no secret that I am the queen of the wannabe preps. It's taken a long, long time for me to find my personal style. And in that time, I learned a lot about fashion and clothes. Those lessons were, in short, painful, ugly, and often did not match. Now that I've finally realized that my style is really sort of low-key preppy, I'm very slowly moving my wardrobe away from it's hot-mess-express phase into a I-swear-I'm-not-colorblind phase and eventually to the final look-I-really-can-dress-myself stage.

As I move into a more preppy style, I have come to understand the phenomenon known as snobs. While I myself am a bit of a snob (hey, everyone has flaws!), the painfully preppy people around here are just snobby to the point of rude. There is two points of view on preppy. There are people like me, who think that preppy is just as much, if not more, a mindset. Then there are those people, who judge someone's worth by how many Shep shirts and Lilly dresses they own. I've never really liked that latter, as I cannot afford Vineyard Vines or Kate Spade or even Nordstrom Rack for that matter. It's very hard to transition into a preppy style if you don't fit in with that group.

I've been struggling to do so, when I stumbled upon a true gem, a new fabulous blog called Navy Blazer. Grown out of the preppy centered subreddit, the beautifully designed blog covers definitely caught my eye. I first opened it up, expecting to read a few posts and then move on. Instead, I opened it up, and read pretty much every single post on the site. Describing themselves as a "modern community dedicated to classic American style, I can pretty much tell you I love the site, I just might submit a post this summer!

I wanted to share my thoughts on one my personal favorite posts of theirs, The Ten Commandments, the ten rules of prep to live by. My favorite rules?

1. Ignore Fashion - Basically a golden rule for how I dress. While I do eventually accept the longer standing trends, and every now and again I'll get a trendy necklace or scarf or something, all it takes it one look at, like, anything on 99% of the runways during fashion week to remind me why I love the preppy style.

2. Quality Over Quantity - The reason why I loathe shopping at stores like H&M or Forever 21. Some of the cloths may be cute, but I guarantee they'll fall apart after two washes, max.

3. Old Over New - This one speaks to me on so many levels. I live in what I call the Poor Prep style. I'm on a super strict budget, so consignment and thrift shops are like the homeland. So many preppy pieces stand up incredibly well over time, I can't tell you how many amazing Ralph pieces I've picked up on consignment. They might be 10 years old, but a quality sweater never goes out of style.

4 Thou Shalt Not Try Too Hard - If you don't understand the need for this rule, you're the reason we have it.

5. Thou Shalt Not Brag - I don't begrudge anyone their success, if you can afford everything in Ralph's summer line good for you! But when people flaunt their clothes for the sake of bragging? Yeah, not a fan. Modesty and Humility are a thing. This really fits into the next of my favorites too.

8. Attitude - Preppy is such state of mind, I can't even express this enough. Don't be a stuffy spoilsport all the time. While it's good to hold yourself to a high standard and have an appreciation for the finer things, it's also good to be able to take off the blazer every now and again. Toss on a T shirt and roll down a hill or grab a hairnet and volunteer at the local soup kitchen for a few hours. High standards doesn't have to mean you're a too-good-for-you kind of snob.


So those are my thoughts on the Navy Blazer's Ten Commandments, you should definitely go check out the post for the rest! I 100% recommend their blog to anyone, its pretty amazing.

That's all I've got for now, so until next time,

Writing to you from M, Personally

Blog Friends Preppy Shop

6:00 AM