Your Ever Present Past.

I talk a lot about "the past" on this blog but it's a past that not a lot of my readers including myself have experienced. Everyone of you, including myself, has gone through an adolescence and if it wasn't awkward than bravo to you! This weekend I've been mulling over a post from a fellow blogger and former teacher Mrs. Jessica Ippolito (The Best of Times is Now). The post Return to Sender, discusses a project that started with the 2008 senior english class which I was part of. We wrote a letter to ourselves that was to be opened when we were 23.

I was a couple months shy of my 18th birthday when I wrote mine and had completely forgotten about the letter and was surprised when I recieved a letter from myself in the mail last year. I'm so happy I'm nothing like my 17 year old self anymore and my letter is kept where absolutely no one can see it. Writing a letter to your future self is something I recommend everyone to do though.

In order to do this you must remind yourself of some things. There are no rules when you write a letter to yourself and you must remember not to set any limitations on yourself. Sometimes, even in our private writings we self censor. I do this in my diary all the time and I have to step back and ask myself why but I never have any answers. Anyway, you must be honest to yourself with your letter, don't stop yourself from writing anything, no one but you is going to read it.

There are no content requirements for your letter but try to include as many details about your life at the moment because you will not remember the small things 5 or 10 years on.

In New Jersey we've had yet another snow storm so if you're trapped inside like I am, consider this the perfect thing to do. It's a great reminder that the past wasn't always so perfect like so many of us think it to be. Remember, you can always learn from the past.

17 year old me and my prom date. All ready to go to the senior prom. This was the only photo of teenage me I was prepared to inflict on all of you. 

The Thanksgiving season.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, a holiday that is quite neglected in my opinion. I love Thanksgiving, I love my little tofurkey and green bean casserole and wine (at some family gatherings this is a necessity and I'm sure you all understand) As I've gotten older, I spend most of Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season reflecting on what I'm thankful for and things that have happened in the past year. So far 2013 has been full of extreme highs and lows. I started blogging seriously and collecting vintage seriously. In October, I married the love of my life and could not be happier. My Poppop died this May and the holidays are going to be really strange without him. This is the first time I've experienced a major loss. However, in this extreme year I have a lot to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to learn from my grandparents, those of you who are fortunate enough to spend lots of time or who have spent lots of time with your grandparents know the value of hearing stories from their past. I love to hear any story from any one about the past but I especially love to hear ones from my Mommom. I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with her this year. I've had a ball listening to all her stories and getting her take on vintage fashion. I also spent a lot of time restoring photos of my Mommom and Poppop this spring and I gathered a lot from them. After our ceremony, Jeremy and I handed out thank you notes to everyone that attended. I told my Mommom that her and Poppop were the best marriage role models that I could ever have. I'm lucky to have such great Grandparents to learn from.

You can just feel their love from these photos! Being around them taught me a lot about what marriage is and I am so thankful for that. The little girl in the top photo is my Mom. The bottom photo was taken in January 2013 at my Mommom and Poppop's joint birthday party. 

I'm thankful that this is the fifth holiday season I've been able to spend with Jeremy. Not every holiday has been spectacular but being together made everything better. This year is special since we have dedicated our entire lives to each other.

I'm thankful that Jeremy and I have family that supports and loves us. I am so happy that my Mom, Mommom and sister have taken to Jeremy so well and think of him as one of the family. Jeremy treats Brianna just like his own sister too.

This photo is from our vacation in June. 

I am also thankful for my Mom and my sister. I'm happy that we all be weird together.

I am thankful for our fur baby Ginger. I am also thankful for my little fur nephew Felix and my parent's kitten Patches. Jeremy and I have spent two years with Ginger so far and since September we have spent a lot of time babysitting Patches and Felix.

Ginger with his birthday present. 

I bet you've never seen a cuter brother and sister duo.

I am thankful for Jeremy. Where can I possibly begin with this wonderful man, he is truly my other half. I never need to ask him for help, he is always there no matter how busy he is, and not just with me. He was such a big help with my grandparents ever since we started dating.  He's always there to encourage me and he can make even our lazy days special. He is so loving to animals, especially our fur baby Ginger that had to be bottle fed since he was abandoned at such a young age.

August, 2011. Jeremy bottle feeding Ginger. Is this not the perfect man?

I try not to be one of those wives that goes on and on about how perfect her husband is but sorry, he is. Jeremy makes me laugh, is great with my family and provides for Ginger and I. I am so thankful that I am going to spend the rest of my life with this man. 

I am thankful to be able to share my thoughts with all of you!  Always be thankful for the good things you have in life since you'll not have them forever. I understand that not all families get along, at least be thankful for the ones that love and cherish you. Jeremy and I have a lot of relatives that choose to isolate us and that is their fault, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying our holidays and enjoying our family. I also want to put it out there that I am thankful for Tofurkey! It's tough to be a vegetarian around the holidays especially if no one else in your family is, but the Tofurkey is amazing! 

What do you have to be thankful for? Does thankfulness play a part in your Thanksgiving traditions? 

To market...

I am a shy person. Some of you, upon reading that might question it. I don't come off as shy on the internet, it's a safe zone for me. I try to be as polite as possible but I don't usually hesitate to share my opinion online. I think I am pretty confident when I pose in front of a photographer

I think I look pretty confident what do you think? I also had the encouragement of a great photographer

I am shy in groups of people I don't know, at school, at shops, basically anywhere that isn't home or the Internet. This has never been a problem I needed to work on, it did mean I have little to no friends but I am used to being by myself. A blog can not thrive if there is no effort to market it so this is where my shyness becomes a problem.

Earlier in the month Jeremy designed and printed business cards for me and they arrived last Thursday. Since then I have only given one of the 50 out to someone who wasn't a family member. I can visualise going up to a woman who for example might have on a vintage broach and slipping her my card in hopes that she will visit my site and participate in my conversations about everything vintage. However, when the time comes I freeze. Filled with doubts like, 'why would anyone want to read my blog' and 'what makes me so special', I just retreat into myself. This behavior doesn't get me anywhere. 

Yesterday,I spent the day learning about marketing yourself and networking and I spent the rest of the day doing those things. I clearly have a lot of work to do online and on myself. I realize it doesn't happen overnight but I plan to work as hard as I can to succeed. It's hard to put myself out there but I know it's what I have to do so I'm doing it even though it terrifies me. 

To my fellow bloggers, do any of you share my shyness and if so what have you done to ease it? To all of my readers, do you share my duality of being shy out and not elsewhere. Do you have a reserved manner out in public and let loose at home?

My birthday resolutions

I was born on September 8, 1990 and yesterday I celebrated my 23rd birthday. Some people dread becoming another year older, they feel that the older they get the more they have to be serious, to act like an "adult".  Technically, I have been an adult for awhile now but I still don't feel like one. Age is but a state of mind. This may be the reason that I still use Lisa Frank products for school.

My Mom, Mommom, Brianna(sister), Jeremy celebrated with me yesterday. I made mango salsa, guacamole and I put out some tortilla chips, brie and crackers because my idea of a party is a lot of snacks! For dinner we had tacos, my favorite, and for dessert my Mom made me a red velvet birthday cake and I made homemade sticky buns. Like I said in an earlier post, my sister and I like to throw our own dance parties and we did just that for my birthday. I made a playlist of Bobby Darin, ABBA and assorted disco and 60's hits.

Brianna wore this fantastic blue gown that she got from "Twice Loved Treasures" in Vineland NJ.

I'm so proud!

 This is her very first vintage piece and I am so proud!
There is a beautiful butterfly broach attached to the middle
of the dress and the gorgeous cape is optional, but I think
the gown is more dramatic with it. I hope this gown leads to more vintage pieces. I know when I got my very first vintage
dress I knew I had to have more! However, the dress I wore
was not vintage but it looks like it could be from the 60's. The shoes are vintage, they were my Mommom's.

Most people make resolutions only at the beginning of the new year but I make them every year on my birthday, I treat is as a fresh start. Does anyone else make resolutions on their birthday or any other time of the year other then the new year? Most of my resolutions this year are cliche, exersise everyday, keep my room clean,don't slack off in school and read and write for fun everyday.  My major resolution is to be more social and outgoing. When I go to school I keep to myself and that was okay for a couple of years but I would like to meet new people. So, I plan to participate in class more often, make conversation with the people sitting around me and not to isolate myself while I'm on campus. I once read that to make a resolution work there has to be a plan. I am socially inept so if anyone has any tips I would love to hear them!

Mommom, Me, Brianna, and Jeremy

We're all quite strange. 

A new venture.

Shopping and dressing up is fun but I want to do something bigger. I have decided to offer mentoring/advice services and I am available as your personal shopper. I can help you navigate a thrift store and create a look for yourself. Advice and mentoring can be done online. This is a new venture but I am serious about this.  So, contact me and pick my brain!

The not so single life.

Dear readers, this is a departure from my usual fashion posts. This is a post about my thoughts, please don't be scared.

I've been in a relationship for over 5 years now. We are engaged and have been for 3 years. We fully intend to be legally married one day but we are waiting until we are both finished school and are able to live on our own. We knew two years into our relationship that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together so we figured why wait to make it official. Now, despite the fact that we are married in spirit our relationship is constantly glossed over because we do not have a binding legal document. Before you read any further, if you are not familiar with Jeremy and I then I will give you a primer; neither of us are religious, we've both discussed in detail our plans for a wedding and we plan on having only a reception (for lack of a better word, it's just going to be a fancy party) and to have a chic 60's style court house wedding. This is the way we're going to celebrate when the time comes but right now we're in engagement limbo. 

I've read on a lot of message boards that people think your engagement is a sham if there is no wedding date set. I think that is outdated drivel, an engagement is a commitment, a verbal contract of sorts. We've made said verbal agreement therefore we are engaged.

See, we're legit I have a ring. According to De Beers your engagement isn't real if your man doesn't get you a diamond ring...(that's sarcasm folks)

Perhaps some of the fault is my own when it comes to what I call Jeremy. I loathe the term fiance, it reminds me of that Seinfeld scene (see the video below)

You can understand my reluctance I'm sure. The word "boyfriend" sounds too flippant for a long term relationship, let alone to an engaged couple. The alternatives aren't any better, they include: my intended, betrothed, my other half (I was not split in two) and most cringingly, my man. I just introduce him as Jeremy, and thankfully I am enough of a hermit where I don't need to introduce him that often. 

Much to our chagrin we've both been refereed to as single. Once at a wedding (I will save my dislike for them in another post)  I was encouraged to catch the bouquet with the other teenage girls, and widows. I don't see myself as single but we're not legally married. A lot of people don't see gray. 

I'm fortunate that at least my parents and my Mommom respect our relationship, I think I'd go crazy if I didn't have them in our corner. 

To all my not so single ladies, those who are having long engagements or those who don't feel the need to jump through all the traditional hoops, what do you have to say? 

For Poppop

I haven't updated in awhile, my Poppop died last week. I wrote this for his funeral service and I wanted to share it and share some photos. I made a memorial video for him and I restored a lot of his photos from the 40's that were in bad shape.

Here is the piece I wrote for the service. 

Lenny Bruce once said “There are never enough ‘I love yous’”. For the past couple of days this quote has been constantly in my thoughts. 

When I think of my Poppop the word “love” is the first word I think of. All my memories of him are happy ones, moments filled with love. 
Love is walking me around the house as a baby, while I was crying my head off to look at the framed pictures in the living room. He always called it “looking at the kids”. 

Love is sitting in a chair by the side of the Malaga Camp pool frying in the hot summer sun while I swam for hours and hours, Poppop even spent hours teaching me how to dive. 

Love is spending Wednesday evenings with me eating dinner, taking me to CCD, taking me back home to have sticky buns and play a board game and then taking me back to my house in their white “Park Avenue” which I thought was a limosunue. Mommom and Poppop even shared some of their Saturday nights with me. Some nights we would drive to Boscov’s, Poppop would sleep in the chairs in the furniture department while Mommom and I shopped and then the three of us would enjoy some fudge when we returned home. 

Love is spending the day with me and then eventually my sister, keeping us busy. Some of my favorite memories are from the days we stayed at the house. Poppop and I playing badmitton, I stood in the back of his truck and he on the drive way. Watching “Stanley the Ugly Duckling” in the den over and over again. Taking me to his “workshop” in the basement where I got to look at all the neat news clippings he had of auto accidents and then play with all the neat tools. When my Mommom and Poppop got their computer in 2000 I spent hours on it and I then became my Poppop’s “computer wizard”. 

Love is putting up with me when I went through my crazy teenage years and never feeling anger from him. Picking me up from school , giving me driving tips, coming to my school functions, making bread in the bread machine, taking care of Checkers the German Sheppard that Mommom and Poppop looked after from time to time, feeding “Chippie” the chipmunk and sharing his own memories with me are all things I’ll treasure forever. 
Love is expanding his love to my fiancé Jeremy who acted as one of Poppops caregivers when he was in poor health. I know Poppop loved Jeremy and Jeremy considered Poppop his own and I am over the moon to know my Poppop loved and approved of the man I will spend forever with. 

Love is something I learned a lot about from observing my Mommom and Poppop. Their love was picturesque and perfect in my eyes. I could tell from being around them they shared a deep passion for each other. As I restored their photos you could see the love for each other reflected in their expression. It takes a true, true love to care for my Poppop as fiercely as my Mommom did. As I watched my Mommom weep at my Poppop’s bedside the last three days of his life I realized that after 50 years these two people still had a deep and passionate love for each other. Unfortunately a lot of us throught the years take their partner for granted. One thing I have gathered from the love story of Paul and Gloria Laury is to always love your partner and constantly search for ways to stay in love with each other. These are things I take from their relationship and these are things that anyone that knew the both of them can gather. 

Even when he was struggling with pneumonia in the hospital and couldn’t hardly talk he took the time to ask me how I was doing, when all we were concerned about was how he was doing. That’s the man he was, giving and loving. 

“There are never enough ‘I love yous’” is a quote that has stuck with me because there truly are never enough expressions of love. The last thing I can do for Poppop is to share his legacy. His life was important and worthy of being shared.

While I was looking back at the photos of my Poppop I noticed that not only did he live an amazing life   but he was also a very snappy dresser. 

This photo is from 1943, two years before Poppop graduated from high school. That's a fantastic coat! 

 He even looks cool washing a car while wearing trousers and a t-shirt!

This is a photo of my Mommom (I will do a post about her amazing fashion sense later) and Poppop at Parrot Jungle. I love the red and black jacket, it's a nice casual look. 

I am glad that I have these photos to look back on. The worst thing I can think of is my Poppop being forgotten and it is my pleasure to share his legacy. 

I'm back.

      I haven't been blogging in awhile but I am inspired to return to it. This evening Jeremy took me out for a lovely dinner at Mori's. It's in Vineland on Landis Ave. If you are ever in the area and you are looking for a fantastic place to eat you must try Mori's. Tonight I had the Mahi-Mahi with mushrooms and capers and a pear martini. The fish was excellent and it was even topped with almonds :).
     Now, you're probably asking yourself why I'm going on and on about my dinner when this is a thrifting/fashion blog and it's because I like to talk. Seriously though the evening does relate to fashion. I wore a dress that I picked up at a thrift store and a beaded handbag that I got at a yard sale just this morning.

Everything but the earrings, headband and my ring were thrifted or from yard sales. I was trying to pull off a 60's vibe, how do you think I did?

P.S. I've got a lot of new pieces to talk about. Look out for more posts.