Tag: food

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Not Cold

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Hey, hey, guess what?

I’m cold.

I know, I know, I’ve never said that before in a blog. I have never, in the history of this site, written a blog based upon me being cold. For that matter, I’ve never even done a blog about being too hot. I am immune to the elements; they do not bother me, and I have no reason to complain about them.

Besides, who could complain when they have coffee? And not only coffee, but coffee in a Christmas cup!?!

I’m still trying to decide upon my go-to cold weather Starbucks drink. I’m happy to do a cold brew, even in the winter, but not all the time, you know?

Anyway, I’ve been experimenting around, and I think I might have landed on an option: a café Americano with steamed almond milk on top. It’s got just the right touch of decadence with the steamed milk, while still being bitter enough to make me feel warm inside.

Unfortunately, my coffee is gone now, and all I’m left with is the yellow stain on my teeth.

I’m also very cold, so things could be better. Notre Dame is presently winning though – is the win worth me standing out in the rain for four hours? I don’t know. But I’m here now, and I got some good touchdown pushup photos out of it, so I guess it’s not so awful.

Anyway, that’s it for today! See you in the next blog! Maybe by then I’ll have warmed up.

Saturday Musings + Coffee – On the Road Again

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I like, actually don’t know a single lyric to that entire song except for what I wrote in the title – “on the road again.”

It something a tired and delirious Amanda would sing in the Atlanta airport any time we had to run from one terminal to another in an attempt to make it onto a plane from the standby list. I was too tired and delirious myself to question it – I’m not even sure it was a real song, now that I think of it, maybe she was just expressing her frustrations through song.

Welp, I’m frustrated and on the road again, so it struck me as a sensible blog title. Frustrated? I don’t know if that’s quite the right word…it’s more like, mildly annoyed. See, I’ve got another Greyhound bus to take today, and I was not so much a fan of the last one I had to take, and this time, I don’t even have home to look forward to at the end of the road.

Granted, I do have the Notre Dame game against the University of Southern California to look forward to, and that’ll be neat, but it’s much more exciting for me to get to sleep in my own bed than to get to stand for three hours in a football stadium with a bunch of *not at all intoxicated* college kids.

So you’ll have to pardon my particularly unglamorous coffee lifestyle photos today – it was a particularly unglamorous morning.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame.

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Home Again, Home Again

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Jiffity jig.

I’m back, Lexington, KY! Did you miss me?

No? You didn’t even feel my absence? What’s one less person in a population of over 300,000? Oh…okay. That’s cool too. Well, you know what I missed though? Panera. There isn’t one on campus – there isn’t even one within delivery distance, I don’t think. We have an Au Bon Pain, but it’s not nearly as good. You have to serve yourself out of these giant pots of soup and scoop it into cardboard cups, rather than getting prepared for you in those chic little white bowls Panera has. Much less chic.

Another thing that Panera has that Au Bon Pain doesn’t is Lexington people who went to my high school. That’s significantly less cool. I saw two girls I went to high school with while I was there this afternoon, and I did my best to hide. We didn’t make eye contact, thank goodness, so we weren’t obliged to speak, but I’m fairly certain that if I saw them, they saw me too. Which means we all purposefully avoided each other.

Lol, that’s high school for you.

Anyway, I’m about to head out to get dinner with some friends, so this is going to be super short. Fashion posts to resume tomorrow!

That’s all, folks! See you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Saturday Musings and Coffee – Second Day of Fall

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Look how beautiful and fall-like this whole scene looks. Too bad it doesn’t actually feel beautiful or fall- like.

It’s been ridiculously hot here in South Bend these last few days – like, hotter than it usually gets even in mid-July in Kentucky. And of course, my room lacks air conditioning, so I’ve spent a lot of my time trying as best as I can to hang out in buildings with AC.

I’ve also been drinking a lot of iced coffee – a tall vanilla iced coffee with one pump vanilla and skim milk, to be exact. I find I usually need something caffeinated in the afternoon to pick me up, and it’s been too miserably hot recently to get a hot drink. Though I’m typically more of a black coffee person, I’ve found I actually like the subtly sweet taste of my concoction – who knew?

Today, to commemorate the start of fall, my section within my dorm is going apple-picking at a local orchard. Though I usually hesitate to use these three words, I have to say – I’m pretty excited. I love picking apples, and I’ve been dying to get off campus, so this should be a well-needed trip.

It is a little too bad about the heat though…hopefully we’ll be done before the real afternoon heat comes in.

Anyway, I probably ought to go. I still need to workout and get dressed, and I leave in an hour. Thanks for reading!

Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com.

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Homework Day

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Sadly, unlike last week, when I was able to chill on the 7th floor of the library by myself, I have found that neither “chilling” nor “having the library to myself” is possible today.

Why? Because it’s my first weekend here in two weeks without a home football game, and while I am not stressed out about trying to carve a whole 4 hours (for real, football games are time-consuming) out of my day to go stand in a stadium all smushed up next to students I don’t know, I am stressed about homework. Plus, since there’s no game, the usually empty library is now…well, busy‘s not the word, but it’s got a little more bustle to it than I would like.

If I’m going to be honest, though, the lack of a football game is kind of a relief. I was looking forward to it all week – I thought it was going to be so nice and relaxing without all the commotion of a thousand visitors who all come to tailgate and end up waking you up at 9 in the morning by blasting “Wagon Wheel” from their portable speaker that they’ve set up on the lawn below your window.

And I was right. It is relaxing…in a way. At least, it would be relaxing if I didn’t have so much homework to do. These last few nights, I’ve been working on projects that I’ve been putting off since the start of school – which has been a very good thing – but it means I’ve fallen a bit behind in my reading. It also doesn’t help that I took a nap Friday afternoon.

Luckily, though, it’s a very nice day, so I took the opportunity to sit outside at one of the café tables near Au Bon Pain in the library. It’s not quite as quiet, but it’s also not nearly as stuffy. And I don’t feel badly about myself when I have to sneeze and all the hardcore studiers look at me like they want me excommunicated from the Catholic church.

(Little do they know…they cannot excommunicate me if I’m not even Catholic in the first place…mwahahahaha)

Anyway, I’ve probably already taken more time than I should have to write up this blog post, so I’ll let you go. Enjoy these photos of my Starbucks cup.

Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com.

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Gooooo Irish! Beat Georgia!

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How to get the 8th floor of the library for yourself: go the morning of a football game.

In fact, I got the gym to myself this morning too. Seems like Notre Dame kids like their football game days so much, they don’t really do anything else those days. No homework, no working out – not even eating in the dining hall.  Tailgate –> game –> candlelight dinner –> party.

Do the students still party even if we lose? I’ve only been here for one game, so I don’t actually know. I wouldn’t be surprised though; people seem to like to party, regardless of the occasion.

St. Patrick’s Day ought to be interesting to spend here.

I don’t mind though. It gives me some time to myself, and that’s rather scarce here. My dorm room is a quad, so there’s pretty much always someone there, the dining halls are always crowded, and even the upper floors of the library tend to have one or two nerds studying there late into the night.

I’ll head to the game later this evening (maybe even drop by a tailgate or two if one of my friends has family there), but for now, I’m just happy to hang out up here on the 8th floor by myself. I haven’t even done much work or been productive…something I’ll probably regret tomorrow when I have to spend all Sunday doing homework.

Anyway, that’s it for today! Still gotta go back to my dorm and change into my gameday attire. Never did wash the Shirt…guess that means I ought to spray it with some perfume or something. Whoops.

Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com.

Saturday Musings + Coffee – First ND Home Game

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Yeah, I know it’s not Saturday at the time of publication – calm down.

Usually, when I do a Saturday Musings post, I like to publish it on Saturday – otherwise, the name kind of loses its relevance, you feel? But for this post, it unfortunately just has to be that way. I feel like my excuse is pretty decent though.

Saturday, the day I drank my coffee and took my photos of it, was my first home football game at Notre Dame. Football, of course, is a huge deal at Notre Dame, so when my parents told me that they had purchased season tickets for me, I was more than grateful.

But here’s the thing – I’m not a football connoisseur. I like football, don’t get me wrong – I grew up cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles – but I know nothing about the culture and the I’ve only ever been to one college game in my life, and that was for the University of Kentucky – not exactly a very good team. I went to a lot of high school football games, but then, that was for the social aspect of attending, not actually to watch the game. No offense to my high school, but we kind of sucked.

At Notre Dame though, it seems that football games are huge both for the socialization aspect and the actual game. People tailgate for hours beforehand and then party afterwards….it’s insane.

It was a lot of fun though! I’m definitely glad I had the coffee before the day started though, because the day didn’t end until way too late for my taste. I’ll have to tell you more about it later though when I do a full blog about Saturday’s OOTD – have to save some details for that post!

Anyway, I think that’s about it for the day for me. I have an obscene amount of homework I’m in denial about their due dates, and I probably ought to do some of it. Whoops.

August 11, 2017 – Team Edward FTW (OOTD #85)

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Finally got my scraggly bleach-damaged ends snipped off.

I love getting my hair cut – I really ought to have it done more often. It’s amazing what a difference it can make, lightening up the weight of your hair and making it look more healthy, even when it’s in as sad of a state as mine.

Today’s outfit was rather simple: just a blazer, a shirt and a pair of leggings. It’s made more interesting though by the billowy sleeves of the shirt, which pop out from under the jacket and add some extra drama. It was a lazy day for me in terms of fashion, since I had to go to work early in the morning I opted for comfort over style, but I found that I was still able to add a little detail like that to keep from being too boring.

After work, I had to rush home to entertain some friends for the evening. I arrived at 5:00 to begin cooking and told them to arrive to arrive at 5:30, banking on the fact that they’d arrive around 5:45 since they’re teenagers and we’re a perpetually late bunch (I know I am).

And thankfully, they were! I mean, normally tardiness is a little annoying, but I knew I was going to be late with cooking dinner anyway, so it was better that they were late too. Yay for poor time management skills?

We’d selected three movies for the evening – School of Rock, Twilight, and The Brave Little Toaster – and we made it through all but the last. It was particularly amusing because Zach had never seen Twilight while Amanda apparently used to watch it once a week as a kid, making for an interesting experience of Zach looking confused and Amanda spouting out random trivia about each scene.

In the end though, we all agreed – Team Edward FTW. Not that it really matters anymore, since the Twilight phenomenon is thankfully a thing of the past, but Jacob’s character is just so much less developed, especially in the first move. Edward’s hardly Mr. Personality either, but he’s a superpowered vampire with My Chemical Romance levels of self-hatred, so that earns him some points. Plus, Robert Pattinson’s cuter.

Wait…why am I even going on about Twilight in 2017?

I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Forever21

Shirt: The LOFT

August 4, 2017 – I Don’t Even Like Donuts (OOTD #82)

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No, really – I don't.

I've tried over and over again to like them. Every time I see a donut, I think to myself: look at that adorable little thing – it's like a cake bagel with icing. How can that go wrong? And every time I try one, I get three bites into it and then think: oh, that's right. Donuts are heavy and greasy and I don't like them. 

The only donut I've ever really enjoyed come from McMillans Bakery in Westmont, New Jersey. They've got these amazing cream-filled ones that are delicious and gooey and don't really even taste like conventional donuts  - and maybe that's why I like them. They don't even have holes in the center like donuts are supposed to, but I don't really care because they're just so good.

So why am I rambling about donuts? Well, Jane's friend, Kristen, invited the two of us to go with her to a donut shop in downtown Louisville that she had discovered during a music festival, and even though I don't like donuts, I'm always down to going out to eat in new places in unfamiliar cities. She picked us up around noon and drove us (blasting Selena Gomez all the while) to this little place called Nords Bakery, and wow, am I glad I agreed to go.

I did eat a donut while I was there – original, with a strawberry glaze – but that wasn't what I enjoyed best. It was the décor of the place – bright pinks and yellows covering the exterior, sprinkles on the door, and a big window in front of our table with beautiful afternoon lighting streaming in – that really impressed me.

Needless to say, I had a field day taking photos of my friends and myself sitting around the table.

I like Jane and Kristen. They're not weird about having photos taken of them, and better yet, they were happy to take photos of me and my outfit. It makes me wish I still lived near them or was going to the same college in the fall so we could take cute photos together all the time.

Speaking of which, here's to hoping I can find someone who's willing to take my pictures for my fashion blog once I get to Notre Dame! Fingers crossed that my roommates don't think I'm weird and super-narcisstic…?

I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Dress: Vintage

Scarf: The Metropolitan Museum of Art's gift shop

Shirt: The LOFT

 

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Taking Photos in a Mall Starbucks

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My friend, Jane, giggled at me the whole time I was taking the photos for today's blog.

I've gotten used to taking photos in public – you put on your sunglasses so you don't have to make eye contact with anyone, and then pretend no one's judging you. It was weird at first, and I used to purposefully avoid public places for my photos, but I'm immune to the embarrassment now.

So it's funny when I hang out with friends who aren't used to my constant photo taking because they usually look confused and awkward when I whip out my Canon in the middle of a restaurant and start taking pictures of my coffee. Which is funny, you know, since we teenagers have no problem taking photos with our phones to post to our Snapchat stories – but pull out a real camera, and *Heath Ledger voice* everybody loses their minds!

To relieve Jane of her embarrassment (and also to get to a spot with better lighting), I scooted over to an empty table a few feet away to snap my photos for my Saturday Musings post today.

I dunno, there's just something really cute about a nice flatlay with some sparkly things, coffee, and a plain white background, and it makes for a really lovely Instagram post to break up all the OOTD photos. It makes the uncomfortable stares in public places all worth it.

Plus, since I suffer no embarrassment anymore from public photo taking, it's funny to watch my friends cringe and look like they don't know what to do when I start arranging all of my accessories on a table and snapping pictures.

Anyway, that’s it for today! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com.