Kentucky – Page 6 – L'ensemble du jour

June 5, 2018 – Four Years Later (OOTD #299)

Published on June 25, 2018June 26, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Storytime!

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, my mother and I were shopping at an outlet mall. The store, I believe, was Charlotte Russe, which is a brand I’m pretty sure I haven’t shopped much since.

We were looking for a dress for me for my sophomore year Fall Formal. It was my first formal dance in ever (excluding father-daughter dances when I was really young), and I was determined to find something perfect. This was my first big high school dance, and I was excited for it.

I had a vision in mind of how I wanted to look, but I knew that it wasn’t really practical. 2014, if you’ll remember, was the era when the faux nude Elie Saab dresses were all the rage on the runway and on haute couture Pinterest boards. I mean, they’re still pretty big, but back then, during my sophomore year, they were both wildly popular and wildly innovative and new. I wanted something that drew inspiration from Elie Saab gowns, but was still appropriate for a high school formal.

So, that day, when my mother and I happened upon a dress in the Charlotte Russe outlet with a high neck and lace detailing, I thought perhaps that that was the best I would be able to do. As much as I loved the lacy neck detail, though, I didn’t much like the style of the actual dress — it was a peplum, and, not that I had anything against peplums, but I thought it was a little boring for my first high school dance.

In other words, I wanted something with more impact. I put the dress back on the hanger, and resolved that I would buy it if nothing better came along before the dance.

As it turned out though, something did some along that I liked better — a red dress with similar faux nude lace detailing, but with a skater style skirt instead of the peplum. I don’t know if I would call it a showstopping hit, but I remember getting a lot of compliments on it.

So what’s the relevance of this story? The other day, in Goodwill, I happened upon a peplum top from Charlotte Russe of the exact same styling of the dress I had passed up in the outlet mall so many years ago. And even though the style was a few years old, I couldn’t resist picking it up, if just for the sake of staying I finally owned a high lace neck piece.

And that, four years later, is the end of the lacy high neck detail journey. I’m not sure if I really feel like I’ve become any better of a person at the end of this story, but at the very least, I now own a piece I always sort of regretted not purchasing. Yay closure?

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Charlotte Russe (thrifted)

Jeans: Abercrombie

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Kathmandu Preparations

Published on June 23, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

This is it, my last weekend in the US before I leave for Nepal!

I have a lot still to do — packing, applying for my visa, completing some reading, just to name a few of my upcoming tasks. I’m hoping actually do get some done this evening, we’ll see though. I have a bad habit of falling asleep with the light on after finishing up an evening blog.

Perhaps most concerning of things on my to do list is some reading I’d really like to do before I head off — reading that totals about 350 pages. And it’s not really even exciting reading, just dull academic stuff. That’s not to say it won’t be interesting, just difficult to motivate myself to do considering it’s not a necessity for a grade. Heck, I even had difficulty motivating myself to do academic reading in school when it was a necessity for a grade.

Thankfully, though, I have a few days off from work before I go, so I should have time to do all the travel preparations I need to do. I’m a little nervous to travel to a foreign country by myself, and I’m not at all looking forward to my six hour layover in Chicago, but once I’m settled, things should be alright. It’s just the process of getting settled that worries me.

I have a hard time getting excited for things before they occur, but once I’m actually in Nepal, I should be able to enjoy myself. I’m less likely to excitedly anticipate an event, and more likely to forlornly reminisce about it afterwards.

On a final note, check out this blop tongue from my cat this morning. He’s a good boy. I’ll miss him when I’m gone.

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

June 3, 2018 – Trendy Brunch Date (OOTD #297)

Published on June 21, 2018June 21, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I’ll let you in on a secret — I think brunch is overrated.

I like the aesthetic of it, I guess — white tablecloths, fresh floral arrangements, elegant baked pastries, and indirect morning light. But in reality, brunch food is overpriced, lousier than real breakfast or real lunch, and not worth the cute table settings and the potential of snapping a good picture. Honestly, you might as well go to a home and garden store, take a picture sitting in a random patio chair, and post that to your social media and tell everyone you had some super expensive brunch.

I make an exception though for my general distain towards brunch for special occasions. I had a good friend come visit me the other day whom I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving owing to us living in different parts of the state and going to different schools, and so brunch seemed warranted.

So why are there no trendy brunch photos in this blog? Well…after spending the money and finding the cute table, we forgot to take any pictures! I guess trendy brunch pictures are just not meant to be for me, at least not today.

The more optimistic way of looking at it is that we were enjoying each other’s company so much, we didn’t feel the need to take a photo to prove to people on social media that we went out and socialized. Imagine that — not taking photos to post to social media when you go out and do something. What a novel concept.

After brunch, it was only fitting that we went out and did more trendy things. We got popsicles, walked around an upscale outdoor mall, and — the most trendy of all trendy things — went to a plant nursery to buy succulents for our mason jars. Just give me my own Good Housekeeping editorial shot already, I’ve gone mainstream.

Again though, I don’t really have many photos of the various things we did together. And I’m okay with that. Taking photos all the time can be taxing, to the point that it hinders one’s ability to actually enjoy what’s going on.

You won’t catch me going off the grid any time soon, though. I enjoy living my social media life of fabricated perfection too much.

Jacket: AMIClubwear

Top: Altar’d State

June 2, 2018 – Closure (OOTD #296)

Published on June 20, 2018June 21, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

This is it — two years after I wrote my very first blog ever on a real estate team’s website about the Red River Gorge area in Kentucky, I finally get to visit it.

Summer, 2016. 17-year old Meilin was beginning her second job (the first one being a grocery bagger at Kroger when I was 16) at a real estate company as their blogger. The idea was that by writing blogs about local events in Central Kentucky, I could draw more traffic to the site, and by extension, more clients to the realtors.

On my first day, my boss suggested I try a blog about the Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge national forest area in Kentucky. I didn’t really know much about the area, but I did some research (thank you, TripAdvisor) and came up with the “Top 5 Things To Do In Red River Gorge In June.” It wasn’t revolutionary, but it was well(ish) written, and was my first experience realizing that I liked blogging.

I’d link to it, but sadly, since I left, most of my old blogs were purged from the website. It’s okay, you’re not missing much.

Despite writing my first blog over Red River Gorge, at the time of writing it, I had no memory of ever being there. I knew it existed, and I knew I had gone before as a little kid, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Any memories I had of actually being at the Gorge were hazy and faded. After completing the blog though, I decided to put it on my list of things to do while in Kentucky — a list that’s admittedly not super long.

Anyway, I ended up going to the Gorge hiking trails last summer with my dad, but on our trip, we never made it to Natural Bridge, which is arguably the main attraction to the whole national forest area.

Finally though, two years later, I got to see it with Amanda! Or at least, got to see it as an adult who could actually remember the experience instead of a child who was bitter that her parents were forcing her to go out and hike instead of sitting in the car and play video games, which is pretty much what happened the last time I was at Natural Bridge.

And now that I have my closure, consider this blog closed. Bye!

Top: ASOS

Shorts: Francesca’s

June 1, 2018 – Parking Garage Three (OOTD #295)

Published on June 19, 2018September 19, 2019 by lensembledujour7 Comments

Once again, I found myself atop a parking garage rooftop.

This time, it was in Frankfort — and this time, I wasn’t seeking it out for any particular reason.

I had just gotten off from work at the State Capitol, and my dad was there to pick me up. Being a great dad and all, he offered to do my pictures for me for this blog (shout out to him for always being willing to do that, by the way), so we scanned the surrounding area to see what would make for a good background.

Not far from the parking lot where my dad parked outside of the Capitol building, was this parking garage rooftop. It wasn’t much to look at from a distance — just some flat concrete and scattered cars — but I was more drawn to the view from the edge.

Which, to be fair, also wasn’t much if you’ve lived in Kentucky for years and you’re used to seeing giant hills/mini mountains covered with greenery, like a giant mound of broccoli. Still, I thought the green would look nice with my outfit, and because of the distance, portrait mode would work well. Even though it wasn’t anything spectacular as Kentucky views go, I still like some of the shots with the trees in the background. I look like a blueberry on a bush with green leaves.

…on top of a giant grey concrete slab?

Interestingly, what I ended up liking better were these shots of me standing next to a plain blue wall and some green lattice. Just goes to show that sometimes the prettiest backgrounds aren’t actually the prettiest sights — what’s important is the composition of the shot, not what is actually visible in real life. Case in point — this.

One of these days, I really ought to do my shots inside the actual Capitol. We’ll see, maybe once I finally get my ID badge, I can let my dad in and we can do some photography in the rotunda without having to go through the security guard at the front door. I’ve been working here for a month now without getting my ID badge, though, so I’m not hopeful.

Tune in next week when my dad and I break into the Kentucky State Capitol! It’ll be epic.

Top: Anthropologie

Pants: unknown (thrifted)

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Bullet Journal Life and June 2018 Bullet Journal Spread

Published on June 17, 2018December 15, 2020 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Oh no guys, I’m posting another Saturday Musings blog on a Sunday. What a terrible blogger am I.

This weekend sees me beginning my first bullet journal, which is arguably a terrible decision for the actual organization of my life. See, I’m terrible at devoting time to projects like this. I want them to turn out beautiful, as if I’d put hours and hours of my time in to it, but I’m unwilling to put the hours and hours into it, so I wind up with something where a few pages are done to perfection and the rest are half finished and neglected.

But I just couldn’t resist! I started watching AmandaRachLee’s bullet journal tutorials on YouTube, and I couldn’t stop myself after I saw her pretty pastel colors and simplistic designs. Plus, I figured I already spent a lot of time putting doodles into my planner and making that look cute, so why not put just a little more time into making a bullet journal look cute?

We’ll see how it turns out, I guess. I’ve finished my June spread, and I’m really happy with how it turned out! I used my Prismacolor alcohol-based markers, resulting in having to skip pages due to bleed through (“ghosting” as I’ve heard it called), but I didn’t really have anything better to use. My Prismacolors aren’t really being used for anything right now anyway, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I’ll keep you updated on my bullet journal adventures! I’m not sure I’d put much faith into me actually maintaining it, especially once school begins, but I wouldn’t count it out either. I like it so far, so hopefully my motivation remains!

May 25, 2018 – Flower Clocks and Frankfort (OOTD #291)

Published on June 13, 2018September 19, 2019 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

You ever have one of those experiences where you think something exists, but you aren’t positive if it’s real or if you imagined it?

For me, that was this flower clock in Frankfort, Kentucky. I thought I remembered reading about it a long time ago while doing research into things to do in Kentucky (spoiler alert: there’s not a lot), but no one I ever mentioned it to knew what I was talking about.

It was never something I cared enough about to Google to confirm its existence, so for many years, I pretty much just forgot about it. I figured I’d made it up, or otherwise, it was somewhere other than Kentucky, and since I never had any reason to go to Frankfort, I never bothered to search for it.

That was until I began my internship in Frankfort — now, I’m there every week, so the mysterious elusive flower clock was on my mind again. I figured, maybe I’d come across it one day, or otherwise, go searching for it sometime after work — you know, not really something I would actively search for or think about, but if it happened to be convenient to check out sometime, I would.

Interestingly, it wasn’t even me who found it. It was my dad. He came to pick me up from work, and I asked him to take some OOTD pictures for me before we left for home. I suggested some potted flowers outside of the Capitol building to serve as the background, but my dad said he had something better in mind. We got out of the car, walked about two minutes away from the Capitol building, and…

There it was! The mystical flower clock of my dreams!

Truth be told, it wasn’t that great. It’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, but there were a lot less…flowers than I thought there would be. There were really only one kind of purple ones concentrated around the middle. It was cooler as a giant raised clock than as a floral arrangement.

Mostly, though, I was just excited to find out that the flower clock was real. Now, on to prove the existence of Sasquatch.

Jacket & skirt: Forever21

Top: H&M

May 23, 2018 – Sweet Southern Heat (OOTD #289)

Published on June 11, 2018September 19, 2019 by lensembledujour3 Comments

iPhone X photos are weird.

Sometimes, the image quality and lighting is gorgeous — all those ads that show amateur photographers taking beautiful portrait-mode works of art are perfectly accurate to how it actually works. And sometimes, the images are grainy and barely any better than what I got on my old iPhone 4.

I’m exaggerating a little, of course — the worst iPhone X photos are still much better than my iPhone 4 photos. It is interesting though, how much variation there is in the photos I get. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re so-so.

Anyway, I feel like these are a little more so-so, which is too bad, given how much I like the outfit. It’s bright and colorful and cheery, just like a good summer (spring, technically, I guess — though it doesn’t much feel like it with how hot it is) outfit should be.

Speaking of which, this weather is not making me cheery. I complain about this every summer I spend in Kentucky, but it’s horrifically humid here, and I am not a fan. It makes me miss the Notre Dame snow, which I probably also complained about.

I’ll be interested to see how I handle the heat of Nepal later this summer when I go with my school. Apparently it’s monsoon season, which sounds to me like even more hot and even more humid. It’s amazing that I’m from southern China and grew up in the southern United States, because I cannot handle the humidity at all.

I’m a wimp, what can I say.

Jacket: Zara

Dress: Lilly Pulitzer

May 18, 2018 – That’s Capital, Governor (OOTD #284)

Published on June 4, 2018September 19, 2019 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I’m very proud of this title.

See, because I’m visiting the Capitol building in Kentucky (capital? capitol? I’m pretty sure it’s an “o” because it’s a legislative building, but I could be wrong) and that’s also where the Governor’s office is. And it’s a play on “capita,” as a adjective, and “governor” as…a thing that old timey people say in movies.

Anyway, I visited the Capitol building in Frankfort the other day in order to begin orientation for my internship at the Secretary of State’s office. Or, I was supposed to — they ended up pushing my orientation until the next week, but I was already all prepared to go, so I ended up driving there anyway to make sure I knew where I was going.

I hadn’t been there since I was in 5th grade as a part of a field trip, but I’m pretty sure that’s just about every Kentucky student’s experience. Frankfort’s cool, but there’s no reason really to go unless you’re touring the government buildings.

Anyway, my dad and I wound up in Frankfort with nothing in particular to do after we found where the building I was going to be working was, so I got some pictures and then we went to lunch. It was a nice, relaxing day.

Coat: Juicy Couture

Shirt: Forever21

Pants: The LOFT

March 11, 2018 – Shocking Pink (OOTD #243)

Published on March 22, 2018February 23, 2019 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Now how’s that for pink and purple?

View this post on Instagram

do you have this in pink?

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on Aug 24, 2018 at 6:00am PDT

Like I mentioned a few blogs ago, I’ve been trying to get more pink and purple color palettes in my OOTD posts for the sake of creating an appealing rainbow order Instagram feed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bif8A7Mlj3B/

So when I came across this bright pink wall at a Mexican restaurant, I knew I had to use it as a background for these photos. I thought at first the vibrant pink would be too much, but I think it meshed well with my more deep-toned jacket and pants.

On Saturday, the first day of my spring break, my family went out to celebrate my mother’s birthday with lunch and an outing in Shelbyville, Kentucky. We saw a distillery tour and went to some antique shops — it was, on the whole, a very Scanish family day.

By that I mean I feel that eating and shopping around little local place in Kentucky is basically what my family does every time we have something to celebrate. Just look at what we did when my uncle came or visit last summer or when we wanted something to do together before I went back to school after winter break — it was basically the exact same thing.

The remarkable bit is that I don’t think we ever get tired of it. When I was a kid, I absolutely hated going to antique malls because there was rarely anything for me to look at, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to like antiques more.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg3tT5iH-F_/

Could it be because I’m becoming more and more like an antique each day? I’m practically an old lady at this point.

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

Sweater: Forever21

Jeans: Hollister