A Fashion Optimist

Working From Home

Man oh man has this been a trial and error process. Working from home.. or lack there of is truly a learning experience. I was a substitute teacher before we all got quarantined, and while I am not truly “working from home” at this time because.. well with everyone working from home, teachers aren’t taking sick/ personal days anymore ( although I know so many of them need it right now) theres not a solid way to transfer distance learning to a substitute. So, here we are, with me getting to call blogging my work, and I am loving every second of it!

The start of social distancing was very… interesting, for lack of a better term. Now “lockdown” which is the current state of California, brings a whole new meaning to a massive routine change! So I am here at week FOUR of quarantine and I feel like I’ve finally got a routine down. (Let me tell you that I never truly believed the “21 days will make a habit”, but now here at week 4.. oh i believe it!) If you’re having trouble trying to get a routine down, I’m here to share mine..(not saying its revolutionary or anything)

7:00 AM Wakey Wakey! I try to set an alarm (yes still forcing myself to the general everyday life tortures of an alarm and sleep routine). Ya girl is up at 7am daily. YES, I mean daily. Now let’s be real here.. I do not drag myself out of bed until around 7:30. As unhealthy as it is, I spend my first half hour of every new day on my phone. I found that checking my emails, looking at different sites for sales, and catching up on dms is helpful for me personally, because it maps out a bit of my day. Since, you know my current job is curating digital displays and posting about deals. Most exciting hobby ever might I add!
8:00 Coffee Time! My coffee order looks a little different now that I’m the barista, but nonetheless, ya girl needs that morning caffeine. For a while there I would religiously make Starbucks runs on my way to work, so keeping the coffee routine is soothing to me. I make sure that all of the living room blinds are open for all of the natural sunlight. Sunlight is my favorite earthly feature, like eyes are my favorite facial feature.. beyond the point. Once i’m drowning in all the sunlight that San Diego chooses to provide for the day, I open my iPad to the kindle app and get to reading. I am currently reading Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis if care to know. So far its a solid 8/10 for me, but i’m not even half ways in so I generally can’t fairly judge it.
8:30 Who let the dogs out? All things pupper routine happens about now. My boys go out to get some morning stretches and breakfast while mom tries to conquer some morning yoga. I am no yogi bear by any means, but I get some stretches in outside while listening to a podcast or a little Lana Del Rey on Pandora.. either or gets a good mood flowing!
9:00 Time to TEACH! My husband and I currently live with my parents ( for various reasons we will discuss later) and I have a brother in elementary school. So I change into some cozy WFH (work from home) attire and get to teaching. Doing all things Language Arts, Math, Science, Technology, you get the gist.. school things.
11:30. SCHOOLS OUT! After teaching for a few hours we finish up with lunch time.
??:?? The rest of the day becomes a bit of a sh*t show honestly. My routine changes daily and I try to just schedule a few main goal items. Working out is on said schedule. We both know this isn’t happening daily, and thats perfectly fine. We also may notice that I do not have “get ready” on this list, because quite frankly thats something that is not happening right now. I will say that the main goal is to change out of my pajamas. It gives me just a little boost of energy to get things done and thats all I can ask for right now!

Overall, give yourself the gift of grace during this period. Things are weird, times are different, and we are all trying to create new norms. Trust me.. NO ONE still has their ish together, and its perfectly OKAY!

Get to know me

Hello hello! So happy to have you here. Well for starters, my name is Alana and I am a 23 (almost 24) year old California native. I was born and raised in the Coachella Valley here in Cali, before I decided to take the big girl plunge at 18 to move to San Diego for college! I’ve since been living in San Diego since 2014 and have graduated from undergraduate and graduate schools, gotten married, adopted 2 dogs, and began my journey to find a teaching position. Since we’re friends now, I’ll let y’all in on a little fun fact about me. I actually married my husband after only knowing him for 4 MONTHS.. Yep you read that write, 4 whole months. Now, had we had it our way, we would’ve gotten married a lot sooner, but decided that we should “hold on” and wait it out ( as if we truly waited long) until we were sure of when our family could come attend. Lo and behold I was married at 22 having just finished my bachelors degree and starting life as a recent grad, dog mom and now WIFE!

Now let’s move to the real deal here. My love for fashion or shopping above all has been prevalent since I was young. Now i’m not here to say my fashion choices were great.. but I can promise you that I was interested in the world of fashion. I always assumed that I would just go throughout my life as a teacher and share my love of fashion through my daily outfits, maybe sharing an OOTD (outfit of the day) or a little shoe-selfie here and there but never did I consider starting a blog. UNTIL the turn of the new century. Man, January 2020 had me feeling some type of way. Fearless and driven were the two major feelings which brought me here!

Keep up with me to see all my fashion finds and fun life experiences to come. I’ve got a lot of life to live and i’m so excited to share it!

HATS

A trend that really sprang up last spring/ summer was wide brim hats. These took the place of our old friend the classic fedora. I see many, and I am talking MANY people rocking these hats. It has become a staple piece in my wardrobe that is simple to add to any outfit and really elevates the look. The wide brim hats tend to look good on a multitude of people. I must say I have a pretty big head and forehead. I choose to wear my hat fully on my head to where it covers a part of my forehead. I see many people wear them tilted back showing off more of their face and forehead. Either way that its been worn, it usually looks great regardless! I compiled a few options of hats, all of which are under $50! The look for less. Many of these are dupes for the Lack of Color brand hats, and are a third of the price…