she's not just a pretty face.

(I love Shania Twain. Always. She was the voice of my childhood. It made me SO happy that she was on Idol tonight. Hallelujah. This song was my inspiration growing up- it sort of embodied my mother and the person I wanted to be someday. Someone who worked hard and was independent. She was more than what she looked like)

Blah.

I know I'm Miss Happy-All-The-Time-the-World-Can't-Hurt-Me....

but the truth is.... I feel things hard. Which is part of why I'm so happy all the time- because little things make me the happiest person ever. I look at the big picture of things and take advantage of all those little great things. But, when big stressful things take turmoil...eh...I get really stressed.

I have three days before I decide where I end up next year. And ultimately, it's going to be my choice. I can choose to stay at home for just one year at my hometown's university with the awesome schedule I already know allowing me to work a lot and save money to transfer to my dream school the following year...or go straight to the dream school and leave everything behind and start anew. Broke. Definitely. Paying a ridiculous amount of money to live in a dorm.

I can't base my decision on one person. Not on a boy. Not at 17. Am I right?

Worse comes to worse....it's three hours away. three. Not a lot. Doable. Right?

I'm having a hard time dealing with the pressure I'm putting on myself and the pressure my (parents) are putting on me. I know I need to make myself happy and choose something that will make me happy in the future-choosing a path to study and all of that. But then there's the other side of the equation where my parents want me to be happy by choosing something they think will make me happy. And to be honest, I don't know what I want, and while everyone else's opinions interest me and could make me happy- I really don't know what I want for myself. I wish I could just buy clothes and dress people. HA! What an idea.

I also lost my ipod. I'm freaking out. I know everyone says, "oh music is my life, I can't live without it. I bring my ipod everywhere," yada yada. But it really isn't until something is missing that you miss it. And I'm dyinggg. Not being able to listen to music before I sleep? Horrible. Not listening to my favorite song while I drive to school? Not listening to my ipod in class while reading so I can actually focus? Not listening to my favorite songs...period? Gah. It's driving me insane. It's been gone for only 36 hours, too. Searching the house up and down has done nothing.

SO. Stressful things aside...

outfit posts!

I'm a bit behind. But today, as I was stressfully hammering away at my computer...I realized...the last seven of my chictopia posts all have 100+ votes on them. HOLY COW. And four of them have 130+. I'm in aweeee. I haven't slowed down enough to realize how spectacular this is...so. Tonight. I'm going to watch american idol, eat some ice cream, and appreciate the small things that make me happy. Like the wonderful community in the fashion blogging world. Wow. I'm blown away.

outfit one! I love this dress. Garden Collection. H&M. GO GO GO! It's amazing. I wanted to buy each and every thing I saw. They had this dress in like, four different colors/patterns. And they had shorts and shorts and shorts. And so many tops. LOVE. It was such a perfect day last Sunday. It was a good solid 80 degrees. SPRING! I added a belt. Just because otherwise, I looked like a colorful potato sack.

Self portraits are so much more challenging than having someone photograph you. dress- H&M $22 Shoes- Walmart $5 Belt- f21 $4 Outfit two! I just realized I have two dresses in a row here. Oooopsies... Well. I LOVE THIS DRESS. I should stop buying them, right? (I'm hoping you said no) It's going to be perfect for summer. Also, the zipper in the front is so convenient. It's so easy to slip into. I'm obsessed with florals right now. Obsessed!! And this dress is no exception. I. Love. The. Zipper. see previous statement. I also love headbands. With flowers on them. eeeeeee. dress- f21 $24 tights- f21 $5 shoes-jessica simpson $30 I also just realized that my mouth is open in all of these. Whoopsies. Haha :) I love how these red shoes bring out the red flowers in the dress. amazing shoes, they are. blah. goodnight. I hope tomorrow is a better day. Thank you all for following and commenting on my blog. It gets me through stressful days. Love, Maggie.

boys with girlfriends (GETTING ASKED TO PROM!!)

I literally just walked in from the greatest night of my life.

Well. Maybe not, considering, this is only the actual asking of prom. And not prom night itself. So, I still have ONE amazing night ahead!

EEEEE.

Okay. I'll get down to it. I just got asked to prom. Now, I know this isn't like, a huge glorifying major moment in life....but for me, it is a big first. Sort of. (My writing gets so choppy when I'm giddy and tired and excited. Like right now. haha. sorry!) I have never been asked to a dance before as more than "just friends". In fact....I've never had a boyfriend. I've dated, sure...but the whole label thing? Yeah. Not so much.

So this is EXTREMELY exciting for me! I feel like I'm fifteen again instead of...almost 18. Experiencing all this for the first time.

It was kind of an insane week what with the entire school (well. my friends at least!) knowing his plan and keeping me in the dark. Virtually every time I switched classes and walked down the halls with him, we got giggled at. Every time! And not knowing what was happening or going to happen was insaneee! I am sometimes not so patient :)

Tonight, after my soccer game, he texted me and asked to hang out. You know. The usual. He bought me coffee and we watched the sunset (or...darkness getting darker...and darker) from the top of the world (see picture on my blog! "corner of the universe") in the back of his pickup (i love boys with trucks). I had an early early early curfew...so we said goodnight in a parking lot and he drove me home. But not before writing "ZAP: midnight" on the back of my hand and something on the inside!

So. Two hours later...it was midnight. And I looked at the inside of my hand which said: At that PRECISE moment, I heard Taylor Swift's you belong with me blasting from outside my window. So I sprinted to the door in my boxers and pj's and saw....this... I was.....speechless. I just...wow. To think that after months of pining and years of hopelessly waiting for some guy to take my breath away... yeah. It happened. When I least expected it and when I thought all hope was lost for me to have something like this at this age. In case you can't really tell, there are 5 people lined up each with a tee shirt on that has a glow stick letter taped to it spelling...Prom :) and the amazing darling is at the end. Yep. There you go :) I ran into his arms (after un-glueing my feet from my front porch) squealing. And said: absolutely. One of these days...I'll do a post telling our entire story. Probably after the big prom night:) (I really don't want this to be a blog just on my relationship. And it's not going to be. Ever. It's just...an exciting time in my life and I want to document it. As it happens. So I can look back on this when I'm 60 and remember being 17 and feeling alive) p.s. the song? Boys with girlfriends. meiko. Sometimes, you do get the boy with the girlfriend. Sometimes, they do see that you belong with them.

sing me to sleep (Seattle!)

The greatest feeling in the world??

Walking through your front door and returning home after a trip. The morning and/or the day after, maybe not so much (once you get over the I-miss-the-feeling-of-being-in-my-own-bed disease), but the single moment that you walk through the door and smell your "house scent" and collapse into your bed...priceless.

Seattle was everything I wanted it to be and more. It was the perfect 3 day getaway that I desperately needed and it definitely surged me into work mode again to finish out the school year!!

I figure I'll just recount how everything went (pictures included-I'm forewarning you!) in chronological order! I'm realizing this is going to be the longest blog post ever.

Day one (Thursday):

After completing my seemingly never ending To Do Before I Leave List (somehow-it ended!) and going to bed at one in the morning, I woke at FOUR in the morning. I scurried through the house, managed to shower (mind you- I did shampoo not twice, but three times), and threw my luggage together at the last minute to be picked up by my dear. We boarded the yellow school bus like zombies. I slept on and off for the first 3 hours of the drive, stopping to eat a snack, giggle with Niklaas, take pictures, yada yada yada. Hehe. We took lots of pictures...but these are my favorite!

he loves me ;P

We stopped in some strange town I've never heard of and visited a chimpanzee emporium!! It was AMAZING. The chimps there know sign language, so we literally got to sit there and sign to them through the glass. It was so surreal actually seeing these animals so close and if anything, it was like communicating with any other human. It was...ahh! Breathtaking. I couldn't take pictures however:(

We arrived in Seattle at about noon and were given the freedom to go to anyyy museum we wanted- all courtesy of International Club funds! Nik and I chose to go to the Science Center since a majority of our pals were going and both of us had neither been there.

I loved the dinosaurs!! c

*rawr*

Part of the science center is this Tropical Butterfly Emporium! I have never been a huge fan of butterflies (bugs in general creep me out, even being the great hiker that I am :P), but it was MAGICAL! Nik and I walked around for an hour watching the butterflies fly around our head and..wow. It was like being in a different world! The butterflies were gorgeous!

he's a cutieee.


The whole day was spent walking around Seattle together. The freedom was amazzzzing. We were in small groups of 4-7 people without supervision (hehe) and just explored downtown. We went to dinner on the pier overlooking the water and I had a massive grilled cheese. At the Seattle Center, we visited the spectacular fountain and amazingly, it was warm enough to get our feet wet :). It was so exceptional to sit at the fountain for an hour and enjoy the sun with fantastic company!

our little group!

fountains make me a (little) excited.

niklaas was proud of this picture he took. hehe.

fountains :)

Day Two:
The purpose of the trip was "Purely Educational". Hahaha, bulllll crap :). But, indeed, we did have to sit through 16 hours of Model UN-ing. I wasn't sure what to expect- I mean, I really had no idea how the UN works nor what it does. However, I now understand it in and out. I was representing Dominican Republic- which was a huge challenge because their struggling government made it hard to really have a say in anything that was going on. The debate was fascinating and the whole workings of it was SO real. There were the power hungry snobs, the ignorant kids without common sense, the shy brilliant ones, the brilliant loud ones, and every kind of political character possible. The politics of it was so interesting- in fact, one group was even being orchestrated by their teacher and brought food to bribe people for votes. It was ridiculous!!! But so real, I suppose. I loved it. International relations? yeah. New interest.

all of us UNers lookin sharp.

MHS kids!

the huskey!

concentrating reallllly hard! :P

this is my tired face at the end of a long day.

we are so business professional.
After the first day of UNing, we went to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. It was extremely comfortable and also extremely unique.... the food was...well..interesting. I don't eat meat (but I'm not really a vegetarian either), and the entire menu was "Lamb, Hare, Squid..." you get the idea. I ate rice. Haha. But there was a belly dancer which, among a group of high school students, made things interesting.

Belly dancer!

Adina is an exchange student. Who we coincidentally love.

couldn't help myself.


AHHH. Possibly my favorite part of the trip..........was shopping!! EEE. There was an H&M right across the street from our hotel and I went three times. Niklaas helped me shop like the cutie he is and I spent a chunk of change...hehehe. I found some GREAT spring pieces! I'm so excited about them. In my next post, I'll showcase my new dress (which was already chictopia-ed, might I add!). He was really so cute though, he held my clothes for me and helped me pick things out. Fun!!!

He held my clothes for me:)

We also checked out barnes and noble....did I mention niklaas is sort of a little bit of a hipster??hahaha

Day Three:
Day two of model UN was much the same as the first. I liked my business outfit much more the second day than the first! :). I wish I'd taken more pictures....but essentially I wore a Juicy Couture button down top and a lacey black skirt with my favorite pair of tights.

During the second session, just as I was about to gouge my eyes out from frustration and boredom, I got a note from the country of "Tuvalu". I expected nothing of it because passing notes was part of the recruiting experience to get countries to sign resolutions, but it said, "How you doin? ;)" Just like that! For the rest of the two hours, we passed short notes with heavyyy flirting. For example:
Me: Wow. That was a blame response. I expected someone with locks like Justin Bieber to be more fun.
Him: I can be fun ;)
Me: Prove it.
Him: I like short skirts...and girls in them ;)
Me: I have a closet full of them at home ;)
Hahahhaa. I showed Niklaas and he thought it was amusing. Anyways, I got a picture with the Justin Bieber lookalike after the conference was over!

He looked soooo good:)
We had fun at lunch walking around with the freedom to eat wherever!

pike market :)

last night :( Cuddle puddle!


So, at the end of the day, we packed up and headed home. It was a longgg drive home-8 hours but we got back at around..midnight :). I snuggled with my dear allll the way home and passed out. I've never held hands with anyone before, tehe.I can add that to my list of new experiences! I got home and collapsed in my bed. Ohhhh how it felt :)
bus rides!

I was so tired.

Kind of cute :)

It was overall SUCH a delightful trip. I loved the freedom we were allowed- walking around Seattle exploring thrift shops and eating at random restaurants was spectacular. Just a little taste of how adulthood will be like :) I'm so happy I went- and now there are only 5 weeks left of the school year! eee!

My roommates

Thanks for reading :)
This was more for personal documentary purposes...but I hope you didn't get toooo bored!


Love always,
maggie:)