so long sweet summer.

Dear Summer,
In one word, I can't sum up what this summer was and what it meant for me. All I have to truly say is thank you.


Thank you for finally giving me what I for so long thought would never happen for me and wasn't supposed to be. A true, genuine adolescent summer that the movies and books portray as the pure youthful bliss not worth missing. The kind of summer that gets pictured and written on in quotes that get requoted on tumblr day after day. The kind of summer that leaves you so tired by nights end at three in the morning, you sleep in until noon in a dreamless slumber. The kind of summer where you are gone for hours and hours all day long letting each and every adventure come just like that: as it comes; a spontaneity that is only possible during those three precious months when you have no where and no place to be. Thank you for giving me a *perfect* stereotypical teenage dream of a summer so that I can say I know what 15 year olds mean when they say they're excited for summer by school years' end. Thank you for giving me a teenage dream so that I could move on and dream about an adults summer dream.

Thank you for finally making me completely and perfectly content with everything that is my life and everything in it. But mostly, for making me completely and perfectly content with myself. Thank you for making me happy with not only myself, but for making me happy with every relationship I have and who I am with others. We both know failing to be oneself has been our biggest downfall and I can say with certainly: this summer, we were completely in sync.


Thank you for restoring my faith that good things will come if you wait for it. The faith that if you're just yourself, you can get what you want.

Thank you for giving me a summer I can't forget and leaving me excited for fall. And for making me realize, summer doesn't have to exist just in summer. Thank you for reminding me that every day is what you make of it and can be as sunny as you choose :).

love always,
Maggie

Giveaway Winner!

Hello!!! I have some exciting, exciting news... I finally can tell you who my giveaway winner was! Congraulate Catherine of Silhouette Girl :) I was insanely excited when I pulled her name out of the hat. If I could show you the video, you would see me pause, say "No freaking way...", and then squeal a whole bunch. Because:

A) Catherine is one of my all time favorite bloggers. She inspires me with every single look and has from the beginning of my blogging adventures.
B) I won her CSN store giveaway a couple months ago that I used to buy dorm materials with!! It's so eerie but fabulous.

If you haven't heard of her blog or her, then something is probably wrong with you ;) Seriously, she is so blog savvy and a style wizard! Go over to her blog and congratulate her on five dresses! I can't wait to see how she styles them and I'm honored that she will be wearing something I picked out! Eeee! This feels more like a feature rather than a simple announcement, but I just adore her blog.

As far as the rest of you...I am sorry you didn't win. Don't think I love you any less because, oh, I do! For every single one of you that left me a secret of yours, don't worry, in my vlog, I'm going to reveal my own secrets! And more giveaways will be coming! Again, a huge thank you for all who entered:)

i adore you all.


Love always,
Maggie


P.S. I have a post scheduled for tomorrow! It isn't an outfit post...but I hope you'll come back :)
P.P.S. GUESS WHAT?? I'm a college student and I'm all moved into my dorm :)

girl in the war

Hello! Alright, I hope when I say that I'm trying to make this quick, you don't think I'm a horrible person. But I'm trying desperately to get every second in with everyone I adore before I leave in two days!! It's insane to think I have just one more full day left in my little baby sized town. I know I've talked about this way too much, so I'll just leave it at that!

So, the other day, with Niklaas' help, I did the ever so impossible task of going through my closet. I haven't gone through my closet and thrown things out since......8th grade. Maybe 9th. It was stuffed to the brim! Of my 45+ dresses and 25+ skirts, guess how many I put in the "keep" and "going-to-college" box?? 13 dresses and 10 skirts! I'm SO proud of myself! Haha. I encourage every one of you to seriously go through your closet and seperate what you definitely without a doubt could never throw away and what you only sometimes wear because as I found out, I have a pretty hefty wardrobe of must-haves minus all the "sometimes". I'm actually so excited to mix and match!

Well, these pictures are so, so unlike me, as you've probably noticed. I look so "emo" and "edgier" than normal. Usually, you find me in "pretty" florals and lace, I think. I have realized, I truly have no definite style. With every blogger, they seem to have their overall general "look" they stick with in addition to some risks, but I'm never consistent. I don't know how on earth to label my style!

I'm honestly so excited for summer to end and jump into fall. I love summer, but I'm sick of dressing for it. Dresses are my favorite thing, but I'm tired of just throwing on a dress and sandals and going out the door. I live for layers! Tights. Sweaters. Tees. Dresses. Skirts. Vests. I can't wait!

We went to this awesome place called "Zen" to take these pictures. Of course, Niklaas being the groovy cat he is, knew of its existence when I had no idea there was a place like it in our vicinity. It was kind of creepy and there were so many grafitti pieces of art surrounding a seemingly horrible father, but it was so fun!

I've been so eager to try the floral/plaid pattern mixing trend lately. Well, maybe it's not a trend, but separately, the two are trends and considering pattern mixing is my favorite, I've wanted to combine them for a longgg time! I always feel so proud of any item of clothing I've had for more than 6 months, before the new era of my life referred to as the "fashionista" days (HA!!). I've had this simple plaid shirt since the summer before last summer and I find myself wearing it frequently. I am also very proud of this dress I purchased- goodwill! Two dollars! Yes! The floral print is so cute and belted it's perfect. I love buying too-big clothes and belting them to make it work. My shoes are my precious gems that Niklaas bought me- they were the first pair of shoes to go in the keeper box! I love them so much. My favorite part of this whole shoot was the ability to wear tights again though:)

I know this is a short post with not so many pictures, but taking them required using flash, which required a lengthly amount of time between each shot. But quantity over quality, right? :)

Love,
Maggie

money cant buy back the love you had then

It's currently 3:02pm and I am just now starting my blog post. *sigh*. I usually like to start around 2:15 and push the delightful "post" button well before 3:00. Or, even better, I write it in the morning and schedule it for 3:00pm. No stress, no worry, nothing. But, alas, I am late and considering I haven't given you an outfit in 4 days, I figured better late than never, right?

As I told you in the last post, I went rafting over the weekend. I wish I could say it soared above and beyond on my fun factor scale, but the stars just didn't seem to align for us. My mom got hurt on a rapid, we got stuck in the worst boat ever made, it rained and was windy, and the mood generally seemed tense at the end of the day. However, spending any length of time, even if I'm nearing the first stage of hypothermia on a raft that should not be allowed within a ten mile radius of a class three, let alone one, rapid with Niklaas is nothing to complain about. The first few rapids were fun, anyways, and there is absolutely no feeling like sleeping under the stars on a sandy beach next to a river. Plus I can't complain about being forced to snuggle for the sake of my health. Huzzah!

Oh, the other unfortunate part of rafting? The second we got into service, I got about a thousand texts from various friends and my sister informing me that our neighbors house burned down. Burned. Down. As in, the house is nothing. Non-existent. There are remnants of the walls, but you can see through to the other side and enormous piles of their burned belongings lay scattered throughout the yard. It's one of those things you don't think will ever happen to you, but as fate always reminds me, no one is an exception to horrible things like this. It could happen to anyone and it's the saddest thing. At least no one was injured. It was a huge spectacle in town as the streets were crowded with people who had seen the smoke and my dad was busy running around hosing off the lawns and fences to protect the other houses. So scary!!

Well. I leave in 3 days. I'm really insanely absolutely excited to be in college and move in to my dorm, but for the time being, I'm kind of sad. It's going to be strange to not have breakfast with my sister in the mornings and see her off to school. It's going to be strange to not talk to my dad in the backyard every night when he gets home from work and talk to my mom after her morning runs. And...it's going to be sad without my dearest Niklaas. We will be four hours away and we will see each other, but for the first two months, we won't have time to make the trip. I'm going to miss that kid so,so much! Two months!! I can't even think about it right now. But, college will be wonderful and you do what you have to, right?

I got this shirt last week at Salvation Army, which may be my new favorite place to thrift aside from Storm Cellar. Every single item no matter what type of garment or condition is $1.99! Woot! I got this "shirt" with the intention of it being a dress...but I wish it were just a few inches longer because I don't think I'll be wearing it like this in public. Too short!! But for the purpose of showing off these lovely tights I won from Alex's giveaway, I wore it as a dress anyways. You can't imagine my excitement when I got my giveaway package from Alex!! I was squealing and hopping up and down. Alex, you are my favorite!! She also gave me a dress, which I'm getting altered as we speak, and it was just the nicest thing :)

This is a little different than my usual floral/stripe pattern mixing. Polka dots and flowers. Hmm! I kind of like it. One of these days, I'll give you all a tutorial in my pattern mixing techniques. Haha! It's usually pretty precise :) Probably my favorite thing about this outfit is my bow, which I bought because I'm always so inspired by Jasmine from Transient Withdrawl's bows! It's so, so cute. But no one can pull it off quite like her! :)

Well, I'm off to do more packing. Thank you always for your comments! They are the BEST :)

Love,
Maggie

from me to you

Unfortunately....I don't have time to do a whole picture blog post right now. I know, I know...I'm a horrible person for it. BUT! I just wanted to say, for every nice comment you leave, you are inspiring me in more ways than you know. I feel so lucky these days with how many of you are leaving the sweetest comments ever. I don't take a single comment for granted.

From me to you, take a second, RIGHT NOW, and smile :). You all know me as a happy person so I thought I'd share a tiny secret: Think about what good things are in front of you and count every blessing you can!! Even if it means the only thing to smile about is the fact that you are having a good hair day, or it's Sunday and you aren't working or at school, or you have the best sister in the world, or you are drinking a really good cup of coffee. Or maybe you can't say any of those things, but smile anyways. Because as I've figured out, even the act of smiling can leave you happy. Faking it can make it real! :)

Love,
Maggie

P.S. If you need smiling inspiration, take a look at these that perked me up this morning:)

(I love Taylor, don't worry!!!)

driving on an open highway

Guess what time I woke up this morning? Guess, guess?? And more importantly, guess why I woke up at a time that should be outlawed for any human being to be awake? When I set my alarm last night at 12:03am, my phone so politely informed me that it would be going off four hours and forty two minutes later. The answer: 5:45AM!!!!!!!! And...the why part? All for the sake of getting pictures during the best part of the day: sunrise. The things we do for blogging....

I guess the entire purpose wasn't purely for the sake of pictures as Niklaas' parents are leaving for an epic journey to Korea and breakfast was at hand, but still. I felt a little strange waking up so early and taking pictures, even if it was the second time doing so. Maybe that makes us even more insane.

Anyways! Guess what else?? My vlog is underway! I'm so excited! Haha. We have been taking tons of video all day long and will tomorrow as well. Some adventuring. Some photoshoot behind the scenes action. Some of this. Some of that. It's going to be fun! Remember! Email me at soccermagg(at)gmail(dot)com for any questions I can answer!! I've gotten a few so far but I'm looking for more :) You can comment them too!

Today, whilst adventuring, we were in Hastings and found a copy of Chealsea Chelsea Bang Bang on the shelf. Naturally, I had to read a few pages of it because of all the hype and hooha, so together, Niklaas and I sat in one chair at Hastings and laughed for a good twenty minutes while reading about Chelsea "discovering herself". It was insanely funny and graphic. We also got some funny looks from people who could hear us from shelves away. Ooops. Chelsea, you are one classy lady.

OH! My outfit. Okay. If you dig into your little minds, you might remember my post about graduation a while ago. WELL! I wore this dress to my party and I'm finally debuting it! It fits so differently now. At least, it might be partially because I went commando  on the bra (true Idaho style HA!), but also probably because of the whole wisdom teeth ordeal. In fact, in the past three days, even as I've been actually eating, I haven't gone up or down. So, cool?

I love these cowgirl boots to death and it only felt natural that I had to do a photoshoot in them one of these days. Lace is my current passion, and this dress fits it perfectly. I love the texture and swishy-ness of the skirt! Niklaas at first told me I looked like a doofus with my headband like this, but I'm so sick of wearing it normally that I had to change it up. So I did. Ha!!

I leave for college next Friday!! I'm so nervous! I mean, I'm getting more and more excited to move out, but I'm so nervous about making friends and doing well in school. The school part intimidates me like none other. I've been this way since elementry school. In going to Junior High, I was convinced I would suddenly fail all my classes and all my smarts in elementry school were a falsehood when joined with all the other seventh graders from the five elementry schools in town. And in High School, I was convinced that Junior High had ill prepared me for High School because it was so much easier than I had expected and I would again, fail. But, alas, this didn't happen, obviously. I'm sure I'll do fine and I'm just being a baby. Ha!

Have you ever had a dream about someone you've a) never talked to b) seen only once or twice c) haven't thought about in years or d) have never shown an interest to even becoming an acquaintence with? I had a dream last night about a kid I hadn't talked to since we were five, a stranger I can vividly recall passing in the San Diego Zoo because he freaking got in the way of my picture with the gorilla, and a guy three years younger than me I went to school with and had never actually talked to...ever. I think it's just so strange when this happens because your subconscious is remembering things you aren't. Weird.

Okay. Enough of my ramble shamble. Guess what! I know my blog is in ruins, and I apologize, but the amazing Ebony from Ebony and Ivory is going to help me revamp this entire blog!! I'm so excited! She is the sweetest blogger around (you all make my heart skip a beat, though) and I'm so happy to have becoming blogging buddies in this adventure. Bah! Just wait till her hands get on it, this blog will be snazzy and she will deserve all the credit!

Niklaas is napping (vlog? you bet! I'm capturing everythinggg!). I'm writing on the floor. I can't write when he (or anyone) is watching me. It's just weird.

Okay! I'll see you all in two days! :)

Thank you always for your comment. The quality has always blown me away and left me completely floored, but the quantity is really freaking me out right now. Like, really? Really?? You guys are AWESOME. I'm so happy to have you all as a part of my life adventure and figuring it out. You make me smile!

Love,
Maggie
P.S. I picked a blog winner:) I'm waiting for them to email me back so I can announce it!