just a dream

AH! HELLO! It's me! I, Maggie, have returned from the great abyss of college! It truly sucked me into this black hole of sleepless long days of studying and uncute outfits and television withdrawals and summer nostalgia. However...*drumroll*, it was perhaps two of the best weeks of college yet! 

I had a conversation with my friend the other day after significant events happened and he was like, "Maggie, you're crazy. Don't you want to have any fun?" Well, of course I have fun! I relplied, "I'm not crazy! A night of fun is nice and all, but the feeling of getting an amazing test grade is more fun than just a singular night." He looked at me, laughed, and shook his head and mumbled on about how crazy I was. Well. I think I might be, too, actually. The week I left the blogging world I studied for 26 hours for one test in 4 days. That's six a day!! Just for chemistry. Remember how I failed the first one? Yeah. I told myself I wasn't going to fail this one, thus, massive amounts of studying. WELL....as I foreshadowed previously, I did well. So well in fact, I got the best grade in the class of 250 people. I aced that sucker and I started crying in the middle of the class. And squealing, yes. So, THANK YOU for your words of encouragement. It seems I'm always the last person to believe in my academic success.

I guess that means so much for my back-up future plans I had going. I made a list that I put on my mirror of my alternate careers if I couldn't pass chemistry and those included: A) Interior Design (What with all my pattern, color, texture doing in my clothes, I just realized this could actually be something I could loveeee) B) Wedding Planner (I've been stalking wedding blogs constantly and I love them more than anything) C) Wedding Dress Designer (You're going to think I'm crazy, but I seriously have sketched about five possible dresses I want for myself. And for my sister. And my good friends. Hahaha) D) Writer (although, this is definitely still at the forefront of my "future" plans).

Other than studying, I went home, as you all know and it was the most splendidly fantastic weekend ever. I spent all of Friday night with my lovely sister and thinking about it almost makes me tear up. Seriously. I've missed her so much lately. She truly is my "other half" and going back, it makes me see how much she really is growing up! We went to "Easy A" together which is the BEST movie ever and also surprised my best friend Jenni at the football game. Which turned into her scaring me, me screaming, me causing a scene, and a massive (okay, only like 10) crowd of people surrounding me wondering how I could be there. Haaa! Also, without planning this, Niklaas was at the football game and it was almost like the you belong with me music video as we embraced in the bleachers! Teeheee.

(this is my favorite shot)

I won't go into detail about the rest of the weekend because then I'll end up writing a novel, but basically I spent Saturday seeing everyone I could and every moment I wasn't with various best friends, I was with Niklaas taking pictures, walking around the perfectly fall-ed town, and couch-ing. My mom took us to breakfast and he had dinner at our house and I went to their house to watch a movie. Our parents want us...a lot :) Which is cute! I don't mind. Hehe.

My blog break was wonderful. I missed it, and you all, quite frequently, but it gave me some new perspective. I got up every morning excited to get dressed again because I didn't feel any pressure to wear something that I could take pictures in later. I was reminded of why I blog in the first place which is to share my love of getting dressed every day and in the past month, that joy wasn't there. It also didn't help that I don't have my amazing photography at disposal so that even if my outfit is lacking creativity, we can incorporate an awesome location into it to make it creative. I needed a breather just to refresh my mind and now I'm feeling so much more lively and ME. I got an amazing letter from Alex this week, too, that made me remember: when blogging becomes a popularity contest and comment number race, that's when the point is defeated. I've met some truly amazing people here and I need to stop stressing about page views and comments and sponsors. It's about YOU all and being inspired.

 On to this photoshoot...I am SO excited about it. Niklaas was purely experimenting and for the first time, we shot indoors. In fact, we used his garage. They turned out so.... ahhhh! I love them. Love love love. They're the kind of pictures I look at and think, "Wow. It is so cool that it's me in these amazing pictures." The lighting is so nifty and I love how the sheet ended up working. Niklaas and I have this innate way of without really talking about our creative contributions, combining our efforts into something that works so well. I told him I wanted to wear pearls and  a fancy black dress and he said we wanted to shoot indoors . And the two ideas look like they should be married. They look made for each other! This happens allll the time. I love our team effort!

This was one of the dresses I gave away in my giveaway and...yes, I did steal it for a shoot. I love the included pearls and frilly skirt. I got these tights this summer and I love them. I've used them once on this blog! Add in my favorite vintage heels and floral headband updo....and this turned out perfectly.

This here is our fancy little setup and Niklaas :) Hehe. 

The color turned out interesting...but I like the black and white more:)

This (above) is Niklaas' favorite shot of the day.

 dress-Ross headband-wetseal shoes-thrifted tights-urbanoutfitters

I cleaned my entire dorm today complete with vacuuming and dusting and it's fantastic. One of my favorite things in the world is to lie on the floor and it's finally clean enough that I can!

Well, that's all :) I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'm going to catch up on all of your blogs now!! Yayyyy! It feels good to be back!!

Love, Maggie