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What’s up! I cannot believe Thanksgiving is already this week and to say I’m excited for the yummy food and amazing family time would be an understatement. I feel like Thanksgiving kind of ties the bow on the ending of the fall season, but I’d be a terrible blogger if I didn’t even mention the penultimate fall experience which happens to be my favorite: APPLE PICKING! Since moving to New York it’s been a must-do thing for me. There is truly nothing like walking down rows of apple trees while you’re picking and eating the apples. The smell of the crisp fall air and fallen apples is something so distinct and makes me so nostalgic. I had two different apple-picking experiences this year, one in New Jersey and the more traditional one upstate in the Hudson Valley. This post is a photo drop more than anything, but I’ll share small blurbs about each place as well

Hacklebarney Farm in Long Valley, NJ

This experience was particularly special because this is where Mav used to go when he was little with his family. You don’t pick your apples off of the trees, but you can purchase them from the shop along with some of the most delicious cider I think I have ever tasted. It was extremely crowded and we had to stand in a line to get our cider and Mav and his dad were telling me that it didn’t used to be like this. I read before our trip that Rachael Ray recently featured Hacklebarney Farm on her show, so I feel like that had something to do with it. We walked around the back of the shop and I got to see the cider mill which was really cool. I also ate a really delicious apple cider hot dog before hiking through Hacklebarney State Park which is right down the street. Overall, a superb fall day. Hacklebarney is still open Monday and Tuesday of this week, so if you’re able, do your family a favor and grab some cider for Thanksgiving!!

Rose Hill Farm in Red Hook, NY

Now this is what I’m talking about. After parking the car, I was literally jumping with excitement. I freaking love apple picking, like really a lot. I had never gone apple picking this late in the season before and was nervous about the apples available, but I ended up discovering my new favorite apple variety (Mutsu apples, which are originally from Japan! Um.. dope) and getting a lot of yum apples. My other favorite thing about apple picking in the Hudson Valley is that your apple picking experience is usually accompanied by an incredible view of the beautiful autumn trees. Ugh I could just go on and on about this guys, you really do have to experience it for yourselves. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that Rose Hill is still open at this point, and they’re only open on weekends so getting their tasty treats before Thanksgiving is pretty unlikely at this point. However, if you’re looking for a post-Thanksgiving activity that will help you walk off some of the extra pounds you just gained, give ’em a call and see what’s left to pick.

To continue with my apple obsession, I will be posting an apple-themed Pinterest win or fail for my next STuF post so stay tuned!

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Heyyy guys it’s Air!

I know I’m about a week late for the final Four Days of Fashion Week post, but better late than never right? My boy Drake would say ‘but never late is better’ and he is right so sorry guys, I will do better. I missed my final show for fashion week this year because I wasn’t prepared, so I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned the hard way. I read a ton of blogs with advice prior to this magical week of festivities (which I highly recommend doing in advance) and there were some tips I took and some I didn’t, but overall here’s what I felt to be most important:

 

1) Start Preparing Months in Advance.

I’m a member of StyleCollective and I am so incredibly grateful for all of the resources that are available to us to help us prepare for fashion week!  They provide you with a timeline of when you should start making arrangements for accommodations, when and how you should start your outreach to brands, and even when to start planning your outfits (a really underrated thing to add to your checklist that I definitely think you should do in advance.) SC sisters also will share contact information for outreach as well as a ton of other helpful tips, so I highly recommend joining this community. If you’re interested in joining, you can do that here.

If you’re out there on your own, I just suggest planning as much as you can in advance so by the time fashion week arrives, you can just enjoy attending events and shows without being frazzled.

 

2) Make Sure Your Bag is Stocked!

  • comfy shoes
  • your camera/phone
  • extra batteries/chargers for above devices
  • your show schedule
  • WATER
  • SNACKS
  • items for makeup and hair touchups (cameras are EVERYWHERE)

 

3) Don’t Overbook Yourself and Know When to Say No

Living in New York, I’d say my fashion week experience was likely pretty different from someone who was traveling from out of town, especially in the sense that the rest of my life wasn’t stopping so I could attend shows and events. This means that I also had to balance going to work, and in my case, attending several job interviews. I knew in advance that this stuff was going to be going on so I booked what I consider to be a very light schedule (5 shows, 1 event). However, I wasn’t prepared in a few other aspects of life at the time which resulted in some stress (hence tip #1) that was an unnecessary addition to an already generally stressful balancing of life events. As a result, I started to get sick; and due to the importance of the other events going on in my life, I had to cut some things out of my schedule.

Fashion week is a beautiful and magical time, but it’s important to remember that it’s supposed to be something fun and enjoyable!  If you’re stressed out because you’re running from show to show and you’re overbooked and missing events, you’re not really making the most of your experience. I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways from all of this.

 

What is your most important fashion week tip? Share it with me below!  I would say I’m allllllmost just about recovered from both fashion week and life events that seemed to pile up on me this month, and am so excited to share with you what’s going on.  Talk soon! Kitty Kisses xo

 

 

 

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GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

 

I hope everyone’s Sunday is off to a lovely start. As most of you may or may not know, I’ve been incredibly busy with NYFW for the past week; and, as most or all of you probably don’t know, I have a ton of other life stuff going on. I’m planning on doing another “You’re WHO and doing WHAT?” post to update you guys on all the crazy, and exciting changes that have happened since the original post (if you missed that, you should definitely check it out here) but I probably won’t get to that until the middle or end of this upcoming week. In the meantime though, my Instagram reached the really exciting milestone of 1,000 followers! I can’t believe it and truly feel so blessed and excited that I am slowly building an audience/group of friends to share my experiences with. I wanted to give y’all a little something in order to celebrate, which brings me to the entire point of this post! I’m hosting a 1K Giveaway! The entire thing is being done through Rafflecopter, so I’m going to post the link below and you can go there to read the terms & conditions and enter of course, duh! There aren’t any sponsors for this giveaway, I just put together a little beauty pouch with some of the things that I love as a thank you for supporting me in my journey thus far. As someone who supports doing a lot of different things, my audience is quite varied; but I’d like to think I chose products that everyone can use!

 

***UPDATE***

Also adding this dry shampoo to the giveaway! I forgot I had set it aside 😉 

Thank you so much again for all of your love and support, and good luck!!

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