Purple.

The end of July I had the super honor of attending the Yel Out. (What the hair is that?) Well you might not know that I was part of only the best youth program in the existence of the United States of America. From 2003 to mid 2007 I was a high school intern at Crissy Field Center's Insipiring Young Emerging Leaders (IYEL) program.

Every year they have an end-of-the-year presentation summing up their awesome projects the group worked on throughout the year. I remember I used to have so much fun helping put these Yel Out's together and then being super nervous and excited to present.

Anyway this year it was a little more special.. not only was it the tenth anniversary of the Crissy Field Center and a reunion of alumni.. this time we had a special surprise from our friend and mentor Ernesto who proposed to his awesome longtime girlfriend Anna. It was such a happy and magical moment to witness an event like this because it was just.. REAL. Not at all like a movie or witnessing strangers' proposals or those strange proposal youtube videos.



Anyway I am thrilled for the life and adventure to come for this beloved couple. You don't see a love like that everyday. What I mean is that usually relationships don't seem to have a certain spark.. don't last.. are just fun and games.. are plain stupid. But then you see something like this which can inspire and prove that love is true.

Well.. Purple is the official color for Iyel. So in honor of my Iyel Alum spirit I put together a purple outfit and manicure. Don't mind the creepy dorm baño and ripped hot pink shower curtain that obviously was not picked out by anyone else residing at the dorm.

So there wasn't much purple in the actual outfit, you know I didn't want to go overboard and steal the purple spotlight haha! So I wore.. Purple Mossimo long sleeve sweater, Grey checkered J. Crew button up shirt, Grey denim J. Crew skirt, Dark Grey knee high socks that I usually wear underneath my uniform pants.. and since I don't own any purple shoes.. the silver toms had to do.

Now for the nails I had very limited time to create an Iyel themed manicure. For the base I picked a deep purple with a slight pink shimmer, H&M..which will be nameless until I find it again.. and for the letters I used a dot tool and dotted IYEL with Sally Hansen Lightening.. which I don't know why has an 'e'. The manicure was a little messy and the purple stained like crazy but overall I got several compliments including.. something along the lines of "alumni dedication" and "they don't make alumni like they used to" haha
 
Well time has flied and the group of IYELers I belonged to has gone off to separate chapters and parts of the world in the past several years. So these Yel Outs are a great time to catch up and are sometimes the only time a year we may get to see eachother. So it was nice to see some old familiar faces. I just wish I kept in touch more often and wasn't such a distanced person.. literally!

Next thing to look forward to is AlumNight. Every December or so we have an Alumni get together for  good old teambuilders, bowling, dinner, and even scavenger hunt adventures with "the Go Game." Can't wait!

Who Yel?! I-YEL!

Sick. Sick. Sick.

Cue in that old Queens of the Stone Age song. haha. Anyway I'm sure that song has another meaning but what I'm going through right now is the typical case of human immune system failing to environmental contracted viruses!

Yes, I am sick. It happens once or twice a year. Otherwise I'm usually bragging about my strange immunity while others that surround me are sick with a cold or whatever quite often.

It started as a tickled throat on Friday night to a full on sore throat and funky voice on Saturday and full on sick after I woke up on Sunday evening after my post-pascual sleep.

Today, Tuesday I am at the srsly full sick mode with the gross cough that repels any living thing, makes those cringe at the store or in class, I've finished a roll of toilet paper to plug up my nose, Robitussin has lost its effect, and I have not the slightest feeling to do anything but be lazy. Oh never mind that last one, I'm always lazy.. ugh!

Anyway I still managed to leave the house to take and pick up the brother from school, sneak in a stop at Sally Beauty for their buy two get one free polishes and their $5.99 Seche Vite top coat sale. I ended up getting Two China Glaze Crackle polishes- the white and grey ones and Orly Dazzle since my only other silver non holo glitter polish (Mac's $$$$$ Yes) has gotten gross despite the little help from Orly's polish saver fluid thing and it's currently no where to be found. Oh well.

I'll try posting more about my polish hobby laters. For I must collapse into bed instead of the floor, couch, kitchen, etc. It freaks my dogs out when that happens.

Pascua. Easter.

Easter is an exciting time. My family doesn't care about the fluffy stuff associated with Easter such as egg hunts, bunnies and sugar loaded candies. Those are all a thing of the past. Of course those were supre awesome back when I was like under ten years old. Though I must say, I bought a box of Peeps pink marshmallows as soon as they hit stores in like February, but I only managed to eat one before my brother had finished the entire box and his own blue box.

Anyway, Easter for me is what most people have forgotten about. The ressurection of Jesus Christ. So Holy Week is spent at many church activities all leading to the main event. On Saturday night before Easter Sunday, we have an Easter vigil. Every year we make the vigil all night from around 11pm or midnight until about 7am on Easter Sunday. It is a very exciting celebration.
 
My favorite part is the very beginning where the vigil starts with the lights out and the blessing of the Paschal Candle. Everyone is given a small candle and the fire is spread throughout the entire church beginning with the main Paschal Candle. It's awesome to see how the light spreads and just the glow of everyones candles is magical.
 
I also like that during the vigil there are usually an average of 5 baptisms. It's exciting to see the many babies, kids and sometimes adults be baptized, also kids make their first communion and sometimes some adults receive their confirmation. I did all those outside of an Easter Vigil but it would have been more special to have received those sacraments during an Easter vigil.

Anyway it was a long night but for me it sure didn't feel that way. I didn't even come close to falling asleep nor did I feel hungry. I was happy and attentive thoughout the night. My brother is usually the one falling asleep everywhere: in the car, in church, in the shower, on buses, etc. So I had joked earlier Saturday night that he should take one of those 5 hour energy bottles, and funny enough, at the first head nod he gave during the vigil, my mom pulled out of her pocket none other than a bottle of 5 hour energy!  My brother only drank some of it and luckily it was enough to keep him from falling asleep.
 
Once the vigil ended around 7am, everyone was filled with joy and ready to head out for an early morning 'dinner'. Mayra and I took a picture together as we have celebrated Easter Vigils together for the past eight years. This time she was lucky that her boyfriend was able to experience the vigil as well.

After church we went to a nearby restaurant with other church members. I had a plate with grilled shrimp, fries, salad and rice. I don't know if I've mentioned here before, but I have given up rice from my diet and replaced it with the ever so amazing quinoa, but that morning was an exception. Besides I was finally hungry and the restaurant probably hadn't heard of quinoa.  

Well finally after a long night of celebration and an early dinner, my family made the road trip back home and could not wait until we hit the beds for our annual post-pascual sleep. My family fell asleep in the car but I was the lucky driver listening to the choir of snores along the way. Once we got home I was able to snap a picture of my happy mama before she went to bed and self timed a picture of my self in my backyard.

That's my tradition of Pascua. How did you spend your Easter?

Dress hunting for Easter

So as I previously said.. Easter is one of two special occasions in which my family really invests in buying new clothes, the other is Christmas. Of course we still buy stuff the rest of the year but mostly we thrift for outfits or only buy new if it is absolutely necessary.. and cheap! So this year, the Easter dress hunting came around once again. Every Easter is a very special celebration which calls for fancier than already nice churchy clothes.. but more on church later.

So on Thursday I bought my brother his new suit. Then after being almost broke on Friday, I swooped by Buffalo Exchange just to browse their dresses even though I knew I wanted to buy a new dress. Anyway all their church safe outfits were size not me, but they had a nice collection of casual and summer dresses. Maybe some were my size.. but whatever. Anyway I found this dress which screams springtime, that is if you want to go frolic in a prairie with the bunnies.


I left right after trying it on and feeling embarrassed in front of myself. So.. Saturday my whole family went to Vacaville to shop for the pascual clothes. We went to Ross first, even though I didn't want to go since most of their dresses are not my style and the chance that someone else at church will wear the same dress is extremely high. Anyway I had fun trying one some dresses.

My mom really liked how this ruffley one looked and slimmed me but I wasn't too fond of the ruffles, so it stayed awaiting another owner.

I liked this Jones New York coral spring dress especially for its sleeves. Most dresses don't have those nowadays. But this dress was a strange wrap around thingy and the color wasn't what I had in mind for Easter.

This lavender dress is also Jones New York and very similar to the coral one, minus the wrapping around and sleeves. I actually bought this one since I liked the color, it was cheap, and again my mom insisted I get it. Maybe I can add sleeves later and pin the v neck a bit higher.

Now this was a joke. I loved the skirt by itself but it was just too long and super high waisted, like beyond the waist and it came as a 2 piece set with the blazer which I guess would be alright with a pair of jeans to tone it down.. BUT I quit jeans remember?

Oh yeah and I was a total fashion repeater and wore the same outfit I wore for Thursday, on Saturday haha. Anyway we moved on to Marshalls since I always see their weird commercials and all after Wheel of Fortune or whatever and what do you know? As I walked in, my mom was standing next to this dress and smiling at me knowing I would love it. & of course I loved it and the hunt was over. Pretty quick too. I didn't even have to make my way to the outlets or the stupid mall!

This Evan Picone dress was just what I really wanted for an Easter dress! I wanted a boat neck type dress or something at least with no low cut chest area. I wanted a dress that didn't have straps or at least one with straps larger than an inch. I wanted a floral design without it being too woah hey there I'm a crazy overgrown garden or prairie like just like the first dress. I wanted a full skirt. I wanted a slimming waist. So after all of these picky dress ideas I can't believe I actually found a dress. Oh yeah and it was way below $100.

Almost Easter!

Well my muffins, I've done it again haven't I? Abandoned my imaginary audience ha-ha anyway I'm excited that it's almost Easter which means a lot of church, dresses and food.

Well I don't know if I've mentioned before but the only new years resolution that I've kept to this year is the absence of jeans and the attempts of dressing better. So far I've managed to wear skirts and non jeans pants apart from my work uniform (which aren't jeans anyway.) The only exception I've made is my black pair of Levis skinny which are a last resort for an outfit.

Today I wore a new Calvin Klein dress I just bought at goodwill new with tags. I felt all grown up as I shopped around San Francisco with my brother. He's lucky to have an awesome sister like me to spend money on him ha-ha. I bought him a new suit at Express, check it out.

We also finally ate at Coriander down at the westfield food court which was really good. My brother had the biggest cooked shrimp I have ever seen! I had the sweet lime fish which was of course delicious.

Anyways, every Easter is very special and calls for new dresses. unfortunately I always wait til the last minute to find one and then settle for the best cheapest one. This year is no different. I wanted to buy the Garden Isle dress from Shabby Apple's South Pacific collection but the pay check situation was worrying me especially since I had been threatened with government shut downs ha-ha so until now the hunt will go on for my Easter dress... and shoes! It's funny that my family only buys new clothes for Christmas and Easter. The rest of the year is thrifted.

Well now, more later.. must do some more dress hunting online so I can shop quicker at the stores tomorrow.

So yesterday was Valentine's Day...

&&& it was just another muffin day. Why just have one day to share the love? True love is everyday. Sans hallmark cards, pricey flowers and chocolates. Although I wouldn't mind some of that stuff haha. But February the Fourteenth was just that. Just another day I guess. I had school most of the day and it sucked because after like two weeks straight of beautiful rare weather, the rain and gloom came along.

It was so lame, everyone on campus was wearing dark colors, ducking their heads and running from the rain. I figured, since I don't have a Valentine, might as well dress like one. So I went all out and wore ALL PINK. Hot pink. Yup. Not so hard since I have a lot of my favorite color. So I walked around all day wearing a hot pink skirt, hot pink pleather jacket, pink cardigan, hot pink umbrella, hot pink tote bag to hide my hot pink school accessories, books and purse, but I kind of toned it downish with a grey button up, silver shoes and a silver belt. Oh and I also gave myself a pink and glitterful vday manicure posed here with my yummy cherry.

I could feel the eyes pointing my way especially waiting at the crosswalk. I had to fight the urge to ask a stranger to take my picture standing out in the crowd. It would have been an awesome picture of hot pink me, holding my umbrella and all in the rainy day and dark colored clothing people as a background.. but I decided risking the stranger running away with my camera was too much and awkward.  So here's a little awkward photoshoot I had my brother do for me at the end of the day.

ha. ha. Caught me coming out of the closet. Sorry, bad joke. Anyway I love my pleather jacket. Always gains compliments even from a chick at a Jamba Juice wearing all black. Oh yeah there was this one random dude who was staring at me as I walked with my bestie friend Mayra who said very happily, "Wow, you're the first one I see wearing red!" I replied with an awkward giggle followed by "yeah, haha thanks.." then turned to Mayra.. and we both asked "red?" haha

This is the rest of the outfit. Plus awkward teeny girl poses. These were the only good-ish pictures that resulted from my brother's obligated-let-me-go-back-to-playing-PS3-photoshoot. Well I felt straight out of Legally Blonde, sans the blonde, law school, guy, Reese Witherspoon, chihuahua and etc.. parts. Oh btw, it's weird that my legs look sa tan in these pic when really they're pale and even paler with my nylons. Stupid flash. 

I can't even make a heart with my fingers. Or my excuse will be that it was perfect but my brother didn't catch it in time.. yeah.. I love how mirror like my pumps look. Anyway... to make the day even more lame when I finally was in class with Mayra, the only class I have with her, and the only class she goes to school for on Mondays and Wednesdays, my teacher thought it would be nice to let us off two minutes after class started so we could "exercise cardiovascular health by taking a walk, exercising, going up and down the stairs, playing basketball, etc.." aka. Class cancelled. 

Mayra was wide eyed and are you serious and all because she rushed to class that ended up cancelled but I told her hey now you're just hanging out with me, in a class room, having Twilight themed valentine sweethearts. So once everyone was gone and we had no intention of heading out to the rain again we just stayed in there looking at the rain out the wall of windows while having lunch, catching up and listening to the ipod.

So the day ended with more class, more rain, more stares "Omg you're so pink" compliments from people and munching on some more weird Twilight quoted Edward Sweethearts with pink pajamas. So, this ordinary day I guess was a little bit unordinary. I wish I could wear this outfit everyday haha! Well til next Valentines day, I will continue my normal weirdness and hey, maybe I'll find a Valentine by then!

Weekend retreat and reunion

This weekend my parents and I went off to a church retreat. I've been following many fashion blogs and recently focusing on the vintage inspired ones. I love the simple but fancy style that women used to have. I like to think I'm pretty old fashioned by what I believe in and like.

Anyway I was trying to put together my outfits to bring to the retreat & decided to put my hair in rollers for the first time since I took them and experimented with them from my Grandma's room when I was like 5. Here's what happened..

I didn't blow dry it so when I got to the retreat that night I quickly took them out before walking in the hotel but me plus wet hair means a disastrous puff ball and frizz is to come.

It was curly in place for like 2 minutes then it went back to its natural state and dried. Ergh!!

The next morning I decided to quit the hair and just put it in a bun trying to hide the mess. So I went on to brekkie and enjoyed it so dearly.

I was glad to spend the weekend at the retreat with my bestie Mayra. We never see eachother anymore..

She didn't mind my hair messy or in a bun but later the bun decided to hate me too. I really liked my outfit. Skirt was my grandmother's, fave silver pumps thrifted, silver/grey metallic belt from Target, white tank from A&F, turquoise Jackie cardigan from J. Crew. I'm beginning to feel my age now so I've decided to try and look it older of being mistaked for a 15/16 year old. Srsly!?

Anyway.. later in the retreat we had mass so I had to change and I tried to style my hair in five minutes. I also put on some lipstick which I never wear!

I like that it's red but not super deep red. I haven't found a good deep red that looks good yet.

My lips are trying to match my mom's blazer.

Here's my 2nd outfit. J. Crew dress, Target belt, Joey shoes from Ross. See the hair is still volumed up and sort of curled? the back of my head is horrendous.

Anyway that night I gave the rollers another chance. I smoothed my frizzies with my straightener and while the hair was still hot I quickly rolled them. I slept in them and in the AM my hair looked like this.

I quickly began to fall out though because I didn't bring any hairspray and anti-frizz didn't hold up. So as the day progressed these pretty curls died. After the retreat we went back to San Fran to meet up with my older brother whom we hadn't seen since 2006 and was in town on a business trip. So we went out for a quick dinner at Boudin in Fisherman's Wharf.

His name is Javier and he lives in El Salvador. See I have three brothers. One you always see and two who live in El Salvador. I haven't met the oldest yet, William though I hope to see him one day very soon. Javier I hadn't met until I went the one and only time to El Salvador when I was 8. He came back to the US with me and lived with us here for a month. Then in 2005 he came to live with us again for about a year.

Here's my family with our friend Reynaldo who's a Priest.. and we always forget is a Priest haha He's pretty cool. Oh and some hotel guy took our pic and made us laugh when he said "Pizza."

Hopefully with his cool travel filled job we'll have more opportunities like this to see eachother.

Oh and this was my 3rd outfit: lace skirt from Target, pink Lace top from Charlotte Russe & my thrifted silver pumps. Note the uncurled hair! Noo! Oh well at least it wasn't frizzified.