Category: mixing black and brown

Back to Smiles

I’m glad to show you smiles today 🙂 
Glad to show you my cute new leopard headband from Oh, Sweet Joy and my Radiant Cosmetics lipstick.
Totes in love with both of them.

Which is good, because this week has been hard on me. If I’m honest, the year has been hard on me. A year ago yesterday, a week out from Christmas, a relationship with a man I thought I was going to marry ended. So my heart has been all sorts of heavy lately. 

I tried to write about eight hundred blog posts about it, but none of it felt settled enough to share. I don’t feel settled enough to share. I’m still a bit of a hot mess (totally tearing up right now). And that’s embarrassing to admit, a year later. I feel like I should be fine, should be moving on, should be dating and happy. But the year really took a lot of life and love out of me, and I’m still searching for healing. A few months ago a friend asked me if I was dating, and I kid you not the word sounded foreign to me. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I think if I really shared my heart about the subject, I’d never be able to put it back together again, so I guess I’ll keep carrying on with joy in the little things and trying to get back to smiles. Happy Natalie is so much more fun 🙂
Much love, my dears! 

Wearing Hats {Part 2}: Ring Hat w/ Veil

Hat Number One: Vintage Linen Ring Hat with Veil and Little Velvet Bows: 
Summer seems so light, beautiful, and full of endless possibility. 

Except sometimes, life has other plans. 

{outtake, but I actually loved it.}

Sometimes, we have to say goodbye in summer. I know, it doesn’t seem fair. It just doesn’t suit our collective spirit in summertime to have endings. I wore this outfit to the funeral of a dear friend’s grandmother. Sometimes, we must say goodbye at inopportune times. To be honest, there is never an opportune time for goodbyes. 
As I write this, there’s an odd light hanging in the air. A summer storm is billowing on the horizon, and the leftover sunlight juts through storm clouds in a strange pattern. Sometimes, too, summer storms billow on the horizons of our lives. 

{fingernail polish matches shoes}
I’m a believer in wearing black to funerals. It feels respectful, and symbolic of the loss. Black says, “The world is stopping for a moment, our world is, because we lost someone who kept it turning.” Much like my comments on Good Friday and the veil I wore then, wearing black and a hat helps me feel the symbolism, respect, and grieving process. When someone’s world stops as a loved one passes on, wearing black feels appropriate. 
And so does wearing a vintage ring hat with veil.
🙂 
Linen Ring Hat with Veil and Velvet Bows: Vintage, Thrifted, 25 cents! 
Hair: “Flowered” up–that is, pieces bobby pinned in curls to look like a flower
Dress: Gap
Tortoise Wayfarer-ish Sunglasses: Target 
Belt: Thrifted
Handbag: Vintage
Heels: Banana Republic, consignment store