A Year in Review: 2017

Here is just a few life and fashion lessons I have learned over 2017!

I've learned that "me time" is important. And "me time" doesn't include answering emails or doing anything other than sitting down and watching tv or watching a YouTube video. 

I am a very social person, I never have lunch with the same person two days in a row usually, and I love that and as social as I am I love my alone time. 

I am fortunate enough to have a single in my sorority dorm block, so it is nice to see my sisters for an hour or so and then have some time by myself.

I have learned that alone time is healthy, it's where I can think and recharge.
I have also seen that if I stay by myself too much though I get lonely, and that isn't fun.
I have tried to find a good balance between alone time and time with friends, but I am still going to continue to find that perfect balance.

This year, I have continued to learn how to go outside my comfort zone.

Believe it or not, but I went camping in a tent in the woods!
And it wasn't "glamping!"

It was something I have never done before and I was so proud of myself for doing something different. 

I also went outside my comfort zone in my fashion choices! I continue to surprise myself and make a statement in my clothes.

I have always loved two piece matching sets but I have always been nervous to wear them.

So the fact that I did a photoshoot in this one and wore it without a bra, major props to me for going outside my comfort zone!

Friendships are two way streets. Point blank. I've continued to learn this lesson over the years. But if someone doesn't want to be friends with you don't waste your time trying to put in effort if they don't put in the same amount of effort. Hate to say it, but that goes with family members too.

I've learned in my few years of life that you will learn who your real friends are, really fast. Your friends will stick by you if you are your crazy, goofy, loud self.
They will even listen to you nag them about going to see Rainbow Row in Charleston just so you can get the perfect blog pictures!

I think I am much more confident in college about my body, my style and boys than I ever was growing up. But I become a bit sensitive about if girls in my sorority like me or not. And I learned that I can’t care about what others think. And I still need to continue to work on that.
I obviously didn't care what others thought of me when I wore this very loud and crazy flamenco like shirt to class in the spring. I love this shirt and I wasn't going to let anyone tell me otherwise!

I'm continuing to be spontaneous!
Go to that party that you got invited to on a whim. Go watch a movie with your friends on a school night!
Those are some things I told myself to do this past year.
And I had the most wonderful time being spontaneous!

I'm more spontaneous now than I used to be, but I am still working on not having my life planned out all the time. I'm working on being more flexible!

I learned this one last year but I am continually applying this lesson to my life now. 
I've learned that sleep is a beautiful thing. 
Knock on wood, I didn't get sick at all this year. This fall semester I had a little head cold, but nothing that restricted me from going to class. It was great! So even though I go to bed at 9:30pm on a Sunday night, and I feel like a grandma, I've learned that if I want to stay healthy, and be productive and efficient with my work I need to SLEEP!

I've learned to never settle for anything in life. I'm learning to never settle for a boy! 

I've learned to never settle for a grade.

Never settle for your body!

I learned that I am not a big fan of working out. But when I do workout I feel good! I have found workouts I like, like pilates and spin classes and when I do them I feel so good!

I have learned that there is no such thing as too many friends.

At the beginning of this semester I thought I could only be friends with my sorority sisters.

Not that I ditched my old friends but I just thought I had to be friends with only my sorority sisters. I learned yet again, that it is not healthy to just be friends with one group.

Sorority sisters are great and will always be there for you, but at the end of the day, being best friends with all the girls in your sorority is nice but not essential to happiness in life.

Add caption

One of the oldest lessons that continues to play a huge role in my life is, "you can do anything you put your mind to."

That applied to me getting a job for the summer, increasing my following on T&P, learning how to take great Instagram photos, making my blog a success and making honor roll at school!

Another very redundant lesson, but something that I have yet again really learned this year. It's not about quantity of friends but rather quality.
It's about finding friends that will make you go outside your comfort zones and make you go to the top of the Empire State building and make you feel like a tourist in your own state.

I've learned to appreciate my parents more.

I see how much they have done for me and how much they care for me.

I have seen how hard they have worked and sacrificed so I can fulfill my dreams, like going to Wake!

I've also learned to appreciate the food my mother cooks me, because nothing is as good as a home cooked meal.

I've learned to be a little less open with people that I have just met. I have learned to put up my barrier a bit when necessary to protect myself and my feelings.

I think I am the queen of being cheesy in this blog post right now, but honestly, I've learned how to continue to be true to myself.

Be confident.

I have known for being very extra and over the top, but that's just who I am! 

I was the only one to wear a non floppy hat to the Camden Cup and I loved it! It was so me and it was great!

I love to wear heels to parties and I do even when my date is shorter than me! I have continued to learn that I am my best self when I am being true to myself.

I've learned that it is SO okay to cry.

I don't cry enough anymore. 

I always think that I am too busy to cry and that I have too much to do.

Or that I never want to mess up my makeup!

My friends cry all the time, and they admit that they cry and I wish I could be more like them. 

I wish I could let my guard down more and know that it is totally okay to be not okay!

I have finally learned that doctors aren't that scary. And that they really are trying to help you.

I have gone to so many doctors appointments this year, I can't even count. I am very fortunate that I have the ability to go to many doctors and that I am fortunate enough to be very healthy despite all the doctors.

I am finally a big girl and can go to the doctors all by myself without crying! 

It sounds silly but this was a big step for me.

I have learned yet again that you have to listen to your heart and your head.

Your heart is great and all, but sometimes you need to take a step back and realize that your head is high on your shoulders for a reason and can point you in a better direction sometimes than your heart. Your head is smart. And so is your heart. But you need to use both your heart and head wisely.

My head has never let me down in realizing that white button downs never go out of style.

I've learned that you can't be young forever, so if you've got it, flaunt it!

I've learned to do what makes you happy! Seriously!!

Cheesy but so true!

Eat what you want to eat, love who you want to love, workout when you want to, and see friends that make you laugh. 

Be unapologetic for being happy and doing things that make you happy.

With that being said, if you don’t like something about yourself, your environment or your life, CHANGE IT!

I am so serious. The amount of times I have told friends, "we are in college, and if we aren't happy we need to do something about it," is a lot. And I honestly, swear by this lesson.

Even if you aren't in college, this is YOUR LIFE! If you don't like something about it, DO SOMETHING!

I've learned that love is a beautiful thing. It will come when you least expect it and it will swipe you off your feet and then when you least expect it again, make you fall back and hit the ground hard. Love is a crazy phenomenon. I am so blessed to feel so much love from my family and friends. I know that in time we will all find the right person who loves us for all the right reasons.

I've continued to learn that laughter is the healthiest medicine. 
And that there is nothing better than NY at Christmas time.

Life is a learning curve and I am going to continue to learn this next year. I can't wait for the exciting opportunities my life has and all the plans and unplanned things too!

You can read my last year's Year in Review HERE and see how much I have changed as a student, blogger, friend and person. 

Happy New Year!
Cheers

XOXO
Elisabeth

My New Home: Dijon, France

Using contextual evidence I think you can figure out where I will be living in the very near future!

I'm moving to FRANCE!!!

I am not moving permanently bur rather for a semester.

Next fall I will be living abroad in France!

I just got accepted into the WFU Dijon program for Fall of 2018.

I couldn't be more grateful and excited to be able to live abroad in France.

These photos are from April of 2014 when I first went to Paris with my mom, grandma, cousin and sister to celebrate my 16th birthday. That was a dream come true right there and now that I get to live in France for a whole four months, I am beyond excited and beyond grateful that I get to have one of my dreams come true.

And y’all will get to experience every part of my life abroad by following me along here on T&P and on my Instagram @tallandpreppy!

I will be living with a host family in Dijon and I will be attending La Université de Burgundy in the city of Dijon. I will take 15 credits or 15 hours which will help me almost finish my French major at Wake.

I am so so so excited!

And when I am not studying, I will be traveling! For the first six weeks I am in France, I will be traveling every week with my French professor from Wake and then when I am living with my host family I won't have classes on Fridays so I will be really able to travel all over Europe!

And the best part is that my whole French class from Wake is going, so I will have lots of friends to travel with from school, but I will also meet up with friends from Wake that aren't in the Dijon program. I will also get to meet up with my friends from back home as well!

Don't worry, I have already created a list of all the countries and places I want to see while I am living abroad.

I am beyond excited for this amazing adventure I am about to go on!!

Get ready for some amazing stories and some amazing pictures right here on T&P!

Date Night

I know everyone is always very interested in other people’s "love lives." I kinda am too.

It’s so weird but everyone loves to see who is dating who or who isn’t dating who.

And sorry to disappoint but I didn’t have a date with an SO, but rather my older brother Michael the other night!

My family is very large, as you may know. I am one of five, and my oldest brother is Michael. He is 30+ years older than me. So he is the oldest and I am the youngest. He is married, he lives 50 yards away from me… no joke, in his house with his wife and three little kiddies.

So he is a real adult with a real job so I don’t really get to spend anytime with him or any of my other siblings for that matter. They are busy people! I get it!

So when I was still at school, I texted him and asked if we could go out to dinner when I got back from school!

So that is what we did the other night.

We had date night!!

My lovely date allowed me to pick the restaurant and he treated sooo I picked Kyma! 

It was sooo yummy! Lots of delicious Greek food.

We got some weird looks from the hostesses when they brought us to our table, because I don’t look like I’m 50 and he does…

Sooo… that was kinda funny.

But it was big brother and sister date night!!

There is nothing wrong with that!!

Here is my super cute, trendy and WARM outfit for date night.

H&M gray oversized turtleneck

H&M long faux fur vest

J Crew black Gigi pants with pockets

DSW black faux suede over the knee boots

Tory Burch double pearl earrings

Tory Burch black evening bag (similar)

And can we talk about my hair for a hot second!

Omg. I curled it on Christmas Eve and it still looks amazing!!

My hair has NEVER EVER held a curl like this before! I used a flat iron to get "Kate Middleton" like curls!!

The reason this blog isn’t about HAIR is because I hate doing my hair. I am so lazy when it comes to hair. It is always down or up in a pony tail. Occasionally I will throw a braid into my pony tail, but besides that I’m boring! Except for Christmas this year! 

So now that my hair actually can hold a curl, maybe you will see some different hair looks from me!

But no promises!

xoxo

E

Kappa Delta Formal Roundup

Crush Party

Informal

Formal

I had what a semester of date functions and formals. I think 6 or 7 in total! 

If you didn't know I was/still am date function chair for Kappa Delta. I love planning events and parties and I thought volunteering for Date Functon chair would would be fun but the joke was on me.....

After the first date function I cried my eyes out. It was horrible. I didn't have any fun and I was running around like a crazy person all night. I love date functions and formals because I love getting all dolled up, which I did, but then also I love them because I get to dance!

And they are so much nicer than disgusting frat basements!

The first date function theme was “Throwdown for Your Hometown.” I wore a J Crew a-line dress and a sweater tied over my shoulders. I wore lots of big pearls and I curled my hair so I would look super super preppy. 

I was so looking forward to get to dance and have a good time but I didn’t have any fun. It was a painful job and I literally cried myself to sleep that night because I was so upset that I worked so hard on this function and then couldn’t even enjoy myself. 

I voiced my complaint to various council members, some told me to suck it up, and others told me they would make it better.

Well I sucked it up and continued to be a team player.

I was very anxious for the following date function which was a blind date kind of theme or “My Tie.” I asked a friend to set me up on a blind date, and she never did…. so that wasn’t cool at all. But I ended up bringing my two best friends, Em and Caro. I brought two dates because I’m date function chair, my position is horrible and I felt like it. So yea!

I’m so glad I brought them over a boy because they were so easy and so fun! I didn't have to impress them or try to entertain them! They were content just being there and dancing. 

So that was the nice part of my night and all was well, until three girls threw up. 

Two on the bus I was in charge of. So that was so wonderful. And then some kid peed in the water fountain. And there were jello shots that were found in the bathroom. Hmm what else…. My friend got kicked out for holding a beer in her hand because she is underage…

Anything else?

Oh, yea! Some guests were fighting me and giving me such attitude about taking the bus to and from campus…

It was such a night. So as messy as it was, I felt calmer and it went smoother than the first function for me, even though it doesn’t seem like it.

The night before formal I went to the business frat formal with my friend and it was so so fun!

I treated myself to a fun night out with friends and danced all night. I knew that the next night I would be working so I said yes to two nights of parties!!

And then finally FORMAL!

Let’s start off with the dress. I ordered this gorgeous long dress from Missguided… It showed up after 3 weeks…. and when it showed up it was broken. The zipper was broken and split before I even put it on. It was very disappointing. And I messaged their customer service via Facebook, becasue they don’t have customer service via email or phone or anything. So weird. And horrible customer service. It says on the website that you will hear back from them within an hour. NO! LIES. DAYS! It took them days to get back to me. And they didn’t even seem to read my message. They wanted to send me another dress even though I told them my formal was in two days from when I received the dress. 

So moral of the story: don’t order from Missguided. HORRIBLE. And very disappointed.

Adding to the drama of formal, I had some date drama. A couple of weeks before I went to a fraternity formal with this guy, so then I asked him to go to mine, and apparently I insulted a lot of people by bringing him as my date. 

But whatever! I have realized I can’t please everyone or care what everyone thinks. So he still came! We still had a great time!

And formal was such a success! Only one person threw up, a guy, and it wasn’t on the bus, so I don’t care!

It was so so so fun!

I danced all night and I really got to enjoy myself! So yea! 

They say third times the charm right??

Well I have three more to plan for next semester!!

Summary of all the functions this semester:

Fraternity formal: red light district theme (lol kind of gross theme)

Crush Party: throwdown for your hometown: J Crew periwinkle knit dress

Informal: My Tie: forever 21 dress (similar)

Fraternity Formal: Pick a date, be my date (lol April 16th is National PJ day, so my date and I wore our pjs! I wore my pink stripped Victoria Secret set)

Business fraternity formal: ASOS red dress ON SALE

KD formal: Parker NY dress with feathers (similar with feathers) (similar color)

Merry Christmas 2017

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend filled with laughter, love, peace and joy.

I had a very merry Christmas spent with family on both Sunday and Monday.

It was nice to have the whole gang back together again for celebrations both days.

For Christmas Eve, we all went to church and then went out to Gatsby's Landing for dinner. I ate some delicious homemade pasta, as did everyone else and we made it an early night because Christmas is an exhausting but fun day!

Monday, I celebrated Christmas at my house with half of the family and then the other half joined after dinner for more dessert and gifts!

It was such a nice holiday weekend and I can't wait until May for all 19 of us to be back together again!

Here are my festive outfits from both days:

Christmas Eve

Express green dress

black tights

Tory Burch black and gold Reva flats

Tory Burch double pearl earrings

Tory Burch gold logo bangle

Van Cleef & Arpels vintage Alhambra pendant

Christmas Day

J Crew burgundy knit dress

pearl necklace

Tiffany pearl studs

Tory Burch black and gold Reva flats

Christmas Time in New York City

Gotta love the city especially at this time of the year!

It felt good to be back in the capital of the world for a few hours Thursday night with my best friends from high school. 

We went into the city for our annual Christmas dinner that we started in middle school I think lol, so we've been doing this for maybe 6 years now? Crazy.

I have some photos from over the years and lol I'm in the same coat.... ya think I need a new one??

Ah I love this one. Kate Middleton has a very similar one, one of the many reasons why I love it. But also you can't go wrong with a red coat in the winter time!

A little chilly in the city the other night but I was nice and toasty in my favorite turtleneck from H&M and my H&M faux fur vest underneath.

Kinda annoying when it's cold and windy because my eyes start to tear up when the wind hits them. And it messes up all of my makeup!! It happens at school too and all my friends always think I'm crying!! And I'm not!!

I must of complained about it all night... oops

We ventured to Eataly in the Flat Iron district first to get some gelato for myself and some chocolate cake thing for Michelle. We didn't find the cake but I did get my gelato! So that was the first desert of the night!

And then we made the walk over to Rockefeller Center for our annual photo in front of the Christmas tree!

It was a zoo there like usual but it was nice to see the tree yet again.

Mitch, George and I were saying that the tree looks smaller than normal! We know it's not small by any means but it just seems underwhelming probably because we have seen it every year for the past decade or so!

After seeing the tree we went all the way downtown to The Stanton Social for a bite to eat.

Honestly, it was nothing special.

It was tapas, which were really good but these were the smallest tapas I have ever seen before. Literally the fish tacos we got were the size of my pinky. No joke. 

So we won’t be going back anytime soon. The bar seemed cool though, so maybe when were of age, we can rethink about going back.

The best part of dinner were the fresh donuts! OMG they were so good.

And then if that desert wasn't enough we then ventured over to New Territories, an ice cream/waffle shop, and again was a bit disappointed.

So the food wasn't the best but the company I was with made up for it :)

It was a lovely night celebrating the end of the semester and the end of the year!

Cheers!

Merry Christmas

xoxo

E

Happy SNOW DAY!!!

The perfect way to end the semester yesterday was with SNOW!

I was sitting at my desk doing some studying yesterday morning and I looked out my window and it was SNOWING!

I know I am from New York and we get snow all the time but snow just makes me so happy!

The last time I saw snow was last January when I was here for sorority rush! Click HERE to read that blog post!

I was so giddy and happy all day because of the snow.

After classes were over, everyone was on the quad playing and laughing. Some kids made some snowmen and others just took photos!

It made my heart feel so warm.

I think snow makes everyone happy!

It was the most perfect way to end the semester.

It is still snowing now!!!

The snow was a good distraction for a while, and it is still very distracting, I can't stop starring out my window, but I have to study!!

Four final tests and then I can go home!!

:)

I bundled up yesterday and will continue to bundle up this next week because it is supposed to be super COLD!

I love this outfit! So warm and so stylish!

J Crew blue turtleneck sweater

J Crew Gigi black pants with pockets

faux fur gray vest

Tory Burch black riding boots

Tiffany pearl studs