Visiting Conversation Pieces

So something pretty special happened while I was visiting California this past week. I was able to sync up with a lot of my west coast friends, but I had one special visit in particular. As you all know, I’ve worked with the small boutique, Conversation Pieces, for some time now. They have been my longest partnership and I have really built a great friendship with the shop’s owner, Audrey. She has always been such an inspiration to me to live your dream and never, ever give up. Despite so much adversity, she looks at life through rose-colored glasses and that is something I admire so much. On this trip, I was finally able to meet her, Angel and see Conversation Pieces in real life!

Audrey was able to meet my hubby, we went to brunch at an adorable cafe nearby and I was able to shop to my little heart’s content in one of the cutest boutiques I’ve ever walked into. It was so great to see everything that Audrey worked so hard to make a reality, and of course, to give her a very big real life hug. I really wish we lived closer so this could be more of a frequent occurrence!

For all of you in the Southern California area, definitely make sure to check out Conversation Pieces’ storefront and make sure to tell Audrey that Meli sent you! I can’t wait to show you all the goodies I picked up!

1150 E Wardlow Road
Long Beach, CA 90807


 

Blogger Confessions

My awesome blogger buddy, Megan, over at The Nerdy Girlie shared some of her blogger confessions and asked her followers to do the same. I think this is a great idea, because a lot of the time, I feel like bloggers don’t really talk about what goes on behind the scenes – even with each other! It’s been refreshing to read other bloggers’ lists and see that I am not alone in the things I struggle with and equally, the things I enjoy as being part of the ever-growing blogosphere.

1. I wish I had more time for my blog. Even though it may not seem like it, I have a full-time job away from the blog. This makes it very difficult to focus 100% on it, which always makes me feel like I’m not churning out the best content, promoting it enough on social media or updating the layout enough. I often find Sundays to be my go-to day for blogging, along with any free mornings I may have where I feel inspired. However, I really wish I had more free time to make it more of a priority. Yep, you could say I have blogger’s guilt.

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A Guide to Geeky Girl Travel

Hi everyone!!!
I hope you enjoyed our guest posts from our buddy, Jessica! I really appreciate her covering me for a portion of my travel time, but I actually have some free time now to throw up some posts of my own. I was surprised at how much I missed the blog during this past week and some change (well, I’m missing a lot of things to be honest), so I’m glad I got the opportunity to get back to business!

Since I do travel quite a bit, and these next 2 months are taking the cake with three different trips lined up back to back, I figured I would bestow some of my most essential travel tips on you all;

1. Make lists; nothing gives me greater joy than starting a trip list. I know this may make me a very strange person but it helps me not forget a single thing. I also have the ability to plan outfits beforehand. This is especially important for longer trips where you will have to wear the same item in different ways in order to maximize space, or for events where you know you will be photographed or will have to attend important functions (for a geeky blogger like me, that’s convention packing). I even make multiple lists for the same trip leading up to departure, such as things I have left to buy or all the last minute items I have to throw in my bag right before I leave. Go ahead. Mock my OCD.

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“No, I’m going to hyphenate a second time.”

This was my joking response the first time my fiance asked me to marry him. Of course, the way that he asked was “Are you taking my last name when we get married?” I didn’t mean it (I’m totally taking his last name), but he did. After being together for almost three years, we’ve decided that it’s the right time to make ourselves crazy for the next 14 months and get married on Halloween 2015. When it all comes down to it, I really am the luckiest girl in the world and I’m happy that, through whatever happenstance, our lives pushed us back together. (Our “first date” never actually happened and we were briefly split up last year through no one’s fault but ultimately determined that wasn’t going to work.) He and his whole family feels the same way about Halloween that I do and with it falling on a Saturday next year, the date seemed a perfect fit. He works full time and I’m a full time student with a few other things on my part time plate, so we decided that it wasn’t too soon to start planning, and we’ve also got a move on our plate between now and the ringing of wedding bells. If you want to tag along as my journey continues, I’ll leave a link to my currently empty wedding board on Pinterest at the end of the post. But for now…

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

Now that I know that my laptop survived an attempted assassination at the hands of my cats (Don’t ask!), I’m back!

 

And, it’s the hap-happiest season of all..! And, sorry, Christmas devotees, I don’t mean Yule. I mean the ever fabulous and fast approaching Halloween! With Labor Day marked off on the Calendars and the back-to-school rush settling, stores are ushering us into fall with the introduction of Halloween items to their shelves and I couldn’t be happier. Halloween has always been big business for me, since I was a kid. I can recall years that I managed to find ways to wear three and four Halloween costumes, huge wings, elaborate face paint, and growing older hasn’t managed to take away my love for the holiday of all things spooky. I’m even such a Halloween fan that my fiance and I decided to set the date for our wedding as Halloween (Mega-post on that coming on Monday)!

Some of my Halloween swag on my dresser. The black glass skull came from Big Lots this year and the pink skull candle should still be available from D.L. and Co. Other goodies came from Loved to Death in San Francisco and Necromance in Los Angeles.

 

 

A little bit of last Halloween's ensemble.

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Allons-y!

Hi, my loves!
Just letting you all know that I will be starting on quite a few adventures tomorrow. I start my journeys in Eastern Europe for my day job and then continue to California and New York City for lots and lots of fun straight into October! During my 2-week stint in Europe, I will have an amazing guest blogger taking over, but I’ll still be extremely active during the U.S. portion of my travels.

See you all soon!

Book Requests!

Hi all you lovely geeks out there!

I’ll be taking quite the journey in about 2 weeks to a far off land. It’s not for play, instead for work, but I intend on enjoying every single new experience it brings me. I’ve never traveled alone, much less to Europe. This is something the old Meli would have never done, but my goal after a certain event this year is to not be afraid and not let my anxiety rule me. Thus: hello adventure!

However, this little journey will take me approximately 12 hours so I need BOOKS. That’s right. I’m asking all the amazing people I’ve met through this blog recently to give me your recommendations on some great reading. Please leave them in the comments. I’ll be heading to the bookstore this weekend and hope to share which ones I chose with you all!

30 Smiles

The past month has been quite a difficult one. I can say it was the first serious hurdle we’ve had to jump as a couple (possibly even as adults), but we are still standing tall and proud. Something that helped me cope was a project I decided to start on Instagram. Inspired by the overwhelming positivity of my friend Audrey of the boutique, Conversation Pieces, I decided to take all that sadness and negative energy and instead recycle it into something positive. Much like the saying, “a bad day does not equal a bad life,” I challenged myself to find something good in every day for 30 days. I’m not going to lie. Some days it was hard. Like, very hard. But what it taught me is that there is always something worth smiling about. ALWAYS.


If you want to see the pictures at full size, search the hashtag #30smiles.

Autism Speaks Donations

Although I don’t mention my day job often here on the blog, I work as a behavior analyst with children on the autism spectrum. I absolutely adore what I do, and am very passionate about the cause. In a few weeks on April 6th, Autism Speaks will be holding their annual Walk Now for Autism event, and I am fundraising on behalf of my company (and myself, of course). If you have anything to spare to help fund autism research, you can donate through my own personal link here.

Thanks for supporting these very special children, their families and their future!

What I Wore: Reset

Sometimes things happen, and they just don’t make any sense. You spend many days and nights reeling, trying to understand why or trying to label it with some sort of significance because there has to be a bigger picture to all this, right? That, in a nutshell, is what has been swimming around in my head for the past week. You would think an outfit post would be the last thing on my mind, but (with the help and gentle nudging of the hubs) I want to try not to push away things that make me happy or are part of my normal routine. My smile may be a little forced, and my glitter a little dull, but I strongly believe I will make it through this very tough time.

Blouse; Old Navy
Sweater; c/o Conversation Pieces {similar}
Shorts; Old Navy
Boots; Go Jane {similar}
Necklace; Etsy
Purse; c/o Conversation Pieces

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