OOTD: Channelling My Inner Blair Waldorf

I thought I would dedicate my first Outfit of the Day post to my favourite Gossip Girl character. I just recently finished watching GG and although Serena was meant to be the fashion icon of the upper east side, I was always partial to Blair; I really loved the class and sophistication of her wardrobe. Coincidentally, I noticed an influx of plaid circle skirts while I was out shopping a couple of weeks ago. I managed to find some reasonably priced ones around the mall and picked up a couple of ballerina tops to go with them. Add a peacoat or trench coat, headband and tights, and voilà! The perfect outfit à la queen B!

Trench Coat | Mango

Ballerina Top | Garage Clothing

Plaid Circle Skirt | Garage Clothing

Tights | The Bay

These skirt + ballerina top outfits make for the perfect transition pieces between the seasons. I love that we can finally start dressing for fall again!

XOXO…

| alex

It’s Not a Prank, It’s Sexual Assault

I want to share the story of Sam Pepper and the recent controversy he’s stirred up in the YouTube community. Sam is a YouTuber who has risen to fame largely through his pranking videos and has over 2 million subscribers. Recently, he posted a video entitled “Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank” that involved him approaching young women in the street, grabbing their butts when they weren’t paying attention, and recording their reactions. It was disgusting to watch him violate these women and saddening to see them awkwardly trying to laugh off this situation that clearly made them uncomfortable. A commenter on the video even pointed out that the first woman he pulled this stunt on replied with, “I don’t like that.” What Pepper did was assault these women, plain and simple. And as if that in itself wasn’t enough, to call this a “prank” to his viewers is incredibly damaging. Jokes and pranks are meant to be funny, but I don’t find it humorous to grab women inappropriately without their consent. And to call this act a prank normalizes this kind of behaviour toward women. YouTube has become a powerful way to spread information and since vlogging has been popularized, there are many people who have developed a great influence over millions of people through their videos. Sam Pepper is one of these people and with this video he is saying, to his 2 million subscribers, that it’s humorous to violate women’s bodies and that it’s okay to sexually assault women for “entertainment” and beyond.

Fortunately, most people reacted in the exact way they should have. Many influential members of the YouTube community publicly denounced his behaviour, taking to Twitter and Tumblr to express their outrage. Laci Green, a sex education activist and vlogger, wrote an open letter to Sam Pepper on her blog that has received nearly 90,000 notes on Tumblr and several notable co-signers (Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, and Wil Wheaton to name a few); John Green, NYT bestselling author and vlogger, responded publicly to an anonymous ask on his personal blog; Tyler Oakley, a vlogger and LGBTQ advocate, tweeted about the occurrence to his 3 million followers; The Fine Brothers, online producers and creators of the popular React series on YouTube, have said that they will not collaborate with “creators who partake in that behaviour”; and Hank Green, vlogger and co-creator of the world’s largest online convention, stated that Sam Pepper will no longer be welcome at VidCon. There was also a #ReportSamPepper trend that quickly became popular on Twitter and many campaigns on different Social Media outlets to have the video removed. As disturbing as Pepper’s video was, it was encouraging to see how people from around the world came together to call out this video for what it was: a blatant display of sexism and assault. And given how often sexual assault is ignored in our society and how often perpetrators avoid punishment, this is really important to recognize and appreciate. One creator may have used his online influence to make light of violating women’s bodies, but several others used theirs to educate, raise awareness, and fight against sexual assault. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of people from all around the Internet, the original video has been removed from YouTube and more people are aware and better educated about the subject.

We can all make a difference and contribute to the end of sexual assault in our society. Learn more + get involved: City of Calgary: Resources ; National Sexual Violence Resource Centre ; Not Alone: Together Against Sexual Assault ; Where is Your Line? ; It’s On Us ; No More

When Friends Become Family

The truth is I’m not okay. The truth is I’ve never been more scared in my life. The truth is some days I just want to break, let everything push me over.

But you want to know another truth, another truth that holds me together when the tape starts to peel? My life is filled with some of the most beautiful souls I have ever encountered, in this life or the last. They bring me joy and excitement. And they bring me something else entirely, something that can’t be measured, or weighed, or paid for. They give me hope that there is always a brighter side, always something greater than all the bad, that good really does conquer over evil.

And yeah, this sounds super cliché. It sounds like something out of a commercial, something written on a poster with a picture of a sunset in the background. And yeah, it is a bit cliché. But it is also beautiful. Because even though I’m not okay and I really don’t know when I will be, I know that I have these people who will never let me fall. And should I slip and fall face first, I know they will be there to pick me up.

Real life problems. They aren’t something people can just erase. They aren’t something that can be put aside with a smile and a hug. And believe me, I know that. But that smile, that hug, they do something else. They don’t shield you. No, that’s not quite what it is. The problems are still there at the end of the night. And only I am the one who can dig myself deeper or begin the long climb back up. But I can tell you they sure do make that long, treacherous climb something worth struggling through. They make the climb a little bit more doable, leaving behind small footholds and strong branches for me to lift myself higher.

They show me there is something to push for, that there is something amazing out there. And that is beautiful.

In a world where I could easily fall apart, they hold me up. And they don’t even know they are doing it.

It’s the best part of love, of family.

On Stories – Today:

A revised story I wrote back in 2010!

Today

“And I know I may be too late, and that the train may have already left the station, that the clocks already chimed midnight, that…” He wasn’t quite sure where all of these cliche lines were coming from, and to be honest, he was surprised he even knew that many. Why was he even talking so much?

Maybe he was just caught in one of those awkward rambling cycles.

Maybe he didn’t know what to say.

Or maybe he was just wasting time so that he could find the courage to tell her what he had been waiting nearly a year to tell her.

“But…I love you.” He finally breathed out.

His lungs were constricting, slowly closing up as if trying to suffocate him from the inside out, knowing that if she didn’t say those tiny words back, that would be the end of him.

They had known each other for years, and through those years, he had lived nearly all of them blind.

She had loved him, you see, possibly from the very first moment she had seen him. And he had just been a boy, too wrapped up in his own life to care about the girl who had cared for him.

So he had lived his life, going through the seasons, through meaningless loves, through somewhat important ones too, all the while ignoring the one who held her heart out to him for so long.

But today was where it ended.

Today was the day he would give his heart to hers, and hope that she was still offering hers to him.

“…Why…Why now?” She asked quietly. He laughed a bit, breathing in deep, his lungs filling to the hilt with air and then gently relaxing within his chest.

Things would be okay.

“Because! Because…I know it took forever, I know that I just took my sweet time, but-“

“No.” She looked up from the sidewalk and to his eyes. He could see the water in them and his lungs instantly seized up again.

“…I waited for you…for years. Half of my life, I wasted sitting by the phone hoping you would call. The other half I spent dropping everything for you. When you needed me because some other girl broke your heart, I was there. I was always there. Because I honestly believed in you.”

There was something in her eyes that told him what he had always been afraid would come true.

His heart was going to end up broken.

“…If you had just told me this…just a few years ago…” She closed her eyes, a few tears sliding down her cheeks.

“I would be with you, truly with you.” She whispered.

“But that was years ago, and I’m not that little girl who doesn’t know her worth anymore. I’m not broken anymore.”

In that moment, he thought about the time he was fourteen, riding his bike down the stony path by the river. He had lost control and ended up skinning his knees to near bone.

Was it misplaced to think about that right now?

Maybe, but it was the only pain he could think of that would sum up just a mere fraction of what he was feeling now.

He watched her turn away and take a step after step further from him, his heart weighing down with each distancing click of her shoes.

He wondered briefly, if maybe he had been, in a way, right.

Today was the day it had ended.

| danielle

Writer’s Block

Ideas incomplete and drafts half written. I feel like everything has been coming up short lately. My thoughts are whole and alive and full of movement, until I try to put them onto paper. I think and rethink and overthink. I write and rewrite and scrap. Nothing comes out quite important, meaningful enough. Nothing quite captures what I need it do. And there are such beautiful things to write about. Like a weekend tucked away in the mountains with friends, the laughter and sparklers and tipsy rambling, the moment I realized I finally feel like a valued part of something bigger and more meaningful again. Or like the little ways love reveals itself, the way he removes renegade eyelashes from my cheek or the way the palm of his hand always finds its way to mine, the daily sacrifices and companionship and boundless support. These are the moments that make me want to write but break my heart when I find that I can’t. I feel these moments wanting to burst out from beneath my skin, I feel them stretching for light toward my fingertips. I want to write about how the cool mountain breeze revitalizes my heart and breathes life back into me, about that moment when the earth stood still and everything faded into the sound of my breathing and the gentle embraces of the water on shore. I want to write about how the sunlight frolicked on the lake’s surface and how moments like this can bring your heart back home again. It’s frustrating when your words stop coming like second nature, when your mode of solace is distant from you, when part of your identity suddenly feels foreign and difficult to grasp at. But I’ll keep grasping, putting pen to paper, fingertips to keys. I will remember what it feels like for my thoughts to effortlessly pour out into words, to decorate a plain white page with observations and concerns and dreams. I will remember what it feels like for light to drift freely through my mind, illuminating my ideas into something worthy of the moments that inspired them, stringing my musings together into words of sincerity and beauty.

“If I believe in any God at all, my God exists in music. I know this because music makes me happy and that’s the point of having a God. God isn’t responsible for Wal-Mart or for the War on terror; therefore, I don’t blame God. I believe those things happen by people who forget to look up and see what God is. They kind of ruin it for the rest of us. But then again, maybe their God gives them riches and power and that makes them happy; so who am I to judge?”

– Jason Mraz

On OOTD – Wedding Mint:

Congratulations to my beautiful friends, Michael and Emily who were married August 9th 2014! I wish only amazing things for both of you guys!

I decided to finally do a blog post on the outfit I was able to wear to the wedding, which my mom made (and finished an hour before I had to go…)

Happy Weddings!

Mint green hi-lo dress with a sweet heart neckline & matching flower hair piece | Made by my beautiful and talented mom!

Yup. You read that right.

Accessories:

Faux diamond earrings |Spring | $10
Nude pumps | Payless | $24 (On sale for $18)
Black bracelets/necklace| Gifts

Photos by | Lucas Gilbertson

Enjoy!

| danielle

“An open letter to the recent graduate,

You have spent years carrying wrought iron anchors around your ankles, blistering your fingertips in feeble attempts to undo their rigid sailor knots one by one. But darling, you forget the knives in your pockets. You are so much more than double majors and grade point averages and master’s degrees. You are on a long road west to sunset, but your hands can steer and turn and pause and push and pull your way to glory. Spread your sails like a rose stretches her limbs to the sunlight. There is heaven on your horizon. Whatever it takes—burning your eyes with salt water, cutting your feet on the bow, sailing blindly into a midnight monsoon—whatever it takes, go to it. Meet your dandelion dreams at sunrise, and never look back.”

– Eveline St. Lucia

“This year, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.”

– Howard W. Hunter

“If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller’s felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.”

– Jonathan Safran Foer