White Christmas

Hello again!

Since I came home for the holidays, I got to use two "Buy 1 get 1 50% off" coupons at Goodwill and if I get to the store before the month/year is over, I may get to use one more! This means I purchased four more fantastic items from Goodwill for you to see in the coming weeks.

My younger brother came with me on my latest Goodwill shopping adventure. There was one dress that I pulled from the racks and liked, but when he saw it, he said, "No, Rachel. I won't let you wear that." Now, my younger brother is cool, popular, and brave enough to wear a bow tie (something I think all men should do, but my boyfriend still refuses); however, I disagreed with his opinion and thought that I could make this dress work. I tried it on in the dressing room, and, honestly, it was huge around the waist. That's when I went with my, perhaps too frequently used, motto, "I can belt it."

On Saturday, my mom, brother, and I went to see Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" (an all-time favorite movie of my family, so we decided we MUST see the play) in Dallas. I will let you be the judge of whether my outfit complete with the new Goodwill dress worked.

Family photo before the show started.

Deep Ellum Dinosaur!

Plaid Shirt: Goodwill. Dress: Goodwill. Belt: Mom or Grey Dog. Ankle Boots: DSW.

See you next week!

Winter Break is Finally Here!

B is for Blog, and if I did not spend all of last week/this week studying, that would have been my grade in all of my classes. So instead of making a blog post last week, I chose to study and make straight A(s). I hope you understand.

Now that finals are over, I got to go home and I have packed plenty of Goodwill goodies so I can take pictures for the blog. One problem, my awesome boyfriend who can actually work a camera is not here, which means my photos are going to be unique for a few weeks...Sorry. This means we may have a mirror selfie or two, or (like this week) webcam photos taken in my older brother's childhood bedroom. Check out those sweet angles, lighting, and pixel-y/grainy texture. It is called putting your laptop on a bed and trying to stand in the one area that doesn't have your poorly packed luggage or your brother's pictures from when he was in high school. I will let you borrow that fancy photography trick.

Me, trying to see if the camera is working. It was. The picture looked decent, so now the world can see it.

I realized my hair was sticking up right as the photo was taking because of the self-timer. But I also realized that this pose had potential... (See the next photo)

Shirt: Goodwill, Romper: Thrifted; Belt: Grey Dog or Mom's (I have two almost identical belts, so it could honestly be from either one)

See you next week!

Icemageddon!

Hello!

Today marks Day 5 of icy/snowy weather and no class. This means that I have had lots of time to get ahead, study for finals, write my papers early rather than procrastinate until the last possible second, and (of course) ensure I have top notch photos for this blog so it can be published on time. Haha. That did not happen. Instead I watched YouTube videos and continuously checked Reddit, read interesting psychology articles that I was going to wait until winter break to read, watched TV, visited my older brother (today is his birthday), wrote one page for one paper, and am only getting to the blog a day late.

But, most importantly, I got a bike! Yay! Christmas came early and my wonderful boyfriend has given me my dream bicycle that I have been wishing for since I was still in high school. So that means you will get to see some of the photos from the building process (one piece is a little wonky so I will have to get that fixed before it can be truly finished).

 Daniel building my bike with my roommate's bike in the background. (Sorry for the low picture quality, I used my phone. And excuse the mess, we should pretend that is because I have been snowed in for 5 days and not that it is always this messy...)

 My nearly finished bicycle. All it is missing is the wonky front fender, the bell, the front light, and straightening out the front wheel/handlebars.

Here is an older photo of Daniel and me. Mostly to show how cool we are, since he was the one that bought me the bike, but also because I needed more photos for the post... 

And last but not least, I am wearing a shirt from Goodwill! I imagined that I would take a cute photo in the snow, but today everything was melting and it was not super pretty outside. Again, sorry for the quality, my webcam is about as good as (maybe slightly better than?) my phone's camera.

See you next week!

Gallivanting in Grey Dog

Hello!

In this special edition of Gallivanting in Goodwill, in honor of Small Business Saturday, I am doing Gallivanting in Grey Dog. Grey Dog is a super cool vintage boutique in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This special edition is also because Thanksgiving is a holiday where my mom loves to take pictures since we are already dressed up...and because I get the best clothes from Grey Dog! I swear, 1/3 of my closet is from Goodwill, 1/3 is from Grey Dog, and 1/3 is from everywhere else (if we are not including free t-shirts...then the proportion is more skewed in favor of free t-shirts. What can I say? I am in college).

You should go check out Grey Dog's website now...http://shopgreydog.com/shop-home/ Now that you have done that, here are my pictures from Thanksgiving!

My sweet vintage dress from the 1950s and these shoes from Maude.

The dress in better detail.

 My "little" brother (6'5") and me trying to be pensive. My older brother missed out on being in this blurry gem that my mom took...

And because today is December 1, I am officially done with No Pants November! I am celebrating in these awesome 80s pants from my mom, the same shoes as before, and this Rooster Teeth shirt.

See you next week!

Time to Wander

Well, with Thanksgiving travels coming up, I decided to feature the luggage that I have purchased at Goodwill. Vintage luggage is really cool because it has gone on someone else's adventures before and will be able to go on more with you. For example, the two smaller cases in my pictures below are actually cassette tape carriers. I like to imagine that some teenager full of angst hid all of his music that his parents did not want him to listen to in them, the handles allowing him to take the music to his friend's house when they hung out on the weekends. And now I use it as a cute purse or briefcase. Buying an item second-hand gives it the opportunity to live a second life. Now it is time to wander on home for Thanksgiving...

The dress is from a boutique in the UK. All of the luggage is from Goodwill, except for the largest one which I bought from a local store, The Striped Pig. (Sorry for the low quality pictures, my boyfriend is the regular photographer with the nicer cell phone camera...)

See you next week!

Sunday Mornings

When I was younger, I remember my mom wearing floral dresses like these on Sunday mornings when we went to church. Now that I have acquired a dress like her's of my own (from Goodwill, of course), wearing it myself brings me back to those days when my most difficult homework was basic addition and spelling tests. It is nice to take a break from schoolwork today to reminisce, go for a walk in a local park, play in the frigid water on a nice warm day, take a few photos, and post them on the blog.

Hope you enjoy!

The dress is from Goodwill, the belt is from Grey Dog, and the shoes are from Maude.

See you next week!

New Beginnings

Hello World!

First of all, this is not normally my kind of thing. I study psychology and social work with an emphasis in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), so that is what I spend 97% of my time doing (the other 3% are reserved for getting to class, sleeping, eating, sorority involvement, and thrift shopping). The reason why I wanted to start this blog is so people can see how amazing Goodwill is.

When I was in 8^th grade, my mom bought me a jacket that I immediately loved. I proudly wore it to school the next day. Other students liked it to, so, you know, I felt super cool (as cool as an awkward adolescent can feel). All day I got tons of compliments. Then, a girl asked me where I got it. I explained to her that my mom bought it at Goodwill. To this, she responded, “Oh. Ew. Gross.” This shattered my poor little heart.

However, that did not stop me.

I was confused by her response because what is there to not support about Goodwill? The organization has an awesome mission statement: “Goodwill works to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work.” They focus on providing a chance, not charity. They offer job skills and training to help people out, which I am sure I will talk about more in the future because of my love of social work. Until then, I recommend that you check out their website: http://www.goodwill.org/

Now, back to my story. I only saw good things from Goodwill and I wanted to continue supporting the organization. So, with the girl’s comment behind me, I began shopping there more. What I tend to find now is that some people still have an “Ew factor” towards the clothes (wash it; you borrow your friends’ clothes all the time. It is not that different), others just do not believe Goodwill has quality items, and still others only think thrift shopping is cool because of the song “Thrift Shop.” I am here to show you that Goodwill has nice, good quality clothes that can be mixed with other items to create cute outfits and that thrift shopping is even more fun than the song makes it out to be. Here is to new beginnings for the people Goodwill helps, the clothes they sell, and my blog! ;)

 

This dress is from Goodwill and the shoes are my mom's from the 80s.

(Sorry for so many similar photos, I have yet to master modeling, filters, etc. It'll get better. I promise)

See you next week!