crystal + jo

Earlier this week, I did a photo shoot with my friends Crystal and Josephine (Jo being the one with the flower crown), and it was a particularly special day because 1) it was the last time I'm going to see them until December or January and 2) it was the last time I'm going to use my camera until winter break since I'm not bringing it to college with me.

The last time I did a photo shoot like this was last year in June and I have to say, I think this batch of photos is exponentially better. The location was actually the same, just not as far up the hill - this made all the difference. The backgrounds were prettier and more interesting (bokeh galore!) and it was easier for me to move around to get different angles.

Photo spam under the cut! Open the photos in a new tab for their full size.

strawberry slush

top: h&m // sweater: target // necklace: windsor // shorts: forever 21 // shoes: target

Hot pot is so good *_* Went out for lunch with two of my favorite girls, Jojo and Kelly :) They're always so supportive of me being a fashion enthusiast, and I really appreciate it. Shout out to you guys! I love you ♡ ♡ Jo made me that collage - it says "SoCal will miss you Alli" - and it's honestly the sweetest thing anyone's done for me! It was so random (well, I mean I still have a month before I leave) and really touching T_T thank you again :)

wait for me

Hooray! Now that I don't have to eat everything through a teeny tiny tube, I can go around taking pictures of food without feeling bad! Missed a lot of good photo ops today, now that I think about it, but heck, I realized that I've developed a lot of habits that'll take some effort to break over the past five weeks!

I don't think I've blogged about it on here yet, but this Thursday marks six weeks since I've gotten upper jaw surgery + genioplasty. To be honest, recovery has been a lot harder than I thought it would be - mentally, not physically. Sure, I've lost weight, but that's probably from muscle loss since my body fat percentage isn't too noticeably different. I loaded up on calories from daily ice cream shakes with peanut butter and oreos - none of that low fat stuff! Those things pretty much kept me alive... living off thin soups and fruit juice is not fun, but I don't think I'll ever get sick of ice cream, peanut butter, or chocolate :Q Besides the obvious horrendous lack in variety of meal choices, though, not being able to talk really affected me negatively. I was always frustrated and impatient at not being to express myself (writing things down is a lot of work, time-consuming, and doesn't have the same effect). But! I went back to the hospital today and got unwired, so I'm ecstatic. Seems like I'm going to have more issues physically, though - it's kind of weird and hard to understand me some of the time, and I have to be careful because it hurts if I open too wide right now. And it actually takes a lot of effort to talk! Just let me go back to being a hermit lol.

Enough with the wall of text! Time to move on to the fun stuff. Good morning, smoggy LA.

summer breeze

Valentine's Day, more purchases, and chocolate-covered strawberries

♡♥♡♥ Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! ♡♥♡♥

Despite being single, I actually had a pretty great day, and I hope you all did as well! I'm in such a good mood that I decided to forgo doing my homework and brought out my camera and made chocolate covered strawberries :)

I started off the morning with a card + some money and chocolates from my mom hehe ♥ One of my favorites - the dark chocolate Ferrero Rochers! Dark chocolate is definitely becoming my obsession... I had a white chocolate-covered cake ball today and it was just way too sweet.



I am totally fine with being single, but man there were so many couples at school... My friends and I just complained to each other all day lmao. Fourth period came around and I already knew I wasn't getting any Valentine grams, but two of my guy friends made my day by getting me one! :D Kinda dumb I guess, but I really love surprise holiday grams; they're a nice, cheap way to be really thoughtful. You guys will never read this but I LOVE YOU GUYS HAHA. Here's the carnation it came with :)



After school I ran some errands and picked up this got2b Dry Shampoo and two Sinful Colors nail polishes in Cinderella (has the prettiest pink shimmer) and Nirvana. This is my first dry shampoo, so I may edit this post later with a quick review. I decided I may as well try it - it's only 99¢ at CVS/Rite Aid with a $3 off coupon! The nail polishes are on sale for 99¢ at Walgreens this week :)



I made an impulse decision to pick up some dark chocolate chips since I already had some really delicious strawberries at home (after seeing every 3rd person at school with some). When I got home, I found cards from my dad :)



And then I cut off the tops at the end to make them a little easier to eat :)



Hope you all had a nice day with your loved ones, be it a significant other or friends :)