Weekly Review!

Howdy ya'll!

Long time no talk! Lots of stuff has been going on here in my life so it has been awhile since I have last posted. If you haven't already noticed the blog is looking oh so pretty and I couldn't be more excited! I couldn't do it without my lovely new friend Sarah from WittyYoungThing! You should all check out her blog for me!! Anyways so I did this post a few weeks ago for the first time and I just really liked the structure of it and I got good feedback from you guys, so I will be continuing this weekly post! So once again life took me for quite a spin this past week after recovering from my schools prom which I ended up getting asked to less than a week before the dance itself so you could say stressful! I am only a sophomore so I went with a junior to prom and it was so much fun! My dress was a dark purple color and it was long and I was just so obsessed with it. I had so so much fun and I am so looking forward to my junior and senior prom these next two years. The music was great and the pictures ended up looking amazing so I will attach some pictures from that amazing night!

Along with prom, I have been working on wrapping up my sophomore year of high school and boy is that crazy to think about. Time truly flies and everyone needs to make sure that they are taking advantage of everything whether you're a senior or freshman, just enjoy the moments because I guarantee you that you will miss it. So with finishing up school always means lots of tests and exams and papers and you know all the stuff that pretty much makes you hate school...."just push through it" I keep telling myself, "You're almost there" I am so excited for summer which I am sure just about everyone else could agree with me on that statement. I also got hired to work at a pool nearby this summer as a lifeguard which mean PAYCHECKS WHICH MEANS SHOPPING WHICH MEANS HAPPY HAPPY KAIT! Along with getting a job I also got my license which is super crazy that I can just go to the grocery store or Target whenever I want....which doesn't help my bank account whatsoever but, I mean I totally needed another pack of Sharpie pens....Anyway, so since I am 16 and I don't have a job at the moment the whole showing you what I bought portion of this weekly update will unfortunately will be retired until I actually have money to spend on exciting things. I really haven't been doing anything very exciting this week so this post is probably slightly boring and lengthy but I want to get back into a habit of posting at least once a week! In addition to my school day I also decided to take on a new type of project. Relay for Life! Holy cow, I have never felt so happy about being able to give back to my community. I can honestly say that it is one of the best expirences I have ever had. Being able to give back is just the greatest feeling and knowing that the hard work I am putting in is helping so many people. I think I will be doing a whole post after the event about what it is and you can get involved and show lots of pictures of the event itself. Super excited to see what the rest of my sophomore year has in store for me! You guys make me so happy and I am so happy that so many of you come back week to week just to read about my life and I couldn't be more grateful. My final little blurb in this post will be that ADashOfKait turns a year old on May 10th and I just can't contain my excitement for everything I have in store for you all! Including two upcoming giveaways!! I wouldn't be here without yalls support and I cant thank you enough! This is been such an exciting year and I can't wait to see what blogging and youtubing holds for my future!!

so much love!!

xox-

Kait

CONSTRUCTION

Hey ya'll happy Friday! I usually would be posting my week in review but I will be spending the majority of this next week or so working on giving A Dash of Kait a facelift! I am really starting to get more into blogging and I am trying to brand it well and so I am going to be changing the setup soon so just expect change and remember change is good!

Love you all,

XOXO-
Kait

A WEEK IN REVIEW

Good Morning lovely followers and Happy Sunday-

I am currently on my spring break and enjoying this week in beautiful Hilton Head, South Carolina! For todays post I will be talking about my week and what I did this week, what I bought and thinks I liked and I will for sure be attempting to do this post once a week meaning that I will now by trying to post two times a week! Okay so this week for me was only a three day week! On Monday and Tuesday I was at my schools FBLA state leadership conference where we ended up placing first in our category which qualified us for nationals in Chicago this summer! SO when I got back from that it was already Wednesday and I had received a package in the mail with my order for my favorite website (pikoshirts.com) I am obsessed with PIKO tops so for spring break I had ordered myself a PIKO dress! I ended up getting it for around $21! You can find all sorts of PIKO tops on here too. They have the long sleeved, 3/4 sleeves, short sleeves, v-necks, boatnecks, & all different colors and they are all reasonably priced! So I highly recommend checking this site out!

So when I got back on Wednesday I had to start packing for spring break! I packed a lot of stuff and I am sure that you guys can understand the serious problem of being an overpacker. I can't help it I just always bring more than I would ever need. I would include a list of things I packed but I feel that posting packing lists for spring break is kind of irrelevant now because most people are already on their spring break! So I will skip over that for right now. While on my business trip I had bought a lot of stuff at Target before I left including knee high socks covered in pineapples and then dried strawberries. First off the socks were so stinkin' cute and myself like the rest of the blogger world are currently obsessed with the pineapple fad that seems to be going on so why not start the collection of pineapple items with some super cute high socks. THEN I went to the health food aisle and I saw dried strawberries. WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! Seriously love love love dried strawberries. They are so tasty and not to mention they are only 110 calories for the ENTIRE BAG! So good for you and so yummy. I had a pretty dull week filled with lots of school work and preparation for spring break after I got home so there really isn't much more to talk about in this weeks review! I hope you all had a good week and I hope that for those of you also on spring break that you are having a wonderful week and enjoy lots of quality time with your families!

Until next time, 

XOXO

-Kait 

MACARON DAY

Hi friends! Yesterday (for those of you who didn't know) was National Macaron Day!! And I got to celebrate by going into my city and going to the cutest little place called The Macaron Bar! For my friends 16th birthday we went to dinner and afterwards we then went to get some yummy macarons. We had so so much fun and I loved eating macarons. Here are some pictures from the fun night!

The Macaron bar was absolutely precious. It was small and modern and seriously so cute. It is located right here in downtown Cincinnati and I highly would recommend it! They had around 12 different flavors of macarons and I had at least 5 of them and they are some of the best macarons! What did you guys do for macaron day!?

Love you all!!

XOXO-

Kait

WHAT I WORE: SPRING SEMI-FORMAL

Hi guys! So currently editing my video I made of myself getting ready this day and I have been crazy busy with testing this week so I will try to have that up by Sunday!! This past weekend however I had my spring formal and it was seriously SO MUCH FUN! My dress is the JCrew Scalloped Dress and my shoes are from DSW and my necklace is from Francesca's! My friend Bella is wearing a Lilly Dress paired with her silver Jacks! I hope you all enjoy these pictures and keep an eye out for my Get Ready with Me video!!

Xoxo-

Kait 

HOW I HAVE DEALT WITH WHAT LIFE THROWS AT ME

So my last time I tried posting this I guess I really wasn't as honest with you all. So lets try this again....without further thoughts here we go. The start of my freshman year was a very confusing time period for me. I had transitioned from 8th grade which was by far one of my favorite years ever. I had so many friends and I just really will always remember that year as one of the best years of my life. I went into freshman year with the same people that I had ended 8th grade with. I was loving my life. I entered my freshman year just so excited to have sort of a fresh start and experience new things. Little did I know that my whole life as I knew it was about to go through the blender. I started off high school just very unsure of where my life was going I knew I had a good head on my shoulders and I knew that I was going to have a great year. This was very wrong. Very quickly I had began to lose the friendships that I had valued so much and I was so lost. I had depended so much on the other people in my life to make me happy that I was not sure how to be on my own. I quickly started to panic about trying to find new friends. I was not sure who to go to anymore and I just felt so lost and alone. With that I started to lose who I was and was just trying to fit in with anyone I could. I wasn't the girl that I once was. The girl who had passion and drive and dreams that were so big. I had used to love dressing nice and going to school and by halfway through my freshman year almost all of that was gone. I hated school. I put the minimal effort into everything and I was not the person that I was. 

About midway through my freshman year things had somehow managed to get even worse. I was so scared to be myself and my confidence was just so low that I really struggled with body image and how I saw myself. I turned to overworking myself and skipping meals to make myself look that way that I at that time thought was beautiful. This is not a light subject matter to talk about and I know that people have it a lot worse than I did but no matter what it changed me and mentally hurt me in more ways than one. After that had taken over my mind and body I was still worried about trying to fit in and find my "group of people" People in my grade had began being exposed to the whole idea of partying and drinking at some point during the year and I knew that it was wrong and I knew better than that so I usually would spend the majority of my weekends alone thinking about why I couldn't just be like everyone else. I can't remember specifically what night it was but I know it was in about April 2014 that I woke up from this nightmare that I had put myself in and just broke down. I couldn't believe that the girl I was at the beginning of the year was so far gone and that she was replaced with this zombie of a person who had no dreams or goals of any sort. And that night I had realized that something had needed to change.  

I went into my summer with an open heart and open mind about what I would be doing during the summer to help myself get back to the person that I used to be. I got a job as a lifeguard at a local summer swim club and I had met so many amazing people that had just accepted me for the person that I was. I didn't have to put on an act around any of them I could just go into work everyday looking forward to being there and with the people there. This positive outlook I had received everyday during the summer at work had carried over into my school year this year (sophomore year) It was also during the summer that I had been privileged in meeting an amazing group of friends. We spent lots of time together and I felt loved and included and happy for once. I was healthy and in a good state of mind. But all that from a glance seemed so perfect to me. I thought I had everything. I became even more dependant with making sure that the group of friends that I had established was always with me and we were always together but even in the past week I have learned that I don't think that I have found the right niche of people just quite yet. With everything that the past few years have thrown at me I have learned that I really need to try and always remain positive and the people that I was associating myself with were not always the support system that I was looking for and with that I turned a lot to myself. I took yet another step back and I said to myself that maybe instead of worrying so much about having a group of friends that I poor my heart into when I am not even sure if they feel the same way I need to choose several of the people that I know I care about and that I know care about me and poor as much as I can into those relationships. I cannot agree how true the statement is "I would rather have two amazing friends than a bunch of mediocre friends" Nobody needs to settle for anything less than what they deserve. I am not sitting here and telling you guys that I am perfect because boy, I AM IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM. But I am incredibly happy with where I am right now with or without having lots and lots of friends by my side I at least know that I will always have the selected group of people always behind me. 

I know that life can be really hard sometimes, especially for those of us in high school and even college. So many things are changing and people are different. BUT if there is one thing that I wish I could go back and fix would be trying to change who I was in order to be whatever the word normal means. Do I still today struggle with the whole friends thing? YES! In my life things are always changing and I feel that obviously I am still so young I have so much time to build relationships and find those amazing people that I know that I deserve in my life and I know that all of you reading this right now also deserve to be as happy as you possibly can be. Being happy is something that truly will never go out of style. So until next time, remember that things may seem awful at the moment but it is how you will deal with those things that will make you an even better person than you already are. 

If anyone ever feels alone or lost. You are not. YOU are loved. 

Xoxo-

Kaitlyn. 

JULIANA'S BOUTIQUE

Hi guys!! Recently I had applied to be a rep for this boutique called Juliana's Boutique and well what do you know- NOW I AM A REP FOR THEM! This is such a cool experience for me and I want to share the website along with my code that saves your 10% off your entire order!! its quirkykaitlyn and lowercase letters. Julianas has some of the cutest clothes and they are priced very well so you won't have to empty your wallet!! For those of you with spring dances/parties coming up you should definitely check them out!! So check them out and I hope you all enjoy your weekend!!

{http://www.shopjulianasreps.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=257}