I wanted to introduce another new series to Love Everything Lovely… I know, lots of new things happening with LEL lately, but I’m getting serious ya’ll. Gone are the days of me blogging once a month! I love blogging and striving for a lovelier life and hearing others loving my tips, so why not be more consistent and do what I love and am passionate about?!
Anyway, this new series I want to introduce will be every quarter: A Q&A series.
I love getting messages from ya’ll, whether it’s just comments or questions. So I thought why not share these questions I get and the answers to them in case someone else is wondering the same thing. It’s also a great way for you to get to know me on a more personal level!
So 3 weeks ago, I posted on my instagram story a box for you to submit your questions to me for a Q&A post. I selected only 10 of them to keep this post short and not drag it out tooooo long. Because I can definitely start getting a bit rambly, especially since I just had an espresso shot before sitting down to write this post.
I am a delivery manager for a company that sells kitchens (Kitchen Search). What does that mean? I coordinate any deliveries coming to our warehouse from manufacturers, make sure kitchen cabinets are ready in time, and coordinate all deliveries that need to be sent to customers. In between all of that, I work closely with our warehouse team and sales team to make sure operations are flowing efficiently and effectively from the beginning of the customer’s purchase to the end.
We met at our church here in Philadelphia (Word of Life Church). At the time, he was the youth treasurer and I was in charge of putting together snacks and little sandwiches for our youth gatherings. In order to buy all the snacks, I needed to go to him to get the funds to buy everything. And if we’re being honest, now I still go to him to get the funds to buy what I want 😜
We started spending more time together in our church’s kitchen as I would clean up after the gatherings and our little relationship basically developed there.
Read about how he proposed here (SPOILER: He gave me a ring AND A CAT!!!).
We had a two-part engagement shoot, see part one & part two.
That is true, and girl I commend you for sticking to your budget! 👏
I would recommend you purchase the Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum for the following reasons:
– it’ll keep your skin hydrated throughout the night, & it’s so good that you might get lucky & not need a day cream!
– it helps with aging
– perfect for any skin type
– adds radiance
– prevents dull skin
– helps with uneven texture
– calming, so it helps with redness
I just absolutely loooove this product and have repurchased it over and over again!
P.S. If you love skincare, you’ll enjoy reading my Skincare Routine & 4 New Skincare Products I’ve Added to My Routine.
Ok, honestly… I’ve been pretty bad about waking up early the past few weeks…
I fell off my routine after our trip to Belarus and just haven’t really been prioritizing my morning routine as much lately.
BUT, when I did wake up early, the following worked for me:
ONE, I would leave my phone in the kitchen rather than on my nightstand. This made me get out of bed in the morning since I had to shut off my alarm.
TWO, just knowing how much better my mood and my day is when I have a good morning compared to a morning where I’m running late and don’t have time for myself.
Check out my post on establishing a good morning routine here.
Oh my goodness, I looove watching Taylor from Little Blonde Book garden too! So awesome to hear another person following + loving her!
I am definitely not an expert on gardening by any means! Instagram just makes me look like it sometimes haha.
Last year was my first time testing out my green thumb. I decided to start small and plant herbs (I didn’t even venture out into growing flowers at that point yet). I mean, how hard can growing herbs be, right?! Also, my parents had experience with gardening so they helped me to prepare my little garden space and clean it up so I can plant parsley, rosemary, sorrel, and some other herbs.
It was super easy so this year I thought I’d get a little more advanced. So I planted some cucumbers and zucchini. They are still growing so I can’t call it a success yet, but I do see my zucchini plant leaves peaking out from the ground now so I’m praying that that’s a good sign!
I also wanted to venture out into flowers this year too. I have a hydrangea bush that has been in my front yard from when the previous owners lived in our home and last year I just watered it almost daily and it survived. So I figured since this hydrangea bush seems to be doing well, I’ll just plant more hydrangeas in our yard. And that’s exactly what I did this spring since I’ve seen the original hydrangea do really well. Hopefully my new hydrangeas survive too haha.
My advice if you don’t have anything growing yet: take a look at what is thriving in your neighbors’ yards and plant it in your yard too since it seems like it’s doing well in your location & climate!
Send me an email or direct message if you have additional questions!
I’m so glad this was asked! I’m actually working on posting a hair care routine blog post next week so keep an eye out for that!
In the meantime, I will tell you this: I wash my hair every single night! I know a lot of people don’t wash their hair so often, but I do and it’s what works for me!
LOL! This is actually a quite common reaction to anyone that comes over our house haha.
Honestly, I just love how clean and simple white is! Plus it really brightens up a space.
Also, deciding on colors is hard! So I decided to avoid having to decide between different colors by just choosing an easy way out and asking Charming to paint everything white!
If ya’ll have been following me for the past two years, you might’ve seen that we’ve been to 6 different countries in the past two years (plus a Miami vacay).
However, as you may know, traveling costs money, honey! And right now, Charming and I have some other goals we’d like to accomplish in 2019. So we decided that this year we’re going to slow down a little bit and focus on these other goals instead. We’ve had so much fun exploring the past few years, but this year we want to buckle down a bit. Although I am trying to convince Charming to take me to Europe this year… hopefully I can be persuasive enough 😂
Check out some of my previous travel recaps:
Why yes I do! I used to edit all of my photos myself, but I wanted something a little more cohesive for my instagram feed and blog. A local blogger that I follow, Allison from The Savvy Camel, always talks about how she edits her photos with a preset from Dreamy Presets, so I decided to buy a preset from them as well. It’s totally worth it! Makes editing photos so much easier and you don’t have to think about it as much! I use the Dreamy White preset from Dreamy Presets.
So glad you asked!
At around 16 years old, I discovered the world of fashion and beauty bloggers and vloggers on the internet. After that, my life has definitely changed! I began to build an interest in beauty and fashion and, soon enough, I was obsessed!
Inspired by other bloggers, I wanted to create a blog to share my experiences and my growth in my passion. This was maybe 2010/2011-ish.
When all of this started, I was still in high school, actually home schooled. Because I was home schooled, I had a lot of time on my hands and experimented a lot with different forms of blogging. At one point, I even made YouTube videos. But then stopped.
My passion for beauty and fashion made me realize that it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life! I decided to explore what kind of careers I can get in the beauty and fashion industry! I began looking into cosmetology schools and was all set on going. I had already applied and went on interviews. However, because of finances, I had changed my mind and applied to Manor College for a degree in business management. My parents did not support my dream of cosmetology school. I couldn’t afford to pay for it myself and, because my parents did not support my dream, they didn’t want to pay for it either. They said they’ll pay for college, but not for cosmetology school. Therefore, I chose a degree in business management because I figured it could be a useful degree when opening up my own salon.
Throughout my highschool and college years, my self-esteem has been through so many highs and lows. And maybe one day I will be ready to share my story with that. But one thing that has been surprisingly helpful was the blogging world and the world of beauty and fashion. I know it might be surprising that such a materialistic and maybe even sometimes vain world/industry has helped me with my self-esteem. But it has. And it has inspired me to live my loveliest life. So now I blog because it’s changed my life and I want to inspire others to live their loveliest lives, not let the lows get the best of them, and just turn the bad days around.
That’s also why I named my blog Love Everything Lovely, because I love everything lovely 😉
I hope you enjoyed this Q&A post. Let me know if you have any additional questions either in the comments below or message me on instagram!
P.S. The skirt in this outfit was also styled in this post from SoHo NY. Check it out for tips on how to find & style a skirt for your body type.
♡ Alena
Welcome to Love Everything Lovely, a life & style blog filled with my take on living a life all around lovely and with the goal to inspire you to pursue your loveliest life! I’m Alena, a twenty-something with a heart full of passion for beauty, fashion, and always striving to live my best and loveliest life.