apartment wishlist // the living room

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It's on to the living room for this week's apartment wishlist! I have a feeling we will be spending the most amount of time in the living room, so it's important that it looks very cute and welcoming. In rainy Oregon, it will be important that we all have a place to hang our coats when we first come in, so this coat hanger from UO would be perfect. My friends and I are planning a huge IKEA run when we all get back together (my wallet is begging for mercy already), and I've been eyeing this bookshelf for a while. I already have a ton of books that I've acquired in Oregon, and I would love to properly display them. Speaking of making the living room more welcoming, this "apartment sweet apartment" doormat is literally perfect. Someone please buy this for me because it's so cute! this and that pillow look like they are a match made in heaven. I don't know what color couch we will have, so these bright, fun pillows may or may not go with a nasty college couch. Perhaps I should also search for a couch cover? And since we probably won't be able to paint the walls either, these butterfly wall decals are every college person's dreams. Also this photo hanger. We love printing out photos from our adventures together, and it would be so fun to have them all hanging in the common area. (I wonder how easy it would be to diy this?) And going off the colorful theme in the pillows, this rug practically has my name written all over it. In a perfect world, we would have a nice white couch, which would make this rug pop even more. Oooh I can picture it now ... Our freshman year of college, we all had white boards on our doors, so we could write each other notes. This noteboard from Modcloth would certainly keep that tradition alive! As for this road rug? Do I even have to explain myself. I want this because of reasons. Also it reminds me of when I used to play hotwheels with my little brothers, and I bet everyone would get a kick out of us having on of these. But back in the world of adults, we'll probably need a coffee table such as this one. So that our cars will have a real mountain to jump off of, obviously.

Hope you have a wonderful week!

film friday (on saturday): the great pacific

The Great Pacific from Lauren Parker on Vimeo.

Here's a new video I made for this installment of film friday (on saturday)! A couple weekends ago I went backpacking, and this is the motion result of it. I have yet to edit and process the photos I took on this trip, but they are at the bottom of my to-do list as I actually have a bit of client work to do first (finally!). But for now, enjoy this little video. (Also, I must apologize for the dust spots ... they're really annoying me too. I need to get my sensor cleaned, but I'll have to wait until I get back to Oregon (and have money to spare) so that I can do it.

This is what I wrote when I first got back from the trip:

"I wish I could just be back on that perfect beach, away from the internet and competition and comparison and complicated life, away from all the people who live perfect lives, doing things I wish I could do and having things I wish I could have and being people I wish I could be, because on that beach, it was just me, my camera bag covered with sea spray, my wet, wind tangled hair in my face, and the entire Pacific ocean on my doorstep. I didn't have to worry about being the best or being the most outgoing or competitive, or having the most exciting life, all I had to worry about was shooting my film at correct exposure and finding the perfect seashell or the perfect swell of wave to capture on camera.

Sometimes I hate Alaska because of its seclusion from the world. I can't always go to cool photo or blogger meetups or see fireworks on the fourth of July or have perfect cell phone reception. There's always the option of running into bears while I take pictures, shipping costs just as much as products do, and some people do not understand how I can love eating fish so much (people actually don't like to eat fish? That's very odd to me).

But they say that Northwest is best, and Alaska is the most Northwest of them all. Despite what anyone else says, Alaska is literally the. most. beautiful. place. on. this. planet. Hands down. I don't care who you are. Alaska is as close to perfection as you will ever get. I can spend my entire life here and I won't even begin to make substantial thumb tack marks on the map. All I want in life is to explore this world, to explore every nook and cranny and meet all the people that walk upon it and suffer through the weather and hardships ... and then I want a beautiful home nestled in the mountains to return to, where I can lay down in a warm bed next to a man who loves me and will hoist the masts with me. But I think I'll start with my beautiful backyard of the most northwest of them all, because even in my hometown (as in, the place I'm currently living, since I never lived in my actual hometown for more than a few months) there are still places to be explored.

But man, take me back to that beach."

This is just one of many adventures.

I hope you have a marvelous weekend.

pajama day

pants/belt: target // shirt/boots: forever 21





Remember that one special week every year in elementary school, where kids could dress up for themed days and have contests for the best costumes? Oh yes, spirit week was probably my favorite week of the entire year, and you could guarantee I went all out. I think my favorite day of all was senior citizen day (that particular photo was taken in 2011. And yes, I have been a senior citizen many times. I've got this old person stuff down).





One of my other favorite days was pajama day, these pants are so comfortable that they doubled as my pajama pants. Hehe. I normally would never in a million years wear pants like this because I'm not comfortable wearing a loose cut, but they were only $10 (which was part of my 'back to school' clothing fund) and they also came with this belt (I always feel like I'm cheating the system when that happens), so I thought, "What the heck?" and got them. For this outfit, I paired them with something easy, my grey sweater. Two pajama-esque items? You can guarantee I was all for that. Of course, no one in my family liked my outfit, but I felt pretty awesome wearing it so that's all that matters. It will be fun coming up with other things to wear with this. I'm thinking maybe a white lace shirt, or even and orange or yellow shirt.



I hope you have a wonderful and safe Friday! What would you pair these pants with?

come out to sea

shoes: payless // everything else: forever 21 // photos taken by Matt




Ho hum. I hate wearing clothes that come from the same store (for no good reason either), but it couldn't be helped. I allotted some spending money for some back-to-school outfits, so the shirt, belt, and hat were part of that purchase. I got them all for $14 though, so I'm happy! I wanted to recreate this outfit that I pinned onto my outfit inspiration board, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! This shirt is now the closest thing I have to a striped shirt, so I'm already thinking up a ton of ways to style it. The hat I bought because I wanted one that I didn't have to bobby pin to my head so as not to fall off, like I had to do for my other hat. Random fact, I used to think that I looked awful in hats, and I was always so sad because I thought hats were the cutest thing. But then around my sophomore year of high school I thought, "Who cares if it doesn't look good? I want to wear hats!" And so I did. And now I love wearing hats.





Speaking of high school, you're looking at my au naturel hair. When I was a little kid, I used to have this super long, blond hair that curled into ringlets. Over the years it's darkened (obviously), but in an effort to reinvent myself for junior high (oh how I do not miss those years) I chopped off a lot of my hair and my ringlets have never grown back. From then on I straightened my hair because it was always short and did crazy things and that was the only way I knew to tame it, and more recently I braided my hair to get my natural waves managed. Well, my hair is finally starting to get long enough that it doesn't do (too many) weird things when it dries naturally. Now my already easy hair routine will become even easier, with me having to do literally nothing to my hair.




Wait, it's already Thursday? Where has the week gone? Hope you have a great rest of the week!