Fridays are Back!

Happy Day-after-Christmas! As a christmas present to you all, I decided to post a Friday Favorites today! Nothing like waiting months on months... Leeeet's just get to it.

1. Paper Mate Flair Pens

I'm obsessed with these pens, and most if you know I'm very specific about my pens. These aren't even technically pens, they're a felt-tip marker pen. I just love the way they write and how smooth and bold and colorful they are. They make it easier to keep my color-coded life together!

2. Kimmel Stay Matte Foundation

This foundation is fantastic! And for the price, you can't complain. For just about $5, you get this tube of foundation that gives excellent coverage and a matte finish that stays all day.

3. ChromeCast

This little nugget is perfect for the broke college student who doesn't want to pay for cable. This is the Chromecast Streaming stick by Google. It streams sites like youtube, netflix, hulu, and others to your TV wirelessly from any device. My roommate and I cast our laptops and phones all the time!

4. Gold iPhone 6

This isn't anything special, but I upgraded my phone the week of thanksgiving to the gold iPhone 6, and I'm obsessed with it. Just thought I'd share.

5. Rebecca Minkoff Studded case for Case-Mate

I'm OBSESSED with this case. When I knew I was upgrading my phone, I started looking around for potential cases. When I bought my phone, they had the clear tough-case from case-mate in the store so I got it as a temporary case so my phone didn't get damaged. But I saw this case on the website and I fell in love. Well the other day, case-mate had an after-Christmas sale of 30% off with free ground shipping, so obviously I hopped on the chance. With tax it came to $26.50, so I really can't complain.

Finally Decorated

I finally did it, folks.
And by "it" I mean I finally put up some decorations in my apartment for Christmas!

It's not a lot, but It's a start. I plan on making a trip to Target on Friday because it's my day off and getting some smaller decor items and some Christmas-y place settings for my dining room. I also plan on fixing the tree because I was stupid and bought white wired lights for my green tree (not my best life choice). There will also be a butt-ton more ornaments on it. 

HOORAY CHRISTMAS DECORATING!!

FREEEEDOMMMM!

Thank the heavens, because I'm finally on Winter Break. This means, more me time, I now have time to actually decorate my apartment for christmas, and more blogging time (even thought I've lied to you about about like, 6 times)! Friday Faves are coming back and tomorrow I'm blogging about my new KITTEN.
EVERYTHING IS EXCITING.

It's (Almost) The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

IT'S OFFICIALLY DECEMBER PEOPLE.
I had a wonderful thanksgiving with my family and kept my tradition of watching the Macy's Parade as I have since I literally can remember. Now, it's officially the christmas season! So far the only decorations I have up are some icicle lights hanging from the doorway between my living room and dining room, and a small santa floor mat outside my front door. But don't you worry, we'll be decorated here at 503, and there will be plenty of pictures to share!
Also, I am also the proud owner of a brand spankin' new gold iPhone 6, and I'm in love. Kudos to you again, Apple.  

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I really don't think you guys understand how much I love this time of the year. Once Halloween is over and the calendar officially says "November 1"- I go full out holiday crazy. I was in Target (yes, my homeland) today getting a few necessities (shampoo, mascara, you know) and I happened to "stumble" (or maybe I made a beeline for) the holiday/seasonal section. Every time I hit an isle or end cap that had christmas decorations, I nearly had a heart attack. I already have a pretty extensive list made up of the different decorations I plan on getting, and it helps that I have my own apartment now and my roommate and I are both equally holiday crazy, which means our apartment will have christmas EVERYWHERE. We're ready to have a christmas tree up like, yesterday. 
What doesn't help is that I'm currently working on a production of A Christmas Carol in my department, so the holiday cheer started earlier than usual this year. 
If you guys already don't follow me on Pinterest and on my holiday Tumblr so you all can share my love for The Christmas season!

Let's Play Some Catch-Up

Oh hey, guys. Didn't see you there. I know we haven't talked in a hot minute.   Things. Have. Been. CRAZY.   Usually I don't mind being busy, but this semester has already been a struggle for everyone I know. Fall semester is usually a little but more relaxed, but not this year! Everything that I'm doing right now literally dumped on me all at one time. And it was terrifying. Now granted it's what I love to do, but it's A LOT. Besides being a full-time student, I'm the replacement Assistant Stage Manager in our first production of the season/semester because the first ASM (who is my roommate) had some conflicts with our tech week show week, and our SM knew I wanted to do it (which I now regret). And it's not that I don't love it, I do. I just don't have time for ANYTHING else between the show, work and classes. Like, I barely have time to do the homework for said classes. I'm usually up until at least 2 every night, meanwhile I have classes everyday at 9. 
But the exciting news is I got cast in our next production which is A Christmas Carol (insert heart-eyed emoji here). This is a show I've always wanted to be in, and I'm so excited to be apart of the cast. One of the super exciting parts of this show is we want to involve aspects of the community into the show and it's process, and with me being from the community and all, our director has made me Community Outreach Consultant (sounds fancy, doesn't it?). And part of my job is finding people to portray children of the town and parents/other adults to be carolers in the town. When he said that, I said "Hellooooo I have 30 kids that would LOVE to do to the show!". So a huge group of these kids are coming to audition for the community audition on Saturday and I couldn't be more excited to see my kids again..
I promise I'll try to start posting regularly from now on (or try at least)          

I Promise I'm Still Alive

So I do officially have internet in my apartment now (althought it sucks majorly because we have to reset the router at least once a day. But whatever, it's internet).   So let's play a game of catch up:   1. The first semester of my junior year of college started Monday. There are sooooo many freshman and it's terrifying because you're reminded every day how old you feel. They're literally EVERYWHERE.   2. I'm eventually adding my communications minor, but the chair of the department is never in when I'm free (story of my life).   3. My third and final roommate finally moved in last monday, and let's just say it's an adventure.   4. I have a newfound obsession with iced Carmel Macchiatos and I'm not totally sure why. I used to absolutely HATE them.   That's probably about it, so I'm just gonna sit on Buzzfeed and take some quizzes until I have to do some work. Be on the lookout for a new Friday Favorites this friday!! (I promise this time)    

I'm Alive!

So If you haven't noticed, I've been a little off the blogging grid for about a week and a half. The reasoning:
I finally moved into my new apartment!
Which means I have no internet for a while because the internet/cable company is ridiculous and can't hook up our stuff until the 15th. So in the meantime, I've been using the library (or any campus wifi), the food court in the mall where I work, (which doesn't stretch across the sidewalk to BBW, what the heck) and going to my parents house every few days so I don't burn up all the data on my iPhone. But as of Friday we'll have internet and I'll be able to post an apartment tour!

SUCCESS!

For such a long time, I've been looking everywhere on the inter webs for this phone case:

I wanted it for a couple reasons: 

1. It's Kate Spade.

2. It's my favorite shade of purple.

Well I missed it on the website, and I missed it during the last surprise sale, so the only places I could find it were amazon and Ebay and people were selling them for an arm and a leg and your first born child. But the other day as I was getting my hair touched up and waiting for the dye to set in my hair, I was scrolling through my Poshmark app, and I happened to come across this beauty:

THIS LISTING FOR $15 DOLLARS.

HECK. YES.

I literally can't tell you how pleased I am. Thank you poshmark!

Blogmo Quiz 3!

One of my favorite bloggers, Erin at Two Thirds Hazel, creates a blogger quiz every couple months that is like one of those cosmo quizzes that the cover girl fills out. And of course, I have to do every one of them. 
Enjoy!

I LIED

Soooo, I changed my url/blogname again. And this time it's sticking. 
After some thinking about "Ophelia Jade", I realized it was cute, but not sure if I could fit it well enough to my blog. 
So "The Caffeinated Thespian" was born. Literally me to a T.

HAPPY ALMOST FALL

Soo, was casually browsing the Bath and Body Works website (not like I don't know what we sell), and I was looking through the candles page when suddenly:

THE FIRST FOUR OFFICIAL FALL FUCKING CANDLES.
I literally almost cried because I'm so excited. Pumpkin Cupcake and SCP and my fall jams. I will be for sure buying at least two of each when we bring them into stores. Hollaaa (here's a tip, when 3-wick candles are 2 for $22, every additional candle after the initial 2 are going to ring up as $11, which brings you to  $33 before your locations tax. If you use a $10 off $30 coupon, you're basically getting a free candle. You're welcome)

NEW URL!!!

After months of wanting to change my blog name/url and everything I wanted being taken, I came across this gem: 

As I looked up the words that matched my name (A for ally, 29 for my birthday), I remembered how obsessed I was with my hippie name when I saw this a while ago. That's when I thought, "Hey, if I can't use my real name, let's use my hippie name"

So Ophelia Jade it is <3

B&BW Struggles

My name is Ally, and I'm addicted to buying candles. 

The source of my problem is working at Bath and Body Works (hello seasonal candles, and hello employee discount).  I'm super picky about my candles too, which makes it a little easier because I know I won't buy them all the time if there's not a scent I like. But the seasons that get me are Fall and Winter, 1. because those are seriously the best scents ever; and 2. I'm obsessed with the holiday season. From now until January you'll see me glued to the Holidays category on Pinterest look at cute decorations and recipes (especially since I'm moving into my own place!)
The other day, I was at a mall about an hour from me (which is kind of a sister mall to the one I work at because they're owned by the same company; Simon Malls, if any of you have malls or Premium Outlet centers near you) because they're the closest mall to me with a Victorias Secret/PINK/Forever 21/Vera Retail, and I had a gift card and coupons I wanted to use at PINK. I happened to stop into their BBW so see how much sale product they had left, and was surprised to find out that they had all of the new "Fresh Picked" for the later summer season out of the shelves already (we hadn't put ours out yet). So of course I had to buy this gem: 

Because HELLOOOO, why not make my house smell like fall 2 months early! I will for sure be buying another mason jar and probably a three-wick soon, along with a Farmstand Apple or 2 (because It's probably one of my all time favorite some scents that we sell). But don't worry, I'll keep you all posted for the FALL SCENTS COMING OUT SOON <3

(PS: Yes that is a pencil cup filled with dry pasta next to my candles. For those of you who don't know, dry noodles make good candle lighters, because if you stick the end of a noodle into a flame, it will grab some of the flame so you can safely light your candles without having to turn the candle upside down or worrying about burning yourself with the flame of your lighter if you currently don't have a candle lighter. Watch out though, because you can't move the noodle far without the flame going out!)

Is This Growing Up?

As I go into my junior year of my undergrad, I'm trying to pick out grads schools early so it doesn't become like picking colleges all over again (i decided to stay at my hometown university at the last possible second for various reason that I regret). I'd been looking at schools in Chicago (my dream city), but there was always one school that caught my eye and I always had wanted to apply there. 

I love the area that this school is in, plus I have family in Texas, so I won't be totally alone. They have a great undergrad theatre program, and their out-of-state tuition is about what I'm paying here at home (yay for Texas, or boo for Slip?). So as I was randomly browsing the inter webs as usual, the thought popped into my head to check out their grad programs and guess what,
THEY HAVE EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.
It's fucking fate, you guys.
So here's to growing up?

Why Are You a Thing?

You know what frosts my cookies? When a URL on this god forsaken blogging platform is taken, but it's literally an empty page.  I've been wanting to change my blog name for a while, and I think I finally settled on my name, Ally Nicole. But both allynicole.blogspot.com and ally-nicole.blah blah blah are taken, and they're both just empty shells of blogs. WHY. Google/blogger needs to filter these things out. If you don't use your page for X amount of time, they should disable page so those people that would actually use the name can use it.  Rant over. There will be a regular post tomorrow. xx

High Five for Friday!

So I've been a little hesitant to writing another Friday Favorites post, and here's why.
Recently I've fallen in love with a blog I came across, and she does a friday link-up that I love. The blogger is Lauren Elizabeth and she's a lifestyle/fashion blogger. She does a link up every friday called High Five for Friday, where you list 5 of your favorite moments/things from the week. I thought this was a lot cooler than the FF posts only for the fact that there's more variety. 
So without further ado, onto the five!
1. On tuesday, I went to the doctor by myself for a physical. I don't think you realize how big of a deal this is for me I HATE going to the doctor, even for the simplest things like a simple physical. Drs just give me anxiety (but let's be real, what doesn't?) I was so proud of myself.
2. Last summer I worked at a Claire's as a third key holder (one step under an assistant manager, other companies call them sales leads). Well whens school came around again in the fall, I didn't really have time commitment for the position, so i quit and stuck with my sales job at B&BW. Well this summer they needed help and I wasn't really getting a lot of hours at BBW so I decided to jump back on the Claire's team and Monday was my first day back. Now, I knew that I would remember a lot, but It was literally like I never left. It felt like I was just there like, Friday. On the bright side, more monaayyyy.
3. For those of you that don't know, I want to be a stage director when I get out of school. I even plan on going to grad school for directing when I finish my undergrad at SRU. This summer I have the opportunity to co-direct children's theatre at the park I grew up at with one of my best friends and I couldn't be more excited. We had our auditions on Wednesday, and I literally almost cried because I was so happy. It was that moment where everything about my future clicked.
4. Also the casting happened that night, and it was a challenge. But it was so worth it. 
5. I had taco bell for the first time in like, a month yesterday, and it was glorious. 
Happy weekend, lovelies!
(join the link up too by clicking the button I added to my sidebar!)

Newest Guilty Pleasure

You know that moment when there's nothing good on TV after you just watched a Sex and the City mini-marathon, so you decide to watch the next mini-marathon after it? Well that mini-marathon happened to be Total Divas. I'd seen the commercials for it before and I figured it was just like every other crazy reality show on E!. But I kept watching it, and it actually wasn't what I expected.  The show revolves around some of the ladies of the WWE world, other wise known as the Divas of the WWE. These girls are trained wrestlers, and I give them major props. But even though they are these athletic superstars, they're actually some of the most humble and caring athletes I've ever seen. In the season finale, the Divas were participating in Wrestlemania, and they were legitimately terrified and nervous. And being a performer myself, there's always the saying that if you're not nervous, then you're either extremely cocky or you're not doing it right.  I honestly can't wait for the next season, but for the time being, I still have whatever Real Housewives is on.

Candle Mini Haul

And when mini, I mean mini.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Bath and Body Works candles? Working there definitely doesn't help, since there's times where there's nothing to do and I just stand at the candle wall smelling my life away. Recently, we came out with our summer scents that went along with our new summer fragrance, that came out, and this Sunset Beach scent is TO DIE FOR.

I bought the candles in the Minis (3 for $10; shameless plug) because I wasn't entirely sure how it was going to smell when it burnt because we hadn't burnt it in the store yet. Now I know that I need to buy the 3-wick because it made my bedroom smell fabulous. 

It's a sweeter smell, more fruity than the other scents that came out in the candles. The three scents they focused on for this candle was pineapple, papaya, and sugarcane. I know what you're thinking, "That sounds like straight up sugar in a candle." But it's not as overbearing as you would think. It's actually a very fresh scent when it burns and doesn't give you a headache like a lot of sweeter smelling candles do. 

It's 5'oclock Somewhere!

We all know that Pinterest is good for more than just home decor inspo and Holiday ideas (my personal favorite). There's always tons of fabulous recipes for food, desserts, what have you. My favorite recipes are the drinks though. Being 21, i can now legally consume and purchase alcoholic beverages, and it also obviously means that I can buy the mixings to make cocktails at home. I have a whole board on Pinterest dedicated just to different drinks, but here are a few of my favorites! (Links to pins in the captions!)

Sparkling Peach Sangria

Mango Sunrise

Hippie Juice

Fish Bowls

Happy Drinking!

HI IT'S ME AGAIN

I know, I know. Blogging twice in one day is a little much for me, especially since I lately I'm lucky if I blog once a week. But I have exciting news:
SAME SEX MARRIAGE HAS BEEN MADE LEGAL IN THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

I don't think you understand how truly happy I am with this progression of equality. Not only can a large portion of my friends now legally marry in this state, but as an openly bisexual woman I can have more freedom when it comes to marrying whomever I fall in love with (assuming I stay here long enough to get married anyway.)

HAPPY DAY!!!

Sometimes We're Pretty

This morning, I was browsing through my Facebook, and I came across something kind of nice. One of the Facebook pages for an office on Campus posted this video that was clearly made in the fall (judging by the color of the trees) of our tiny little campus (which is actually the biggest campus in the entire state system). There weren't any words, just different videos pans that went over all the areas of campus. And it was actually beautiful. I've never seen our campus look better. I was actually proud for about .2 seconds, then I realized what I was looking at. (Don't mind my bitterness of SRU, I love my friends and my department, but being from the town I'm honestly a little sick of it)

RETURN OF THE FAVES!

Hooray! Your regularly scheduled blog friday post is back in action! Most of the things on my list this month were no brainers, but I felt necessary with the summer approaching. 

| MOUNTAIN DEW BAJA BLAST |

YOU LITERALLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY I AM THAT THIS PRODUCT IS NOW IN STORES FOR MASS CONSUMPTION (although I wouldn't recommend drinking a lot of this at one time). If you don't know, Baja Blast is a Mtn Dew flavor that was trademarked by Taco Bell yeeeears ago, and they very recently decided to share this delicious soft drink with store shelves. I was thrilled by the first real bottle that I saw (and obv. bought).

| ALL OF THE ICED COFFEE |

It's hot. I need caffeine. Duh.

| E.L.F TINTED MOISTURIZER |

In the summer time, you want the least amount of makeup on your face because let's face it, if you're sweating, all that product on your face feels 10x heavier than it actually is. I love this TM because it works just as well as the $10-20 versions, but only costs you THREE DOLLARS and you can pick it up at your local target! Us broke college students can actually afford that shit! (one of the many reasons why i love e.l.f. products)

| WATER |

For whatever reason, Smart Water is my favorite brand (I know what you're thinking, "it's just water..."). But whenever I get a bottle of this stuff (especially the bottle with the sport top) I drink it 10x faster than any other bottle. But the point being is, it's summer time, it's getting hot, and you need to STAY HYDRATED!

| OLAY FRESH EFFECTS DEW OVER MOISTURIZER |

After I wash my face at night, I always have to put moisturizer on my face. I'd been using the Clean & Clear Dual Action on my face for a long time, but I felt like I needed the change (plus I think my skin was starting to get a little dry from using it all the time). I saw this product in my local drug store, and I had to try it. I love the Olay fresh effects swirled face soap (I mentioned it in a previous FF) so I knew I'd like this product, and I wasn't wrong. It's actually a gel-based cream, so it doesn't dry your skin out at all like a lot of moisturizers do. 

Happy Weekend!

Desk Obsession!



Is anyone else obsessed with seeing what's on other peoples desks? No? Just me? Well whatever. It's like those darn "What's in my bag" posts. They both are my absolute favorite kinds of posts. I always love browsing the "desk/office idea" tag on pinterest. It's one of the rooms that I want to pay special detail to when I get my own home, especially because a lot of my work is computer based (blogging, designing, etc...)

(all pictures taken from pinterest)

I also think my weird obsession stems from my other weird obsession of organizing things. Not that it's a bad thing!

I SURVIVED

So this week wasn't as productive in the blogging sense as I expected it to be. I somehow got roped into doing crew work for the last small show of the semester, so that took up my evenings monday, tuesday, and wednesday, and then I was working on finals thursday and friday. But now I'm officially done with my sophomore year of college, and I couldn't be prouder of everything I've accomplished this semester. From two MainStage shows, to the progress I've made as an actor, to how much I've done academically at the same time, I'm pretty pleased with how this semester turned out. 

Now I can focus on working so I can actually have a substantial amount of money and stop living paycheck-to-paycheck for a while, and co-directing the kids musical with one of my best friends. Then in august I get to move into an apartment with two of my best friends and I couldn't be more excited. 

But more importantly... SLEEP.

Time for a Change?



Where the heck did the past four months go? As we come to the end of April (and the end of the semester), I can't help but feel that change is in order for my life. And nothing even totally drastic- just simple things.

For example, I've been throwing around the idea to change my blog name/URL for a while now, but I can't think of anything that doesn't sound ridiculous. I want something simple, I even thought of going back to just using my name like I do on every social media platform that I use, but I feel like a blog name should be creative. 

It's the little things like that that can make a person feel refreshed in the weirdest way. It kind of just lifts your spirits and you feel more productive in life.

But then there's changes on a bigger scale, like your academics. Being a theatre major, I'm only given so many options in career choices. Granted, there are a lot of specific jobs (doing design work, stage managing, acting), but they're very hard to find even when you know where to look for them. Theatre is a SUPER competitive field. I'd always been toying with the idea of declaring a minor, and I always wanted to do psych. But when I really thought about it, a minor in communications would be perfect because there are a lot of theatre people who studied communications in their undergrad problems. So I think that this summer between semesters, I'm officially declaring a communications minor to accompany my Theatre major. (Hooray!)

Happy Spring, lovelies!