Mitch Monday: Button Down and V-Neck Uniform

Howdy Hey, Monday Monsters! Is this your first Monday back in the office after the holidays? Me too :) I'm a little sad to see the holiday season come to an end but I'm also excited to be back at work. It kinda feels like the first day of school! I have two more weeks at home and then I'm hitting the road for the winter recruiting travel season. I'm ready to get back at it!

Today on the blog, we see the return of one of my favorite features, Mitch Monday! I've gotten to spend so much quality time with bae over the break. He's been a super trooper by taking outfit shots for me while my blogger bfferboo has been on vacation. It's been a while since my last MM post, but I'm hoping to make it a more regular thing. Mitch has a wonderful sense of style. It's one of the first things that I noticed about him when we first started dating. DAMN, this kid knows how to dress himself. Swoon. I like discussing Mitch's thoughts on dressing and he keeps me on point. Not gonna lie, he's responsible for a third of my own outfits.

Learning the basics of style for men doesn't seem to be a thing. Why? My first thought is that maybe it's because dudes don't care as much. However, I think in general, humans enjoy looking good and feeling good about their appearance. This is not a concept that is exclusive to women. Maybe it's because dressing and shopping is a bit intimidating for men? There are so many choices! It seems less likely that young men would have opportunities to learn about what looks best for them the way young women do. AND I think it's just something that women talk about more often and shopping is a fun way for us ladies to spend time together. One of my goals with MM posts is to pass along information to other men based on Mitch's personal concept of style. His aesthetic centers around well fitting, classic pieces. He owns a handful of unique pieces, but for the most part, I think the clothes he has in his closet are clothes that could be in any twenty-something dude's closet.

So without further ado, Mitch's first style post of the new year! This overall outfit is a classic go-to for a put together, casual look. This richly colored button down underneath a well fitted v-neck sweater is absolutely on point. I love anything that can be turned into a uniform. You can mix and match shirts and sweaters to create an infinite number of looks. Mitch purchased this button down in 5 different prints and has this sweater in 2 basic colors. That's 10 different outfits! SO EASY!

For men, the only thing you really need to get right is the fit! This requires a significant amount of time in the dressing rooms up front, but once you discover brands and fits that work for your body, you're good to go! Although Mitch only shops once or twice a season, he puts a considerable amount of effort into hunting for his items. We try on ALL the pants when we're at the mall. For reals, I cannot tell you how long he's been searching for a pair of skinny jeans! I was SUPER EXCITED for him when he found these stunners at American Eagle. Mitch is a big guy with an athletic build. This can be quite challenging when it comes to pants. When you hit the jackpot, pick up at least 2!

That's all for now, folks! Dudes, if you have any specific questions, please drop a comment below! I'd love to consult with Mitch on behalf of any of your man style woes. Have an amazing week, friends! See you on Wednesday!

Sweater Express, exact
Shirt Old Navy, similar here and here
Skinny Jeans American Eagle, exact in Dark Rinse
Shoes Sperry Topsider, similar

Seattle Sunday

Yes. A Mitch Monday post about our Sunday afternoon. And to start things off, a picture of the most glorious Homegrown sandwich- portobello and goat cheese. I love this sandwich shop and I'm so glad there's one within walking distance from Mitch's apartment. To be clear- we drove. Because that's how we roll :D As much as I love travelling, I LOVE exploring Seattle. I try to fit in as many Seattle Saturdays and Seattle Sundays that my schedule will allow. This weekend included catching up with friends, yummy food and shopping with bae! We also visited Pike's Place together for the first time. Of course, we needed to get the obligatory Pike Place sign photos! How does Mitch make basics look so good? Ugh! He's also sporting his new spectacles. Super swoon worthy.

Super happy for the quality time with Mitch this weekend. Exactly what I needed before I get ready to hit the road again. Also! All of these photos were taken with my Nokia Lumia 1020. It's basically a camera with a phone attached to it. I've been using it for a month now and the quality of the images still impress me!

Guns and Planes

You guys! It's the last Mitch Monday before I'm actually reunited with Mitch! The end is in sight :) I really can't contain my excitement on this one. We've also reached the end of my blogging for our summer road trip! You thought I was going to post about it forever, huh? Anyways, one of the best things about being on a road trip is doing things on your own time. As bae and I were making our way back to Vancouver, we noticed a GIANT airplane on top of a building from the side of the freeway. You could also see a ton of different super cool looking planes on display. We made a last minute split decision to turn the car around and check it out. Totally worth it! Turns out, we were passing the Evergreen Air and Aviation Museum! We were too cheap to pay for tickets to go in, but it probably would have been worth it! We enjoyed taking a few minutes to check out the planes on display outside (for free!)

Fun fact about Mitch: His dream as a small child was to be a fighter pilot! In a lot of ways, I'm glad this dream didn't come true, but I'm always on the lookout for anything involving cool planes since I enjoy observing him enjoy them so much :) Also, I hope it's clear. But the guns I'm talking about are the ones on Mitch.

WOOT! See you soon, Seattle! There are a lot of things I look forward to during my one week at home before heading out for more travel and at the top of the list is getting back to taking outfit shots at my favorite spot, Mitch Monday posts NOT from our roadtrip and doing a photog collab with my favorite girlies :)

Crater Lake Blue

Hi Friends! Ah, it's been a while! I've been on travel for work for 10 days now. So far, I've been to 3 different schools, sourced through 5 career fair's worth of resumes, eaten A TON of yummy things and all in all, been having a blast. Not gonna lie though, haven't been getting as much sleep as I should. It's been confirmed, I have workaholic tendencies that tend to carry me through the wee hours of the night.

Road life has it's ups and downs. On the one hand, I have been meeting some incredible students and this is without a doubt what I should be doing with my career. It's a dream to get to explore these beautiful college campuses and learn about these tight knit communities. But, as you can imagine, being away from home for an extended period of time can wear down on you. Luckily, I've been able to bring AMAZING alumni and coworkers with me to each school and that has absolutely made all the difference. Special shout out to my former work mates/hella BFFs, Nick and Kasey. No joke, Kasey and Nick were in their pajamas sorting resumes with me until 2 AM the other night. Having a good support system is everything. I've also been feeling lots of love from my teammates. I miss seeing everyone on a daily basis at home, but we have a group chat on our windows phones and we send each other pictures, videos, and my favorite- choice quotes from candidates.

Currently, I'm hanging out in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my connection to State College. Thought I should take the opportunity to catch up on a little blogging with a Mitch Monday post! :) Mitch has been an awesome boyfriend through all of this, texting me words of encouragement and making time for long chats and skype sessions. We are no strangers to long distance, but it's still hard for me to be apart from him so it's appropriate that my first post in a while is just a slew of bae pics, haha.

For this week's Mitch Monday, let's revisit our beautifully blue visit to Crater Lake! I'm glad Mitch happened to be wearing a blue shirt on that day. Paired with his grey pants, all the photos of him are a cool monochromatic theme.

Totally swooning of these pictures of the bae right now. Apparently, he's been spending a ton of time at the gym in my absence. Totes looking forward to coming home to even bigger and better guns!

BLEEERRRRGGGHHHHH. Missing the big guy extra right now.

Also need to throw in this picture of Mt. Shasta. Mother Earth, you are amazing! Anyways, y'all! I have have just a couple more posts to share on the road trip and then I can get started on posting about my new travels around Texas and Durham!

Bae and the Bridge

On our way to Bodega Bay from Monterey, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was Mitch's first time and so obviously we had to pull over for some commemorative photos and obviously it totally deserves a blog post! I've never done so much solo travel with my s.o. the way Mitch and I have traveled during our time together. Mitch and I are have very different interests, we actually don't have a ton in common and our personalities are like night and day when compared. But we both love to travel! And I couldn't have asked for a better or more good looking adventure buddy.

We've found that consistent, quality 1:1 time is necessary for us to maintain a good balance in our relationship. I have this habit of wanting to constantly coordinate large group get togethers or planning different friend dates multiple nights in a row (I love a lot of awesome people!). And although I think it's totally healthy to have strong relationships outside of your s.o., I more often than not end up cramming my calendar to capacity, not leaving a whole lot of time for bae. It's too easy to take for granted spending time with Mitch when I get to see him every day. It took a lot of emotional work and patience on Mitch's part to help me come to that simple realization, but I know I'm a lot happier when I prioritize my time for the things that matter most rather than try to do everything I want to do in limited time frames. I'm super grateful we were able to find time for each other at the end of this insanely busy summer for this trip!

+1 to the Awesome Aussies that snapped this photo of us! I love travelling around with my 50D but it's so hard to consistently get a decent photo when you're handing off a giant DSLR to a nice stranger who doesn't typically use one. I always try to look for someone else carrying around a big camera but it's always a toss up. Gotta treasure the good ones!

Mitch looks like a Bollywood guest star in those aviators! I'm obsessed! I also love the fit of this green shirt on him. It's difficult to find slim cut shirts when your overall frame is so large, but we all know Mitch is the master of shopping!

Having long hair is crazy sometimes! I've stopped at this view point on several occasions and every time my hair just whips around like medusa on crack.

I find this outtake pretty funny! I think the guy in the background makes for a better picture :) Here's to many more trips over the Golden Gate bridge and many more adventures with the bae!

Baby Blue Bae

This weekend, Mitch and I went to Portland. I played in the Timbers corporate cup on Microsoft's coed team. We didn't have any subs so I played each game all the way through. One on Saturday and two on Sunday. I'm totally beat! But Mitch and I had a great couple of days discovering new noms and shopping tax free. All the tournament players received 50% off the Adidas company store so I got two pairs of tennis shoes and two pairs of running tights. I'm obsessed and can't wait to travel with them this fall!

Mitch picked up a few items for himself, including these beautiful baby blue Levi's! Mitch has a few requirements when he looks for pants. The most challenging attributes are that they are long enough and tapered in the leg. A bit difficult when you have his athletic build! But he got lucky at the local Nordstrom Rack. We need to find a better place to take photos but we always do it in the morning right before work so our little driveway will have to do for now!

This week is a CRAZY BUSY one. It's my last week in the office before our road trip and my insane Fall travel schedule. Looking forward to spending a little time with friends before the frenzy begins.

Tshirt Gap | Pants Levi's | Shoes Ashton Grey via DSW

Summer Whites

The first time I ever saw Mitch wear white pants, I actually swooned out loud. He added these bad boys to the collection last month. White's never looked so good! There's just something so SWAG about white shorts on a man. Mitch and I had a great weekend in Leavenworth this past weekend. It was way too hot to wear anything fussy so it was so nice to return to the cooler side of the state. I have two more weeks at home before Fall traveling takes over my life. Looking forward to enjoying as much time at home as I can.

Happy Mitch Monday!

Shirt APT 9 | Shorts APT 9

Rock & Republic

Welcome to the first ever style installment of Mitch Mondays! Mitch's intuitive personal style was one of the first things I noticed when we met. This was a guy that did not need help getting dressed or going shopping. Today's outfit is typical of his everyday. Mitch has a great understanding of how clothes best fit his body. He puts in all the work up front when shopping to keep his morning routine low maintenance. It usually takes a while to find a pair of pants that fit just right, but his patience almost always wins out!

Short and sweet to kick off the week. Happy Monday, y'all. Time to get it done!

Shirt Rock & Republic at Kohl's | Pants Levi's | Shoes Polo via DSW