25 Random Facts About Me

In an effort to reintroduce myself to my readers as a part of my revamp of the blog I thought I'd write a post so you all can get to know me on a more personal level. I thought I'd go ahead and share twenty five random facts you probably won't know about me. 

1. I was born and raised in San Francisco. Ok so it's not a total secret, but I am a full-on San Francisco native. I don't know if I'm going to live here forever (because the rent is insane) but this city will always be the best city on Earth in my eyes. 

2. My favorite bands are The Beatles, Arctic Monkeys, The Cure, and the Strokes.

3. I have been to about 30 concerts in my twenty-two years on this planet.

4. I have attended a fair number of those concerts with my dad because he basically has the same taste in music as me. Sometimes it pays to have a dad that likes classic and alternative rock. 

5. Speaking of which, my dad and how he dressed as teenager has massively influenced my style as well. He is where I get my intense love of Levi 501s from. 

6. I studied history in college.

7. I have considered going to graduate school and potentially even getting a P.h.D in history at some point in the future.

8. My go-to drink is a Gin & Tonic. 

9. While I love a good G&T on a night out my preferred Saturday night consists of staying in, watching movies with my boyfriend, and doing a face mask. 

10. I have a Bernese Mountain Dog named Sam who thinks he weighs about 10 lbs when in reality he weighs about 125 lbs.

11. I am a natural redhead.

12. My hair is incredibly curly and used to be such a nightmare to brush when I was little that most attempts my mom made to brush out the knots usually ended in tears. 

13. Rainy days in the autumn and winter are my favorite. 

14. I actually really do not like summer (controversial I know).

15. I have seriously considered moving to the U.K. or to Ireland at some point in my life. 

16. I love doing my makeup every morning, but I hate doing my hair. 

17. My favorite book is Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.

18. My favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany's

19. I have been shooting film photography for five years. 

20. Getting a roll of film back from the developer is one of my favorite feelings. 

21. As much as I love the city, I also love being outdoors and going on hikes. 

22. My nicknames have ranged from Hannah Bob (thanks Dad), Hannah banana (pretty standard), and Hannah Montana (thanks middle school). 

23. I spend an embarrassing amount of time on Instagram (especially Instagram stories) and Pinterest. 

24. I hate running with a passion but will happily swim several miles. 

25. Writing is my greatest passion and the thing that keeps me the most creatively fulfilled.

A Blog Update & Rejig

As of this August I will have been blogging on this site for four years. I started this blog the summer before I left for college, mainly out of boredom since all my friends were on semesters and had left for college a month before I was set to leave. Over those four years this blog has been a space for me discuss whatever I am most interested in at the moment, which has primarily been focused around beauty and makeup. The past few months, as I've been leaving college and moving back to San Francisco, I have realized how much time I want to dedicate to this blog, and now that I am no longer in school I will have more time to do so.

With that said, I have realized that having almost four years of content (albeit sporadic) on this blog has made it feel cluttered and far from focused or streamlined. Overall, the majority of the content on this blog doesn't reflect what I want this space to be anymore. I wrote a post a little over a month ago about how my beauty philosophy has changed, and how I don't get as excited about makeup or beauty nearly as much as I did when I started writing this blog. That's not to say I'm not interested in beauty anymore, its just not my sole interest that I want to discuss on this blog any more. Being in my early twenties and living in San Francisco opens a lot of doors in terms of the type of content I can provide for my readers. I am the most interested in fashion I have been in a few years and have been more and more antsy to share that passion on this space. I also want to show you San Francisco and all of the things I enjoy doing here as a local, which is something I've already started to do with my month in film series. And then there's moving, which I feel like can provide a lot of lifestyle and interiors related content. There will still be beauty content here and there but it will most likely consist of things I'm loving at the moment rather than single product reviews or makeup looks I enjoy wearing. There will be more of a focus on how fashion, lifestyle, interiors, and beauty intertwine with my everyday life, which is inline with the name that I've had for this blog from day one. 

Overall I've come to the conclusion that I need to start fresh on this space so I can really make this feel like my blog again and not like 19 year-old Hannah's blog. I've always valued the advice that you should write a blog that you would want to read, and when I go through my blog archive I don't want to read a lot of the posts I read two or three years ago. That's not to say I hate the old posts on my blog, because I definitely don't. If anything it's more that I don't feel like that content represents where I'm at as a 20-something or what I want this blog to be going forward as I aim to grow it and produce more and higher quality content. I have therefore decided to make the content basically up until the beginning of 2017 private, so I won't be deleting it, it just won't be available to see any more. Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll want that content to be visible again, in which case I will make it view-able to the public again. 

Going along with this whole theme of refreshing this blog I have also moved my blog over from Blogger to Squarespace because I thought it was time for a change in the look of my blog. My blog is still quite minimal looking, but hopefully looks more streamlined and I think is more representative of my personal style at the moment. In the upcoming months I'm going to continue to work on the design of my blog in order to make it the best-looking site it can be (albeit with my limited web design skills). 

I hope that you guys will stick with me through this transition and I am so excited to channel all of my excitement and inspiration towards this blog to make it what I really want it to be both for me and my audience. 

My Month in Film | June 2017

It's safe to say that this past June was one of the most hectic months in my life to date. Between finals, graduation, graduation parties, moving back home to San Francisco, job interviews, and unpacking I have been thoroughly overwhelmed. That being said, June was also packed with some really fun and exciting moments, some of which I have captured for this month's month in film post. 

At the very beginning of the month a few friends and I went wine tasting for the day. We were lucky enough to go to college near an amazing wine region and spent the day trying to understand wine all while having moments of laughing so hard we were near tears. Easily one of the best days spent before graduation.

Took a trip out to Montaña de Oro, a state park in California, with some of the best views of the ocean. 

Gave my boyfriend a photography lesson at Montaña de Oro and he insisted on taking a few pictures of me. I could not stop laughing through the process. 

One of the best things about coming home has been being reunited with my cat Bailey. She has been so needy ever since I got back and will hardly leave me alone, to the point where she follows me around the house and insists on sleeping right next to me every night.

Spent the day out wandering around the city with my best friend in San Francisco. It was so fun to have no plans and just walk around the city with no particular destination in mind. 

I've been so happy to be back in a big city again. There's just so much more to do here and so many different kinds of people. I missed San Francisco so much. 

A wander through the Ferry Building despite it being a current tourist haven at the moment.

An incredibly dorky picture next to the Bay Bridge, you'd think I was a tourist from this shot ;)

My favorite skyline ever...

My Thoughts on Graduating from College

Three years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a post all about my first year of college and in some ways I feel like it was yesterday that I was sitting at my desk in my freshman dorm writing that post and in other ways that feels like a lifetime ago. Overall, I completely believe that the past four years have been some of the best years of my life. But more so than that, they've been some of the most pivotal and challenging years. Beyond the academics, I have been pushed out of my comfort zone so many times in college and I am totally grateful for that.

With graduation being in the incredibly near future (six days as I'm writing this to be exact), I've been consciously taking advantage of being in this town and being with my friends. I think its being so present with my friends and not letting days go to waste that is making me even more emotional about the upcoming life change. I've had more fun and done more in the past school year than I probably have for the last two years in college. I'm realizing how much free time I have, how few responsibilities I have, and how much I am going to miss the dynamic that me and my friends have being at this stage in our lives.

This isn't all to say that I'm not ready to graduate, I absolutely am. I am also incredibly excited that I am moving back to San Francisco, which is my hometown and in my opinion the greatest city on Earth. I'm also incredibly lucky that most of my friends are moving to San Francisco, so I don't have to say too many goodbyes. It's still incredibly hard to close a chapter. As excited as I am to graduate and move back to my favorite city, it's hard not always knowing what's next. I have always loved going to school and its going to be incredibly hard to not have that to be looking forward to next fall. I'm excited to get my career started and hopefully this blog will be a cornerstone of my career, but its hard to not feel like life is going to be moving very fast after I turn that tassel to the left.

My Month In Film | May 2017

In an effort to get back into photography, I've committed to shooting at least one roll of film a month and I have decided to share said film at the end of every month in a blog post. All of these photos were shot on an Olympus Mju ii, which is my new favorite camera. May was quite a full month, albeit a very fun one. In the lead up to graduation in two weeks (*screams internally*) I've been trying as much as possible to take advantage of being here and seeing my friends as much as possible. 

Took a spontaneous trip to the beach to watch the sunset, and while part of the coastline blocked the actual sunset, the sky was beautiful.

The weather was absolutely amazing for the whole month and since its been so rainy in California for the past couple months it was nice to take advantage of the sunshine and go to the beach.

For my birthday my boyfriend bought us tickets to go to Disneyland for the day. One of my best friends and her boyfriend also live in LA so they came with us. It was the first time I had been to Disneyland in years and I want to go back already!

Some friends and I took a weekend trip up to the Bay Area (where I am originally from). We basically spent the whole weekend relaxing on the beach, eating, playing card games, and paddling around in the water. It was one of the most relaxing weekends I've had in a while and I don't think I've cried from laughter more than I did that weekend.

One of the things I will miss most about college is going to my favorite coffee shop to do work, good thing there are plenty of good coffee shops to go to once I move back to San Francisco.

My best friend and I did a little shoot during one weekend for graduation pictures. We seriously lucked out on both the scenery and the fact that we went right at peak golden hour.

Peony season is well and truly here and I could not be happier about it! Also that stack of books is a mere representation of the amount of books I have from my time in college. I really don't want to get rid of any of them (especially since grad school is still an option at this point) and they hold a lot of sentimental value oddly enough.

My boyfriend and I took a day trip to Santa Barbara the other weekend and it was so nice to get out of town. Santa Barbara is so gorgeous and it was so nice to walk around and see more of the town. We also went to an amazing pizza place called The Lucky Penny, would definitely recommend if you are going to Santa Barbara.

... And of course we had to make a stop at the Santa Barbara Mission while we were there.

My bedside table is one of my favorite parts of my room and I am loving reading this book by Joan Didion at the moment.