It's My Blogiversary + Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link Up

If you read my first post, then you know the inspiration for me finally starting this blog was the death of my mom last August. One of the biggest lessons her sudden passing taught me is that we are not promised tomorrow and the perfect time to go after your dreams and start working towards accomplishing your goals is NOW. I only wish she was able to see it  because I know she would be so proud and love it. I thought the best way to celebrate is with a recap of some of my favorite outfits of the last six months. If you click on any of the pictures it will link to the original post. What's your favorite outfit? I would love to hear what you think!

Scroll down to link up in this weeks Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link Up

Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link-Up

I'm super excited to be hosting this link up. This link up is meant to be a way for bloggers to share their person style, connect with other bloggers, and gain new followers. Bloggers can submit a link to one of their fashion posts using the Inlinkz widget below. I will share a couple of my favorites on social media and in a blog post. Link up will open on Monday and remain open throughout the week.

Featured Fashionistas from last week's link up...

Fashion and Cookies

 Fashion and Cookies is one of my favorite blogs. I love the way Vale puts together outfits. Her style is amazing. This is mixing prints at it's best. I don't know if I would have ever thought to put these two prints together, but they look absolutely fabulous together. If you haven't check out her blog yet, you really should!

 

La Moumous

This dress is so gorgeous! The colors are beautiful and and it fits Moumous perfectly. And it was just recently her birthday so make sure you stop by and wish her a happy birthday!

I want to thank everyone who linked up last week and can't wait to see your outfits for this week!!

For this week, post your favorite outfit post of the week.

Rules:

1. Follow your host on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Bloglovin.

2. Use the widget below to link to a specific outfit post, not your homepage

3. Visit and leave a comment on at least 2 other links, preferably one from before and one after your own 

(This is the most important rule. The point of this link up is to network, become better, and help grow our blogs. The only way this will work is if we start by connecting with and supporting each other 

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Mahogany Closet Monday Fashion Link Up + Blue Tie Dye Maxi Dress

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

I want to wish all the mothers a happy Mother's Day. I know Mother's Day was yesterday, but I think we should be celebrated everyday anyway! :-) Hope you guys had a great day! I had a really great and simple day. It was also my first Mother's Day since my mom passed last August. The interesting thing is that I thought about it leading up to the day and was worried about how I would do, but the weight of it didn't actually hit me that day.  I didn't want to be a ball of tears all days, and I am thankful that that wasn't the case. Having reached that milestone I think I want to do more next year to actually celebrate her. And if all of that was enough today is my daughter 10th birthday. Her first double digits. Since her birthday is so close, I often spend Mother's Day weekend throwing a celebration for her. This year I will be taking cupcakes to her school today and having a little family celebration at the house and then I will take her and friends out to celebrate next weekend. So this way we both got to celebrate our days. :-)

About the outfit 

I said I was going to be all about the maxis this spring/summer and you see I wasn't playing. There was the striped one I wore here, the black one I wore here and the orange one I wore here. Yeah, I know, I know, I may seem a little obsessed. LOL This dress was from the online clothing boutique that I used to have. I had it for years, loved the dress but it took me a little while to figure out the right shapewear situation to wear under to make it work since it is so fitted. I still have a bunch of clothes left from my online clothing boutique days, I need to have some kind of liquidation sale. Well check out the pictures and let me know what you think.

Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link-Up

I'm super excited to be hosting this link up. This link up is meant to be a way for bloggers to share their person style, connect with other bloggers, and gain new followers. Bloggers can submit a link to one of their fashion posts using the Inlinkz widget below. I will share a couple of my favorites on social media and in a blog post. Link up will open on Monday and remain open throughout the week.

Featured Fashionistas from last week's link up...

Because there were so many amazing outfits linked up and to kind of make up for not having Featured Fashionistas a couple times, this week I have 6 great Featured Fashionistas instead of the normal 2. The funny thing it was even hard to narrow it down to 6 because there was so many great looks last week! If you link on the name that leads you to their main blog page, clicking the image leads you to that specific blog post. Thank you again to everyone that linked up!

Katherine Eldridge

Love everything about this look. Beautiful classic black dress, gorgeous shoes, and I am so smitten buy that bag!! 

Lip Gloss and Lace

Shauna just has such amazing style in general. Week after week she produces just amazing looks and this one is no different. Love how cute and comfortable that shift dress looks and those shoes!!! I am a sucker for fringe and loving those shoes 

Riva La Diva

I love a caftan. It is just so easy, cute and comfortable. Definitely one of my favorite throw on looks. So I am so in love this super simply and easy DIY by Riva. Click on the picture to link to this specific project.

Sandy a la Mode

This skirt outfit is already so lovely on it's own, but the mommy and me cuteness is just too adorable.

Happiness at Mid-Life

Loving this stripes and polka dot look plus the added detail at the neck line. So cute!

 Lady in Violet 

Karen is rocking this cute and classic outfit. Love the pop of color and that clutch is so adorable!

I want to thank everyone who linked up last week and can't wait to see your outfits for this week!!

For this week, post your favorite outfit post of the week.

Rules:

1. Follow your host on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Bloglovin.

2. Use the widget below to link to a specific outfit post, not your homepage

3. Visit and leave a comment on at least 2 other links, preferably one from before and one after your own 

(This is the most important rule. The point of this link up is to network, become better, and help grow our blogs. The only way this will work is if we start by connecting with and supporting each other 

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Hiking Tilden Park Nature Area

One of the views from the top

This past weekend I hiked in Tilden Park in Berkeley, CA. It was an easy to moderate hike that was a little over 6 miles. From the direction we took the hike started of moderate and ended pretty flat and easy. I went with my hiking group again and this time my 9 year daughter came along too. I brought her because I thought one of her friends was going to come, but the other girl didn't end up going. She said she still had a good time and enjoyed the hike, so I will probably be bringing her again. We parked at the Tilden Little Farm parking lot; there was no fee to park. We took the first trail heading into the park to the left. The first like half to quarter mile of the hike was through tree that had grown over in an arch shape. There were a lot of low hanging

branches that you either had to duck under or step over.  It was walking through an enchanted forest, it was soo pretty. The path then opened up to a small lake which had ducks in it, Jewel Lake. After admiring the pond we then continued on the path around, where there was a bridge that we

crossed.  After that the path opened up to a larger path/road where we could either go left or right and went left and then took a quick right to get back onto the path. We took the peak trail up and it kind of zigs and zags and goes around all the way to the top. And the views are beautiful from the top. It was a cloudy day, but it was still beautiful. Not quite as beautiful as the view of Berkeley Fire Trails hike I did the week before, but still very nice. I can only imagine how nice it is on a clear day.

To me that's when the hike got a little boring. The rest, the last 3 to 4 miles, was mostly flat and partially downhill. I get bored when long hikes are flat. It would be good for jogging or just enjoying your day. The are several benches along the way of that

part, where you can relax and look at the view. At the end of the hike we came down by the animals of the Little Farm. They have cows, chickens, pigs, and ducks. If you bring you own lettuce and celery, you can feed them. Next time I told my daughter we will have to remember to bring some veggies for them. 

There are a couple of trails out there so if you are planning to hike Tilden Nature Area and have never done it before, I suggest you bring a map and map out your way ahead of time. A couple members of our group seemed to take a wrong turn and get lost for a little bit and we had our trail marked off along the way. All and all is was a good day and I am happy I went. My RunKeeper app said I burned almost a 1000 calories. Yayyy!!! I have included some pictures from the below. Tell me what you think. :-)

Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link Up + Red & Gold Embossed Tank Dress

Link-Up

Yayyy, it's another link up! Please scroll to the bottom of the page for information and to link up.

About the Outfit

This is another great $7 dress that I got from the Saturday morning sales in Los Angeles that I talked about a post a couple weeks ago. I sure do love to get a good deal. I feel like it almost makes the items seem even more special sometimes. 

After about the 6th person stopped and asked him if he wanted to get in the picture with me, he finally said okay. LOL

 Mahogany Closet Mondays Fashion Link-Up

I'm super excited to be hosting this link up. This link up is meant to be a way for bloggers to share their person style, connect with other bloggers, and gain new followers. Bloggers can submit a link to one or more of their fashion posts using the Inlinkz widget below. Link up will open on Monday and remain open throughout the week.

I want to thank everyone who linked up last week and can't wait to see your outfits for this week!!

For this week, post your favorite outfit post of the week.

Rules:

1. Follow your host on Instagram, Facebook, and Bloglovin.

2. Use the widget below to link to a specific outfit post, not your homepage

3. Visit and leave a comment on at least 2 other links, preferably one from before and one after your own 

(This is the most important rule. The point of this link up is to network, become better, and help grow our blogs. The only way this will work is if we start by connecting with and supporting each other 

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Hiking the Berkeley Fire Trails

The view from the top of the Berkeley Fire Trails

This was seriously one of the prettiest hikes I have done, especially consider how close it is to my house. It rained the day before, which I thought was going to make it terrible but I think it actually made it more beautiful. It felt like being in a rain forest. The fog looked beautiful and there were even some parts that were so densely population with trees that when you walked through them it was sprinkling under the trees cause they had held in the moisture from the night before.

I went with a hiking group I am apart of. We parked at the Strawberry Canyon Pool and it was a $1 an hour and we each paid for 3 hours. From there we walked up Centennial Dr. about quarter mile or so to the entrance to the hike. We pasted a small parking lot that looked like it might be free to park. 

The path we took had about 3 or 4 good steep hills. It was

moderately challenging. Made you feel like you were getting a good workout without feeling like you were going to die. The only problem with it having had rained the night before was that a couple of the heels were super muddy. Also felt like you were walking in quick sand and/or might slip back down. Which I guess would be considered an extra workout. There were about 30 of all different fitness levels and everybody made it up safely. When we go to the top and for part of the way back (we did a loop) the views were amazing!!! All I kept thinking while enjoying the views, is Wow, I actually live here. We often think about taking vacations to visit wonderful and beautiful place and while I do like to travel I have to also remember and appreciate what is really in my back yard. The whole thing was about 7 miles. If you in the Bay Area or plan to visit and haven't hiking the Berkeley Fire Trails I would highly recommend it.