City Folk

Sweater: c/o Aeropostale (similar); Top: c/o Aeropostale; Jeans: Gap; Boots: Chinese Laundry c/o Aeropostale; Bracelet: c/o Shine Project

I never thought I'd be living in the middle of a bustling city, but here we are in Portland and I have never felt so thrilled at all of the access to awesome food and shopping. This morning, in the middle of a rainy, gloomy day, Ben and I drove into the Pearl district (usually we walk, but it was so gross out) and went shopping. We headed to West Elm to re-do our bathroom ceramics, to our version of the Container Store for some spring cleaning accessories, and then, on a whim, wandered the Pearl and went out to brunch. We stumbled across many restaurants I've been dying to try (Paragon, Brix, to name a few), but ended up at Irving St. Kitchen which we've heard tons about but never visited. It was so nice to sit down, out of the rain, and enjoy some salmon gravlax benedict together before heading home. Mm, the city.

In non-Portland-gushing news, I am absolutely in love with this new bracelet I received from the amazing folks at The Shine Project. You may have heard this name dropped a few times recently on the blogosphere. The Shine Project is a really fantastic project by Threads that employs at-risk youth to make jewelry and they in turn are able to contribute to their college costs. All employees are first-generation college students and this project aims to help these individuals break the cycle. It's an awesome mission and one I'm so happy to share with you and support. Please check out their jewelry online! I can honestly say I have not taken mine off and don't plan on removing it from my wrist for a while!

The Shine Project would like to offer all readers 10% bracelets with the code NAVY10. Please let me know if you buy some jewelry!