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Fitness Friday 21


*original post

Welcome back to Fitness Friday! I mentioned in my January post that February would be the month I really get some classes back in my schedule. And I'm happy to report that ended up working out! I increased my ClassPass credits and actually found myself having to book higher credit classes just to use them all before they expire. I also tried some great new recipes, as I always find myself cooking more in the winter. Plus the activewear section of Nordstrom Rack's site is something I need to be checking a lot more often, they have some great brands like Koral, Onzie, Alo Yoga, and more. You can shop my picks at the end of the post!

Workouts
Week of 2/2-2/2/8
Full Body at Barry's Bootcamp (it was a Superbowl pre-game event where everyone wore jerseys!)
PT exercises on my own
Hilliard Studio Method (barre/strength) pop-up with SweatNet Charlotte (free!)
Brewery yoga at Unknown Brewing
Hustle 50 (HIIT) at Hustle House

Week of 2/9-2/15
PT exercises on my own
Hustle 50 at Hustle House
Centre (toning/cardio) at Fit Atelier
Brewery yoga at Unknown Brewing
PT exercises on my own

Week of 2/16-2/22
Strength Sculpt (pilates) at SculptHouse
Ballet Fit Theory at Fit Atelier (2 days that week, and we filmed some of it!)
Abs and Ass (yep, that's what they call it) at Barry's Bootcamp

Week of 2/23-2/28
Toned at Fit Atelier
HIIT pop-up with SweatNet Charlotte (free!)
PT exercises on my own
Strength Sculpt at SculptHouse
and I'm trying out RockBox kickboxing today!

Food
  1. I tried some cauliflower mac and cheese last week from a local grab and go spot (if you're in CLT it was Chop + Chisel) and loved it so much I tried to make a version of it myself. However, the one I tried was keto-friendly made with both cauliflower in place of noodles and with heavy cream. So I looked for a lighter dairy but higher carb option and found this recipe. It was really easy to make if you buy pre-made mashed cauliflower, and I intended to use all dairy free cheese. However, there was honestly only half of what I needed left at the store. So I ended up using half dairy free cheese and half regular cheese and added chicken. It was basically a mac and cheese casserole with less guilt, and I loved it!
  2. I have also made this one pan Italian chicken bowl recipe for lunches for 2 weeks in a row. Everyone loves a one pan recipe, and I thought this one has some great seasoning and serves well with a balsamic vinaigrette.
  3. I might have a new favorite protein bar flavor now that RX bar has chocolate raspberry! After seeing it announced on their Instagram a few weeks ago, I finally found some available at Trader Joe's.
Activewear


Thanks for reading!

Green Sherpa Pullover






Photos by Deeana Kourtney Photography

Sherpa pullover (on sale!) | Similar leggings | Adidas sneakers | S'well water bottle

There's a chance I've been wearing this pullover once every few days since I got it for Christmas. I love this shade of green with the contrasting zippers, and it is so warm! I have been wearing it to workout like styled here or with jeans and ankle boots to work. It is available in several other colors and currently on sale! There is also a version with snaps in a few other colors and another with a hood! I've also been loving these sneakers I recently bought, as I usually reach a point in winter where I am just tired of wearing boots. So these have been great to wear with jeans lately, but I think they will be great going into spring with white denim and t-shirt dresses!




Thanks for reading!

7 Years of Caralina Style

2019

7 years ago today, I started Caralina Style. Although it took several name changes to get to Caralina Style...but we won't go into that. Actually, I don't know if I ever shared how I picked this name. So what better time to share that than right now? When I was a sophomore in college and I had been blogging for about a year, we had a guest teacher in one of my ballet classes. I often wore a necklace with a North Carolina outline, to show a little home state pride while I was attending school in Pennsylvania. The guest teacher was trying to learn everyone's names and when I said my name was Cara she asked me what the necklace was for, because she trained at North Carolina School of the Arts. So throughout that class she was calling me "Cara Carolina". So it gave me the idea to change my blog name by merging my name with the state I call home. It has been interesting to see how it is said out loud over the years. It seems to either makes sense right away for some people, or not at all to others. You either connect the state outline in my logo or think Catalina wine mixer, not much middle ground there. But either way, I'm still happy with it about 6 years later. Thank you all for following along, whether you've been reading for years or this is your first post!

2018

I managed to completely forget about writing a 6 years post (bad blogger!) last year, but I did break down a little bit of how the blog has evolved in my post celebrating 5 years. Although I have to say since I wrote that post, I haven't been taking blogging nearly as seriously as I once did. I still love keeping it up, and am SO glad I have been doing it for this long. I have learned more than I would ever imagined, been given some really fun opportunities, and made some great friends. But, I'm going to get real here in this post. I'm honestly at a point in my life where I would rather cook a nice meal after a workout or watch a movie with my boyfriend than stay up too late getting a post together just to fill a certain number of posts per week. Especially with my new job, I am spending a little more time in the office and can get a little burnt out from staring at a computer all day. But I guess it can that goes back to the idea of quality over quantity. I would rather have less posts that I enjoyed putting time into that feel obligated to have more out there just for consistency. This is supposed to be fun after all, right? But I've also never even considered taking the blog full time. I think that is a different conversation for those who do want it to become their full time job at some point.

2017

Maybe this current mindset will change, and I'll find that passion I once had again at some point. But I honestly get a little overwhelmed about how competitive it can be to get paid collaborations and the ways people try to cheat their numbers. I just overall don't have as much of a positive mindset about the industry as I once did. This space has changed in more ways than I could explain in 7 years, and I think I'll always look back on 2015-2016 (when I was just out of college) as the best of it. There seems to also be such a negative connotation around the word "influencer" these days. Although I've personally never been a fan of that word. I get why it is used as an all encompassing term across platforms, but I always preferred (and mostly still use) the term "blogger." "Blogging" works as an action verb, I'm a blogger because I write a blog. "Influencing"...not so much. I think this is mostly because the sheer number of people trying to do has multiplied so many times over since I started blogging. I find some of these examples hilarious (Average Fashion Blogger, Influencers in the Wild) I think the negative comments you see online that perceive all "influencers" as vain, unintelligent, and sometimes lazy are examples of how the space has changed for the worse. These thoughts have even had me hesitating keeping my blog on my resume when I was looking to change jobs over the last year. I know this isn't any groundbreaking work here, but I think it did help me get my first full time job. It is now 7 years experience of branding myself, working with brands, planning regular photoshoots, using social media to promote my content, affiliate marketing, even some basic SEO, graphics, and coding. Why would I not mention any of that for fear of being conceived as a stereotype? 

2016

I love using this site to share my style and a bit of my life. And a part of life I didn't expect but has become a larger portion of my content: my fitness journey. You can go read all about how I went from a student in a top college dance program, to someone who barely exercised, to a fitness addict, to be taken out with an injury, and currently working my way back. I love that I'll always be able to look back on that process, as well as how I have been able to share my nutrition progress over the last year. I also really appreciate the times I had blogging to get me through times in my life like the year after I graduated from college. I spent most of it living back in my parent's house and could only find part time work, so I was able to really throw myself into it all. Taking webinars in the afternoons, driving around the state for blogger meetups, reading endless articles about how to grow my blog, attending a conference, and getting at least 4 posts out each week. The later half of that year I had the blog as an outlet while I figured out my life in a bigger city all on my own. A few years later, I'm excited at the thought of eventually using this blog to share my wedding and starting a family. 

2014

It is really just the last year or so I have been a lot more relaxed in how I run this site. I think it sort of all started when I injured my hip last year, as I was feeling a lot more fulfillment when I was writing about fitness. I will always love sharing my outfits, and that part will never be going away! But as I've mentioned before, I can only say so much about how I love wearing all of these dresses I share here. I have really enjoyed getting more into writing longer posts, and style surprisingly just isn't a topic I can easily fill a word count with. I actually didn't expect this post to be very much, as I'm writing it the night before it will be published...but here we are over 1,000 words later! But in the last year as my hip was recovering I was dedicating a lot of time to the job search, and simply enjoying this time in my life. I have taken so many fun weekend trips with my wonderful boyfriend and we spend time with friends in some of the time I used to spend posted up at a coffee shop getting posts planned out. I think this mindset puts less pressure on myself to be doing so much outside of work and allows me to live more in the moment. I'm not going anywhere, but I've had these thoughts for awhile and I thought this was a good time to lay it all out. A huge thank you to everyone who has had any part of this blog over the last 7 years. Here's to year 8!!

As always, thanks for reading!

Green Button Down Dress










Can you believe these photos were taken during the first week of February with those blooms? The weather is a little all over the place to have caused some early blooms, but we have had some more February-like weather over the last week or so.  For weather like this, I love to layer simple dresses with tights and a jacket like a trench. I've also been all about the accessories lately, especially silk scarves. I tied this one I scored during the Lilly Pulitzer sale as a headband for this look, but I  recently posted a video with some other ways to style a silk scarf. I also recently found a vintage scarf while doing some antique shopping over the weekend, and I can't wait to style it!




Thanks for reading!

Valentine's and President's Day Sales


Happy Valentine's Day!! If you didn't have any plans for the weekend, here are a few fun sales to shop! It is so nice that Valentine's Day happens to be on a Friday this year. TJ and I always stay in and cook, but falling on a Friday sort of extends the celebration into the weekend. But it isn't just 1 reason for sales this weekend. I have never gotten off of work or school for President's Day. But I won't complain about extra sales!

Ann Taylor- 40% off with code "WEARIT" and extra 10% off
Anthropologie- extra 50% off sale items
Alo Yoga-up to 40% off
Banana Republic- 40% off everything
Carbon 38- 30% off with code "SALE30"
Gap- 30-50% off everything
Gigi New York- 50% off select items
J. Crew- 30% off full price and extra 50% off sale items
J. Crew Factory- 40-60% off everything and extra 50% off clearance
Jack Rogers- 25% off with code "SPRING"
Kate Spade- up to 60% off sale styles or 25% off full price styles
Loft- 40% off and extra 14% off (Friday only)
lululemon- markdowns, prices as marked
Modcloth- 25% off everything
Nordstrom- up to 40% off
Nordstrom Rack- extra 25% off clearance
Sam Edelman- Extra 20% off sale styles with code "LOVE"


Thanks for reading and happy shopping!

Petite Friendly Pearl Trim Jumpsuit









Photos by Deeana Kourtney Photography

Gal Meets Glam petite jumpsuit | Similar earrings | Brahmin clutch | Sam Edelman heels | White House Black Market shoe clips | Real Her lipstick c/o

Fellow petite ladies, I found the perfect jumpsuit! I've mentioned my love for Gal Meets Glam Collection dresses more than few times around here, and I might love their jumpsuits even more! At 5'2" just about every jumpsuit would need to be hemmed, unless it has a waistline that can be bloused over. But the petite sizing on GMG jumpsuits are a perfect fit for me! For reference I'm typically a 0/00 in most retailers and I'm wearing the 00P in this jumpsuit. I also absolutely love the pearl trim detail and I think this will be perfect to wear for a Valentine's dinner, a ballet or play, or maybe even a winter wedding. I found it on sale a few months ago but it was just included in another sale recently, and is also available in cream and light pink!




Thanks for reading!

Sparkle Tweed Skirt









Sparkle tweed skirt c/o (use code "S1Caralina15" for 15% off!) | J. Crew tissue turtleneck | Similar riding boots | Headband | Similar bag | Lipstick c/o

I had to throw some red into this outfit to make it Valentine's Day appropriate! This sparkle tweed skirt is both understated and a statement at the same time with the dark color but fun details. I love the button detailing and think it can add so much to an outfit. I paired it one of my favorite pieces lately, a tissue turtleneck. I have now accumulated 4 of them in just a few months, 3 of which are printed! They are so great to wear on their own, or layered with sweaters, sweatshirts, and even sweater dresses. I've had a lot of fun styling those this fall and winter! I've also gotten great out of these 3 pack of knotted headbands. I last styled the green and black one in this post back in the fall!




Thanks for reading!

7 Outfit Ideas for Valentine's Day


Happy February! I have been doing a Valentine's Day outfit ideas post from my past outfits for the last several years now. But this year was much easier to put together from the amount of red I have accumulated in my closet lately! Whether you want to be festive for work, will be celebrating Galentine's, or have a Valentine's date, here are 7 options to maybe give you some ideas. TJ and I typically stay in and cook a nice meal and make cocktails, so I usually just wear a pink or red sweater with jeans. But if you will be dressing up, here are a few fun ideas!

Dress c/o (one of my favorite posts last year!)


Dress c/o | Heels



Coat | Jeans | Boots | Bag


Thanks for reading!