Blogger of the Week: Lovelily Laine

If you are looking for a new blog to follow that covers everything from clothes, food and beauty all with a witty sense of humor then head over to Lovelily Laine right now. You won’t be disappointed (I promise!) Laine tells it like it as and as a newbie to the North, she loves to complain about the cold just as much as the rest of us, but in hilarious new ways.MM: What’s in a name? Why did you choose Lovelily Laine as your blog title?

LL: I landed on Lovelily Laine because it captures the feeling behind my blog. I think it reflects the content of the blog well – playful, lovely, and mostly about my life being Laine.

MM: Why did you begin blogging?
LL: I started dreaming of writing a blog years ago, but I never felt I had the time. I love dressing up, cooking, baking, eating, exploring, and then writing about all of it. But I was a full time teacher – I was lucky if I got to work in the morning wearing two shoes from the same pair, let alone in a put-together, blog-worthy outfit. It wasn’t until this past summer when the Engineer and I uprooted our life to move to Pittsburgh that I finally started the blog. I was unemployed for 4.5 months after the move, and I was going the slightest bit crazy, to be quite honest. I started the blog because I needed an outlet and because I had a great opportunity disguised as well, the opposite of that.

I’ve also discovered that blogging is an excellent excuse to bake all the time; definitely an added bonus.

MM: You recently moved to Pittsburgh from TN, so tell me the truth, what do you think of Pittsburgh?
LL: I can honestly say that I am loving Pittsburgh! I was very pleasantly surprised to find so much culture here – and by culture I really mean delicious food. But seriously, the city is absolutely beautiful, there are so many different things to do, and there’s a restaurant where the entire cuisine revolves around meatballs – I’m pretty sure I was destined to live here.

MM: You are always blogging new recipes you have tried, what is your current cold-weather favorite?
LL: There are so many! I’ll confess that I’m a soup fanatic, and I recently made this North Woods Bean Soup from Cooking Light – it is AWESOME. It comes together in under 30 minutes but tastes like you spent hours simmering it – I could not stop eating it. I know I’ll be making it over and over this winter.

MM: Have you found your favorite local store to shop at yet?
LL: Are we talking clothes or groceries? On many a Saturday I can be found wandering Penn Mac, usually with a very patient Engineer trailing me. I live and breathe for Italian food, and I imagine that Heaven is a big(ger) Penn Mac in the sky. However, on the clothing front I haven’t had as much luck! Truth be told I haven’t tried very hard to find a local boutique – I do a lot of my shopping online. BUT I love to support small local businesses, so if anyone knows of a store that I must visit, help a girl out and send me an email! I’ll be there in a jiff.

MM: Is fashion any different up here in the North than it was down in the South?
LL: It’s a bit different, but not as much as I thought it would be. I think that people are more casual here than they are in the South, generally speaking. I also think the difference in fashion choices has a lot to do with the weather – people in the South often wear shorts or sun dresses well into October and even November sometimes, but I doubt that will be the case here in PA. In the South you see more bright colorful prints than I’ve noticed here, though that could be complete coincidence. Funny story: I remember the first time I stepped in to my local Target here in Pittsburgh and found a Lilly Pulitzer for Target romper right in the front of the store. The morning that line launched, my Target in Tennessee sold out of the entire collection in minutes – there is no way a romper would be found in the stores weeks later! I bought it right away and made all my friends back home completely envious.

I have seen more than one black cowboy hat here in Pittsburgh, which I never thought I’d see outside of Nashville. This place is full of surprises, I tell ya.

MM: You posted an article titled “Ten Lessons from the North” recently, what are some lessons you think us Northerners could learn from the South?
LL: Here are some lessons the North could learn from the South (in absolutely no particular order):

• Give the occasional wave when someone does something nice for you on the road (for example, lets you get in front of them). It’s just polite, dangit.
• In the South we have these delicious confections called biscuits. Whip some up with a side of bacon – it’ll change your life. I promise you won’t miss the bagels or English muffins or whatever it is you’re eating in place of biscuits, y’all. (I’ll write a tutorial on scratch-made biscuits and gravy soon for you guys).
• Krispy Kremes are better than Dunkin’. There, I said it.
• Barbeque – where is it?? I need it. You need it. We don’t have it.

As it turns out, almost all of the things I would change about the North are related to the food. I must be missing some Southern home cookin’.

MM: What is your daily beauty routine?
LL: My daily beauty routine revolves around the fact that I am just not patient enough to spend more than 10 minutes applying makeup in the morning. I just don’t have it in me!

I wash my face twice a day (religiously) with Cetaphil cleanser (I swear by Cetaphil and I’ll never, ever change! Never!) I try to use toner but sometimes I forget. We’re all human, people, and sometimes humans forget their toner. I make sure to moisturize every day with a moisturizer than contains some sunscreen (I’m using some Olay one right now – my attention to detail is really impeccable, I know). Then it’s time for my rigorous makeup routine: I swipe on my bareMinerals undereye concealer (a must if I don’t want people to see me & think the zombie apocalypse is happening), bareMinerals foundation (been using it since I was a teenager, another product I’ll probably never give up), bareMinerals all-over face color, then the same shade of eye shadow (from my Naked Basics palette), sometimes eyeliner if I’m not too tired, and always, always, always black mascara. My eyelashes are blonde you guys. If I don’t wear mascara, you can’t even tell I have eyelashes. All my blonde sisters know what I’m talkin’ about.

And that’s it! I seriously spend about 8 minutes each morning on my makeup and I’m out the door. Sometimes, if I’m getting fancy, I mix up my eye shadow and go a bit darker, or attempt to wing my eyeliner, which is almost never a good idea. Again, I lack the patience for such things.

MM: How is your fall bucket list coming? Almost complete?
LL: Just as I feared when I first made the bucket list, it is not coming along as well as it should be. What I can see happening here is we’ll get down to the last few weeks of fall (which are actually well in to December) and I’ll still have 8 things left to do! Here’s what I have done, because I like to focus on the positive:

• Made over my patio with some flowers and adorable string lights. The flowers are dead now, but I’m still counting this as a win. I’m considering putting “master gardening” on a future spring bucket list.
• Baked pumpkin chocolate chip bread – it was divine.
• Went apple picking AND baked the pie from scratch, which in hindsight I should have made two bucket list items. Baking a pie from scratch is no easy feat, my friends.
• Carved pumpkins – while watching my Vols win
• Volunteered at the food bank
• Watched the first two Back to the Future movies before Marty McFly arrived on October 21. I fell asleep during the first one, but this still counts.

Thanksgiving dinner for two will be up on the blog soon after Thanksgiving, and visiting a local winery will be my next priority (though in retrospect I’m realizing that should have been priority #1).

MM: Do you have an all time favorite fashion must-have? If so, what is it?
LL: Hands down this has to be my Frye Melissa Button riding boots. I absolutely love them and I practically live in them from October through the spring. I’m afraid they may not be as practical here though, since I’m assuming we’ll get about 48 feet of snowfall this winter (that happens here, right??) and sludgey snow + leather = sadness. But I still would call them my all time favorite fashion must-have, because I can’t imagine my life or my wardrobe without them.

MM: You recently went back to work. So now you are in a new place with a new job, how has that transition been?
LL: Well I had the “new place” pretty much down (thank goodness) when I landed this wonderful job. And now the transition from unemployment to full-time employment is kicking my butt! I’ve lost two travel coffee mugs during this difficult time of transition.

MM: What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
LL: Sleeping in and then heading to breakfast/brunch with the Engineer. And it always includes Peace, Love, and Little Donuts. After that, it varies from checking out new spots in Pittsburgh, binging Netflix, shopping, baking, or (I’m a little embarrassed to admit this) checking things off of my extensive to-do list, because I get serious satisfaction out of this. That’s normal, right?

MM: What is the best fashion advice you’ve ever received and who gave it to you?
LL: What a tough one! I’m not sure this really counts as advice, per say, but I think the most important fashion lesson I’ve learned is to be confident and comfortable in your own body. I’m taller than the average woman (5’10”) and it took me a loooooong time to be comfortable with that! I wouldn’t trade my long legs now (unless I’m shopping for pants or dresses, but that’s a story for another day). I think I have to attribute this lesson to my parents, who blessed me with my tall genes, my (very short, ironically enough) best friend and college roommate who has so much confidence you’d think she was Gigi Hadid, and countless tall ladies along the way who didn’t slouch all the time.

MM: What is your most maniac moment EVER?
LL: Oh yikes! My most maniac moment would have to be picking up my life and starting over here in the North with the Engineer. It’s really been a huge adventure to start over in a totally new city with my all-time favorite person.

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