Holy Ship!

This post is sponsored by H&M

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Once upon a time, I didn’t live 5 minutes from an H&M. It was this magical place  I only got to go when I visited a big city, and I had to buy a zillion things because they didn’t ship within the U.S. and who knows when I would go again. Not the greatest plan, but it’s all I had. Now that I live in Indianapolis, I can shop at H&M whenever I want without making impulse buys, which is a much better situation. Still, now I have city girl guilt (a term I just made up) when I sport my H&M duds on the blog or out of town because I know not everyone has access to them.

Too bad they don’t ship in the U.S.

Wait, what’s that you say, Sarah? They DO ship in the U.S.?! Since when?

SINCE RIGHT NOW?! TODAY?!

YES. Stop having an imaginary conversation with me. It’s true. As of today, August 1st, all y’all Amurricans can order online at www.HM.com/us.

Even more exciting (for me mostly) is that I get to help make this announcement as the official State Style Blogger Ambassador for Indiana. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Basically, H&M picked bloggers from each of the 50 states to help put the word out about the online shop AND about a the “50 States of Fashion” promotional contest, where you have a chance to win H&M gift cards and even a trip to NYC!

So here goes:

To enter the 50 States of Fashion contest, just Instagram a pic of yourself wearing something(s) from H&M and tag it with #HMShopOnline[XX]. The [XX] is where you put your state abbreviation. So for example, when I Instagram one of the photos above, I will use the hashtag #HMShopOnlineIN. If you live in New York, you’ll use #HMShopOnlineNY. You get the idea. I’d also love for you to tag me (@sarahsreallife) in your caption so I can check out all your entries and vote for them, but that’s optional of course!

All the photo entries will populate on H&M’s 50 States of Fashion website, where people can vote for their favorites over the course of 3 weeks. You can find all the nitty gritty details here.

Or if Instagram contests aren’t your thing, you can just shop. No hashtags required.

Have fun!

similar Dress (on sale) // Jacket* // similar Shoes* // similar Bracelet // similar Bag (on sale) // Sunglasses // Lips “Romantic”

*Jacket and shoes courtesy of H&M.

Shift

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One summer during high school, I did a dance program at North Carolina Governor’s School. At our very first performance, we did this piece where we all posed in a clump in the middle of the stage. The lights came up, there was no music, and we just stood in stillness for 3 minutes. Then the lights went down, and during the blackout we stayed in our same poses but took one big step to the left. The lights came back up and we stood there some more. And that was the end.

It was actually pretty fun to perform because you could feel the tension in the audience. They weren’t sure if there was a technical difficulty with the music or what. When the lights went down the first time they all cheered (keep in mind these are all high school kids), and when the lights came back on you could hear confused whispers. (Wait…Did they move? I swear there’s something different…)

Why am I telling you this story? Mainly because the name of the dance was “Shift,” and I thought of it when I was wearing this shift dress the other day. But also because I started off the day wearing black suede shoes, then changed into these brown sandals when I went home for lunch because it was starting to rain. So the shoe change was like my subtle step to the left during a blackout. I wonder if anyone at my office noticed that my shoes in the afternoon were not the same as my shoes in the morning. (Hmm…Was she wearing those all day? I swear there’s something different…)

similar Dress ($20) // similar Scarf (on sale) // similar Shoes // Sunglasses (on sale)

Speaking of shifting, see how I’ve changed up the look of this dress over the seasons:

shiftremix