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Tacey Fedora, Juliette Sweater, Aventura Clothing, #AventuraLife, Fashion, Travel, Sponsored, Aventura, Eco-friendly clothing, green fashion

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had the chance to share some very important news. No, exhale, I am NOT pregnant. We’re not having that announcement ever again. My uterus has gone on holiday. I will just live vicariously through all my friends and family who keep having their own sweet, baby smell bundles that keep making my ovaries twitch. My announcement is that I am a brand, spanking new addition to the Aventura Clothing ambassador family and I am thrilled.

Aventura Clothing is an awesome family owned brand that’s been around since 1965 with a focus on environmental sustainability and high quality fashion for the modern woman on the move.  Aventura Clothing is a socially conscious and each piece is carefully crafted to be comfortable with a focus on an active lifestyle using materials like organic cotton, bamboo blends and recycled polyester. The eco-friendly styles prevent synthetic fertilizers and farm chemicals from polluting the soil. Aventura Clothing is the perfect marriage between comfort and style plus you can feel good about wearing it because no earth was harmed in the making of your fashion.

I received my first order right before we went on spring break and you better believe I took all of it to Disney World with me. Everything I ordered was lightweight and in bright, summery colors so it was perfect for the Florida heat and professional enough to wear to a conference. Bonus, it all traveled easily and most without wrinkling. Aventura is a traveler’s perfect choice in fashion.

I chose three different outfits with a few simple, classic pieces that could be easily swapped in and out to create several different outfits. I will highlight them individually as the summer goes on but today, I would like to highlight three of my favorite pieces.

The Tacey Fedora

The paper straw fedora has a unique geometric pattern and stylish black hat band. It fits like a glove and looks adorable with just about anything you wear it with. Bonus: It hides my bad hair days easily and no one’s the wiser. This may be my new favorite piece for all seasons.

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Tacey Fedora, Juliette Sweater, Aventura Clothing, #AventuraLife, Fashion, Travel, Sponsored, Aventura, Eco-friendly clothing, green fashion, Latina

Taken on a beautiful day, May 31, 2014.

The Juliette Sweater in Silver Sconce

The Juliette is the perfect lightweight sweater for spring, summer or fall. With a name like Juliette, how can your mind not conjure up images of feminine perfection.It’s comfortable and stylish looking with just the right amount of sass. I love the feminine cut and drape. It hugs my Latina girl curves but hangs in a way that doesn’t look like it’s too small. I’m embarrassed to admit it but since it’s arrival, it’s been worn more times than it probably should have been. I just love it.

The Mayfield Dress

It’s perfect for every occasion that calls for classic elegance from an afternoon networking at a conference to an evening spent enjoying drinks over casual conversation with your favorite guy, this dress is ready for all your summertime soirees. The rayon from bamboo and modal blend drapes beautifully and is as soft as silk without all the fuss. The Mayfield dress traveled for 18 hours in my suitcase on the road trip from ndiana to Florida and didn’t wrinkle, at all. I just pulled it out of my suitcase, hung it up, paired with a pair of cute sandals, the Redford jacket in white and the Presley scarf in sea blue and out the door I went; business cards in hand, dressed to impress.

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Mayfield Dress, Presley Scarf, Redford Jacket, Aventura Clothing, #AventuraLife, Fashion, Travel, Sponsored, Aventura, Eco-friendly clothing, green fashion

Taken March 28th, REALLY, REALLY early in the morning after a late night and 18 hours traveling in the car with my children:)

If you would like to try Aventura clothing for yourself, I have some discount codes to share with you. The codes are good for a one-time use up to $250 for 60% off retail pricing. That’s an awesome deal. Believe me I know because I am about to use one for myself to order the Waverly maxi dress which normally retails for $87 and with the discount code, I can get it for $34.80. Oh yes, it will be mine. I will give out 10 discount codes to the first 10 requests I receive.

If you had the 60% discount, what would you spend it on from Aventura Clothing?

 

Disclosure: I am a 2014 Aventura Clothing Ambassador and was provided product for review but all opinions and thoughts are my own.

 

 

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Latina, Latinas, Stereotypes, DEvious maids, Latinos, racism, business

What do you think of when you hear the word Latina?

The stereotypes are out of control. In fact, if you Google “Latina” every photo is of a hot, caramel colored girl in a tiny bikini, sometimes leaning over a lowrider or laying in bed. Oh and there are a couple of pregnant women surrounded by 12 kids. Go ahead. There is nothing you can say that will shock me. My husband likes to joke that he thought I’d be a little more Sophia Vergara and a little less Julie Bowen of Modern Family.

Latina, Latinas, Stereotypes, DEvious maids, Latinos, racism, business

 

We have all heard the Latina stereotypes: voluptuous, passionate and hot-tempered Latinas. We fight to make up. We have lots of kids because of all the sex and Catholic refusal to believe in birth control. We all have thick accents and we live to serve our controlling husbands and walk our Chihuahua dogs. When we are not in the kitchen cooking from scratch in our high heels, we are in the bedroom working on another bebé.  We are all nannies and mothers. You could believe this and it could be true in some cases, because even a broken clock is right twice a day but mostly, you would be dead wrong.

Latina is not a color.I have been assumed to be everything but Latina on several occasions: Caucasian is the immediate go to, if they notice that I don’t exactly fit the stereotype for Latina. I have dark brown hair, light brown eyes, fair-skin and not immediately identifiable features. My mom is Southern by way of Ireland, France, Italy, England and the Cherokee nation. Then the guessing begins. Italian? Greek? Jewish? It makes me feel as if those guessing think I’m anything other than what I actually am: Latina on my father’s side.

OK, I am just going to say it, I am a fair skinned Latina woman; possibly the whitest Latina you may well ever meet. I get it. It might be a little bit confusing for those who don’t realize that, like every other race, we come in every single color of the rainbow, with different combinations of hair and eye color and varying degrees of assimilation. We are not all the same. We don’t look the same. We don’t talk the same. We don’t come from the same place and we certainly, don’t all fit some concocted cartoonish stereotype. My daughters are beautiful with blonde hair and blue eyes, if you ask them what they are, they will tell you, “I am Latina!” Because, they are and it’s that simple.

Latina, Latinas, Stereotypes, DEvious maids, Latinos, racism, business, motherhood, raising daughters

Some are true. I think as a group many of us are loud, passionate people who place a great value on the family unit but not all of us.  Many of us are determined, handworkers who demand respect and take pride in our work, no matter how menial the task. We want to succeed and we’ve always had to work for it; from the farms to gaining respect in a new country so we are not afraid to work our asses off for what we want.

For many of us, failure is not an option. When, in business, I am asked to be “more” Latina that bothers me. I am not insulted because I am proud of being Latina. But I am offended that you have the nerve to ask me to prove that I fit into YOUR idea of who I should be. How do I quantify myself to meet your expectations? Would you ask a homosexual to be “more gay” or an African-American to be “more black”? I don’t think so.

I totally get that if I market myself as a Latina blogger, people expect me to be Latina and I am. It took me a long time to take ownership of that because I had spent so much time in my life feeling like I had to prove it. But when you ask me to be “more Latina” that insinuates that you don’t want me to be Latina, you want me to fit some misguided idea that you have of what it is to be “Latina”.You want more “spice”. That bothers me.

Latina, Latinas, Stereotypes, DEvious maids, Latinos, racism, business I am first generation Mexican American. I speak Spanish. I grew up immersed in the Latino culture. I may not have been born in Mexico, but my father was. I will not apologize for not meeting your stereotype. I don’t speak with an accent and every thing I do is not overtly “Latin” in nature because you know what Latin people are? We are just PEOPLE, just like you.

Well, maybe not like you (the person asking Latinos to prove their Latino-ness) because I am pretty sure you are an asshole and you might even be a little bit of a racist, or just really ignorant to my culture. We are not all built like Sophia Vergara (though I wish we were). We are not all oversexed, tequila drinking, hot-tempered caramel colored taco eaters who dance Cumbia. Well, mostly I am, with the exception of the caramel colored skin but many are not.

 

What’s the stupidest thing anyone has ever asked you based on a stereotype Latina or otherwise?

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babble top 100, reader's choice, blogging

They like me, they really, really like me! These are the words running through my head as I read the email that I had been selected as one of Babble’s top 100 bloggers of 2013 reader’s choice in the Latina category.

I’ve been blogging for almost 5 years and in that time, I’ve come to know and love a lot of bloggers. I know it’s cliché but you ladies have become my true tribe. You’ve seen me through some of the best and worst days of my life and some of you are like sisters to me, even though we’ve never met. I know it’s genuine because those of you who I have met in person, it was like seeing an old friend not meeting someone for the very first time. Many of you are on my speed dial. I love you broads. Blogging is about so much more than just tapping away at a keyboard; it is sharing our stories, our lives with other people. For me, it’s about opening up and being real.

Friday, Babble announced it’s top 100 bloggers of the year. It wasn’t just mom bloggers this year but spanned 10 different niches. I was chosen as the reader’s choice Latina blogger and I am honored. I’ve been sharing my life, my children, my successes and failures with you all in a very honest way over the years and that is scary. To be acknowledged for that, was surprising because I usually feel like I am writing for an audience of one…myself.

Honestly, I was shocked. I am not the most popular blogger on the Internet, I don’t have the outrageous top tier numbers nor do I write about what everyone wants to read. I am honest and sometimes abrasive. I know I piss people off. I am the Throat Punch Thursday girl, for God’s sake. I am a loose canon sometimes who writes without a filter and that is not exactly attractive to some people. I am rough around the edges, so to be chosen by Babble was flattering but to be the reader’s choice was humbling.

I have seen so many of my talented friends receive this award in the past years and I have always been happy for them; ecstatic! Because, lets face it, we bloggers are the book nerds, introverted, quirky and deep types. We’ve spent our entire lives afraid that people will figure out who we really are and yet we bravely write it out and share it on our sites. We make ourselves vulnerable by exposing ourselves through our writing. This is why I love my blogger friends so much. Our blogs are the one place in life where I feel like we are all seeing one another’s true selves. That means something to me.

Anyways, I was excited about this award because honestly, I am never nominated or win anything. Congratulations came pouring in from my blogger friends around the globe. Some of you made me cry with your too kind words. It felt great and then I began reading the flippant comments on Facebook about how meaningless the Top 100 was. How it was “stupid”, how no one cared about these bloggers, how no one wanted to scroll through these writer’s life stories, how it was bullshit and all the winners were not very good bloggers. It took the wind out of my sails a bit. It tarnished it.

I know the award means nothing really; there’s no new job, money, trophy or car involved. My life won’t change because Babble has given me this award. But for someone who’s stayed true in her writing, to who she is, being chosen by the readers as their choice was something. It is validation that my fellow bloggers appreciate my writing, respect me enough to choose me to represent them and that somebody else reads what I say besides my mom.

I am proud to announce that I am one of Babble’s Top 100 bloggers; Latina Reader’s choice and next year, when you win, I will be genuinely happy for you because you deserve it and I am happy when my friends succeed. I am sorry if you don’t like those who were chosen on this year’s list. But mostly, I feel sorry for those who were belittling the list ( and in effect the winners) because it would suck to be that jaded and cynical. Thank you all so much for the very sweet and kind words over the past few days. They mean more than you will ever know and thank you Babble for selecting me to be on this list. But most of all, thank all of you who read me because without you I’d still be writing to an audience of one.

 

babble top 100, award, reader's choice

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