Author: hellosamanthadear

It’s that glorious time of year when it still feels like summer, but there are lots of signs that fall is on the way. You can see that by the leaves on the ground, so I decided to incorporate the time of year into my outfit! 🍂

I took a few sky photos with cool cloud formations in this post, and I thought it matched well with my blue floral skirt. Add in the orange/yellow/red fall foliage colors of my accessories with a pop of pink, and I felt it represented the summer-meets-fall ambiance!

My sister and I took a trip to Spirit Halloween too, and of course, we had to get pumpkin spice drinks at Starbucks beforehand. Drinking ice cold coffee drinks indoors on a warm day definitely made for a mix of summer and fall! 🧡☀️💖

It was a fun day indeed!! I especially loved the coffee, looking at the clouds, and seeing stuff for the spooky season ahead. It’s been a good start of the September month! ☀️🍂

I loooove these colors together!

Paired with the sunflower embroidery, the colors have a late-summer-feel (which it’s now beginning to be). Paired with the plaid pastel cat purse, I thought this was a really fun outfit! 💜💚💛

I really enjoy late summer, because it reminds me to soak up the long days and the warmth while I can! It’s the perfect prelude to my favorite months in the latter half of the year, too! 🌻

I met my friend this afternoon at Parisien French Bakery, and I made certain to dress for the occasion!! 🎀

Choosing a brown, pink and black color theme for my outfit, I went with butterflies, roses and bows for my accessory accents. Tying a light pink butterfly scarf to my purse, I thought it added a chic element! ☕️ 💕

About a month or so ago, I started an outfit journal; the intent is to jot down themes, color palettes, and general fashion inspiration that comes to mind. I’ve enjoyed writing in it and it’s pretty fun, actually!

The journal I use for this is sooooo CUTE. It has a squishy pug face on the cover (a gift from my sister!) The pages have bright pink stars on them:

When you go places with a certain theme, does it inspire your outfit of the day? Do you keep an outfit journal? Let me know in the comments! 💓

Sometimes I get outfit inspiration from the most unexpected things, and this time, I can easily say that I was inspired by an album I was listening to this week! 💖

Dizzy Up the Girl by the Goo Goo Dolls (1998) is one of those albums that I can listen to from start to finish several times in a row and never get bored, and I also really love the album artwork!

The back of the album made me think of pearls (which I felt went with my purse – a clam shell and pearls). The necklace on the back of the album actually is (I believe) the metal ball necklace that lead singer, John Rzeznik, wore a lot during that period and most notably is seen being worn by him in the music video for Slide. (But hey, let’s pretend they’re pearls, just to go with the concept of my outfit!)

The BEST detail is how much my cuff bracelet matches the interior artwork!!! 💕

Lastly, I felt like the colors of the butterfly clips I wore in the back of my hair matched the colors of the album cover, and my green floral skirt also meshed well with the color scheme.

Honestly, this was pretty fun! I’ve never looked for fashion inspiration in album artwork, but I’d definitely do this again with another album in the future! 💿🎶

Here I bring you…my second and final Goosebumps purse to showcase!! 🥰

I really love the colors on this design:

For my outfit, I switched out the strap of the purse to a shorter one, because I liked the look of it. Paired with pink and purple accessories, I thought the ensemble perfectly exuded the childhood nostalgia I feel for Goosebumps!

Overall, I really love the nostalgic elements of the outfit and of course, the floral skirt paired with the edgy/chunky boots! 🖤

❤️ Fourth of July Look 💙

A DIY project I did the other day – all it took was sewing on the extra “S” patch I had lying around on a spare shirt! It really adds something!

I love this 4th of July inspired outfit I wore: 😎

With no work to do on the holiday, I felt adventurous and decided to try the Firework Frappuccino at Starbucks! It was amazing; it had a fruity zing to it with vanilla sweet cream cold foam, coconut milk, raspberry-flavored pearls and strawberry puree! 🍓🥥

Lastly, I grilled myself a veggie burger with beans and homemade Watergate salad:

 📚 Current Read ☕️

So!! I wanted to challenge myself this summer, and to read something different than I normally would. I’ve owned Dante Alighieri’s famous book, The Divine Comedy, for years but never got very far in it due to its complexity, so I had a hard time understanding.

The reason why I chose this book to revisit is because I discovered that Yale offers (free!) open courses, which are essentially a collection of lectures given in past semesters that have been uploaded online. One of the courses was Dante In Translation, and boom! That’s what I chose so I could follow along and have help understanding the book.

As I follow along the book’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, it’s been a very unique read that makes me think a lot on a philosophical level, and thankfully, I understand it much better by listening to the professor explain each chapter. And with a little over a week to go, I’ll have finished it! I listen to a lecture a day, which is for one hour.

I’ve definitely been enjoying summer so far…and I hope you are, too! ☀️

If you told my 8-year-old self back in time that I would own a Goosebumps purse at age 37, I wouldn’t have believed something that cool was possible. But here we are in present day, and I officially own a Goosebumps Night of the Living Dummy purse!!!

I found it at a really great price on eBay, brand new! The quality, details and colors are totally amazing (oh, and Eugene very much approved of my purchase!) 😉

❤️ Styling it with my skull shirt, red floral skirt and argyle socks made for a happy-go-lucky approach to the final result of the outfit to pair with the purse. I’ve been wanting to play around with pattern mixing, and my argyle socks made for the perfect accessory to start with! ❤️

Here’s to finding modern gems that make your inner child do cartwheels! 🤸💕

Who says spiders can’t be a fashion statement?! 🕷️❤️

I thought it would be cool to own a spider shirt, just because it adds a creepy touch. To offset that, Hello Kitty cat ears, a Sailor Moon purse and a matching black and red skirt complete the creepy-cute look!

In my second outfit, I’m wearing a star top that kind of makes me think of mid-’90s Billy Corgan wearing this shirt in the Bullet With Butterfly Wings music video (and if anything even remotely reminds me of The Smashing Pumpkins, that’s a very good thing!):

To rewrite the Bullet With Butterfly Wings lyrics: 🎶 Despite all my non-existent rage, I am still just a cat in a cage!!!!! 🎶

You know, the cat ears and all, rather than a rat. And I just don’t feel any rage because I’m normally always in a good mood, so that depletes the fury of the lyrics, I suppose.

Guess my lyrical rewrite just doesn’t have the same punch as the original? No need to mess with perfection, after all!

I’ll leave the amazing songwriting to Billy Corgan and stick with what I do best – wearing quirky stuff. 😁

Who knew as I drove around town, blissfully unaware, that major auto repairs were festering like an active volcano beneath my little feet?

This whole story is basically a huge stereotype brought to life! 😄 I bring my car into the shop because it was overheating if I turned on the AC…and what do ya know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suddenly there are like 8 zillion other issues brought to my attention – including a major one besides the overheating – an OIL LEAK.

Unbeknownst to me, a Hollywood-mansion-pool-size oil leak was seeping on some stuff under the car. Never noticed any oil dots on the asphalt when I parked, though – however! They did show me the actual leak itself, and I got to stand underneath my floating car and see the leak in all its glistening glory (which was actually cool!) Basically, it looked like my car peed its pants.

Also didn’t realize when I turned on the AC, hot air was blowing from the passenger side (it blew fairly cold air from my side, though.) I had a total Cher-from-Clueless moment when I told the mechanics, “Oh!! But like, no one is ever in my passenger seat, so I didn’t know the air was blowing hot?” That triggered some laughter on their part, as I think I gave away more about my personal life than I’d intended (translating to: I’m literally the only person ever in my car, hahaaaa!)

Once I found out the price of all this, my eyeballs nearly flew out of my head at lightning speed. WORD OF ADVICE: GET A TUNE-UP AT RECOMMENDED INTERVALS (IF YOU ARE ABLE TO), PEEPS! Find out if you, too, have an active volcano festering under your feet when you drive, far below the abyss of the brake pedals. As a social media marketing manager for several auto shops, I have no excuse to have not gotten a tune-up long ago! I write content about this stuff for work alllll the time, and yet I didn’t take my own advice! That way little problems can be caught early.

Anyway, moving on! Here’s a fun outfit as of recently…because fashion always makes life more fun, even during the rollercoaster times! 😁😁😁

And that’s your auto lesson for the day! See ya next time folks! Vroooooom! 🚗💨

Ahhhh, this pixelated heart gives me all the feelings!! It has that computerized look, and paired with a vintage-looking red velvet bow, it’s a fun mashup of old meets new.

Aaaaaand, cat ears. Like you didn’t already know? 💗

I received a coupon from Princeton University Press in the mail recently, and having just finished re-reading Stover At Yale for a second time, it was the perfect opportunity for a new read! I chose a topic that I really know next to nothing about.

We all use money, but I have zero idea of how monetary policy works, what the Federal Reserve actually does, what central banking is, let alone private banking!! I’m always up for a brain challenge, so I’ve just started reading this informative book by Leah Downey. So far, I’m impressed by how easily I’m able to follow along, and the author explains things thoroughly while leaving me wanting to learn more with each passing chapter.

I hope to be a more informed citizen by the end of the book! 📖