Abandoned Carnival Adventures

Back in the beginning of the summer, I stumbled upon a carnival that was set up in the church parking lot of my town.  Naturally, I had to go exploring the empty rides and cotton candy stands because it was totally vacant, probably because it wasn't supposed to open up for business until 9pm.  This traveling carnival turned out to be the perfect little backdrop for an outfit of the day.

Dress: Thrift Store, Hat: Forever 21, Bag: Target, Wedges: Target, Bracelets: random places

xoxo, Leanne

The Sounds of My Summer

I went to a concert last night so naturally I'm now inspired to write this blog post even though I wanted to wait until the end of August.  This is gonna be a list of the quintessential songs of my summer, basically everything that I have had on repeat for the past few months.  This in no way represents my 'favorite songs' because a lot of my most beloved songs won't be making the list since I didn't really listen to them this summer and therefore they won't remind me of this time in my life.

So here it goes- in no particular order.....

Country Grown- FM Radio
Crown on the Ground- Sleigh Bells
I Can Lift a Car- Walk the Moon
I Drive Your Truck- Lee Brice
Crash My Party- Luke Bryan
Alive- Empire of the Sun
Southern Girl- Tim McGraw
All Over the Road- Easton Corbin
Superman- Eminem
Going Through Changes- Eminem
Lose Yourself- Eminem
No Love- Eminem ft. Lil Wayne
I Want Crazy- Hunter Hayes
Southern Comfort Zone- Brad Paisley
Red Cup Hands Up Long Brown Hair- Boys Like Girls
Burn it All- The Dean's List
I Need a Doctor- Dr. Dre ft. Eminem and Skylar Grey
Amarillo Sky- Jason Aldean
All Summer Long- Kid Rock
Point at You- Justin Moore
Lucky Man- Hoodie Allen
No Faith in Brooklyn- Hoodie Allen ft. Jhameel
Fame is for Assholes- Hoodie Allen ft. Chiddy
Tom Ford- Jay Z
Pursuit of Happiness- Kid Cudi (Steve Aoki Remix)
Bad Girls- M.I.A.
We Can't Stop- Miley Cyrus
Mayberry- Rascal Flatts
Redneck Crazy- Tyler Farr
Fashion Killa- A$AP Rocky
Over- Drake
HYFR- Drake
No New Friends- DJ Khaled, Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross
Step- Vampire Weekend
Oh My- The Partysquad and Boaz
Do or Die- Flux Pavillion ft. Childish Gambino (Flosstradamus Remix)

So there you have it, the way my life has sounded this summer.  I obviously listened almost exclusively to rap and country which is fine because I'm obsessed with both now (I have to thank Gwen for getting me a bit more into rap, although I can't really say I'm all the way there yet).  If I had to summarize my musical loves into three words for these past few months it would be: Eminem, Hoodie Allen, and Luke Bryan.

Summer Loves 2013

I know that summer hasn't quite ended yet but I'm going back to school soon and am already getting nostalgic about all the stuff that I loved while being at home in Texas this summer so I've composed a list of all my top obsessions that occurred this summer!
 

Sonic Drinks: okay this sounds really cliche and standard, but this was seriously one of my go to places this summer because of how cheap it is (espec during happy hour) there is always something that you can find to order with the extra spare change you find in your car. My top recommendations have to be- 1. Mint Slush (just try it, I promise it's delish) 2. Grilled Cheese (for some reason wayyy better than any other grilled cheese out there) 3. Mozz Sticks during Happy Hour (when you can get 2 for a mere 99 cents)

 

Hair Bandanas: been wearing these daily and seriously cannot get enough of them. Due to the fact that I NEVER do my hair in the summer, these are actually a lifesaver. You can buy them in a huge variety of colors and patterns for 99 cents at Hobby Lobby so I stocked up a couple of months ago and have been wearing them ever since.

Friday Night Lights: basically 99 percent of my summer is spent by lounging on my porch swing (that I miraculously built myself!!) and watching shows on Netflix.  While there have been a few shows that I've gotten pretty into this summer, I have to say that HANDS DOWN this one has been the best.  I can now officially say that Friday Night Lights and Gossip Girl are the two shows closest to my heart and I think that is because each of them relates to my life in a way that no other movie or tv show has captured.  Growing up in Texas, this show naturally drew me in and I was hooked from the very beginning.  I fell in love with each character and then became ultimately obsessed around season 3 when the plot in Dillon started showing staggering similarities to the town that I grew up in.

Exploring Texas: not having a steady income this summer severely limited my options for finding fun things to do.  I think that you should all take the time to explore your state because it pretty much costs nothing except a little gas money and you can honestly find so much to do.  I've lived in Texas for my whole life and somehow managed to discover so many new things to do here this summer.  The picture above I took on the seven hour drive from Dallas to Lubbock.  Seeing more of West Texas was amazing and I completely fell in love. Even in my very own Dallas (only 40 mins away from my town) I found events and attractions that I never knew existed before.  Also turns out Fort Worth also has a lot to offer in the summer.  One of my favorite days consisted of floating the river for a few hours and the proceeding to get froyo in downtown Ft. Worth before heading over to a free outdoor movie.  There are still many more places I want to travel within Texas but considering how big this place is, I think I covered a pretty good amount.

Bellum & Rogue: this is a small boutique based out of Texas and since I haven't really been able to go to the mall and shop due to no income, I've spent much of my time browsing online boutiques.  I really love the idea of supporting small businesses and I also believe that these places typically have garments and accessories that are unique and not something that you will find on everybody which is a constant struggle because I go to fashion school and there is not a store out there that these people don't know about. So when I shop at smaller places like this I can pretty much assume that I can wear the stuff to school without seeing seven look-a-likes on the way to class.  I like this boutique because it's pretty moderately priced for a boutique and they get new merchandise frequently. **Warning: as with most clothing stores today, this one currently stocks mass amounts of chevron print things and if you are like me, you are over it. Keep looking though because you can find some pretty good pieces.

So I think that pretty much wraps up my list of favorites.  Obviously this is an extremely short and pretty standard list but that is mainly because I honestly lead a real simple life in the summer and nothing groundbreaking generally happens.  Let's be real, most days I don't wear anything except my swimsuit and I consider a day extremely productive if I get a shade darker while tanning...

Also, I purposely left anything music related off the list because then I would have spent 20 hours writing this post.  A whole separate post is going to be dedicated exclusively to my music favorites of the summer!

 

xoxo