• ½ cup rolled oats 
• ½ container of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Yogurt
• ¼ cup pumpkin puree
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp chia seeds

Instructions:

1. Mix all the ingredients then pour into a mason jar.
2. Let sit overnight.
3. May be eaten cold or warmed up in the microwave. 

Recipe adapted from: theoatmealartist

I love subscription boxes, and well generally getting anything fun in the mail! For beauty products I get Allure's Sample Society and now for jewelry I signed up for Rocksbox. What netflix is to DVDs, rocksbox is to jewelry - a monthly subscription service! For $19 a month they send you a box (with a pretty black ribbon) with 3 pieces of designer jewelry based on your style profile. You can wear the items on loan for as long as you want or return them as fast as you can for your next box. There is the option to buy the pieces they send you but I love have the variety of pieces to wear to keep my wardrobe fresh. They include a free shipping back to return the items. From my first box I liked 2 out of the 3 pieces so I went back and adjusted my survey answers to make sure it's a better fit next time. They even have a wishlist section on their website so you can mark which items you'd like next.

I love fresh udon noodles, the kind you get in restaurants. Unfortunately the dry packages you buy at the grocery store doesn't just taste the same. But you can see the meals I made with udon noodles here and here. Then I came across Annie Chun's Udon Soup Bowl available at Trader Joe's or Target. The noodles are thick and delicious! I added tofu and shiitake mushrooms to make it a more complete meal. Try it out and let me know what you think.
 

I'm always one to have a stylish hat in the winter time, got it from my mother. In the past 10 years I've gone through 4 white coats and 4 white hats. People tell me they're afraid to wear a white coat because it'll get dirty which I don't really understand because I don't eat with my coat on, don't like coffee, don't sit on public benches so I have yet to stain my coats. Only my gloves get dirty from the metro handrail with black grease so I hand wash my gloves often. If you're looking for a new hat for yourself, check out some of these that come in a number of colors.

Shoes to Shiraz | Two Teens and their Mama | A Lovely Little Wardrobe | R Squared  Confessions of a Frumpy Mommy | Family Love Inspiration Education   The Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life | The Blondissima | Familiar Joy Positively Learning | Quilty Joy Joy | Daily Style Finds | Sheila's Potpourri | Puppies and Pretties She thought she could | Looks like Lauren | Foxy's Domestic Side |  Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

With fall comes the arrival of hot apple cider right? Or as Trader Joe's calls it "autumn joy in a glass". This year TJ's has stepped it up a notch by only using honey crisp apples in this bottle! Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you should know that honey crisp apples are the most delicious (and expensive) apples ever! If you're wondering why you should switch from TJ's Spiced Apple Cider, well just look at the ingredients it's made of a variety of juices, while TJ's  Honey Crisp Apple Cider has only one ingredient and  no added sugar. The secret of the deliciousness is in its simplicity and purity. I've been mixing it into my Vanilla Shakeology.










Roasted Mashed Sweet Potatoes - I know you're thinking how lazy does one have to be to buy this? Well the package is made up of a bunch of small mashed frozen discs which microwave in less than 30 seconds so it makes using it so fast and easy. There's only one ingredient - sweet potato, roasted to caramelize their natural sugar so it's really delicious. I've been experimenting adding it to my oatmeal.


























This time of year I also pick up my favorite apple butters: fig, pumpkin and cranberry apple.















 

I bought my first pair of grey jeans because of the Fall Fashion Challenge, check out yesterday's look. I've never owned grey jeans before and it was a challenge to find just the right shade of grey. Some jeans looked like faded black, or 80s acid wash jeans, these jeans that I bought were the perfect light grey color. I've found that grey jeans coordinate really well with burgundy, mustard yellow, cobalt blue, pink or purple.

I've never been a fan of plaid but that was another thing on the challenge shopping list. This shirt is  a bit oversized, but it doesn't give that lumberjack look. I absolutely love this color palette, it's a feminine way to wear plaid and I think the shoes and accessories pull the look together. If you saw the movie The Good Lie Reese Witherspoon is wearing a plaid shirt in every scene.

Allure magazine's November edition has a whole page dedicated to "How to wear plaid" with an interview with Tommy Hilfiger. He said that "while plaid cycles in and out it never totally disappears because it is an incredibly chic look when you wear it the right way." He recommends getting your plaid in a silk fabric because  "it's lightweight and feminine and offsets any unwanted lumberjack associations." He likes "crisp bright colors for plaid and says to stay away from dusty, muted shades like beige, olive green and brown because they look muddy." The accent color on the plaid must be white.  He says it looks perfect in a ski town but don't mix it with turquoise jewelry.

I had a lovely relaxing weekend enjoying fall before it gets too cold. I'm still wearing my fall inspired looks from the Fall Style Challenge. Saturday morning I visited my local Arboretum and walked the trails for 3 miles to see all the beautiful fall leaves.  It's a free part of the city and I like to visit at least once a year if not more often. Fall is the perfect time of year to explore the arboretum and I think I went at the peak bloom because I saw lots of dramatic fall color! I absolutely loved the red Japanese maple trees which is a dark burgundy color. Wandering around the gardens I also saw Gotelli drawf trees, conifer foilage (which remind me of Christmas trees), and dogwood trees that had turned a pretty red. Then there were fall blooming camellias bushes which look similar to roses and exotic ornamental grasses. I have a thing for the color yellow so I enjoyed see the ginkgo trees and witch-hazels. I definitely think it's worth a look to check out your local arboretum or gardens to see the amount of beauty that nature has to offer. 


 In the herb garden they have a collection of sage plants, my favorite being the Salvia leucantha 'Midnight' which has purple velvety leaves.


When I came home I made one of my favorite fall recipes: Butternut Squash Risotto. I tweaked the recipe a little adding black beans.

Ugh my cami collection used to be the biggest hassle! See first I used to never be able to find my camis because they were in all random places and that's why I now have 2 white camis and 2 black camis because the first pair went "missing" in my closet for an extended period of time. lol  Then I came up with the "bright" idea to keep all of them on one hanger so I would always know where they were. The problem with that is to take one cami off I would hope it was an outer cami that would just slide off, but nope most of the time I would have to remove all of them to get the one I wanted, annoyed me every time! Then I bought this belt hanger from Bed Bath and Beyond that is made of velvet fabric and provided a simple solution to something that has aggravated me for so long!

Here are some of my other closet organization posts:
Shoe Closet
Boot Fillers
Medicine Cabinet
Closet
Nail Polish
Makeup
Stylebook app

Wow, how is it November already?! I've finally stopped using the a/c at home and wearing a jacket everyday. When the weather starts to get cooler I usually would get a little grumpy as I'm a warm weather kind of gal. This year I've stayed positive about it by thinking of all the great things fall brings. I'm enjoying the crisp air by spending time outside, admiring the pretty turning of the leaves and checking off my favorite autumn activities from my Fall Bucketlist.  That includes baking pumpkin treats while drinking hot apple cider and consuming pumpkin flavored everything. Have I mentioned how much I love pumpkin? Pumpkin colored nails and clothing, pumpkin bread, pumpkin ice cream,  pumpkin decorating, pumpkin butter, cream cheese, and waffles, pumpkin bodywash, and of course my favorite holiday halloween.

This fall I've also decided to embrace gorgeous fall clothing by updating my fall wardrobe. I'm layering with cozy cardigans, wearing plaid, infinity scarves (just got into scarves this summer), and bought my first pair of riding boots (non-leather for this vegetarian). And trying out all new pant styles: leggings, skinny jeans, grey jeans and ripped jeans. 

In the summer time I live in cardigans because my office is so cold but I never stretch them out to the fall but love the layered look of them. For this look I have a boyfriend cardigan which means an extra long one, Target has them and has free shipping this time of year! I'm building up my collection of infinity scarves, never worn them before but for me looks so stylish and easier than necklaces which always tend to tire my neck by the end of day. I haven't worn ripped jeans since high school!

My post last year showing what celebs wore for Halloween has been one of my most popular posts so I thought I'd do it again for my favorite holiday as it's the most festive night of the year. I usually eagerly await the Today show on Halloween to see what costumes they wear but this year they did a tribute to Saturday Night Live. So they wore costumes from their characters which if you think about it are just everyday clothes so I was disappointed with that because it just wasn't that special. But I did like Tamron Hall's costume from a previous year where she went as Obama:



 Amber Rose threw a costumed birthday party and she's in the leopard with Carmen Electra


 Aubrey O'Day, have to toot my own horn here but I think I had a better peacock costume

Beyonce went to two parties this year, first up is Frida Kahlo which I also saw a man dressed up as at a party I went to! lol
Beyonce dressed as Janet Jackson from her "Rhythm Nation" music video and Blue Ivy dressed as Michael Jackson.

Hugh Hefner and his wife went as twins

 

Kate Hudson

                                

Miley Cyrus

Kylie Minogue

                                                     

                    Padma Lakshmi and Susan Sarandon

Me

Lady Gaga

Not an actual costume, just what Miley Cyrus wore in the Sydney airport last week - a unicorn onesie

Kelly Ripa and Michael as Orange is the New Black

Rihanna - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!