Hey, I’m Sam! I’m a People Ops specialist who recently moved to Long Beach from West LA with my dog Maddie.

Below is what I initially wrote when setting up this blog, but I felt this introduction needed an update. I wanted this blog to thrive and become a hit spot for my readers. The famed and coveted life of an “influencer” proved to be a lot more difficult to attain, so now this blog is just for me, myself, and I. While I will continue to write content that I hope will benefit others, my website is more or less a place to share more about me and that’s all that truly matters 🙂 Thanks for visiting!

For a couple years now, I had this long and drawn-out yearning to start a blog, to write about anything I want, to gather a following of readers, to engage an audience, and to influence. I knew it was going to be tough to get started so I kept pushing this idea back and never initializing. I’m not a professional photographer or an excellent writer/orator. I’m also not too tech savvy or street smart enough to provide the best guides or tips. I’m also not the most creative person. And while I’m not painting the best picture of myself here, I still believe that there are things worth sharing.

I follow a number of fitspo profiles on Instagram and one kept standing out to me time after time: rrayyme. Remi Ishizuka is, to me, an inspiring character and someone with aesthetics that I love. I always admired her and wanted to be like her. Then I came across a LinkedIn article about a finance professional who quit her 9-5 job after discovering that her personal blog generated enough passive income for her to do so. It’s a moonshot of a goal but I want to start off slow, do things my way, and see where this takes me.

What I came to learn about myself is that I get these random bursts of energy and motivation to do something (or buy something hehe). After reading that article, I become obsessed about launching a lifestyle blog. This was also a tricky topic to introduce to people – I’ve been met with healthy skepticism and almost fake enthusiasm from friends. And I don’t blame them! This is going to take me years to build and I’m excited that I’ve been presented with some time to sit down and crank this out. I’ve never had a passion project before, not in my 24 years, and I’m ecstatic to see things come together after many hours of work and begging my software engineer boyfriend Erik for help 😉

I hope I can stay humble and stay strong so that this doesn’t become another phase that I push back on because things get rough. I hope you enjoy the accumulation of MY lifestyle and what it means to me.

Thank you!!

P.S. That tagline “Pull on the golden thread” came out of the mouth of one of my role models, John, whom I worked very close with at my first job out of college as a technical recruiter for his company. He was basically telling me to go for my dreams, despite the odds. John and his sister, who was also my boss and another role model to me (hi Alie!), took me under their wing and helped me grow as a recruiter. We were the dream team! Also both of these individuals have a knack for spewing out relatable sayings and catch phrases, it’s ridiculous. Thank you John and Alie for being my mentors 🙂

P.P.S. Special thanks to my mentee Gautam and super rad photographers Chang and April for some of these pictures. And of course a HUGE thanks to the bf Erik (now, ex) for spending countless hours with me getting this set up <3