Amazon Dress (Find all my Amazon dresses here!) / Sneakers / Bag / Necklace / Sunglasses
Here are the first 10+ things that come to mind this morning:
- I’m reading How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, and it’s fantastic. I love Dana K. White. She’s hilarious and provides so many great tips for people who are sloppy at heart (i.e. me, haha) but don’t want to be anymore. And while I feel like I’m finally starting to have my home under control and no longer stress about it, I’m not perfect! Love the real-life tips for a happier, calmer life at home and beyond. This is all to say I guess I wish Dana K. White was my best friend. 😆
- OUR ROOF IS LEAKING. A contractor caught it last week, and it’s (obviously) not good news, haha. It’s happening on part of the roof deck, which is over Lucy’s room. And the only real solution is removing the deck. Mitch and I would like to eventually replace it anyway, but we’re not up for a huge project right now… so we’re weighing our options and trying to figure out whether there’s a quick fix for the time being. Homeownership, man.
- We went to Galit and loved it. It’s a Michelin-rated Middle Eastern restaurant in Lincoln Park, operated by award-winning chef Zachary Engel. WOW! It was incredible. We went for a special going away dinner for our neighbors—yes, we’re losing so many great neighbors this year! 😢—and couldn’t get over how wonderful of an experience it was. Thanks to our friend Nicki for handling the ordering process. ;) She rocked it.
- You NEED this dress. It’s the new printed version of Tuckernuck’s ever-famous Kenzo Dress, and it’s crazy flattering and comfortable. It’s a go-to travel dress for me, too, since it can be dressed down or up so easily. I went up one size for length and it was perfect; not oversized at all.
- Emma is in the throes of planning her birthday party, and it’s all we talk about. At the moment, she can’t decide between having a handful of girlfriends sleep over or invite the whole class to the trampoline park. TOUGH DECISIONS, guys. Stay tuned!
- I had a keratin treatment on my hair done for the first time. After years of wanting one and having a very drying balayage job done a couple of weeks ago, I finally took the plunge and gave myself the gift. I feel like I always have one bullet point in these posts where I preface it with “…I’m writing this in advance, but…” and this is just that. 😉 But if what people tell me is true—no frizz, even during humid days—I’m all in. I’ve always dreamed of being that girl who doesn’t have to spend tons of time styling her hair to make it look acceptable, and I’m really hoping that a keratin treatment will help. If it does, I plan on doing it no more than two times per year so as not to damage my locks. Will report back!
- I laughed at this article. “Never better!”
- Mitch and I saw Kenny Chesney this past weekend. Once again, writing this in advance. :) But yay for fun date nights!
- I love this navy dress from lemlem, one of my favorite Black-owned brands. I feel like it’s selling out quickly, though, so hopefully it’s still in stock by the time this post goes live!
- I need to make a confession. We’re really trying to eat better in our home, and we have eliminated most processed snacks from our pantry cabinet. But I cannot be happy—or survive, really—without goldfish crackers. Like, I can’t. They sustain me. (I should note here that goldfish crackers are not terrible for a person; Mitch just recently read this book and is very passionate about making some changes to what we eat at home, and I want to be supportive, haha!) So… I bought myself some goldfish and hid them in my desk. And while the girls have not complained about the lack of non-processed snacks in our home, I feel VERY guilty about my secret stash. 😆
- I love everything J.Crew is putting out right now! So classic. Above are some of my faves.
- Have I told you about how Lucy screams that she “can’t feel her eyes” every night? Well, Girlfriend finally got pinkeye from school. And the doctor prescribed some medicine. And now, as long as I smear the ointment on her eyes at night, she is at peace and can fall asleep no problem. Once it’s all over, though, god help us. Maybe I’ll just start smearing water on her eyes? Survival, guys.
- One Home Project Every Day: We made a ton of home progress this past week!
- Our front door deadbolt jammed (with the key in it) and MITCH FIXED IT. We are not handy. But the man disassembled the lock and put it back together and remedied the problem. I was so impressed.
- We installed a new outdoor light. We bought it like two years ago and finally grew tired of looking at the box in our garage. It’s a big improvement to the backyard!
- I purged our kiddie cups. They were too small, and Lucy doesn’t really drop cups anymore. Here’s too less-stuffed cabinets!
- We installed bolt locks the upstairs’ doors. A few months ago, we had friends over—and Lucy and her little pals ransacked my office and threw my external hard drives around the room. 🙈 Luckily, no data was lost… but it could have been bad! So we decided to install these locks at the tops of the doors for protection against miniature humans. ;) The previous owners installed them outside of the girls’ bathrooms—presumably so tiny tots wouldn’t play in the toilets or leaving water running at night—and though we’ve never needed to use them, we thought the idea was brilliant.
- The basement doorknobs went in! They’d been backordered for the longest time, but wow! Doorknobs make a big difference, haha.
- We overhauled the electronics closet in the basement. Oh, guys. It needed it. Mitch has two closets down there, and they’ve both been catastrophes since we moved in. 😆 It’s not his fault. Managing the internet and speaker system in our home is no easy task, and there’s NO way that I could do it, let alone do it in an orderly manner. The previous owners also had a lot of systems set up in the electronics closet that we don’t use, and we’re afraid to cut the wires because WHAT IF THEY’RE IMPORTANT?! But we took nearly everything out, purged and categorized, put everything into labeled containers, and even gained a couple of shelves to use for linen closet purposes. And when our friends Dave or Shawn—or my dad!—come, they’ll take a crack at figuring out what all the wires do and help us decided which ones we can eliminate. Or we’ll hire an electrician. ;)
- I found the perfect stuff to paint our slate tiles in the mudroom. One lady’s before/after photos—where she used the paint in matte “Charcoal”—really sold me on it. I’m then (hopefully) going to replace the red granite on the ledge with Home Depot Statuario quartz, which we used in our kitchen as well. I got a quote and couldn’t believe how little it would cost: Between $300 and $400. Wow!
- I also found some good shelf options. Which do you like best?