Friday Five {May 28, 2021}

Happy Friday Everyone!

One – Current Happenings & Mother’s Day

Happy Friday everyone! Well, it is time for my monthly update around here. The Spring and end of the school year is always a blur. Adding to that, my daughter is changing schools next year to one closer to our house (2 minutes away!), which means we are also in the process of changing to the church affiliated with that school. She is really excited to change schools and has a really great friend already at this school that is on her dance team. We have prayed and thought a lot about this change and I think it is going to be a good one for her.

Now, let’s talk about Mother’s Day!!! I hope all of my readers had a lovely Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day weekend was a regional dance competition and I was there with Autumn from 11:00-8:00 p.m. BOTH Saturday and Sunday. Whew! It was NOT an ideal or relaxing Mother’s Day and I missed not seeing my mom… but, it was SO great to see my girl do what she loves and that is TAP dance!! She placed 2nd out of 10 for her duet with her sweet friend Kendra and in her other 3 group dances they placed FIRST in ALL of them and one of them scored a Choreography award for one of her AH-mazing teachers. Autumn LOVES her dance team and school so much! Her next competition will be at Myrtle Beach in July!!!

So, Brian made the best of Mother’s Day for me, even though I was gone almost the entire weekend at the dance competition venue. He surprised me with these lovely coral (I think they look coal or pinkish orange) roses on the Friday before Mother’s Day.

Then, he got me homemade Hostess cupcakes from a bakery near our house. The funny thing is that they didn’t have his order when he got there, so they whipped these ones up quickly (that is why the icing is a little melted)… but, a day later he got called from ANOTHER bakery near our house asking why he never picked up his order of Hostess cupcakes! Ha, ha! So, I landed up with TWO half dozen orders (12 cupcakes total!) for Mother’s Day and they were SO delish. I did share them with my family, but I ate WAYYY too many of them. So, just so ya know… I LOVE Hostess cupcakes!!!

On Mother’s Day morning, I was home till about 11:00 a.m., BUUUT I wanted to look nice for Mother’s Day (even though I got ZERO photos of myself with the kids!) and I had to get Autumn all dolled up for her dance (fake eyelashes and all!)… so, it was a hectic morning. However, Brian and Autumn cooked me this DELICIOUS breakfast of Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Syrup & Crème plus a Spinach-Blood Orange Salad! It was a SPECIAL Mother’s Day Hello Fresh meal, but even with all of the ingredients provided, it took Brian and Aut 80 minutes to prepare it!!! Nathan was a sweetheart and did the dishes and cleaned up. If you’ve never tried Hello Fresh before, you can save $40 off your first order (and I’ll get a $10 credit, thank you very much!) by clicking HERE for the discount link. We have been doing Hello Fresh since the pandemic started and we LOVE it. I typically order mostly vegetarian dinners and they have A LOT to pick from.

Shop this post:

AND, to close out Mother’s Day, Brian surprised me (ok, I did maybe send him a hint I wanted this) with a Tory Burch Small Robinson Saffiano Leather Tote!! The color is gray, which goes so well with my love of neutrals. It may look a little gray beige in this photo, though.

AND, I am FULLY vaccinated!!! If you’re wondering which vaccine I got, it was the Pfizer one. I got some minor chills and fatigue with the first vaccine shot and with the second one I got some chills before bed, but I took some Tylenol and I think I slept through any other symptoms I may have had. I did wake up with a slight headache the next morning after having the second vaccine shot. So, it wasn’t bad at all!!! I write my blog posts a couple of weeks ahead, so by the time this is posted my kids will both have received their 1st Pfizer shot.

Before I went to get my second Covid vaccine, I had a little time to kill after I dropped the kids off. There is a food truck establishment next to the kids school and they’re offering breakfast food trucks now! I tried Honey Bee’s honey biscuit with sausage gravy (SO good, the biscuit was like a huge slice of cake!) and a honey lavender coffee from a coffee food truck. I sat outside and it was so relaxing! It was totally spur of the moment, but a nice relaxing moment in my day.

Two – Latest Favorite Products

So, I’ve seen some advertisements for these FLO PMS Gummy Vitamins and I thought I’d give them a try. I’m 43 and I tend to get hormonal headaches a week prior, during or even right after my periods. (Sorry if this is TMI!) I decided I wanted to try these gummies out for a couple of months and I purchased a two month supply. I’m still on my first month, but I do feel they’ve helped! I did a lot of reading online about them and they have natural ingredients and they taste good. I’m mainly taking them to see if they help with the hormonal headaches, but I will see if they help with any of the PMS symptoms. I did do a poll on my IG Stories and a few of my followers do take these, which I found interesting. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever tried these, I’d love to hear how they worked for you. I wanted to add that this is not sponsored and I don’t make any commission on any sales on these supplements.

Shop this post:

I hardly ever buy myself new bras, but when I was at the outlet stores, I came across the Soma Outlet store and decided to try on their Enbliss Bralettes. I landed up sizing up one (to a medium), just for a bit of a looser fit as they can be a little tighter due to the support they offer. I just LOVE these bras for days when I don’t really need to leave the house or go anywhere. They’re SO comfy!!

Then, I wanted to try something different for a strapless bra this summer and I ordered these seamless, strapless bras that are padded and supportive on Amazon for my strapless dresses and tops this summer. I have tried them on a few times and I just LOVE them!! They’re COMFORTABLE, too!

Three – Running & NordicTrack

I’ve been enjoying my NordicTrack still!! Especially since we’ve been having lots of black bear sightings around St. Louis and IN St. Louis County lately. Eek!! I received this Fresh Start magnet from iFit and I didn’t even know I had earned it. Apparently it is for 12 workouts each month from January through March. I am getting a lot of magnets from iFit on my magnet board! 🙂 

Then, 2 days after I got my first Pfizer vaccine shot, it was the day I had scheduled to run my virtual half marathon. I was still feeling really fatigued and it was NOT my best half marathon, but also not my worse. I went to Creve Coeur park and ran around it 4+ times (it is about a 4 mile loop). It was drizzly out, so not my ideal running weather, but I did it!!! I signed up for the Virtual Star Wars half marathon with RunDisney, so I got this AWESOME medal and it even spins. I honestly don’t even really like Star Wars, but I love the runDisney medals. I did the Wine & Dine half many years ago- in person and it is one of my favorite medals. HOWEVER, my husband LOVES Star Wars, so he was excited about the medal! Ha! I need to plan my next half marathon, which will be a fall one. Since I’m fully vaccinated, I would like to find one that is in person… I’ll probably just run one in my hometown of St. Louis, but there are a lot of neat half marathons out there.

Four – Latest Book & Shows

Majesty (American Royals #2) by Katherine McGee 

This is the sequel to the first book of the American Royals series. I really enjoyed this book, the characters and the ending. The Queen Beatrice, her sister, sister’s friend, etc. go through a lot of relationship problems in this book that they work through. I wasn’t expecting for them to land up with who they did by the end of the book. I did feel like Daphne got a little bit of what she deserved at the end, even though it was what she thought she wanted all along. I could see a third book coming out eventually by how this book ended (which I won’t give away spoilers).

And, as for shows…

We are STILL currently watching Outlander and it is taking us awhile to get through it. I’ll update more once we finish it. 🙂 

Five – MIG Living Clean Products

Chrissy from Granola and Grace recently introduced me to MIG Living products when she sent me some samples to try. I tried out the products she sent me and loved them SO much, that I’ve purchased some MIG products on my own. You can see Chrissy’s post about her Best Dressed Face using MIG Living products HERE.

So, a little about MIG Living… Chrissy is similar to me, we have both been working on fueling our bodies with lots of water, clean whole plant based foods and cleaner products that are made with natural products. Now, I do enjoy a treat every now and then and I do have some cult beauty products that I still haven’t weaned myself off of, but I’ve been working little by little into being a lot healthier as I’ve gotten into my forties.

When Chrissy sent me some samples of MIG (aka, Might In Good) Living products, I could tell right away that they were FRESHLY made, clean and natural. SO, let me tell you about the four products I purchased on my own and why I love them so much:

Facial Lotion Bar – Ok, so when Chrissy sent me a sample of the Facial Lotion Bar, I thought… (and sorry, Chrissy!) there is NO way I’m going to like this! My first thought of a lotion bar was greasy, oily and just… not a good fit for my combination skin. But, when I wore it the first time I was AMAZED and how good my skin felt. It did go on a little dewy, but my skin absorbed it and I had this AH-mazing glow every time I looked in the mirror. I kept looking in the mirror at myself all day long (yes, I’m weird) and I kept wondering my skin was glowing!! Well, it was because this Facial Lotion Bar is AWESOME! And, when I went online to read more about it, there was 1,000’s of positive reviews on it… 1,000’s!!!

So, I am just going to share with you what their site says about this bar: The Face lotion bar is anti-aging, perfecting, and replenishing – this earthy blend of fresh beeswax, rich botanicals, and essential oils are transformational and heavenly.

It takes 300 pounds of honey to create just one pound of beeswax, or as we like to call it, “Liquid Gold”—the antiseptic nutrient and vitamin rich base we’ve chosen for our Facial Serum Stick is a game changer.

Clears pores, reduces the appearance of scars, richly nourishes the skin while locking in moisture. Dripping with farm fresh beeswax & wildcrafted herbs to restore youth, diminish fine lines & protect your skin from the elements all day long.

Headache Balm – So, as I was talking earlier in my post… I tend to get hormonal headaches. This headache balm works wonderfully! I put it on my temples, swipe it across my forehead and the back of my neck and if I do it as a headache is starting to form, it sends that headache packing!! It smells so good and has a little bit of a tingle, which is so soothing! My husband and son really love this headache balm, too!

Breathe Balm – The kids and I have asthma as does our rag doll cat! Our asthma will usually flare up at night when we lay down for bed or when the weather tends to change from hot/cold in the early Spring and Fall. I have been using this Breathe Balm this Spring when my allergies flare up and it really works wonders! I put a poppyseed size amount in my nasal cavity and a dime sized amount on my chest an hour before I go to bed and it really helps! 

Ritual Cleansing Bar – Lavender & Colloidal Oat – I prefer bar soap for my showers and I really liked the sample of this that Chrissy sent me, so I decided to buy a bar of my own. This soap is so creamy to the touch and has such a soothing fragrance, it is truly a soap for body and soul!