Category: Personal / Information / Etc.

2018 Favorite Products

Posted December 20, 2018 / Lifestyle, Personal / Information / Etc. / 0 Comments
2018 Favorite Products

I circled back through my Lauren Lately posts to round up some of my favorite new products, purchases, etc. from 2018. As you’ll see, it’s mostly makeup and healthy/beauty related because that’s where most of my money goes. Sorry, not sorry. [Links will be mostly to where I bought the item, or on Amazon if it makes more sense.] Skincare / Body / Hair Body Anti-Chafe Balm | This was great when I went to NYC for a weekend and walked everywhere! I’m not a city gal and don’t often walk around, but when I visit cities in the summer? This will be my go-to from now on. I love wearing shorts or breezy dresses to keep cool during those months, but walking 20,000+ steps around a city requires some kind of anti-chafing system. This worked well and I didn’t even notice it was there! Keep it in your purse if you have to reapply. Thayer’s Witch Hazel | This stuff just feels so nice on my skin. I learned that witch hazel makes a good toner and this is the one I use during the daytime. It’s light and doesn’t feel like anything, but refreshes my skin. I don’t massage it in with a cotton pad – I just kind of let it absorb and apply the COSRX liquid (below) right after. Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer | I know I just talked about these in my last Lauren Lately but they’re both already favorite purchases this year. I love being […]

Holiday Hallmark Movies

Posted December 17, 2018 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments
Holiday Hallmark Movies

I honestly wasn’t into Hallmark movies until last Christmas, when I discovered their wonderfulness and large amount of Candace Cameron Bure. I just recorded some that looked interesting and reviewed them on the blog throughout December. This year, I downloaded the Hallmark Christmas Movie app, pre-planned which new ones I wanted to watch, and recorded a bunch on my Sling DVR as needed. I figured I would toss ALL of them into one post with some quick thoughts (I’m posting this now but will ADD TO IT LATER). They’re listed here in order of me watching them.    Christmas at Pemberly Manor While I’m not a Pride & Prejudice fangirl, I can often appreciate a “retelling” without knowing the source material very well. This was a cute movie overall! I’ve seen that some people don’t like the female lead very much but I’ve liked her over the years (and really only know her from the 90210 reboot I loved). The male lead was decent too. It was a classic story of a girl putting on a Christmas festival and getting the grumpy workaholic to take some time off for loooooove. Christmas Joy This one was super cute. A market researcher is forced to return to her “hometown” after her aunt suffered an ankle injury. She takes over on the annual Cookie Crawl while trying to balance her work AND the cute Christmas-obsessed guy she used to know from high school. I thought the two leads had really good chemistry and […]

Favorite Ornaments + Some Holiday Decorations

Posted December 12, 2018 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments
Favorite Ornaments + Some Holiday Decorations

I’m here today with a simple post highlighting my favorite Christmas ornaments, as well as the overall decor of my house right now. I’ve loved Christmas as long as I can remember and have acquired at least one new ornament every year. My mom has a bunch of mine from childhood – including this HUGE picture frame of me that’s all glittery – packed away because she’s stopped getting trees for some Scrooge-y reason. In any case, all of my ornaments from my dad’s house (literally 100% Panthers ones) have made their way to me. At some point in my life I’ll have a second tree for just them! Without further ado, here are some highlights of my favorite Christmas ornaments and the memories attached to them. Tree & Ornaments We went to a local farmstand to get our tree right after Thanksgiving, and it was a nice way to spend Small Business Saturday! The people there were super friendly and we LOVE the perfect shape of it. Finn and Jake (from Adventure Time), a pizza, one of the Winged Keys from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, an ornament from book pages, an ice cream cone Panthers airplane with Santa, Lego cat, lounging snowman, WWE chair (from TLC set), Finn Balor WWE gingerbread man, homemade Elmo from childhood Marauder’s Map from Harry Potter, Lego Christmas tree, Tinkerbell, Christmas sweater, Kurt Angle WWE gingerbread man, Panthers bell, John Cena WWE gingerbread man Goofy from a trip to Disney, Tweety ornament from childhood, […]

101 Things in 1001 Days Update

101 Things in 1001 Days Update

The Day Zero Project made it on my radar a few years ago when I started following Stephanie’s blog, Not Entirely Perfect. This project is where you make a list of 101 goals to complete in 1001 days, which is just under 3 years (2¾ years). It’s fun to plan out the goals you think you may have over that time frame because you can mix in easy one with more difficult long-term ones. So, I did make a list at the time and did… somewhat okay… with a lot of the goals. I ended up quitting because the goals weren’t related to my life anymore, with the move and other priorities shifting. When Stephanie posted how to make a 101 in 1001 list, I decided it was time to do it again. I think I’m ready to do it again now that my life is going to be somewhat settled in the near future lol. I started the list on December 1, 2018 so it will end on August 28, 2020. I decided to share my list here with you. Here’s my list on the website if you want to follow me or check in on my progress! Today’s post is the first update to my list with all progress made and immediate goals! 66 not started yet | 9 in progress | 26 completed In Progress Post challenge updates each calendar year during it | I wanted to post each year during the challenge with some of my challenge progress. So far so […]

How We Cut Cable

Posted November 8, 2018 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 7 Comments
How We Cut Cable

I’ve had this post drafted for a while (and by “drafted” I mean a post draft with zero body text and just the title of “How We Cut Cable”) – back in October 2017. We cut cable a few years ago and have had zero regrets since. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve wished for regular cable again in the past year or two. I’m here to chat about how we get by without cable! (To be clear: this post is not sponsored by anyone or any service, but the link below has a referral discount I’ll talk about later!) As you can see, we were still able to stream the World Series, football games, and seasonal faves! What we watch We watch the following things live each week: football games (and sometimes other sports, depending on the season) and wrestling. We needed to figure out how to watch the channels that those appear on, because a lot of other shows that we’d watch later can be found on Hulu or on channel-specific apps. Our wrestling shows happen on the USA network (and will also be on Fox in a year or two). Football games happen on CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network, and Amazon Prime, depending on the day of the week. Full disclosure: my team is based in North Carolina so I don’t often have the option to watch them on regular TV where I live. My dad has NFL Sunday Ticket, so we will go over […]

What I Wore Last Week

What I Wore Last Week

I really don’t consider myself to be a ~fashionable~ person, but I do try to put together good-looking outfits! The VAST majority of my closet consists of Lularoe or Honey & Lace (that was a long phase of my life and I acquired way too much – I don’t buy anymore but I still kept the stuff I liked!) and Old Navy. It wouldn’t surprise me if I went through and looked at everything in there, only to discover that literally 90% of my clothing came from those few brands. Old Navy will always be my first love though! I buy all of my pants/jeans/bottoms from them and most of my shirts (including sweaters, cardigans, basics, etc.) from there as well. I DIGRESS. I saw this fun “what I wore this week” post on A Little Bit of Emily and decided to do the same! We’re finally hitting cooler weather in Connecticut! I feel like it went from being super hot and humid, to just plain humid, to humid and rainy, to just rainy, and now it’s more cold and still sometimes rainy. It’s annoying because we love hiking and hanging outside in the fall, when it’s in the 50s or 60s, but everything has been so wet. In any case, I’m happy to be wearing my sweaters, scarves, and boots again! Monday October 22nd Since losing weight, I had to shrink some of my previously-air-dried clothing items so they would fit. I’m happy to have this problem! I wore […]

No Spend November

No Spend November

I attempted No Spend April a few years ago and it wasn’t the most successful thing ever? I like the sound of No Spend November and genuinely think I can make this happen. My weddings are officially done for the year but I do have some general spending to do for next year’s weddings and Christmas. This November I am aiming to not spend money on myself at all and limit my spending on other people, food, etc. I just developed a monthly calendar that shows all of my expenses, so I’ll include that here. Here’s my plan of attack. Budget / Expenses I didn’t disclose the dollar amounts here but I put them in order from most to least expensive. Yes, my student loan costs more than my half of our monthly rent. I otherwise have various payments for my car, streaming services, and more. Student loan Rent for the house Car loan Car insurance Credit card monthly payments Internet Sling TV and Netflix Blog hosting Wrestling-related streaming services Dropbox Premium Weight Watchers Rules (1) Only spend money I have on hand – nothing goes on a credit card I actually don’t have many credit cards in general: one store card, one regular one, and a Paypal Credit account that I use mostly for airline tickets and other expensive items like that. I hope to not use any of my credit accounts and focus on using my savings from the month on paying them down. (2) Dining out is […]

Autumn Decorations and Adventures

Autumn Decorations and Adventures

I love September and beyond. Sure, summer is great, but I prefer not to sweat all of my makeup off immediately. My birthday, anniversary, and the start of football season in September bring me a hell of a lot of joy. I make big autumn plans and bucket lists every year, which usually involve many decorations, pumpkin picking, and other falltime activities around New England. I thought I’d follow up with you and share some of my decorations this year, as well as other autumn highlights and adventures! I also decided to work on the TBB Asks survey this month because it’s fall-themed (it’s supposed to be from the beginning of the month but oh well). I like all the fall colors, but I often dress in maroon/burgundy shades and lately some mustard! Apple cider should always be cold. LOVE it, especially when it comes fresh from a local orchard. Nope, I’m not a caramel kind of gal. I don’t like it when it’s all sticky (like on a caramel apple or in a candy bar), but I don’t mind something with caramel flavoring (like coffee). Hmm this should be tougher because I love all things pumpkin, but apple cider donuts are my freakin FAVORITE THING. They are so sugary and delicious. Our farmers market usually has a truck with fresh ones but they haven’t been around lately as much 🙁 I love long cardigans because I will mostly wear them with comfy leggings and a basic shirt underneath. In […]

My Go-To Trader Joe’s Shopping List

My Go-To Trader Joe’s Shopping List

I have been loving Trader Joe’s for a long time, but the closest one in Connecticut was 40 minutes away when I lived there initially. When we moved to to Maine, there was a Trader Joe’s right down the street. I got used to shopping there for probably 75% of our groceries and reserved most meats and quick trips for the Hannaford within walking distance. I was sad to move back to Connecticut and leave my favorite grocery store behind but we FINALLY got one in the same town that I work in! In honor of this big milestone in my life (lol), I thought I would round up some of my favorite Trader Joe’s foods  for you. I recently did a grocery store analysis to share if online shopping for snacks and non-perishables was worth it, and there were quite a few categories where surprisingly TJ’s was the cheapest option! One thing about TJ’s is that they rotate their stock seasonally A LOT. There are some things you can always find there, for sure, but a lot that comes and goes. They don’t have a full website of products either so I had to be creative when finding images. Most of these were taken by me in my many trips to the freakin store.   Pita Bite Crackers with Olive Tapenade This is my number one go-to snack in general, let alone from Trader Joe’s. I would save up calories all day to snack on this at the end […]

A Day in the Life (10/5)

A Day in the Life (10/5)

I’m taking a cue from lifestyle bloggers and vloggers who share daily vlogs about their lives for this feature! I’m not sure if it will be a regular things around here or not, but I always am fascinated by people’s daily lives and routines. I’ll be sharing various pictures and descriptions of a day in my life – what I wore, what I ate, where I went, what I did, and more. Let me know what you think in the comments! 6:30 AM – 9:00 AM I used to love getting up super early and having time to myself before work. That changed when we moved to Maine for a while because our schedules were really weird with Chris working nights and me working from home. I had to get back into the swing of having a commute and giving myself “me time” in the morning again. I have to get up at 7:30 to shower, get ready, and drive to work for 9 AM, so I like to get up anywhere during the “6:00 hour” to have as much time as possible to enjoy my morning. I went to bed somewhat early last night because I was uninterested in the TNF game, so I woke up at 6:30. I scrolled through my phone a bit and got out of bed at 6:45 to make coffee and cereal. Tis the season for Pumpkin O’s from Trader Joe’s! I ate my food in the kitchen while listening to the newest episode […]