Happy September! I truly can’t believe the summer is almost over already. It feels like it’s gone by in the blink of an eye!! I hope you all were able to make the most of it and get in some of your favorite regular summer activities. It was a weird one, but definitely one to remember. Here’s to hoping for more normalcy this fall and willing those numbers to GO DOWN! This is what I’ve been up to this month:

READING

  • When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal ***
  • The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett ****
  • Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer *****
  • Tweet Cute by Emma Lord ****
  • Summer of ’69 by Elin Hilderbrand ***
  • The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix****

BAKING/MAKING

  • brownies with Reece’s Pieces for Brando’s birthday
  • this Honey Aleppo Chicken Pita from Brocc Your Body was legit soooo delicious. Also just the TJ’s Honey Aleppo sauce in general.
  • the BEST peanut butter cookies that I will hopefully be sharing a recipe for in a few weeks!
  • soooo many tomato sandwiches

DRINKING

  • Lover Boy – finally got to try this this month! I have been looking all over for these sparkling hard teas to no avail. But Kiki had brought them to our beach day and they are delish! Highly recommend if you are into spiked seltzers and love tea!
  • Coffee with Oatly Oat Milk – the best (and healthiest) milk substitute I’ve found! Eating healthy is great and all, but plain, black coffee is not. Oat milk takes the bitterness of black coffee away without adding a ton of sugar that I don’t even want in my coffee. Perfection!
  • Also worked a bit on perfecting my cosmo recipe… more to come on that one of these days.

EATING

  • Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate – cannot get enough of this stuff! I am working my way through all of their flavors still, but my favorite so far is the dark pecan coconut one. It’s a bit more expensive than your average Hershey bar, but it is so. worth. it. And their mission is amazing! If you haven’t tried it, I HIGHLY recommend!

LOVING

  • rubber cleaning gloves – is it crazy that I’m 26 and this is the first time I’ve used rubber gloves to clean?! Not kidding when I say that they totally changed my cleaning life. Bought them because I decided to do a DEEP DEEP clean of our bathroom this month – I’m talking scrubbing all of the grout… and I can never go back to cleaning sans gloves. It was so nice to not have to constantly be washing my hands and being grossed out by touching all of the nasty things that come along with a to-be-cleaned bathroom. Game changer.
  • Dior Nail Glow – after lusting after this for the better part of two years, I finally bit the bullet and splurged on this excessive nail polish and the good news is that I absolutely LOVE it. It’s essentially clear with a subtle pink glow and it is perfect. It dries in record time, which is my gripe with most other nail polishes, and is super easy to wear. And by that I mean, slapping it on in five minutes before you have to run out the door somewhere is entirely possible. Wish I bought this one sooner!
  • Yeti 30oz Rambler – I know I mentioned this already, but I still haven’t been able to stop using it! I am drinking SO MUCH more water because of it. It felt excessive to spend $35 on a cup, but I swear water doesn’t taste as good out of anything else. I’ve even resorted to traveling with it. If you’ve even been sort of considering it, DO IT. Best purchase ever.

DOING

  • Walking, still LOTS of walking. I walked a total of 155 miles this month and am feeling so good about it! Over the last two weeks or so, I’ve found that it’s started to become really therapeutic for me. Even on the days I don’t really feel like going, I go anyway and am so glad afterwards.
  • Resin – this stuff is the most fun to play with. I’ve been getting so much entertainment out of making all sorts of earrings and keychains! I cannot wait to add some of these pieces to my Etsy shop. Only problem is that it really stinks up our apartment, so trying to find a workaround for that.
  • Shooting film – I go on such spurts with this, and every time I get some developed I remember why I love it so much and start all over again. After dropping off a bunch of rolls at the end of the month, I got the itch and have been loving it again. There is something SO rewarding about waiting a few days (or months…years…) to see your images that makes the whole process feel like magic. Lots more film to come.

WATCHING

  • Succession – we watched Season 2 this month and dare I say it was even better than Season 1?! This show is just *chefs kiss*
  • Breaking Dawn: Part One – can’t believe I had never seen this! What a wild ride this movie was… sill recovering. Not gonna like we also re-watched some other Twilight Saga movies this month. Perfection.

CELEBRATING

  • Ang’s Birthday Celebration at Fire Island – the BEST day with the best people! Finally made it to FI and it just never disappoints. We had the most fun dipping in and out of the ocean all day and celebrating one of our favorite people. Thankful to you Ang, for planning this wonderful beach day!
  • Dinner in Brooklyn with our TC fam! The most fun night full of pasta, wine and many, many sing-alongs. Been feeling extra thankful for this little family-friendship of ours these days.
  • MAINE!!! – we did it, we made it to Maine for our annual summer trip with B+ L and we has the best freakin’ time. We look forward to this trip so much every year, and with COVID we weren’t really sure if it was going to be possible this year. Happy to report back that this was our favorite trip yet. Full of SO much lobster, lots of blueberry lemonades and the most amount of late night laughter. Not even a pandemic can stop us from loving the hell out of this trip. Now just have to save up enough money for that vacation house, ammiright?!

…and that’s a wrap for August! What did you guys love this last month? Always looking for new suggestions of things to try and love hearing what you are loving!

with love, JAK