On a personal note, one of the bigger things that took place in our home this week was a meeting with a realtor to discuss selling our house. I’m not going to lie, I feel like I could break out in hives just thinking of trying to sell our house while juggling three kids, toys, crumbs and messes but we’ve been assured it’s doable. I’ve talked to exactly zero people who have said moving with kids in the mix is enjoyable but we’ll get there and I’m sure it will be an adventure.
As for the weekend ahead, we don’t have too much on our agenda. We’re having friends over for dinner this evening and then the rest of our weekend is wide open. For now, I wanted to dive into my usual roundup of weekly favorites! Scroll on down to see the little things that are making me smile this week!
Things I’m Loving Friday
A white matte gooseneck electric kettle was on my Christmas wish list this year. Call me bougie, but the gooseneck style felt like the perfect combination of funky and fancy and I loved the look! You better believe I was thrilled when I received this white gooseneck electric kettle from my parents. I make a hot mug of tea or a tea latte almost every afternoon during the colder months of the year and pouring hot water out of my electric kettle is one of those small things that brings me big joy. I love that you can select your ideal hot water temperature and the kettle will keep it at that temperature for up to 120 minutes. This is especially handy if I want a hot mug of tea in the morning and then run out of time to make it as I’m dashing out the door to take the boys to school. Arriving home to perfectly hot water ready to pour over my tea bag feels like a treat!
Oh and of course I have to give a shout out to my Anthropologie butterfly mug. It was a gift from Creature Man Chase and has quickly become one of my favorites!
-
Your $10 or Less Favorites
When I shared more about our Galentine’s Day Favorite Things dinner on the blog and Instagram last week, I put out a call to you guys to share your favorite finds valued at $10 or less. I wanted to put your favorites together in a master list because I figured I cannot be the only one who finds lists like this incredibly interesting! Plus, some of my favorite finds have come from your recommendations!
Note: Some of these items may be slightly more than $10 by a dollar or two but I still wanted to include everything mentioned by all of you!
BEAUTY/CLOTHING
- Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser (This has killer reviews!)
- Rosehip Seed Oil (You know I’m a diehard fan, too!)
- L’Oréal Magic Root Touch Up
- Olive & June Nail Polish
- Mini Vaseline Jars
- Avene Nourishing Lip Balm
- Erase Your Face/Makeup Eraser Towels (I use mine every day as well!)
- Old Navy Pajama Pants
- Essie Quick-E Drying Drops (Turns any nail polish into rapid-drying polish. I’m a fan of this one, too!)
- Rose Water Toner (Another one I agree with and use regularly!)
- Blue Light Glasses
- Peppermint Chapstick (I totally should’ve included NOW organic peppermint lip balm in my Galentine’s package — I use it a million times a day so I clearly agree with this one.)
- Turbie Twist Microfiber Hair Towel (I love my VOLO microfiber hair towel but this is a well-loved cheaper version with great reviews!)
- CocoFloss (I’ve been targeted with ads for this stuff online for ages and now this makes me actually want to try it!)
- Acure Unicorn Root Cleanser
HOME
- Lil’ Chizler (This was a Friday fav years ago! I swear by this for removing hard bits of food from pans, counter tops, etc.)
- Sarasa 10-Count Fine Tip Pens (I immediately ordered these because I’m a sucker for great pens.)
- Double Blade Salad Chopper
- Handheld Milk Frother
- Duluth Trading Vest Koozie
- Erasable Pens
- Apple Cutter from IKEA + Prepworks 16-Slice Apple Slicer (Apparently you guys love your apple slicers!)
- 3-Wick Candles from ALDI
- Silicone Food Huggers
FOOD
- Target’s Archer Farms Tomatillo Salsa
- Frooze Balls
- Dove Waffle Cone Promises
-
Chicas Chips
I have always been a sweets person versus a salty person. Salty snacks like chips and pretzels aren’t something that call to me the way chocolate or ice cream does but occasionally I stumbled upon chips that knock my socks off and can’t keep my hand out of the bag. This happened recently with Chicas Chips, a random addition I added to a recent Thrive Market delivery. Oh my gosh you guys, these things are magical. You know the tortilla chips you get at restaurants that are extra greasy but still really crisp and somehow not too heavy? That’s THESE CHIPS. The whole bag tastes like the best kind of restaurant chips with a unique soy lime flavor. I immediately ordered more and am anxiously awaiting their arrival.
P.S. If you ever want to try Thrive Market, my affiliate link will get you 40 percent off your first order. This post has a bunch of my Thrive Market hauls in one place if you’d like to check them out! Clearly Chicas Chips will be finding their way into my hauls in the future!
-
Wordle Tweets
A few weeks ago, Wordle was one of my weekly favorites and the lovefest continues over here. My mom, Ryan and I are all so into it and have fun discussing strategies and how many tries it took us to guess the word each day. If you’re also on the Wordle bandwagon, I hope these Wordle tweets make you smile. The obsession is real!
-
Milkbread Doughnuts
I’m sharing this one for the local readers out there! Even though we haven’t been in quite a while (#kids), Kindred is one of our favorite local restaurants. When we heard the husband-wife team behind Kindred was opening another spot in the area, we couldn’t wait to try it out. Milkbread is Joe and Katy Kindred’s latest creation and the restaurant came to life after they began selling doughnuts made out of their incredibly popular milkbread during the pandemic. We loved the doughnuts when they first served them on a temporary basis back in 2020 and we love them even more now that we can get them whenever we want at Milkbread! I’ve heard great things about Milkbread’s coffee and other menu options as well but right now I can only speak to the doughnuts and they’re worth the hype, especially if you bring them home and heat them up for 5 second in the microwave. YUM.
-
Friday Flashbacks
Easy BBQ Meatloaf (I’ve been making and loving this one for years!)
Ways to Involve Kids in Cooking (Our boys genuinely love to “help” in the kitchen and this post shares some of the ways we involve them in cooking and baking.)
Question of the Day
What is one thing making you smile this week?
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"//pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-1e3-7hOJ_U8Bg.gif\")
Hi Julie, something I’ve learned recently with all that is going on and wanted to share. Referring to the country Ukraine as “the Ukraine” is a holdover from how Russia referred to the region when it was still under the USSR. It’s how many of us think of it but the most accurate and respectful way to refer to this sovereign nation is Ukraine. Something small but when we all feel so lost as to what to do perhaps one small thing.
I appreciate you sharing this information with me and have updated the post and will change the way I reference Ukraine moving forward. Thank you, Anastasia <3
I am a Social Studies teacher and just had a student ask about this. The class and I all tried to find an explanation of whether it was Ukraine or the Ukraine. We could not find the answer…thank you so much for sharing this timely piece of information.
I highly recommend renting a climate controlled storage unit when you’re staging your house (we got a non-climate one to empty the garage out too). We have done this with our last 2 houses—and my parents home. They all received multiple offers immediately. Good luck! It’s such an exciting experience to move into your dream home.
Thank you for this tip!! I am stressing a bit on hiding everything in our attic and finding spots for bigger items we don’t think should be as visible (like an old, rusty swing in the backyard that we still like but is definitely an eyesore)!
Hi Julie. Just a quick FYI, the name of the country is Ukraine, not the Ukraine. I’ll leave this excerpt from a Time Magazine article in 2014, to explain.
“Ukraine is a country,” says William Taylor, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. “The Ukraine is the way the Russians referred to that part of the country during Soviet times … Now that it is a country, a nation, and a recognized state, it is just Ukraine. And it is incorrect to refer to the Ukraine, even though a lot of people do it.”
Hope you have a great weekend!!
I updated the post. Thank you so much for sharing this with me.
No problem!! I’m still trying to beat it out of my 90s kid brain.
Hi Julie, long time reader here but I’m really disappointed that it looks like the list of $10 gifts are all affiliate links. That’s pretty scummy to try to make money off of your readers’ suggestions!
Affiliate linking is a big part of how I make money from this blog and does not impact the purchase price of the items I link to. I shared screenshots from everyone’s suggestions (link free) on Instagram Stories but had numerous requests to compile the shares into links which took time on my part and I feel like this is okay for me to make a small amount of money from — and when I say small, I mean it. The commission on a $10 product (especially from Amazon) is typically well below a dollar. I am sorry if this rubbed you the wrong way as it is never my hope to be “scummy” — My readers mean a lot to me and I hope you can see my perspective as well from a business standpoint.
Julie- as a longtime reader – I appreciate all of the work you put into your blog and I love that you share items with us that you and your family love as well as items that readers suggest when you ask for suggestions. Please know that I for one am more than happy to buy through an affiliate link because I am able to support my favorite blogger and her family – YOU!!! I know that you put a ton of work and your whole heart into this blog and connecting with your readers. Thank you for all that you do!!! Have a wonderful weekend.
100% agree with Becca! I love when you include product suggestions. Please keep the links coming. A huge majority of the reading are more than happy to buy through an affiliate link.
Also agree! I’m happy a (albeit tiny) portion of my purchase can contribute to my favorite blogs and keep them up and running. Bezos certainly doesn’t need it all!
I can’t agree with you more Becca. It’s not a big deal when Julie links some affiliate links in her posts. We love to read her posts and know a lot of thing from those posts. And buying an items through an affiliate link is a good way for us to support our favorite blogger.
I’m all for suggestions! I have bought that clutch purse from your suggestion as well as now being an Ilia Beauty user! You do what you need to and know that we support you.
I really appreciate the affiliate links and am happy to support the blog. I have gotten a few things this way and they’ve all been great!
Same!
Good news on the selling front, in the market right now I bet all you’ll have to do is list it on a Friday, scoot out of town for 24 hours to allow an open house, then you’ll be under contract by Monday! Sending you all the good vibes! 🙂
That is our big-time hope!!
We JUST finished moving with two kids. It was so hard, but so worth it. One day at a time, you’ve got this!
My parents have moved 21 times (most of them when we were kids) …my mom says it’s like having a baby, you forget how hard it is until you do it again, but it’s worth it in the end!
We moved last summer with almost 2 year old twins, 6 year old twins and a 13 year old and a puppy! And survived! I promise you’ll make it. I know you don’t want to lose any value on your home or anything, but try not to stress the little things too much. The market is hot and I had to remind myself that just because the house wasn’t perfectly tidy didn’t mean that it wouldn’t sell quickly — and it did! Like I wonder if the swing set would really make a difference/be worth the hassle. Might be a realtor question! Best of luck to you and please keep blogging!
I’m glad to hear that Milkbread is worth the drive! I keep meaning to take a day-trip up to Davidson (but also I keep secretly hoping the location in central Charlotte opens before then)!