Here we go, a week of things that are currently making me happy. I'd love to hear what yours are too!
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Recipe: Sam Sifton's Momofuku Bo Ssam
I had this recipe in my back pocket for ages before trying it. You need a good day at home to fool around with it, but it is homemade Asian food perfection. It checks all the boxes for having guests over!
Product I'm Loving: The Ordinary Retinol
I got a new dermatologist when we moved back into town, and I'm finding the thing now is to have your own personal Sephora and not want to offer prescriptions. Sorry folks, I want to prescriptions. I bought a product in store that cost way to freaking much and have stretched it all year long. Finally I just decided to tryout a retinol from The Ordinary, they've never done me wrong before. I alternate this on night one, night 2 is a snail serum, and night 3 is Differin gel... and back to retinol. After I run out of the 1% I'll jump up to their highest dose on the website.
Essential Oil Blend : Bergamot, Lime, & Spearmint
Don't ask me why, or what it's supposed to smell like. It's just what I've been diffusing these days. It actually smells really good with my Smell My Nuts candle burning in the kitchen. But don't tell those Instagram health girlies that I'm burning a candle every so often.
Reading: The Wind and the Willows
I was going to talk about an adult book, but heck, let's talk about one I got for the kids that we recently read. I absolutely cackled though this book. Online you see photos shared and people saying how they'd love to be Toad while he's drinking tea.
Having only known that, and really purchased the book because I love Beatrix Potter/A, A. Milne style writing and illustrations, I got very tickled when Toad was arrested and thrown in jail.
I didn't see it coming and the kids surely didn't know why I found this so funny.
I have so many thoughts about this one. Due in part with the fact that I've always been a thrifter, but Anne Helen Petersen makes a great point about cost. It's why I'm not buying fast fashion items on Amazon. In the past you could find stuff in the thrift stores, but now that resell has become so popular, everything get's scooped up. Plus the Facebook Marketplace price gouging is insane, especially when you see someone say that what they're selling is ages old and they still want a chunk of change for it. It's bonkers.
Towards the end they momentarily dive into remodeling culture, which holy smokes is such a thing right now. So many influencers make most of their money online by showing demos or decorating. I do think this drives the idea that we need the newest and best looking, instead of the style we prefer and slightly lived in.
It really made me think about my clothing turn over. I guess this is really hitting home since I've been in a bit of a spend year. We replaced some furniture (We've been together 15 years and some items needed replacing), plus my clothing has been slowly being replaced from the last big turn over I did about 6 years ago. It's slightly thrown me into this headspace of "Did that need to be replaced?" But honestly that torn couch and the 15 year old mattress did need to go, it's mainly clothing that I have to make sure gets worn out and not just tossed out.
Outfit: This Blazer
I snagged a blazer just like this from Old Navy and wore something very similar to church at Christmas. Based on the weather, I'm probably wearing this again on Sunday. I mean heck, after listening to that podcast, it's time to escape the idea of "always a new outfit" and live more in line with "what makes me happy at this moment." We have so little cold weather, and I absolutely live for it - so I'm rewearing my cold weather clothing to death before the heat hits again.
