Hi friends! I am so excited to write this post because I am outside enjoying the warm sunny weather drinking my coffee in our backyard. Earlier in the day I took a shower and washed my hair so I’m letting it air dry in the sun. I forgot how nice this feels! Jake is taking some time off next week so I ‘m excited to have time to work in the backyard. We are so lucky to have a big backyard but now we need to do some work to make it functional! I hope you are enjoying the nice weather we have been having. I’ve been safely with a mask and staying distant taking walks every day. I used to hate walking to do errands but this nice weather makes me want to carry groceries home 10 blocks! This weeks post was a lot of fun to write and has a ton of my favorite things that I hope you enjoy!

I just started to watch The Great on Hulu and I am in love with this show! It’s a great modern take on 18th century Russia royalty. Expect modern day humor and a playful look at gender roles in 18th century. Highly recommend this show!

I’m also almost done binge watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills series. Wondering which franchise I will binge next. Please send me your recommendations! It’s a great go to show to get lost in during these weird times because it’s petty drama and a nice break from the pandemic going on.

If you are looking for a show to watch with your significant other, I suggest watching The Last Ship on Hulu. It was a TNT drama that is about a pandemic that takes over the world. Okay, so it’s a bit relevant to our current times but the story line is amazing! Jake also likes it because he comes from a Navy family and the show is very accurate when it comes to procedures and story lines.

My family and I are doing a book club over Zoom which has been a lot of fun. My cousin picked the first book, The Charm Bracelet, and it was cutesy quick read to get us started. Now this time we are reading Alice in Wonderland because it’s a classic that is worth rereading. On my own free time I am reading Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner. After unpacking our guest room a few months ago I realized how many books I have that I haven’t had the chance to read it. Now with this warm sunny weather I’m excited to spend as much time as I can outdoors and read!

This staying home thing has encouraged me to only wash my hair once a week because I want to make my hair really healthy since we can’t get it cut anytime soon. I’ve been loving to use a a leave in conditioner every time I wash it because it leaves my hair frizz free and smooth so I’ll use less heat to straighten it.

If anyone has to Zoom for work and doesn’t want to make that much of an effort but doesn’t want to look like a mess on camera, I highly suggest this under eye concealer! All of us have under eye circles that are very obvious right now and this concealer does a great job at covering them. My aunt recently joked about trying to get better lighting in our Sunday Zoom call to hide them so I suggested this product for her. I got my mom one a few years ago and she’s been a fan for years now. It’s also a great blendable concealer for other imperfections you may want to hide!

I did some shopping recently and I’m excited to share my finds! I ordered this Taylor Swift Lover tee that keeps selling out so be sure to sign up for restock alerts! I got inspired by Pop of Pippi on Instagram and ordered the vase and flowers she shared. Still waiting on the vase and can’t wait to share the final look!

I also ordered a few things from Loft because the sales are so good right now. Most of the time I only shop for work clothes but I’m excited to treat myself to some new fun casual tops. I have my haul and some other favorites in my Loft finds blog post.

Earlier this week, I shared our new Keurig and finally after many years I finally learned how to make a pot of coffee. I guess I did learn how to do something new during this whole stay at home thing!

During one of my walks this week I went to Target to get some snacks since the little market near our house is out of most snacks. It was a bit of a hike but worth to get my steps in and I was able to get really cute cups that were in the dollar bin. I don’t encourage anyone to leave their home right now but it was nice to find them because it felt like a normal day again shopping at Target finding cute things.

I mentioned last week that Mother’s Day this year was going to look a little different because we were having a Bring Your Own Tea and Crumpets Tea Party with my mom, aunt and cousins. We were dressed in our best and had tea while we chatted and honestly it was so much fun!

One of the perks of being at home so much is that we no longer commute to and from work. This means that I’ve been having a lot of fun spending time in the kitchen making dinner almost every night. We still order in once or twice a week to support local businesses but on the other nights I’m making dinner. Since moving to Philly I have relied on Trader Joe’s frozen meals and right now it’s a very long walk to get there and back so we haven’t gone in a few months. I’ve been shopping at the local market or tiny Giant near my house every week to get ingredients to make dinner. It’s not that I couldn’t cook but I just never had it in me to cook a big dinner after a long day of work. Most nights I’ll start cooking at 5 and dinner will be ready to eat when Jake gets off of work or we can take advantage of him working from home and he’ll be in the kitchen with me while monitoring emails coming in. I swear we never ran our dishwasher this many times pre-quarantine!

I hope you all are staying busy, whatever that may look like, during this weird time for all of us and most importantly taking care of yourselves. I’ve loved to work on this weekly Friday Favorites post because it makes me reflect on the past week and find things I am grateful for. I’ll go through my recent pictures of the week and talk about the ones that brought me joy. You do not need to be busy constantly and use this time to accomplish a million things. Some people are using it to become better versions of themselves by picking up working out or finding new hobbies. Take one day at a time and do what brings you happy – not what works for others because everyone is different. Right now my goal is to walk more even if that is walking to the fridge more often to get snacks or down to the basement to catch up on laundry.

Baby steps, friends, baby steps.