Hi friends! Happy Friday! How’s the day going? What’s going on this weekend? Liv has her last dance competition of the season and we’re meeting up with friends at the pool. Livi is officially done with third grade – where the heck does the time go?- and I feel thankful and relieved to be finished with the school year. All of the virtual classes, assignments, tech issues, document uploads, and stress, and we made it. She got straight As (and multiple A+) despite the crazy circumstances and we’re so proud of her. SO ready for a break for all of us and a bow and a clap for all of my parents friends and their kiddos, and the teachers (omg, the teachers), for making it through this school year.
To celebrate the arrival of summer, I did a couple of gloriously indulgent things yesterday. I closed the laptop and headed to a class at Pure Barre (I did bodyweight for the arm segments with my broken pinky) and then spent an hour and a half reading at the pool under an umbrella. I pretty much never do stuff like this – I typically work from the second the kids are at school until it’s time to pick them up – and it felt like the biggest treat.
I hope you have some fun and relaxation ahead, too!
It’s time for the weekly Friday faves party. This is where I share some of my favorite finds from the week and around the web. I always love hearing about your faves, too, so please shout out something you’re loving in the comments section below.
Random:
I got this gnome for our patio. I LOVE him and the Pilot is not a big fan lol.
Read, watch, listen:
Definitely check out this week’s podcast episode about pelvic floor health and enter the podcast giveaway here! (As of now, your chances of winner and very, very good)
What do you eat when you’re home alone?
Hocus Pocus 2 is officially coming!
I would pay to have this be my real GPS voice.
Fitness + good eats:
Don’t forget to sign up for Summer Shape Up here! I’ll have everything in your inbox next Friday. Join us for this fun challenge and get some new workout and meal ideas!! It’s the perfect kick of motivation before we head into the summer.
The Sakara goji rose donut is one of my all-time faves. Heat it up for about 15 seconds and it’s a dream come true. (XOGINAH gets your 20% off if you decide to try it! I got some meals this week and they were amazing as usual. The salads are so huge and fresh and I love the breakfast treats.)
We had some great dinners this week! I feel like my cooking mojo has been a little bit better. The girls LOVED this shrimp linguine -the sauce is so good and I used a little almond milk and Kite Hill cream cheese instead of heavy cream and vegan parm instead of reg – and we had it with artichokes cooked in the Instant Pot. If you haven’t cooked artichokes like this, definitely try it! They were soft and perfect in 25 minutes. (I just added water and lemon slices, garlic, onion slices, rosemary, salt, and a couple bay leaves to the water, put the streamer basket on top, added the trimmed and cleaned artichokes, and since they were huge, I set it to manual for 25 minutes.) We also had and loved the Mojo Loco chicken wings from this cookbook and a steak and veggie stir fry.
This cookbook has been a hue hit in our house. Every recipe we’ve tried has been a home run, including this chicken shawarma with bootleg garlic sauce.
Took these over to a friends’ house last weekend: cake batter rice crispies and my favorite Oreo cookie brownie combos with tequila sangria. I haven’t made sangria in SO long!
Fashion + beauty:
I’ve shared this link here before but I just love this midi dress so dang much. It’s the perfect casual throw-on dress with sneakers or sandals. I feel like I wear it all the time.
Just ran out and ordered more of this cleanser. I’ve been using it on and off for years and it’s gentle enough to get makeup off my eyes. I also used some sephora VIB points to get some new-to-me goodies, so I’ll definitely report back.
Happy Friday, friends! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
xo
Gina