Things I Love Thursday // 8.29.19

• City Stems - You guys. I cannot express strongly enough what you are missing (in Charlotte) if you do not yet know about City Stems (on Instagram @city.stems). My unbelievably talented friend, Laura, offers floral and plant arrangements "uniquely designed for your interior" --and she is as lovely in-person as the creations she puts together for any and every occasion. Even if you're not in Charlotte, do yourself a solid and follow her Instagram page for a regular dose of WOW. For consultations, orders, and questions, contact her via Direct Message or the information readily available in her Instagam Bio (linked above). Below is a screenshot of her feed.
  
• Monstera Earrings - Speaking of plants and how I'm basically obsessed these days (now that I've figured out how to keep most of them alive), check out these sweet Monstera Leaf earrings I found recently at a boutique here in the Queen City. BTW, (and I'm sure this goes without saying) this picture of me is totally filtered! Ha! While you can't order these online, I did find similar designs here, here, and here.
  
• Our School Routine - I never think that the summer is long enough. I enjoy lazy mornings, unstructured evenings, and open schedules. However, every fall, I fall in love again with our school routine. Because the girls have a late start (9:15am), our busy mornings still manage to be *almost* pleasant. Busy days whip past and we all feel more motivated. We sent them both off to their last year of middle school together this week but it still felt like they left the house like this:
  
• Rock Steady - Every Thursday afternoon I have the absolute pleasure of spending about 90 minutes supporting, encouraging, and exercising with 15-20 of the loveliest folks in town. The Rock Steady Boxing program is a "non-profit organization that offers people with Parkinson's disease hope by improving their quality of life through a non-contact boxing based fitness curriculum." In addition to what this program offers to participants, volunteering with them gifts me a sure-fire way to fill my bucket. I am so rewarded and honored to witness their fight as they kick Parkinson's ass. 
  
• Greeting Cards from Trader Joe's - When the typical greeting card at Target or the grocery store is going for about $5, please keep in mind and stock up on so many lovely choices the next time you're in your neighborhood Trader Joe's. For just 99¢, they have you covered for birthday, graduation, thank you, thinking of you, get well, sympathy... The card stock is quality and the illustrations are unique. Look how perfect this one is for my Sour branding! Love.
  
• Book Club - If you're not in a book club, please join one or create one. Seriously. Make the effort --even if you're not a big reader. As I've "grow up," I have found that my opportunities to engage in regularly scheduled, thoughtful discourse about non-work-realted topics grows smaller and smaller. I look forward to my book club meeting every month. Sure, we drink wine, snack, socialize and talk a lot about our kids/husbands but then, after about 30 minutes, we load up our appetizer plates, fill up our glasses, and settle in for a solid discussion about what we read and how we reacted to the plot, characters, and theme of the selected book for the month. It's always most enjoyable when we disagree and/or have conflicting responses to the text. I love to hear how the stories are processed by my friends through the filters of their experiences. For about 2 hours, once/month, we are thoughtful and silly and it fills me up! 
• Jergens Natural Glow (face) - My friends, be careful with this one... I use this product about once/week and I love it. Applying the quantity pictured below carefully to my face (avoiding eyebrows and working carefully to blend at the hair, ear, and jawline) gives me a warm, healthy glow that I appreciate --considering that my face is covered daily with sunblock (preventing me from achieving any "real" sun-kissed" glow). You can apply it more often, if you desire but do go slow. The color develops over time and I don't want to hear about it in the event you over do it and look silly. Also: Wash your hands with warm water and soap after you apply!  (They also offer this in "Fair to Medium.")