Did

Most of time this month was spent relocating my kitchen (and alllll the items in my cabinets) to the dining and living room and redoing our kitchen. Believe me, it was not my idea or intention to redo it, but my husband has dragged me kicking and screaming into the project. Our cabinets have seen better days and we have no range hood or vent (the house was sold to use with an old window over the stove that I never opened because I couldn’t reach it). I know, as a public health grad who’s studied both indoor and outdoor air pollution, it is REALLY bad to not vent out when cooking (I usually leave both our sliding doors open to vent but it’s not an ideal situation). So I guess we did need to redo our kitchen, but still… it’s a total pain to do. And cooking in the living room has also been a nightmare (I know I know, First World Problems). Anyway thanks for letting me vent here, but lets just say I can’t wait for this to be all over! Also, if you can do a home renovation and NOT live there at the same time, I highly (HIGHLY) recommend going that route. Oh, and we’re also redoing a bathroom at the same time so I’m technically down a kitchen and a bathroom.

And I updated my Quince All Things Linen Review with a short review of the Quince oversized long sleeve linen shirt.

Bought

This year I decided not to do a "No Buy July” since I’ve been fairly good about buying things this year. I haven’t really purchased anything online and most of my clothing purchases have been secondhand (from either Crossroads or Goodwill). In the past I’ve felt like my spending was out of control, but I haven’t really felt like that in awhile. So I thought I’d let myself have a pass this year and see where it leads me. Thankfully, I was able to control the spending even during mega-sale season. I mostly purchased out of season items or items for my daughter. But for those of you who participated in No Buy July this year, good on you and I hope you came away with it feeling stronger and less swayed by sales! But here are some of the things I did buy this month:

Bracelet from the RealReal for a belated Mother’s Day present (pictured above, the left one): I didn’t actually request any kind of gift for Mother’s Day so when I saw this light blue sapphire and gold bracelet with a unique almost wood-block type of design (it actually reminds me a lot of Hawaiian quilt designs), I requested that as a belated gift from the family. And even though the majority of you guys liked the more classic sapphire bracelet, I went with my gut and got the other one.

The Curated Classic Coat: I must be on a real blue kick because I also bought a blue coat from The Curated sale this month. I love my Classic Coat in camel, but I find it a tad too small if I want to layer a sweater underneath. So I ended up wearing my Tailored Coat from The Curated for the majority of the winter. I know The Curated makes excellent wool/cashmere coats and so I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed with another coat (especially if it’s on sale!).

Hanna Andersson Pjs and dresses for Emi: Hanna Andersson usually has two big sale seasons, one in July and the other in November. And this is the time I usually purchase Emi’s off season clothing in the next size up. So this time around I got some winter Pjs for half off (which makes them cheaper than used sets you can find on eBay) and some dresses for next year. You can find my review of Hanna Andersson here.

A neck pillow and a kid’s knife set from Amazon Prime Day: Each prime day, I’ll go through my saved cart to see if anything I’ve saved there has gone on sale. This year, a neck pillow and a kid’s knife set were the only things that I had in my saved cart that went on sale. So far I’ve been sleeping on my new pillow for about a week and it’s…alright. It feels a little low to me and not as firm as I would like. I’ll let you know if it actually fixes any neck and shoulder pain, but if you were to ask me now if I would purchase it again, it would be a no. As for the kid’s knife set, I have yet to give it to Emi. But I probably will once our kitchen remodel is done.

And last but not least, I used some Quince credit to get the Neoprene phone sling, the Oversized linen long sleeve shirt, the Italian Leather Pouch Crossbody Clutch, and the Revive Nylon Compression Packing Cubes. I hadn’t been on their site for a bit and wow they have really increased their product offerings. Of course, as always, reviews of these to come soon!

P.S. Just want to let you guys know that I plan to take a month off from blogging in August (this might be my first planned hiatus since the start of the blog!). My kid will be out of school and we have another RV trip planned so instead of trying to keep chugging along, I’m taking a short break. Also it seems like blogging is kind of over? I personally read a lot fewer blogs (or maybe my personal interest in fashion/style is fading). Also I see other writers are heading over to Substack. Do you guys still read blogs? Or is it all at Substack and email newsletters now? Or should I be adapting with the times and start doing video reviews?