I’m all about celebrating the little things in life. Finding gratefulness and happiness in the mundane, everyday parts of our lives. So today I wanted to share the love, and all my summer favourites of 2021. Everything from gadgets to beauty and activities that simply make life better. Let’s jump right in!
1. Our Wedding Garland
After our wedding on June 1st (how has it been two months already?), we were overwhelmed by the amount of beautiful and kind cards we were sent by friends, family and colleagues. Our home is teeny tiny, but we still wanted to display all the cards somehow. We ended up stringing a ribbon between the kitchen and bookcase and hanging all the cards from it using clothes pegs. Isn’t that just the cutest way to display a large amount of cards? This also proved to be the perfect way to hang up the polaroid photos from the photo tree at the wedding. I can’t help but smile every time I look at it and am reminded of that amazing day. We’re planning to keep the photo-and-card-garland up until after the postponed wedding party in August.
2. The FOREO UFO 2
Every morning, right after I take a shower, I put on my skin care and pick up my FOREO UFO 2. I have a custom setting programmed onto it especially for my morning routine; a 90 second treatment of cryotherapy and t-sonic pulsations along with cyan light. I run the device over my face to massage in my skin care and help me wake up after a full night’s sleep. The cooling helps de-puff my face, and when my skin care soaks in towards the end of the treatment, I like to use the UFO 2 to do a bit of sculpting by running it up along my jaw.
I also use the UFO 2 these days to provide first aid to my skin after summer camp- where I’ll usually have had no time or means to look after my skin at all. Sun screen and dirt buildup along with fresh sun damage require a bit of care, and that’s when I like to give myself a 2-minute supercharged facial with the UFO 2. I’ll use either the H2Overdose or the Green Tea UFO power activated mask, and run the treatment twice for maximum effect. This has saved my skin twice already this summer with a blast of moisture, and I’m going to need it a couple more times for sure.
There’s a full, in-depth review of the FOREO UFO 2 up, in case you’d like to learn more about this device!
3. Roller Blades
With temperatures picking up and the rain finally stopping for a few days (phew!), I’ve found myself more inclined to exercise outside. I’m quite attached to my gym routine year-round, but it’s nice to change things up every now and then and get moving in different ways. I really enjoy roller blading as it allows me to cover a greater distance than when I go on walks. After a year and a half of on-and-off lockdowns I’m pretty tired of my immediate surroundings, so this is a great way to venture out a little further. I could just cycle of course, but roller blading is a much more intense activity and thus a better workout, in my opinion. It’s also a great way to sneak in a little exercise when I don’t have much time. It’s been really fun to see more people picking up their old roller blades around the neighbourhood this year, after years of never seeing them out!
4. A Functional & Aesthetic Phone
The battle with smartphone addiction continues. I vowed to kick my bad phone habits to the curb at the beginning of 2020, but as we all know, I couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to tackle an addiction. A pandemic combined with my pets all falling ill and eventually passing away one after the other made the perfect opportunity for me to hide in my screen and distract myself any chance that I got.
I recently picked the battle back up again though, with more rigorous measures than just discipline and self-control this time. I installed an app blocker on my phone (I currently use one called AppBlock) that kicks me off all my go-to distraction apps and websites if I use them for too long. 15 minutes every hour total, for all of them combined, is the max at the moment. The blocker also won’t let me use these apps at all during certain hours of the day, such as the end of the morning, work hours, and right before bedtime. I’m still figuring out the optimal settings for me, but it has already helped bring down my screen time loads and, most importantly, made me feel much better about how I use my phone. So far, using an app blocker has been a great way for me to make use of all the functional aspects of my smartphone as needed, and even enjoy social media in moderation, without getting sucked in and scrolling meaningless content for hours on end.
Around the same time that I installed the app blocker, I also gave the interior of my phone a complete makeover so that it now highlights the functionalities I need, and hides the ones I don’t. I now only have two slides on my home screen, and both of them display only a couple apps and widgets that I like to have quick access to. All my other apps are neatly tucked away in the app screen, all categorized inside folders so that they’re both a little bit easier to find, and a little bit harder to reach. Just what I need! I also installed a fun theme and a couple apps that allow me to personalize my home screen even more with photos and custom app icons (I used Ume Icon Changer and Simple Photo Widget), so that everything now looks beautiful and cohesive. This has helped me see my phone in a different light and start my mindset shift from viewing it as a crutch and comfort, to viewing it as a useful tool.
5. The Handmaid’s Tale
My latest show binge! I’m very late to the party, but I just finished all seasons of the Handmaid’s Tale and I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would. In case you’re unfamiliar with the book & show, the Handmaid’s Tale is a distopian story about a world that struggles with infertility. A religious society assumes power and tries to “fix” the problem in a very disturbing way. The show follows a woman at the bottom of this new society’s social ladder, trying to survive. The story is very dark, but I grew attached to the characters very quickly and had to keep watching. The acting is fantastic in this as well, and I’m excited that there’s another season coming.
6. Clipper Green Tea Mint & Raspberry
This is my current favourite tea, and it definitely deserves a spot among my summer favourites! I’m currently on my second box of these, which says a lot as I usually tend to rotate between tea flavours very frequently. The Clipper mint & raspberry flavoured green tea is wonderful; green tea is my favourite kind to begin with, but this particular one is fresh and subtly sweet at the same time. It’s absolutely delicious and I highly recommend you give it a try, if it’s available near you.
7. Robo Jr.
For the longest time I couldn’t understand why anyone would buy a robot vacuum. It seemed like such a decadent purchase to me; if you need to vacuum, why not just go vacuum? But I must admit, I didn’t “just go vacuum” myself nearly as often as I needed to. Living with two people and (at the time we got him) four pets in a small home, daily vacuuming was needed, but also outside of what I could commit to, with permanently dusty floors as a result. So here we are. I am ready to say I absolutely ADORE my Roomba and never want to be without one again. Whenever I notice dust bunnies, hair on the ground (yes, hello, that would be me), or tiny fabric cuttings everywhere, I just turn Robo Jr. on and off he goes. Robo Jr. is his name. I feel like every robot vacuum has a name… If you have one, what are they called?
Anyway, he cleans while I’m working, cooking, sunbathing on the balcony, or even away from home. It’s such a luxury, but one that I appreciate so much. We got him for a very good price as a Black Friday deal and I can’t imagine a home without him now.
8. Hammock Sleeping
Question: have you ever slept outside? Not in a tent, but in the open air?
A few years ago now, my scout group got into the habit of sleeping in hammocks instead of tents during camps, and what a wonderful decision that was. You simply hang your hammock between two trees, a tarp over it to protect from any rain, slip into your sleeping bag and off to sleep you go. Let me tell you, the amount of fresh air you get this way will make you wake up so refreshed, and there’s nothing like opening your eyes and immediately seeing the clear morning sky and gently swaying trees. I never would’ve expected sleeping in a hammock to be as comfortable as it is, either. I fully understand now why hammocks were the preferred location for my ratties to sleep. Since summer began this year I already have a few nights of hammock sleeping behind me, and I’m very excited for the ones that are still ahead.
9. Blond Efteling Pottery
Whenever I use one of my Blond Amsterdam Efteling mugs in a video, I get lots of compliments on it and questions where it’s from. The Efteling, a fairytale themepark in the Netherlands, is my happy place. I visit at least once a year and every time I’m there, I’m ecstatic. I like to take little pieces of the Efteling home with me, and since pottery brand Blond Amsterdam came out with their Efteling collection, this has been my go-to souvenir. Blond Amsterdam make pottery decorated with drawings in a typical, cheerful, free-hand doodle style. They’re very popular here in the Netherlands but nothing beats the Efteling collection, in my opinion. They come out with new pieces based on different rides and parts of the Efteling regularly, and I recently expanded my collection with a couple new additions. I got a mug themed after my favourite ride Droomvlucht, and a Pinocchio themed bowl.
Although this pottery may look a little juvenile, it brings me SO much joy every time I use it. I can’t wait to move into a bigger home so I can buy a nice display cabinet and have it all on show, haha!
10. Long Days
Last but not least: I very much love the sun at the moment. It’s crazy how much sunshine, or a lack thereof, affects my mood. Right now the sun goes down at around 10PM and rises well before I wake up, meaning I get to enjoy natural light pretty much all day long. I try to soak it in as much as I can in anticipation of the very short, dark and dreary days of autumn and winter. Give me all the sunshine!
This post is partially sponsored by FOREO
