Weekly Review: July 21, 2023

This post may contain affiliate links. We will receive a small commission when you shop the links.

Happy Friday! We had a week with more fun than work, which is wonderful once in a while.

This past weekend, I went out to dinner with a friend I met through Instagram who has become a true real-life friend. You know those people you hang out with and just feel inspired to work on all your creative ideas after talking with them? Amy is one of those and that dinner was the perfect way to start my week.

The kids hung out with my dad at his lake in the Adirondacks and I got a peek at some things he is working on when I dropped them off. This flower is made from copper taken from our barn roof when we replaced it. He has made so many things from that copper and it always makes me so happy that it’s getting another life in my dad’s art!

Before dinner, Amy and I stopped by a Salvation Army and found some great treasures!

I’ve been looking for this type of shell bracket for a long time. I’m imagining them on either side of a picture with blue and white pottery on them, but I don’t have a perfect spot yet (who is surprised?). I’m collecting these tiny Wedgwood plates for my Wedgwood Christmas tree. And this Bennington Pottery spongeware vessel ended up being the perfect addition next to my cooktop for wooden utensils.

My neighbor who found me the Lotus Poppytrail dishes last week found these gorgeous Bordallo Pinheiro dishes this week. How beautiful are they?

Our plants are all thriving from so much rain — look at this hydrangea we transplanted from my mom’s yard a couple years ago!

I am thinking I need to dig up a few more lilac shoots for out front as well. Our lilac hedge badly needs a row of mulch between the plants and I want to get any remaining shoots in before I do that. I’m going to use the trick where you lay (biodegradable) cardboard down first to keep the weeds at bay for the year and then place the mulch over the top. I think I’m going to use ultra fine mulch this time because I like the look better than the larger mulch I used elsewhere this year.

Our pool has had so much use this week that I’m feeling more thankful for it than ever. We have been swimming multiple times a day, especially right before bed to cool our bodies down for a great night of sleep. I bought this swim cap last year but just started using it this year so my hair doesn’t get quite as wet every time I go in. It still gets a little wet but it’s better than going without.

I also bought these earplugs so I can swim laps without getting swimmer’s ear — my ears are sensitive to pool water! All this use has stopped me from putting final touches on the pool for a before and after post I’m writing — I may have to get up super early to finish those before the boys soak everything!

Look at the pretty chalk art my creative friend Becky drew out by the pool.

And my friend Rachel and her daughters put together a package of the prettiest eggs from their chickens — the girls made it into a pattern! Almost too pretty to eat.

A few weeks ago, a truck full of apples broke down at a local truck stop and the apples were going to be thrown away. Our neighbor kindly gave us a whole flat of the apples, probably 40 of them! We have been keeping them in the fridge but haven’t managed to eat them all, so this week I’ve been baking up a storm so they don’t go bad. We made apple crisp twice and ate it warm with vanilla ice cream with friends at a pool party (this recipe), and we had to make this apple cake that is always a hit. I am planning to make apple muffins with the last of them and freeze them for breakfasts.

If you missed it we celebrated our 4 year anniversary of buying the house on Monday in this blog post! It is always so motivating to see how far we have come and it gets us out of the perennial funk of thinking about all the projects still left to finish!

All week I’ve been plugging away working on our porch furniture when I can. I finished priming it, and discovered this game changing product to save my hands when using spray paint cans. Today, I replaced any broken rattan pieces with wooden dowels and I’ll be painting it this week with my dad’s paint sprayer! Can’t wait to show the finished product.

We found out our local apple orchard now has blueberry picking this week. We went with friends and picked 5 pounds of blueberries — we will freeze some, cook with some, and eat them for snacks. The orchard has the cutest stand where they sell blueberry donuts in the style of classic apple cider donuts — delicious! — and peach and lemonade slushies. Needless to say we had a sugar-filled lunch that day and it was divine.

I read two books this week, one audiobook and one on the Kindle app. I like to have two going at once so when I take a break and sit down or before bed I can read the text and when I’m working around the house or cleaning I can listen to the audiobook.

I read The Scorpio Races on Kindle and it’s now one of my top 5 books of all time. I’d call it magical realism, based on the legend of the eich uisce — the Celtic water horse. It is set in what you assume is a Celtic island, in the first half of the 20th century. The island culture, dialect, and magic, creates a whole self-contained world that you get immediately invested in. I couldn’t put it down. Maggie Stiefvater’s writing is absolutely beautiful and I’m reading her novel All The Crooked Saints next.

I listened to Emma of 83rd Street by Emily Harding and Audrey Bellezza as an audiobook, recommended by my Instagram friend Joan, whose daughter Emily is one of the writers! It is a retelling of the novel Emma by Jane Austen set on the Upper East side and I absolutely loved it. The dashes of art, interiors, New York City landmarks, and fashion made it so much fun to listen to. And just like the original, it was very romantic with the happiest ending. Highly recommend!

And to end I have to recommend this plumping lip gloss I ordered after seeing Chris Loves Julia post about it on Amazon Prime Day — it’s just a fun little beauty trick in the summer when you don’t want to wear any more makeup.

Have a great weekend, and we will catch up next week!