Weekly Roundup

Kristen (@oldjoy) posted this photo in her Stories and I got this warm fuzzy feeling when I saw it. Living just outside of downtown San Diego, I don't see this beautiful vast farm view every day. Plus, that sun bed looks so amazing - I might need to add it to my backyard makeover. Kristen has this particular bed, but she doesn't use the shade cover.

Wit & Delight just launched a stationery line. It makes me wish I had more friends out of town to mail things to. Whatever happened to pen pals? I have my eye on this notebook - not for a pen pal, but for me. I bet it would be good for the oh-so-popular bullet journaling. I haven't tried it because I like my way of making notes and to-do lists, but I'm always up for discovering more efficient ways to work. Convince me to try bullet journaling, people!

It's the opposite of bullet journaling, but I'm really into this desktop note roller.

Did you see our house on Dwell?! GASP. I've been a lover of Dwell Magazine for ages, so I'm very tickled/flattered/shocked to see my house (and my face) on their website. 

Daniel's mirror collection kills me. I have a very similar mirror on my mantel, but it's basically garbage compared to his bounty of beauties.

Have you seen Kim and Scott's nursery? I was scrolling through and spotted the little dinosaur rattle that I sent to baby Lucy last year on a shelf! Can you spy it?

This "sink mantel" stopped me in dead in my tracks. Wowza.

Are you watching all of these cats visiting my house on Instagram Stories? Pretty much every time I turn around, a neighborhood cat is in the backyard - often staring at me through a window. One of them, Sunny, has strolled in through an open door (or window) six times now. I think I need to build him one of these, but the inverse - so he can look into my house from the outside.

Yesterday in my Stories, I shared how I've managed to do this One Room Challenge with zero waste. The main way I've avoided the landfill is with the Buy Nothing Project. This is an international program with individual community groups for your neighborhood. You join the group through Facebook then post things you don't want, and claim things that your neighbors don't want. I've listed coat hangers, a free calendar I got in the mail, little gifts I didn't want, torn pantyhose, broken pots, freebies I got when ordering from Sephora, old CD cases, and a bunch of other stuff. But for the One Room Challenge, I posted giant boxes that a lady took for her daughter to play in, packing materials for a gal to use for her eBay selling business, scrap lumber for someone to do their own DIY, paint samples for a guy's project, and more. It's so simple. I still donate specific items to folks in need - take a look at my donation recommendations from a previous post.

Speaking of the One Room Challenge, are you watching my weekly progress videos? There's only one more video in the series, so now is the time to catch up! I'd really really appreciate it if you subscribed to my YouTube channel if you like 'em. 

My dishwasher suddenly started leaving my glasses super soap scummy. I'm still working on the solution, but many of you asked what my followers recommended because it seems to be a common issue. The top tips were Citric Acid for cleaning on an empty load, Lemi Shine for adding to each wash, cleaning out the filter and the holes in the fan blades, getting a water softener, scrubbing the dishes with vinegar, and getting out of the habit of cleaning the dishes before loading them (apparently the dishwasher works better when there's grime to clean!). I heard lots of great words about Cascade, but I'm not ready to give up on my natural dish detergent yet. I'm going to give these cleaning options a shot!

And here is my April playlist! If you don't have Spotify, you'll only be able to preview these tracks, but you can make a free account easy peasy to hear the full-length tracks.

Happy Friday!