Happy Friday the 13th! I chose this week’s items before I realized I’d be posting this on the 13th…and the first two are totally on-theme. A happy accident!  🙂

1. My Favorite Murder: I’ve been on a major podcast kick lately—I know, I’m late to the party, as usual. I am pretty much going down the podcast rabbit hole because every podcast I listen to ends up mentioning other podcasts they like, so I check those out too. I actually can’t remember where I first heard about My Favorite Murder, but I am hooked! Each episode is literally just two true crime fans, Karen and Georgia, discussing a murder of interest to them. They’ve been at this for at least a year and there are now 80+ episodes for me to get through, starting from the beginning. Karen and Georgia have comedy backgrounds so they manage to make murder funny while also taking the gravity of the topic into account. And their signoff? “Stay sexy, don’t get murdered.” So, stay sexy and don’t get murdered by a machete-wielding maniac (or his mother) on this Friday the 13th!

2. Dirty John: I heard about this true crime podcast on the My Favorite Murder Facebook group and decided to give it a try. I binged all six episodes in a couple of days and it made me SO angry. Angry at the perp, and angry at his mark, too. I won’t say any more than that. Because the podcast is from a report by the LA Times, you can also read the full story and see photos on their website here.

3. Anthem: my husband and I got invited to the first soft opening of this new concert venue at The Wharf, a spanking new development in Southwest DC that celebrated its grand opening yesterday. The Anthem soft open took place on Sunday night, and we were among the first in DC to experience this new venue! I’m really not into music (I know, I’m a weirdo) but the venue is really very nice. It’s large, there are multiple bars and restrooms throughout, and they serve food that actually sounds good and is not horribly overpriced (we didn’t eat anything during our visit, though). Even though I’m not a live music fan, I’m sure I’ll end up back here for something at some point!

4. Andalou Naturals Pumpkin Honey Glycolic Mask: consider this your weekly pumpkin product post. 🙂 I tried out the mask that I bought during the big Whole Foods body care sale last weekend, and I like it. I feel like it makes my skin a little brighter and more luminous. The ingredients are very similar to the single use mask pods from the brand, so I think of the jar I bought as the value version of the pods. I’m sure I’ll use the jar up pretty quickly!

5. “NEW PHONE WHO DIS?”: is what goes through my head every I pick up the new phone I bought this week. It’s an iPhone 8! I don’t usually buy new iPhones so soon after they’re released, but I recently became eligible for an upgrade and the battery on my old iPhone 6 was not making me happy. So I have this shiny new phone! I haven’t really explored any of its new features yet, but so far so good.