I turned 43 this past weekend! To celebrate, John and I did a long weekend getaway at the same Airbnb in West Virginia that we stayed at a few times last year. We had a fantastic time, and I brought some gifts with me to open on my birthday. Here’s a peek at my gifts:
1. Brood X Cicadas: social media has been going a little batshit over the Brood X cicadas, which have emerged after 17 years. We have them in DC proper, but they aren’t really making noise or swarming the city. Last weekend, John and I went to the National Arboretum, which is located on the outskirts of DC. The cicada noise there was WILD! It sounded like a constant car alarm. The bugs are alllll over the place in areas with more trees and less concrete. Oddly, cicadas don’t creep me out. These red-eyed bugs are kind of fascinating to me.
A Birthday Month Fix
I love scheduling Stitch Fix [affiliate link] around my birthday, because it feels like an extra treat for me! My June 2021 Fix, which is my 31st (!!!), arrived yesterday. I wasted no time trying on the items and doing a little photo shoot at home. Look at this pretty stack of summery pieces:
1. Mini Dermstore Haul: Dermstore recently held a spring sale with 20% off select brands. I went a little ham adding things to my cart, but I did manage to edit it down to four items: Boscia Fruit Acid Smoothing Foot Peel, Osmosis MD Boost Peptide Activating Mist, Bioderma Micellar Solution, and EltaMD UV Clear Broad-Spectrum SPF 46. My package also included a mini sample of Dr. Dennis Gross Clarifying Colloidal Sulfur mask. Very pleased with my tiny haul! The only new-to-me product is the Osmosis MD mist. I’ve used a couple of their products in the past and liked them, so hopefully this one will be good too!
Happy June! It’s my birthday month! I hope you all had a nice, safe Memorial Day weekend. We hosted three fully vaccinated friends for a BBQ in our back yard. Though I’m still being very cautious about going out places, having a small outdoor get-together at home feels like one of the safest things you can do.
I didn’t empty a ton of products last month but I do have a few to share, including a couple gifted items:
1. Q: Into the Storm: this HBO docuseries is a fascinating look at the history and origin of the QAnon movement, as well as an investigation into the identity of Q. There’s no definitive answer to the question “who is Q?” but the series comes to its own pretty strong conclusion. I won’t give any spoilers here, for anyone who might be interested in watching. The episodes also delve a bit into some of the folks who got wrapped up in the Q cult (to be clear, that’s my terminology, not the show’s). I don’t know if we’ll ever truly know who Q is, or if Q is even just one person. But it’s an interesting six-episode rabbit hole to go down.
1. House of Intuition: I recently placed my first order from this magical supply shop. Their brick and mortar locations are all in LA, so I obviously couldn’t shop there even if I was comfortable shopping in person right now (I’m not). I was really into candle magic back in high school and college (partly due to The Craft, which came out right before I graduated from high school and felt like it was made for me). Lately I’ve felt in the mood to dive back into these rituals. So I ordered a few candles, plus a wick cutter and snuffer set. Very excited to meditate and burn these candles with intention.
1. First Meal Outside! I’m still being cautious even though I’m fully vaccinated. Why? Because there’s a bit of early research suggesting that some folks who are on the meds I take don’t get as much protection from the vaccine as typical healthy people. So I’m still avoiding unnecessary indoor activities and I’m not comfortable around unmasked people yet, even outdoors, because I don’t know if strangers are vaccinated. That said, yesterday morning I took a big step. John picked up breakfast from Yellow Cafe and we ate on a terrace overlooking the Anacostia River. My harissa, egg, and cheese croissant was SUPER tasty! And I ended up feeling quite comfortable being unmasked outdoors, because there was hardly anyone around where we chose to eat. Baby steps!
2. New Orchids: John made a Lowe’s run on Mother’s Day and sent me photos of some orchids in their garden section. I picked out the two pictured below. The white and fuchsia blooms on the left are especially unusual! I absolutely love them. It’s so hard not to add orchids to my collection when I see beauties like these.
1. Azalea Season: last weekend we returned to the National Arboretum for another morning nature visit. We decided to hit up the Azalea Collection because it’s blooming season, and it was amazing. We only saw a small part of the collection before I felt like there were starting to be too many people for my comfort and decided to leave. I want to note that I removed my mask for the below photo only because there was no one else anywhere around us. I know the CDC says it’s ok for vaccinated people to go maskless outdoors as long as you’re not in a crowd, but I’m still generally masking up for now.
Happy May! It’s wild to me that we’re already five months into 2021. It’s also wild to me that I’m fully vaccinated now…though currently it’s unclear how effective the vaccines are for people on the medication that I’m taking. So I’m going to continue to be cautious until we have more information. What I keep reminding myself is that even some vaccine protection is better than no vaccine protection!
Let’s see what beauty products I emptied last month:
