Hi friends! Its been a few weeks since I wrote a weekly diary so I thought today I would give you a general life update and summarize the past couple of weeks. I was so excited about my weekly diaries in May I didn’t miss a week. When I get new creative ideas, I find the initial excitement burns so brightly that I feel motivated to deliver as much of that creative thing as fast as possible and then, inevitably, I run out of steam. I love writing and I love sharing and I love this new idea of sharing weekly diaries, but I just needed a few weeks off to refresh and just be, instead of constantly thinking about the next photo I was going to take for my weekly recap.
Today seemed like a good day to pick back up though. Its been a very emotional and mentally exhausting past several days and I needed something to get my mind off of things and I thought maybe you could too.
Since I’m a few weeks behind, I’m not going to bore you by going day by day, week to week. We’ll just breeze through some highlights 😊
Its peony season, so you know I grabbed a few bunches from Trader Joe’s for an all-peony flower arrangment. I’ve discovered that I’m not the “pick the flowers you grew” kind of gardener yet. I can’t stand the thought of removing blooms from my garden to put in a vase inside. I’m hoping as my garden grows over the years that feeling will diminish because I really would love to pick fresh flowers for the house, but each bloom feels too precious to pick right now.
Thanks to TikTok, to which I owe many of my latest obsessions, I’ve been obsessed with the Trader Joe’s Organic Elote Corn Chip Dippers. Not to be dramatic, but they are the best chip that has ever entered my life. They’re insansely flavorful. I’ve been making cowboy caviar a lot lately and putting both on salads. Cowboy Caviar is the easiest thing to make, a huge crowd pleaser, and you can customize the recipe to have whatever you want in it. I’ll be posting my recipe soon! 🤗
The photo on the right is from the day after my hydrafacial and the 2 photos on the left are from today.
I had my first hydrafacial 2 weeks ago. I always get a little nervous when someone is touching my face. I think this is PTSD from years of having acne. I just really struggle trusting that the results aren’t going to cause more harm than good. Honestly, thats probably why I tweeze my eyebrows myself instead of having them waxed or threaded by someone else. No trust.
For the Hydrafacial though, I put my face-touching PTSD aside because I felt like my skin had plateaued. I’ve been using Tretinoin, Salycilc Acid, Glycolic Acid, and Vitamin C pretty regularly and I felt like my skin had stopped improving in pore size and texture. So I went into the facial ready to take my skin to the next level.
If you haven’t heard of a hydrafacial its a 30 – 90 minute facial using a medical-grade hydradermabrasion device that cleanses, exfoliates, and then infuses the skin with serums. The device/pen that they use has a spiralized tip that delivers each step with vortex technology. If I had to describe it, I’d say it felt like water swirling around on my face and also like a vacuum.
The aesthetician suggested dermaplaning first and then doing the hydrafacial with glycolic acid, lactic acid, retinol, and red light therapy. I was eager for a new face so I told her to go for it.
Was the approach a little aggressive for my first time? Definitely. Do I regret it? No.
My skin needed the nudge. I don’t think I will ever pair the dermaplaning with the hydrafacial again because it was just too intense for my skin. I eneded up with what looked like razorburn on my chin and had a few breakouts on my cheeks. Now that that has all healed though, my face looks amazing. The hydrafacial managed to clear out so much of the congestion that I had in my T-zone. I don’t think my pores have ever looked this clear.
It was handsdown one of the greatest one-time treatments that I’ve done for my skin.
On Father’s Day we took my dad to breakfast and then surprised him with an afternoon at Top Golf. It was everyone’s either first or second time and we all had a blast showing off our best drives. I’m not by any means a golfer, despite having worked on golf courses for 3 summers during college. I’ve never really understood how to aim while hitting the ball with a club, so I just resort to hitting it as hard as I can and if I get some points a long the way, great. 😂
Andrew and I have been on huge cooking kick lately. We received an airfrier as a gift at our wedding shower in May and we are having a blast throwing everything in there and coming up with all kinds of different recipes.
I’ve also been loving having a batch of garlic confit in the fridge. If you love garlic, garlic confit is great on almost anything. I’ve been throwing a few cloves on salads and on top of meats.
Another thing I’ve been obssessed with making lately is my Asian pickles. They’re not really pickles and they’re not really Asian, so don’t come for me. Its just sliced cucumbers, rice wine vinegar, some toasted seasme oil, some black garlic, and Crunchy Chili Onion from Trader Joe’s all to taste. I let them marinate in the fridge and then snack on them or have them with a salmon & rice bowl.
Life has been pretty easy-going around here lately. Andrew’s travel schedule got unexpectedly shortened the past few weeks due to some unforeseen meeting cancellations so we’ve had a lot of time working from home together which we love.
Saturday we had a very low-key day. We ran a few errands early in the morning (including grocery shopping with starbs), went to the gym, and then spent the rest of the day relaxing at home with the girls.
On Sunday we met with our officiant and walked through the layout and flow of our ceremony. We got to talk through the specifics down to how he was going to ask us certain questions, how we are going to respond, and how to write our vows. All of the wedding things we are doing now are actually feeling real. We’ve been planning for so long that it sometimes felt like it was never going to be here. I can’t believe we only have 110 days left. I know that still may sound like a long time, but you have to understand, my Wedding Wire App has been counting down the days left since we had 650 days to go. CRAZY.
I hope you enjoyed this weekly diary/life update. I know it was a bit all over the place, but thats just where my brain is at right now. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Chat soon 🤍
Love always,
