Friday Things #432
1. I love how much free, unscheduled time weโve had over the last week. The kids have played outside nearly nonstop and it makes me so happy!
2. In case you havenโt hopped over to the website recently, take a peek because it got a brand new look this week! If you see anything out of place or links that donโt work properly, please be sure to let me know!
3. These two living their best Costco life ๐
4. I am working on building out an Amazon hub page with all of my recommended products. What types of things would you like to see??
5. Loved reading some of these! Is there anything youโve vowed to never spend money on again?
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6. Do you follow any blogs or Instagram accounts that are great for school lunch/snack ideas? Joseph will be bringing a lunch most days and all three kids will need to bring something for a morning snackโฆ donโt want to get stuck doing the same thing all the time!
7. On that note, I do not recall ever having a snack at school, ever. And I saw a meme last week about refilling a kidโs water bottle for the 3rd time that day while remembering not ever drinking water during childhood. This is so true!!! Now kids bring refillable water bottles to school and I think when I was in school the only water I drank all day was a few sips from a water fountain a couple of times a day ๐ BUT! I am definitely team hydrate now ๐
8. Preseason football starts tonight and I love that it means weโre inching closer to hoodies, blankets, fireplaces, and hot chocolate kind of days ;-)
9. Any TV recommendations? We watched Deadwater Fell this week (Amazon Prime), which was good but also disturbing, and have been catching a lot of the Olympics on demand. Prior to that we watched Prime Suspect: Tennison, which I believe is a prequel to Prime Suspect, and was VERY good!
10. TGIF! This sweet pup had a perfect 8-year checkup this week! โค๏ธ
Your website looks great! Unfortunately thatโs the only way I can read your daily emails. For some reason I stopped getting them and have tried countless times to get back on the email list. (I have checked my spam folder for the confirmation email)
Can you help with this?
Shetland is awesome on Brit Box as well as Line of Duty
The Family Fudge on youtube has a ton of kids lunch box ideas.
Regarding the kidโs snacks โ my husband loves the Sargento Balanced Break snack kits (combos of cheese, nuts, chocolate, dried fruit, etc.) Iโm a big fan of Lock โn Lock containers and found these on the QVC website, so now I make the snack kits for him at home with his preferences. They are the perfect size for the kids lunch boxes, and Iโm sure they would enjoy choosing the mom-approved items for their own personal containers. Win Win.
https://www.qvc.com/LocknLock-S6-Mini-Pill-Divider-Container-Storage-Set.product.K51053.html
You publish my favorite blog. ย Love the kids, the pups, and the cooking and practical tips. Helps me not miss my hometown quite so much. Thanks much!
Kids looking good as usual! Prime Suspect Tennison was so good, I was really disappointed that they didnโt do additional series. I havenโt really been watching much tvโฆI do plant to start watching Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries, season 3 of Virgin River and season 7 if Endeavor.
Preseason Steelers win on National television! Canโt beat that!
Iโd like to see your favourite food and cooking products, as well as any of your favourite products in general, in your Amazon hub page.ย
LOVE the website redo! ย So awesome! ย ๐๐ปย
Thank you Maryann!
Any chance of recommending gluten-free and/or alternate sugar products? ย Thanks.ย
Cook Nourish Bliss is a food blogger that accommodates a lot of food allergies. I havenโt made a ton of her stuff but what I have made is really good. Sheโs very veggie heavy and dietarily sensitive.
Congrats on the new site! I love the larger text & overall design. I know youโve mentioned the last few years about re-doing the site, so itโs nice to see it come to fruition. Have a great weekend.
The site looks great!
Thank you, Sara!
Hi Michelle: Bento boxes would be great for lunches or snacks for your kids. There are lots of choices on Amazon and they sure do beat the old paper bags!
I love the new website! I also love that when I search a recipe, the recipe comes up! Great job!
I donโt know if you previously watched, but I just got into The Office, so good! The Morning Show & Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are both really great if you havenโt seen.
The only time I remember getting a snack break in school was in kindergarten and first grade. While it sounds nice, we also lived in the same town as one of the teacherโs colleges, so we could always count on at least two of the student teachers getting to try out their abilities on us. I hope that some of them decided they were not cut out to be teachers and moved their career path to something else.
I also hope that you like football, as I am kinda meh on it. Then again, we live about four miles from Foxboro and the traffic is miserable on home day Sundays. There is also the fact that I retreat to the upstairs office as the husband tends to lose his mind during most games.
One thing on the website โ after about three minutes of watching the little ball that indicates things are being uploaded, I had to move on and didnโt get the bread-making tips. Oh well, all involved already get more than their fair share of carbs due to someone who is not me taking over cooking duties on Sunday and Wednesday so he can make whatever pasta he has a craving for.
We used to have mid-morning milk in grade school. Little individual cartons of milk provided by the school for a fee. That was over 60 years ago.
I am enjoying โUnforgottenโ. Enjoyed the first season and this one is good, too. The Brits do such great series.
When it became so hard to buy paper products last year, I purchased a big bundle of cheap facecloths from Amazon. ย I kept a folded pile near the paper towel holderโฆinstead of using paper towels, we grabbed a faceclothโฆ.I kept a little white bathroom basket in the kitchen and once a week washed all the cloths. ย
I figure a year later, I saved well over $200 in paper towel. ย ($13.99 month) estimatedโฆ..
Iโll never buy paper towels again. ย
Then I went one step further. ย I purchased a bundle of Gray facecloths. ย Now we use the gray ones for dirty household cleanups and the white ones for wiping our hands after washing. ย
PS. ย Love the new makeover on the site but yes, the pop ups are a killer.
Love your tip on the face cloths! ย I just may implement that in our home, and! color coding them is a brilliant idea.
I later went one step further by adding the little white face cloths in my bathrooms. ย Instead of everyone using the same hand towel, we all use individual little white face cloths to wipe our hands. ย I keep a tiny white โhand towelโ basket in each bathroom and scoop them up on laundry day. ย We now all have a fresh dry towel to wipe our handsโฆ..I donโt think I would have thought of this were not for Covid and being a germaphobe in the beginning of the pandemic.ย
Love how much easier the site remodel is to read. The new Search revision is great! So much easier to find what Iโm looking for. Congratulationsโฆ
The Indy-style peddle car ROCKS!! Has there been any epic broad slides with the rear hand break? :) Weโre NASCAR folks, but cool cars are cool cars.
Thanks for share your sweet kiddos.
How do I get rid of the (4) links on the left (Pinterest, Facebook, etc) and the banner on the bottom? ย Itโs covering content on your page and I keep accidentally clicking on them. Sorry!! ย I love everything else!!
Me too!
Area on the right that is full of advertising is a little too big. Content is not as easy to read even in landscape.
Reading on an iPad
I agree with this womenโs comments.ย
I also agree
100% agree! The ads are now taking up half of my screen, no exaggeration! And of course thereโs the bottom banner that is an inch deep across the entire screen. And I have to even go further and say that the constantly running video of recipes is very distracting.
Iโve had this issue since before the redesign unless I make my browser window full screen. The ads on the right hand side I can look past (though they are about 1/3 of the page) but itโs the Pinterest, FaceBook, etc buttons on the left hand that cover up the blog content Iโm here for unless my browser is at full screen. If it helps, Iโm using Safari on a Mac.
Ditto!
Cool car/bike! I admittedly had fun peeking into your Costco cart to see what you got (I look in other carts too at Costco)๐
I also donโt ever recall a snack at schoolโฆnor drinking much water. In fact at home as kids we often drank from the hose.
You mentioned hoodies n stuff and I was just thinking the other day I can smell Fall in the air alreadyโฆbring it. Means pumpkin pies coming soonโค