Little Lights in my Life in August

I've been in a rut lately. A meal planning, writing, reading, outfit-wearing rut. That means I don't have much to write about. The heat must be sucking out my motivation!

That means the things that have made me smile in the last month or so are even more special. The rut makes me grateful for the little things.

1. Two new meals we've tried have been awesome! These ground beef gyros from Mashup mom are delicious. I used Penzey's Greek seasoning in them. We also just tried Instant Pot ragu from Damn Delicious. My son literally cried for 10 minutes when dinner was over. This is a keeper for sure. Both take a little bit more time than I'd like for a weeknight meal, so they'll be double batch weekend dinners for sure to give us some awesome leftovers.

2. This book captured my heart and made it so I didn't want to read anything else for a while. I learned a lot about another culture and got caught up in a beautiful but sad story. I couldn't stop talking about it for weeks!

3. This skincare product came in a Birchbox and it's so good! It's way outside my price range to buy at normal price so I check online about once a week or so to see if it goes on sale. I've been trying to be more kind to my skin lately and washing my face with a nice-smelling cleanser feels indulgent to me even though it's good for me.

4. This house! I took my son to a local festival one Saturday morning and we had a long walk from the parking lot. This house had a tomato garden out front with a sign saying to take some if you wanted. There wasn't any when we went by, but the flowers in front of the gorgeous Victorian house and the neighborly hospitality is displayed were so charming.

5. Watching my son with this toy has been precious. He loves to play with light switches and this one has one in it. It teaches him some great fine motor skills. It's been his favorite toy for a few weeks now and I'm not yet annoyed by the sounds. I bet I start getting annoyed now that I typed this...

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