Silly, lovely

Here are a handful of silly, lovely things I have come across lately. They aren’t worthy of the “what I’m thankful for” circle before Thanksgiving dinner, but I think they’re quite nice.

Super soft Gap scarf
My friends at Gap sent me a ridiculously soft, warm, cozy scarf, and I love it so much. Recently, the weather hasn’t had its usual chill, so I’ve  been wearing light layers and this scarf (no coat!), and I’ve been comfortable and warm. JG asked if they sent it because I posted about how much I loved scarves, but no, that was just a happy coincidence.

ELF eyelid primer
I read about this product on Style Lush, and at first, I was all, “Who needs to prime their eyelids?” It sounds like kind of a fake product, a trick the beauty industry is playing on us. But then I was all, “Whoa. One dollar?” During my next Target trip, I went to the cosmetic aisle and picked up the light beige shade, and I tried it for the first time on Sunday. The primer makes my eyelid feel super smooth, and I didn’t have to use nearly as much eye shadow as I normally do. In fact, now I know that I was really packing it on. Even after church, a lunch, a 10-minute nap, and hosting 15 people for dinner, my eye make-up was still in place, as I had applied it. So, yeah, the $1 price tag was totally worth it.

Getting back into Pilates
When I belonged to the fitness center at my old job, I went to Pilates every Monday during my lunch hour, and I loved it. Since I joined the YMCA in August, I haven’t been able to fit in a Pilates class because they aren’t very convenient for me. A 7am class is too late for me to shower and get to work on time, and 5:45pm is too early for me to get there after work. Finally, I went to a 10:30am class last Saturday, and I arrived very early because I assumed that it would be really crowded. Well, there were 8 of us. The class was hard, but it was really good. My muscles were sort of like, “Ooh, this is hard! But we kind of remember how to do this.” The next morning, my whole core ached, including those tiny muscles right under my sternum. I had forgotten how much I liked Pilates, but now I am working to make it a priority in my exercise life.

Fancy, doubled-up necklace
One of the items I got from Mimi’s jewelry stash was a long strand of white beads. It’s nice and drapey on its own, but there’s enough length that I can also wear it doubled or tripled. Last week, I accidentally doubled it up in a snazzy way, and I loved how it looked. I’m going to wear it this way for Thanksgiving dinner.

Multicolored sugar cookie technique
Thanks to Pinterest, I found a sugar cookie technique to make multicolored fall leaf cookies, so I decided to try it for the cookies I’m bringing to Thanksgiving this year. I did not, however, make them into a wreath, because I am not insane.

I wish the colors had stayed as vibrant after baking, but I think the general, autumnal feeling is there, and the cookies are festive enough. Toward the end, when I was mashing dough remnants together to use as much as possible, the colors marbled in a more realistic way. The cookies I cut in the beginning have rather stark color delineations, so I wonder how it would work if I mixed the dough colors prior to chilling. Hm. The best part is that I only did a quick glaze and sprinkled turbinado sugar over top, so I didn’t have to mess with making, tinting, piping, or flooding royal icing. I think this would be fun for anything that has distinct color associations, like Christmas or a sporting event.

A day off today
After I assessed the damage done to my vacation days after all of the wedding-related travel, I realized that I could take the day before Thanksgiving as a vacation day, so I immediately applied for it. Today, I am sleeping in and taking a Pilates class, and then JG and I are going up to the Poconos. With any luck, we’ll miss the bulk of the traffic on our route and still arrive at his parents’ house with plenty of time before dinner. And then my cell phone will lose service, and I will not mind at all.