Pocketful of Joules

Okay, as I’m rounding in on day 13 of teleworking, I thought it was time for a Life Update. And to be honest, I had to count days on my calendar over and over, because even though this is day 13 of teleworking, out of the last 27 days I have spent 21 at home.

Which is 77.7% of my days.

I’m an introvert… but it is still a lot of time at home.

Since my last update, Maryland schools have extended their closure through April 24^th. They implemented online schooling with Google Classroom on Monday, so now we have a new routine of printing off Jack’s assignments each morning and having him complete three sections each day: math, writing, and a bonus assignment (extra writing assignments, PE, art, etc). After each assignment is complete, I upload it to the Classroom for his teacher to review. Each assignment earns him screen time, so the complaining is bearable.

Here’s some Minecraft Yoga:

And yes, Jack does sometimes take off his robe so I can wash it. And he gets regular showers. But getting dressed each day… way down on the list of importance right now.

This week, the Governor of Maryland also announced a stay-at-home order, which means we are only supposed to leave our homes for necessary reasons such as essential work, grocery/medicine shopping, etc. This is pretty much how we’ve been living the last few weeks, so we didn’t have to do any big changes in order to comply.

I’m still teleworking each day, Monday – Friday. The marketing team is making it work with a daily morning phone call and using Slack to instant chat throughout the day. We got some secondhand good feedback at the end of last week, so I’m feeling confident that we are getting an acceptable amount of work done.

My husband has an essential job, so he’s been lucky enough to work most days. This week, he was home Monday and Wednesday due to lack of work… so that’s a little scary moving forward when it comes to his paycheck. However, we are spending less… so perhaps it will all come out even. I’m certainly saving on gas and public transportation costs. Not to mention the lack of Starbucks runs and lunches out with my work buddies.

We had a family Jackbox/Zoom party over the weekend and it was pretty fantastic. Basically, my mom, each of my siblings, and their spouses and called in with Zoom and we all played Jackbox together. There were silly hats and drinks and lots of laughs. It was an absolute highlight of our weekend, so I’m hoping to schedule another ‘get together’ soon!

It seems like we will be sticking with this schedule at least through the month of April. Which is fine and necessary. I fully support everyone hunkering down to help flatten the curve.

However, to be honest it is a bit exhausting.

Okay, it’s A LOT exhausting. I don’t know if it’s just the daily pressure/news cycle of coronavirus news, or that I’m juggling a full-time job, online schooling my son, the normal housework (cleaning, cooking, laundry), mom-ing and wife-ing. But I’m tired.

I’m also a little sad. Since January, we had been looking forward to a family vacation to Universal Studios Orlando at the end of April and I finally went ahead and cancelled it yesterday. I know the world won’t be back to normal in 3 weeks, but it just felt like giving up all hope to make those cancellation calls. As it is, we won’t get the money back from Universal for 3 – 5 business WEEKS and the plane fare will sit in the Southwest travel account until we book our next trip. I’m hoping we can schedule something for September or October, but I’ll wait a couple months to re-book anything.

I’m feeling a bit like Eeyore at the moment, but if I had to guess I bet a many of you are feeling the same way. So, let’s end today’s blog post on a positive note…

Some things that have been great about the last few weeks of staying home:

• I haven’t worn makeup since March 18^th and it feels pretty great.
• I love being more involved with Jack’s daily classwork and it’s great to see how his brain works with his math and ELA lessons. I feel like his writing is getting better with all the one-on-one attention too.
• Our dog, Ollie, has been enjoying all the extra attention. And pretzels. In fact, he might be getting a little fat.
• We have been eating at home much, much more with just 2 carry-out purchases each weekend. This is much healthier for our waistlines and also nice for our money situation. Jack also informed me last night that I’m awesome at cooking… so I’ll take it!
• After work each day, I sit down and enjoy a book for a bit. I’ve kept up with posting my tiny reviews on my Instagram stories and so far I’ve read 26 books in 2020.
• My husband is cute and funny, so I’m happy to see more of him.
• Jack is also cute and funny and I’ve been getting a huge number of hugs on a daily basis.

I hope you all are safe and healthy and happy!

{Pssst, my Loving Right Now posts aren’t paid or sponsored or anything. They are just stuff that I’m totally digging now and thought you would like too. You can check out my previous posts here}

I’m not sure how it happened, but clicking around Facebook I’ve started to see a few videos from Brad Mondo on the video tab. And then, once I watched a couple, now I see them ALL THE TIME. And I’m totally okay with it because I’m totally loving him and want to be his friend!

Here’s the premise: Brad is a hairstylist and watches people doing their own hair on YouTube and he comments on them.

I know, I know. It doesn’t sound super exciting. But I just LOVE Brad’s personality. He’s not a butthole at all and doesn’t roast the people. In fact, he’s pretty full of compliments for the most part.

I think this might have been the first video of his I watched… and it sucked me down the rabbit hole:

Isn’t he just the cutest thing?!

You can find his YouTube channel here. I did notice that when I watch his videos on Facebook they are much shorter than his YouTube channel version (basically the beginning and end are chopped off). I prefer the shorter versions, so I’ll keep checking him out on Facebook.

Have you been sucked down a video rabbit hole recently?

It should surprise absolutely nobody that I didn’t have the opportunity to do any thrifting in March. With the Coronavirus pandemic, out of the last 30 days, I have spent 19 of them at home. However, when I visited my friend Lindsey last month, we did find some fantastic scores at a couple consignment shops and I hadn’t had a chance to blog about them…so let’s take a gander at my secondhand finds!

{Pssst, you can read about my previous thrifting adventures here}

Marrakech Moto Jacket, $24

I’ve been low-key looking for a soft moto jacket and this one is absolute perfection. It’s like a cross between a jacket and a sweatshirt with super soft and comfortable material. For $24 it was a no-brainer. Once we got in the car, I did a quick google of the brand since I wasn’t familiar with Marrakech and it’s sold at Anthropologie. Of course.

Actually, it’s STILL being sold at Anthropologie for $150 and it came out in August 2019. Why someone bought it and almost immediately sent it off to the consignment shop is puzzling to me, but I’m happy they did. The one I bought is a large, and the fit is perfect. In fact, it was so perfect I threw off the topper I was wearing that day and immediately started wearing my new moto jacket!

Plaid Fleece Coat, $20

This coat was pretty much an impulse buy. I didn’t really NEED another coat, but this fleece version with the tie belt was awfully cute and only $20, so I added it to my pile. When I shared my dressing room pictures on Instagram, this was also the most popular look with people telling me to BUY IT NOW. I wore this to work a few times before I started working-from-home and it kept me nice and toasty on the metro. The pockets are nice and deep too.

Eileen Fisher sweater, $20

I’ve talked before about how I can’t resist a great Eileen Fisher sweater, and this one is so soft and a versatile neutral color. It’s an open cardigan with no buttons or pockets and it looks great over a blouse for work, or a t-shirt on the weekend. It had a thrifty smell when I bought it, so I threw it in the washing machine on cold and layed it flat to dry. For some reason, this distributed the color so that there were dark streaks down each arm! So, I tried again – one more run through the washing machine on cold and this time I hung it on a hanger to dry… and thankfully the color went back to normal.

Kate Spade sparkly cardigan, $20

You all know I love an embellished sweater, so when I saw this pretty Kate Spade version, I pounced on it! I’ve noticed that Kate Spade clothing tends to be cut small, so even though this is an XL it doesn’t feel very big at all.

On the Kate Spade website, similar cardigans sell for $200 – $300 (which is INSANE), so $20 for this one felt like quite the steal. I’ve already worn this to work and once I get back to dressing up I will wear it again and again!

LaMarque Leather Moto Jacket, $37.50

Okay, this jacket was the most amazing find of the whole trip! I felt it on a random rack shoved in next to a ton of crappy stuff and immediately pulled it out to take a closer look. The dark blue leather is some of the softest leather I’ve ever touched, but I had never heard of the brand. The consignment tag had it marked at $200, then marked down to $150, scratched through for $75.50 and finally with a tag for $37.50.

So, I let my fingers do some googling and…

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

This is the LaMarque Donna Classic Leather Biker Jacket and it is still selling in stores for $595! Now, did I NEED a lightweight leather moto jacket? Nope. But was I going to put it back and walk out of there… also, NOPE! When I took it up to the register, the lady told me that she’s so happy that someone bought the jacket, because the owner had purchased it for $595 and decided she didn’t want it.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND CAN I BE THEIR FRIEND?!

Anyways, her loss is my gain. I love, love, love the jacket and have worn it a bunch of times since I brought it home. I didn’t know that my closet had a leather moto jacket sized hole, but apparently it did.

So there you go, I purchased THREE coats and TWO sweaters for a total of $121.50 and I’m not even a little bit sorry about it! Do you have a favorite from this month’s scores?

Disclaimer: This post contains a ShopStyle affiliate link. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.

I had a poll up on my Instagram and Facebook asking what kind of blog posts you all would like to see from me, and one of the topics that came up a few times is that you’d like some product reviews. Well, with Jack being at home so much it kinda makes sense to do a few craft/game reviews! The first one is for the Kid’s Mosaic Stone Kit.

I purchased a shrink-wrapped Mosaic Stone Kit when I was out thrifting at some point. I have no idea how much I paid for it, or exactly when I thrifted it. But it has been living in my ‘craft corner’ for quite a while. Over the weekend, I was digging through some potential projects and Jack and I decided to give it a try.

The kit was pretty simple and contained all the ingredients… you never know when you thrift something! All you have to do is mix the concrete, use the stained glass pieces to make your original design, and let it dry for a day or so.

I found two similar kits on Amazon with Prime shipping:

• Stonecraft 8 inch Mosaic Stepping Stone Kit, $17.39 (it just went on sale today, yesterday it was $25!)
• Milestones Mosaic Leaf Stepping Stone Kit, $25.40

There were warnings on our kit about inhaling the dust when mixing, so I took it outside and mixed it with water into an old tupperware. I didn’t have Jack help with this, due to the dust. But once I brought it back inside he helped pour the wet concrete into the mold.

Then, Jack used the stained glass pieces to create his design – first on the countertop before transferring it into the concrete. He smushed each piece into the wet concrete and we put the wet mold out of the way for a full day.

After about 24 hours, I popped the stone out of the mold and let it sit upside-down until the entire stepping stone was completely dry.

We are SO HAPPY with the finished design. The cement somehow has a sparkly/shimmery finish and the design turned out beautifully. I added it to our front walkway and when I do leave the house, it’s makes me smile.

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.