No. 93: What to Read, Watch, Eat & Wear in July

This one's juicy--we're back!

When I typed out the dates for my Summer break, I couldn’t even believe how long it seemed. A true five weeks away from the Friday letters felt daunting. Dangerous, even. But in the months leading up that stretch of time, I saw the trips (two) the parties and showers to host (two) the groups of out of town guests coming to stay (two) the moving trucks coming (four) and knew it was the only way. Our last moving truck unloaded the final box last Sunday at 10pm. We, in true we fashion throughout this process, hosted a double first birthday party five days later and hopped in the car the next afternoon for a trip down south. That’s been the pace of the last five weeks, really. A giant load of stuff arrives threatening to drown me and I have to clear it somewhere—anywhere—to make it look pretty in time for company to come. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I’ve been working on the second half of this newsletter throughout the week in stints between scrubbing and unpacking, but this portion is freshly squeezed. One of my best friends on the planet landed in Dallas late tonight and after giving her “the tour” and laughing in the way that feels like medicine, we split. She’s about ten feet from me tackling my closet armed with a microfiber cloth, a trash bag, a ladder and a Broadway Spotify station and I’m on the bed with my blanket, lofi hip hop and a bowl of grapes to fuel me. It’s midnight, friend. My words are stuck in Jello and I have to fish them out one by one in a painfully slow dance to string together anything worth sharing. Brutal feels like an appropriate descriptor.

And as uncomfortable as it is to fumble along, I remember it always feels this way to get back in the groove after some time away. I feel it when I start running again after a months (okay, years) long hiatus or pick up a paintbrush after they serve long seasons as decoration rather than tools. It’s there the first time I cut sugar after a season of indulgence or when I attempt daily journaling after neglecting the practice for longer than I can remember. No matter how natural a thing is, it ceases to come naturally when it ceases to be a habit.

hab·it. noun: habit; a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

So here I am, thrilled to be back in the habit of creating a newsletter that delivers Friday morning delight to your inbox and Sunday morning inspiration every week.

Friends, I’m a work at home mom. The blog I started six years ago, the Instagram partnerships from that period of my life, the artwork for my old shop, the articles written for various publications and podcasts recorded for myself and others—everything under the umbrella of My Work has always been done in uncomfortably tight margins. But that’s the blessing of it, I think.

Sometimes I picture you reading this, a coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. Maybe toddlers are eating breakfast nearby, maybe last nights dishes are still soaking in your sink. You might be overwhelmed with all that’s before you today and in a welcome break from the brainstorm of how to get everything done, you check your email and find this letter.

Because maybe you work in impossibly small margins, too.

And we both show up, time and time again and that’s what makes it beautiful.

1 mosquito stickers | 2 beaded necklace | 3 tinted moisturizer SPF 40 | 4 best ever paleo chocolate cake | 6 a truly delightful blanket | 7 Little Secrets | 8 Sussed | 9 highlight. bronzer. | 10 our go-to travel duffel

I’ve been listening to the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker | Faith Not Fact podcast slowly over the month and it’s a tough listen but so well done and incredibly thorough. I didn’t know anything about the Bakker’s ministry until I watched Jessica Chastain portray Tammy in The Eyes of Tammy Faye and the podcast gave so much more context to the larger than life story.

If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you know my all-time favorite pajamas. Yes, I love my Skims pair so much. I also favor an old $10 Amazon satin pair I’ll never get rid of. But these? Those are my gold standard. They’re included in the Nordstrom Sale and I have them in the nightgown version, the short set and a handful of the long set. This is one thing I just need you to trust me on if you’re in the market.

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What to Read:

I had a pretty decent reading month thanks to Audible. In the absolute manic chaos of packing, unpacking, organizing, hosting and settling in so there were moods aplenty. I personally started chipping away at Abbi Jimenez’ work, re-read The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer again but the book that made me most excited was Little Secrets. Whenever I read a truly great suspense story, I’m reminded that it hits the spot even in a flurry of changing moods. With the last few weeks of Summer ahead of us, I know I don’t have the easy breezy headspace to dive into a historical fiction or the headspace to pay attention to non-fiction. I realize most humans will be looking forward to the rest of the beach reads but for me, suspense and mysteries are the way to go for the rest of July. I get my best reading advice from this community so I’d love to know what you’re reading in the comments—especially if it’s in my current genre of choice because you know when you’re in a mood you can’t be helped.

What to Watch:

Hear me out, okay? TV shows are great and we’ve watched and rewatched all the classics. I’m sure I’ll start Fraiser over in the Fall for the thirtieth time and I’ll love it just the same. But, sometimes O and I get in a movie marathon zone and whenever that happens, it feels like we’re dating again. We watched all the Fast and Furious movies when I threw my back out in our second year of marriage, we watched all the Harry Potters in the thick of an auto-immune flare, we watched all the Nancy Meyers movies in the long days of prodromol labor waiting for Zeameh and worked through Denzel’s career in a particularly hard season of the build.

We wanted to rewatch all the old Planet of the Apes movies before seeing the new one and thus, a sweet movie marathon was born. We also started a disaster movie marathon a couple weeks ago and the familiar feeling of having something to look forward to—a predictable, zero stakes date—is truly the best. There are phenomenal shows and movies out this month like The Bear, Space Cadet, Lady in the Lake and so on. But I recommend choosing a movie marathon you can look forward to with your man or a girlfriend. I promise it unlocks something magical.

What to Eat:

In two weeks, I’ll have a menu for you that I’m so excited for but July is very much still the thick of Summer. The adjectives I prioritize almost above delicious at this point of the year are easy and quick. I don’t have any extravagant meals for you today since half of our home is still in boxes and using ana ctual recipe with multiple steps just isn’t in the cards, but I do have five things I’ve been making on repeat—

BLT with heirloom tomatoes and delicious sauces, meatballs with rice and quick salad (and of course the leftover meatballs cooked with sauce make perfect subs or spaghetti), paleo thai noodle bowls, ground turkey tacos, elevated quesadillas (or as basic as they come) and every form of sandwich you could imagine. We’ve also been partial to a great breakfast burrito for dinner because what could be easier?

The start of school will be here before we know it with it’s request for cozier, more complex meals that stick to the ribs so I’m soaking up the rest of the summer with paper plates and simple as the goal of every meal.

What to Wear:

Would a breakdown of my Amazon Prime Day and Nordstrom Sale picks be helpful? We have a style guide coming up but it will be after these sales end so let me know if it’s helpful or you literally can’t stomach one more sale round up in front of your eyeballs.

My content calendar is set for the next six weeks and it has me a bit giddy for what’s to come. It feels so great to be back here today. I hope your coffee was extra delicious, your babies were extra sweet and you enjoyed the extra words again,

Have a beautiful weekend, friends.