The 📖📺🎧🔪🛍️ List

A new (and life-changing) coffee machine, the Airbnb we rented for girls' weekend, a very delicious soup, a dog documentary, and more!

Happy Friday, y’all! I know it’s been September for a whole six days now, but I’m still in shock over it. Someone asked me this week via DM if pregnancy has gone slow or fast, and I told her “SO FAST. The first trimester felt like a year, but ever since then, it’s been warp speed.”

I think spending the majority of the summer in the midst of this renovation probably helped with that; I just can hardly believe we’re less than 60 days out from meeting our son??? WTF. I’m ready and yet not AT ALL. I want to hold him, but I’m fucking terrified. I can’t wait to meet him, but I hope he stays cooking until the last second. I am so excited to set up his room, but can hardly fathom him BEING in it?

My life is never going to be the same in two months, and that’s a wildly big pill to swallow.

Anyway. Enough about THAT. Let me talk at you about the content I’ve been consuming lately.

READING 📖

😬 I’m still reading 1984, and it’s going very slowly. Not because I don’t like it, but because a) I’ve been very distracted and tired and the last thing I wanna do in my downtime is read. I just wanna nap, and b) I’m not OBSESSED with it. I LIKE it, but I’m not devouring it. It’s absolutely not a DNF for me… it’s just gonna take me a bit longer.

WATCHING 📺

A few weekends ago, my four best friends and I roadtripped to Broken Bow, OK, where I was, for the first time in my entire existence, the sober friend. We spent the weekend in a gorgeous Airbnb designed by Gilded Heights, and I cannot recommend staying in one of her cabins enough. It was so wonderful and so, so well designed. But I digress.

During our stay, we found ourselves in matching Walmart nightgowns (honestly, I got them as a joke but they are so fucking soft and cozy?) watching a documentary on Netflix called Inside the Mind of a Dog. There we were, five late-30-somethings, clad in our “Dear Bed I Love You” nighties, fucking sobbing over a dog documentary in the middle of the forest in Oklahoma. It was a scene. The documentary was so good, though. It goes over emotional and scientific insights about man’s best friend, and also highlights a pack of service dogs being trained and then matched with special needs adults, which is what sent us into orbit. It’s worth watching, but be warned that you will sob. We truly don’t deserve dogs. Watch it on Netflix.

A few years ago, when The Rings of Power first came out on Amazon Prime, I watched an episode or two, but just couldn’t get into it. It felt long and boring. Zac ended up watching the entire first season without me and, with the recent drop of the second season, he urged me to try season one again. I did, and I can now attest to the “wrong place, wrong time” phenomenon re: life. Two years ago, it did nothing for me. But now? OMG. IT’S SO GOOD? Like, I’m obsessed and can’t wait to watch a new episode every night. It’s the prequel to Lord of the Rings and explains how and why the rings of power came to be and depicts Sauron’s origin story. I’m so glad Zac insisted I try again — he knows me better than I know myself. It’s so incredibly well done and well produced, and the visuals are just stunning. Watch it on Prime.

LISTENING TO 🎧

So, a quick story: a girl I know and used to work with just turned 30 last year and was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a devastating blow, of course, but watching her tackle it and document it was awe-inspiring. Since her diagnosis, she has been hellbent on figuring out WTF could’ve given her a disease that does not run in her family and she was not prone to. She was an otherwise extremely healthy, young woman, so getting cancer at her young age understandably mind fucked her. Cancer is the devil and doesn’t discriminate, but she’s determined to get answers.

Now, I am not a woo-woo type of person. I love modern medicine and Western medicine and convenience (what I’ve missed most this pregnancy, besides dirty martinis, is Advil). However. I’m realizing more and more just how much “bad” there is in convenience, and a lot of the stories this girl shares on a daily basis have me looking into food and chemicals and toxins and how it all affects our hormones more than we can imagine (ex: I do not have any desire to get back on birth control ever in my life. I was on it for roughly 25 years and that was enough for me). All this led me to the introduction to Dr. Casey Means. Casey is a Stanford MD graduate who literally walked away from surgical practice after realizing that the healthcare system doesn’t actually want you to get better — they just want to diagnose you, throw the medicine at the problem, get paid, and call it a day. She was disturbed by how they weren’t taught to think critically about how so many ailments and concerns can be connected and tied back to what we ingest, and made it her new life goal to do exactly that.

Her POV and studies are extremely eye-opening and thought-provoking, and if you’re up for it, I’d listen to her interview on Jay Shetty’s podcast to hear it from her.

MAKING 🔪

I’m back in the kitchen after two months off, and COTDAMN it feels amazing. Tuesday night, I made these turkey tacos which I’ve written about before and are so simple while being incredibly flavorful.

Wednesday night, I made this Brazilian shrimp soup I’ve had bookmarked since B.R. (before renovation), which was absolutely phenomenal and also very simple. It made me sweat intensely but not because of the spice — because I’m very pregnant, it’s very humid here, and I am all tummy and tits right now.

FOR THE SOUP: I added a little extra garlic, half of a diced up serrano pepper for heat, and served it with crusty bread. It was perfection.

SHOPPING 🛍️

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

When I was visiting my bestie in Tulsa last month, she had this glorious coffee machine that I instantly fell in love with. I love everything DēLonghi does, and this coffee maker is no exception. I love it because it can brew 3 oz espresso shots, 8oz-16oz cups, a 24oz thermos, and a 40oz carafe. It also has three intensity settings: Light, gold, and bold. IT ALSO holds whole beans so every single cup is freshly ground (my dream). IT ALSO is $600 BUT if you and your partner are coffee drinkers, it may very well be worth the investment. I take my coffee very seriously and so does Zac and, since he’ll be WFH a lot more once the baby is here, we need a lot of coffee at our disposal and quickly, so this was a no-brainer investment to me. Also, the “gold” setting brews the perfect cup. It’s like magic.

Please ignore our unfinished coffee nook and backsplash and just focus on the beauty of the machine.

Speaking of coffee, for other fiends like me who rejoice in making it at home, I wanted to share the two coffees I use.

The first is Trader Joe’s Medium Roast whole beans. The second, and this is the key to fabulous fucking coffee, is Lola Savannah’s Pecan coffee. Pecan coffee is a big thing in Texas, and Lola’s is by far the best I’ve ever, ever had. Nothing compares. In fact, it’s Central Market’s #1 seller and they’re often sold out, which is why I just ordered two pounds of it on my own so I’m never without. I mix about 2/3 of the regular Trader Joe’s beans with 1/3 of the pecan beans into our coffee canister (which is really pretty) to make the most amazing coffee.

OH AND ONE MORE COFFEE-RELATED THING! This brown sugar cinnamon syrup is a thing of dreams. Order it now and thank me later.

Some other, smaller things I’ve purchased lately:

This non-maternity Target dress that comes in several colors and is really comfy and easy. Will look cute in the fall with a jacket! Oh, and this non-mat dress, too!

A chocolate brown unitard, because why not?

This super soft H&M maternity dress that has easy nursing access.

An overpriced, very pretty, automatic soap dispenser (I’m keeping track of every single thing we’ve purchased during this reno and will be sharing the full list when it’s all said and done. This is just a small piece!)

❤️ If you liked or loved this letter, hit that little heart at the bottom to show some love. A little love goes a looooong way around here ❤️

That’s the full report for today. Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll talk next week!

Best,

EGM