The Weekly Digress | 3.31

Life-changing battery-operated sconces, the perfect shorts, great basic tees, and more!

Mar 31, 2025

Good morning, Digressers! I am coming to you live from Dallas, Texas with blurry, sleepy eyes, a fresh zit above my right eyebrow, terrible posture, and a very long to-do list for this week.

My birthday is Friday, and we’re heading out of town (but not too far) for the weekend sans Ziggy and, while I love him more than anything in the world, I’m very excited to have two nights and days completely and totally off-duty. I’ve already told Zac that I may spend Saturday just sleeping and he seemed A-okay with that.

On Friday, I’ll be sending out a half free/half paid letter. The free half will feature the Sephora Spring sale and highlight everything I use for the rare days I do my makeup + the new products I’m buying during the sale. The paid half will be 38 life lessons in honor of my 38th year of life.

But before we get to all that, we have business to attend to here in this letter so let’s.

OOB #1

Guys, the world finally did it. It finally blessed us with perfect jean shorts. These “daydream” jean shorts by Aerie are everything and more. They’re pull-on, have elastic in the back, are the exact right length, are loose in the thighs and, although they’re not high rise, they still sit right at the belly button. I put them on, and I STG I got emotional. Clothes are always hard, but postpartum adds a whole other layer of hard to shopping. These shorts renewed my sense of hope so much so that I ordered two more colors (the darker blue and the black). As for sizing, they’re TTS!

Hot tip for sizing: Personally, I’ve found that knowing my waist, hip, and bust measurements in inches is the most accurate way to shop anymore. It’s never 100%, but with how much sizes vary, knowing your inches helps so much more than knowing your general “size.”

OOB #2

Also pictured above is a really fabulous plain white t-shirt from Aerie. I’m on the hunt for good, basic tees and this one fit the bill. It’s their “vintage” shirt, as in it’s super soft and feels pre-worn. I would size up one to get a comfy, relaxed fit.

OOB #3

And speaking of t-shirts, I also got these ribbed numbers from GAP and they’re also wonderful. Whenever there’s a petite option, I go for that because of my height, and the large petite in this ribbed tee fits exactly how I wanted it to. Highly recommend adding a few to your arsenal, especially for how affordable they are! It’s available in 12 colors total, so you’ve got options (I got the black, red, and off-white).

OOB #4

Ziggy’s room got some upgrades this weekend. First, these battery-operated sconces from Amazon are maybe my greatest Amazon-buy to date. When we renovated last summer, we didn’t think to put more overhead lighting in Ziggy’s room, so he has exactly ONE ceiling light — that’s it. His changing area was in desperate need of illumination, but instead of dealing with installing more outlets and wires and things, I found these sconces and Zac installed them yesterday.

I threw a blanket around my waist because I was pants-less.

They are AMAZING. So easy to install and have chargeable bulbs. They have three brightness settings, four time settings (1 hour, 2, hour, 4 hour, 8 hour), and a multicolor light option so you can play with fun colors to entertain your kiddo. I’m pretty impressed with their quality and how quickly and easily they solved our light issue!

I also finally remembered to order some curtain ties for Ziggy’s windows and man, what a difference. This picture is terrible because it’s backlit, but you get the idea. They come in a variety of colors and are magnetic so couldn’t be faster or easier to thrown on and take off.

OOB #5

I finally finished The Covenant of Water. This book was so beautiful and epic. It’s a long one, coming in at 736 pages, but I was hooked from pretty much the first chapter. It’s set in India and is a sweeping familial drama (my absolute favorite genre) that covers three generations and, while long, all roads lead somewhere and the pay off is worth every page. The author, Abraham Verghese, is an actual doctor who writes epic novels as a hobby, and his medical knowledge really shines through in this book. It was truly such a wonderful, moving, intriguing story. I don’t want to say too much else, so if you’re up for the challenge of a long book, I can’t recommend this enough.

OOB #6

I immediately started a new book because I don’t want my reading streak to fizzle (and because I can’t fall asleep without reading anymore). My mom (who hardly ever suggests a bad book) recommended The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard. It’s just over 430 pages and is the story of a woman starting over in a foreign place after immeasurable tragedy upends her life as she knows it. I’m about 20% into the book so far and loving every word. The writing is so descriptive and truly transports you to somewhere magical in Central America with every adjective. This is my first Joyce Maynard book, and it’s playing well for me thus far.

OOB #7

And speaking of foreign places and birds, we have NOT watched the newest White Lotus yet so STFU until we do.

However, we did watch the first episode of the new Shondaland murder mystery show called The Residence, and it was super entertaining. It stars Uzo Abuda (Orange is the New Black) as a very quirky, bird-loving detective attempting to solve a death that occurs in the White House. The writing was great in episode one, so I think we’ll keep going!