Lindsay's Sweet World

Friday, July 6, 2018

Five on Friday - Reading Nook, Hands-Free, Dryer, & Olivia Update

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through or make a purchase.

We had the very best week celebrating

America

and doing lots of other fun things! Since B was off some of the time this week, we got a few things done around the house and we were able to spend lots of time together. The week went by in a flash yet again, and I’m truly wishing it would slow down just a bit.

And now here are some favorites from the week!

O N E – Reading Nook

Almost five years ago when we were planning for Olivia’s arrival, we made the decision to buy a really nice glider rocker for her baby nursery with the intention that we would eventually move it into the extra little nook in our master bedroom. Well, for the last 4.5 years I’ve been patiently waiting, and the time finally came to move it! The chair has been sitting unused in her room for quite some time now, so this past week Brian hauled it to its final resting place and I COULD NOT LOVE IT MORE!!!!

After all these years, my reading nook is finally coming to life! The chair was pretty much made for that spot and I love how it looks in the room. I’m planning on getting a throw blanket to keep in the basket behind the chair, and I also want to get a little round table to sit to the left of the chair so I can put a lamp there. Y’all know how I love my lamps!

I can’t wait to use this spot for my morning quiet time and reading once the kids go back to school. It’ll be nice to curl up there with a fuzzy blanket and a mug of my favorite hot cinnamon tea this winter! EEK! I’m already looking forward to all things cozy!! The only issue I’m coming across is… where’s the Christmas tree going to go in our bedroom now?! Whoops!

And thank you to everyone who has been voting in my Instagram story polls... y'all are the best! And if you haven't, you can follow along in real-time with my shenanigans here.

T W O – This Book

I finally started reading Emily Giffin’s new book this week and at two chapters in I’m already hooked. That girl sure does know how to write some page-turning chick-lit! I can’t wait to see what happens. If you’re looking for some good summer reading, I have very high hopes for this one!

T H R E E – Hands Free

Hello, my name is Lindsay and I still drive an old-school car that does not have Bluetooth. Because of this, I actually have to hold my phone in my hand when I talk in the car. I also have to plug my phone into the car if I want to listen to music on my phone through the car. WHAT A PAIN! And yes, I know, that is a major case of #FirstWorldProbs. Haha.

Anyhoo, as of July 1 (so, five days ago) the state of Georgia passed a law that nobody can touch their phones in the car now while driving. We already had the no texting and driving law, but now you can no longer hold it to talk either. I’m all for these laws because they keep people safe, however, I knew this impending change was going to cause quite a debacle for me. What was I supposed to do? Get a new car? Lol.

Fortunately my tech-savvy hubs was on the case, and he found the coolest adaptor on Amazon for only $20.99. You stick it somewhere in your car (I stuck mine near the gear shift on the dash), you plug it in to your cigarette lighter, you pair it with your phone, and it magically turns your car/phone into a hands-free zone. Now anytime I want to talk and drive I can do so without ever having to touch my phone. The adaptor provides the speaker for me to speak into and the sounds coming from the phone are now routed through my car speakers. I can talk on the phone OR listen to music on my phone hands-free now.

I tend to hate new technology because I don’t like to have to take the time to learn how to use it, but this was the easiest thing ever to learn to use. And it saved us like, $25,000, because now I don’t have to buy a new car. Whew. Although, my car IS almost eight years old… maybe I should rethink this… haha!

F O U R – New Dryer

So, if you’ve been reading for a while now you may remember that we have had some serious dryer woes for the last, ohhhh, almost decade since we got our new ones when we moved into our new house. Yes, we bought a GE dryer almost nine years ago and it sucks. SUCKS. It takes no less than six hours to dry a load of towels. Yes, you read that right – SIX HOURS – and I’m not talking about 15 towels… I’m talking about THREE. It takes around 3-4 hours to dry one load of clothes, and if there are jeans in there FORGET ABOUT IT. They literally dry faster if I just lay them all out on the bed or floor in our master bedroom and turn the ceiling fan on high. And I’ve been doing just that for what feels like forever.

Anyhoo, my aunt who lives in Atlanta is downsizing to a smaller house since my cousins are now grown and living on their own, and she was kind enough to let us HAVE her old dryer. Friends, this is HUGE. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! To be able to dry a load of clothes in an hour and to not have to lay clothes out all around our bedroom to dry is going to be pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. I feel like we’ve been living in the stone ages for the last nine years and now it’s finally over… without us having to spend a penny. I’m not going to lie, it’s probably going to drive me bonkers that we don’t have a matching set anymore, but AT LEAST THE DRYER WILL FINALLY DO WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO DO! Now what to do with all of this extra time I’m going to have since I no longer have to lay out all of the clothes to dry…

F I V E – Olivia Update

Last week we saw an ENT in Atlanta for a second opinion about Olivia’s thyroid condition, and earlier this week we had a follow-up appointment with our ENT at home. He measured the nodule again and confirmed that it is still growing, unfortunately, so we are going to have to continue to monitor it and pray that the growth comes to a halt. If it doesn’t, we could be looking at surgery, but our doctor does think that the growth should stop eventually. We just have to hope that it stops before it gets too large.

That is not a favorite from this week, but there is a silver lining that IS a favorite from this week. Last week at our Atlanta appointment, the doctor told us that we needed to see a pediatric endocrinologist to make sure that all of her hormone levels are normal, and we were bummed because there are no pediatric endocrinologists at home which meant, more long trips to Atlanta.

Well, when we saw our ENT back home this week, he gave us the news that as of a month or so ago, we now have a pediatric endocrinologist right here in town which means – no trips through crazy Atlanta traffic to get to one! Hallelujah! He put the referral in for us earlier this week so I’m hoping to hear from them very soon.

And before I go, have you been staying up-to-date on my vacation recaps? We went on probably my favorite beach vacation ever last month to 30A (PCB, Rosemary Beach, Alys Beach, etc.) and I've been recapping it slowly but surely. If you've missed any of it, you can see them below:

By the Numbers

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

And with that, I’m out. Happy weekend, y’all!

*Linking up with A Liz Adventures and Carolina Charm for Five on Friday, A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites, Meet @ the Barre for Friday Favorites, and Cup of Tea for High Five for Friday.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

30A Beach Trip - Day 3

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through or make a purchase.

Day three of our beach trip started out with donuts yet again! If you know us, you know that we LOOOOVE donuts and we seek them out, especially when we’re on vacation. There is no shortage of good breakfast places in 30A, so on this day we headed straight to The Donut Hole in Inlet Beach! It was only about two minutes from our condo, so it was a quick and easy drive.

When we pulled up, the line was out the door so eating there was out of the question. Instead, we took ours to go and we ate them back at the condo. The kids both opted for cinnamon rolls bigger than their heads (they ended up eating part of them one day and the other part the next day), and B and I selected an assortment of five different donuts – blueberry, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, glazed, crumb cake, and coconut. They had so many good ones it was impossible to narrow it down, so he and I each tried a little piece of each of them and what was leftover was saved for the next day. The coconut was my favorite!!

Next on the agenda was the beach again!! We packed up our wagon with all of our stuff and we set up camp for the day. The kids hunted for shells and played in the ocean and on this day they were even more brave in the water than the day prior. Both of them were rolling around in the ocean, “swimming” to shore, letting the waves smack them in the head, and neither of them were scared to go out to the sandbar. I alternated between laying out while reading my book and playing in the ocean with the kids and it was another day of heaven.

We headed back up to our condo again for a repeat of sandwiches, chips, and fruit for lunch, and after we had our little break from the sun we headed straight back down for several more hours. I’m telling y’all, this was by far my favorite beach trip yet! Mommas with small kids, hang in there!! It is absolutely amazing when your kids get a little bit older and gain some independence! This was the first year that I could actually read while the kids were at the beach with me because they were perfectly content doing their own thing for some of the time. We had our eyes on them every single second, of course, but it was nice being able to split the time with B this year instead of both of us being consumed with parenting duties the entire time.

The afternoon was just gorgeous, not a cloud in the sky, until we turned around and realized this was looming behind us just sometime before 3 PM:

Woops! Haha. We packed up our stuff pretty quickly and headed back to the room (much to the kids’ dismay) and then we all got ready for the evening ahead. It never ended up raining in our area so we could have stayed a little longer, but it was pretty much time to pack it up for the day at that point anyway, so we really didn’t miss out on anything.

By the time we were dressed and ready, the clouds had all cleared so we headed out to The Hub in Watersound, FL. Watersound was the furthest point that we drove to on the whole trip and I think the drive was about 15 minutes from our condo. Keep in mind that all of these little beaches that we went to on our trip are only a few miles apart so you can drive to all of them within minutes. As a matter of fact, most people just walk or ride bikes!

I had heard good things about The Hub, and y’all, IT WAS MY FAVORITE!!!! It’s basically a huge outdoor area with a big green lawn and loads and loads of tables and chairs in the middle, and it’s surrounded on all four sides by cute little restaurants, food trucks, bars, and other little shops. There are string lights EVERYWHERE – MY FAVORITE!!!! – and it is extremely family friendly. Some nights they do live music, some nights they do movies on the big screen, and some nights they do dance parties.

When we arrived, we went in search of food, and we ended up choosing Mile Marker 15. They have all kinds of burgers, sandwiches, salads, and hot dogs, and we were all in a burger mood, so we grabbed four plus fries and a couple of craft beers for B and me to try. They did have an indoor seating area, but we wanted to be outside where all of the action was, so we sat out there. There is a covered portion outdoors and there is also lots of shade everywhere else, so it was miraculously cool and comfortable out there.

Once we were done eating, B and I grabbed a couple of stools at a hightop table that overlooked the green, and we turned the kids loose to burn some energy. There were kids everywhere, and they were all building forts and playing with these cool little chairs that they had out there on the lawn. At that point the vibe was pretty chill. They had some music playing over the speakers and Ray LaMontagne was included in their playlist so I was totally in my element. Not many people have heard of him, so it’s a rarity to hear his stuff out in public. If you have never listened to him, do yourself a favor and grab this album. Or this one. They are both fabulous. And when I was linking these I actually just saw that he just released a new album! EEK! I'll be buying that one now.

At 7, the DJ came out and started the Friday night dance party and he played all of our favorites – Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, and even some old-school OutKast. The kids (and some adults) were going nuts dancing and singing and doing cartwheels and it was just a really fun atmosphere.

Once the dance party fun wore off a little bit, we popped in to the ice cream shop there for dessert, and we took it out to a little patio just outside of the main square. There were more twinkle lights, y’all!!

The kids were pretty exhausted after dessert (keep in mind their little body clocks were still on Eastern Standard Time) so we decided to call it a night even though I would have loved to have hung out for a little longer. We took one last look on the way out (look at all the twinkle lights lighting the dark!!) and then we walked back to the car and passed… yep, you guessed it… more twinkle lights! Ha!

It was yet another perfect vacation day with my favorite people! Stay tuned because the recap for days four and five are coming soon! And if you missed any of the other posts, you can find them below.

By the Numbers

Day 1

Day 2

*Linking up with Home of Malones for Thoughts for Thursday.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Happy Fourth!

We’re having people over for some grilling, drinks, and fun in the sun today, so I’m taking the day off from blogging. If you have a post today, feel free to link up!