Happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice weekend. How are you all holding up? I definitely have good days and bad days, but have been trying to focus on the positives each day, regardless of how I’m feeling. It has definitely helped improve my overall mindset in these uncertain times.
Here’s what we’ve been up to over this past week.
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Home Projects & Updates
I made really good progress painting our office last week! The more coats of the Simply White I wrap up, the more I’m thinking we may just keep it white for awhile. Even Kurtis, the anti-white-paint person said he loves it and thinks our office feels a lot bigger now. I’m hoping to get the third and final coat on all of it this week so we can put the office back together! You can read more about our initial plans here.
OFFICE SOURCES: Wood Campaign Desks | Wood Bead Chandelier | Cane Cabinet | Faux Fern | Marble Chain | Similar Pouf
I also spent some time organizing the cabinets on the back side of our kitchen island. We love having this storage for seasonal-type items (and all my candles) but they had gotten a bit chaotic. I’m not finished yet, but hoping to wrap that up this week as well. Here is what two of them looked like before I started. I found stuff, where it was pretty apparent we had just shoved them in a random cabinet during our kitchen renovation and never looked back. Yikes!
Saturday we worked on cleaning out the garage. It always takes a beating over the winter months and our floors seem to get cover in salt, sand, leaves and grime. I think this may be one of the first times we’ve ever power-washed the floors. With how much we’re going in and out of the garage lately, it feels so good to have clean floors in there!
We then started prepping for summer! Yes, it’s still super early, but the forecast looks beautiful this week and we wanted to have things ready in case we can work outside at all! Kurtis power-washed the pool deck and I got our outdoor curtains prepped for us to hang.
Sunday, we took all the outdoor furniture down (it hangs on a rack above our cars in the garage). It’s never a fun job pulling heavy furniture down while you’re standing on ladders. But it’s nice to have the job done for the year!
I’ve had a lot of readers tackling paint projects recently and I love when you tag me on Instagram! Colors from this post seem to be the most popular, but I’m loving each and every project you’re sharing! Feel free to tag me if you’ve also tackled a project inspired by my blog! Most paint stores are offering contact-less curbside paint delivery right now if there’s a project you’re also wanting to start.
Top Sellers Of The Week
Following are the top sellers of the week across all of my channels. Links to each item are below the graphic.
BEST SELLERSÂ (each number is clickable):Â #5Â |Â #4Â |Â #3Â |Â #2Â |Â #1
Around Town & For Fun
The highlight of our week? Wednesday we had our pool opened. We likely won’t be able to use it for another 4-6 weeks, but Kurtis decided to open it early since we’re home and we may as well improve our views 😉 It was much cleaner than it has been in years past. They came Wednesday to remove the cover, and then add something that makes all the dirt and leaves drop to the bottom. They were supposed to come back Friday to vacuum it all out.
But, then, on Thursday we got hit with EIGHT inches of snow at our house. WHAT?! I would have been sad for a mid-April snow, except for the fact it was SO beautiful! I told Kurtis it may very well be one of the only times we ever see snow (especially this much) with our pool open at the same time!
Friday morning, it all looked so beautiful! But, since the pool had frozen over a bit overnight, they obviously couldn’t come finish up the cleaning. The bright side was that most of the snow had melted by the end of the day, suddenly feeling like spring again!
For those curious, here is what the pool looked like Saturday morning after everything had thawed out and the sediments had dropped. With all the sun we got Saturday and Sunday, it ended up turning pretty green by the end of the weekend (since there still aren’t chemicals in it yet). But, we think this is the cleanest our pool has even been right after opening! We’re guessing the two guys will be back today to finish everything up and then it should turn around pretty quickly!
Henley’s current number one goal in life is for Kurtis to let her in his office (our guest bedroom) when he’s working. She literally stands outside the door and cries non-stop. The only problem is, when you’re on a call (or whenever I’m talking on Instastories), she starts barking and demands attention. She broke in to his office a day last week and “hid” in the corner next to his computer 😉
Whenever I decided to work on my puzzle (which hasn’t been that frequently recently), she immediately finds the chair where I’m positioned and curls up to take a nap. It’s annoying but also so dang cute!
Saturday when we were cleaning the pool deck, we realized Nick had our big ladder that we were needing in order to clean gutters. They ran it over to us, and Z got to see us and run around our yard for a bit. She was in heaven. She still doesn’t understand why she can’t hug Aunt Sarah & Uncle Kurtis, but you could tell even she was enjoying the change of scenery! She’s already grown so much since we last saw her. Can’t wait until we can all really hang out and actually give hugs!
As we were hauling out furniture on Sunday, our duck couple was back. They had found our pool within 12 hours of it opening (how?!) and seem to come back each year, despite the fact that there is a pond not too far away. We have to try and scare them away because they shouldn’t be nesting in our yard, but they basically couldn’t care less when we try.
Sunday night we let the cats out in the courtyard. Hawkeye is in the stage of his life where he’ll sit at our back door and cry until we let him out. We tried to change up their routine a bit and they loved exploring this “new” space. For about five minutes, that is, until they inevitably end up getting in trouble and have to go back inside 😉
We have been in a major unhealthy food rut around here lately. We’re trying to only have groceries delivered once every 7-10 days (we use Shipt and love them. We haven’t had any cancellations and usually can get delivery with 24 hours if not the same day). We’ve been having a hard time planning out meals with perishable items so that we use everything before it goes bad. So our default meal has been frozen pizza. It’s embarrassing to admit just how many we’ve eaten in the past six weeks :/
My goal this past week was to get a bit more creative with our meals (limiting frozen pizza consumption), and really figure out how we can make multiple, simple meals with the perishable items. A few favorites this week:
- BLT sandwiches
- Ground turkey marinara with spaghetti squash
- Tacos (which is why we used shredded lettuce on our BLTs)
- Hamburgers on the grill (we aren’t even ordering buns – we just dress them with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, fry sauce)
Definitely nothing revolutionary, but it was fun to change up the frozen pizza routine. And hopefully a tiny bit more healthy! We haven’t made tacos at home in ages because that was always one of our favorite meals to eat out. So it feels pretty groundbreaking over here. Ha! On the weekends, we’re trying to make a “morning date” of breakfast sandwiches and sometimes a mimosa thrown in for good measure 😉 We’re just trying to make the most of simple meals at home as we still try to adjust to this new “normal”.
Recent Buys & Sales
My circle dot planters arrived last week and are such a cute find for spring! They are from the same makers of the medium-sized pot I got off Amazon that I’ve been using in our kitchen. The small is still in stock and comes in at under $9 with the discount (20% off your order is applied at checkout)!
Now that we’re cooking so many meals from home, we finally realized we needed to upgrade some of our cooking utensils. We realized our spatulas and such were from our wedding (almost 15 years ago) and were in super rough shape. It’s just one of those things you never want to spend money on. So we finally decided to be adults about it and ordered a few things. And yes, having a cocktail shaker is also considered being an adult 😉 Among the pieces we ordered, we got this spatula set as well as these mini silicone spatulas. It’s rather mind-boggling how many spatulas Kurtis can go through in a day.
Following are some of the sales that have carried over from the weekend. You can see my top picks here.
- ABERCROMBIE is offering up to 50% off their entire site. Plus get an extra 25% off at checkout. No code required. You can shop their sale here.
- ALICE LANE HOME COLLECTION is offering 20% off everything. These circle dot planters come in four sizes and styles and such a cute find for spring! I ordered some last weekend and love them! The small is still in stock and comes in at under $9 with the discount! You can shop their sale here.
- AMERICAN EAGLE is offering 25-50 % off sitewide, and 70% off clearance styles! You can shop their sale here.
- AMETHYST HOME, one of my favorite local stores (that also ships nationally), is offering 15% off all gift cards as a thank you for supporting them during their closure. You can shop their site here.
- ANN TAYLOR is offering 65% off select full-priced styles plus an extra 65% off all sales styles with code NOWLATER. You can shop their sale here.
- ANTHROPOLOGIE is offering an additional 25% sale items. Prices update at checkout – no code required. You can shop their site here.
- BALLARD DESIGNS is offering 25% off everything, plus double rewards if you’re a cardholder. You can shop their sale here.
- BANANA REPUBLIC is offering up to 60% off everything. Plus, if you’re a cardholder, you get an extra 10% off at checkout with code BRCARD. You can shop their sale here.
- BLOOMIST is offering $20 off orders of $100+ with code MOTHER20. Another great way to shop small this weekend! It’s a great time to try one of the wood chains that looks like the one in our living room! There’s also several other options available as well (including marble and black) – just search chain! It won’t let me link directly to that page for some reason. You can shop their site here.
- DAPPER DWELLING here in Omaha is the cutest apothecary-type shop that also had to close recently their physical store temporarily. But they are currently offering free shipping on all orders! I’ve bought everything from local honey to organic dry shampoo to natural laundry detergent from them. They’re currently offering free shipping or free contactless delivery if you’re local! You can shop their site here.
- EBAY has some really great prices on certified Dysons if you weren’t aware! We were talking about getting another one to use to keep our basement clean (I refuse to use our regular one down there!). We currently have the V8 Animal and are obsessed with it – it will even get Kurtis to vacuum occasionally 😉 The Dyson store ships directly from eBay orders, and are certified refurbished and come with a six month warranty in most cases, so this will definitely be the route we go! And the prices are up to 70% off! You can shop their other sales here.
- FRONTGATE is offering 25% off sitewide plus free shipping. You can shop their sale here.
- GAP is offering up to 70% off everything, plus get an extra 50% off markdowns with code PERK, and an extra 20% off your purchase (excluding markdowns) with code MORE! You can shop their sale here.
- J CREW is offering up to 60% off their linen shop, plus 30% off full price-styles with code 5DAYS. You can shop their sales here.
- J CREW FACTORY is offering 40-70% off everything, plus but one tee, get one free! You can shop their sale here.
I’m working on a collage/design board tutorial for you guys (hopefully to publish this week)! As part of my tutorial I made this cute graphic below with items from J. Crew and J. Crew Factory that are almost all on sale right now! Most of them also come in alternate color options, as well.
SOURCES: Embroidered Dress | Burnout Pocket Tee | One-Shoulder Laser Cut Swimsuit | City Graphic Tee | Huggie Hoop Earrings | Chambray Shorts | Ruffle Stripe Bathing Suit | Corded Trim Tunic Cover-Up | Lace Sleeveless Top | Striped Ruffle Sleeveless Top | Raincoat | Beaded Double Hoop Earrings | Embroidered Peplum Top | Seersucker Ruffled Bathing Suit | Tie-Dyed Sandals | Denim Cut-Off Shorts
- KIRKLAND’S is offering 15% off your entire order with code SAVEBIG. You can shop their sale here.
- KOPARI is offering 25% off everything with code FORTHEMAMAS. They’re also donating $1 from every sale to COVID-19 relief funds. Plus, if you spend $40+ get a free charcoal toothpaste. If you’ve never tired their amazing coconut-based products, this favorites kit is half off with code HALFSIES. You can shop their site here.
- LOFT is offering 50% off your purchase with code OMG. I absolutely love the pattern on these shorts! You can shop their sale here.
- MADEWELL is offering 40% off almost everything with code VERYRARE. And I agree – this is a super rare sale for them – especially at this deep of discount! You can shop their sale here.
- MARK & GRAHAM is offering 20% off your entire orders with code FRIENDS. Their customization monogram products make for fun gifts for mom or you! You can view their Mother’s Day shop here. You can shop their sale here.
- NORDSTROM is hosting their Spring Sale with items now marked up to 60% off! My favorite brand of denim has these raw hem ankle jeans on sale that are so perfect for spring – stretchy waist included! These adorable polka dot (and floral) Tory Burch Miller sandals are 40% off and almost fully stocked (more sizes in both available here)! And if you’re a Nest candle fan, they have the large three-wick candles at 40% off right now in several scents, making them a few dollars less than the standard one-wick size! You can shop their sale items here.
- OLD NAVY is offering up to 50% off everything sitewide. Plus get an extra 30% off everything with code HURRY if you don’t have Super Cash to spend. You can shop their sale here.
- ONE KINGS LANE is offering 20% off art and mirrors and well as 20% off Visual Comfort lighting favorites. You can shop their sales here.
- PARTY CITY is offering curbside contact-free pickup or same-day local delivery! I looked into this because Kurtis has a birthday next week and I was trying to think of fun ways to celebrate at home. You can shop their site here.
- PIER 1 is offering 25% off regular priced items with code BLOOM25. You can shop their sale here.
- POTTERY BARN is offering 20% off furniture and 25% off everything else plus free shipping with code EARTHDAY. They also have several bonus deals sitewide like 30% off organic sheets, up to 40% off outdoor furniture, up to 40% off gifts for mom, and tons more!They also have 30% off their best-selling sofas and sectionals (read my sofa review and sectional review if you’re looking for more info on either)! This picnic basket set could be fun for a backyard quarantine picnic and then to use later at parks, lakes, etc.! I also love this faux potted lavender that comes in three sizes. You can shop their sale here.
- REJUVENATION is offering 20% off in stock items and free shipping with code FREESHIP. You can shop their sale here.
- ROSETTA STONE is offering $100 off their unlimited language lifetime plan, making it only $199! I bought it because we’ve worked on Spanish in the past, but I’m hoping to pick up some Italian during the quarantine. They also have a sale on their monthly plans. You can shop the sale here.
- RUGS USA is hosting their tax delay sale with up to 60% off items sitewide. You can shop their sale here.
- SEPHORA is offering 10-20% off during their Spring Savings Event with code SPRINGSAVE. Amount is determined by status level (it’s free to join) and is currently only open to Rouge level but opens soon to everyone else. My favorite Jo Malone cologne is even included! You can shop their sale here.
- SERENA & LILY is offering 20% off everything to refresh your home with code ATHOME. Plus, they have tons of items in their sale section. I’m absolutely loving these buffalo check outdoor pillows in their performance fabrics! They’d be great to have in a high-traffic area indoors, too! You can shop their site here.
- TALBOTS is offering 30% off one item, 40% two items, and 50% off 3+ items! Prices update in cart – no code required. You can shop their sale here.
- TARGET is offering 25% off home decor. You can shop their sale here.
- TERRAIN is offering an additional 25% off sale items with code SPRINGCLEANING. This herb growing kit is such a fun gift idea! They have more plant varieties here (just not on sale). You can shop their site here.
- TORY BURCH just added new sale styles and there are lots of really cute finds! You can shop all of their sale items here.
- TUCKERNUCK has also added some new sale pieces that are all darling! You can shop their site here.
- WEST ELM is offering 20% off your entire purchase, plus tons of items are marked 30-60% off sitewide. These striped outdoor pillows are so cute and such a great price right now! You can shop their sale here.
- WILLIAMS SONOMA is hosting their spring cookware event, with items up to 55% off. And for the first time ever, they’re including Le Creuset! They also have 20% off cocktail essentials. You can shop their sale here.
- WILLIAMS SONOMA HOME is offering 25% off your order (no minimum!!) and 20% off outdoor with code HOME. This 10′ round rug is a pretty amazing price for the size! You can shop their sale here.
- WISTERIA is hosting their Friends & Family sale, with 25% off their entire site! You can shop their sale here.
- WORLD MARKET is offering 40% off tons of their outdoor items. You can shop their sale here.
I hope you all have a happy and safe week!
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Barb says
Any suggestions on a sage green paint color for a smallIsh accent wall?
The living room gets a ton of natural light is bright from morning through midday.
the other walls are BM Swiss white
Thanks 😊
Sarah says
Hi Barb! I’m actually planning to research green paint colors this week! The only one I’ve used personally in the past is Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage (which has a slight blue undertone) and it’s gorgeous! You could also check their Bay Laurel colors. I know their stuff is usually super expensive but I find the gallons of paint are about the price of Benjamin Moore’s. Stay tuned for a post with more ideas in the coming week or two!
Barb says
Thanks a bunch for the suggestion.
Nancy says
Love seeing the green grass! Ours is still very brown! 😒
Sarah says
It’s such a mood booster! All the snow followed by the sunlight definitely helped green it up!
Lynn Walker says
So funny, my Mom just emailed me that the male and female mallards that visit her pool every spring we back this weekend. They’re so sweet.
Sarah says
Haha! I love it!
Christine says
Those spatulas look amazing, thanks for the link. The ones I have with a wooden handle never last as long as I’d like!
Sarah says
Agreed! Ours were getting SO gross!
Jill R says
I love my WS spatulas like that. I didn’t see the mini ones when so got mine a few years ago…I’m going to order those now! FYI..the white ladle stains easily. Turmeric in a sauce turned mine lime green and it doesn’t come out. Yay for the blue skies and sunshine!
Sarah says
Haha! After reading the reviews on the white ladle I actually meant to switch it to navy at checkout and apparently forgot. But, even stained white is better than what we were using before! 😉 And I’m glad to hear you love your spatulas! Kurtis was most excited about the mini ones too!
Linda says
Lol! Snow on an open pool…. crazy, but I learned a long time ago to never be surprised by the Midwest‘a weather!!
Beautiful photos though!