5 Things We Loved In July

Wow, it’s hard to believe that July flew by so fast! I suppose part of that may be because I spent a full third of the month in Tennessee when a quick trip to visit my new nephew turned into ten days because of a car breakdown. 

I’m honestly not complaining about getting to spend extra time with family that we don’t see often enough. But it makes me laugh to think that a car part that literally costs $5.45 could cause so much trouble! 

There are so many things that I’m thankful for right now, it’s hard to narrow them down to just a small list. Even sitting here listening to my washing machine run makes me thankful because I don’t have to wash laundry by hand. It’s easy to forget how many blessing we truly have in our lives, and that’s why I love this exercise of sitting down and spelling it out every month.

Things We Loved In July

ThriftBooks.com. This one has to be at the top of the list. There are several books on Garrett’s preschool booklist that I haven’t been able to find at the library, but that I also didn’t want to pay full price for. So far, I’ve been able to find them all, plus other books I wanted on ThriftBooks. ALSO, any order over ten bucks gets free shipping. Woot!

Roku 3. So a while back, our Amazon Kindle broke while thankfully still under warranty. We were told that if we got the same model, we would end up having the same issue again (charging port defect), so instead of getting a new one, we took the refund and bought a Roku 3. Roku has cheaper models, but the headphone jack in the remote control is priceless for watching things when the kids are asleep. Also, we got a certified refurbished model, which was 2/3 the cost of brand new. Watching YouTube instructional videos on a large screen TV has been super fun! My only beef is that in order to connect Spotify, you have to have a premium account. That’s a bummer, but we’ve been able to find some satisfactory playlists on Youtube, so it’s okay. 

Frozen Fruit For Ice Cream. Never underestimate the power of blending/food processing frozen fruit on a hot day! It’s a nice, healthy treat that the kids and I love. Our favorite is still chocolate banana, and we love eating frozen whole blueberries as snacks.

Charlie’s Soap. I admit that this is something that I would probably never buy myself, but my generous mother-in-law gave us a partial jug of Charlie’s Soap several month back, and I’ve been using it to wash diaper ever since. Best. Diaper. Soap. Ever! Not a single diaper rash, not a single inkling that we may have to strip the diapers soon. Not a single stain. I should probably figure up how much it costs to use per load. Since it only takes a small capful to wash a load, it may turn out to be fairly economical after all!

Valerian Essential Oil. I mentioned this in yesterday’s post, so you know I love it! It’s certainly not one of the oils you here about all the time, but it’s quickly becoming my favorite. If you have essential oil reference material, look it up! If you don’t, try googling it. (Since I technically have a vested interest in praising essential oil as a Young Living distributor, I cannot go into detail on why I love a particular oil without risking FDA disapproval). 

I was going to add bear claws to the list, but I didn’t want to you think that I’m shallow enough to put an unhealthy food on my favorites list. Ahem. However, they’re definitely on my list of things I *have* to make gluten-free! 

Your turn: What are some things you fell in love with this month?