Although we aren't quite to the official start of the next season (SPRING WE ARE READY FOR YOU!!), I thought it would be fun to round up some of my favorite things from the past few months. I'm hoping to do this every few months to share a bunch of random things I'm loving. There could be some beauty items, food recommendations, new shows I'm loving, articles, really anything! So, here we go :)
​

First, I've been trying to eat better and that has helped me realize that I am not eating nearly enough veggies. I don't mind snacking on carrots, celery or some steamed broccoli, but I'm not a huge fan of jicama, salads or raw cauliflower. And then along comes riced cauliflower. It is delicious and can go with every meal! With eggs for breakfast, in a quesadilla for lunch or with chicken for dinner. I've been buying mine at Target but I'm sure most grocery stores carry it!

I used to sell Mary Kay and after I stopped I had a hard time finding other products that I liked but that could be purchased from an online or in-store retailer. The company Tarte had a sale so I decided to give a few of their products a try and I ended up LOVING the Tarte Shape Tape Concealer. A little goes a long way and it is great for covering up dark circles and my recently acne prone skin! (They have sales ALL the time on the Tarte website and QVC so I'd wait for one to come around if you want to try it out!)

This is not necessarily a new thing to me, but something I've tried to take more advantage of recently. Did you know you can subscribe and save with items on Amazon? We have been subscribing to diapers, wipes and diaper genie refills for YEARS - since before my oldest turned one and she turns eight in April...and we're NOT going to talk about how that is possible already...but we hadn't been using it to its full potential. About 3 months ago we realized we could save even more if we added 5 monthly items we essentially got my youngest daughters diapers FOR FREE! With Amazon Prime's Amazon Mom, once you have 5 items in your subscriptions (or at least 5 items delivered each month so you can switch up items if you don't need a particular item monthly) you save 20% off of diapers and wipes. 20 PERCENT!!!! We added things like Downy Unstoppables, contact solution, lotion and dishwasher packets. As long as we keep 5 items on there, we have a huge savings!

​The last one is a podcast. I LOVE a good podcast and as a fan of The Office and random trivia, my newest favorite is the Office Ladies podcast. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey (Pam and Angela from the show) are rewatching each episode of The Office and sharing behind the scenes info. They go through the evolution of Mindy Kaling's hair, read from journals they kept during shooting, dive deep into the history of Chili's involvement in the show and even have guests from writers to directors to fellow castmates. It is well done, entertaining and is my favorite thing to listen to while cruising the aisles of Target.

So that's it for this season's The Things I'm Loving! What are you loving this season?

When I work I pay really close attention to how I look. I don’t spend hours in the bathroom getting ready, but I make sure to have makeup on and an outfit that looks like I am a teacher and will be comfortable for the 12 hours I am gone from home. When I don’t work, I wear leggings and t-shirts and while I still like to look good and feel good (click for my previous post about that), my hair is usually thrown into a bun or braid and my face will most likely be sporting day old makeup.

There are, however, some products that I have found as lifesavers for both work and non-work days.

Being a mom can be…emotional. And in my current 7 month pregnant state, it can be even more so. Kids fighting, refusing to eat a dinner I spent 45 minutes making, not getting enough sleep, stress from work, getting kids to school and back from school. The list seems endless.

I think my worst result of not setting my concealer/not wearing waterproof mascara was after G's birth. We were getting ready to welcome the other four kids to the hospital to meet G and I found out that my oldest daughter had a slight fever. We waited a little longer to see if it was just a random occurrence, but a few hours later she still wasn't quite to normal. So there I was, just having given birth, a birth my husband missed, and now I can't see my other kids?! Oh there were SO many tears. And although I can appreciate people not commenting on my appearance post birth, I really wish someone would have told me that I had eye liner and mascara literally down to my mouth.

The thing I’ve learned: When you end up crying multiple times a week, if you are going to put on makeup (which I do to feel more like a human being) make it worth it by setting your under-eye concealer.

Being a Mary Kay rep, I have really enjoyed MK’s under-eye corrector for covering the bags (funny story below!) under my eyes and the translucent powder (shown below) to make sure it stays in place. Start with putting some concealer under your eye and apply in a triangle shape from the side of your nose to halfway up your cheekbone and then take a small brush – since I don’t usually wear powder eye shadow, I use that brush – and put a layer of that on top of the concealer.

Other products I’ve heard good things about are:
IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Undereye
Laura Mercier Secret Brightening Powder

Okay, so the story. I was talking to Andre about having tons of bags but apparently didn’t specify to him that I was referring to bags under my eyes so his response was, “yeah, you have a ton of bags.”

He thought I meant handbags…