June at a glance...

June felt like a long month with not much and at the same time, a lot of things happening. Read on for a glance at our June.

What I/we did

To be fully honest, I haven’t been feeling great about myself this month. Well, more like, it’s been happening over the course of several months but this one particularly, felt worse. So much so that I finally got over my aversion to exercising and signed up for a workout program that I have been following pretty diligently. I have only allowed myself to skip a weekend here and there, but every day of the week, I am doing it. I’m already seeing slight changes which are feeding my determination to keep at it.

For fun, we visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg (we try to periodically visit the museums in the area), and enjoyed a highly educational and entertaining tour with a fun group.

We also checked out Elev8 Fun, which yes, was pretty fun. Not everything was finished as they only opened last month, I believe, but not surprisingly, the place was buzzing with people. Funny enough, once I stepped inside, it reminded me and made me feel like I was in some scene in Stranger Things.

If you’re in the area, definitely check it out. Hopefully, they keep things running well and allow for reservations soon as, from what we know, they currently don’t.

I finally went back to my photography hobby and took photos of some of my new jewelry (as seen in the photos above), among other things. I like the result.

It was all fun and games until one weekend, we noticed something off with Enzo and rushed him to ER vet. Thankfully, everything went well (though we got out with a huge bill) and he’s now back to his normal self. We had to observe and keep watch for about a week, hence my absence here. With everything going on, I had to step away for a bit. It was extremely stressful for all of us but all’s well that ends well.

June blog posts roundup

Though I had to take an unplanned break from the blog, June blog posts have been mostly about summer style:

If you can't go to Italy, bring Italy where you are… Because I’m always dreaming about it.

How to survive the summer heat in style. Scorching temperatures don’t mean that you should give up on style — my tips related in the post should help.

5 things that bring me joy. The weekly series showcases a collection of seemingly insignificant things that serve as a reminder to appreciate the little things — those small joys that make a difference in our day-to-day.

Blue and white summer style. My obsession with blue and white is never-ending.

Summer shirt dresses. Because they’re versatile and just perfect for the summer.

J.Crew's new arrivals are summer perfection. Quite a few gems here!

What I bought

This shimmering body oil. I don’t like to use fake tan and I also don’t spend much time in the sun for that purpose, but I’ve been wanting a bit of [body] glow, especially on my legs. This shimmering body oil does the job. I like to keep it subtle or barely there and mix a bit of the oil with body lotion.

These chunky gold hoop earrings. I haven’t really been into hoop earrings but lately, they’ve grown on me. I wanted to try these for the summer and so far so good. They’re beautiful and have a bit of weight to them but not to the point of making them uncomfortable. And they’re so inexpensive!

This magnetic whiteboard dry eraser. It’s a set of two (one to be used by me and the other by my husband) and comes with 8 markers and two erasers. I thought it would be useful for important notes and things and we’re enjoying them so far.

This striped shirt dress that’s already been featured on the blog this month.

This perfume for the summer, until I can find “the one”.

Several pairs of beautiful earrings I couldn’t resist from a random shop in St. Pete; sadly, I forgot its name and I haven’t found anything like them online — I will certainly link them if I ever do.

What we watched

The Great. Well, more like we tried… I am so over raunchy and over-the-top with sexually explicit and offensive content… I just don’t get the need for it, especially at the level The Great does. We, maybe watched three episodes and gave up, never to return to it. I don’t care what happens next or how good it gets, I am not giving this show another chance. Life’s too short to keep watching crappy stuff.

The Blacklist. We finally caught up with it and I am genuinely sad that this show doesn’t get more hype — it’s so good! That’s not to say that it didn’t have bad episodes, or even a bad season (8, cough, cough), but this show consistently managed to keep us enthralled and wanting to go deeper and deeper. It’s hard to swallow that this is its final season, and I sure hope we get the answers to the questions we’ve had all of the 10 seasons, though I don’t have much faith in that… Either way, I’ll never stop recommending it and I think a rewatch is in our near future… so much has happened and changed that we just need a reminder.

White House Plumbers. My husband wanted to watch it and I “tagged” along for the most part until it truly caught my attention with the last two episodes… The fact that this show is based on true facts is wild, and what’s even wilder is that I see many similarities still in today’s political scene.

What I read

My embarrassingly slow-reading month strikes again as I literally haven’t finished one single book this month. I started and am enjoying reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben as I’m vouching to get better with my schedule and make time for reading almost every day. We’ll see how that goes.