what's saving my life (vol. 7)
I'm too lazy to take photos of these individual things so I'm sprinkling in a few of my favourite nature photos from my camera roll!
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| Hope, British Columbia (August 2025) |
1) a ginormous baking sheet. 15x21 inches to be exact -- it takes up an entire oven rack and it is phenomenal for baking just about anything from bacon, chicken tenders, bratwurst, and full sheet pan dinners to cookies. I consider dinner a failure if we don't have enough leftovers to eat for lunch the next day, and with six hungry people in the house, I was using two normal size baking sheets shoved next to each other or staggered on different oven racks and it just makes my life easier to put it all on one pan. bonus, my parchment paper fits perfectly on the larger pan so I no longer have to fold over the excess and hoping the folded part doesn't unfurl while cooking and start smoking against the hot oven wall!
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| okay, not a nature photo, but here are some of the normal sized baking pans in action. Cece's hair was just the best. |
2) Walmart's toddler socks. Elizabeth has a few sensory preferences and socks are high up on the list of things she will declare "wobbly" and refuse to wear. so many of our previous toddler socks had character patterns and other designs that created lumps and bumps on the inside of the sock. and more and more of the toddler socks have been relegated to the mismatch box in the drawer, waiting in vain for their match to be discovered, so I was down to only a few pairs she would willingly wear. although it pained me to buy new socks when we have probably 30 pairs floating around the house, I finally bit the bullet and bought a ten pack of soft, plain white socks from Walmart and she loves them! worth every single penny. now I'm just trying to decide what to do with all of the reject mismatched socks. they're really too small to use for cleaning, and I don't think any place that takes clothing donations would want mismatched socks. do I just... throw them out?! ugh.
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| umbrella pines in Rome (August 2019) |
3) Secret stress release deodorant. for years, I've used Secret's Clinical Strength gel formula, but over the last few months it really didn't seem to be working so well. Greta prefers solid deodorant and one day I decided to try hers, and oh my goodness! it's a game changer. I can actually detect the (pleasantly fresh!) scent being released more in situations when I'm sweating and I have wholeheartedly made the switch.
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| Pittsburgh skyline (September 2021) |
4) Cleaning the house before a work day. I work Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and have experimented with different cleaning routines depending on the rest of the family's schedule (including some periods of time where I just gave up). recently I've been more motivated to keep up with the regular cleaning, rather than just blitzing the house before a party -- our family deserves to live in a welcoming, functional space most of the time and not just when company comes over! but I realized one of the main things harpooning my efforts was the very rapid entropy that occurs in a house with small kids. it is so much more rewarding to tidy and do the deep cleaning (like mopping and dusting) on the evening of my day home with the little ones, so the house stays clean the next day when we are mostly out of the house and still looks great when we all return. Elizabeth and Victoria (at 3 3/4 and 2) are finally able to clean up more reliably without as much individual direction too, which makes a huge difference.
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| Pittsburgh park (October 2023) |
finally, ending on a note that I thought was going to be a lifesaver and ended up being a total flop. my kids like frozen breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, but they don't eat the meat on them (they say sausage is too spicy, and the Canadian bacon or regular bacon tastes weird). so we end up with all these orphaned sausage patties in the fridge. I have never been able to find frozen breakfast sandwiches that are only egg and cheese on a croissant or English muffin (they don't like the burrito style) so one day I finally decided to make my own. and... they didn't like them. texture was strange, cheese didn't melt right, yada yada, cry me a river. I eventually ate them all myself (adding the discarded sausage patties from the other breakfast sandwiches) and maybe one day I'll try again but... darn.
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| Pompeii (October 2019) |
what's been saving your life lately?
you can find previous WSML posts here:
volume 6
Toddler socks- would a preschool or art teacher be able to use them for projects?
ReplyDeleteI love my huge baking sheet- cookie baking goes so much faster.
The only thing saving g my life right now: diet Coke.
Ooh, that's a good idea! And also just inspired me to offer them on our neighborhood Buy Nothing page in case someone can use them! I would feel better about that than just throwing them out, but I also don't feel like spending tooooo much more mental energy on this problem.
DeleteDiet Coke is my drink of choice when we go out to a restaurant... and Diet Dr. Pepper is my absolute favourite (I buy a six pack when the mood strikes). It's just so good!
I have no ideas for the socks; I would throw them out :( A few times a year I go through the missing sock bin and if the match hasn't been located after 6 months, I figure it's time to go into the trash.
ReplyDeleteThat giant pan sounds amazing!
And I'm curious about that deodorant. Mine's good, but I've also noticed it's less effective lately.
Taking notes!
What's saving my life? Hmmm. I bought a new-to-me $2.99 purse at a thrift store and I've been loving that! Boring, but true.
I like the 6 month grace period! I feel like we don't have as much of an issue with other-sized socks that mostly come in standard colors and patterns. The toddler socks are such a bugaboo!
DeleteI am all about traditional chemical-laden deodorant so depending on what you're looking for, the Secret version may not be for you. But I have been so impressed with the stress response version! I thought the clinical strength was the absolute strongest so when that didn't do the job I figured I was out of luck.
Ooh, love a new purse! I actually just treated myself to a NOT $2.99 purse with a birthday gift card from my aunt and can't wait until it gets here!
I’ve recently switched deodorant in ordering steer clear of aluminum and I’m not loving the lack of coverage. I’m glad you found something that just so happened to be in your house.
ReplyDeleteSaving my life right now: I would say having a smallish number of babysitting kids because I can usually workout in the mornings and part of that includes taking them for long walks. In the spring I can’t do that anymore because I will have twins starting in February. Not enough seats in my stroller. Enjoy it while it ladts.
Lasts not lasts
ReplyDelete