Make Your Own Fried Rice…It Tastes Better!

• It’s simple, no fancy equipment or a wok required. A large deep nonstick skillet is your best friend here.

• It’s fast.

• It’s healthier than takeout. You’re in control of the oil (very little is used in my recipes) and the sodium. If you want to use reduced sodium soy sauce, tamari, or coconut aminos rather than regular soy sauce be my guest.

• It’s inexpensive. Since the key ingredient, rice, is very inexpensive, the overall cost of a filling meal just got automatically reduced.

• It’s flexible. If you don’t have peas+carrots but you have peas, great. If you have broccoli florets you need to use, sugar snap peas, or edamame on hand, feel free add them.

• It prevents food waste. If you have leftover rice or random veggies in your crisper drawer, now you can put them to good use.

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🎉 The Most Popular Fried Rice of Them All: Better-Than-Takeout Chicken Fried Rice 🥕🥡🫛 One-skillet, ready in 20 minutes, and you’ll never want takeout again after tasting how good homemade is! Way more flavor, not greasy, with loads of juicy chicken nestled in seasoned rice along with peas, carrots, and green onions. A true FAVORITE dish with nearly 800 5-star reviews!

🥡🍚🍗 15-Minute Sheet Pan Fried Rice with Chicken is an easy, HEALTHIER “fried rice” that’s actually baked and not fried! Full of authentic flavor and ready faster than you can call for takeout, it’s perfect for busy weeknights and always a family FAVORITE!

Easy Better-Than-Takeout Shrimp Fried Rice 🥡🍤🍚 One-skillet, ready in 20 minutes, and you’ll never get takeout again! Homemade tastes WAY BETTER! Tons more flavor, not greasy, and loaded with tender shrimp!

Hawaiian Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice 🍍🍤 🌺 A Hawaiian-inspired shrimp fried rice recipe that’s EASY, ready in minutes, and has so much authentic flavor!! A family favorite that’s better than takeout!

Beef Fried Rice 🥢🍚😋This better-than-takeout beef fried rice is EASY, ready in 20 MINUTES, and made in ONE skillet! Everyone loves the big juicy strips of steak and perfectly fried rice that’s speckled with bits of onions, peas, carrots, and scrambled eggs. The combination of the soy sauces, oyster sauce, and toasted sesame oil make it taste so authentic!

Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice 🍚🥕will be your new favorite fried “rice”! Even people who don’t like cauliflower will be amazed at how authentic and DELICIOUS this healthier version of chicken fried rice tastes! It’s easy, ready in 15 minutes, low carb, and so much HEALTHIER than calling for takeout!

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Wings

Baked Jerk Chicken Wings 🍗🔥🌶️ are the homemade answer to your favorite restaurant wings! The wings are baked until crispy and then tossed in a bold barbecue jerk sauce for the perfect crispy yet saucy party wings! This easy chicken wings recipe is great for casual entertaining, backyard get-togethers, and game days! 🏈 🏀

Slow Cooker Chicken Drumsticks 🍗🍯🧄 These honey garlic chicken drumsticks marinate in a mixture of soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, and more which gives them a balance of sweet, savory, and lightly smoky FLAVOR! After slow cooking for hours, the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender and juicy!

🍯🍋🍗 Baked Lemon Pepper Wings are tossed in a delectable, buttery, lemon pepper sauce that clings to the wings. With crispy skin and juicy fall-off-the-bone meat, they’re perfect for summer holidays, backyard get-togethers, game day parties, or any wing-worthy moment! Air fryer instructions also provided.

Here’s a video with voiceover and please be sure to like and follow on Instagram!

Dips

🧀🥬🎉 The BEST Baked Spinach Artichoke Dip, this easy recipe is rich, creamy, and it’s a crowd FAVORITE that’s sure to disappear at parties! It’s so cheesy thanks to both mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses! Perfect for game day events, New Year’s Eve, Super Bowl, or your next holiday party, it’s just THE BEST!

🍕🧀🎉 Cheese lovers and pizza fans will love this fast and Easy Pizza Dip recipe! Made with just 5 ingredients, it’s the perfect party appetizer that’s a guaranteed hit! Whether you’re making this melty, cheesy goodness for pool parties, tailgating, or the holidays, it’s always a FAVORITE!

Cheesy Baked Mexican Corn Dip 🌽 A hot corn dip reminiscent of Mexican street corn! Creamy, cheesy, spiked with lime juice, chili powder, and a serrano chile or jalapeno for a touch of heat!

Loaded Baked BLT Dip 🥓🥬🍅 This cheesy BLT dip is loaded with two types of cheese, bacon, fresh tomatoes, and more! It’s perfect for holiday parties and tailgating and is SO easy to make!

Sliders

🎉🧀 Baked Ham and Cheese Sliders are made with juicy ham and Swiss cheese nestled in soft Hawaiian rolls and are brushed with a buttery Dijon, onion, and poppy seed topping! Fast, EASY, and a party and family FAVORITE, everyone is going to want this recipe!

🍗🧀 My BBQ Chicken Sliders recipe is made with shredded chicken smothered in tangy barbecue sauce, sandwiched between soft Hawaiian rolls with cheese. Baked until warm, these pull-apart sandwiches are perfect for parties, game days, or any casual gathering where a simple appetizer or snack is needed!

Pepperoni Pizza Sliders 🍕😋 Pizza by way of supremely cheesy sliders!! EASY, ready in 15 minutes, and perfect for parties because everyone LOVES them! Totally IRRESISTIBLE!

Big Mac Sliders 🍔 You’re going to LOVE this copycat Big Mac recipe in handheld slider form! Complete with a COPYCAT Big Mac special sauce, melted cheese, pickles, and tender beef all nestled between soft buttery buns. These EASY sandwiches are a family favorite FAST dinner recipe or make them for events, holidays, or game day parties!

Meatballs

🍯🧄😋 Baked Honey Garlic Meatballs are easy, can be prepped in advance, and hold well at room temp. They’re juicy, tender, and the honey garlic sauce gives them so much flavor! Whether you’re serving them at a party or event, or as a protein-packed 30-minute dinner option, everyone ADORES these easy meatballs!

Slow Cooker Hawaiian Meatballs — 🍍🙌 The EASIEST meatball recipe that’s sure to be a hit at parties and events! Or turn this into a no-fuss weeknight meal and serve these pineapple meatballs over rice! Made with only 6 ingredients so you can just set your slow cooker and let it do all the work!

Saucy Asian Meatballs 🥢 are ready in 10 minutes because you simply doctor up a bag of frozen meatballs with the BEST sauce! It’s made with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and there’s flavor galore! Green onions and sesame seeds finish off these EASY meatballs that are great for game days, casual get-togethers, or an easy dinner. Works with any kind of meatballs.

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Meatballs 🧡❤️ EASY homemade chicken meatballs that simmer in buffalo wing sauce, seasonings, and spices in your slow cooker! Juicy and full of all the flavor of traditional buffalo chicken wings, minus the messy factor!

Drinks

Homemade Margaritas — 🍋‍🟩💚 Learn how to make a margarita with just three natural ingredients! Nothing fake, neon green, and no sugary chemicals. This is the best homemade margarita recipe I’ve tried and it’s the easiest!

🍻🍋 Beer Margaritas make every summer celebration taste a little better! Quick, easy, and refreshing, this beverage is my go-to adult beverage for every tailgating celebration. With Corona, tequila, triple sec, lime juice, agave, and a sugared (or salted) rim, they’re always a hit! Cheers to beer-garitas!

No-Bake or Nearly No-Bake Desserts

Oreo Brownie Lush 🍫🤎 A rich and decadent dessert with fudgy brownies, cream cheese, chocolate pudding, whipped topping, and Oreo cookies! EASY, great for parties, and it’s a chocoholics dream!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Bars 🍫🥜 are an EASY, no-bake treat when you can’t decide between chocolate and peanut butter. They’re rich, fudgy, and packed with that classic chocolate + PB flavor combo! No oven required when all you want is a simple treat to satisfy your sweet tooth!

Chocolate Mud Pie Bars 🤎🍫 An EASY, almost no-bake dessert with a chocolate chip cookie base, chocolate pudding, sweetened cream cheese, Oreos, and hot fudge! RICH, decadent, indulgent, and a great party dessert that you can MAKE-AHEAD!

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#1 Ninja Creami - I don’t even “love” ice cream but I bought this two weeks ago (full price) and I can truly say, it’s already been LIFE changing. I’m not exaggerating.

I’ve been making nonfat, high protein ice cream that tastes like REAL ice cream. And if you use an actual fatty base like whole milk, I’m sure it’s next-level, over-the-moon amazing. You can also may sorbet or fro-yo.

I’ve been extremely, supremely happy with my purchase. The one I linked has 2 containers because you want to freeze the mixtuer for 16+ hours before you blend it up.

The blending process takes about 6 minutes in total from rock hard freezer blob to creamy, amazing CREAMY (or CREAMI) ice cream.

Here’s your first high protein ice cream recipe with AMAZING MACROS: 223 cals for chocolate and 213 cals for vanilla.

This is based on using Clean Simple Eats Protein: 36g protein, 17g carb, 1g fat

• To the plastic container, add 1.25 cups Fairlife nonfat milk

• 1 serving protein powder (I like either vanilla or chocolate brownie batter from Clean Simple Eats - or try their 10-pack variety pack)

• 1 tablespoon Sugarfree Vanilla or Chocolate Jell-O Pudding Mix (this is highly recommended when you’re working with a nonfat base so the ice cream is smooth and creamy, not icy)

• Blend it with this little frother (100% necessary, you need a frother, consider it an obligatory 10 bucks if you’re getting the Creami) and freeze for 16+ hours

• When you’re ready for your ice cream, put the frozen container in the Creami on “lite ice cream” setting (about 4 minutes), scape down the sides and then do a “re-spin” (about 2 minutes), and if you want add any mix-ins like Oreos, Biscoffs, chocolate chips, etc add them and you can put it on the “mix-ins” setting (about 1 minute). Enjoy!

  Here’s a video I shared on my Instagram stories. Soo good!

#2 Kindle Paperweight - Great price for a Kindle + cover and this one is so lightweight! Comes in black, pink, and jade green.

Wondering what to read with it?

#3 Rubbermaid Food Storage Containers are safe plastic and not glass because frankly I don’t trust myself with glass containers. I am a meal prepping queen and have tons of containers going at any one time in my fridge and freezer and it’s too risky for me because I drop things, I am rough with things, I toss them harshly on my countertop or in my purse for lunch-on-the-go and these work great.

#4 Cuisinart Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl Set with Lids is perfect because you may not need 7 sizes of nesting bowls but 3 is perfect for making just about anything from scratch boyfriend brownies to Italian chicken pasta salad.

#5 Apple Airpods Pro with noise cancellation. I bought these during the Prime Deal Days in June and they’ve been a daily companion since!

I really like that you can adjust the volume of whatever you’re listening to by touching the right Airpod with your finger rather than trying to locate your phone and then fiddling with the volume that way.

#6 Apple Airtags pack of 4 which I have in every suitcase and backpack when I travel - even though I don’t check bags. It’s still really nice to know where my stuff is at, at all times!

If you don’t trust your teenager or your spouse, put one in their car. Kidding, or maybe not. I also have pet collars with air tags and it comes in handy when I swear one of my indoor cats has gotten out but no, it shows she’s in the house and I can stop freaking out and getting on my hands and knees and searching closets and under beds.

#7 Indoor Ring Camera at HALF off! Super cheap and I like being able to spy on my own house and my pets when I’m gone. If you have a secondary property, cabin, or vacation home, being able to see what’s going on when you’re not there is just being smart. Also if I had young kids and left them with a baby sitter or nanny, this would give me peace of mind. The recording quality is really good and for my needs, more than sufficient.

There’s also the Ring Doorbell which is currently at 60% off! I have this too.

#8 Firestick that allowed me to cut my cable TV! For 37 bucks for this gadget, I’m done paying exorbitant cable bills forever. Bought this exact model last Black Friday and not sure why I ever waited so long to cut.my.cable! An instant slashing of $150+ a month! And I barely watched it, even more of a crime to have paid for it for sooo long.

You still have to subscribe to say Netflix or Hulu or whatever your shows are on but you’re not also having to pay your cable company on top of those subscriptions!

#9 Dyson Cyclone is my latest Dyson vacuum that I bought in June during the Prime Big Deal Days and I’ve been very happy with it. It’s 31% off right now and on a big ticket item, that’s a big deal! Between my three long haired cats, living in a climate with open windows 10+ months a year, general food and cooking messes that end up on the floor… I vacuum daily and have been through my fair share of Dysons the past 20 years. This one is cordless yet powerful with very good battery life for a cordless vac.

#10 Vitamix 750 Professional Grade is 41% off. I’ve had this machine for 8-10 years (time flies, can’t quite remember) and it’s an extremely solid workhorse, it’s truly best in class. If you’re only going to get one blender for the rest of your life, this is my pick. It will outlive many humans.

Runner up if you’re blending personal smoothies, or smaller amounts of sauces, dressings, marinades and things of that nature, get the Beast Blender. It’s much, much smaller and more compact, and it’s not as powerful as a Vitamix but nothing is actually. But sometimes you don’t need all that horsepower. It comes with various jars and lids, too.

#11 and #12 were added 10-6-26 when the sale started because they were not on any earlybird sales!

#11 OurPlace Nonstick Skillet - The brand is known for their safe nonstick pans, bakeware, and appliances and I have this one in the 10.5-inch size which is perfect for anything from scrambled eggs to a weeknight chicken recipe. The pans come with a lid, steamer basket, and wooden spoon that nests inside the skillet. Comes in various colors.

# 12 OurPlace 6-in-1 Wonder Oven - This is one of my readers’ most-purchased items! That’s probably because it’s a 6-in-1 Air Fryer and Toaster Oven that you can use to: toast, roast, bake, broil, reheat, steam! Also comes in various colors.

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Make Your Workout a Non-Negotiable Priority

If fitting a workout in during your real life and day-to-day routine is a challenge, it’s going to be near-impossible while traveling if you don’t prioritize it and protect it with your life.

The endorphins, the mental peace, the feeling better about myself and my less-than-perfect food choices that tend to happen when traveling make workouts a non-negotiable for me.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t ever skip workouts (sometimes it truly is not possible), but if given the choice, I prefer to workout than to not.

90% of the time my travel workouts are steps in the form of walking, occasionally running, although as I’ve gotten older, I love “just” walking.

But sometimes I lift.

With some planning, working out is possible. Real world, practical tips that help me:

• Program workouts into your daily agenda and then don’t skip them. If it’s a vacation or pleasure trip, that means talking with my spouse or daughter the night before if we’re traveling together, figuring out what we’re doing the next day, and then working exercise in. While your family members may fritter away time in the morning doomscrolling or a luxuriating over a third cup of coffee this is often my chance to run, power walk, lift, find a yoga/pilates class within walking distance of where we’re staying, etc. They’re not going to miss me for an hour or 90 minutes.

• Go to bed at a reasonable hour and keep your drinking as light as possible so that you’re not tempted to sleep in or blow off the workout you had planned.

• My fall back is always simply walking briskly for 60-90 minutes which helps me knock out 8000-10,000 steps and with that, my mental outlook for the day is just 1000x better! If I’m in a European city or an American city that I know is walking-friendly, I just start walking or running. I’ve found there’s no better way to get to know a city that just walking it.

Pack Your Suitcase With Your Workout Gear

This seems so obvious but it’s not many times. You can’t workout if you don’t have the right shoes (at minimum) and the right (or any) workout clothes.

You can’t do the workout you didn’t pack for. I’ve been known to think, “It’s going to be such a short trip” or “there won’t be time to workout” and I don’t pack my tennis shoes and some leggings or shorts, and then I wind up kicking myself, trying to find a Lululemon store, a random Target, anywhere that I can buy anything, and I waste the little precious time I did have in search of said items.

My suitcase is now always packed with my the following. I never actually unpack those items. Also check out my Workout Gear post for my favorites!

• toiletry kit

• pair of Hokas

• best socks

• lifting gloves

• Lulu Align sports bra and shorts set

• Amazon brand sports bra + shorts set is really good for the price point (pics below)

Amazon CRZ Dupes: Plum top, plum bottom. Blue top, blue bottom.

This red set below that is SO SIMILAR:

Red Aritzia top, red Artzia bottom on left (I linked to their black pieces since red is seasonal). Red Amazon top, red Amazon bottom on right.

The biggest differences IMO is that the Aritzia fabric is just a tiny bit softer, stretchier, doesn’t bag out at all, and the shoulder straps on the top tend to stay up better - although both are adjustable.

On the topic of how to pack, my how to pack so well that you never have to check a bag post may give you some nuggets of packing wisdom.

The rest of this post is for paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!

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Chicken

Better-Than-Takeout Sticky Chicken 🍗🥢🧡 Stop calling for takeout or going to the mall food court and make this AMAZING sticky chicken at home in 15 minutes!! So EASY with the perfect balance of sweet and spicy with plenty of sticky sauce!

Yellow Chicken Coconut Curry (Chicken Korma) 💛 is an EASY Indian recipe you can make at home in 25 minutes that tastes like it’s from a restaurant! Chicken, cashews, and spices are simmered in coconut milk for the WIN!

15-Minute Salsa Verde Chicken with Avocado 🍋‍🟩🥑 Fast, EASY, one skillet recipe!! Juicy chicken with salsa verde, lime juice, cilantro, and creamy avocado has so much Mexican-inspired FLAVOR the whole family will LOVE! Perfect for busy weeknights and meal prepping!

Saucy Asian Meatballs 🥢 using any kind of meatballs - chicken, turkey, beef, pork, or veggie. Ready in 10 minutes because you simply doctor up a bag of frozen meatballs with the BEST sauce! It’s made with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and there’s flavor galore! Green onions and sesame seeds finish off these EASY meatballs that are great for game days, casual get-togethers, or an easy dinner.

Indian Butter Chicken 🍗🧈🍅 is an EASY, ONE-POT recipe for everyone's favorite Indian dish! Chicken is simmered in a buttery and creamy tomato-infused sauce. It's ready in 30-minutes and perfect for weeknights and leftovers meal prep great! A high protein reader favorite with rave reviews saying this is the BEST butter chicken ever!

Honey Soy Baked Chicken Thighs 🍯🍗 The chicken marinates in the most delectable mixture of soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, and more. The resulting baked chicken is SO tender, juicy, moist, and loaded with Asian-inspired flavors! Even better, this is a one-pan, EASY recipe the whole family will adore!

Creamy Chipotle Chicken 🌶️ When you’re in the mood for rich layers of flavor from chipotle sauce and roasted garlic-infused olive oil, this EASY skillet chicken recipe is PERFECT! There’s lots of creamy chipotle sauce that’s just begging to be sopped up in this family favorite Mexican-inspired recipe!

15-Minute Salsa Verde Chicken, Rice, and Beans 🌿🍋‍🟩 Fast, EASY, one skillet recipe that’s loaded with protein, fiber, and flavor! Between the salsa verde, lime juice, and cilantro mixed with juicy chicken, rice, and beans, you’ll be hooked! Perfect for busy weeknights and meal prepping!

15-Minute Spicy Korean Chicken 🌶️🧡 is fast, EASY, perfectly SPICY chicken that’s so tender and juicy! Who needs takeout or a restaurant when you can make this AWESOME chicken at home in 15 minutes? This high protein, one skillet chicken recipe is perfect for busy weeknights and it meal preps wonderfully!

Sticky Sesame Chicken – 🧡🥢 Better-than-takeout sticky chicken at home in 20 minutes! This is a FAST and extremely EASY recipe for breaded chicken that’s coated in the best homemade sticky sweet sauce which is made to be sopped up with rice on the side! A great no-fuss weekday dinner recipe that the whole family will LOVE!

Salmon

🧡💚 Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon is an EASY one-skillet dish that results in the most tender and juicy salmon that’s bathed in a rich and creamy garlic butter sauce! Parmesan cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and baby spinach add extra flavor and texture to this 30-minute recipe that everyone LOVES! Learn how to make restaurant-worthy salmon that’s fast enough for a weeknight dinner but elevated enough to serve to company!

Salmon Florentine 🍣You don’t need to go to Florence, Italy to enjoy this FAST and EASY Italian-inspired salmon recipe at home! Tender flaky salmon is bathed in a decadent cream sauce made with heavy cream, wine, Parmesan cheese, and more! Fresh spinach and mushrooms add extra texture and flavor to this super flavorful fish dish!

Pork & Sausage

Creamy Mushroom Pork Chops 🐷🍄‍🟫👏🏻 An EASY one-skillet recipe for juicy pork chops in a rich mushroom cream sauce which takes this pork chops recipe into comfort food territory! Ready in 30 minutes making this great for busy weeknights but fabulous enough to serve when entertaining. A tried-and-true family FAVORITE!

French Onion Pork Chops 🧡🧅 If you love French onion soup, you’re going to adore these pork chops! They’re ready in under an hour and can be made in just one skillet! Elegant, EASY, and sure to be a new family FAVORITE recipe!

Slow Cooker Kielbasa Bites 🎉🍍Juicy chunks of kielbasa sausage are coated in a SWEET and SAVORY sauce made with pineapple, bbq sauce, and cranberries and it’s so EASY because your slow cooker does all the work! Perfect for holiday parties, New Year’s Eve, game days, or anytime you need a goof-proof appetizer that everyone LOVES!

More Easy Recipes….

Chicken

Buffalo Chicken Burrito Bowls 🌽🥑🍅 are high protein, high fiber, and full of buffalo ranch chicken flavor and so many textures in every bite! Ready in 15 minutes so they’re perfect for busy weeknights or a quick lunch! They’re easily customizable based on what you have on hand and your favorite ingredients.

Easy Chicken Shawarma Salad Bowls 🧡💚 are such an EASY spin on chicken shawarma and they’re fast, HEALTHY, high protein, high fiber, and great for. meal prep. Fragrant spices, juicy lemony chicken, fresh veggies, and a tangy Greek-yogurt sauce that’s cooling and PERFECT!

30-Minute Chicken Poke Bowls 🥕🍋‍🟩🌺🍗 Fragrant jasmine rice is topped with juicy pieces of chicken coated in a SWEET and TANGY sauce! A mixture of fresh herbs and veggies on top adds tons of crunch and texture! This FAST and EASY recipe is perfect for meal prep, a satisfying lunch, and busy weeknight dinners! If you’re tired of eating bowls of salads, make these poke bowls instead!

20-Minute Cilantro Chicken, Rice, and Beans 🌿🫘 EASY, healthy, and the fresh cilantro sauce is SO good! The chicken is juicy, loaded with flavor, and along with the rice and beans and you’ll be SATISFIED for hours! Great for meal prep and the best work lunch ever!

🥗🥜🥬 Chicken Satay Crispy Rice Salad Bowls are loaded with so much TEXTURE and layers of FLAVOR! Juicy, curry-spiced chicken along with edamame, cucumbers, cabbage, cilantro, and more. Rice is baked until crispy and it truly MAKES this dish come alive! The finishing touch is a simple homemade peanut sauce dressing you’re going to LOVE!

Chicken Egg Roll in a Bowl 🧡💚🍜 These ground chicken egg roll bowls are easy, ready in 15 minutes, full of flavor, have lots of texture, and are way healthier than actual egg rolls! Pair this stir-fry with rice, cauliflower rice, or your favorite veggies for a high protein recipe that everyone loves!

Beef

🍠🥑🍯 Viral Sweet Potato Beef Bowl with Cottage Cheese, Hot Honey, and Avocado took social media by storm! If you’re looking to ride the high protein + high fiber train, get on board with this QUICK and EASY beef bowl recipe! Featuring taco-seasoned ground beef, roasted sweet potatoes, savory-seasoned cottage cheese and topped with optional avocado, jalapenos, hot honey, and red pepper flakes! Skeptical? I promise, it works and it’s so good!

🥩 These EASY Chinese-inspired Mongolian Beef Stir-Fry Bowls are ready in just 10 minutes! Loaded with rich savory flavor, crisp-tender vegetables, and served over rice! Faster than calling for takeout when you’re craving Asian food!

Vegetarian/Vegan

Chickpea and Roasted Sweet Potato Bowl 🍠 🥦 is a big bowl-full of goodness just like Buddha! 😉 The bowls are fast, EASY, high fiber, full of texture in every bite, naturally vegan and gluten-free! If you need a HEALTHY recipe that tastes like comfort food, this is it! Great for meal prep because everything keeps so well.

🍚🥑🥢Made with your favorite frozen potstickers to save time, these QUICK and EASY Potsticker Rice Bowls are perfect for lunches or busy weeknights! I like to use avocado, edamame, and cucumbers but this is a FLEXIBLE recipe based on what you enjoy! Easily swap the rice for cauliflower rice or noodles, too.

Tip: Use pork, chicken, or your favorite protein-based potstickers if you prefer.

🍠 This Mexican Sweet Potato Bowl is a HEALTHY and EASY alternative to a salad! Loaded with Mexican-inspired ingredients and topped with a light lime-cumin vinaigrette, it’s ready in 20 minutes and perfect for MEAL PREPPING!

Hangover Helper or Cold and Flu Ramen 🍜🤧 The next time one drink turns into wayyyyy more than it should have or you’re feeling under the weather but not up for anything complicated, this EASY ramen bowl that’s ready in 10 minutes will help you FEEL BETTER!

Chickpea and Kale Glow Bowl with Dreamy Tahini Dressing 🥗 FAST, EASY, accidentally vegan and gluten-free!! Keeps you satisfied and GLOWING from the inside out! The zippy dressing lives up to its DREAMY name!

Most Americans consider Labor Day Weekend as the unofficial last weekend of summer. Sniff. While I can appreciate some fall weather, I will always be a summer and warm weather girlie.

I choose to live in San Diego (by choice, not luck) so a crisp fall day means 70F with sunny blue skies, a light breeze, less tourists on the roads, kids are in school and the neighborhoods feel quieter, and so this is “fall” to me. But I don’t like cold weather, and I despise the evening darkness creeping in earlier and earlier. So fall can stop where it’s at for me at September.

So I’m going to savor the weekend - despite working this weekend - and this is what I’m up to!

Flashback Facts: This turned into what feels like a 2009-2013 era blog post. A little bit of everything, personal sharing, personal photos, and not caring about SEO!

Eating

Grilled Chicken Salad with Corn 🌽🍗 is an EASY 20-minute meal loaded with tender grilled chicken, juicy corn, crisp bell peppers and tomatoes, creamy avocado, cilantro, and fresh lime juice. It’s light yet satisfying and a great way to make the most of end-of-summer seasonal produce!

Grilled Guacamole Chicken 🍋‍🟩🍗 🥑 EASY, ready minutes, and the chicken is tender, juicy, and full of Mexican-inspired flavors! Chunky guacamole pairs PERFECTLY with this grilled chicken! A family favorite recipe everyone loves!

🌶️🍗 Grilled Barbecue Sriracha Chicken is something I make on my Instagram Stories once a week when I am meal prepping chicken for 4-7 days at a time!

EASY, and the chicken is just spicy enough with that perfect BBQ chicken flavor! Grilled peppers on the side make for the PERFECT summer meal that’s packed with protein, fiber, and tastes incredible!

Twelve Superfoods Salad 🥗🫐🥬🍇 is packed with 12 superfoods! This is a great clean out the fridge meal and is easily customized to suit whatever you need to use up. Best of all you just FEEL so good eating it!

🍌🍞 If you’ve been on the hunt for a way to make banana bread a bit healthier – less sugar and more protein – without tasting like you’ve sacrificed a thing, try my Better-For-You Banana Bread recipe! An EASY no-mixer recipe that produces 3 perfect mini loaves or one standard loaf and no one will have any idea you made it healthier!

I am not actually making this (yet) but if you want to… this Cinnamon Sugar Topped Pumpkin Spice Bread 🎃🍁 is an EASY quick bread that bakes up super soft, tender, and moist with plenty of warm fall flavor! The slightly crunchy cinnamon-sugar topping is the best part and adds the perfect contrast to every bite. Made as mini loaves, they bake quickly and are perfect for fall snacking, gifting, or entertaining! Or bake as a single large loaf.

Doing + Prepping + Planning

I’m working a lot (most) of the weekend because I’m going on a two week trip to France coming up very soon!

My plans when I’m there include Paris for a few days, then a train trip to the south of France and maybe stopping in Marseilles for a night. And then continuing on by train to Nice for a few days. With a day trip to Monaco. And then back to Paris. It’s all still TBD. AKA I need to plan it.

The beauty of Europe in the shoulder season is that it’s sooooo much less crowded than it is going in the summer. So hotels and Airbnbs, and train tickets, are far less competitive and reservations can be more of a work-in-progress rather than hammered out in stone.

I’m taking recommendations for Paris to the south of France if you’ve done it by train and where you stopped, if you stopped (high speed train is about 6.5 hours nonstop), what you saw, and any do-not-miss spots.

My July recap below has some nice France pictures in it.

Shopping + SALES

Lumebox Red Light Therapy - The device and stand are 45% OFF!!! Honestly if you’ve been on the fence about red light therapy, NOW is the time to pull the trigger. In my experience, it works. It has helped my 8 inch vertical abdominal incision go from angry red and horrifying looking last November to far less noticeable now. See photos.

Red light therapy is also good for facial rejuvenation, wrinkles, aches and pains in random spots in your body, hair growth stimulation. USE my link for the discount through September 8 only.

Cann - Relax without alcohol! Sale is BOGO at 30% off all weekend. Small, perfectly sized, perfect effects. Feels like you've had a glass or wine or a drink, but you didn't. So you sleep great, don't wake up with insomnia, weird dreams, or mental grogginess. These little guys have helped me journey to very little alcohol in 2026 and I love it! The lemon lavender is my favorite flavor. Light, refreshing, pleasant.

High Rise Flare Jeans - Two washes, both 30% off, comes in various lengths, very fair price IMO because we all have seen that some brands of jeans are approaching $300 now right? Not these!

Lululemon Dupe Leggings are even cheaper than normal. They’re good, they really are and some people will die on a hill for these exact leggings. I won’t die on the hill but they’re good for 65% cheaper!

If you want real Lululemons, these are the ones. They’ll last for literally hundreds and hundreds of washes.

I also highly recommend the Lulu Flare Pants with the perfect amount of flare as to not be ‘too much’. It’s more for comfort honestly and I’ve worn these pants on so many long haul flights I can’t even count.

💙 Same brand as the dupe leggings, the blue shorts + sports bra set below is Amazon.

Shorts Notes: Some people say that the Amazon shorts are a Lulu dupe. But trust me when I say they’re an Aritizia dupe of their 5-Inch Butter Cheeky. The cut is THE EXACT SAME. The fabric is 90% as good for half the price. This Artizia Bra Top is my favorite of all of them.

I have literally tried all the workout gear. Real, dupes, wannabe dupes (some of it sucks really badly), and weighed in on everything.

OurPlace Nonstick Pan - OurPlace pans don't stick even with delicate proteins like eggs, chicken breasts, seafood & more! A high quality nonstick pan that comes with a spatula and steamer basket at a great price point with 6 color options. This is a GREAT DEAL!

Missen Stainless Steel with Silicone Tip is an ELITE spatula that gets up and under food without breaking it. For flipping eggs, pancakes, omelettes, crepes, getting under burgers, pieces of chicken, fish or seafood - it’s is a breeze with this perfectly angled, thin-yet-sturdy, spatula. The silicone tip protects your nonstick skillets (like the ones above) so you can use it with confidence!

Working Out + An Extreme Mindset

💪🏻 I am going strong on a M-W-F lifting schedule at the gym.

🧘‍♀️Yoga on Saturdays.

👣 And daily steps 7 days a week of 15-25k depending on the day. I work while I’m walking from my phone. Just ask anyone I know about the typos and voice notes. It’s all good.

I saw a reel recently that really resonated with me, and I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is this: Balance and moderation isn’t what’s going to give your greatness and extremely amazing results in life. Sometimes you have to be extreme for true greatness. You can be moderate and be average and ‘balanced’, and that’s wonderful, for you.

But that’s not who I am in my current season of life, not my goals, not what I want. So I am doing me and my life the way I want. Taking back my power, my voice, my physique, my dietary choice, my time.

Reading + Listening

A Court of Thorns and Roses - I’m about halfway through the first book. I’ve never been a fantasy reader but I thought I may as well try. I like it, I don’t love it, but it’s growing on me, and I don’t hate it! I’m listening to the audio which the narration is A+++ and apparently is a re-release for the 10 year anniversary of the book.

Helpless - This is touted a bat shit crazy semi-erotic thriller and my book club is reading it as our optional book this month. I haven’t started it yet but I’m excited to! I was actually one of the people on the committee who chose the books this month. So that tells you about my current taste in reading.

Look Closer - Our main book for my book club this month, it’s a couple years old, I read it then and really enjoyed it, 4.5/5 stars for me. It has some Halloween elements to the story so if you’re going to read it, now is a perfect season.

In case you missed it, I also shared last week what not to read!

Tell me what you’re up to this weekend, this month, what the best thing you ate was, travel plans, work plans, workouts you’ve crushed, feel free to share!

To DNF or Slog it Out With a Bad Book

If you’re a reader, or even if you don’t consider yourself a reader, there’s nothing quite like a bad book to put you in a bad mood. That’s because for me, reading is my pleasure time, my escape, my get-out-of-my-real-life cherished time.

I go in spurts where I’ll have a half dozen good to really good books, and then 3+ duds in a row which was this month. And as another friend says, when this happens it can put her into a reading slump which can be hard to climb out of and you lose your reading mojo.

As a caveat, these are my opinions only (obviously). And of course my dud may be your rose. As they say about real estate, there’s a buyer for every house and the same could be said about every book. There’s a reader for every book. So of course, take my opinions with a grain of salt and read whatever you want!

However, for me when a book is bad, rather than suffering through it, I DNF it. (Do Not Finish, or Did Not Finish).

A recent NYT article (you need to subscribe to unlock it) discusses that it’s ok to DNF a book.

I’ve gotten to this place with bad-to-me books: “If you read for information, finishing has benefit. … But if reading is a form of escapism or entertainment or distraction from work or stress, and your book becomes another unpleasant aspect to the day, it’s time to find another book.” As quoted in the article and amen.

How To Simply Read More

In case you’re simply trying to read more, here’s a good article about how well-red people find the time to read.

Or do what I do and always have an audio book going: on your walks, runs, time at the gym, washing dishes, cleaning your house with earbuds in, in the car (or train) and for those of you with commutes this is a huge one - you can really listen to a lot if you listen while commuting!

Or listen in the checkout line, coffee pickup line, you name it, there’s always time to pop in earbuds and escape from the monotony of the life tasks and chores at hand and escape a bit and listen to a book.

Here’s What Not To Read. And What I Suggest Instead!

NO to The Lake Club - 2.5/5 stars. I had such high hopes for this but I just couldn't really get into this book and many times wanted to DNF it. Possibly a me problem because I listened to it and didn't care for either of the two female narrators so that was one aspect.

The other was simply the storyline didn't grab me and I kept waiting for it to pick up but it meh didn't really do it for. me. I was originally drawn to the book because it's a new release and the book is set in Minnesota (I grew up there, left 25 years ago for San Diego) and there are tons of references to my childhood and teenage go-to spots which was fun for me. But if you're not a MN native it's one of those who cares things, but I wanted to really love the book because it's billed as a twisty thriller with rich people behaving badly, boats, parties, summer fun, country club vibes, it has all the elements I tend to enjoy but it just didn't do it for me.

Instead Read…

YES to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo if you want to read about rich people, juicy behavior, the upper crust often behaving badly, and with actual love stories that are just SO good. 5/5 read without a doubt! I actually need to do a reread on this because it’s been a few years and I still think about this book. It’s currently FREE with KindleUnlimited.

NO to Crash Into Me 3/5 stars. This is author Robinne Lee’s second big book, after The Idea of You a few years back, which was also made into a movie that paled in comparison to the book for me, as most book-to-movies do pale, for me.

If you’re going to pick up a Robinne Lee book, I’d go with Idea Of You rather than Crash Into Me. She narrates both of them, which I always love when authors do that. Most recently Ann Patchett narrated her own Whistler which was an easy 5 star book! See below

Crash Into Me tackles themes of race, class, privilege, inequality, sexual identity, marital affairs, motherhood, and more. It flashes back and forth between the late 90s Cabo San Lucas and 2015 Los Angeles and Paris in the world of art, fashion, and photography. One day there’s a car accident that brought the two female leading ladies together again after 20 years nearly apart and the story takes off from there. On paper, this book should have been an easy home run for me but the beginning felt a bit confusing and hard for me to get into and invested in the characters. The POV from the 2015 scenes was tricky at first for me.

There was a fair amount of French in the audio version of the book and while I don’t think understanding the French was a total deal breaker, if you do know some French, it would certainly give you much more insight into conversations. It’s getting bad reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for many of the things I think about the book (and if I were to review it at midpoint, it would have been a 3/5) but it does rally in the second half.

Instead Read…

YES to The Idea of You also by Robinne Lee but this is a 5/5 for me! Maybe it’s because it’s the story of a divorced mother approaching 40 who wasn’t in a relationship (very relatable for me as I raised my daughter alone and built my business alone from my early 30s to mid 40s) but then finds herself in a relationship. With a much younger man. Who’s in a band. If you ever wanted to pretend you left your life and your problems and were carrying on with a young popstar, read this. Book is far better than the movie. Robinne Lee narrates her own book on the audio which she nailed 10/10 and it’s FREE with KindleUnlimited to read.

NO to Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. This is a 2.5-3/5 stars for me because she narrates her own book and let’s just say she she’s no Julia Whelan. Even at 2x speed I found it hard to listen to both the narration and to the subject matter.

The subject matter at hand is Facebook and she’s a former employee who wrote this tell-all about how bad corporate culture is there, how the crazy Mark Zuckerberg is, how misogynistic other upper management is. While I do not disagree with this or if I had to guess what it would be like to have worked there a decade ago during Facebook’s rise to glory and become a household name around the world, nothing she wrote surprises me in the least. And it felt like it just went on, and on, and on, with one prolonged bad story after the next.

I’d liken it to a friend (spouse, significant other, etc.) complaining about their job over and over, and over and over, and repeat. After awhile you’re just like, yep, got it. I hear you, sorry about that, wow that sounds awful, but since it’s not your life and not your job, it can be challenging to have tons of empathy when you’ve been listening to the same ‘ole my job sucks, my boss is awful, my coworkers are crazy stories. That was this book for me; less would have been more. But you can decide because it’s FREE with KindleUnlimited.

Instead Read…

Any of the other memoirs I’ve written about! Two for example are outlined here.

YES to Educated by Tara Westover In Educated, Tara Westover chronicles her journey from an isolated, survivalist childhood where she was mentally, emotionally, and physically abused. It’s a story of triumph and not being chained by our upbringings. She educates herself in a big way, going to a globally prestigious university, while shedding the craziness of her upbringing in the process. Her storytelling is both razor-sharp and deeply emotional, capturing the tension between loyalty to family and the pursuit of self. This memoir is as intellectually compelling as it is profoundly moving.

Her actual life story reminds me so much of Kristin Hannah’s, The Great Alone, because of the crazy, erratic, mentally ill father. I read the two books in close proximity to each other - with the Great Alone being first - and I had to stop and remind myself that Educated is real, the other was fiction!

OR YES to Strangers by Belle Burton A haunting and quietly intense memoir, Strangers is a #1 NYT bestseller right now and is on all the cool kids’ TBR lists. It hooks you in immediately because it’s a tell all of a woman who’s husband of 20 years and 3 kids later just leaves her, unexpectedly, out of left field, no signs, no warning. To add insult to injury, he did it in March 2020 and we all know what was breaking out globally then. So she weathered the pandemic AND her divorce, alone.

I’ve been divorced, it’s an awful time, even in the most amicable of divorces. And what I applaud the author for doing is being brave enough to tell her story with unflinching honesty and with 3 teenage/young adult children, and doing it in front of very privileged (and very judgy) friends and peers onlooking. I couldn’t ever be the one to put all my dirty marital and divorce laundry on a page, for all the world to read about, so I really give her props for telling this story that blind-sighted her - she truly did not see it coming, that is very clear.

It also makes me question a lot about marriage, and people in general: how is it possible to not know that your husband of 20 years is going to walk in one day and just leave you? How is it possible to be be so caught off guard? How is it possible for someone to live a double life of sorts, and to not be the person at all you thought you were married to? Very thought provoking book! It’s a short read and even shorter audio when you listen at 1.9-2.0x speed like I do, just under 4 hours.

NO to So Old, So Young by Grand Ginder was a DNF for me. It was just so bad. I was a good 2/3 of the way through, maybe almost 75% of the way and it just never made a point and I couldn’t continue wasting my precious free time on it so I DNFed it. I wouldn’t have ever picked it up own my own, but it was a book club pick. I just never got into it, I don’t even know what these characters were doing, they were young and going out, then they got older, but my God we don’t need a book about that. We all do it, it’s called life. One woman in my book club said she read 90% of it and the last 10% she had to listen to in order to finish in time for our meeting and she said she thought the audio was horrendous and that if she would have started with that rather than reading it, she never would have gotten through it.

Instead Read…

YES to The Correspondent easy 5/5 stars if you want to listen to the story of a woman’s life unfolding over time. Incredible book, listen to the audiobook because it makes it even better. We follow the story of a woman’s life, as told through the correspondence and letters she has written over the course of her life, and we learn about her, her relationships, her character, and her interactions with those around her as we “eavesdrop” into her life through these letters. Phenomenal.

NO to Helpless by Jessica Knoll 2.5/5 stars and that’s generous because the eroitca aspect was at least exciting enough. This is a new release that I picked up because of a book influencer. She had described it as a ‘bat shit crazy erotic thriller’ which piqued my interest because I just cannot read the same meet-cutes and rom coms ad nauseum. However this really missed the mark for me. We follow the story of a woman who goes back to her college town for a funeral and encounters an old flame of hers from back in the day. The book read more like a weird fever dream that made little sense as I was reading (listening) to it and the ending was lackluster.

The Audible actress is Marin Ireland who narrates most of Fredrik Backman’s books (I couldn’t get through My Friends and DNFed it) and The Shampoo Effect (another DNF). And I only DNFed 3 books in 2025 so there’s a pattern here lol.

Also lots of trigger warnings in Helpless including control, consent, coercive relationships, memory and self-deception. Believe the Amazon reviews on this one.

Instead Read…

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston which is a thriller with a relationship in it and so if you’re looking to scratch that thriller itch without being too creepy or spooky, and also get a little bit of romance thrown in, this book delivers. I have a full review of it in my Best Thrillers and Mysteries post!

More Books and Book Reviews To Check Out

Wynn Las Vegas

I’ve been a fan of the Wynn for years and have had many great meals and drinks there over the years. It’s a luxury property - the creme de la creme - and so when they invited me for a two night stay that included a couple of fine dining dinners, I was very excited!

We stayed in the Tower Suites in a Wynn Tower Suite King. The suite was beautifully appointed and the bathroom was 10/10! Our room had a view of a golf course and of the Sphere which was very cool to watch it change designs. Due to the reflectiveness of the windows it’s tricky to get crystal clear photos of it at night, but the blue globe gives you an idea.

My post is presented in chronological order how things unfolded over our 2 day/2 night trip because that’s just how my mind works.

First Night Dinner: Casual Asian

For dinner on our first night, due to our travel day going sideways (we could have driven from San Diego to Vegas and back again in the time in took us to fly to Vegas) our very late arrival and missing our previously scheduled reservation, we needed to scamper and just find something.

So we literally took the elevator down from our suite, walked out, and encountered Red 8 which is casual Asian dining.

Our objective was getting food in our belly at 9:45PM before it closed and so we went casual - and starving! If you’re looking for casual yet filling Asian, this will work. We noticed some families with toddlers so if you need a kid-friendly spot, it works for that too.

The Wynn Pools

On our next morning, I had high hopes of going to the pool because there are many and they’re beautiful! I love Vegas pools and the Wynn pools were wonderful!

But we had some weird weather for Vegas in August and it was cloudy and even sprinkled on and off multiple times during our trip, but we did have a few bursts of sunshine and were able to carve out some time at the pool.

There are multiple pools including a pool are for those staying in the Tower Suites and an adults-only pool. However, maybe because many schools have already gone back, the pools were not swimming (pun intended) with kids. I’ve been to Vegas during spring break time of year and you can expect a lot of kids no matter where you go. Bringing young kids to Vegas was not a thing when I was raising my daughter and bringing small children to Vegas, but it is now.

There are cabanas you can reserve or just find a chaise lounge - no reservations were necessary although on a perfectly sunny day and especially on weekends, the early bird gets the worm in terms of snagging lounges.

There’s a fine dining breakfast, brunch, and lunch restaurant, Tableau, located within the Tower Suites.

And while we didn’t dine inside Tableau - I’m more of a grab my coffee and go person in the mornings and got my daily coffee from Caffe al Teatro - it’s adjacent to the Tower Pools and we ordered from Tableau’s menu while at the pool one day.

The jumbo shrimp cocktail were indeed jumbo and if you’re on a protein journey, shrimp are a great call. I washed it down with a strawberry frosé which was not too sweet (no 1990s syrupy strawberry daiquiri vibes, thank goodness) and just super refreshing. Shrimp + frosé = 10/10 on both! If the weather would have been sunnier, I can foresee those frosés going down super easily.

Fine Dining at SW Steakhouse

SW Steakhouse is where we had dinner our second night, which happened to be a Friday night. The restaurant was packed and extremely lively. I learned that they have outdoor seating but due to unexpected dinnertime rain, we were told they had to move about 100+ people inside, which caused the inside to be overwhelmed for a time.

SW Steakhouse is a flagship, Forbes award-winning restaurant, with an extensive high end dinner menu. Whether you’re looking for American or Japanese wagyu; or perhaps you prefer seafood, fish, lamb, chicken, or nearly any possible type of classic-yet-elevated steakhouse side dish, this is the spot.

Tips: If you plan to dine at SW Steakhouse, you need to make a reservation. It’s very popular, very busy, and you simply need a reservation. I personally would make it clear you want an inside table when you make your reservation and ask if that can be honored. Vegas isn’t known for its al fresco dining and for me after getting ready for a night on the town, I’ll take a pass on wind, heat, or any chance of rain and opt for strictly indoor seating if given the option.

This meal was wonderful and I will definitely come back here, no questions asked!

I made a video which I am dropping here and also shared it on my Instagram feed. I have also learned that SW does not mean ‘southwest’ in this case; it means Steve Wynn. I learn something new every time I travel.

This was a ton of food! Far more than the photos make it appear. The portions are very generous!

The oysters and crab Rockefeller were very generously stuffed with crab meat and cheese and were very filling. And the crab cakes were also big, succulent, meaty crab cakes.

The tomato salad was really refreshing and helped to balance the heaviness of the other dishes, and the asparagus was my ode to a vegetable and something green. My husband loves potatoes but we did not ‘need’ a large side of potato au gratin plus fries despite it being a half order of fries.

Our steaks were fantastic but neither of us could finish our respective steaks. I ordered my filet mignon medium rare plus because I was in between medium and medium rare. Some steakhouses don’t want to mess around with the ‘plus’ and make you choose either medium or medium rare - so that was nice there was an in between. My husband ordered his ribeye medium and he was happy as a clam with it. But a 16 ounce steak is, well, BIG!

My Tips: Starve yourself all day before you come here (kidding…well not really haha!), come with another couple if you can because I feel like the sides are suited more towards groups of 3-4 rather than 2 people; and if that’s not possible I suggest ordering your absolute must-haves so that you can finish your steaks or at least make a good dent on them. And I recommend saving room for dessert!

The chocolate chip cookie soufflé with brown butter cookie, chocolate, and ice cream was the best thing I ate all weekend. I don’t consider myself that ‘into desserts’ in the past ten years or so, but for me this was 10000/10!

Gym at the Wynn

After being wheeled out of the steakhouse by crane the previous evening, a workout the next day was a non-negotiable for me.

Without a doubt, the fitness center at the Wynn is the nicest hotel gym I’ve ever been in!

I really do not feel my best in general in life if I don’t work out, move my body, or get some steps in.

Normally I would not have sought out a gym to lift weights on a short trip like this one, but it was cloudy and raining one afternoon so I said why not. And I am so glad I went! It recentered me and gave me energy to stay up and stay out for our next dinner. There are also spa treatments, massages and more at Wynn and Encore.

Tip - Take note there is a gym/spa in both Wynn and Encore so that if you are booking spa services that you go to the correct location.

Fine Dining at Casa Playa

On our final night in Vegas, we had the absolute pleasure of dining at Casa Playa. It’s located in Encore, just steps from Wynn, and you can walk easily between the two. Chef Sarah Thompson just won a James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest and the food at Casa Playa delivered.

Think upscale Mexican that focuses on seasonal, coastal ingredients with a seafood focus. There’s also an extensive tequila and mezcal program.

I also made a video for this dining experience and posted it on my Instagram feed and am sharing it here too.

From the dinner menu, we started with a shrimp ceviche which gave shrimp aguachile vibes. It was light and refreshing because we knew from previous evenings the portions would be generous and didn’t want to over-order!

However, despite Chef Sarah Thompson being gone for the evening we were there, Chef Clarissa came out to our table to introduce herself and she was warm, kind, and truly it was the nicest touch!

She sent us out the prawns which had the presentation of almost like a lobster tail in the shell and very creative.

And we also sampled the vegetarian tlayuda (pronounced tla-LUUH-dah). If you’re not familiar, tlayudas are a paper-thin, flatbread type of item and they can be topped with just about anything from carnitas to mariscos to al pastor or veggie based. I wrote about some of my favorite tlayudas in my Ultimate Puerto Vallarta Dining Guide.

My husband opted for the branzino which surprised me a bit but it was with a zarandeado preparation which hails from the Nayarit region of Mexico, near Jalisco and not something you run into every day even in upscale Mexican restaurants. Paired with frijoles de olla, he was in heaven.

I got the American wagyu short rib suadero which is most closely related to brisket but not quite the same cut. If you’ve ever had a street taco in Mexico City, chances are you’ve had suadero which is tender and so flavorful. There were spicy serrano chiles and sauce underneath so take note! I almost got the birria since birria has gotten so trendy in the past few years, it’s not that tricky to find whereas suadero? Tricky!

Tips: All dishes can either be eaten as they are served; or you can make tacos with your protein because they serve corn tortillas too. So if you want to get your taco fix on, you can! There’s also a riff on al pastor con pina made with pork belly stacked high with mini pineapples. The presentation was adorable and I captured it in my video so if you like pork belly, it’s worth a shot.

To finish, we split the tres leches with coconut on top. It was the perfect size to share for two. There’s a banana flame style dessert on the menu but it’s more geared to share amongst 3-4 people our waiter told us.

Bars and Lounges

I’ve been drinking a lot less in 2026 than I have at any time in my life previously, and I feel great! So after two glasses of champagne or sparking wine with dinner, I didn’t have the energy or desire to partake in any nightcaps but mostly because I was just beat. Guess I am officially old. Or responsible.

In our defense, our dinner at SW Steakhouse was 3 1/2 hours and our dinner at Casa Playa was 2 1/2 hours. By 11:30pm I’m thinking bed, not bar.

But if you’re thinking bar, I’d go to either Aft Cocktail Lounge which has vibes of Rio de Janeiro meets Cozumel meets Monaco (I’ve been to all three of those destinations and I’d actually throw in Mykonos into the description rather than Cozumel). Swanky with views of the Lake of Dreams, and located right next to SW Steakhouse and PISCES so you can either go before or after your fine dining dinner for cocktails.

While we didn’t go this trip, I’d also highly recommend Bar Parasol which is also situated in between SW Steak and Pisces. They have the best charcuterie board and serve it with pretzel bread. Trust me, it’s so good and the best charcuterie board I’ve had in Vegas, and we’ve had it multiple times over the past 5 years ever since discovering it. There’s a very fairly priced champagne flight with three champagnes to wash it down with; also highly recommend that.

Finally, Little Bubble Bar at Delilah is your spot if you’re into old Hollywood vibes. Very small, chic, retro-yet-modern and sophisticated all in one.

What To Wear In Vegas?

Anything you want! Haha! Just about anything goes in Vegas BUT if you’re going to a fine dining restaurant, make sure you check the dress code.

People tend to go all out in Vegas in terms of getting dressed up and rising to the occasion at trendy, popular, or high end restaurants. There’s no other city in the world for women IMO where you can routinely get away with showing as much skin and no one bats an eye. But if that’s not your vibe, no worries. Cover up.

I posted every single thing I wore in Vegas here in a ShopMy collection with direct links to what I bought and brought!

I fit everything in my carryon because I don’t check bags!

My piece of advice though is to always bring a sweater, jacket, suit coat, shawl or something to cover up with because air conditioning can be brutally cold. Maybe that’s because I don’t use air conditioning in San Diego but Vegas feels like a meat locker to me and I’m always cold. If it was chic to walk into dinner with a blanket I would! But I settle for a suit jacket draped over my arm to start and always finish with it on.

Let me know if you’ve been to Wynn or Encore, or if you’ve been to Vegas recently or have any plans to go soon!

Desserts and Quick Breads with Zucchini

BEST EVER Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread 💚🤎 Super moist, tender, loaded with chocolate chips, and so EASY to make! One bowl, no mixer, and THE BEST zucchini bread you’ll ever try! If you have zucchini on hand to use up, this is the PERFECT recipe for it. Plus, it’s picky eater approved and they may not even realize they’re eating zucchini! 😉

Glazed Lemon Zucchini Bread 🍋🍞 is an EASY, no mixer quick bread with bright lemon flavor and tender zucchini that keeps it incredibly soft and moist. A simple lemon glaze makes it perfect for breakfast, brunch, snacking, or a light summer dessert!

🫐🙌🏻😋 My Blueberry Zucchini Bread is ultra popular with readers because it’s a quick, no-mixer recipe that’s sweet, but not too sweet. Each bite is bursting with fresh blueberries, making it a fan favorite EVERY summer! Especially when the markets or your garden is overflowing with zucchini!

Frosted Apple Zucchini Bread 🍏🍎 The perfect way to blend late summer into early fall with zucchini and apples in this super soft, moist, and topped with the BEST frosting ever! One bowl, no mixer, EASY recipe for the best apple zucchini bread that everyone LOVES!

Zucchini Brownies 🍫🥒 are the BEST soft and fudgy chocolate brownies with the rich texture of chocolate cake. This EASY one bowl recipe requires no mixer and is filled and topped with mini chocolate chips for even more chocolate flavor. You cannot taste the zucchini at all, promise!

Banana Blueberry Zucchini Bread 🫐🍌🙌🏻🍞 This is an EASY, no-mixer zucchini bread recipe that’s packed with bananas, juicy blueberries, and grated zucchini which keep it SO soft, moist, and tender! I guarantee this will be your new favorite quick bread and your family and friends will rave about it and want seconds!

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake 💚🍫 is just the BEST zucchini cake with a soft, moist texture and plenty of rich chocolate flavor. It tastes like a bakery style yellow cake, and you cannot taste the zucchini at all! An easy no mixer recipe that you can whip up quickly!

Soups with Zucchini

30-Minute Chicken and White Bean Soup 🍗🥬👏🏻 This chicken soup with white beans, kale, zucchini, and more is easy, hearty, and healthy! Packed with flavor and texture, it’s a full meal in itself! Perfect for quick weeknight dinners and leftovers freeze and reheat great! This soup is ultra popular with readers!

🍲🧡 This Copycat Olive Garden easy Minestrone Soup recipe takes just 30 minutes to make, and it’s better than what you get at Olive Garden! Homemade always wins in my book! Hearty, healthy, EASY, comfort food to keep you full for hours!

30-Minute Italian Sausage Soup 🍲🍅🙌🏻 EASY, hearty soup that’s full of flavor from the sausage, rice, and vegetables! Comfort food the whole family will LOVE and it’s healthier from the vegetables! It keeps you warm and cozy on cold winter nights!

Savory Main Dishes with Zucchini

🍋🌿🍅 Lemon Basil Greek Orzo Salad is EASY, ready in 25 minutes, and lemon and basil give it such a FRESH taste! It’s a great meal prep recipe for make-ahead weekday lunches or serve it as a healthy side at dinner! Also a winner at parties, picnics, and potlucks because people love this easy and healthy salad recipe!

These Grilled Steak Kabobs 🥩🌶️🍍combine juicy steak with sweet bell peppers, onions, zucchini, and pineapple for the PERFECT sweet-and-savory kabob! You’ll want to fire up your grill for these! Fast, EASY, zero cleanup, and DELISH! This is flexible recipe and you can mix-and-match the ingredients based on your preferences and what you have on hand.

Sausage Rigatoni Pasta Skillet 🍅🌿👏🏻 is an EASY comfort food pasta recipe complete with al dente cooked rigatoni, juicy Italian sausage, tomatoes, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese and more! So much saucy FLAVOR, ready in 30 minutes, and makes a big batch for planned leftovers that you can enjoy during the week or freeze for later!

Summer Sheet Pan Chicken and Veggies 🍅 is fast, EASY, HEALTHY, and perfect for your seasonal summer zucchini, squash and tomatoes! A DELISH one-pan meal with zero cleanup that’s great for lazy summer days or busy weeknights!

Green Thai Curry with Chicken 💚🧡🙌🏻 An EASY, one-skillet green curry that’s ready in 20 minutes and tastes BETTER than from a Thai restaurant! It’s healthy comfort food with protein and fiber that tastes AMAZING!

This 🍅🥦🎉 Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies dinner can be made with your pre-cooked sausage of choice and is done in under an hour. It’s a customizable recipe because you can mix-and-match the veggies you want to include! Everyone LOVES this easy sheet pan meal!

Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini Boats 🍅🌽 help you skip enchilada wraps and use zucchini instead! Easy, healthier and there’s so much FLAVOR between juicy chicken drenched in enchilada sauce, corn, peppers, and CHEESE!

Ground Chicken or Turkey Stir Fry 🥕🥦 is an EASY, flavorful, and FLEXIBLE dinner that combines lean protein with fiber from your favorite vegetables. It’s ready in 25 minutes and perfect for meal prepping! I make this ALL the time! Watch me on Instagram Stories and you’ll see 😊

Ground Chicken Green Thai Curry 💚 Skip takeout and make this EASY, one-skillet green curry with ground chicken and an array of healthy vegetables! Ready in under 30 minutes, great for busy weeknights, and tastes BETTER than from a Thai restaurant! Healthy yet hearty comfort food that tastes AMAZING and is naturally gluten-free.

🍋🌿🍅🇬🇷 Bring some Mediterranean flair to your weeknight chicken dinner with this EASY Greek Sheet Pan Chicken complete with bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, feta cheese, and more! A zesty marinade with lemon juice and Dijon mustard keeps the chicken JUICY and gives so much FLAVOR to the veggies!

It’s time for a monthly recap. The last one I did was for April 2026 because it was a big month. I had Mom’s Weekend at my daughter’s university, then moved her out of her dorm, and brought her back for the summer which has been truly the BEST having her home. It feels like just yesterday but it’s been 3 months.

And June/July were also big months so I am documenting the highlights. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage because this is a long one!

I turned 50 in June. I was going to do a big post about my feelings and reflections on turning 50, how I’ve grown, how my life saving surgery changed my perspective on life, but my birthday fell days after two back-to-back work trips including Walt Disney World and then to Charleston, and I just didn’t have time to really reflect.

Although I did just write this post about how I am healthier at 50 than I was at 45, and if the truth be told, I am more fit now than I was at 40…or maybe ever! At the bottom of this post I get into some of my fitness milestones.

But first, let’s talk about France! I am documenting this trip with my 19 year old daughter here so that I have the memories to look back on.

Because in 36 hours we are leaving to drive her and her possessions back to college in Utah to start sophomore year. So I need to look at these photos probably more than you do! It’s a tough, tough time on moms to leave our babies at college out of state. 🥹 I did this before but it’s still awful.

Paris For A Belated Birthday Trip

My daughter and I have been to Paris many times together the past few years including last summer. We’ve done all the name brand tourist activities - the Louvre, D’Orsay, going up the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, river cruise on the Seine, Luxembourg Gardens, the Tuileries, etc.

So this trip, in honor of turning 50 in June (I recently wrote about how things are different for me) I wanted NOTHING on our agenda that felt like pressure!

No big tours, no lining up in the 100F heat in a long dress with covered knees and shoulders to go inside a church or fighting crowds into a museum…nope. My birthday gift was not doing that to us!

It was also a trip from a Monday to the following Tuesday, but given that the flight alone from LAX to Paris is 13.5 hours, there’s a significant amount of time lost due to sheer travel (23 hours door to door from San Diego to central Paris because that CDG to central Paris taxi was 2 HOURS, welcome to summer in Paris). So I didn’t want to over-plan and over-commit us!

Macaron Making Class

I only put two things on our entire agenda in Paris and the first was an Emily in Paris-themed macaron making class. It was a 3 hours class in the afternoon and it was “air conditioned” but if you know Europe, you know that their definition of AC is very different than in the US. Nevertheless, it helped us get into 80-85F temps rather than 100F like it was outside.

France and most of Europe were in a heatwave, as they are every summer lately during June-August. 95-100F (38-40C), and there’s very little air conditioning. This why no AC is another topic, a rabbit hole to go down. Google it, but the consensus is it’s expensive, people fear AC for their health and that it’s bad for you (yep), and bad for the environment. So in the meantime, hundreds if not thousands of people in Europe die from the extreme heat during the summer. Another topic, not my wheelhouse. Let’s get back to macarons! 🍪

Making macarons is quite an intricate process and there are lots of steps along the way where things can fail from ingredient selection to technique to the actual baking and temperature regulation.

I asked our instructor if French people actually make these?? And she said no! She said French people buy them and if they want to make a dessert, they make something much simpler like a cake. I want to be French then.

While it was very interesting learning about how to make them, and always great when I walked into everything prepped and measured, I would never embark on the project of trying to make macarons at home in California.

The first, last, and only time I ever previously tried to make them my daughter was 2 and she’s nearly 20 now. So I took an 18 year break. It was interesting to learn from our instructor (a professionally trained chef and pastry chef and restaurant owner) where things could go wrong and what to do and not do. But back in my own kitchen, I don’t love macarons enough to try to master them!

I also asked her if she thinks that the age of the egg whites matters because I have read “tips” that suggest that old eggs for macarons are better but she said it doesn’t matter.

The reason they’re purple is that she had us make a vanilla filling and a lavender infused filling, hence the purple color she had us tint them. I am not the biggest fan of lavender in food so I preferred the vanilla.

After our class we were hungry! We found our way to a Mexican-inspired restaurant. Why Mexican? Because for me personally, French cafe food in all the cafes that you walk by is very one-note and lacks veggies, spice, or something that feels “fresh”. A chicken caesar with breaded chicken is the closest to fresh you can hope to come in any of the casual cafes, but when I saw someone eating Mexican, we said ok there’s some freshness and fiber there so we stopped. The pervious day I had gotten a salmon poke bowl at another cafe.

I am not linking them because nothing was good enough to recommend, if I am being honest. It was fine in the moment but not memorable. 100F really kills appetites and desire for anything like a big heavy burger or a bowl of French onion soup! I also don’t like day-drinking at peak afternoon heat so I drank Coke Zero rather than champagne.

Perfume Making Class

The second of only two activities I had planned for us was a perfume making class! Our instructor explained to us how to use a combination of up to 10-12 different essential scents ranging from cola to bergamot to vanilla to orange and everything in between to create our own 100ml bottle of perfume to take home with us.

This was also a good activity to do in the heat of the day because it was held slightly underground (about 10 steps into a ‘basement’ type setup) so it was inherently cooler, but definitely not cool.

We learned about how certain scents are teasers are the initial burst of what you smell when you first spray a perfume, some last a few hours, and then others last for many hours 8+. Our instructor made it very easy and it was overall fun.

My only complaint was that the four people sitting at our wheel of scents were not good at sharing. They need to go back to kindergarten and learn how to share with their neighbors.

They would hog the wheel and spin it without regard for us. Kind of like shopping on a spinning rack at a department store - one should be mindful of others also attempting to shop and not just whip the merchandise without some consideration for others. But these people were happily (purposefully?) oblivious which made it trickier than it needed to be to smell, jot down notes, and then re-encounter the scents we initially were drawn to, smell again, and make sure we loved it enough to have it in our perfume. There were 110 scents to choose from and we needed every minute of our 2 hour class!

My tip if you do this class or any other perfume making class, is that if you have an inkling when you’re choosing your tour times that one class may be less full than another, choose the less full one! This is an activity that depends on group sharing of bottles and the less people there are, the better IMO. Whereas with macarons, it doesn’t matter - everyone has their own bowl and spatula and ingredients and you’re not sharing really ever.

Crepes For the Win

Mother Daughter Time Was The Best!

Always Awe Inspiring: The Eiffel Tower

Nice, France (Côte d'Azur)

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I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on kitchen equipment, appliances, gadgets, and kitchen stuff. I’ve had some gems and I’ve had duds. Actually, way more duds that gems over the years. I’ve also been “influenced” by other food bloggers and social media influencers and many times I’m convinced they either have low standards, or simply cannot cook because the item just isn’t good, or both.

I’m dishing on what I own, why I love it, and why I think you’ll love it too. Or not. I’m sharing so that you save your money and don’t end up with a dud or overpay senselessly.

• Some of my picks are squarely in the “it’s worth the splurge” ✅ camp.

• But in some categories, I love the more budget-friendly and “save” option.

• In some categories the splurge is less than 20 dollars apart from the save.

• And in some categories I actually recommend both the splurge and the save, for different reasons or different people based on how you cook.

• And with some, just flat out avoid it. 🚫

All of my opinions are just that, my opinions. We all have one. But mine are not sponsored, endorsed, or “influenced” by a brand to post or not post my reviews.

Air Fryer

Splurge ✅: Cosori Stainless Steel - I’ve used at least 10 air fryers over the course of the last 10 years, and without a doubt, this is the BEST of all of them. First, this 6.5-quart machine just looks beautiful on my countertop. Next, the safe nontox ceramic coating in the cooking basket is so resistant to anything sticking to it making cleanup a breeze and it’s one piece, no little grooves and grates to pick caked on food out of. And it’s a beast of a workhorse in the actual air frying department. It cooks faster and more evenly than any other air fryer I’ve ever used. There’s also in-app cooking for those more tech-loving than I am. All around, I adore this machine and highly recommend it.

Save: Ninja Air Fryer Pro It’s a highly popular brand and there’s nothing wrong with this air fryer, but I don’t love the black box look personally and the other finishes just aren’t as sexy as the Cosori stainless steel. The Ninja is also noticeably smaller at 5 quarts, so it can’t cook as much nor as fast. However, if you need an air fryer and are cooking for 1 to 3 people, it’s likely big enough for average meals.

Slow Cooker

Splurge ✅: Ninja Multi Cooker - A 10-in-1 machine that comes in either an 6.5-quart or 8.5-quart size. Since I personally don’t tend to make slow cooker recipes that I need to sear first on the stove and then slow cook, that feature of this slow cooker isn’t that big of a deal to me. It also steams, sautes, and more but I use my slow cooker to do just that - slow cook. I’m also not a huge slow cooker recipes consumer in my personal cooking life when I’m not developing and testing recipes for my site. I’m more of a “how can I get this done in 20 minutes (not 3-6 hours)” kind of cook. However, if you slow cook frequently and want to have multiple functions in one machine, people rave rave rave about this unit and for all you get, it’s only $109 which is a DEAL!

Save ✅: Crockpot 7-Quart Manual Slow Cooker is an old school, no frills, add the food, set it and forget it, type of machine that’s $44 bucks. Personally, as a low tech person, and as a person who isn’t trying to do 8 functions in one when I reach for my slow cooker, this is what I have and have had for about 10 years and it works great and gets the job done. I’ve also had much fancier slow cookers that I’ve gifted to friends because I am not fancy enough to use all those features, and more importantly, I don’t have the storage space for extra slow cookers!

If you want a slightly fancier model without tons of functions, this Crockpot 6-Quart Cook and Carry ✅ is really handy. Because many times when you’re going to make something in a slow cooker, it’s when you’re bringing a dish to someone’s house for an event and you start the dish at your house, or make it fully at your house, but want to transport it. And either finish it there, or plug it in to keep warm once you’ve arrived. This is so nice because it takes the risk out of things spilling during transport!

Nonstick Pans

👀 This is a category where the price difference between the splurge vs the save is vast; and there are two splurge-worthy pans I highly recommend.

And…I also recommend the Save pans because at the price point, they’re a no brainer. Especially if you’re on a budget, or you may have a kid going away to college or in their first apartment, or you need a gift for a younger couple that is practical and useful but doesn’t break that bank, etc. Or…you tend to ruin pans and cannot justify something more deluxe.

Splurge Winner🥇✅: Caraway 4.5-quart saute pan with lid (or Amazon link for faster shipping) is the gold standard for me in nonstick cookware when I need a roomy pan because this skillet is big, wonderfully heavy and it means business. If you cook bigger meals, bigger pieces of chicken breasts or salmon, batch cook for meal prep, make big stir frys with lots of volume from veggies like my Chicken Egg Roll in a Bowl, this is a no-brainer skillet. Also great for big egg scrambles, omelettes, crepes, pancakes, seafood, fish, and more!

Splurge 2nd Winner🥈✅: OurPlace Always Pan 2.0 (or Amazon link for faster shipping) doesn’t stick even with delicate proteins like eggs, chicken breasts, seafood and more! A very high quality nonstick pan that comes with a spatula and steamer basket at a great price point with 6 color options. Slightly smaller than the Caraway above which is why for me personally, I don’t reach for it quite as much because I love cooking in bulk and having planned leftovers. But if you’re cooking for 1-2 or 3 people, it’s perfect. Comes with a lid, steamer baske, and wooden spoon, too. You get more extra “stuff” with OurPlace than Caraway.

Save🥉✅: Redchef Nonstick Skillet Set is what I recommend if Caraway​ or ​OurPlace​ aren’t in your budget, because you can get a 3 pan SET for less than the price of 1 of the other name brand pans. I highly recommend this budget brand of safe nonstick skillets because the ceramic coating is great, the overall quality is wonderful, the handles stay cool to the touch, food slides right out, and basically these are great dupes to Caraway!

Who Redchef pans are for IMO: If you’re not a great cook (you know who you are), or you tend to ruin pans (you’ve got the Midas touch lol) or handwashing pans isn’t for you, then get these and not Caraway or OurPlace because with the price point on those, you simply will want to take better care of them..

Tip: If you need just ONE pan for eggs, ✅ this is the one (budget) pan I reach for because sometimes I just make two scrambled eggs and don’t want or need a bigger pan to clean up. Our ‘egg pan’ as I call it (but it’s useful for all your nonstick needs) is always in rotation among family members because someone is always making eggs in my house.

Spatula (Flipper, Turner)

“Splurge” (but not really because it’s so superior and inexpensive) ✅: Missen Stainless Steel with Silicone Tip is an ELITE spatula that gets up and under food without breaking it. For flipping eggs, pancakes, omelettes, crepes, getting under burgers, pieces of chicken, fish or seafood - it’s is a breeze with this perfectly angled, thin-yet-sturdy, spatula. The silicone tip protects your nonstick skillets (like the ones above) so you can use it with confidence!

Save: (as in, save your money please) 🚫 Turners that look like these feel very clunky and very grandma’s kitchen tools. We have evolved. Unless you’re flipping a 14 ounce steak, I just don’t see where these have their place. Eggs? Hella to the no. Pancakes? Nope. I’ve honestly thrown so many of this type of turner away because they take up room and break my food or scratch my nonstick pans. Bye.

Dutch Oven

👀 This is another category where the price difference between the splurge vs the save is vast and while I’ve had my Le Creuset pieces for 20+ years now (omg I am old) so I can truly vouch for them over the long haul and the test of time, I don’t think you’re making an error if you get the Lodge by any means.

Splurge ✅: Le Creuset 6-quart round Dutch oven is the old school, old standby Dutch oven that most serious cooks have. I was gifted mine by my mother long before I even really knew how to cook. It wasn’t until I started cooking more and started my food blog that I truly appreciated what a Dutch oven is useful for:

Soups, stews, chili, sourdough, roasts, turkey breast, anytime I double or triple a recipe and the quantity won’t fit in any other skillet, I use my Dutch oven.

Save ✅: Lodge 6-quart round is 1/3rd the price and you’re getting solid craftsmanship. I just looked it up and Lodge has been around since 1896. It’s not French and not imported like Le Creuset is (therefore likely helping deliver on a great price point), and it’s a workhorse and you cannot go wrong with it.

Bottom Line: I believe every kitchen needs one Dutch oven. I personally also love my Le Creuset 8-quart oval. It’s an investment in your future (chef) self. And you can gift it to your kids or grandkids. You only need to buy this ONCE in your life. There’s a Lodge 7-quart oval that’s 1/5th the price!

Mini Food Processor/Chopper

Splurge ✅: Cuisinart 3-cup is handy to have around to make sauces, vinaigrettes, dressings, marinades, mince fresh herbs, chop nuts, and more. It’s for those times when it’s more than you can do well by hand (or care to) but the amount of food involved is smaller than will even hit the blade on a larger model or when you don’t want all those dishes. I just looked it up and Amazon told me I bought mine in just a few years ago back in 2013 and its still going strong.

Save: Hamilton Beach 3-cup gets great reviews on Amazon but since I’ve been going strong with my Cuisinart for 13 years, I’ve had no reason to purchase others. There’s less than an $18 dollar difference separating the splurge and save and I think the splurge is worth it.

Food Thermometer

This is a category where the price points are far apart and the functionality isn’t all that different. And while I can speak to the longevity and true workhorse nature of the Thermapen One because I’ve owned mine for 5+ years and have used and abused it during that time as a professional food blogger, and it continues to function flawlessly. But on the flip side, I think at a certain level, a thermometer is a thermometer - so get whichever one your budget allows.

Splurge ✅: Thermoworks Thermapen One (or directly from the Thermoworks site) is the gold standard in food thermometers for most food bloggers. I’ve had mine for 5+ years, probably longer, and I still take the temperature every.single.time when I make chicken on the grill, a whole chicken, a turkey breast, or a whole turkey that’s foolproof. There is simply no way to “just eyeball” 165F degrees. Close doesn’t cut it because undercooked poultry and your family now has a raging case of salmonella and overcooking, while safer, is a recipe for just dry, tough, bad meat. The Thermapen One is extremely fast (less than 1/2 second) and supremely accurate. It’s the Rolls Royce of food thermometers and makes a great gift for that person who has everything.

Save: ✅ AlphaGrillers has over 90,000+ ratings on Amazon so clearly, they’re doing something right! If all you need is a thermometer to get the job done and just have one (rather than guessing) and you’re fine with a 1-2 second wait time, then get this! It’s 12 bucks very well spent!

Recipe Tips & Notes For Warm Weather ‘Cooking’ (and still want protein)

Tips to make these recipes even easier, quicker, and cooking-free - with the exception of boiling pasta or quinoa for some of them:

• Any recipe that calls for chicken, feel free to use leftover chicken you’ve already made or use rotisserie chicken to keep it really easy and oven-free.

• You can also make a slow cooker whole chicken or air fryer chicken which both work in your favor to keep your house cooler since those two appliances don’t put off much heat.

• Because many warm weather recipes are salads of some sort and possibly vegetarian, it’s easy to incorporate extra protein by tossing in leftover chicken, rotisserie chicken, garbanzo beans or black beans depending on the recipe, perhaps some diced hard-boiled eggs. It’ll depend on the recipe and what sounds good to you of course.

• All vegetables are mix-and-match based on what you may have on hand or a surplus of, and personal preference. So if you love tomatoes or have garden fresh zucchini coming out of your ears, add til your heart’s content!

• Most all of these keep well and are make-ahead friendly so you can make them meal prep style and enjoy in the upcoming days.

No-Oven Recipes For Warm Weather & Ready In Under 30 Minutes

Summer Ravioli Salad 🥗🍅 has crisp-tender zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and chickpeas over spinach with cheesy ravioli and a dijon vinaigrette! A HEALTHY summer pasta salad that takes advantage of fresh produce! Use your favorite kind of ravioli.

🌽🍅🥗 My go-to warm weather meal, this Garden Fresh Summer Quinoa Salad is loaded with everything fresh, light, and healthy! Great for parties, potlucks, and lunchboxes (because there’s no mayo), it’s easy, flavorful, and great to serve as a side dish or main course!

Mandarin Orange Chicken Pasta Salad 🍊 EASY, ready in 30 minutes, and packed with Asian-inspired flavors! Juicy sesame chicken, pasta, and lots of healthy vegetables! Feel free to mix and match based on what you have on hand.

Garden Fresh Tortellini Pasta Salad 🍅🥒 Juicy tomatoes, cucumbers and corn with creamy avocado, basil and parmesan tossed in lemon vinaigrette with cheese tortellini! Healthy, easy, ready in 15 minutes!

This EASY 15-minute Avocado Mango Shrimp Salad 🥑🥭🍍🍤 with tropical fruit, avocado, red onion, lime juice, cilantro, and plump JUICY shrimp will become a new FAVORITE! Healthy and light with an assortment of wonderful flavors in every bite that’s perfect for a snack, quick lunch, or casual summer dinner!

Lemon, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Almond Quinoa Salad 🍅 is fast, easy, and fresh! Bright flavors and loads of texture! This clean-eating salad keeps you full and satisfied! Healthy never tasted so good! No mayo and great for outdoor events or lunch boxes! Add leftover shredded chicken or rotisserie chicken to boost the protein.

Shrimp Ceviche 🍤🥑🍋‍🟩 This is the EASIEST way to make traditional shrimp ceviche and it tastes the BEST! Ready in 30 minutes, great as an appetizer, side, or as a healthy main course that everyone LOVES!

Italian Chicken Pasta Salad 🇮🇹🍅🥒 Easy, ready in 20 minutes, and healthy! Bursting with fresh flavors from juicy tomatoes, cucumber, basil, parmesan, and tender chicken tossed in a tangy lemon vinaigrette!

Quinoa, Cherry, and Goat Cheese Salad 🍒🌿 tastes like a salad you’d get at a from Whole Foods or a trendy restaurant! Healthy, EASY, and loaded with juicy cherries, tangy goat cheese, snap peas, mint, and more! The PERFECT light yet satisfying salad with so many great flavors!

Lime Cilantro Shrimp and Black Bean Salad 🍤🥑 features tender juicy shrimp, black beans, avocado, cilantro, and more coated in a lime sauce that’s a FIESTA in your mouth!! An EASY and HEALTHY Mexican-inspired salad that’s ready in 10 minutes!

Tomato and Mozzarella Pesto Pasta Salad 🌿🧀🍅 Tender pasta, cherry tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella are coated in Parmesan cheese and DELICIOUS pesto sauce! EASY, ready in 15 minutes, and great for easy meals with planned leftovers or for parties because it feeds a crowd!

Cucumber Watermelon Salad 🥗🍉🥒 An EASY salad with watermelon, cucumber, arugula, goat cheese, candied nuts, and drizzled with a homemade balsamic glaze! A PERFECT summer salad for those days when it’s too hot to cook!

Southwest Chicken Cobb Salad 🥗🧀🍅🌽 A Southwestern spin on traditional Cobb salad complete with tender chicken (use rotisserie to save time and not cook), crispy bacon, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, black beans, corn, and avocado over a bed of Romaine lettuce!

Shrimp Stuffed Avocados 🍤🍅🥑 If you like ceviche, you’re going to LOVE these EASY avocados stuffed with a mixture of shrimp, tomatoes, cucumber, red onions, and more – plus some hot sauce for a touch of heat! There’s a time-saving shortcut so these are ready in 15 minutes with no fuss!

❤️🤍💚 My EASY Fresh Caprese Quinoa Salad is packed with fresh Italian flavors. You can mix and match the ingredients to use up any fresh produce you have on hand, making it great for summer potlucks, barbecues, and meal prep!

Nothing like a brush with death last October at age 49 from a highly acute, incredibly painful, and very freak health scare that resulted in emergency abdominal surgery to really scare me straight. I wrote about it here.

After spending the rest of the fall and holiday season recovering physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and putting aside the questions of how and why did this happen to me, I embarked on 2026 with all kinds of New Years “resolutions”, although I didn’t call them that and at the time, they weren’t well crystalized. I just knew I wanted to become the healthiest version of myself that I could be.

Coupled with the fact that my 50th birthday was just in June (5 weeks ago), it was the milestone birthday motivation that I needed to really dig down deep and that’s what I’ve spent 2026 doing.

The proof is in the pudding. I’ve dropped the midlife weight I didn’t love about myself and didn’t want to ‘just accept’ was part of midlife. And every single metric from my blood pressure to my sleep quality (read the Oura ring section if you’re into sleep talk) to my hormone levels are better than they were a year ago.

The irony is that I wasn’t living an unhealthy lifestyle before but I knew I could do better and be better. I have always eaten a balanced diet and have been a lifelong avid runner, walker, yogi, and into fitness and health.

But somewhere in the mix of perimenopause, getting married in my late 40s and getting comfortable, sending my only daughter off to college last fall, not having any work-life balance, I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wanted to change things about myself, my diet, my fitness and that’s what I did.

I’m sharing what has worked for me. A one-size approach never fits with diet and exercise so your situation, circumstances, and body will be different than me and mine.

However, I am sharing my perspective as a 50 year old woman rather than a 20something influencer fit girl. It’s easy to be fit in your 20s but it requires precision, dedication, discipline, and intentionality in your 40s, 50s, and beyond and I wanted to share a more ‘mature’ perspective because I feel it’s sorely lacking.

Side note: I’ve never looked or felt better than in the last 6 months when I’ve given up my hard core running and cardio and swapped it out for heavy lifting in the gym 3 times per week and walking 15k+ steps a day (not running) in addition to my dietary changes.

Take what you want and delete what doesn’t work for you. This is what has worked for me. Don’t be mean, don’t make excuses, don’t shoot the messenger. Thank you in advance.

Thank you for reading, being here, and what I love about this platform is that after 17 years of creating 3000 free recipes online and sharing them freely, I can actually write and share about other things that are tangential to recipes and share about my journey because I’m proud of it.

Eat more protein.

I’ve written about this before but quite simply put, eating between 0.7 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound (not kilo), of body weight is non-negotiable. For me, my bare minimum target is 100g daily but I feel better when I’m in the 110-130g range.

In your 20s and 30s, maybe even into your 40s, I believe the human body can compensate and get away with less (or more). A less than ideal diet, less sleep, less structure to meals, less intentional workouts, less skincare routine, more alcohol, more late nights, more vices, and you just kind of get by.

When I think back to one of my first apartment and what I “had on hand”, it’s comical and actually anxiety-provoking now. A tub of peanut butter and a box of Triscuits in my “pantry” and some grapes and Gatorade in my fridge and I didn’t bat an eye. I didn’t keep alcohol on hand because that would have involved planning for one, or more to the point actually buying it myself, but I was broke. However, aging is the great equalizer and you can’t pull the same stunts in any aspect of life - including with protein.

Protein helps me feel satisfied not snacky, it’s essential to preserve or build muscle, it helps me sleep better at night and function at a higher level during my waking hours in both my work and my workouts. My 30 High Protein Recipes ebook is clutch for easy meals with at least 30 grams protein per serving.

Just me grilling chicken and veggies which is my other job. 😉

Eat More Volume (aka Fiber)

In order to stay full, keep your digestion moving, feel more satisfied, and actually have to chew your food so you don’t just inhale a 500 calorie plate of pasta in 5 minutes, build meals that have lots of veggies or leafy greens in them.

There are so many Instagram reels out there comparing what 100 calories of veggies looks like vs. 100 calories of everything else. Madelaine Rascan is the queen of volume eating and inspires me. Watch, think, learn, change.

Planning meals.

In order to consume 100g+ protein daily, one must consume protein at every meal. You can’t subsist on carbs alone until 5pm and then slam 100g protein for dinner. It doesn’t work that way, shy of if you’re an NFL athlete with regard to the 100g protein at a sitting.

You have to plan our your meals and have a mental map of where you’re going for each meal and they all should include 30+ grams of protein or you’re not going to be successful.

I’ve got a roundup post with these 15 High Protein + High Fiber Recipes with a Mexican Flair.

And there’s this 15 recipe High Protein + High Fiber Recipes with Beans roundup.

I figured out a framework for how to eat.

When I think about what I’m going to eat any particular meal, I always start with my protein source and then build everything around that. I cover this more below.

Protein first, then all the vegetables I want and crave. Sometimes fruit for breakfast or snacks, especially when it’s warm.

I avoid processed carbs including bread, pasta, rice. They’re heavy, they don’t serve my body (they may serve yours, only you know); I’m gluten sensitive, they mess with my digestion, and if I am going to eat processed carbs, I’ll just go for cake, not bread. So that plan makes my meals really simple. It’s not that I never eat them, but I don’t plan them into my meals.

For that carby feeling, roasted sweet potatoes or kabocha squash are my favorites because they’re nutrient dense.

Not Eating What My Spouse or Child is Eating Just Because They’re Eating It

Your body, nutritional needs, goals, and everything else is unique to you. Not sure why we ever thought that we should all be eating the same. We probably shouldn’t.

Eating as much and the same types of food (tacos, carbs, repeat) that my spouse enjoys took me into a 20 pound weight surplus that crept in slowly over the last 6 years. It works for him, it was not working for me.

He’s a grown man and can make his own food if he doesn’t want to eat what I’m eating. He can go out, order takeout, go on a water fast, enter a pizza eating contest, I really don’t care. It took 6 years for me to come to this place that I don’t have to be responsible for him, he’ll be fine. Same for my 19 year old daughter, although she’s on my plan overall and is easy to cook for when she’s home from college.

But I’m not going to eat what my husband eats, just because he’s eating it, because it doesn’t serve my body, my needs, or my goals properly. It actually over-serves me on fat, calories, and carbs; and underserves me on protein, fiber and real nourishment that I need. As women, we need to let go of this mentality that we’re the same and eating the same is perfectly fine. Or I did at least because in my case it wasn’t working.

Are you cooking separate meals? Hell no you’re not. He and your kids can eat what you eat! Your grown spouse can make his own food, or if you really want to be “nice” about it, you can ‘adapt’ some of the things you’re going making to still suit what he likes without going too out of your way. Watch Madalaine’s video for inspiration.

Eating the same (sometimes boring) meals over and over.

Eliminate the guesswork, eliminate the ‘what am I going to make for dinner tonight’ question because I already know. I’ve got a half dozen recipes I make but again, when the bulk of my plate is grilled chicken and veggies, there isn’t tons of need for all these “recipes”. The irony of being a food blogger and having created 3000+ original recipes and now I am here in my health and life journey isn’t lost on me.

When I listen to interviews, view reels, or read articles written by those who are very fit, very health conscious, and have physiques that I want to emulate, and have mental toughness, and an approach to life that creates success and that’s contagious in the best possible way, one common theme is eating things on repeat.

If this isn’t for you because you want “variety”, that’s great. You do you.

I’ve done that whole it’s Wednesday night at 6pm and I’m starving, nothing prepped, no idea what I’m making because I thought I wanted “more variety this week” and didn’t plan properly.

But the truth is I’m grumpy, my spouse and/or child are even grumpier, and the temptation to eat out (expensive, unhealthy, and I’ll never hit my protein goal anyway) creeps in. ←— I’d rather have meals on repeat than that.

I’m not saying that I am eating the exact same thing day in, day out. However, there’s a pattern to my recipes for my meals.

The rest of this post is for paid subscribers only. I cover my protein source go-to’s, my framework for creating recipes, favorite recipes I eat on repeat, how I measure and track my food exactly, and lots of behind-the-scenes photos and videos.

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The Easiest Blueberry “Pie” Ever

Crustless Blueberry Pie 🫐💜💙 A FAST, no-mixer, crustless pie that’s perfect for summer entertaining, picnics, or potlucks! Somewhere in between pie, cake, and blondies is what you get with this FABULOUS blueberry dessert recipe! Take advantage of those FRESH blueberries! One of my most popular blueberry recipes of all time.

Muffins To Munch On

Healthy Blueberry Muffins 🫐💜💙 These skinny blueberry muffins are made with Greek yogurt instead of butter, and there’s only a little vegetable oil and sugar in these. Don’t worry, these don’t taste like health food or that they’re missing anything at all!

Moist Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins 🫐👌🏻⭐️ are hands down the best homemade blueberry muffins EVER! They’re fluffy and moist thanks to the addition of sour cream in the batter. Not to mention they’re bursting with fresh blueberry flavor. These are bound to be your new favorite muffins!

If you like to eat just the tops of your muffins, you’re going to LOVE this EASY recipe for soft and tender Blueberry Muffin Tops! 💙 Bursting with juicy berries in every bite and anly 1/2 cup sugar in the entire batch!

No-Mixer Quickbreads That Are Actually Quick

🫐🙌🏻😋 Blueberry Zucchini Bread is a quick, no-mixer recipe that’s sweet, but not too sweet. Each bite is bursting with fresh blueberries, making it a fan favorite EVERY summer! Especially when the markets or your garden is overflowing with zucchini!

Blueberry Banana Zucchini Bread 🫐🍌🙌🏻🍞 is an easy quickbread recipe that’s packed with bananas + juicy blueberries + zucchini! A perfect way to use everything up and I guarantee this will become a new favorite quickbread!

🫐🍌🍞 Brown Sugar Blueberry Banana Bread is super moist, slightly tangy, loaded with blueberries in every bite, and balanced with a touch of dark brown sugar. Smear some of the homemade blueberry butter onto a slice, and prepare to fall in love!

Bars, Crisps, and Crumbles To Impress

These Blueberry Pie Bars 🫐💙💜 are one of my all-time favorite blueberry dessert recipes! You can even use frozen blueberry recipes if you don’t have fresh blueberries. These bars have the flavors you love in a blueberry pie, but are so much EASIER than pie because there’s no pie crust to make. A true reader favorite with 800+ 5-star reviews! ⭐️

🫐💙 These EASY Blueberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars are buttery and packed with blueberry flavor! They have a perfect chewy meets crispy texture from the oatmeal crust and crumble topping with soft berry filling in the middle! They take just 10 minutes of prep and then go straight into the oven. So quick to make and a crowd pleaser every time! Either fresh or frozen berries are fine.

🫐🙌💙 My EASY Blueberry Crisp is finished with a crunchy oat topping that’s impossible to resist! This fruit crisp is delicious as is, but you could also serve it with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Cakes To Crave

🫐 Blueberry Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping is an EASY, no-mixer cake studded with juicy blueberries and topped with big buttery streusel nuggets that are just SO GOOD! Not overly sweet, it’s PERFECT with a cup of coffee for breakfast, brunch, or a snack!

Glazed Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake 🍰🍋🫐 Almost more berries than cake in this soft, fluffy lemon blueberry bundt cake! The tart lemon glaze is plate-licking delish!

Blueberry Cream Cheese Cake 🍰 is a light and tender blueberry sponge cake stuffed with tangy-sweet cream cheese filling and bursting with juicy blueberries in every bite! An EASY, no-mixer cake recipe that’s sure to be a family FAVORITE!

Blueberry Muffin Pancake Cake 🎂🥞🫐is a fast and easy cake that tastes like a big buttermilk pancake that ran into a blueberry muffin on the way to the oven. It’s fluffy, tender, and moist from both the buttermilk and sour cream that’s incorporated into the batter!

Breakfast and Brunch To Savor

Blueberry Dutch Baby Pancake Recipe 🫐🥞😍 This oven-baked pancake has the chewiness of crepes with the thickness of clafoutis, and making it is as easy as making pancake batter! Because it’s baked, there’s no need to stand around flipping pancakes!

Soft and Fluffy Dairy-Free Pancakes with Blueberries 🥞 are healthier pancakes that are soft, fluffy, and light! I load these up with blueberries, but you can tailor this recipe to suit your preferences!

Blueberry Baked Pancakes 🫐 🥞Craving pancakes but not the work of standing at the stove flipping them? Make these EASY oven baked pancakes with only THREE ingredients!! Perfect for weekend brunch or as a make-ahead weekday breakfast!!

Overnight Blueberry Waffle Casserole 🫐😋 Chopped blueberry frozen waffles are layered with a brown sugar and cream cheese mixture before adding more blueberries! A creamy CUSTARD mixture is poured over top, followed by a buttery brown sugar streusel topping. There’s so much wonderful flavor in every bite of this MAKE-AHEAD breakfast casserole!

🍁🥞🫐 Pumpkin Dutch Baby Pancake with Blueberries is a family favorite! We’re talking about just one big oven-baked pancake, so there’s nothing to stand around waiting to flip! The batter is made in the blender, making this the EASIEST pancake ever! Gluten-free and dairy-free options provided.

The Star of Your Holiday Table!

🫐🍷Move over boring cranberry sauce and make Red Wine Cranberry and Blueberry Sauce instead! Cranberries are so much better with blueberries and wine! Make your own fresh cranberry and blueberry sauce in 30 minutes. It’s so EASY, and everyone LOVES it! People write to me every year and tell me it was the best thing at the Thanksgiving and Christmas meal - not kidding.

Teriyaki Salmon Bowls Are a Healthy Powerhouse

Protein + Veg + Carb in One. These salmon bowls are the perfect meal-in-one with protein, carbs, and vegetables served altogether. We’re talking teriyaki glazed salmon that’s spooned over a fragrant bed of jasmine rice and then topped with crisp carrots and cucumber, hearty shelled edamame, creamy avocado slices, nutty sesame seeds, and fresh green onions.

It’s giving all the Whole Foods Fancy Hot Bar Recipes Vibes.

Homemade Teriyaki Sauce. It’s the MVP🏅of these Asian-inspired salmon and rice bowls. Use some of it to marinate pieces of salmon with before baking and the remainder is drizzled over everything in the bowl for savory, unami, crave-worthy perfection. You can use store bought which I discuss below in the recipe area.

30 Minutes and It’s Ready. The salmon bakes for just 12-15 minutes and during that time, prep the other ingredients. Use English cucumbers that don’t need to be peeled, a bag of shredded carrots saves time, toss a handful of frozen shelled edamame into a glass bowl with water for 5 minutes in your microwave. Use ready rice (frozen or microwaveable) to cut down on cooking time and effort (or just skip the rice and go low carb).

Use all the kitchen hacks and shortcuts you can!

Protein Packed. If you’re on a protein journey, this salmon bowl has you covered with about 44 grams per bowl!

Make sure to check out my High Protein Recipes book which is a great resource!

The recipe is for paid subscribers only so if you don’t see the recipe, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you for your support!

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La Valencia in La Jolla, California

When I was a little girl growing up in the midwest and I pictured southern California, I pictured sweeping views of the Pacific ocean and beach, palm trees, coastal elegance and sophistication.

Fast forward to just after my college graduation, I left the snow and cold behind, over 25 years ago at this point, moved to San Diego and have never looked back!

So when I think of something very Californian and even more niche, very San Diegan, it doesn’t get any more San Diego-inspired than La Valencia, located in La Jolla (coastal San Diego).

Fun Fact: My husband and I actually had our wedding reception at La Valencia three years ago!

The hotel originally opened its doors in 1926 and is celebrating their 100th anniversary with some fun offerings including their 1926 Social Club which is throwback to jazz, the Roaring 20s, along with great food and drink on their sprawling patio every Thursday evening in the summer. First come, first serve.

Such Lovely Food in a Lovely Setting

My friend met me at La Valencia and we had such a wonderful time catching up, sharing stories, and enjoying a three-course meal and some bubbles.

It was affectionately referred to as ‘Giggle Water’ back in the day. I thought that was so cute that it appeared that way on the menu.

The service was wonderful despite it being crowded and busy! Word has gotten out. A special shoutout to Christian and Jeremy who were so attentive and helped make the night even better.

No Matter The Trip, Use or Bring These!

I travel a lot and I never check a bag, not even on long trips or to Europe.

So I have to make the most of my carryon luggage which is: my suitcase + my overstuffed purse (there’s a reason it’s called the Never Full) OR backpack.

The items below are all things that I keep in my purse of backpack to have within reach on flights. Or they go into my suitcase which is in the overhead bin.

Bendy Travel Pillow - No more U-shaped collars around your neck! This one molds to you. Enough said. It’s sticking out of my purse in the photo above.

Earplugs that Work - Whether it’s on the flight itself or beyond, these protect against snoring spouses, overly chatty seatmates or the people around you having conversations so loudly, or the crying babies, the toddlers with the blaring video game, IYKYK. Or once you’re there the neighboring construction, leaf blowers and landscaping machines, noisy hotel rooms, or back home in your own house, these work! Multiple colors and each pair comes with various tips so you get the perfect fit for your ears. Put these in your cord organizer wallet below.

​Cord Organizer Wallet​ – Keeping all the cords, cables, and charging blocks organized is important on planes, in hotels, or Airbnbs and this one does the trick. I have the smaller size but recommend the larger size if you have a lots of cables/cords/blocks, i.e. more than 5 or so. Although see my next item to get away with bringing less.

All in One Charger for iPhone 15, 16, 17 + Watch or Earbuds​ – A great combo that charges EVERYTHING connected together to make for less messy cables.

One Charger For the US and North America, South America - Stop carrying all those chargers and blocks! Just get this one.

One Plug In/Charger For Everything for Europe - Going to Europe? Get this ONE thing. It’s just that simple.

Earbuds - Self explanatory for watching downloaded videos on my phone, listening to a book, music, or sometimes I’ll put on some really zen spa type music to try to get some sleep or relaxation.

The Holy Grail Makeup & Toiletry Kit - This is a knockoff of the Parallel brand which is $155 AND it’s always sold out. I have looked for years and years to consolidate ALL my makeup, hair, beauty, creams, pills, etc. into ONE kit for travel so that I am not lugging multiple bags in and out of hotel bathrooms and back to my suitcase.

This is a big, roomy kit and I love that all your products stay upright. Honestly best dupe ever and I truly love it. I traveled with it to Disney last week and it has changed my travel game. I have looked and looked for years and years and bought so many other dob kits, makeup, toiletry bags, it’s all here - forever. Super high quality and EQUAL to Parallel which I have it in the smaller $110 size but the Holy Grail as I call it is just so good.

​Best Backpack for Laptops + Stuff​ – Not only does it hold a fullsize laptop, it holds a ton of other things like your sweater for the plane, water bottles, all your family’s snacks (you’re stuck with the job, I know). Lots of compartments, great zippers, high quality. Honestly this is better IMO than a Tumi for a fraction of the cost. I’ve had mine since 2020 and still going strong.

The Little Fold Into Itself Backpack - Great for day trips, longer days when you have more than you can fit into a purse but don’t want a bigger or more structured backpack. This lives in my suitcase, always, just in case. I have the 24L and it’s perfect and light as a feather.

Lululemon fanny pack DUPE - Great when I need more space but don’t want to carry a purse and my running/walking belt (see below) is too small. Think Disney Day, museum day, sightseeing and exploring day. Easily fit your phone, battery pack to charge it, chapstick, small stick sunscreen, credit cards, bit of cash, keys, pack of gum, Tylenol, etc. A “long day out” of the hotel or Airbnb and exploring, this is great.

Running/Walking/Day Belt​ – This fits very close to your body (great when traveling to prevent pickpockets) and can hold chapstick, a full size large iPhone, ID, credit card, a little cash. I go for daily walks and runs with this, I’ve ran marathons with it, and have toured European churches where they say you can’t bring anything in. Super practical.

Compression Socks - Call me old, but if the flight is longer than 3ish hours, I am putting these on at the gate before I board because afterwards, I feel so much better. No puffy feet, ankles, legs. 3-pack for cheap - give one to your traveling companions, or put a second clean pair in your suitcase for the flight home.

Everyday Socks - Many trips involve sightseeing, tours, and lots of steps exploring or walking to and from your lodging to restaurants, and often it’s quicker to walk than to try to get a taxi or Uber if there’s congested city traffic. These are the perfect socks for your cute Adidas or casual yet comfy daytime shoes.

Blister-Free Socks - Don't let a blister ruin your da or your trip! I've tried so many socks for warmer weather months when my feet are hot, the weather is humid, and I’m more prone to blisters in my athletic or walking shoes - especially for those 10-20k steps days. The padding is just right, they're not too thick, not too thin, they work to prevent blisters. Slightly thicker than the above socks in the toe/heel areas.

Supportive Cute Sandals - I was so skeptical about these - like who wears sandals rather than comfy sneakers on a sightseeing-related trip - but an influencer friend wore these all over Italy exclusively on 20k steps days. So I was influenced.

I bought the tan pair (or on Zappos). Then I loved them so much I bought the pale minty aqua.

And then the black (or on Zappos) shown below. Hot Tip: Zappos has really good sales, lightning fast shipping, and super easy returns/exchanges and a loyalty program so your spending turns into points and money off later. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can link it to your Zappos VIP account to double your points (earning 2 points for every $1 spent). So when possible I get my shoes there!

Also let’s talk about the pants above. They’re the Ruti On The Loose Work Pants. I resisted buying them, I didn’t want to love them, but they’re unreal good. So good, and yes, worth it. Lightweight, don’t wrinkle easily, the comfiest pants ever that feel like you’re wearing nothing, elastic waist. I am almost 5’11” and I am in the regular length (not sure who wears tall?) and they hit me cropped like I wanted; waist is true to size, legs are gloriously roomy but the cut is flattering. They’re my new flight and travel day pants, 1000%. The top I have in about 10 colors, it’s this top, also true to size.

Airplane audio adapter - Especially useful for kids or those “addicted” to seatback entertainment. Rather than be forced to use those uncomfortable earphones that the airline passes out, to listen to the seatback shows or movies on flights with your own earbuds! This gadget plugs into the seatback and then with some bluetooth magic, you’re listening to the seatback entertainment but with your own earbuds or earphones.

Phone Power Bank Charger - You will burn through your phone battery by noon when you’re navigating walking with GPS, or trying to find a lunch spot that everyone can agree on, or trying to pull up yet another QR code for entrance to something, not to mention all those pictures and videos you’re taking. Get this for peace of mind with your phone battery life!

Kindle - If you’re an avid reader, get one. This one is at a great price, the battery lasts weeks, and you will adapt to it and come to love being able to “bring” so many books with you!

Pills & Supplement Case - Even if I was going to check a bag, I wouldn’t put my pills in checked baggage and this is perfect especially if you take collagen pills, probiotics, or bigger pills (and you need to take 3 to 6 of them per day) then you need this organizer. Magnetic, seals well, everything stays organized.

Zote Bar Soap - You may need to wash your socks, under garments, swimsuits, and maybe a shirt or two in your hotel shower or sink and this soap is great! No one in my family breaks out from it, yet it’s strong enough to clean your clothes, and in a solid bar formula so it doesn’t count as a liquid. I always have a bar of it in my suitcase.

Apple Air Tags - Stuff one in every suitcase you have! I also have cat collars with them just in case my cats get loose! Or dog collars.

Snacks, Supplements and Emergency Food

Prevent Jet Lag, Boost Immune System & Circulation - I’ve taken this twice now and it works as intended. The taste of the lemon-lime is lemony but not too sweet and it doesn’t have any shred of stevia flavor. I like that it has vitamins, also a bit of magnesium which is good for muscles and digestion too.

Clear Protein with Electrolytes - The ONLY protein powder that I’ve ever tried that ACTUALLY DISSOLVES without issue. Barely needed to stir it with a spoon. No shaker cups, no clumps, no undissolved blobs, these are elite. I travel with them, I love them, I get a cup of water from a Starbucks or the first place I see when I get off an airplane, add a packet, and drink. Not only is there protein, but there’s also electrolytes which save me from altitude or travel-induced migraines, headaches, and just feeling off. Does not upset my stomach at all. Also great for early mornings when you don’t want “creamy”, chocolaty, or heavy traditional protein. I also have a link through the Arrae website and if you’re willing to sign up for autoship, it gets a lot cheaper.

Calm Magnesium - If you struggle with digestion and not feeling regular on trips, make sure you take magnesium at night! It helps everything move along. Separately, it’s great for muscles, and sleep! Helps your body relax so you can get the rest you need.

Bloat Gummies - Feeling bloated and puffy and traveling, combined with restaurant meals out and food that’s not in your usual wheelhouse, these little gummies are great. Keep a couple in an old pill container or small ziplock in your purse.

Favorite Probiotic - Along with helping digestion, this helps your immune support, respiratory support, and more - all of which is taxed more than usual when traveling.

Pills & Supplement Case - Even if I was going to check a bag, I wouldn’t put my pills in checked baggage and this is perfect especially if you take collagen pills, probiotics, or bigger pills (and you need to take 3 to 6 of them per day) then you need this organizer. Magnetic, seals well, everything stays organized.

Chomps - Rather than eating some random food I don’t really want when I’m out and about but need something to tide me over, I always have a Chomps in my purse - or two - for family members who want to hone in on mine.

Amazing Meat Sticks - These are amazing, better than Chomps IMO but they are about half the size, which may or may not be helpful. They’re so flavorful, juicy not dry, highly recommend them. I usually have 1-2 of these + 1-2 Chomps at all times in my purse for flights and while I’m on my trip, depending on the day and what we’ll be doing.

Quest Birthday Cake Protein Bars - 20 grams protein, 12 grams fiber (which is about HALF of your recommended daily fiber intake in 1 bar so IMO they could be also sold as high fiber bars!), 1g sugar. When I travel, sometimes I just want something that tastes like home and for me, this is it AND I get a huge protein + fiber boost for 180 calories.

Aloha Bars Variety Pack - Cleaner ingredients, more natural, and my daughter loves the peanut butter and I’m all about the cookie dough. The variety pack is a great place to start. No “frosting” or coatings on these so they stand up to being throw into the bottom of your purse and or weather really well.

Hair Tools So You Don’t Have To Rely on The Hotel or Airbnb

Compact Flat Iron​ – Love this thing. Very small but mighty! Extremely slim. It’s also great to keep in your gym bag, daughter’s after-school sports bag, or gift idea. Inexpensive at under $15 and powerful.

Collapsible Hair Dryer​ – 1875 watts so you don’t need to spent an hour drying your hair! The best compact dryer I have tried and it’s about 1/10th the price of a Dyson travel dryer! This is one of those travel essentials for anyone who needs a blow dryer and you don’t want to count on your hotel or Airbnb option - many seem barely functioning and take hours to dry your hair.

Going To Europe, South America, or Long Haul Trips

Passport Holder​ – Great quality, I bought one. Then I bought a few more for everyone in the family.

One Plug In/Charger For Everything for Europe - Going to Europe? Get this ONE thing. It’s just that simple.

European adapter + charger​ – If you only take one charger to Europe (or South America) or another locale that doesn’t use US-style outlets, this is your gadget.

The Suitcase I’ll Die On a Hill For + Packing Cubes

Best Suitcase EVER​ – Not a carry on but if you’re traveling, you need to know about this. I’ve tested the Away brand, Samsonite, Tumi, and this is the suitcase I’ll die on a hill for.

I’ve taken it to 3 continents over the last 10 years including a month’s worth of possessions for South America during the pandemic; 3 weeks in Europe in the summers of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and a variety of 2026 Europe trips. With just this and the Best Backpack I’m set for 3 weeks. This suitcase is expandable, and it’s a CARRY-ON, and the wheels are stationary.

It’s super high quality, it has so many pockets and compartments, it’s just a super solid piece of luggage. My daughter and I both have had our suitcases for 10 years and they’re still going strong with tons of travel later. Suitcases, like purses or wallets, are very personal and for me, this is so much better than a Tumi based on the actual available interior size compared with the exterior footprint.

Best of all, it fits in overhead bins on domestic airlines like Southwest (sometimes the bins can be smaller) and it fits in the overhead bins when traveling on long haul flights internationally. Let’s say you thought you were flying Delta (bigger overhead bins) but really it’s an AirFrance codeshare flight or, this fits.

If you prefer this suitcase with 4-swiveling wheels, it exists. I personally don’t like it when all four wheels move because I think it’s harder to wheel over cobblestones and it may roll with a mind of its own while on trains or buses when you don’t want it to, but wheels are personal preference.

Packing Cubes - If you still aren’t using them to organize AND maximize space in your suitcase, you’re missing out. Hop on the packing cube train. I’ve stretcheddddd these to their max capacity for 3+ years now, this exact set, all over Europe and South America, and they’re perfect. Zippers intact, no rips.

Tell me what you don’t leave home without?

Housekeeping Detail: Before we getting started talking about books, I want to remind you that today is the last day of the Amazon Prime Days Sale.

I just created a post with What I Put In My Cart and Bought, made a Reel, and last week I shared some of my Favorite Deals and Why I Recommend Them!

My Brutally Honest Book Reviews

I keep all of my books I’ve read on my Amazon Book Page! I wish I had time to update another platform like Goodreads but I don’t.

Here we go….

Whistler - 5/5 stars AMAZING LOVED IT! Along with Buckeye and Strangers, this is one of my very few 5 star reads of 2026.

Ann Patchett wrote it AND narrated Whistler so it was especially perfect. Reminds me of when Julia Whelan narrated her own, My Oxford Year, which is currently Free on Kindle Unlimited.

Whistler is a story of a chance encounter of a grown woman and her husband randomly encountering the woman’s stepfather who was only a part her life for a few years in her childhood. This is a story of family, of loss, of what could have been, yet to be reminded that what we do have is beautiful. I cried, I thought about my own family, choices, my mortality, my childhood, my adulthood, just such a wonderful book. I had a few 25k step walks listening to Ann Patchett because she is a master storyteller, a creator of characters so real you feel like you know them. I didn’t want this book to end. I laughed, I cried, I thought about my life, my choices, how one seemingly small choice can affect so many things, with ripple effects for decades.

One of my favorite lines of the book - and it was mentioned a few times and a few ways - was something to the effect of that you really have no idea what’s going on in someone’s relationship or behind closed doors. And isn’t that the truth. You will LOVE this book.

And if you haven’t read her Tom Lake, which is narrated by none other than Meryl Streep, run and download that too.

This Story May Save Your Life - 4/5 stars. A thriller with some romance aspects, it follows a couple of friends (a man and a woman) who are podcasters. And the woman’s husband disappears and turns up dead. It’s a whodunnnit type of thriller with some twists and turns that kept me guessing. Listening to it because of the podcast element to it is the way to go.

If you want more in this thriller + podcast plot, definitely check out Listen For the Lie (currently FREE on Kindle Unlimited) and None Of This Is True.

Yesteryear - 4/5 stars. Long review, lot to say! This is a really hard review to write because I am very conflicted about the book. To preface how eagerly anticipated this book has been, it was contracted to be made into a movie before the book even came out (4/7) starring Anne Hathaway. I think the movie could be good but rarely do I watch movies based on books because they don’t tend to live up to the book or things are drastically different, etc.

Back to the book, we follow an influencer who amasses a huge following on Instagram showcasing her life as a tradwife. Meaning, she is a good Christian woman, says yes to her husband, has a lot of kids, loves to make her own bread, you know the woman. But I actually kind of hated her. Not that she’s a tradwife, but that she seemed to really hate both her followers and her children. And I couldn’t really get past that. There were sections in the middle that were really hard to listen to for me because of the contempt she seemed to have for both. My finest days were the ones I spent parenting my now 19 year old when she was younger and so it made me kind of sad to hear her talk about her children and her followers too.

There’s also a past-present theme going on, and in the beginning of the book, I was really confused, I still kind of am. The one thing this book DOES do very well is talk about what modern feminism looks like, what does it mean to be a woman, a wife, a tradwife, a mother, there’s all of that. The narration was good, although I am not a fan of this narrator. She also narrated Heart The Lover (another book I didn’t really love too much despite the hype, thought it was boring and plain with some weird stuff mixed in) and this book also had weird stuff. I can see why the narrator narrated both if that makes any sense. This may be one of those books you just have to read to see for yourself and I can see people totally and completely loving this book - or not. It would make a great book club book and I read it for that reason (have not met yet to discuss).

The Measure - 3.5/5 stars. I had originally given this 4/5 stars but nearly 2 months later, it feels less memorable to me. The premise of the book is, if you knew how long your life would be, would you want to know? Would it change how you live the life you have? Would you do anything differently? My criticism with this book is that it felt very lengthy and points and I don't feel like it needed to be that long to get the point across. This is a great book club book! And I would definitely want to know, and all the details, surprise me? Nah, tell me.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon - Volume 1. FREE on Kindle Unlimited. 3/5 star range for me and I guess I don’t get the hype with this series. It's fine, but not that interesting, and felt very provincial and simply not too exciting. If I'm going to read historical fiction, I want to really dig into some historical fiction.

Perhaps the Emma journals get better? For me, one was enough. I’ve got a TBR a mile long and more books than time, so after one I am moving on. One good thing is that these books are very short so if you either want a short book OR you have a goal for the year of X number of books, and just need something to add so you can check it off, this will suffice.

Mafia Series: Book 1 Mafia Mistress and Book 2 Mafia Darling - Both FREE on Kindle Unlimited. If you read Book 1, you’re going to want to read Book 2. After that, you don’t have to keep going in the series, it ends at a point you can put them down.

These are extremely spicy books. 10000/10 level spice 🌶️. I almost hesitate to even share these! Some would call this smut but another influencer I follow calls these types of books BRADS (Beach Reads After Dark) and she mentioned this book so I gave it a whirl.

There's every crazy thing you can imagine in this book including kidnapping, the Italian mafia, murder, money laundering, drug running, a gay character, the leading man about 25 years older than the leading lady, and the spice factor is more than anything I’ve ever read. You may feel like you need to smoke a cigarette or a cold shower after some of it. You basically have to read the 2nd book after this one, but after that you're done. Books like this one are why Carly Fortune type of books (below) are forever ruined for me (snore-bore).

Our Perfect Storm 2.5 or 3/5 This may be an unpopular review but it was soooo predictable for me, very boring, with a couple common tropes including friends to lovers and forced proximity. We follow Frankie (a woman) who almost got married to a guy but he called off the wedding. And when her best friend, George, gets wind of it, they take a trip together - what should have been Frankie's honeymoon, but she went with George instead. You can see where this is going. If you're looking for a very mindless (and v predictable) beach or vacation read (or in my case, working on pull ups and lifting as heavy as I possibly can in the gym with a slightly wandering mind as I listened), this will be perfect for you. In total transparency, I'm not a big Carly Fortune fan. One Golden Summer was "fine" but Meet Me At The Lake, meh not for me. If you're a Carly fan, this is in her lane and wheelhouse and you know what you’re getting into.

Dolly All The Time - 5/5 stars! In contrast to the book above, this is a romance and while there’s predictability, it’s just a winner! I want to be Dolly in my next lifetime because there are some Cinderella story vibes and I’ve always wanted to be Cinderella! We watch how things unfold with Dolly and Stuart, who’s a super rich, good looking, businessman and their chance meeting and how things play out from there. The writing is great, it’s funny, there are points where I cried, I felt really attached to the characters and their lives. And it deals with characters in their 40s with real lives, kids, being a single parent, financial challenges, taking care of family and family struggles - all the things that made the book more relatable for me than some other more typical summer beach read type romances.

Watched: Heated Rivalry. I normally don’t watch much between my work computer screens, screentime with social media for both work and personal, I just don’t have enough hours in the day for more screentime. But I watched this on some long flights with a privacy screen on my phone (I had been warned)! It’s about hockey players, taboo relationships, and what happens behind closed doors off the ice. Only 6 one-hour episodes so it was enough for my flights there and back and glad I saw what all the hype was about. I give it a 5/5 stars because I was very entertained and always root for the relationship that makes someone happiest, whatever that looks like.

On my TBR and Pre-Order: Crash Into Me! Because The Idea of You was a 5 star read for me and it’s currently FREE on Kindle Unlimited.

It’s that time of year: Amazon Prime Days with fantastic savings on things you may need to replenish, stock up on, or that you’ve had your eye on.

Because I have access to early deals and info about what may be going on sale from June 23-26, I’m sharing items that are either already on sale.

Or that I have very good reason to believe WILL go on sale on Tuesday the 26th. In this case, I add things to my Amazon cart now and then on Tuesday I buy what I want based on how the price is looking. I don’t a crystal ball of course and things can always change.

If you don’t shop on Amazon, hey that’s great. I am still sharing these deals because I do. And I love a good sale and many of my readers also appreciate the hot tips. So let’s get to it!

I also popped all of this and more into my Prime Day Deals Storefront for easy reference.

Deals on Kitchen Items

Best Nonstick Pan (for egg especially!) - 23% off! I use this for eggs. No oil necessary. They have sets if you need other nonstick pans, but if you only need a pan for a few eggs, the 8-inch is perfect.

Best Stainless Steel Skillet With Lid from All-Clad - If you buy ONE PAN to use for the rest of your life, this is the one! I’ve had mine for 13 years and it never fails.

Cosori Air Fryers - If you want one, this one is great. But if you want one that will last a decade or more and is just the GOAT of air fryers, this stainless steel is the granddaddy of them all. Love mine!

Lodge Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven - A fraction of the price of Le Crueset and so functional! Also a 7.5-quart larger size and a braising pan. If you need versatile cookware that will last a lifetime if you take care of it AND that’s on sale, this all weighs in far above its paygrade.

Crock-Pot - Everyone needs at least one and this one is easily portable.

Vegetable Chopper - A cult favorite and they have an XL model too.

GE Profile Nugget Ice Maker - I had my last model for 5 years before I just recently got this one. The best! Lasts longer than any built-in fridge ice maker ever has for me.

Single Serve Keurig - Use mine daily! Indispensable every morning.

Ninja Cremini - Make ice cream at home. With 16k reviews, lots of people are loving this little gem.

Food Scale - If you’re weighing your ingredients for a recipe OR you’re tracking your food, you need a scale. I weigh almost all my proteins that I consume, especially my lunch and dinner, because while I can eyeball things, I like to know, to make sure I’m consuming what I think I’m consuming, and not just guessing. I track using the Lose It app.

Health & Beauty, Skin Care, Makeup & Hair Deals

TIP: In this category especially, some things will only go on sale from 6/23-6/26 so you can add to your cart now, and buy it then. Some things will sell out!

Loreal Telescopic Mascara - My daily go-to mascara and I’ve stopped using designer overpriced mascara. This one and the one below work great.

Maybelline Sky High Mascara - Solid mascara that I use and 60% OFF!

Lash Serum - Not just hype, this stuff works, period. My favorite brand! This will go on sale by Tuesday.

Whitening Strips - Luminex whitening strips that work and don’t cause sensitivity!

Whitening Trays - Prefilled with 15% concentration and very effective.

Retinol Treatment - Says acne, but it’s the best retinol! My plastic surgeon recommended it and told me to stop buying anything else. Cheap and very effective for fine lines, wrinkles, and skin texture.

Good Cheap Moisturizer - Fragrance free, nongreasy, has collagen for plumping into fine line, just works as intended.

Vitamin C with Glycolic Serum - For sunspots, fine lines, and to improve skin’s coloration and appearance, this is the ticket.

Favorite Shampoo + Favorite Conditioner - I always go back to this, it’s been a decade plus, and it works for me so well.

Digital Bathroom Scale (for you, not your food). The BEST scale I’ve ever tried! Reminds me of the high end scale at my gym that personal trainers use and it scans your body. But this is done in your home and in two seconds with all your data.

Weight, body fat, BMI, visceral fat, muscle, bones, water, and more. You put an app on your phone (it’s super easy to install, no million user names and codes), open the app, it tells you to step on the scale, and in 2 seconds all your data is passed to your phone. And it saves it so the next time you step on the scale, it tells you which categories you’re up, down, and what percentage. Super helpful tool for me after not stepping on a scale in about 5 years.

Farmacy Green Clean - Cleansing balm that melts away makeup.

Sol De Janeiro - The BEST smelling and firming cream!

Sol De Janeiro Body Spray - I love this #68 so much too!

Elemis: Rose Cleansing Balm, Cleansing Balm, Marine Cream, Night Cream This line in general rarely goes on sale, it’s definitely high quality, and if you’re new to it now is the time to try it. And if you’re already a fan, restock now to save!

K18 - Rebuilds even the most damaged hair. This stuff works miracles and I truly swear by it. My stylist told me about it years ago and I always add it to my wet hair post-washing and then just leave it in, that’s it. Just to the more fragile pieces around my face. It restructures hair rather than just putting grease or shine on it - which this doesn’t do that - no greasy hair from this.

EltaMD - Amazing sunscreen for the face that my derm recommended years ago. Lasts, doesn’t sweat off, doesn’t sweat into your eyes, I can run a literal marathon in this and it’s still FINE and my face is protected.

Collagen and Biotin Pills - Works as well as products twice or triple the price and you only need to take two a day, not a half dozen like with many brands. I’ve seen great skin texture improvement, longer lashes, better stronger nails, definitely recommend these.

Probiotics for Gut Health - They work for better digestion and GI health.

Probiotics for Women - These are life-changing especially if you’re prone to imbalances or infections, enough said.

Makeup Brush Cleaning “Bucket” and Brush Cleaning Solution - I cleaned my brushes and my daughter’s the other day (it had been way too long, you don’t even want to know) and this little bucket is key because it has a textured base so do this in kitchen sink with lots of running water and watch what comes out.

Clear Protein with Electrolytes - The ONLY protein powder that I’ve ever tried that ACTUALLY DISSOLVES without issue. Barely needed to stir it with a spoon. No shaker cups, no clumps, no undissolved blobs, these are elite. I travel with them, I love them, I get a cup of water from a Starbucks or the first place I see when I get off an airplane, add a packet, and drink. Not only is there protein, but there’s also electrolytes which save me from altitude or travel-induced migraines, headaches, and just feeling off. Does not upset my stomach at all. Also great for early mornings when you don’t want “creamy”, chocolaty, or heavy traditional protein. I also have a link through the Arrae website and if you’re willing to sign up for autoship, it gets a lot cheaper.

Streaming and Small Electronics on Sale

Firestick - HALF off! Say no more.

Roku - Great price here too.

Ring Indoor Camera - HALF off!

Ring Doorbell Camera - HALF off!

Amazon Fire Tablet - Cheap! 45% off!

Kindle - Paperwhite at a fantastic price.

Apple Air Tags - Stuff one in every suitcase you have! I also have cat collars with them just in case my cats get loose! Or dog collars.

Apple Air Pods - Get them at the lowest price of the year.

Anker Slim Power Bank - Mag charger that’s the real deal especially on trips. It’s slimmer and lighter weight than the one below.

Portable Anker Charger - This is the beast of travel chargers. A little bulkier and heavier but really works to charge dead phones fast.

Oura Ring - I love love love this thing! There’s also a Series 5 which is new and I love it even more. I’ve written about the Oura ring and why I love it here.

Dorm or Apartment Move In (or House)

Hotel quality bed pillows - SO impressed with these bed pillows that I’ve since replaced them on my actual bed at home!

Towel set - Much higher quality than I was expecting! I’ll buy these for my house when it’s time to replace towels.

Sheets - Great quality for the price and I’ve bought these for guest beds and my own bed in a vacation home.

Foam mattress topper - My daughter loved, loved, loved this mattress topper and frequently told me how comfortable her dorm bed was because of it!

Pink moving bags and blue moving bags - I cannot tell you HOW much these saved our moving day. I would recommend these for anyone who is moving rather than cardboard boxes for nonfragile items. The pink ones are slightly bigger than the blue ones. Do not hesitate, they are so worth it for any move!

Dolly - Hauling just got easier.

Door stopper - Don’t overlook a heavy duty door stopper because you simply need to keep the doorway clear and door propped open.

Tool set - Indispensable for furniture assembly.

Desk chair cover - Highly recommend this if you want to mask the appearance of ugly black desk chairs not to mention feels more ‘sanitary’ than sitting on a chair that many before you have sat on

Desk hutch - Maximizes desk space by a landslide! One of those items I wasn’t sold on until I saw it in place

Bedskirt - Hides all the precious possessions (aka junk) under the bed!

Area rug - Very soft and instantly spruces up and softens very commercial looking spaces.

Stick vacuum - Dyson copycat and if you can’t afford Dyson, this one is 75% cheaper and works just fine.

Air purifier - With all that recycled dorm room air or small space air without much ventilation, anything to help freshen things and prevent colds/flus is a win.

Power strip, power strip tower, Command strips - Hanging stuff on walls without causing damage and a damage fee upon move out is key.

Travel Related

Bendy Travel Pillow - No more U-shaped collars around your neck! This one molds to you. Enough said.

Packing Cubes - If you still aren’t using them to organize AND maximize space in your suitcase, you’re missing out. Hop on the packing cube train. I’ve stretcheddddd these to their max capacity for 3+ years now, this exact set, all over Europe and South America, and they’re perfect. Zippers intact, no rips.

One Charger For the US and North America, South America - Stop carrying all those chargers! Just get this one.

One Plug In/Charger For Everything for Europe - Going to Europe? Get this ONE thing. It’s just that simple.

Noise canceling ear plugs - Sleeping is hard enough for me, on vacations or trips it’s even harder. These help!

Airplane audio adapter - Rather than be forced to use those uncomfortable earbuds the airline passes out to listen to the seatback shows or movies on flights, this converts it so you can use your own earbuds!

Pills & Supplement Case - If you take collagen pills, probiotics, or bigger pills (and you need to take 3 to 6 of them per day) then you need this organizer. Magnetic, seals well, everything stays organized.

The Holy Grail Makeup & Toiletry Kit - Also in the above health/beauty section, but putting it in Travel too because it’s that good!

Anker Power Bank - This charger is the real deal especially on trips.

Portable Charger - Lightning connection, lightweight.

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