Search results
83 results found.
83 results found.
Earlier last week my friend Elisabeth and I drove down the scenic California coastline on highway 1, for my pregnancy announcement shots in the Mazda CX9 that was loaned to me for the week. But you know who had to be the first passenger? Alfie — of course. He always is. Little smiley pup! I love it when I take him on adventures and he has this huge smile on his face.
After we were done shooting the pregnancy announcement photos (I loved how they turned out! There’s tons posted on my Instagram), I drove us up to Pescadero which is a tiny town of less than 700 people.
The Mazda CX9 was a great ride to bring down highway 1. Look how fancy it is inside, too!
Pescadero has a sweet little downtown area with a handful of spots to check out, like the new Pescadero Flowery where I bought a bouquet of dried lavender that smells up the entire room its in, so relaxing! There’s only one coffee shop, and it’s called Downtown Local, and it certainly stands out — inside anyway. It’s definitely a bit funky looking inside with its wonky antiques that you can’t help but explore and check out.
While I was at the coffee shop I changed from my off-the-shoulder top (because it was flippin’ up over my shoulders when I was driving and: annoying!) into a prAna penelope pullover from their fall line. prAna sent that and the jeans I’m wearing in the photo above. Pretty sure the pullover is going to be my go-to until my spiffykerms baby can’t fit into it anymore. It’s super soft and isn’t tight or uncomfortable anywhere — it’s perfect for this time in my pregnancy right now.
Wearing:
prAna penelope pullover
prAna Kara jean (colour: denim)
Target pink slip-ons (faux suede)
Google Moto 360 smart watch
Banana Republic clutch (10+ years old)
I am obsessed with decaf iced lattes lately. And not due to pregnancy— I just love’em!
I’ve only been to Pescadero once before, and it was when my Husband introduced it to me (on my birthday, back in May actually!). He goes there pretty much every weekend as a pitstop along the way when he does his billion hour bicycle journey with friends every Saturday. So he’s quite familiar with the area. I bought a chocolate chip scone back on my birthday at the Arcangeli Grocery/Norms Market and it was delicious (and I don’t even love scones), and sure enough you betcha I bought another there last week too. Mmm!
Make sure to check out Elisabeth‘s post of Pescadero — she did an awesome job showing where you should explore!
Use code: GHSK5 for 15% off your prAna purchase until October 5, 2017.
Disclaimer: I was sent these two articles of clothing from prAna for review.
Although my birthday was a few weeks ago, I can’t help but smile at how awesome (yet simple!) it was. All I wanted to do was have a convertible for a week and cruise the town. And we did just that.
The shiny red convertible, Mazda MX 5 RF was “ours” for the week. But since there was a bit of a mishap with scheduling on the vehicle I ended up accepting the manual transmission one and then handed over the keys to my husband (with the company’s approval). You know that not only made his week, but made mine too since I got to be, well quite literally chauffeured around on my actual birthday haha! Best kind isn’t it!
On my birthday, as mentioned I had no other plans other than to relax and spend the day driving with Mr. Spiffykerms. We cruised down the California coastline on the scenic PCH (pacific coast highway). We stopped at a coffee shop in Santa Cruz that I found on yelp, and drank iced drinks in the sunshine.
It was flippin’ glorious and honestly one of the best birthdays I’ve had to date. Mainly because my husband was finally relaxing with me (I have no trouble relaxing lol) without a schedule or a plan in mind. We stopped at a beach, then continued exploring in the MX5, obviously with the top down at all times. A sweet taste of convertible life for 7 days. My goodness.
After trottin’ all over, we started filming some drone videos (see the video at the end of the post) right before sunset. Finished that up, and drove to a Mexican restaurant for some nachos (I’ve been craving Montana’s Nachos from Canada since for-ever… I can’t seem to find a tasty plate of nachos around here at all! lol).
And that’s it! The birthday adventure, with Mazda. :)
Because I’ve posted it a dozen places all over the internet already, it might be overdone. I still wanted to include it in this blog post though. The drone video! Although I said I had 20+ minutes of footage, there was definitely a lot more, I just roughly cut the clips and ended up with 20 minutes to cut down to a 59 second video. I thought it was neat. My husband did all the filming, and I edited the video together.
While blogging isn’t typically a run of the mill daily routine and set schedule, I thought I’d take a wee bit out of my week and show you the fun parts of being a blogger are. I swear, most days are spent all alone, workin’ the internets, stylin’ flatlays and coming up with collaborations and campaigns. And oh gosh, I do not take blogging for granted and it has its privileges. Especially these past few months where now I can make monetary compensation off what I have been doing for over 15 years as a hobby.You better bet I miss a bit of routine in my life. Not a week goes by where I don’t miss my old job and co-workers in Canada! If you want to see who I’ve partnered with to make this blog post come to life, please see the disclaimer towards the end of the post.
SEVENÂ O’CLOCK
06:45| I love waking up early when I know I don’t have to. Does that make sense for anyone else? I mean, I could sleep in, but think of the length of the day when I get up at the crack of dawn. I wake up and check my e-mail and social accounts on my phone for 15 minutes or so. Probably not the best thing to do when you first wake up but I love checking it! I know this might seem like an ungodly hour to wake up when I mention I work from home, but I tend to feel focused and most productive in the morning. It’s also nice waking up while my husband is still around in the house! He wakes up around this time daily for either commuting, or going to the swimming pool.
07:00 – 07:15| Get dressed and let Alfie outside for his morning walk. Come back inside and turn on my computer and immediately start playing some tunes on Google Play music (I prefer a bit of noise in the house). This is also when I clean up my desk, as it’s always a pile of grocery receipts / post-it-notes / mugs. I’m not a fan of working around clutter.
07:15 – 07:30| Some mornings I either drive to the town of Los Gatos for my famous CPR (lol…I know, the name of that drink kills me!) or head to McDonalds and grab an iced coffee. This isn’t an every day occurrence, and I definitely savor it when I drink my specialty drinks. I don’t like to have a ton to eat when I first wake up, so I’ll make an omelette as soon as I get home. On special occasions where I want a cool treat in the a.m. I’ll make an acai bowl topped with fruit and coconut chips. I’ve been going ham over this Nina Blender I was sent a few weeks ago (I vlogged about it here!). It’s the Ninja nutri bowl duo and perfect for frozen treats — I broke our other blender last summer by making too many açai bowls. Oops. One of these ‘jars’ is enough for two bowls — and I only use 1 frozen packet of açai from Trader Joe’s, the rest of the goodies inside the bullet is made up of frozen goods: blueberries, strawberries, 1 full banana chopped, and some milk. Boom. So good.
07:30– 08:10| This is when I sit back and relax, eat my banana + sip on ice coffee, and catch up on Snapchat, IG stories, YouTube videos and reading blog posts. I only allow myself 30-40 minutes for this otherwise I could easily sit there for hours. Clearly I seem to work best when I’m on a schedule of sorts.
08:10– 08:55| Hop in the shower and get ready for the day. Here are the contents of what I applied on my face this day: Tarte Maracuja Oil, It Cosmetics CC Cream (applied with a beauty blender), BECCA bronzer, Burberry blush, Tom Ford lip balm (that I bought from the Sephora VIB sale) and top it with Marc Jacob’s new mascara. Whooo wee it’s nice. Also, remember my fancy dyson hair dryer with hilarious pictures? I still use it. It’s annoying to store under the bathroom cabinet as I don’t want to twist the wires up so I’ve been leaving it unplugged on my counter. I’ve actually been having a bit of issues with the ground fault protection needing to be reset any time I turn on the dryer. I had a sunken feeling the first two times the dryer wouldn’t turn on. But my husband told me that perhaps the wiring in this place can’t handle such voltage. Anyway, just a little tidbit for you if you have/had that issue! Side-note: Like my agenda that’s half-showing? It’s a caviar leather planner from Cloth & Paper, it’s all-black-everything (because it has black hardware on the inside) and the perfect size. I really need to get crackin’ on my stationery favourites, either a post or a video — any preference?
08:55| I pop all my supplements and allergy pills to combat my hives. Yes, they’re still going on and no we still don’t know the reason. At this point (close to 2 years) they’re simply considered chronic. This is when I review my schedule for the day and list of goals I want to accomplish in my planner. Occasionally I’ll plan a breakfast/brunch date with another local blogger, pack up my laptop, planner and notebooks and head out to meet with them.
9:00|Â This is when I get some chores done. I start cleaning up the house and doing my daily clean-up, each day is different but this day IÂ vacuumed (every second day I’ll rotate between floors.
Today I vacuumed the stairs because I’m completely obsessed with this new Black + Decker pet vacuum (the mid-part is removable!!!! It’s perfect for getting into the crevices of stairs.
Then I empty the dishwasher, tidy up the kitchen, bring any clothes on the main floor up to the bedroom, and put away the clean laundry.
10:00| I’m a PR Manager with Canadian Beauty Bloggers network (say hi #BBloggersCA!), so at this time I check the inbox and reply to any e-mails that may come in during the day. After the tasks are done for the CBB’ers I continue working on spiffykerms blog posts and/or responding to comments / tweets / Instagram comments, and checking my own two e-mail accounts.
10:40| Take Alfie out for a lil’ piddle. I either make myself a mid-morning tea (always tetley), or fill up a glass of water. Trying my hardest not to consume caffeine every day. I now order decaf lattes at coffee shops, and going on 6 days without that buzz! Ha. Funny how you can get addicted, and I only started drinking coffee beverages 2~3 years ago.
11:00 – 12:30| If I’m not out with a friend for coffee/brunch or hanging with a pal, I’m usually writing blog posts at this time. I don’t write blog posts every day, if you’ve noticed I backed off from 5 posts a week, to 3. However, lately I’ve been blogging less — eep I want to get back to blogging regularly again. I find it’s easier to manage, as I am more careful with how I articulate things on my blog. I make sure the meta/keywords/SEO on the particular blog post is up to par.I change my top, in exchange for one that isn’t covered in pet hair, put on my Forever 21 corduroy jacket and head out the door. This day I was writing this exact post at my friend Elisabeth’s house on my Lenovo Yoga Book. I’ve been using my Lenovo for blogging on-the-go lately and I love how portable and light it is, it’s so handy to have and just shove in your purse!
12:45|Â Â I head back home and stop by Trader Joe’s to grab a salad and run any other errands I need to do (groceries, Daiso items: dish sponges, etc).
1:20| If I’m not writing another blog post, I’d probably be taking photos/flatlays for my Instagram, especially during this time when the lighting is perfect at my flatlay-taking-spot in our house. Sometimes this can take hours if I’m in the mood to stylize many products. It’s one of my favourite things to do lately. You might’ve noticed I cut back on how many blogs I post a week over the past few months. That’s intentional as I’m trying to focus more on quality content, narrowing in on my niche, and providing better value for my blog readers
2:00| There’s a 4.5 hour time difference between my Mom and I, and I talk to her pretty regularly on FaceTime. This is when I ring her up and hope she picks up for a chat to discuss what’s going on back home in Newfoundland.
3:00|Â Dreading the inevitable late afternoon crash I try and get as much done in the morning as possible. Like most, around 3:00pm is when I hit my slump so if I’m on the computer I walk away, make myself a snack, then check the mail and take Alfie for another piddle. My UPS guy usually comes around this time, so I’m often opening up PR parcels on Snapchat lol.
3:45| Pop back on the computer, check Instagram and reply to some comments, and check into YouTube to see if anyone posted any new videos (I’m addicted!) and watch one or two.
4:15|Â I’ve been turning off my computer and putting my phone on airplane mode for an hour a day, just to unwind and decompress. This is the time I’ll take Alfie out for a super long walk or if it’s raining I’ll literally get out those adult colouring books and giv’er, it’s surprisingly relaxing.
5:15|Â Sometimes my neighbour texts me for a walk with Alfie and her pup Nelly (and baby in tow!). Alfie’s girlfriend, Nelly? Alfie hates her… hahahahaah I’m serious too. It’s unfortunate situation really but seeing them two loud-mouth dogs together make me laugh.
6:15| I’ll unload the dishwasher and start preppin’ supper for us. One of the easiest recipes I make us is my “Fish Friday” meal which… I tend to serve on you guessed it… Thursdays. Just kidding. I really do make fish basically every Friday and I love it. I purchase boneless skinless salmon from Trader Joe’s and it’ll make 4 meals (two lunches for me when I save the left overs). All I do is plop’er on a sheet of parchment paper, coat both sides in a mixture of honey mustard, and yellow mustard. Boil a pot for basmati rice, and halfway through everything cooking I also lay out some broccolini (so much better tasting than reg. brocc), with salt/pepper/olive oil drizzle and boom, a tasty meal. Carb heavy yes, but sometimes I make it with the crunchy brown rice that Trader Joe’s sells… equally as nice.
6:35|Â Alfie gets pretty active around the time my husband gets home, so I’ll play fetch with one of his favourite toys :)
7:00 – 10:00|Â It varies of when I start my nightly routine. I’ve been removing my makeup with some Trader Joe’s micellar water makeup wipes, and washing with my ol’ faithful Purity by Philosophy cleanser. Then following up with my two aveda moisturizers that I reviewed a while back. They’re sooo good, and I’m using them so so so sparingly. Not too often, but 1-2x a week I’ll do a longer nightly routine with my skincare. This is when I whip out the Pixi beauty products with glycolic acid (both the serum and the glow tonic have it). When I do that, and pair my aveda moisturizer on top? Boom, unreal skin the next morning. I should do it every night, but I don’t want to… lol.
10:20| When I head to bed, I end the day the same way I start it, on my phone — a habit I should probably break but it’s the reality. And that’s it! A day in the life of me. One of the best parts of being a blogger is that no two days are the same, so it rarely feels stagnant. I spent this entire day writing down what my day looked like, but it will be completely different tomorrow I’m sure! I put in a lot of hours into this blog and social media to support our household (which I’m sure makes the tiniest dent… ha!).
I hope you enjoyed this detailed peek into my daily life!
Shop the post:
Disclaimer: Products shown in this post were sent for review, I was not paid or sponsored in any way for this post.