Friday Thoughts: Speedy Speed Style
Hey friends! It’s time to pop back in with a speed style Friday Thoughts post because I have so many crazy things to talk to you about. And also, these posts are my favorite. And also, you guys are AWESOME. Your comments on these posts are golden. I come back to them over and over when I need some ideas (and laughs).
Today I’m going through a bullet list of things that have been on my mind. It’s kind of a lot. But don’t be scared. AND DO NOT LEAVE ME HANGING. I need some help and advice and friendship and support and chocolate. So answer all my questions, dang it. 🙂 Especially #7. Thanks.
You can catch all past Friday Thoughts posts here.
1. Glasses Thoughts: I ordered my first-ever pair of glasses online at Zenni Optical (unsponsored, not affiliated with them in the least) after hearing how inexpensive it could be. I was scared (my prescription is pretty gnarly with a really high astigmatism). I had to measure my pupillary distance (gulp). I succeeded (awkward miracle). I have wanted a pair of clear-ish frames for a while and love them so much. I’ve never received so many compliments on glasses before. You can see them in these IGTV videos. Here’s the link to the frames I ordered.
2. How to Teach Kids to Read Thoughts: my days of teaching kids, at least my own kids, to read are past (and it makes me kind of sad). With all five of my kids, I used this old school, simple, no frills book to teach them to read – aff. link. They are all varying levels and strengths of readers, but I can solidly say that this book gave each of them a really strong foundation for basic principles. It’s not exciting and colorful (I often bribed them with M&Ms to get through the first lessons until the pictures start appearing with the stories), but I love this book and am grateful I had it to teach my kids (they each started using it at different ages based on their individual personalities and learning styles, but it was anywhere from 4-6 years old for each of them). Anybody else used this book?
3. Bum Bum Cream Thoughts: Yes, you heard me right. Bum Bum Cream. (Heads up, lots of bikini-clad women on the website – you can also find it here on Amazon– aff. link) This stuff is magical and wow, it has a cult following. I’m sure I’m the last person on earth to know about it. And despite the name, it’s not really for your bum bum. At least I don’t think so. Ha. I use it as my go-to hand cream (along with this Capri blue lotion – aff. link). I’ve never had lotion that smelled so good. Like, people have actually come up to sniff me when I’m wearing it…which has made me think swiftly about discontinuing use, personal space issue alert, but I can’t because I love it. It’s soft and smooth and not greasy and perfect.
4. Signature Recipe Thoughts: I’ve been known to wax poetic about the value of having a signature recipe and how empowering that can be. A recipe that people know you by. A recipe people request and talk about. A recipe that basically makes you feel like a rock star. Not only is it kind of fun, but it also becomes a back-pocket recipe. Something you don’t even have to think twice about when you make it because it turns out perfect every time, and it can become a really easy go-to recipe to take anytime you need a stellar ________ (fill in the blank) recipe for that certain event or potluck or whatever. Plus before you know it, people will be saying things like “I really hope she brings her famous horseradish carrot jello salad tonight!” except of course I really hope no one actually has a horseradish carrot jello salad as their signature recipe.
I LOVE asking people what their signature recipe is. So here goes. What’s your signature recipe?? I think I have different signature recipes depending on the occasion, but one of them is definitely these super soft chocolate chip cookies and I make this fluffier than fluffy bread all the time to take to new neighbors/church members and peeps who just need a little thinking-of-you-here’s-a-loaf-of-bread-don’t-feel-guilty-about-eating-the-whole-loaf kind of pick me up. I also say it’s perfectly ok for your signature recipe to change over time (or every day).
5. Movie Thoughts: recently my two younger kids (ages 7 and 10) and I stumbled on this Miniscule: Valley of the Lost Ants movie, and holy cow, it was entertaining. I didn’t read anything about it before we started watching so I was slightly alarmed/bemused when I realized there was no talking in the movie at all, but my kids did not even notice. It was creative and funny and highly captivating. Also, I just watched the Hundred Foot Journey movie and quite liked it! I mean, yes, because it’s about food, but I enjoyed the personalities and story line (even though there was just one part that I can’t mention because of spoilers that had me side-eyeing the believability). Have you watched either of these?
6. Sunscreen Thoughts: I’m actually gearing up to do an updated suncare/sunscreen post related to my skin cancer and some updated products I’m using and things I’m doing to protect my skin and my family’s skin. But. I had to tell you about this supergoop unseen sunscreen that has completely rocked my world. It.is.amazing. I’ve been using it every day on my face (finding the right facial sunscreen is SO hard especially with an spf 40). It has the most interesting, lovely matte texture that feels like a primer (and I love it). Honestly, it’s one of those products I’m totally scared will ever be discontinued because it’s become such a huge part of my skincare regime.
7. Photo/Video Storage Thoughts: Ok, I’m almost done, but I just have a super big question for you. How do you store your personal/family digital photos and videos long term? On a cloud service? External hard drives? CDs? Haha, mostly kidding with that last one (ahem, says the one who has a bunch of cds stuffed with family pictures from the early 2000’s sitting in a closet somewhere). I’ve used external hard drives as a backup for our family photos/videos forever, but based on the fact that they can fail and/or a natural disaster could wipe them out, I think I need to explore a cloud service. However, the daunting task of uploading 17 years worth of digital pictures with subpar internet speeds has me holding back (as in, it would take years to upload them all). Am I missing another obvious solution? Help? Advice? Chocolate? Send it all.
That was a lot! Sorry for the brain dump! So much for “speed style” haha. If you made it to the end, just know I love your guts and am virtually sending you high fives and lots of cookies. Love your guts!
Oh wait, there’s more!
Friday Thoughts Update:
After the last Friday Thoughts post and your significant alarm at my game closet, a much-needed intervention took place. Behold the before and after. I’m actually happy (and completely and utterly shocked) to say that two months later, it still *mostly* looks like the new and improved version. Storing games on their sides is brilliant; thanks to the many readers who suggested that.
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I just started using that book to teach my almost kindergartner to read! I love it so far! Very relaxed, works on several skills, i.e. sounds, rhyming, blending and reading comprehension all at once. He needs a little incentive as well sometimes .
I’m big on backing up my photos. I have them on my computer, on an external hard drive, on my Carbonite subscription to automatically back them up, and I’m in the process of storing them on Dropbox as well. I don’t want to lose any of them. Also, make sure you’re printing your photos at a place that has archival quality. I’ve been using Persnickety Prints for years, and I love them. Water won’t damage their prints. Technology changes all the time and photos that are printed the right way can last hundreds of years.
Am I the only one who read, “How to Teach Kids to Read Thoughts” and thought you were talk g about mind reading for a second? ♀️
Little late to the party, but that’s my reality. So, here goes:
1-Thanks for your suggestions; I typically just get my frames at my ophthalomolgist and they are always way too pricey.
3 & 6-Bum Bum Cream . . . just ordered and excited to get it. One suggestion . . . start while you are young and sunscreen your hands. I didn’t and my hands give away my age. Most people think I am at least 10 years younger than I am until they see my hands. I use sunscreen products from Paula’s Choice (available online) and have for over 20 years (but unfortunately, not on my hands until the last five or so years).
4-Signature recipes . . . different things for different groups. I make about 30 dozen cookies (about six different recipes) every Christmas season and give to friends. About 15 years ago, I started to add sugared cranberries. People absolutely loved them and many people eagerly await them on my Christmas plate each year. The next door neighbor only wants cranberries. My daughter loves my lemon steak and has converted her husband. My husband and his family begs for my macaroni salad. I am asked repeatedly to bring Keith’s baked beans, baked apples, and/or apple pie (the secret is to use at least three different apples and to cook the slices in apple cider) to family and church events. And, lastly, my husband is known for his barbequed flank steak. Whew! That’s too many!
7-Really need to do this. Appreciate everyone’s comments.
I have two pairs of glasses from Denny. I love them, had them for over two years still no scratches. Sometimes you have to dig in for cute frames but they are certainly there to be found.
Your Super Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies are the best I’ve ever tried and my new go-to! They should definitely qualify as your signature cookie anyway! 🙂
I just ordered that sunscreen. It sounds awesome. Thanks for the tip!
As someone who gave up on contacts almost 20 years ago, I love industry disruptors in the Rx glasses field! Seriously such an overpriced industry. I also love Warby Parker for a lower cost option. Not as dirt cheap as Zenni, but they do have a few in-person locations (if you are lucky enough to live near one) which made it easier for me to find a good fit. And since moving overseas I have purchased another pair using the option to have them mail you up to 5 different frames to try on at home.
And I definitely have opinions on photo backup storage! Years ago before we had children my husband and I took a trip to Brazil and shortly after our compute crashed and we lost EVERYTHING. I only cared about the pictures, which represented the first 7 years of our marriage, including what was a huge-deal, epic trip for us. Had a friend try to restore our hard drive then sent it to special company to try to have it fixed in their “clean room” for $800 but no one could get anything off it and we just ended up a little poorer. Ever since then I have paid yearly for an online backup service. I have used a few different companies and right now use idrive. I just switched a few months ago due a promotion they had for those leaving another service that discontinued service for home users. But didn’t make the jump before reading a lot of industry reviews. I have always been told that you want to do a hard drive backup and cloud based backup for the most ideal, but not failsafe, protection. Many of my photos also backup to services like google photo, but honestly even though I mainly care about the photos, I feel better paying for a service that backs up my entire computer and keeps everything in a nice orderly file system that I am comfortable with. I really like folders! And its nice that I never have to think about it. Since I recently switched I had to do the whole upload process over again and it’s wasn’t that bad. I think it only took a few hours for the initial upload (or at least not more than a day), and I could still work on the computer if I needed to. Had an initial issue with it not working right on my MAC but there was a phone number to talk to a real person in customer service and they quickly helped me resolve the issue. Of course in the 12 years since had that heartbreaking computer crash we have never had another issue, but no one can make me stop paying and protecting our photos from here on out!
I have used the same book to teach my children to read (one left to go). I know everyone says how boring it is, but my brain loves how orderly and systematic the approach it. I seriously love it, even if there were a few (ok a lot) of rough moments getting a few of my kids on board at times.
Yikes! I know I’m already #331 in the comments, but I couldn’t help saying “hey” since you sent your love to us via virtual cookies!!! I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and it is so stinkin’ boring, but IT WORKS, and that is what matters to me, haha… I already used it with my first two, but my (currently) four-year-old has a whole different style of learning (very artsy little fella) and I am terrified it will some how not work with him…. Unless I use your brilliant bribe of m and m’s….. Anyway, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, Mel!!! I hope it was delicious!!!!
Happy Mother’s Day. Our delicious dinner featured your recipes, something that’s happening so often, it leads me to your Signature recipes question. Your recipes have become more and more my go to for special events and family dinner. Thank you for providing the kind of recipes that make those moments special. You obviously have a very special talent.
So many thoughts Mel! Thanks for sharing. I think my signature dishes are probably my pinto beans (they have chipotle peppers in them, so they’re kind of special), my chocolate chip cookies (I make the NY times overnight cookie dough recipe), and your cinnamon roll cake. Those three are the first that come to mind.
You’re a gem! Have a wonderful mother’s day tomorrow!
I LOVE the movie Hundred Foot Journey! So glad you saw it. Very few people have heard of it.
I have been stressing about photo storage as well. Feeling very unorganized and overwhelmed. So I purchased this: https://missfreddy.com/courses/ backup bootcamp. I am almost done with it. Have learned so much and feeling much better about my picture situation 🙂 Would totally recommend it. You can also hire her to do it for you, which I think would be amazing as well.
From what I’ve heard, Google is good but Amazon saves your full size images and google compresses them. Both have facial recognition and all sorts of really great features. I am going to use Amazon cloud since it’s free with a prime membership. You just have to pay for extra video storage. But I like the youtube idea someone mentioned in another comment! So, after the bootcamp I now have an external hard drive with all my pictures organized in years and months and now I am getting ready to backup to amazon photos! That way it’s in 2 places.
I have been trying for so long to get a good massaman curry recipe, with little to no success. Would you mind sharing?
We use google photos for back-up, as well as shutterfly and we will soon attach a hard drive. I have many CDs of pictures from around 2006 and am in the midst of loading them onto the computer to add to google photos.
Reading! We have an online preschool program in our state that two of my littles have done. They learned to read using that program AND we read a lot of books! We LOVE reading and make weekly trips to the library.
Glasses! I have worn contacts for AGES and would love to have a good pair of glasses so that I don’t have to spend so much money on contacts! Thanks for trying out Zenni and giving a review of it – I will just have to take the plunge and go for it!
I didn’t think I had a signature recipe until my husband’s aunt asked if I would make “the baked beans you always make” and also the rolls you always make? I was perplexed because I didn’t ever remeber making the baked beans!! HAHA! The rolls, of course, were your french bread roll recipe!! DELICIOUS!
Quick comment about storing games on their sides. I bought some extra large rubber bands to keep the game contents in the boxes when they’re stored on their sides. It’s worked out great, especially for the games that have somewhat mangled boxes if you know what I mean. 😉
At the risk of getting lost in all these comments . . . .
Fish Tacos.
As for photo storage, I use two back-up drives. One is my usual backup drive, and the other I update every couple months. I hesitate to use cloud storage, because I’d rather have the physical drive. Sort of like preferring real books to e-books, I suppose.
As far as photo storage, I asked my uncle once his ideas for saving important photos, documents, etc.–he works with computers and is the vice president of his company…very tech savvy. He said that he always backs things up in multiple ways (at least 3 or so). The cloud…like anything else…is not fail-proof. We have an external hard drive. We use the cloud, and we have things stored on thumb drives, computers, etc. Have fun and good luck!
Some of my kids are slightly stubborn, so they’re pre-learning-to-read skills were picked up by the Leapfrog “Letter Factory” video, and the follow up “Word Factory.” They love it. As a side note, we bought it originally for the same kid who started potty training finally after watching the “Elmo’s Potty Time” DVD, and NOT because mom tried to teach her to. Mainly because (at least one) of my children would rather listen to anyone but mom on certain things….
As far as photo storage, I make a Costco photo calendar yearly for my parents, and that has become one of my backup plans since those photos stay on their web site in my account. After losing a whole year or more of photos to an external hard drive that was damaged, I rely on that to be my backup for now and try to upload my most important photos more often than once a year. We also are trying to figure out a “better way” for the long term. And we also have photo CDs, but my husband said I have too many pictures to do that now.
My husband was a missionary in Thailand, and because of that, I’ve really enjoyed perfecting my massaman curry as a go-to knockout pot luck dish.
I have been trying for so long to get a good massaman curry recipe, with little to no success. Would you mind sharing?
I just recently discovered your blog, and I love it. I feel like I ‘know you’ just by reading the last several posts and it seems you think similarly to me so I can easily follow your thought-processes. I am eager to try many of the recipes on your website but seem to have found you right after your Friday Thoughts post. I thought I’d put my two cents worth in. Glasses–I like your clear ones and have almost the same frames but in black. I have been wearing glasses since 1st grade and I too have very high astigmatism (off the charts) but have never used that site–I go to Lenscrafters–might need to look into it. Reading–my mother never used a book to help me read. Rather, she would read all kinds of books to me–if I expressed interest in it, it went in the basket to read–and took me every week to the library as a special outing, where we often would sit and read out loud taking turns. She taught me both the roots of words (Greek and Latin) and phonetics so I could sound them out. She was also a stickler for looking up meanings of words in the dictionary. By the time I was in school I devoured books, loved the book fairs, and would ask for books for Christmas.
I do not know if I have a signature dish. Like others have stated, I usually ask what is needed and make that. I do have a decent gift for baking cookies and I have a Chocolate Pie recipe handed down from my paternal Grandmother that I make somewhat often. Perhaps that counts? Sunscreen–I have a love/hate relationship with Sunscreen. Since I live in the south it is a must, but I am allergic to all metals, including the zinc that is prevalent in so many. I have found that tinted moisturizer cream works well for me day-to-day for my face and that sunscreen appropriate for babies works for more sun exposure (I did find I cannot keep using the same one all the time or it quits working, weird, huh?). Finally, photo storage. I have a three-fold system. I keep the SD cards when they become full in a SD card holder in a safe. I back those up using my computer to an external hard drive or USB and I also cloud-store them with Shutterfly, using many of the photos to make books, photo cards, collages, etc. For older, non-digital photos. Those I have not already scrap-booked, I put in photo-safe storage boxes and have been slowly scanning and digitizing them. The negatives go with the SD cards in the safe. As a bit of an OCD photo description person, I have my digital ones organized by year, then month, then event/person, and labeled with who, what where, why and when as appropriate. I still print/scrap/or collage my photos regularly and like to keep current photos in frames around the home.
I love these posts so much!
I’m going to get the sunscreen as soon as it’s back in stock, I’m on their email list! I’m curious though, do you reapply all day? I hate the idea of washing my makeup off and reapplying so I’m wondering what your system is.
I Dropbox for all my photos and Crashplan as my computer back up.
My signature dish . . . maybe my mac and cheese? People always ask me to bring that at cookouts. That’s a tough one, I rarely make the same dish!
Hi Mel! So even though I love love love your recipes my question is related to health! I, too, had melanoma a year ago and am always looking for quality, sunscreen. I just purchased Ungoop per your recommendation. What do you apply for a daily sunscreen over the rest of your body?
Chili Con Queso is my signature dish which is totally unhealthy but people said it was like crack for the soul. I don’t think any of my friends have actually used crack, but you get the idea. Unclear if you want my recipe, but it is very easy and incredibly delicious.