Happy Friday! 🥳 This afternoon I’m hitting the road with my husband and Kate to stay at a friend’s place in the Waco area. He’s got lots of rescue animals at his property, which will be fun to see. Plus every morning they bottle feed the wildlife, which I think Kate will love! After a night in Waco, we head even further north to Ft. Worth to stay the evening with another friends of ours. It will be a lot of driving, but we’re looking forward to a weekend away from home.

The only other exciting update is that yesterday I had a meeting with my designer to see the plan for our primary bedroom. It’s definitely starting to come together. 🤗 I love the color scheme + all the fabric selections. I can’t wait to share more about what’s in store with that project in the near future! With lead times being what they are right now with furniture, I have no idea when the vision will actually come to fruition, but fingers crossed things move more quickly than they are with our family room. 🤪

Without further ado, here’s what I’ve been into this week:

• CELEBRITY HOME TOUR: This week House Beautiful magazine ran a spread showcasing country artist Thomas Rhett’s Nashville home. Unfortunately House Beautiful is behind a pay wall, but I managed to find most of the pictures here via E! News. The stunning home was designed by April Tomlin (who I follow on Instagram, btw!). The vibe is equal parts relaxed and sophisticated, the perfect mix. That bunk room is incredible!

• HOME DECOR: I’ve got this rechargeable, cordless LED touch lamp on my list of things to buy. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but once our patio furniture arrivesI think I’m going to get both the sage and dark green color. The gold leaf option is also fabulous!

• HOME TOUR: Another incredible home tour I stumbled upon this week is this LA home via Architectural Digest. For those of you who love a bolder look, this is definitely the home for you! It’s so unique. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The stained glass in the kitchen! The pink and green primary bath! The texture of that dining nook! Absolutely fabulous.

• MENTAL HEALTH: Are you guilty of postponing doing the things you care about most in order to check things off a never-ending to-do list? I know I am! 🙋🏻‍♀️ I always catch myself clearing emails or doing tasks around the house when what I’d rather be doing is calling a friend to catch up or taking my daughter to the park. As someone who prides myself on efficiency, I really enjoyed this article from the Wall Street Journal on “the efficiency trap”: the general principle that making yourself more efficient (either by improving productivity or driving yourself harder) won’t result in the feeling of having more time, but rather the demands on your time will increase to offset any benefits. The author encourages us to resist the urge of being more efficient and instead to train our minds to feel more comfortable with the anxiety that comes along with not being on top of everything.

• SKINCARE: Tech neck. You’ve probably heard of it by now. If not, it’s the premature development of horizontal lines across the neck caused by the position of our faces as we look down at technology. This article explains what it is, why we’re getting it, and how to treat it. I definitely suffer from this! Recently, I’m being more mindful of my posture and started sleeping with only 1 pillow vs. 2 in an effort to slow down the process!

• SOCIAL MEDIA: I found this article from The Guardian about Instagram’s recent algorithm change (i.e. favoring videos over photos) interesting. One stat in particular caught my eye: “photos of women in underwear or bikinis were 54% more likely to appear on the Instagram news feed than other photos, while images of food and landscapes were 60% less likely to be shown.” While the experiment was small, researchers concluded that “refusing to show body parts dramatically curtails one’s audience” on Instagram. 😳 Accordingly, some creatives are migrating to Twitter (yes, Twitter, of all places) and many Gen Z-ers are using photo editing/sharing app VSCO (which is reminiscent of early Instagram). For me personally, this is just more motivation for me to keep up my blog instead of solely relying on an app!

XOXO,

Liz