10 Things I Can’t Live Without
Some people could probably live a very minimalist lifestyle… I am not one of them. Over time, I’ve collected a handful of everyday essentials that I’ve become completely attached to, whether for convenience, comfort, or pure happiness. So, in the spirit of sharing a little piece of my world, here are the ten things I simply can’t live without!
1
Crossbody Bag
I’ve only had this baby for a few months but boy I don’t know how I lived without it. Being a mom of three boys 5 and under and going out to town for groceries or shopping or whatever the occasion might be, is always a little chaotic. What added to the chaos is my stupid purse that I had to make sure stayed on my shoulder or if I did crossbody with the strap, it would just pull on my shoulder and punch my kids in the face every time I turned around. Also, since I carry around medium sized purses, theres God knows what in there. Its like Mary Poppins carpet bag. Or Hermione’s beaded handbag from the Deathly Hallows with the Undetectable Extension Charm. Except, mine was totally detectable. Practically bursting at the seams with old receipts, multiple chapsticks and lipglosses and a lot of tiny things that sat forever at the bottom like bobby-pins and sticks of gum. There’s only so much room in the front pockets of my new crossbody bag so its just 1 chapstick, debit card, a bit of cash and my license. After using it for a couple of weeks consistently, I couldn’t believe how much I loved it. Its so simple. Light and flat against my body so no more sucker punching my kids in the face with a bag of leather. I now have both of my hands free to either hold my kids hands or pick up an item off the shelf when shopping. Its magical and liberating.
2
A Good Housecoat
Two years ago my husband got me this black and white leopard print housecoat for Christmas and it is probably my most used gift ever. Like, in my entire life. If you know me and have ever been to my house more than once, you have probably seen me in this irreplaceable item. Now, I’m not saying I’m a bum and stay in my pajamas and house coat all day, although that has happened a regrettable amount of times. A good house coat serves many purposes. My house coat is a warmer one with a fluffy, fur like material. I use it mostly in the mornings after I get up from bed because the house is chilly and therefore I am chilly and I do not like to be cold. I keep this on until late in the morning (many salesmen have knocked on my door to sell me their amazing products only for the door to be answered by fluffy leopard print and a messy bun…not the cute kind either) and put it up when I get dressed for the day. But sometimes it makes a midday appearance…when you’re a little cold from the A/C but feel like its weird to go and put on your jacket because hello! Its 87 degrees outside and something just feels wrong about that. A house coat though, is perfect for this situation. Its only slightly warmer than just being in short sleeves but not thick enough to make you hot like a jacket would. Also, its open in the front which makes it super easy to whip it off if need be! The last appearance it makes is when I hop back into my pjs (considering this is one of the days I actually changed them for regular clothes) at the end of the day. Thats when I bump down the A/C to 68 and I’m chilly once more which warrants, of course, the fabulous leopard print!
3
Birkenstock Sandals
I know this is a numbered list, but I’m not going in order because it would honestly be hard to list them in a matter of importance to me. If I had to choose, this would definitely take the cake. Unfortunately for my shoe shopping obsession, I have a big foot. No one in my life has correctly guessed my foot size! Thats why I fell in love with Birkenstocks. When I was 15 years old my mom and I were shopping in St. Augustine and she bought me my first pair of two strap leather, mocha colored Birkenstock sandals. Little did I know, 10 years later I would still be wearing them praying each year they last a little longer. Never in my life have I had a shoe that fits my size 11, wide and flat foot like these sandals. No, that wasn’t a typo. I do, in fact, have a size 11 foot that is also wide and flat. Literally no arch at all. All Birkenstocks have a built in arch to their shoes which helped my alignment immensely. Also, since my foot is so wide, a lot of time my foot would just completely flatten whatever summer shoe I was wearing until it was difficult to determine if I was wearing shoes at all!! I have never been able to wear flip flops or ballet flats for this reason. My gigantic foot just consumes the shoe lol. That is until, Birkenstocks were introduced into my life. I’m a true believer and this year finally invested into two more Birkenstocks and have zero regrets.
4
Armani Eyetint Liquid Eyeshadow
This one is for my girls who don’t really know how to do makeup but really want to, and want it to look good. I was NEVER good at makeup. That was my sisters forte. She has always been deeply artistic, so it came as no surprise that, as she matured, her creativity naturally extended into the world of makeup. On more than one occasion I would ask her to do mine. I probably could have gotten better at it, but it bored me to practice and didn’t make sense either if I literally shared a room with someone akin to a makeup artist! When I got married and moved away, I obviously no longer had my sister on call for a quick face of makeup. So I had to resort to trying a little harder. Many YouTube videos later I finally found the sweet spot of makeup for me. I prefer very light makeup, no foundation just tinted sunscreen and a little bit of eye makeup. The eye makeup was the kicker for me though. I could never do it right. It always looked like I had a black eye. I then discovered Armani Eyeshadow tint in liquid form and I swear by it now. It takes literally 10 seconds to apply and brush out and your eyes look fabulous. Throw on a little bit of brown eye liner and your done baby. 10/10 recommend.
5
East Asian Cuisine
Normally I wouldn’t place “food” among my top ten…but I just couldn’t pass up adding this one to the line up. It is my absolute DREAM to go and travel to Japan, China, North and South Korea and Taiwan (annnnnddd…every other place in the world of course;)). I love almost everything about them, but especially the food. This is such an important part of my life that I even have cook books on Asian Cuisine and I keep chopsticks in my kitchen drawers. Recently, I have found this website called Musubi Kiln that makes and sells traditional Japanese tableware, among other things, and every package sent is carefully wrapped in a custom furoshiki, which is a traditional Japanese cloth wrap that is used to carry items, serve as fashion accessories and a way to wrap gifts and packages. How neat right?! (I sort of geeked out about this.) I would love to own some of the pieces that this company creates because, its just not the same eating an amazing homemade bowl of ramen in a small, white Corelle bowl intended for shepherds pie. There aren’t many foods that I dislike either (all thanks to my mom and dad who dubbed our kitchen table growing up “the trying table”) and a good Asian cuisine is definitely some of my favorite types of food. If you haven’t tried it yet, please do yourself a favor and go try it. You’ll be glad you did.
6
Volumizer Brush Dryer
For all my curly hair girlies, this is for you! I have wavy curly hair, in between 2b and 2c on the curly chart. To be honest…I feel like this is the most annoying hair type to have. Its not fine and straight which most of the time only takes a good boars hair brush and it looks gorgeous and silky and its not super curly and defined with only takes a few products in it and the natural curl does the rest! Mine is partly straight, partly wavy and a few good and defined curls in thrown in there as a joke I guess. I’ve sort of figured out how to let it be curly but still look good but most of the time, I just don’t have the patience to keep up with it. I instead use a brush dryer 95% of the time. It smooths it, dries it and I can do a little curl on the end in a faux blowout look. Literally everything I need in one tool. This is a staple of my weekly life.
7
AirPods
To all of you mamas out there, these are a life saver. In the beginning I didn’t think that they’d have as much of an impact as they do on my everyday life. I had a pair of off brand beats that I liked and they served their purpose, but I didn’t use them too much because, of course, wearing them completely cancels out exterior noises. So if one of my kids called me from the next room and needed help with something or they were trying to settle an argument with their brother, I couldn’t hear them! It wasn’t until my husband got some AirPods and suddenly swore by them so he got me some as well. The fact that you can take one out and still listen to something is was sold me on them. I realized I could listen to a YouTube video or podcast or book and still be able to listen out for my kids if they needed me. Also, another perk, instead of having to listen without headphone so that I could hear my kids if they called, they themselves couldn’t hear that I was watching a video or listening to something to which they always insisted that they wanted to join me (of course, what kid wouldn’t?). It took out the disappointment of me saying no to them and allowed me to enjoy alone whatever I was listening to while still being present if they needed me. Multitasking right?
8
Pen&Gear Flip Over Notebook
I will link this one because it is a very specific one that I am talking about. My mom got me this notebook a while ago just as part of a gift and I’ve never looked back. I have rebought it three times since the first introduction into my life. As an obsessive notetaker, this one just scratched the itch of perfect notebook. What really made it special is the way that the spiral is on the top of the notebook, resulting in it flipping up and over and not left to right per a normal notebook. For some reason, this just made me think that every notebook should be like this. Flipping over and not side to side. All of the old notebooks that I’ve seen in movies or even in old boxes at my Granny’s house, this is how they were. And no freaking wonder. Because they’re amazing. And of course its college ruled because anything bigger lined is not cool and you don’t do that unless you’re 7 years old. Sorry not sorry!Welcome attendees as they arrive, provide them with any necessary materials, and direct them to their seats. Begin the meeting promptly at the scheduled time.
9
Vitamins
My life has been transformed by vitamins. As long as I live on Gods green earth I will never not be taking vitamins. There is obviously a lot of trial and error choosing the right ones and the right brand, which is really important. I have seen, especially for women’s health, that supplementing with the right vitamins is crucial for our general and hormonal health. The base of my vitamin stack is vitamin C, zinc and vitamin D to support my immune system. I tend to stray away from a multivitamin because more times than not, the actual dosage of each individual vitamins it contains is not high enough to impact your health. Another reason why I am so bound and determined on this subject is because I have three kids and anyone with kids and even people without kids all know that they tend to pick up sicknesses easily from others. We were that family. The classic American family where the kids most of the time, and the parents as well, got sick multiple times a year. When I started taking their vitamins seriously and had them taking their vitamins daily, we stopped getting sick. I’m not joking. It was life changing. We are now a family very devoted to taking vitamins everyday and we can all see and feel the amazing results of that.
10
Jazz Music
Last but definitely not least, jazz music. Jazz has me in a chokehold, honestly. My record player hasn’t had much downtime these last few weeks. I play jazz in the morning, during homeschool, when we host parties, in the evening with a glass of wine and a lot of times in the random in between moments for no reason at all other than I just want to listen to it. It relaxes my mind like nothing else does with the exception of listening to the waves while sitting on the beach. Having something playing in the background while you are doing every day things just elevates your life. I have not been listening to jazz very long, but I am trying to hone in on what artists I like the most. Right now I am fixated on Chet Baker. Maybe in a year or two it will be Coltrane, who knows? What I do know for sure is that I will always appreciate and love jazz, but especially jazz on vinyl.
At the end of the day, these ten things aren’t just random favorites — they’re the little pieces of my routine that keep me grounded, productive, comfortable, and happy. Some are practical, some are sentimental, and a few are probably a little unnecessary… but that’s what makes them mine. Maybe this list will inspire you to think about your own everyday essentials too — the little things that make a big difference!