Hiiiii, friends!
Since my last Five Things post, Sophie has attended a ballet camp, a theatre camp, and we have traveled as a family to visit family in Maine! 😮💨 It’s been a busy month! Lots of fun, but it’s felt nonstop. I don’t know about you, but I am R E A D Y for school to resume. 🤪 How are you feeling about summer? Are you thriving or surviving?
Today’s Five Things are items that have piqued my interest or things that have been on my mind / going on in my life recently!
FROZEN BREAKFAST SANDWICHES
I have been on the hunt for a quick protein-packed breakfast for, what has felt like, an eternity. I tend to err vegetarian in my diet and all frozen breakfast sandwiches include a meat option (bacon, sausage, turkey sausage, which are all very protein forward) so I was coming up empty-handed in my search… that is, until I discovered Sandwich Bros!
I was thrilled to see an egg-and-cheese-only option at the store the other day! It can be heated up in just a minute and when salt & pepper are added, it’s the perfect breakfast bite for me! I don’t need a large meal, but I DO need something in the mornings and this fits the bill perfectly.
I also find the textures to be very agreeable — the egg and cheese filling doesn’t get dry or rubbery. Being in a pita is great too because it cuts down on carbohydrates (not that I’m ultra concerned about that) and having a little “pocket” that’s easy to hold / carry is awesome. You can totally customize to your preference — add some toppings or splash some of your favorite hot sauce, salsa in, etc. It’s great as-is, but there is definitely an opportunity to make it your own.
If you’re also a vegetarian trying to get more quick protein in the mornings, I recommend giving these a try! They’re my new hyperfixation.
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YELLOWJACKET TRAPS
This is my annual reminder that if you live in a home in the PNW (read: you don’t have a landlord taking care of your apartment property), I highly recommend these yellowjacket traps. They’re so effective and this time of year is when these pests seem to be at their peak (goddamn neighborhood blackberries!) — I just re-baited our traps and just overnight I caught at least ~15 wasps in each of our two traps.
I use these traps and hang them from lawn display hooks — mostly for aesthetics, but also because the curled design helps keep the traps hung up even during intense winds. My exact 35” hook stand set is no longer available, but I linked the most similar option by the same brand.
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ANTI-ZUCK GLASSES SCANNER
Because men are hacking their “smart glasses” to break the light that’s intended to alert others that they’re recording without consent, I think the app purchase / download would be a worthwhile one for everyone.
More details copied and pasted from the App Store’s description:
“Know when smart glasses are nearby. Local alerts, a home-screen widget, a Control Center toggle, and snooze. No sign up needed, and nothing leaves your phone.
Scan locally for nearby smart glasses Bluetooth signals and get a clear alert when a likely device is close.
The app uses your device to show active signals from smart glasses, Meta Glasses, Meta Ray Bans, Snap Spectacles, Amazon Echo Frames, and RayNeo. It will also show you repeat sightings, confidence, and rough proximity from the devices.
Features:
– Live signal field: likely glasses appear as blips with rough proximity and confidence
– Local alerts the moment a likely device starts broadcasting – even with the app closed
– Sightings history: repeat encounters, confidence, distance, and why each signal was flagged
– Register your own glasses so they never trigger alerts, and see when they were last heard
– Snooze alerts for an hour or the evening, right from the notification
– Home-screen and Lock Screen widgets with the latest status and a pause button
– Control Center toggle to pause or resume scanning, even assignable to the Action Button
– No account, no ads, completely local and private
Privacy stays local. The app does not identify people, record audio or video, track location, or upload signal history. Detection is best-effort and depends on what nearby devices advertise over Bluetooth: smart glasses mostly broadcast at power-on, pairing, and case-open, so coverage is opportunistic.”
Protect yourself and your loved ones from bad characters that abuse these ridiculous and unnecessary tech devices.
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BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLY SHOPPING
Sophie will be starting Kindergarten next month! I am consistently baffled by how quickly time is moving ever since becoming a parent — how do we move out of hyperdrive?!
To that end, I’ve been working on knocking out her school supply list (and back-to-school wardrobe shopping) (1) while things are still in stock, and (2) to simply take the task off of my plate so I have one fewer thing to do ahead of the first day of school.
If you’re also shopping for kindergarten, I shared our supply list in my most recent post here.
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TEN LITTLE SHOES
This brand has been on my radar for a while, but we’ve just been so loyal to Native shoes that I didn’t want to deviate (and kids grow out of shoes so quickly — I didn’t want to buy her a second pair because toddlers don’t need more than one pair at a time!), but my hand was forced.
Chloe outgrew the C4 (Child 4) size, but her chubby little toddler feet won’t fit in the slimmer C5 design. The tops of her feet simply haven’t flattened out enough to fit into the shoe, so we had to look elsewhere. I decided to order a pair of shoes from Ten Little because I had heard good things and so far we haven’t been disappointed.
The adjustable straps make them easy to fit on any shaped foot (🤭) and they seem to be really comfortable for Chloe — she loves to wear them! I also really appreciate that they have taken a lot of the guesswork out of the shoe sizing (omg why are kids shoe sizes so crazy?!) by both (1) offering a measuring tool on printed inside the lid of their shoeboxes and (2) having special markings on the removable insoles of the shoes so you can see where the toes SHOULD comfortably be (if you can get your child to stand still long enough 🤪).
We have both a canvas pair and a vegan leather pair and have been very pleased with each.
When do your kiddos go back to school? In the Seattle area we go back in early September, but I know some parts of the country return to school very soon (in a week or two?!). For those of you that fall into the latter camp, I’m wishing you a smooth transition back into that routine!
No matter when your littles return to school, I hope your summer continues to be fun and relaxing.
Sending hugs —
xx, Natalie
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