Ready for a fresh batch of my favourite things?

Here it is…

A quick roundup of my favourite finds this month that are too good to keep to myself.

APP

Last fall I fell down the rabbit hole of researching my sleep. I wasn’t waking up rested and I was on a mission to figure out why. I read at least a zillion articles about deep sleep and REM sleep and how I could make my sleep cycles better.

Somewhere in my obsession, I ran across the Sleep Cycle app and I’ve since fallen in love hard. (I just use the free version.)

The app goes on your phone and you set it before you go to bed. It monitors your breathing to track what stage of sleep you’re in. Then, it will wake you up in the morning within a 20 minute window of when you’re at your latest sleep. This means you wake up easier and are ready to get out of bed and on with the day. I honestly have no idea if it’s actually accurately tracking my sleep from my breath, but I sure do find that I wake up easier. I also enjoy that I wake up at a slightly different time each day.

My husband now uses it too, and being a shift worker, he says he really likes that it wakes him up during his lightest sleep as it’s sometimes really hard for him to get up working nights. If you have 2 phones using the app in the same room, the app recognizes it so that it accounts for the other person’s breathing.

NOVEL

If you love family drama novels that span time then this one is for you! The Most Fun We Ever Had is a huge book, but I still didn’t want it to end. There were many times that I felt like the author must have been in my head, especially the parts on parenthood and marriage.

COOKBOOK

Oh, there are so many days that I wish I could just have a private chef. I bet you too, right? Why must we eat dinner every damn day?

I borrowed Cook Once, Eat All Week from the library but will be buying it as I want to keep cooking from it.

I wouldn’t say the recipes are OHMYGOD delicious, but they are all decent, healthy and QUICK. For me on weeknights, quick and real food that tastes good will always win over making the best thing I’ve ever tasted that takes 4 hours. There are also options for low carb and grain-free version of most recipes (like subbing cauli rice for white rice).

There’s an easy shopping list (I just plug it into the PC Express app and use Click + Collect at Superstore to pick up my groceries!) and then a meal prep day where you prep everything for 3 meals, using the same 3 basic ingredients. Like this week in my house, the ingredients are chicken breast, red peppers and spaghetti squash, which will make greek chicken bowls, chicken stir fry and chicken tetrazzini.

MUSIC

Wild Rivers is on repeat over and over again at my house! This folk band is the perfect thing to put on while you’re doing that meal prep. 🙂

FACE

When my husband saw this Ice Roller arrive in the Amazon Prime box he literally rolled his eyes. But, let me tell you….this little sucker works! Instead of putting frozen spoons on my under-eye bags, I now roll this around. It’s shockingly cold at first, but after a few seconds, it turns into one of the most enjoyable experiences. It’ll wake you up and de-puff all at the same time. I don’t pull it out every day, but on those days that I have to function on 4 hours of sleep, it’s my go-to.

Added bonus: the kids love using it as an ice pack. When they fall and hurt themselves I just hand them the roller and they roll it over the bruised area – then generally they get so distracted from the rolling that they forget what they hurt in the first place.

Until next month…