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1. Sym’s cat Luna (at her dad’s house); 2. a box of books and things she packed up from her room to save for the baby; 3-5. glow bracelets on Claire, Sym’s bed, and Sym & her friend Ana Lucia, 6 & 7. fireworks!; 8. Hello Kitty temporary tattoos

I feel like I’ve been a really bad blogger this week. I totally missed my 26 week pictures yesterday, I have a few other posts I meant to do that I haven’t even started, and even this post, which is a super low effort post, is later in the day than normal. This week has just been crazy busy at work; it’s my last full, five-day week, and I had an extra baby here for most of it, as well as two kids whose parents had orginally given notice for July 31st but ended up staying for the whole week. In addition to working 9 1/2 hour days at my job, I’ve been super swamped with etsy orders- I’ve made & shipped six glitter banners in the past two days alone, and I’m not even done with my current orders! Thankfully I’m off all next week, so I’ll be able to catch up on that, and housework, and maybe even tackle my storage room (ya right).

Juice Couture

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vitamins & minerals, cranberry-almond granola with chia seeds, fresh-squeezed orange juice
Remember when I said Iw as gonna squeeze my own orange juice every day? Sure you do; it was two days ago. I’m still doing it, that’s right; FOUR DAYS IN A ROW. My dedication is unwavering, I tell you.

The only thing is…. hand-squeezing oranges is a pain. A pain in the ass, a pain in the hand, and a pain in the arm that hand is attached too. Manual citrus juicers are the literal worst.

Then on Monday night, I was at the store with Taylor and in between having a meltdown about Head & Shoulders changing the fragrance of the shampoo* we use and having a meltdown because the pasta sauce I wanted was sold out I spotted my new best friend:

Citrus Juicer

AN AUTOMATIC CITRUS JUICER. FOR THIRTEEN DOLLARS. HAVE I DIED AND GONE TO CITRUS HEAVEN??? THIS THING HAS LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE. I’m like Rapunzel here: AND AT LAST I SEE THE LIGHT!

I was kind of worried that it would be a cheap piece of garbage but I used it this morning and it seems pretty alright. It has two different sizes of reamers (lol this word) for different types of citrus, an adjustable pulp level control and automatically changes direction for maximum juicing. It was much more efficient than my lame human attempts: it was taking me four or five oranges to get a decent-sized glass of juice, but the machine does it with only three oranges. Now I feel bad about all the wasted juice I CLEARLY failed to extract from previous oranges.

Pre-Juiced Oranges

In non-juice news, today is the first of the month which means hey go check out my sponsors! Maybe I only have three this month but it’s quality, not quantity, right? You can see them over there in the right-hand sidebar ↗↗↗

Aaaaaaand last night at 9:45 I received my last etsy order for the month of July and I finished out the month with 21 orders totalling $650. Is it tacky for me to say that? Well, if it is I don’t care because I work REALLY REALLY hard on every banner and I’m thrilled by the response I’ve been getting. I’m hoping I can keep up a steady stream or orders, because even a few hundred dollars a month extra during the year I’m off work would help out immensely. And remember: you can get 25% off your order (even custom items) with the code GIRL25

* Head & Shoulders Refresh used to be this awesome minty shampoo everyone loved, but now it’s rebranded as part of the new men’s line and smells like that gross fake musky aftershave smell all manly-men products have, and the regular line has a bunch of fruity fragrances now. PERSONALLY I don’t think Head & Shoulders Dandruff shampoo was a girly product that needed a dedicated men’s line, and I sent Proctor & Gamble a sternly worded email complaining about the change and likening the new Refresh fragrance to someone’s perverted old uncle. The replied within an hour saying they were going to be sending me “compensation” in the mail, which I can only assume means coupons for free shampoo. The best part? They didn’t even ask me for my mailing address, because I guess they have it on file from my last complaint. I’M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE NOW.