Friday Favorites (Gift Ideas! SALE on SALE! Must Have Items! and Reader Questions!)

It’s Friday, so y’all know what that means! It’s time to link up with Erika and Andrea to let everybody know what some of my favorite things are right now.

 

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SALE ON SALE GOING DOWN AT NORDSTROM

I received an e-mail yesterday about lots of sale items going an ADDITIONAL 25% OFF at Nordstrom! These prices are good through the weekend, and they are on items that are not in the Anniversary Sale. I scoured hundreds and hundreds of items, and I found some stand outs to share with y’all! Click HERE to check everything out for yourself. The promo items will be marked as “Limited Time Sale” in red.

1) hoop earrings / 2) dangle earrings / 3) colorful stretch bracelet / 4) dual brush / 5) denim shorts / 6) jeans / 7) sweatshirt / 8) necklace / 9) It Cosmetics bronzer and blush palette / 10) bag / 11) pillow lips gloss / 12) athletic shorts

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N SALE FAVORITES

As the N Sale starts to wind down, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite pieces again.

The rain jacket initially caught my eye online because of the color. And it’s even better in person. It’s officially called “silver blue”, and I think it’s just a really great icy grey blue. For size reference, I’m wearing a medium. However, after reading other reviews I’m wondering if I should try a large. I wouldn’t mind it being more roomy, and others sized up for layering purposes, which is smart.

Click HERE for my full review of this outfit.

performance mesh top / rain jacket / turquoise huggie earrings / Live In High Waist pocket leggings / sneakers

These leggings are the ones I named a MUST HAVE awhile back. The waistband is a soft ribbed material, and they are super flattering.

In addition to the cute pockets and the awesome ribbed waistband, there are also cute little bands at the bottom. I keep getting questions on if they are more like leggings or more like joggers, so here’s my official answer: They fit like leggings, but they are more in the style of a jogger (with the big pockets and banded cuffs).  They’re awesome.

Also. THEY ARE SO SOFT. Like reallllllllllly REALLY soft.

And I’m telling you, the fit is adorable.

These are the “black”, but I think they are more of a really dark charcoal grey. For size reference, I’m wearing a small. I’ve heard that some people are sizing down in these, but I like the fit of my regular size.

Click HERE for my full review of this outfit.

relaxed long sleeve tee / turquoise huggie earrings / MUST HAVE leggings / sneakers

This sweater is 100% cotton with a ribbed crew neck, ribbed hem, and ribbed 3/4 sleeves. It’s got a waffle weave texture, and splits on the sides. It’s on the expensive side, but it’s well worth it. I know I will wear the heck out of it. For size reference, I’m wearing a medium. It’s very roomy, but I like it that way.

Click HERE for my full review of this outfit.

sweater / earrings / toggle chain necklace / pendant necklace / Ab-Solution ankle skinny jeans / sneakers

I’m telling you, if you want to feel like a million bucks, treat yourself to these SPANX faux leather leggings.

They are great quality, they wash well, they don’t stretch out, and perhaps most importantly – you will feel amazing in them! Again, I size up to a medium in these (I wear a small in all other leggings), and they fit perfectly.

They suck you in and totally slim you down, while still allowing you to breathe. It’s a thing of wonder.

Click HERE for my full review of this outfit.

cozy crewneck sweater / denim jacket / sunglasses / earrings / toggle chain necklace / pendant necklace / SPANX faux leather leggings / Steve Madden booties

 

 

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COLLEEN ROTHSCHILD PERFECT PAIRINGS

Colleen Rothschild has a PERFECT PAIR promo going on, and there are great discounts on several different awesome pairings. Two of them in particular are pairings that I highly recommend, but you can check all of them out HERE.

This Hydration Cocktail pairing will save you $41! Take a dallop of the Extreme Recovery Cream, add a squirt of the Face Oil #9, and hydrate your skin like never before. I put this little combo on each and every night, and my skin drinks it up. My mom swears by this combo too. I don’t how it works, but I don’t feel greasy at all. Just dewy and hydrated and healthy!

This Style and Shine Duo has two of my favorite CR hair care products. I rub a bit of the styling cream on my damp hair before drying and styling it, and I apply the smooth and shine hair serum after my hair is dry and styled. If you already use these products, grab them at this discounted price. If you’ve never tried them before, you’ll notice a different after 1 use. I did!

If you’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket, grab both duos!

Style and Shine Duo / Hydration Cocktail pairing

 

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BEST BRAS AND UNDIES

Okay, I know I’m not alone in this, but new bras and undies make me so happy.

These are my favorites that I buy from the sale just about every year. They are comfy, the cups are perfectly rounded, and they make me feel great. Both of these bras have taken the internet by storm over the last several years.

top bra / bottom bra / undies

I started wearing this underwear years and years ago. I initially bought 1 pair, and then I slowly replaced just about every other pair of underwear in my drawer with them. They are super comfy and they don’t ride up. And they don’t show lines under most clothes.

I promise if you buy 1 pair, you’ll end up buying 10 more (over time).

undies

This year, I also had Chantelle send me the top bra seen below and the seamless undies. They are both awesome and I’m happy to add them in to my rotation.

Right before the sale started, I bought this minimizer bra based on the suggestion of a reader. On the blog I’m often saying how I had to size up because I needed room in the chest or how something didn’t fit me because it was pulling. The reader suggested I grab a minimizer, and it’s definitely made a different with some of my clothes! The one you see below isn’t on sale, but this minimizer from the same maker is on sale and it has excellent reviews.

bra / minimizer bra / seamless undies

 

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BEST OF GIFTS

I always start buying some Christmas gifts during the Anniversary Sale every year. The deals are just too good to pass up, and I’m always so happy to already have a stockpile of some gifts when Christmas rolls around. This year I also grabbed a couple of birthday gifts.

1) candles / 2) initial necklace / 3) lighted mirror / 4) best throw ever / 5) baby blardigan / 6) chain link earrings  / 7) sparkly studs / 8) UGG robe / 9) huggie earrings / 10) marble and wood board / 11) neulash eyelash serum / 12) stud earrings / 13) jewelry travel case / 14) must have leggings / 16) Barefoot Dreams lounge set 

 

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LOFT and TARGET ORDERS

I placed a LOFT order and hoped to share it with y’all today, but it got delayed. I’m most excited about this striped roll tab henley sweater (I love the colors!) and this floral tie neck puff sleeve top.

I have a Target post coming up soon too, I just haven’t taken the shots yet. This dress is awesome and I’m in love with this top. I have the dress in red and the shirt in white star.

 

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READER QUESTIONS

Earlier this week I asked for some reader questions on instastories. Now, there’s no way I can answer all of them in 1 blog post, but I picked out some to answer today!

Where do you donate clothes you are no longer wearing for the greatest good? @nearawayfaraway

• I give most of my old clothes to my mom, and she’s so grateful! She and her friend Suzy are the same size as me, so they take a lot of them for themselves. When they are done with them, my mom donates them to some organizations that her church works with. I have a friend that takes most of my old shoes, and if there are any she doesn’t want, she shares them with the other staff at her school. If there are items that I don’t think my mom or friend will use, I take them straight to The Samaritan Inn donation center in McKinney.

If you could have only bought 1 thing from the Anniversary Sale, what would it have been? @ecoltraneunc

• Hmmmmmmm. That’s a great question. I think that my personal favorite purchase from the sale are these mules. I got the plaid and think they are darling.

Favorite Nordstrom sale item? @cristimartin18

• So since I answered the last question with what my personal favorite purchase was this year, I’m going to answer this question as if I’m picking what I think is THE VERY BEST DEAL to be purchased from the sale. Hands down, you need to get at least one of these.

Why did you stop doing the bachelor reviews? @dileanh

• Another great question! I actually get messages about this pretty frequently. I have two reasons behind my decision to stop doing Bachelor reviews. The main reason is that the recaps took me tons of time to write. They had become more of a chore than a fun and creative outlet, and they were taking way too much of my time away from my family. The other big reason I stopped doing them is that I had stopped enjoying watching the show. It was just that simple. I loved doing Bachelor recaps for a really long time, and then all of a sudden I didn’t love doing them anymore. So I stopped.

What’s your favorite holiday and color? @mikey4

• My favorite holiday is Christmas, and my favorite day is Christmas Eve. I love the anticipation of Christmas Day and attending the Christmas Eve service at church with family is my favorite tradition. I guess my favorite color is either red or blush. Those are my two favorite colors to wear.

What are your favorite summer makeup items? susanb_513

• The Supergoop Glow Screen and this Lancome Juicy tube lip gloss in Hallucination are probably my two beauty must haves for summer. The Glow Screen gives me both SPF as well as a bit of coverage, and putting a little color on my lips always makes me feel better. Oh, I’d also like to include a product for my brows. This is a great set that is still on sale.

Why did you decide to get 2 dogs? Are they litter mates? Do they fight/squabble? @itsmeeallie

• When we lost Scout (our first Golden) when Carter was in 2nd grade, we always knew we would get another dog when we were ready. Chris and Carter always wanted two dogs, but I was always pretty firmly against it. I’m not sure when or why, but all of a sudden my heart started to change on the matter. I told Chris, but we didn’t tell Carter because we wanted to surprise him. They are litter mates, and we have absolutely loved having two dogs. The amount of hair is overwhelming at times, but I cannot imagine not having both of them. They are the best of friends, they aren’t jealous of each other, and they don’t fight. They are the best dogs. (If I could just get Buddy to stop heavy breathing into the receiver when I’m on the phone, we’d be all set.) 🙂

Do all the returns and exchanges ever wear you out? @susanwhitneymoore

• The short answer is HECK YES. 🙂 Even just the ordering of products and their arrival at my doorstep is mind blowing. Just as soon as we get boxes broken down and an order returned, another order arrives. The sheer volume of products I have to order to make sure I find items to share with y’all is next level. We do our very best to stay on top of returns, but yes, it wears us out at times. Still, that being said, I feel incredibly grateful that this blogging gig is my job!

How many hours a week do you work for the blog? @smoorefun

• Gosh, that’s a really good question. I don’t have any assistants or anything, so it’s me doing pretty much everything around here. That means that I spend a good portion of each day working on posts. And obviously, a post isn’t just taking the pictures. I ansswer e-mails and do other administrative duties associated with the blog, order the clothes (this piece of the puzzle takes a good bit of time), decide what I like after it arrives, consider post themes, style outfits, take the pictures, edit the pictures, upload the pictures, link everything, and then finally write the post. After that, I put posts on social media that support the blog post, hoping to get more traffic to it and more eyes on it. So it depends from day to day (based on how many posts I have that week and how involved the posts are), but I would say most days are 6-8 hour days.

How did you make the transition from SLP to influencer? @jenn-g-3

• For those that don’t know, I was a Speech Language Pathologist for 12 years. I worked for Garland ISD when we were first married and then McKinney ISD for 8 years after we moved to McKinney. The entire time, I was also doing private therapy after school. I worked mostly with children who were on the autism spectrum, and I loved my job. When Carter was born, I switched to part time for the school district. I started the blog when Carter was a toddler, and it grew in popularity pretty quickly. Working part time for the schools was great, but I was doing therapy, assessments, and ARDs every minute I was at school. That meant I was spending lots of my “off time” doing progress reports, writing new IEPS, and writing reports. It was too much for me to handle it all and I was spread way too thin. By the time Carter was entering Kindergarten, we decided to take a leap. I stopped working for the district, I stopped private therapy, and I started working on the blog full-time. I was and am still a working mom, but running the blog as my full-time business definitely affords me more freedoms than when I worked as an SLP. I still keep up my licensure, so I could go back to it if I ever needed or wanted to. I loved the children and the families I worked with, and it was such an honor to be a part of these families’ lives and a part of their children’s stories.

Favorite place to clothes shop for Carter? @erivers

• Carter is sooooo easy to shop for. He’s a creature of habit, and he loves being comfy, so for the past several years it’s been pretty much all Under Armour all the time. I would get his Under Armour at Nordstrom, at Kohl’s, and at the Under Armour store. Now I have a post coming up on Monday with Walmart, and I was able to pick up lots of athletic shorts and tees that Carter approved of. And you know, the Walmart pieces are like a quarter of the price of the items I’ve been buying him. Now he’ll of course continue to wear Under Armour, but I love that we have some more inexpensive pieces we can mix in! Stay tuned for Monday’s post.

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WEEK IN REVIEW

On Monday, I reviewed my favorite BEAUTY FINDS from the N SALE! Click HERE for the full post.

In the AFTER picture below, I’m wearing several beauty products that are from the N Sale including Supergoop Glow Screen (set already sold out in the sale, but still available HERE), the Ambient Lighting Palette, the Anastasia Deluxe Brow Kit, and the MAC lipwear set in pink. I’m also wearing this eyeliner (a duo in the sale right now!) and this mascara.

On Wednesday’s post I showed 12 outfits, including several athleisure pieces from Zella. Click HERE if you want to see the other 9!

I’m wearing this tee with all 3 outfits. I review all pieces on the post.

performance skort / shorts / performance skort

And yesterday I had a BONUS POST with my July picks for HSN. The deals are fabulous!

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That’s it for today, y’all! Have a wonderful weekend with your people!

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