These are a few of my favorite things!

I haven't talked about products I like in a long time, but I've definitely discovered some new, cool stuff in the past year, so I decided now is the time to share. I was gonna try to rank these five products in order of how much I like them, but I can't. They are all so different--apples and oranges really. They are all my favorites, just in different ways.

1. Portable seat warmer for my car. Backstory is Shulamith's minivan has a built-in seat warmer on both the driver's and front passenger's seats. Oh how I love to ride in her car in the cold winter mornings. It is the best thing ever to turn on those toasty seat warmers. So last year on my birthday, my kids gave me a portable seat warmer, and wow! It works every bit as well as the built-in ones in Shulamith's car. This is one of those times when I shook my head and thought, "Why didn't I find this a long time ago?"

2. Bona mop. We have laminate flooring throughout our new house; the only carpet is upstairs in the bedrooms. When we had our orientation before we moved in, the Edge representative explained like a million things about how to take care of the house (thank goodness Amanda was with me and took notes!). One thing he emphasized was that I purchase a Bona mop. Not any brand. Bona! I worried it might be super expensive, but no, about $30. It's the best mop I've ever used.  No cords to deal with. Easy pump spray. Large mop pad. It makes my dark brown flooring shine, and it's so easy to use. With the four of us here plus the dogs, I pull it out multiple times a day to spot clean. So great.

3. Beddy's. Have you heard about this company? I hadn't until Emily bought some bedding from them. So it's a bottom sheet, top sheet, and comforter all in one. It fits over the mattress much like a fitted sheet would and then zips up on both sides and around the bottom, kinda like a sleeping bag. They have all sorts of colors and patterns in both the "minky" if you want to be extra warm and the "cotton" for not so warm. I got cotton but plan to get a minky before next winter; right now I need an extra blanket on top. Best part: all you do to make the bed is zip it up! Your bed always looks nice, your bedroom tidy. And the whole thing goes right into the washing machine and dryer. I truly can't love this enough.

Is it expensive? A little. But...it's excellent quality, and if you were to buy quality fitted and flat sheets, pillow cases (they come with the Beddy's set), a comforter, and a duvet cover, you would spend at least as much if not more. Wanna see how it looks???

4. Pulse Oxygen Monitor. Okay, you may not ever actually need one of these, but if you do, it's the most reassuring product. As you know, our family recently experienced the COVID virus. Three of the four of us in the house us tested positive. COVID is scary even for non-anxiety folks; imagine what it did to me?!?! The day Seth tested positive, my friend Lorelei told me to get a Pulse Ox device to monitor our oxygen saturation levels. I was familiar with these monitors because our oldest son Luke had childhood asthma and was in and out of the hospital repeatedly in his first three years. When he was hospitalized, he always had an O2 sats monitor clipped on his finger, but back then, there weren't any we could take home. 

Last week, as we checked our oxygen saturation levels regularly, I could sleep knowing everyone was breathing fine. Every time I saw that 97 or 98% on the screen, I knew we were all okay. And I kept thinking how much grief this thing would have saved me when Luke was a baby and unable tell me when he was struggling to breathe.

5. Kortni Jeane Swimwear. Okay, ladies, tell me how you feel about wearing a swimsuit in public? Those who just said they love that experience can stop reading now. For most of us, swimsuits are necessary evils. In no other circumstance do we wear so little clothing or show so much skin out in public, right? Well, this particular line of swimwear is designed to help women of all sizes feel comfortable and confident in swimsuits, so they can play with their kids, run through the sprinkler, swim, water slide, and do all the fun summer water activities. Most styles are mix and match, so you can wear one top with several different bottoms and vice versa. There are dozens of cute fabric patterns and styles. The only problem is once you discover this product, you kinda become obsessed with swimsuits; you want every new style and color that comes out. 

This is definitely what happened to me. I LOVE these suits so much that I want all of them. I may or may not have 6.5 Kortni Jeane swimsuits, or "swimmers" as she likes to call them. I have six tops and seven bottoms, most of which are interchangeable. Recently, when I just had six of each, I placed a moratorium on my KJ swimsuit buying. "No more until next summer," I vowed. But then. Then, she had this special deal where you could get a classic, plain-colored bottom for just $16! I mean practically free, right? What was I to do? There was really no choice. So I got these cute navy bottoms that go with five of my six tops. But now I'm uneven. I think I really need another top. Help!!

Okay, not to ignore what you're all wondering about: price. This swimwear is beautifully made, but yes, it's a bit pricy. That said, she (Kortni) has all these different sales and promotions and fun games. For example, throughout October, she goes to various locations here in the valley and then announces where she is, and anyone who shows up within an hour wearing just a KJ swimsuit (in October!) gets a top or bottom for free. Anyway, I haven't done that yet because it didn't happen in 2020 for obvious reasons, but I plan to do it this year. So just FYI, of all my KJ swimsuits, I only paid full price for one. I was having a sucky day and needed some retail therapy, so I ordered a top and bottom at full price. I've gotten all the rest on sale.

So there you have it, my lovely friends: These are a few of my favorite things!