Five Favs: March — Glitter for Breakfast

Wow March, where did you go? Despite the month zooming by, I feel like I really made the most of March. Work was been busy but good busy, I got to spend time with my family for my dad’s birthday and my sister’s White Coat Ceremony, I’ve been on a few dates, seen friends, finally made it to a movie (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2- sadly I do not recommend seeing it), two plays (She Loves Me & Eclipsed - Both are must sees!), finally bit the bullet to take The Class theclasswithtt.com (review coming soon), and capped it off with a spam call on the 31st informing me I had been selected for a free cruise to the Bahamas, if only. After so much goodness, what were my five favorites things from March? ...

Gramfeed

Gramfeed has been a game-changer. Among my many work projects is composing copy for a boutique hotel’s Facebook and Twitter feeds. Nearly every post needs an accompanying photo and often there are photos on Instagram (from influencer’s, local events, etc.) that I want to use. As you probably know, you can’t download from Instagram. While I could use Grab or another screen capture program, Gramfeed makes it easy peasy. You login with your Instagram account and from there can go through your own feed or search through the platform by username, hashtag, and location. Simple as that.

Brad’s Organic Peanut Butter

Don't worry about what that boy said, peanut butter, you will always be my favorite (also pizza, and brownies, and broccoli). [Source]

Come again? While my diet is generally on the healthy, whole food side of things, it wasn’t until a false positive for being at the very tip top of the range for pre-diabetes a few weeks ago, that I really started looking at my sugar intake. I will never cut out sugar entirely (well never say never but you know what I mean), but really internalizing that sugar and all kinds of other junk is in so much of what I purchase was eye opening. Post-health scare, I began making a concerted effort to avoid buying food with added sugar when I can (major exception for anything that was a dessert because well, that’s the point of such items). One place where I didn’t think to look was my peanut butter. I love peanut butter and even recently told a date it was my favorite food. (He said it didn’t count as a food so then I changed my answer to brownies. That also failed. I guess it’s good that relationship didn’t pan out.) Not too long after, I was watching a video online about making healthier choices. It went through cereal, peanut butter, and one other product that I’ve forgotten, giving simple ranges for fiber, sugar, and carbs to look at in order to make informed choices. The great thing about the video is that the dietician was completely fine if someone wanted to pick the less healthy option, her goal was to enable watchers to be informed and know what we’re choosing, rather than get us to all only make the healthiest choice. Cheers to balance! But I digress… In the peanut butter segment, I realized just how many unnecessary ingredients some companies put into their pb. I have used Peanut Butter & Co.’s products for many years and, being the naïve consumer companies hope for, figured that a company with a mom & pop feel which used to have a restaurant where your sandwich came with a side of carrot sticks, had to be good. I was wrong. It’s not awful (peanuts, dried cane syrup, palm fruit oil, and salt), but it’s certainly not just peanuts (not to mention the added sugar). I switched to Brad’s Organic, ingredients: 100% organic peanuts. So maybe I had to stir it the first time I used it, no biggie and so worth it!

StandStand

As I wrote in this post, since changing career paths and working from home, I have really missed my standing desk. It took a bit of Googling, but I soon discovered StandStand. It comes in this really cute/crazy packaging and is three pieces that you pop together. Then you just plop it down and put your computer on top. There are two widths to choose from to accommodate those who use an external mouse and four heights so that you can find one that fits you no matter how tall/short you are. I don’t use an external mouse and am a towering five feet tall, so I got the 9” StandStand Classic in Baltic Birch. There are days when I don’t use it at all, but it is so nice to have the option again!

Sort of Ikea-ish but only 3 pieces, I can do this! [Source]

Success! Now about that messy iPhone charger hanging out there...

Customer Service

I know, another one of my “but that’s not a thing” items (and spoiler #5 also falls into this category) but I encountered two instances of exceptional customer service this month. The first was the restaurant where we went for my dad’s birthday asking for my father’s name and spelling so they could write on the dessert plate and the second was someone who worked with me to get a refund on a software program I was incorrectly told I needed for a course. It’s easy to forget how nice it is to be treated well, and I find that when my expectations are exceeded, it feels downright luxurious. Why can’t we all be nice to each other all of the time?

Saying Yes

My other “not a thing-thing” is saying yes. I have said yes to most things this month. On the one hand, it’s made for a really full and fun month; on the other hand, I’m exhausted and definitely need to remind myself to say no a little bit more in April. That said, I feel like I squeezed just about every bit of life out of March and as a result, ended the month full of positivity (or maybe it was because this last stretch of March saw some really warm days and flowers seemed to spring up everywhere).

What were your favorite things in March?