July Favorites: Trader Joes, Journaling, and More!
We are already in the second week of August – WHAT.
I’ve been trying to tell myself that I love August. My friend Hannah was telling me that she tries to stray from having a “favorite season” and “least favorite season” because she just always strives to be happy. Isn’t that awesome of her?
I tend to get pretty anxious around August with school starting and things…dun, dun, dun…changing! It’s always been a busy month because it’s move-in, the start of school, the start of a whole new schedule, etc.
But I truly have no reason to be anything but OVERJOYED because I’m going to be starting my SENIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE. Also, I don’t have to participate in “move-in” because I’m already moved-in to where I’ll be living this school year. (My school is about 10-15 min away from my house.)
Anyway, I wanted to share kind of a July recap and a July favorites post because there’s a lot of new stuff in my life that I’m just super in to.
I also have a video version of this post because I’ve been posting on my Youtube channel a TON. I usually just do follow-me-around vlogs, but every now and then I talk beauty, fashion, lifestyle…and I have my first collab of the year coming up next month!
EMBED VIDEO
Anyway, here are some new things that I fell in love with in July.
Social Media
E-mail list
YA’LL. I really want to start a weekly newsletter for Cristina Was Here where I can share my recent posts plus some extra exclusive content that you can only get if you subscribe. To kick this off, I’ve embedded a little box on my sidebar where you can enter your email if you’d like to be a part of this. Once I get a few lovely people subscribed, I’ll send the first one out! Maybe something like every Wednesday? What would you like to see on there?
YouTube Channel
I’ve been having so much fun vlogging. I’m not your average YouTuber – my vlogs are super casual and I do very minimal editing, but I just think it’s a great platform to have along with my blog, and it’s also great for me to look back on for my own personal memories. I’ve been posting like crazy there, so I think ya should subscribe if you wanna see me to random weird stuff like get locked in stairwells????
My Food Instagram Account
I’ve been posting more of my meals and snacks here because I really love sharing! I think that today, a lot of people have gotten sucked into the diet-mentality. (Don’t blame them – I’ve TOTALLY been there. In fact, I think I was like the Mayor of diet town at some point.) Everyone is vegetarian or vegan or paleo or doing “clean eating”, and it’s just a lot of “you can’t have this” and “you can’t have that”.
I’ve been trying to make peace with ALL foods. There’s nothing I won’t try! I do still love smoothies and salads, but I also am a huge pizza lover and I bake cookies a couple times a week. I just want to set a good example and kind of “break the mold” of food Instagram accounts. I want to be the girl eating REAL food in between all the pictures of vegan queso and vegetable bowls. So yeah, follow along on my journey!
Blogs I’m Loving
So all of these are intuitive eating, body positive blogs, and I love that! I just find these ladies really inspiring, and with their posts backed up with real research, I really love learning from them.
YouTube Channel
I love college vloggers because I feel like they are just 100x more relatable than the average LA Youtuber. I’ve been watching Michelle for about a year now, but recently was binging her old vlogs because she’s just very down to Earth and refreshing.
I love her style and personality! Another just good human bean to watch do stuff on the internet.
I can’t believe I just now started watching Carrie Rad! What a beauty. She was the one who “taught me” about mixing the Trader Joe’s chai tea latte mix in your coffee. YUM.
Books
You can see everything I read in July in this post!
However, I wanted to mention how much I’m loving journaling! I have both the 52 Lists and 52 Lists for Happiness Books, and I try to write in those each day. I also just got a “Q&A A Day” journal and I’m trying to remember to write in it each day. And then a cute little book that I think everyone needs is “52 Ways To Love Your Body”…there’s a new body positive message each day!
Fashion
So I actually have fashion favorites this month because I no longer have a tiny capsule-esque wardrobe.
Long story short, Cam’s work had a sample sale for the employees and since it’s all women’s clothes, he got me a TON of stuff. Literally – it probably was a TON of stuff. So now I have a closet full of cute shoes, clothes, and jewelry. I show a daily ootd on my YouTube channel when I vlog, so make sure you check that out!
Food
I recently made these cookies, but I subbed coconut sugar for granulated sugar and cut up a bar of Swiss dark chocolate for my chocolate chunks. My family loved them!
I also went to Trader Joes for groceries for the first time and shared everything I got in this haul video on my Youtube Channel. I think my favorite things I got were the chai tea latte mix, the pineapple salsa, and the chile lime chicken burgers.
What were some of your July favorites?
X,
Cristina
