Buy a Speaker Set Specifically for Your Bathroom
When we rounded up our staff’s weekly updates last Friday , our editors honed our crossword skills, finally got our eyes on correctly, reduced the number of tabs, and bought clothes for our pets.
In the last week of the year, we’re reaping the rewards of early vacations, unfollowing friends who post too much on Instagram, adding columns to our bathrooms, and returning from severe flu cases.
What updates have you made this week? Let us know in the comments.
Travel on vacation before the holiday
This holiday season, I went to visit my family in Mississippi in early December and stayed home over Christmas. Not only did I get rid of the insane headache associated with a trip to a very small town in Mississippi, but my time with my family became much cooler. Plus I have to decorate a huge tree in my grandmother’s house, which is my favorite part of Christmas in Mississippi anyway. Then on “real Christmas,” I just stayed at home, ate and drank champagne in bed, watching the Gremlins.
Claire Lowe, Food and Beverage Editor
Unfollow Followers on Instagram
One of the best things I’ve done for myself this year is unfollowing people on Instagram. Twitter and Facebook, along with built-in ways to minimize your exposure to over-sharing and nemesis, but Instagram woefully lags behind on this front, causing a moral dilemma for people like me who don’t want to burn bridges but don’t want to feel a little fire inside. every time someone posts their 10th gram of the day. A few months ago I got tired of this, I broke several ties, and it was better than I could imagine. They would likely never notice, and I was able to hold on to another small piece of my sanity.
Caitlin Schneider, social editor
Add lighting to your closet
I have enough room in my apartment for a toilet, but none of the closets have lighting, which makes it difficult to see things along the edges or on high shelves, and it’s easy to forget about the clothes I already have. To solve this problem, I just bought several of these touch-sensitive lights from Amazon , which makes things brighter and makes it easier to find what I’m looking for in a hurry.
Virginia K. Smith, Editor-in-Chief
Immerse yourself in the drama of laser pointers
I sat down a bit for Christmas, and my favorite thing was to turn off the lights so that the laser pointer would illuminate the entire apartment. Cats love to chase this point so much that as soon as they finish eating, they try to pull the laser pointer out of the storage area and point it towards me.
Nick Douglas, staff writer
Take a group vacation with other families
This week our group of friends stayed at a house in the mountains – all 19 people, including nine children under the age of five. Was it chaotic? Fully. But we vowed to do it again every year. It’s a good way to live – taking turns cooking large quantities, having real adult conversations while listening to the stampede of tiny feet in the room upstairs, and not turning on the TV even once (we couldn’t get it to work, but still). Parents need more of this in their daily lives. Village. Why do we keep doing this alone?
Michelle Wu, parenting editor
Get your bathroom speakers
I have an Echo Dot for the bathroom. Yes, it’s stupid, and I asked for it as a gift because I couldn’t bear the thought of wasting “real” money on such frivolity. But I love it. When I do my skincare and brushing my teeth in the evening, I ask Alexa to play some dreamy soothing music. (Still looking for the perfect morning wake-up playlist, suggestions are welcome.) Instead of leaving it with shelf space, I hang my dot from a wall outlet with this detachable mount .
Beth Skwarecki, health editor
Get Rid of Travel Illness
Dayquil. This shit I need.
Patrick Allan, staff writer
Prepare for the new year
Like many other people, I started collecting in 2018. This meant that I read my magazines from the past year to think about what has changed and what has not changed, to write down my goals for the new year and to get my apartment in order. I also finally found a great planner ( from Ink + Volt ) for the new year, which has a lot of bullet diary-like organizational components that I really love, and I’ve compiled my to-do list for the first few weeks of the year.
alisia adamchik, staff writer
Get a headlamp in your life
This Christmas, I got the most incredible gift I have used every day since I unpacked it: a beanie with a built-in headlamp. A series of LEDs are sewn into the hat and connected to a small coin-cell battery pack, which may look a little more expensive than I might imagine, but using it as a guide when walking my dog in the evening has already made it an indispensable tool. … It’s damn bright, incredibly comfortable, and in my favorite color: black. Get one.
Patrick Austin, staff writer