210 - 10 Things Saving My Life: Fall Edition
Affiliate links have been used in this post! I do receive a commission when you choose to purchase through these links, and that helps me keep this podcast up and running—I truly appreciate when you choose to use them!
Resources from this episode:
Artificial Pumpkins from Walmart
Show Notes:
Okay. I felt like it was just time for a more lighthearted podcast episode and that is why I am bringing you 10 things that are saving my life, fall edition. Are they actually saving my life? No, but they’re really helping it and I think they’re making my fall a little bit better, and I’m just gonna share those things with you today. So I hope you enjoy listening.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Okay, I am just gonna be covering 10 very simple things that are saving my life right now, fall edition.
1. Fake Pumpkins
The first one I’m gonna start out with—don’t judge me—is fake pumpkins from Walmart. Now hear me out when I say I love real pumpkins. I love the local farmers that we get to support right down the street and buy pumpkins from. And I still did that by the way. I still got some real pumpkins for the inside of my home because I love them, I really love them. But we have a problem on our stairs and that problem is slugs and that’s so gross. I’m sorry I just said that in the podcast, but I had to because that’s just life. And you know what? We have slugs on our porch and they eat through our pumpkins so fast that I go and I spend all this money on pumpkins and I don’t even get to enjoy them.
And this year I was walking through Walmart and there was this huge display of quite realistic, might I add fake pumpkins for $7 each. Now I had been considering these Pottery Barn fake pumpkins for a long time because of the slugs. And when I walked into Walmart it was like just a beautiful moment because the price tag with Pottery Barn pumpkins is steep, and Walmart, they were selling them for $7 a pumpkin—all different shades of blues and oranges and whites and all the speckled details everywhere, it’s great.
So that’s the first thing that’s saving my life this year. I am enjoying my fall decor from the street, knowing that these pumpkins are gonna last me all the way through Thanksgiving and not get eaten. And then I’m gonna be able to use them year after year. So it’s great. It’s a great steal at Walmart, $7 a pumpkin. It’s great. Okay, that’s the first thing that’s saving my life, fall edition.
2. A’del Cosmetics
Second thing I am loving is A’del Cosmetics. Now listen, I have been on the search for a makeup company, number one that I really love, just I love their products. Number two, whose values align with mine. Because I just feel like I’m seeing all kinds of weird things on makeup company ads. And I don’t know, I just want some values alignment and where I’m shopping these days. Number three, I wanted really clean products. Okay, I’m 36. I’m like, I just want something good for my face. Oh, and number four, I wanted something that made me feel like I wasn’t really wearing makeup, if you know what I mean. I don’t like heavy makeup. I’m, if you know me, I’m very light on the makeup, okay? I want something that enhances natural beauty. I don’t want a ton of makeup on my face all the time. So enter A’Del Cosmetics.
It’s so good y’all. It’s so good. It is faith-based. It’s pro-life. It is a family owned company that sells this makeup that is so beautiful and organic and clean and made from just incredible ingredients. And I just love them. I love them. So I usually, my like routine for a very simple morning, is to put on this all natural—it sounds so weird—but it’s a lotion bar and I rub it all over my face and it moisturizes my face. But then I use their foundation that’s a powder foundation. And I bought this brush that’s so nice. I think it’s called the Artis. I splurged on this. Okay. I wanted this to be my thing and every morning I do this and it makes me feel so beautiful, but it’s just so even and light. And then I do their cream blush and I put on mascara. And those three things, I feel like, make me feel awake and light.
They also have beautiful like eyeliner and eyeshadow. I just don’t do those every day. But I will when I’m getting fancy. And then, oh, the last thing is their lip tint. I have lip tint and lipstick, but I really love their lip tint. It is, it feels like a chapstick or vaseline, but it adds a little tint. And again, all clean products. So I just, it’s saving my life these days y’all. I love it. I feel like I finally found makeup that I’m gonna keep coming back to again and again. I don’t have to keep looking or like trying different things. So A’del cosmetics are great. I will leave a link in the show notes if you would like.
3. Lululemon Socks
Okay, third thing, Lululemon socks. Hang with me here. This is a weird one, I realize. Usually it’s Lululemon leggings or Lululemon sports bras or workout clothes or whatever. And I love those things too. I have those things too, but their socks. Y’all it, they’re great. Their workout socks are like nice and tight and they’re the kind of socks where you have to put one on your left foot and one on your right. It says like an L and an R, and it fits my feet so good. It, it just, it doesn’t ever leave my feet feeling sweaty. It has like a little higher up edge to the heel so that my tennis shoes don’t rub when I’m working out.
I have a gift card to Lululemon and the first thing I’m gonna do is go in there and buy about two more packs of Lululemon socks for working out. I love them. They’re so great. Okay, just something I thought you should know about that you probably didn’t is their socks.
4. Sam’s Club
Fourth thing that is saving my life right now is Sam’s Club. Now I have never really been one of those like big-box store shoppers like Sam’s Club or Costco. I know I’m so late to the party on this, but I tell you what, grocery prices right now are insane. And Sam’s Club—or Costco, if that’s closer to your house, we just do Sam’s Club cause it’s closer—Sam’s Club prices are where it’s at. I have been amazed and yes, I spend like $1 million when I go and do my shopping there. Just kidding. Not really, but you know, you, you buy it all at once and it’s very expensive but then it lasts you and it’s always cheaper than other places. I’m really loving my Sam’s Club-Aldi combo this year.
But just gotta say, okay, a couple things I love from Sam’s Club. Whole rotisserie chicken feeds our whole family—$5. Amazing. Just their giant snack boxes like Pirate’s Booty or peanut butter crackers. So great. I also love, they have like those beef sticks. Will and I really like those. Love their like giant bags of vegetables. We have this huge giant bag of like carrots, organic carrots, in our fridge right now, and peppers, and so many things that can last us several meals. Caesar salad kits, like the ready-made—just throw it all in a bowl and mix it together. There are Dot’s Pretzels like the giant bag. Benji’s crazy for the Dot’s Pretzels—he loves, loves them. Diapers. You know, the things that you know you’re gonna be using are great. Sam’s Club is saving my life right now.
5. Summer Moon Coffee
All right, next up: Summer Moon Coffee. I just wanna apologize to anyone listening who does not have a Summer Moon Coffee near you. There’s not that many of them. Like Nashville, Tennessee, doesn’t even have them yet. And I’m astounded by that really. But Summer Moon I believe was founded in Austin, Texas, and they have this creamer—I’m a big creamer in my coffee kind of girl—they have this creamer that they have named Moon Milk and it’s like a secret recipe. And let me just say their, their lattes are the best. Like they make everything with their Moon Milk. It’s perfectly sweetened. The flavor is so good. Their coffee is fire-roasted. Summer Moon is saving my life right now, y’all. I love it. It’s so good.
6. Every Moment Holy
Okay, next thing. Every Moment Holy. So let me just explain this book, if you’ve never heard of Every Moment Holy. It is a book of everyday liturgies, prayers for very mediocre moments. A couple that come to mind is like the lighting of the first campfire, the changing of a diaper. Even just liturgies for like the morning or the evening. A liturgy for when you hear a siren as like an ambulance passes. Just things that happen in your life, and there are these beautiful prayers that go along with them. So there’s Every Moment Holy Part One. And that’s my favorite one. I feel like I can find something in there every single day that I need to read. And oftentimes I will cry as I’m praying them. It’s just a book of prayer. It’s a book of prayer. It’s so beautiful.
Then there’s Every Moment Holy Two, Volume Two, which is on grief and sorrow. And that has been saving my life because, and a lot of, a lot of times when someone close to me walks through grief, I don’t always know what to say or like how to love them well. But this book I have, this book is so beautiful. I have just mailed a copy to someone who just recently lost her dad. Someone else who recently lost her best friend. I just dropped off a copy at her house. It’s like, it is such a beautiful book of prayers that puts just horrible things like sorrow and grief into these beautiful words. Wrapping it all up in the hope of heaven. And if you are listening and you’ve walked through grief or you’re still grieving something, I really encourage you to look at Every Moment Holy Volume Two, or if you know somebody who could be blessed by that.
And then Volume Three is coming out in November. I’m so excited about this one. I think this one’s called for like the everyday worker, but this one, so the first two were written by this guy McKelvy. I think I’ll link to these in the show notes as well. The third one that’s about to come out has all these different contributors, which I’m so excited about. They pulled from a lot of different authors and musicians and I know Ruth Joe Simons is in it. Jess Ray is gonna be contributing to it.
I’m just really excited. I’ve already pre-ordered it. So if you’re looking for a great Christmas gift, there you go. Every Moment Holy is beautiful. But it really is saving my life right now cause sometimes I just don’t know what to pray or know what to say. And it really is just so sweet. Brings tears to my eyes.
7. The Outdoors
All right, next thing that’s saving my life is simply the outdoors. Going outside on a hike with my family. I feel like my happiness level just increases like tenfold. Or if I’m just sitting in the driveway letting my kids play. My husband just put up a hammock in our front yard. It’s glorious just to be outside. This is my encouragement to you. If you’re listening, get outside today just for five minutes. It will do your heart and soul so good.
Another quick little note on this. Okay, so I try to work out in the mornings before the kids are awake. And on Mondays and Wednesdays I’ve been trying, after my workout, the sun is rising, I will just get outta my house and I will just walk the street in front of my house and I will pray.
And Mondays is my prayer time for my family. I pray for each of them by name. Wednesdays is my truth time. It’s where I declare truth over my family and over my life. And I just speak scripture as I get outside. But getting outside and walking and praying all at the same time, it’s a game-changer. Even if it is only for four minutes, it’s incredible. So that’s just saving my life right now. Getting outside, hiking, getting in the sun. It’s amazing.
8. Mulling Spices
Okay, moving on. The next thing that’s saving my life right now is my mulling spices. That sounds so weird saying it out loud cause you’re probably like, what do, what is that, Nancy? What is a mulling spice?
Honestly, shout out to my mom, sweet Debbie, my sweet mom. She has been doing this for years and it’s a way to make your house smell like the essence of fall without ever burning a candle. Not that candles are bad, I love candles, but you have these mulling spices that you get. It’s like a bottle of them from William Sonoma. It’s like cloves and cinnamon. And my mom bought this teeny, teeny tiny little miniature crockpot, so cute. And she fills it up with water, plugs it in, and pours the mulling spices on top. And it just diffuses in your home. You don’t have to have a teeny tiny crockpot. You can just do this in a small pot of warm water on your stove and let it simmer all day.
It just makes me feel so happy in the fall. So I will link to those mulling spices and the tiny crockpot. But I will say you probably could make your own mulling spices if you wanted to. And you don’t need a crock pot, but it’s just it, it does make it really sweet when there’s just a teeny little crockpot making your house smell so good.
9. Chunky Knit Blanket
Alright, the next thing that’s saving my life is my chunky knit blanket that I just bought for the back porch. I have been on a search for the perfect blanket on my back porch. I bought two or three from HomeGoods, returned all of them. The colors weren’t right. I just was not feeling, I wanted this cozy vibe, and I was not getting it.
And I looked on Amazon and I found this chunky blanket and was like, oh, this is kind of risky. It was like $40. It was a nice blanket. Okay, the ones at HomeGoods I love cause they’re $15. But this one was like, okay, I have searched high and low, I am gonna try this. I’ll just return it if I don’t like it. It is so big and chunky and cozy and so soft. I love it. That’s it. I wake up every morning, I look so forward to getting snuggled up in that blanket with my cup of coffee. It’s lovely.
10. The WingFeather Saga Series
Okay, the final 10th thing that’s saving my life right now is The WingFeather Saga series. Now this series is a four-part book series written by Andrew Peterson.
It is a children’s fictional story. Think along the lines of like Narnia, Harry Potter. It’s like a different world that he’s created with this family that just takes on so much darkness and brings so much light. And let me tell you, I look forward to every single night when I crawl into bed and get to read WingFeather Saga.
The first book started out a little bit slow and I was like, ah, I don’t know. I don’t know. And then by the second book, it just, I mean, it just starts to fly like you, you’re just flying. And the fourth book, guys, I just, I, I really is, I feel like it’s in the same category of Narnia and Harry Potter, where by the end you love them so much.
And I just wept. I mean I finished it this last Saturday and I just cried. I do hope to do a podcast episode coming up soon on The WingFeather Saga series. It took me a lot longer to read through it than I would like, but I also am really glad cause I got to savor it. So hopefully I’ll do a little podcast update on, I’m thinking of doing like a Narnia, Harry Potter, and WingFeather Saga podcast all in one, just to talk about how important those books are to me. Okay. All right. This is, I’m geeking out over the children’s fiction now a little bit, but I tell you what, it has been saving my life. Having a good book that you don’t wanna put down, that you can’t wait to see what happens is just like medicine for the soul. It’s so good. And I have just really been enjoying it.
So that’s it. That’s it. 10 Things That Are Saving My Life: Fall Edition. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you’ve enjoyed episode 210 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Everything I’ve mentioned today can be found in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/210. And you can always find me over on Instagram @nancryray or at nanyray.com.
Oscar Wilde said,
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”
Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.
