At the risk of promoting materialism, I will admit that sometimes things make a positive difference in our lives. These are some recent acquisitions that have actually lived up to the hype, in my opinion:
- New bath sheets. For anyone who shares my generally low level of expertise on household linens, bath sheets are really large bath towels. Middle age has brought some horizontal growth, and our old, average size bath towels were not easy to fully wrap around my body when I got out of the shower. The bath sheets are much cozier. As a bonus, since we hadn't purchased any new towels in several years, I was reminded of how much softer new towels are.
- Loop ear plugs. Nope, I'm not making any money for promoting them, but decided to put in the brand name in case anyone else has any need for good ear plugs. They're definitely more expensive than the drugstore foam kind, but they are much more effective in blocking noise and nearly always stay in my ears overnight. The main reason I got them is because Stella is an exceptionally noisy cat. These don't completely block her nighttime news bulletins, but if I'm already asleep, they sometimes muffle them enough that she doesn't completely wake me up.
- Linen pajamas. This is sort of a cheater acquisition because I made these (although I did have to purchase the linen I used!). My previous cooler weather pajamas consisted of a knit top that had gotten very stretched out and knit pants with a waistband that had lost all of its elasticity. I wanted something prettier, with pants that I did not have to continuously hike up. I'm very happy with these. The pants stay up without the waistband digging in. The linen is cozy without being too hot. And, since I made them, I got to choose the color (it reminds me of the "periwinkle blue" that I had in my crayons box as a kid).
- Click and grow garden. There I go dropping brand names again, with no hope of any compensation. Basically, it's a tabletop indoor gardening system. My intention is to write an entire post just about it at some point (though my recent blogging track record doesn't make that seem promising). To give it a quick synopsis now, it does make it possible, and even easy, to grow plants inside, without needing to be by a window or taking up a lot of space. We love our home, but since space is at a premium, I'm happy with any company that figures out how to do cool things on a small scale.
May everyone's new acquisitions not disappoint!
