Welcome to ‘5 things’, a monthly round-up ‘sletter created with the purpose of hopefully introducing you to some cool new things. Whether newly discovered or tried and true—I share 5 things with you each month that really caught my attention.
I’ve decided I’m not longer going to think about what month it is. My shock at how quickly time goes by is starting to bore even myself, so I can imagine how many of you are probably sick of me saying “omg, can you believe it’s [insert current month] already?!” This past season has been eventful to say the least. I moved, I travelled, and I read (a ton). Although I loved every moment of it, I’m super glad I have a long stretch of time where I can just be at home. Because ya girl is TIRED. The inner introverted Taurus is really needing a recharge.
1. A book that made me SOB — I still seriously question why Hanya Yanagihara wrote this book. Why would anyone want to put other humans through this sort of pain and misery?! I was first introduced to A Little Life via Instagram, when a productivity content creator I follow read it and confirmed its reputation of ‘saddest book ever written’. Since that introduction, I’ve low key been kind of scared to read it. But after mentally preparing myself for MONTHS with the book sitting on my bookshelf, I can finally confirm that yes, the books as fucked up as you’d expect and it does (very well) deserve the title of DAMN SAD BOOK. I wrote a full review of the book on the blog if you want to give that a read.
2. A playlist that’s been on repeat — I’ve actually been feeling quite uninspired with my music lately. I haven’t been putting much into finding new music, and actually find myself depending quite heavily on Spotify’s curated playlists for my source of music. I was actually using Apple Music for a while, before finally deciding to make the tedious switch back to Spotify (more on that here. TL;DR, one of the reasons was because Spotify has superior playlists). One playlist I keep coming back to every time I get in the car is this Keith Power’s Taste playlist. It’s the slow jam, R&B playlist of my dreams honestly. It’s what’s playing as I’m writing this ‘sletter.
3. A new app I’m loving — I recently discovered one of the coolest yet most functional apps I’ve used in a long time. It’s built for a very specific purpose—to help people clear out their camera roll. But this app is the perfect example that you don’t need to sacrifice form for function. The app is Swipewipe. It turns cleaning out your camera roll into a fun swiping game. It organizes your media by months so you can easily keep track of what you have or have not cleared out. It also allows you to view media taken from the day, letting you do a quick clear out at the end of the day to prevent your memory getting filled up.
4. A cool local jewelry brand — In September, I took some time off and went to Tofino with a couple of friends. Each one of my Tofino trips end up being so drastically different despite how small of a town it really is. I got the chance to really explore the shops and stores around town and ended up discovering some local Vancouver brands I had never heard of before. Inside of the Merge boutique located at the end of town, I saw some stunning silver jewelry that was unlike anything I own. I found out that ring that caught my eye was actually from a Vancouver jewelry maker called @punchjewelryandoddities. She makes silver jewelry that has a molten feeling to them, as if the silver is dripping. The ring shown below actually isn’t the one I picked up but I’ll share that one once it’s back from resizing
5. A new favourite piece of tech — I’ve owned GoPros in the past, but the first few that I had never felt like they worked for my vlogging purposes. But this past year, I treated myself to the GoPro Hero 11 Black and it’s quickly becoming my vlog camera of choice when I’m throwing something in my purse. This is partially because of the small form factor (without sacrificing on that front screen so you can see yourself when filming) but also just because I love the organic and different feel of the wide angle POV. It’s also super versatile because the quality is good enough that you can crop in on that that wide aspect ratio and get a HD 1080x1920 ratio as well. Meaning you can get all different types of shots just with this one camera. I don’t know if I could have it as my main camera but as a on-the-go vlogging cam, I think it’s perfection 👄🤌🏽
Hope you discovered something new <3 Have a great October.
