Episode #24: (MINI) Things We Bought During The Quarantine

Emma: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess Podcast. Today is our first ever mini episode. That means it’s under 20 minutes and we stick with just one quick subject. And today we are talking about things we bought during the quarantine.

Elsie: So we’re gonna do four quick questions. The first one is, is there anything that you stocked up on during quarantine? And we’re not saying hoarding. We’re just saying stocked up on regular.

Emma: Yes. Well, I’ll tell you what mine is and then you’ll know that it’s not really hoarding. So I didn’t, you know, feel….so I saw everyone buying all the toilet paper at the grocery store. And I was like, OK, I see what’s happening here. But in my mind, I was like, well, I don’t want to take…I bought stuff for my house, but I didn’t want to overbuy things. But here’s where my instinct did kick in. I went to the library to return a book. And as I was sitting in my car, it just hit me. I was like, Emma, you have got to stock up on library books. You might be home for like months. You don’t know. Normally I only get two library books, sometimes even just one because it’ll take me a week or two weeks, maybe even three weeks to read a book.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: So I don’t need tons and tons, but I thought, oh my gosh, what if the library is closed, you know? And to be clear, I only got, let’s see…

Elsie: Will you post the picture in the show notes because it was so funny…she texted it to me.

Emma: Yeah. I’ll say them all real quick, but I won’t explain them or anything because, you know, this is supposed to be a short episode. But here’s the five books that I stocked up on for the quarantine. I got Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, Crystal Cove, which is a romance novel, and the main character’s a witch. Get excited. Halsey Street, The Woman in the Window, and Unsheltered. And it’s a pretty big mix. So I’ll link em. You can read the descriptions and see if there’s anything for you. Maybe your library is still open. Probably not. Maybe you’re buying books online. I don’t know. But maybe you can use these afterwards. I don’t know. You know, but that’s that’s what I stocked up on. How about you?

Elsie: Nice. OK. So the week when everyone was buying the toilet paper, I had moved and we found this random grove box that we had never opened. And it had like a whole new thing of toilet paper and three things of hand sanitizer in it. And I was like, I’m good.

Emma: Yes! Jackpot!

Elsie: So that was kind of nice. Yes. So yeah I didn’t worry about those things. But what I bought was four bags of coffee because I was like, well, and to be fair, we are already on our third one now. So it’s not like it even lasts that long anyway. That’s definitely not hoarding. It’s just regular planning ahead.

Emma: Yeah. Oh, I we did that too. Now that you mentioned it, I’m like, oh yeah, we bought a bunch of extra coffee.

Elsie: What do you think you need more toilet paper or coffee? Hello!

Emma: Coffee.

Elsie: Coffee. Yeah. No, we actually ran out of baby wipes. And guess what? Life still went on. Our babies, you know, problems are taken care of and it’s all good. We figured it out. We problem solved it ourselves. Wasn’t that hard. OK. So what is the best thing you’ve purchased from your quarantined life? Have you gotten anything fun, I guess is my question.

Emma: Yes, I have two things. I would say they’re fun. I will admit, though, they are dorky. OK. That one. I got a lot of recommendations from listeners about what to do for my dry eyes.

Elsie: Oh good!

Emma: And so I thought this could be a good time to work on my eye health since I’m home. And yeah, I don’t know why. I just thought. Well, I’ll work on that. Just something positive. So I got this, the funniest thing. I got lots of new eyedrops and different things. I’ll link it all in the show notes. But the funniest thing is I got this heat compress. So they’re like two little pirate patches that you heat up in their microwave and then you put them over your closed eyes for ten minutes. And it’s supposed to help kind of release oils in your eye, ducts and things like that. Yeah. And I actually had all these recommendations, like two of our listeners are eye doctors, which I felt really cool. I was like, oh, eye doctors listening to us. Cool! So anyway, so that was from an eye doctor. And I’ve. I I don’t know if it’s helping it. I’ve really just started, but I really enjoy it. It feels really nice. I would recommend it even if you don’t have dry eyes. So that. It is hilarious looking though. Trey laughs every time you seem to be doing it. So that and then I also buy a big package of true lemon which is like crystalised lemon and it only has like two ingredients. So I think Sherry’s into it from Young House Love Has a Podcast, but I essentially kind of had a hard time finding certain produce. I don’t know. Like the one time I’ve gone to the grocery store since being quarantined, there is no lemons. I don’t know what was up with that. But at any rate, you know, so I drink, I usually put lemon in my tea or my water every single day. So now I have these and it’s not as good, but it’s very good. I prefer a real lemon. But whatever. These are great. So that’s what I bought. How about you?

Elsie: Ok, mine is kind of dumb, but it was fun and it made me happy. OK. So I mentioned in the last episode that I cleaned out all my makeup like I tried everything on. I got rid of all the stuff that was either crusty and expired or almost empty or I just wasn’t going to wear it because the color was too wild for me, I remember like all the like bright red lipsticks. I’m never gonna wear this. So it’s just not for me.

Emma: Just like one Christmas party and then that’s it.

Elsie: Yeah. It’s just not for me. Yeah. So I did a little makeup haul and I got some new stuff just to try and it was so fun. I haven’t gotten it in the mail yet so I’m anticipating it. It’s a wonderful little self-care gift to myself. So I got a Glossier package and the stuff that I got was Bubble Wrap, Future Dew, which is like makes your skin all shiny, which I’m excited about Cloud Paint, which is like the blush that is kind of like liquid blush, which I love liquid blush. And it already use Cloud Paint, but they have like a darker kind of brownish color now, which is perfect for what I like to wear. And then some colored eye liners. And then I also got a couple colored eyeliners from Sephora from Fenty, which are like the really, really bright ones. And I’m just excited about it because I had like like so many, you know, privileged white girls. I had to not get my eyelashes filled. (laughs) It’s a big crisis. I’m making fun of myself. So please forgive me. But anyway, my lashes are gone…

Emma: Making fun of me, too!

Elsie: Yeah, my lashes are they were like the spider lashes last week. And then this week I just went ahead and put oil on and let them all fall off. And so anyway, I’m trying to make my makeup fun. And compensate for my new my new natural lashes, which are really not very there. And…

Emma: I’m in denial. I’m just letting mine stay on as long as they can. I’ll just even let one little one stay on. I’m just I’m in denial about my lashes.

Elsie: Well you have to take a picture if you have like one little one, because it’s funny that it’s actually just like hilarious because it’s like Gollum eyes.

Emma: Pretty much yeah, it’s not good.

Elsie: So anyway, that’s my that’s my happy shopping.

Emma: Okay. Best food delivery orders so far.

Elsie: Mine has been so I have one that I did last week and one that I’m planning for next weekend, both them. So last weekend we had a night where we got Indian food and Jeni’s ice cream. And that was like the ultimate, ultimate. It was so amazing. We were talking about how, like every category of food you can get. You know, it can be so wrong or so right. Like pizza. You. I mean, everyone has had like a worst pizza of their life and then like a best pizza. And the difference is so enormous. But Indian food isn’t like that. Like, it’s always either amazing or very good to me. I’ve never had horrible Indian food.

Emma: I would agree. I guess it’s all the spices. I don’t know. But yeah, because even when it’s not the greatest ever, it’s still like good.

Emma: Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. Mine is…we got a pizza and we got four bottled cocktails from the Rum Club. And yeah it was delicious. I love their pizza and I…

Elsie: Explain the cocktail thing because I think this is so cool. Our city just did like sort of an emergency measure that restaurants are allowed to do this to sort of like help, help their businesses. And so explain it for people who haven’t had it.

Emma: Yeah. So they got bottles from one of the breweries in our town, Mother’s Brewery. And basically they make your cocktails like you order them over the phone. They make them they put them in the bottles, they seal them. So has a bottle cap. So obviously no one would drink them on their drive home anyway, I’m sure. But that’s you know, they’re fully sealed and. Yeah. And they don’t have their full menu. You can’t get any cocktail. They have like a set menu that you can find online. But I had a Jungle Bird and a Hurricane and they were amazing.

Elsie: Wow. Yeah. I’m very jealous of that. We haven’t had anything like that but it sounds very cool. Yeah. And you just. Oh I didn’t really explain all the way. So you just you order it over the phone, you pay over the phone and then you pull up and they bring it out to your car. So it’s a very minimal contact effort, just like most delivery things right now.

Elsie: Nice.

Emma: All right. How about something…

Elsie: Wait wait, I still have to say, my one that I’m planning for next weekend!

Emma: Oh, yeah.

Elsie: It’s okay. Okay. So we, we’re selling our house. It’s almost done. And we’ve been planning for like two months now, a celebration dinner. It was supposed to be like a date night. And we get a babysitter once a month or less. So it’s like a big deal for us. But it is not happening, obviously, because we are staying home.

Emma: Right.

Elsie: But I found out that the restaurant where I love to go is like this old timey Madmen type of steakhouse in Nashville called Sperry’s that they are doing curbside. So we’re planning to do that. And I’m getting these amazing crab cakes like, best crab cakes in the whole world. And I’m seriously going to think about it every day until next weekend. It’s like the ultimate joy in my heart to anticipate this meal.

Emma: The crab cakes? Man, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten there in Nashville.

Elsie: Oh, we’ll have to go sometime. It’s very cute. It’s like the kind of old timey restaurant where they do the bananas foster by your table with a giant flame.

Emma: Yes. That’s adorable. I love places like that. Just so like, oh, fancy date night out, old style. Love it.

Elsie: It’s very cozy.

Emma: OK, last question is, is there anything that you were thinking about buying or you almost bought, but then you didn’t?

Elsie: Yeah, like a million things because we just moved in and all I do is online shop and think about furniture, but OK, mine is I almost bought a blow up hot tub and I’m gonna link it in the show notes because I read the reviews extensively and it sounds like it’s just better if you live in a warmer climate. So maybe if you live in like Arizona or California or somewhere like that and you don’t own a hot tub, maybe you would love this $400 blow up hot tub. But in our climate, it just gets too cold that it can’t keep up. And it sounds like it’s going to be an enormous waste of energy and not really get hot all the way. And we just decided that it wasn’t…going to work. Yeah. So we’re just going to wait until it actually gets hot and do our usual $30 blow up children’s pool that we do each year.

Emma: Yeah (laughs)

Elsie: But that will be months from now. And yeah, I’m very, very jealous. That Emma has a hot tub. So that’s my thing. I was fantasizing about it, but I did not buy.

Emma: Oh yeah. We’re in it like, every night right now. It’s so great.

Elsie: I’m so jealous of like when there’s these people who have like a pool who live in a warm climate…or a hot tub. Oh, my gosh. Like and that’s where your quarantine is. I’m very jealous of that.

Emma: We have a fantasy right now about getting a house where we can add or it already has a little sauna. Basically, I saw this house on Zillow in Springfield. That’s for sale right now. And I’m not going to link it or say what neighborhood it’s in or anything, because I don’t think that’s really right. But they clearly added this tiny little sauna in one of their master bathrooms. And it’s very small and it’s not a super expensive house either. So I was like, oh, you can just add a sauna to your house.

Elsie: You definitely can. And yeah, a lot of my healthy friends or my health-conscious friends are into the the home saunas.

Emma: Yes, some people are into the infrared. I don’t really know how that works versus just like a traditional sauna or if it’s the same thing. I really haven’t done a lot of research

Elsie: I know nothing about about that. I know that it has to do with detoxing. And I know nothing further. And I basically hardly ever used a sauna in my life.

Emma: Yeah, I’ve only used them on vacations and at the Y, but I love them so.

Elsie: Well, it sounds like something you can definitely do at home.

Emma: Yeah. So I’m interested. That’s that’ll be a thing I research while I’m bored at home right now. But probably not something we’ll be doing anytime soon.

Elsie: Well, wherever you are, we hope that you’re having a safe and as as good as it can be quarantine.

Emma: Yep. We love you and we’re thinking of you. We hope you’re well.

Elsie: And send us a message. If you have a request for a mini episode, send it to us a podcast@abeautifulmess.com and we will hopefully be doing minis every week we’re so excited.