Sharing the best of the best for the Prime Early Access sale! This is when you can get Black Friday-ish deals before the holidays and so many of my faves are discounted right now. *Affiliate links are included below that allow me to earn a small commission I use to keep this lil blog running. Thank you so much to those of you who shop my links – I appreciate it so much.

Hi friends! How are ya? I hope you’re having a wonderful morning so far. I’m headed to a juice date with a friend and running some last-minute errands before the crew is out of school for fall break! I CAN’T WAIT.

Today, I’m excited to share all of the good stuff from the Prime Early Access sale. This is when you can get Black Friday type deals early, before the holidays.

When I found out this sale event was on the way, I was pumped for two reasons:

1) I can order holiday gifts NOW. I feel like the holidays keep going by way too quickly, and it’s become my goal to have everything done and wrapped by the week after Thanksgiving. Aint got no time to be stressed about gifts when there are so many fun events to enjoy.

2) This is my chance to get things around the house we’ve been needing at a sweet discount. We desperately need a new vacuum, and if you’re in the market for electronics or home goods, this is the perfect chance to get it.

Big sales like this tend to be overwhelming, so I sorted through the spreadsheets of goods way in advance to find the best stuff for you!

Here are my top faves from the Prime Early Access sale, which runs through tomorrow.

Prime Early Access sale – my top picks!

My faves:

The makeup eraser. I’m obsessed with this thing, and it really does remove so much makeup! I love them so much, I travel with the mini versions.

The best milk frother. It’s so inexpensive and really makes a difference in your morning coffee.

This toiletry travel bag.

My favorite water bottle! I’ve used so many types and always come back to this one. It’s the water bottle the kids use and love, too.

This scalp massager for applying shampoo.

Love these fuzzy slippers!

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Sourdough stuffing filled with sweetly tart apples, chewy sweet cranberries, savory sausage, plenty of herbs, and cubes of toasted sourdough is a sure win for your holiday dinner.

Sausage Apple Cranberry Stuffing

Sage sausage, dried cranberries, fresh herbs, tart apples, and cubes of sourdough add up to create the best stuffing I have ever tasted.

For as long as I can remember, I steered clear of stuffing and dressing. People would tell me that it tasted amazing, I’d take the “polite bite” but it never was something I enjoyed. Stuffing was always the one thing on the Thanksgiving table that I avoided at all costs.

So, when I tell you this is fantastic stuffing? You should probably trust me on that. It is a far cry from the flavorless bread mush I have always thought of stuffing as.

About ten years ago, I decided to try stuffing once again and I started looking around for something different.

I found the original recipe for this stuffing on Allrecipes. Could 1,628 5-star reviews be wrong?! No, they were not.

I’ve adapted the original recipe a bit over time, according to our tastes, and it has become a favorite of our friends and family.

Filled with sweetly tart apples, chewy sweet cranberries, rich savory sausage, plenty of herbs, and perfect cubes of toasted sourdough. This is truly awesome stuffing.

Sourdough Stuffing

One or two days before baking the stuffing: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spread the bread cubes across a large baking sheet.

Toast the bread for 10-15 minutes or until crispy on the outside. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before storing in a bowl or container with a loose cover.

Let the bread dry out for a day or so before making the rest of the stuffing. The bread cubes will seem rock hard when it is

We share 12 meaningful ways you can make positive, sustainable, and actionable changes in your life to make happiness your priority and start building a brighter future

Are you happy?

Being happy is a goal that many of us aim for, but how do we know when we’re really happy? Shouldn’t it be simple - you either are, or you aren’t? Happiness is an emotional state where we feel a myriad of different things including joy, satisfaction, wellness, contentment, and fulfilment. But feelings of happiness can be fleeting, like momentary bright sparks in an otherwise stressful, busy, and overwhelming landscape.

So, how do you know if you are happy? Is it something we should even be working towards, or should we be waiting for it to happen naturally?

Long-lasting happiness is steady. It’s something we feel continuously as a sense of contentment when we feel fulfilled across different areas of our lives. Perhaps when you feel like your work is making the best use of your strengths, or that you are able to live a life that best aligns with your core values.

Happiness doesn’t just mean an absence of stress, worry and anxiety. You can still be happy while experiencing other, less enjoyable but completely natural emotions. In fact, when we are feeling happiness at our core, we may feel more able to face big life events, changes, or periods of high stress without feeling as overwhelmed.  

Happiness isn’t just a luxury we should wish for. It has been shown to help predict positive outcomes for mental and physical health, wellbeing, and longevity. Experiencing more positive emotions increases our overall satisfaction with life, helping us build our resilience, develop stronger coping skills, and feel more confident and able to face life’s challenges head-on.

So, how can we stop wishing for happiness, and start making the pursuit of happiness part of our day-to-day lives?

12 ways to make happiness your priority

1. Define what happiness looks like for you

Currently, there is no one single definition of happiness. If you try to look it up, each definition is just a little different from the next. There are even different types of happiness that different people seek out.

Some may focus on more hedonic happiness (focusing on experiencing more pleasure and less pain), while others may look for eudaimonic happiness (focusing on happiness as the end result of seeking and fulfilling their life purpose, a challenge, personal growth, or overall feeling like they have fulfilled their potential).

Take time to sit down and consider what you most value in life. What is it that makes you feel a sense of satisfaction, fulfilment, or contentment? Is it spending time with friends and family, moving up the career ladder, helping others achieve their goals and better themselves? Is it creating a sense of financial security, supporting others, focusing on your passions, or reaching a state of complete self-reliance?

Our core values are highly personal and shape the way we live our lives. Spending time

Hi hi friends! How are you? How was the weekend? Ours was a good one. The weather was a dream – it felt like San Diego, plus it rained every day – and P had a soccer game. We smoked chicken for dinner, met up with friends, caught up on chores, and enjoyed relaxing as a fam. We sat on the back of the Pilot’s SUV and watched the girls run around in the rain for almost an hour.

Today’s post is a little all over the place. I didn’t take a ton of pics, but I have some random thoughts to share with ya and would love to hear what’s going on in your world, too.

Random thoughts for a Monday morning:

– We replanted for fall, and I’m so pumped for some new veggies in the garden. Usually I plant too much and certain plants crowd others, so I only did carrots, beets, and broccoli in the raised bed. In our flat garden bed, we have swiss chard, romaine, arugula, and butternut squash. I have no clue what I’m doing with the butternut squash, but I’ve found that it’s best to just plant whatever you want to learn how to plant, and you figure it out as you go.

(See those poor smashed onions in the bottom left corner? You just figure these things out along the way.)

– This thought crossed my mind during my last hot yoga class, and I was thinking about how much I enjoy hot power yoga. It feels like a hug from a workout, and while it’s still taxing and challenging, it’s simultaneously restorative and a huge treat. It made me remember the Bikram yoga days of yore, which were a start contrast in the yoga world.

I got scolded frequently. 

The first time was for drinking water before Eagle pose (don’t you dare), and for little things, like not transitioning fast enough to the savasana portions, keeping my eyes on myself (I had to look around to figure out what I was doing!), laughing during the intense breathing section (once, a friend and I got the church giggles during class) and who knows what else. The incredibly steamy and sweaty rooms were always carpeted (disgusting), smelled like hamsters, and I loved it????? I loved it! SO weird haha.

Needless to say, I’m glad the Bikram phenomenon has come and gone, for various reasons.

– We tried a new-to-us restaurant in Tucson: the Parish. We’ve heard so many great things over the years but have never made it out there. We met up with friends for a lil double date, and it was SO good. They have twists on Southern food, so we shared popcorn, hushpuppies, and the best brussels sprouts for apps, and the entrees were things like fried chicken sandwich, gumbo, I had an extremely flavorful salmon salad, and meatloaf. The drinks were also an A+. We’ll definitely go back! Check it out if you’re a Tucson local looking for something to try out.

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Corn Pudding is beloved throughout my family. I grew up eating my mom’s corn pudding for every holiday and plenty of Sunday dinners in between.

My siblings and I have been known to sneak the leftover corn casserole out of my mom’s house and I’ll even admit to “accidentally” bringing home my sister’s share of the leftovers (along with mine) once upon a time.

Corn pudding is a nostalgic dish for me, for sure, as perhaps it is for you. But if you’ve never tried it before, or if it’s been a few years, I know you’ll be as pleased with this side dish as I am.

Corn Pudding

Corn pudding is especially popular in the American south. It’s become widely eaten all over the United States not only because it’s delicious but because of how easy and inexpensive it (or “puddin’ corn” as it’s sometimes called in the south) is to make!

This is not a pudding in the dessert sense, although it is sweet. Corn pudding is more like a cross between a savory custard and a dish of warm creamed corn.

My favorite way to serve corn pudding is with turkey, chicken, or ham, along with green beans, and boiled baby potatoes.

Corn Pudding Casserole

My mom’s classic recipe includes a box of cornbread mix, as does just about every other corn casserole recipe I’ve seen. I started playing with the recipe, determined to come up with a version that didn’t require that boxed mix.

Jiffy Corn Pudding Casserole

This simple side dish is rich, creamy, sweet corn deliciousness that is unforgettable. My kids begged for seconds and would have happily eaten even more.

Even though I didn’t reach for the prepackaged box of Jiffy cornbread mix, this corn pudding tasted just as good as my mom’s. In fact, to be honest, I think it tastes even better.

If you haven’t tasted it before, you might be cringing at the thought of combining corn with anything and then calling it pudding, but I’m telling you that it works. Not one person I have ever served this to has failed to love it.

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