These Are My Favorite Things

[00:00:00]Now, in full transparency, I don't think anybody in the house finds as much joy out of this as I do. I think it's just me, but I think it's hilarious just to leave little baby Jesus's around places where I go.

[00:00:13]>> [music] >> Well, hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jennifer Allwood and this is She's Equipped with Jennifer Allwood.

[00:00:25]Today we're going to do something totally different on the podcast. I thought it would just be fun today to do something totally different.

[00:00:33]I haven't done this in a long time. I'm going to do like some of my favorite things on this podcast episode. I'm actually going to do show and tell. So, if you're listening on the podcast app and you'd rather flip over to YouTube, um I will either be showing you some of my favorite things. I think I've got eight things to show you guys uh or things to talk about. I'm either going to show and tell or I'm going to talk, one of the two. Um but uh yeah, flip over to YouTube if you want. Let me make sure I've got the camera good to go here, but you know, I was talking to Nell a little bit earlier and I like sometimes I just run out of things that I want to talk about on the podcast. When you think about doing this for 8 years, almost 8 million downloads, well, no, or 7 million downloads, um almost 800 episodes, like you kind of start thinking, do I have anything new under heaven to talk about? And so I I was like, you know what? It's summer, let's actually just have some fun. So, I'm going to show you guys some of my favorite things. These are um in no order whatsoever, just things that are bringing me joy this season, okay?

[00:01:31]So, let's talk about some of my favorite things. In no particular order, okay?

[00:01:33]First up though are these little baby Jesus's, okay? Dun dun dun. All right, listen. I get so much ridiculous joy out of these little Jesus figurines. I got these off of Amazon. I'm going to put a link to every single thing I'm talking about in the show notes. And so, um if you're on YouTube, you should have a show notes there. If you are listening on the podcast app, you can go to jenniferallwood.com, go to the podcast um tab and you will see this episode and there are notes there. Okay. So, I love these little baby Jesus's because I love just leaving them in the craziest places. I keep several of them, a handful of them in my purse, which means like, sometimes if I go to a doctor's visit, I will like leave it in a public restroom. Public restrooms are my favorite. We were just, um, in Miramar Beach in January for like a little mini mastermind with a bunch of my business clients. I left one on top of like the, um, where you get, um, things to dry your hands with in the bathroom. I like leaving them in the airport, um, on a shelf at Target, um, in restaurants like in between the salt and pepper. I don't know why. They make me just have so much joy and people maybe see them and they like roll their eyes, but I I seriously, I'm seeing more and more baby Jesus's everywhere. And so, since I already had a bunch of these and was doing this last year for Christmas, I actually ordered a bag of a hundred of these off of Amazon.

[00:02:53]So, I'll put the link to the bag of a hundred cuz it's cheap. It's less than 20 bucks for a hundred little baby Jesus's that are rubber. And so, I, um, I bagged them up and gave each of our kids a bag of them in their stocking.

[00:03:04]Now, in full transparency, I don't think anybody in the house finds as much joy out of this as I do. I think it's just me, but I think it's hilarious just to leave little baby Jesus's around places where I go. So, there you go. That's number one, okay?

[00:03:17]Number two. All right. I'm going to tell you my favorite obsession right now in terms of something to drink, okay?

[00:03:24]I want to preface this number two by saying this. I have never been someone who drinks my calories, ever. I drink water, I drink Element Tea, I drink, uh, non-sweetened iced tea from McDonald's, which is the best iced tea on the planet, non-sweet iced tea from McDonald's. Sometimes they get it wrong and they give me sweet tea and I want to throw up. I just don't understand how people drink that. But, here's what happened.

[00:03:46]We were in Florida last summer at Boujee on Miramar Beach, um, our condo down there. And um, Ava said, I wonder if we can walk to the Smoothie King from our beach. And there was a Smoothie King like we're really close. We're within walking distance of a Starbucks, a Chick-fil-A, and Smoothie King was right there, too. And I'm like, I don't know. And she was what if we go down the beach right here and then just like cut over. So I'm like, okay, cuz you know, it's Ava. So I'm going to do anything for her. So Ava and I head over to Smoothie King. Turns out yes, it's like a three walk block. So we walk a block on the beach and then two blocks up this like road and suddenly we're in front of the Smoothie King. And what's fun about it is it's right next to a used bookstore, which I just I love going in there every single time. Okay. So we go into Smoothie King and I tell Ava, what do you what are you going to order? I don't know what to order because again, I don't consume my calories in drinks.

[00:04:38]If somebody says, hey, you want to go to Starbucks? I'm going to get a black coffee. I mean, do I love the taste of creamer? I do, but if I start out my day with sugary coffee, then I just want sugar all day long. And so I just would rather eat chocolate and, you know, raw chocolate chip cookie dough and mashed potatoes than have calories in my drink.

[00:04:54]But Ava's wanting Smoothie King, so I go to Smoothie King. So she gets something called an angel food something. I don't know what.

[00:05:00]And I see something called a lemon strawberry twist and I think to myself, well, I like lemons. I like strawberries. Let me get a lemon strawberry twist. Okay.

[00:05:09]Here here is evidence of the lemon strawberry twist that I had today.

[00:05:14]I don't understand what has happened to me, you guys, but I am I think I'm addicted to these things. I don't know what they put in it. I would say five of these a week. That is way too much. That is way too many calories. That is way too much sugar. I I have no idea what has happened to me. I'm like, maybe it's menopause that suddenly I am addicted not only to this. I should tell you one other thing. Lime or lemonade popsicles.

[00:05:37]It's like my body is suddenly craving tart. And I'm sure somebody's going to have a reason as to why. I don't know, but I just want everything tart. This lemon strawberry twist is so tart. It when I think about it it feels like when I think about pickles. You know what I mean? It like hits you back here in the jaw. Okay, listen. Here's my pro tip.

[00:05:54]Nothing in this for me by the way. If you download the Smoothie King app, this is like how invested I am in this drink.

[00:06:00]You get like um points. Like today I had $4 off of this particular um Smoothie King drink. So I took it. Um they just scan, you know, your app every time you get one. So if you're addicted like me then you get some points back.

[00:06:13]And also on Fridays you can get a 20 oz for the price of a 16 oz. I'm telling you guys, I am so addicted to these that Jason, who is the most generous man on the planet, but sometimes he'll just order them for me DoorDash. And you have to order two of them. And so then they're ridiculously expensive cuz you're paying all the DoorDash fees, but then I have like one for today and one for tomorrow. Sometimes I can't even wait until tomorrow to dig into number two. So don't hate me, but I'm telling you like don't start them if if you don't plan on being addicted. I don't know what's in it. Lemon twist strawberry. That's the only thing I can recommend for a drink. Okay.

[00:06:46]There you go.

[00:06:47]Thing number three.

[00:06:48]My favorite shoes of the summer. Okay.

[00:06:52]So usually I order one good pair of sandal, flip-flop, summer shoes every year. I mean, I will, you know, buy cheap flip-flops or whatever, but I will sometimes spend money on just one like good pair of shoes for the whole summer.

[00:07:07]Okay, if you're watching on YouTube you'll see these. These are my favorite shoes of the summer. You may have seen 900 other influencers showing these, not that I'm an influencer, but they're like an ivory color jelly slide and they have these like natural colored stone all over them. Um so cute. Easily go with flip-flops. Easily go with a swimsuit.

[00:07:27]Easily go with a dress. You can wear them to dinner, to church, to the beach.

[00:07:30]They're so comfortable. They're so versatile. You can get them on Amazon.

[00:07:33]I'm going to leave you a link on the show notes, okay?

[00:07:36]Get compliments on these all the time.

[00:07:37]Love them and they make you look really, really tan. So there's that. The Sam Edelman shoes. I think they're like 70 or 80 bucks. Um and so but they're going to last you more than one season, you know? I mean, I've had enough Old Navy flip-flops to know they last you half the season and they're done. These are not that. So love these jelly slides.

[00:07:55]Okay. Um I also brought down to show you my favorite new hair products, which you've heard me talk about.

[00:08:00]Um you've heard me talk about these on my Instagram. You've heard me do possibly one or two Facebook posts about them. These are my favorites. These are two of my three favorite products from them, which I think every woman who has experienced any sort of hair loss or who is my age should be using because one is a serum for thinning hair, okay? You're supposed to use it once a day. I'm using it twice a day.

[00:08:22]I just am. And Ava literally said to me, if you're watching YouTube, look at my hair today. She said, "Mom, your hair is looking so big." She used the word big.

[00:08:30]But it's feeling more and more like my old hair all the time. For those of you who don't know, I went through a hair loss at the beginning of 2020, which I think then was related to the products that I was using because that product was under a lot of scrutiny. It was making national news, etc., etc. They had changed their packaging. The packaging had some stuff in it that wasn't supposed to, etc. So lost a lot of hair at the beginning of 2020.

[00:08:52]Um in this hair loss, I did two things that could have led to hair loss. One, in November-ish of last year, so 6 months ago, I started testosterone because I have very little testosterone. I actually went into menopause um How old am I? 8 years ago, almost 9 years ago. So no need to ask me about, "Hey, do you need to get your hormones checked?" Honey, I've been getting my hormones checked every 3 months for 8 years, okay? So I've got my hormones under control, but my testosterone has kept going down. So they started me on testosterone. I did not know that if you have low testosterone and you increase your testosterone numbers too quickly, that could result in hair loss. Did not know that. Okay, so I started testosterone. At the same time, I was diagnosed with um subclinical hyperthyroidism, which Which means that I should be really thin. So just so you know, I'm low-key pissed because >> [laughter] >> that is not the case. I have to watch what I eat. So, anyhow, they started me on a thyroid medication, which I took for 2 months. We took it 1 month, my thyroid numbers didn't change.

[00:09:49]They doubled it for the second month, my thyroid numbers did not change. So, I have gone off of that. I have an appointment with a thyroid specialist coming up. Anyhow, either of those things or the stress I was under in November-December could have led to hair loss. The point is, I have lost over half of my hair. And the reason I had to finally like talk about it on social media because people kept saying they would comment on my post, "Did you cut your hair really short? Oh, I like you with shorter hair." or "Wow, you cut a lot of your hair off." which would just make me feel awful. So, I try to be pretty transparent with a lot of things going on in our life. So, I just finally came out and said, "Yes, I have lost a ton of my hair over the holidays."

[00:10:23]Normally, if you have something like a huge amount of stress or if you have a surgery or if you have you know, something like I was starting those different medications, it's usually about 90 days later you'll go through a massive hair shedding. And if you've never lost hair, like praise God for that because it is awful. It's freaking awful. Okay, so not only did my hair look shorter shorter shorter, but my hair has gotten super thin to where um I feel like I'm an 80-year-old woman.

[00:10:48]And God bless all you 80-year-old women.

[00:10:50]I'm 54. I don't want my hair to feel like an 80-year-old woman yet. When I'm 80, it feels like I'm 80, that's great.

[00:10:55]But right now, I don't want it to feel thin. And so, um I had a lady contact me who sells Monat hair products. I um I bought all of the products with zero thoughts at all about ever sharing them with you. Zero.

[00:11:10]However, I started them in March.

[00:11:12]Um my hair is the healthiest I think it has been since I was in my 30s, I would say.

[00:11:19]Like before kids.

[00:11:20]Um and so, I am thrilled with the results. So, the two of my favorite products, I'm going to leave you a link, are one, a hair thinning serum. So, something I didn't know.

[00:11:29]Um The only way I'm going to grow new hair, because my hair has gotten so thin, is if I'm taking care of my scalp. This is a serum that you put on your scalp to get more hair to grow. Now, a lot of people are using like minoxidil and all that stuff. I tried that, friends. But, do you know how gross that stuff is?

[00:11:44]It's wet. It's sticky. It's It's ooey-gooey. It just Look, gave me the ick. And I'm having to put it on my on like my scalp and rub it in, and then my curls were getting nasty. You're supposed to do it twice a day, and then I started learning that people who are using products like that, if they quit, their hair starts falling out again. So, no, I don't I don't need to go through this again, okay? I'm good. So, this serum is to instigate new hair on my scalp. Second thing is called Rejuve Beads, and basically what it does is it takes care of split ends. It is protecting my ends, and like look at how curly my hair is, you guys. When have you seen my hair this curly in the last year? Have you? I don't I don't think so. And I've got all this new hair coming back here. Look how curly it is.

[00:12:22]So, I am thrilled. Thrilled. I'm using all their things. I'm using shampoo, conditioner, cream, everything. But, these two things are my favorite. I'll put a link in the show notes, okay? I just think that everybody who gets to a certain age and their hair is either thinning or feels really brittle and dry needs to be using both of those products. There you go. Okay.

[00:12:42]Next thing.

[00:12:43]I have got to give a shout-out to my daughter-in-law, Bella. I'd also like to know, if you have a daughter-in-law, do you feel weird calling them a daughter-in-law, or do you call them daughter-in-love? I don't know. Like, daughter-in-law feels like too official, like I don't adore her. And daughter-in-love feels cheesy, but I do adore her, okay? So, anyhow, I have shared two of her links recently, and I want you to go check out what Bella is making. So, she had a friend who's getting married. Easton and Bella, our son Easton, married Bella. Um, and Bella is such a creative. She is so amazing.

[00:13:16]She makes like a lot of posters and banners, and she's selling those on her Instagram account, but then she had a friend who was getting married. Now, this friend is one of seven of Easton and Bella's friends that are getting married this summer. And so they have all these weddings to go to and Bella and Easton are both in several of the weddings and stuff and one of Bella's friends asked her to make a pair of jeans. And so she wanted like this white pair of jeans with what's about to become her married name, Mrs. you know, XYZ like kind of across the booty. And Bella did a video and I think that video has gone viral. Well, let me let me I can tell you here in just a second. Hang on cuz I just brought up her account. On Instagram you can go to withlove.bybella withlove.bybella withlove.bybella or go to Bella Allwood. My daughter-in-law Bella Allwood and you'll see a link over here to this. So this has gone to almost 100,000 people these jeans and I'll have Easton show the jeans on the screen here. But she has been inundated, which is fabulous, with orders from women who are getting married or have a bachelorette party coming up and want a pair of these jeans. They are so cute.

[00:14:19]So if you're a bride, you know a bride, you have somebody in your life getting married, if you're going on a girls trip, a honeymoon, a bachelorette party, whatever, these are so adorable. Go over and check them out. If I was getting married again, like sometimes I tell Jason, I just want to redo on like announcing our pregnancies and getting married because I feel like there's so much more fun things now. I would totally have a pair of Mrs. Allwood written on the butt back when my butt was still cute and high and up in the air and all the things. Um so go check out her Instagram withlove.bybella.

[00:14:50]If you know somebody who would be interested in jeans for the bride or the bachelorette party. Okay, next I want to show you my favorite thing that I've read recently. So um don't come at me with your daggers, okay? Don't come don't come at me with like condemnation, but uh sometimes I don't read my Bible every day. Like first of all, shocker, okay? So it doesn't get read every day.

[00:15:11]I I try, but sometimes I put the Bible down and pick up a book that talks about the Bible. Now always Bible over book, right? Always learn from God himself versus an author. But sometimes it helps me to read about scripture through the light of somebody else's eyes, okay? So, I did a podcast episode with Ruth Fernandez, um, maybe two or three years ago. It was so good. It was so good. It was on her first book, which was called Prosperity Is Not Luck, It's Your Birthright. This is called Kingdom Wealth Is Not Luck, It's Your Birthright. Listen, you guys, it's it's challenging me, and I feel like I have a really good like money mindset. You guys have heard me talk about money mindset till I'm blue in the face. You've heard me talk about finances. You've heard me, um, talk about like wrong mindsets and where they come from and how it's okay to make money and how God gives us wisdom to get what you've heard me talk about a million things, right? But this book is talking more about like, um, almost like if you can imagine heaven in a way, almost like as a courtroom and there are certain rights that we have as believers. We have birthrights and there's certain things that we are, um, able to have. I don't want to say entitled to, but able to have because of who we are in Christ. And so, this book is so good.

[00:16:25]It's a great reminder that we're not chasing wealth. We're not trying to pursue it out of greed, um, but God has given us wealth to steward and, um, that we're not supposed to be playing small, um, that when we are blessed, we're able to bless others, etc. If you, um, are a businesswoman, I encourage you to go get that book. Kingdom Wealth Is Not Luck, It's Your Birthright. I will have Easton put the Amazon link, um, here in the show notes, okay?

[00:16:52]All right. Next, what Jason and I are watching in terms of a series. Okay, so right now, my favorite series that we're watching is called Friends and Neighbors. Let me see if I can remember what it's on. By the way, the other day, I figured out we have been paying for two Paramount Pluses, which why do we need two? One we're paying for on Amazon, one we're paying Paramount Plus. So, called and canceled one. I'm like, how did we do that? We've also been paying for Disney um, Disney plus like even our kids didn't know we had a Disney plus account. I'm like, how are we just paying for these things?

[00:17:24]There's so many different streaming services anymore. Okay.

[00:17:27]Um your friends and neighbors um has do do do do do John Hamm is the main character.

[00:17:35]Um it's a divorce situation and then he becomes a burglar, okay? So that's what friends and neighbors is about and it is on where is it at, friends? Hang on.

[00:17:44]Apple TV.

[00:17:45]It's on Apple TV and it's it's good but that's not the actual one I want to tell you about, okay? The one I want to tell you about is called The Madison. Okay, have you seen it yet?

[00:17:54]It's from um Taylor Sheridan. I always want to call him Tyler Sheridan. Taylor Sheridan who is the creator of Yellowstone, okay? If you hated Yellowstone because it was too vile, too dirty, whatever, this is is is different. It's like um yes, there's language uh but there's there's not a lot of killing. I don't remember any sex. The storytelling, you guys, is incredible.

[00:18:16]Um the scenery is beautiful. Jason and I were hooked. Well, let me say this, I was hooked more than my husband. Um I cried and I am not really a crier and it was right after we had to put our dog Stella down because she had cancer and um so maybe I was just feeling super sensitive but I we binge watched that thing because I wanted to. Um I want to give you one caveat. If you are a widow or widower um or have recently lost someone close to you, maybe skip The Madison at this time, okay? Um because that is is essentially what it's about and um it just made me like love my husband and um and just love love. I love love. I mean, who doesn't love love? Okay, let me tell you where it's at on what channel. Hang on. The Madison is on mm mm mm mm mm mm Oh, also The Marshals which is also Tyler Sheridan which is about Casey um who was on Yellowstone. He's one of the three sons or three kids. And so, if you liked Casey on Yellowstone, you'll love The Marshalls. Um it's much cleaner. So, there's that. Okay, uh The Madison is on Paramount Plus.

[00:19:25]Paramount Plus. So, there you have it.

[00:19:26]Um loved it. Is there still cussing?

[00:19:28]There is. Um so, you know, if you're super sensitive to that, then by all means skip it, but the storyline is beautiful. Okay, so next thing that is one of my favorite things, shameless plug to my husband Jason at Fairway Fineness. Okay, now I know I'm biased because my husband, you know, co-owns the company, but um his polos are fantastic. So, if you're listening to this next Wednesday, Father's Day is in a couple days. You're going to have to go order them right away. Okay, go to fairwayfineness.com for one of Jason's polos, super soft, super comfortable. Um I think if it's your first order, you can get a coupon that'll pop up on his pop up on his screen. But, he has a new one um for the 4th of July or for Father's Day that's my favorite right now. It's called Old Glory. I'll have Easton share it here on the screen. It's not this. It's just It's stripes. So, if you have somebody in your life that's like, "Ooh, I really would love to support Jennifer's husband, but I am not quite down with all the bold, crazy prints and colors."

[00:20:18]This one is much more like tone down, if you will.

[00:20:23]Um it's red, white, and blue. It looks patriotic. Any dad would love it. So, if you have a golfer in your life, go to fairwayfineness.com.

[00:20:29]My husband um has all their polos there, and that's my new favorite for him. All right, last thing I want to tell you about, favorite thing is Boujee on Miramar Beach. So, Jason and I had two condos in Florida.

[00:20:41]Boujee on the Beach and Boujee on Miramar Beach. We have sold Boujee on the Beach, the smaller of our two. We have kept the larger of the two. And we sold the smaller original one. Why did we do that? Well, um we got to the realization that A, we didn't need two.

[00:20:58]And B, we were only going to Boujee on Miramar Beach. It's different than our first condo because, I know a lot of you stayed at our first one.

[00:21:06]Um it is twice the size. Okay, there's four bedrooms instead of two, three bathrooms instead of two, but there are two decks.

[00:21:12]There are two living rooms.

[00:21:14]Um, it's twice the square footage. It's actually over twice the square footage.

[00:21:17]So, for our family, it's just so much nicer to be able to spread out. That's number one. Number two, it has a pool and it has a hot tub. It also has a workout room, but when I go there, I don't work out. My workout is walking on the beach. But, um, it sleeps up to 10 people instead of six. So, there's that.

[00:21:31]It is perfect for girls trips, bachelorette parties, etc. You can go to Boujee on Miramar Beach.com and Boujee is spelled b o u j e e.

[00:21:40]I know you can spell it with a g, but because we're Jennifer and Jason, we spelled it with a j. So, b o u j e e on Miramar Beach. So, Miramar Beach is centered in between Destin and Sandestin. It's about 30 minutes from the Destin airport. It's about 20 minutes from 30A. So, we still drive over to 30A a lot, but, um, I just I love Boujee on Miramar Beach. It's still right on the beach. There is an elevator because I don't know if you know this, if you stayed at our last condo, there were 99 steps. I'm not saying that like generalizing, I counted. There were 99 steps from our condo on the third floor to get down to the beach. That's a long way to walk when you got to pee, guys. It just is. And that's a long way to walk just period. And as Jason and I are both getting older, um, I currently am in need of at least a partial if not full knee replacement and my husband's had three hip surgeries in the last five years. Um, we don't feel like 99 steps anymore. And, uh, and we're both in what I consider really good shape for our age, but it just it sucks. So, the the bigger one that we kept, Boujee on Miramar Beach, has an elevator going up to it. Love it. So, go check that out.

[00:22:44]You do get 20% off any stay in June or July if you listen to this podcast and use Insta20, um, cuz I'm supposed to only give that to people who follow me on Instagram, but I'm going to give it here, too. So, if you use Insta20 for any of the remaining days open in June and July, you can get 20% off your stay. So, go check that out.

[00:23:04]Anything else? I don't think so. I think that's all of my notes. I had to I had to write down a bunch of notes cuz I'm like, otherwise, I'm going to forget.

[00:23:11]And I didn't want to forget baby Jesus, and I didn't want to forget the Danning serum, and I didn't want to forget my favorite book and my favorite drink.

[00:23:17]But, those are my favorite things, friends.

[00:23:20]>> [laughter] >> That's a lot. Do me a favor. If you have watched this on YouTube, let me know in the comments if any of these things are already one of your favorites. If you end up ordering the sandals, whatever else, I'll try to make sure all the links are in the right prices. But, anyhow, this was fun. I just didn't feel like talking about business today.

[00:23:35]In my head sometimes I'm like, man, I've already had to talk about this before.

[00:23:39]So, let's talk about something kind of off the beaten path. And so, I hope this was fun for you. And love you so much, my friends. I hope you're having an incredible summer. If you have any questions about any of the things I mentioned, let me know. And also, just let me know how you like the lemon twist strawberry ice smoothie thing. Not sponsored. Not sponsored, friends. In fact, none of this is sponsored. If you order off one of my Amazon links, y'all get a commission. If you order hair product, y'all get a commission. If you stay at my condo, yeah, I'll I'll get make money off that. But, um none of these are sponsored items. They're just all things that I'm legit loving right now. And if you haven't watched the Madison on YouTube, I want to hear what you think. Okay, friends. Love you so much. [music] >> [music] [music]