Fashion & Beauty

Are monthly favorite posts still a thing? Let’s bring them back for 2020!

My January faves are here and I wanna share. How was January for you, nerds?

If you aren’t familiar, the Nerdjoy “tagline” is mind, body, fandom and I like to categorize my monthly favorites under it. Mind tends to be self-development/improvement stuff while body is fashion, beauty, and wellness related and then fandom is of course general geekiness I’ve been liking for the month.

m i n d

The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, by Anu Partanen
If you asked me what made me pick up this book at the local used book store, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I was just simply drawn to the premise, which is a look at Nordic (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway) views on career, healthcare, relationships, and just general life stuff compared to American views. The author moved to the USA in order to marry her husband and the differences in how things work between Finland–and Nordic countries in general–and America are fascinating.

Oak meditation app
Honestly, I’m terrible about meditating. ADD/anxiety makes it extra difficult to sit in one place for even 10 minutes and think mindfully, but, Oak has definitely helped and I’ve already clocked in about 6 1/2 hours of meditation on the app! It is completely free and offers the ability to customize your meditation routine with a guided voice, duration, background ambience, and more. It also has breathing exercises that I do every so often on particularly bad anxiety days. My favorite meditation is the Grateful one as it makes you focus on certain mantras/affirmations, which I find helps my busy mind a lot more to stay focused compared to thinking about my breath.

Danish on Duolingo
While most of everyone (okay–my husband) thinks I picked up Danish because I was reading The Nordic Theory of Everything, the two actually don’t have much of a connection! What really triggered my interest in Danish, and eventually visiting Denmark, is a very vivid dream I had one night where I was temporarily living in Copenhagen. I woke up and also realized, my anxiety and depression were controlling so much of my life that I had dropped most hobbies, friends, and was scared to travel when I usually love to travel and hike and explore. So, I made a goal to get decent at Danish and start planning a real vacation to Denmark.

Technically, I started learning Danish at the end of December and have been using Duolingo. Usually, when I have these types of “what the hell am I doing with my life” panic moments, I tend to kind of just … not follow through. But, for some reason, the Danish has stuck and I’m approaching 40 consecutive days of language learning on Duolingo! I’ve also been putting together the itinerary for the Denmark trip and honestly looking forward to checking out Arhaus more than Copenhagen. Woo!

b o d y

Toss A Coin To Your Witcher shirt
It brings me so much joy and excitement that more people are discovering The Witcher and also loving it! I’ve been a fan of the games for years and more recently, a fan of the books. I honestly didn’t have high hopes for the Netflix series at first and then I was blown away. So, when I saw that Jordandene had a Witcher shirt, you bet I instantly bought it! And so my Jordandene collection grows.

Farsali Unicorn Essence Face Oil
THIS. SMELLS. SO. GOOD. OMG. Does it actually help my skin? No idea! I already have a multi-step skincare routine so it’s hard to tell if adding this in has helped, but, it smells so dang good that it’s okay if it doesn’t really do much. I picked up the sample pack of all the best selling Farsali face oils after I ran out of the gold flake one and wanted to try something new. Definitely going to pick up the full-sized bottle soon!

f a n d o m

New Stardew Valley updates for PS4
Aahhh, Stardew Valley. My favorite game to just relax with after a long day, week, month…year, heh. The latest updates such as co-op and other new goodies were added for the console version of the game and it has been great! Unfortunately, I have nobody to play with for the co-op mode but at least I get to try out the new fish pond and other updates on my OG save.

The Lighthouse
This was a date night pick and it was definitely an interesting watch. I loved the cinematography and the ending is definitely out there, but, I won’t spoil it!

The Witcher (Netflix) Soundtrack on Spotify
This has been the soundtrack to my life–working out (haha), focusing at work, just listening because the songs are all amazing. I particularly like the songs related to Yennefer’s theme, the opening song, and of course Jaskier’s banger of a song, Toss A Coin To Your Witcher.