I feel like these recaps are starting to become too similar. We're still in "quarantine" which means no one has really been able to enjoy their summertime. Our apartment pool just opened, but has limited access, we're still working from home and it's been really hot. The best part of the past couple months has just been my family and close friends to be honest. It's kind of nice to not constantly be on the go-go-go so we've been able to slow down and enjoy more time together. Maybe that's just us 🤷🏼‍♀️–how is your summer going?

I've been teasing this blog post for a while and it's finally here! My beautiful cousin Tara works with Monat and sent me some products to test out. The instructions she gave me with how little to use though completely baffled me. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong, but I always drown my hair in shampoo and conditioner when I wash it, so when she told me to use a dime size of product I thought, "There's no way that amount will work," but I was soooo wrong. I did as I was told and after going through all of the samples I have my results.

Since I have some more time, I decided to really play with video editing and my YouTube Channel (Subscribe by clicking the link here). I'm working on an apartment tour (just waiting for a few more pieces to come in) and I've been really into Instagram stories @michelekatsaris, but I wanted to test out vlogging, instead of blogging for a change.

Here we are again with another "snapshots in my life." I definitely thought quarantine would be over by now, but like the rest of the world I'm just pushing along. I'll keep compiling all of these photos and videos, but for a day-by-day follow me on Instagram. In the mean time I compiled all of those snapshots in one place for you to check out. Click here to view part three and be sure to follow me on Instagram @michelekatsaris for more content!

Now that I have moved out of Falls Church I want to share my ratings of three thrift stores in the area. I lived near some of the highest rated thrift stores, so I had to check it out to see if they matched up to the ratings.


Thrift Stores in Falls Church, Virginia.

I have always been an avid reader, but over the past few years it's like I only read when I was on on the beach or by the pool. That's just not right. I used to read every night before bed or read a few chapters after work and I desperately wanted to get back into that habit. It's a great break when you've been around computer screens all day.

The time has finally come! I'm sharing my McLean apartment tour today. My boyfriend and I moved in the beginning of March and then three-weeks later, quarantine hit. So we have had a lot of time to put our new home together. I will say, some of these purchases happened as quickly as they did purely because of quarantine, but it all worked out and now our home is complete. We moved to a bigger one-bedroom apartment in McLean, but you can check out our previous apartment tours by clicking the link here. Enjoy!

For our new home we want to upgrade a lot of our furniture and create a more functional space. Even though this apartment is bigger, we don't have as much storage as the last apartment, so every nook and cranny counts. Our apartment is a one bedroom, one bath and the living room/dinning room/office area is super long. We have floor to ceiling windows in the main area and in the bedroom and a patio. Our bedroom has a long hallway that has the washer and dryer and two closets! I'll be sharing all of the major pieces of furniture that we have and some favorites that I get a lot of questions about.

I know I'm not the only one who has seen Billie Razors all over the internet. It's one of the most affordable women's razors out there and it seems like it's pretty good quality too. So, what is the big deal about them?
The first thing is that there is no pink tax. I'm not a big feminist or even quite understand, but apparently pink tax refers to the extra amount of money that women pay for specific products. Billie eliminates the pink tax from razors and shaving cream. The brand also has no sulfates, paragons, GMOs, drying alcohols, synthetic dyes, fragrances, cheap foaming agents or unstable silicones. Normally brands that are better for you are more expensive but Billie Razors start at just $9. Since then, Billie has expanded to skincare and beauty and of course all of they products are aesthetically pleasing.

It's time to build your starter kit. It's the simplest thing. You pick the color razor you want and the starter kit comes with the magic holder for your shower and two blades. Then you can add other things to your kit such as the travel holder and shaving cream. My total was $32 after tax and my subscription will send 4 new razors every few months, but of course I can skip or stop the subscription at any time. It's that simple!

Now for my final thoughts. I've never had a good quality razor, I always just purchased the cheap stuff, but my skin has paid the toll for it. I've noticed that in the past with cheap razors and shaving cream I will get red bumps or streaks on my legs. Like an allergic reaction and yeah, it would go away fairly quickly, but I don't think that's supposed to happen at all. The Billie Razor did not leave any marks on my legs and I think that's mainly because of the razor. The soft edges around the razor were smooth and didn't irritate my skin.

This idea came to me while watching "Friends" for the millionth time, but nonetheless, when Phoebe, Monica and Rachel had their all-girls sleepover that made the girls realize that they don't even have a "PL," it dawned on me that I'm the age that they are portraying now. They are mid to late 20's trying to figure out life and even though they're not super successful, married, rich or anything like that, they had each other. Maybe it's because I'm 27 and having more panic attacks about my future lately, but the idea of having an old-fashioned sleepover with my girls sounded like a fantastic idea.

I quickly made the arrangements, picked a night and planned it out. I used to have sleepovers every weekend with my friends. It's what 12 year old girls look forward to the most on the weekends and there are certain aspects of those sleepovers that quite frankly if you didn't grow up in that time, you just wouldn't get it.


I wanted to throw and old school 90's/early 2000's sleepover. Before the smart phones had high quality cameras, before you could get any food delivered to your door and even before Instagram. For this sleepover we had to pull out all the stops. Order pizza, old school games, Mary-Kate & Ashley movies, tons of junk food, and, because we're over 21, wine. That's new, but it was a necessity.

The Food
As I said before, you can get any food you want delivered right to your door. That wasn't the case 20+ years ago. So what did you eat when you had a sleepover? Pizza. Another thing was all the junk food. I picked up a ton of snacks and treats that I loved as a kid, but only got on special occasion. We had Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, cosmic brownies, dippers, Capri-Suns and Kool-Aid. We also picked up some candy and let me tell you if you need candy for a party you should go to Five Below. They sell such large quantities for so cheap. Plus they had a lot of the candies that I grew up with that you can't really find in the grocery stores anymore. Rocio even made cupcakes with the pattern of the classic 90's paper cup!



Music & Movies
I made the ultimate pre-teen angst playlist on my Spotify for us to listen to the whole night. Only music, tv shows and movies that we watched and love as pre-teens were allowed. I am still a huge Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen fan so I had a ton of their movies set aside of the occasion. My cousin even brought some VHS tapes, not that I had anything to watch them on but the nostalgia was there.


Fashion
Obviously to stay on brand we had to pull out our very best 90's/2000's outfits. We decided to have a "fashion show" (did you just cringe reading that, because I did, but remember it's what we all used to do, including you, don't lie) and everyone showed off their best look from that era. Some of the girls wore the classic dress over a t-shirt, Rocio wore an oversized Rugrats shirt, Maria wore the classic fanny pack and scrunchie combo and I found this 90's Taco Bell looking printed shirt at Marshalls and paired it with my 1993 gold pendant from Amazon.


Entertainment
To keep ourselves entertained and away from our iPhones we had a ton of things that would be considered a "throwback," but to us, it was like we were 12 years old all over again. Everyone brought something that symbolized their childhoods one way or another including Twister, a Barney stuffed animal, a McDonald's Play-Dough set and I even have an old MK&A board game. The funniest part was that Rocio and my cousin both brought Bratz Dolls! Those were very entertaining throughout the night. I have a pink digital camera that I've had since high school and we took tons of photos using that camera, just like we used to when we were young. We also took our best "MySpace selfies," honestly it's pure gold. We also did the Fruit-Roll up challenge on TikTok. But let's be honest, we mostly sat around and talked about boys all night. I guess nothing has really changed.