Rainy Day Self-Care 🌧️🌸 Cozy Recipes, Books, & Baking | A Gentle Spring Vlog

There's nothing quite like waking up to the sound of rain on a spring morning. The gentle patter of raindrops on the soft grass. The scent of the fresh air and cherry blossoms. Everything feels quiet and energized at the same time, like nature is waking up after a long slumber. Life feels like it's starting over again and this sense of newness and possibility hangs in the air. I love mornings like this when I can slow down, listen, and see the world blooming right before my eyes. It's a chance to notice the softness of the earth beneath my feet. The vivid green of the meadow. The raindrops sparkling on the branches. As soon as I step out into the rain and smell the fresh spring air, it makes me feel like a part of me is waking up again too. After my walk, I wanted to warm up with a London Fog, which is a tea latte made with earl grey tea, lavender, and vanilla. It's so comforting on rainy days like today. Hello friends! Happy spring! I hope you've all been well. I am so happy that it's raining today. As much as I love the sunshine and the warm weather during the spring, I have to say days like today are my favorite by far. I just love the cozy rainy spring weather, and to me it's an excuse to hang out all day at home and read and just have a nice relaxing day. So that is my plan for today. I am currently reading the second book in the Emily Wilde series. It's Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands. So I started this series last month and I'm about a third of the way through this book, so I'm hoping to finish it today and then move on to the third one in the series. This has been such a busy season for me and just a really busy time of my life in general, so I really need a day to unwind and just relax and take care of myself. So one of the things I want to do today is treat myself to a nice luxurious kind of aromatherapy bath. So I want to make some fizzing bath salts and use those in my bath today. So I'm going to finish up my drink and then we'll make those and I'll catch up with you in a little bit. After my bath, I wanted to treat myself to something sweet, so I'm making mini strawberry galettes. The strawberries have been really sweet and delicious here lately, so I wanted to use them in a dessert. I'm starting by rolling out some store-bought pie crusts and cutting them into circles using a bowl as my guide. Then I'm making a cream cheese filling by mixing together some cream cheese, sugar, an egg yolk, and some vanilla. To the strawberries, I'm adding cornstarch, sugar, and lemon zest and mixing everything together. To assemble the galettes, I'm adding a scoop of cream cheese filling to each pie crust, topping them with strawberries, and folding over the edges of the crust. I'm brushing the crust with some egg white and placing them in the oven to bake. So I have just a few more chapters to go before I finish my book, but I wanted to check in with all of you before it gets too late. I've really enjoyed the Emily Wilde series and a lot of you actually recommended it to me and it's been on my list for a while and I'm so glad I had a chance to read it because it's been one of my favorite series I've read in a long time. The book is written in a really fun creative way so it's told from the perspective of Emily Wilde who is a Cambridge professor of Dryadology. So she is a fairy researcher and she does field studies on different fairies and travels around the world to research them and it's written as if it's her research journal and she has field notes throughout and the story is kind of told in that medium and I really enjoy this format of storytelling. The two main characters are Emily, the narrator, and she's very serious and focused on her work. She can be a little bit grumpy. And then there's Wendell who is also a professor who works with her and he is very charming and charismatic, so they have a really fun dynamic in the book and that's probably one of my favorite things about it, but I also love the stories about the different fairies and kind of the folklore that the story is built around. And I also wanted to show you my progress on the crochet top that I've been working on. So this is called the Sage Top and it's by a creator here on YouTube. I will leave her video below with the tutorial, but this has been so much fun to make. I would say this is a beginner to intermediate level project just because of the granny square detail on the shirt. This took me a few tries to figure out how to place it on the top. Even though I was following the tutorial, I got a little bit confused. But other than that, it's been super easy to make. I just have to make a few more rows on the bottom before it's done just because I want it a bit longer, but this is going to be so cute for the summer. So everyone, thank you so much for spending the day with me. It was so much fun to take the day and just slow down, relax, and enjoy this nice cozy rainy weather. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thanks again for watching and I will see you good night, friends.