Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T.

What I'm reading, eating, playing, obsessing over, recommending, and treating myself to this week

One of my favorite TikTok trends is the Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T., which is a fun way to summarize your week and post without too much effort. The trend involves only pictures, so no recording yourself talking, and little to no editing, so it’s very beginner friendly. I couldn’t find much about its origins, but R.E.P.O.R.T. stands for Reading, Eating, Playing, Obsessing, Recommending, and Treating and if you’re on TikTok, you’ve likely seen one of these posts before.

I do this most weeks (when I remember to), and I love to see others. It kind of reminds me of those family newsletters people used to do (and maybe still do?) where they’d email all their friends and family about their life updates, like who got into what college and who got engaged. Can we bring these back, by the way? What can I say, I’m big fan of oversharing, and I love to hear the hot goss!

It wasn’t until this week that I realized this would make a good Substack post because I can be a little more longwinded here, but if that’s not your thing, you can check out my TikTok version here.

If you are, here’s my first ever Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T. for Substack.

Reading:

I pulled out all the spooky, witchy, woo-woo books on my bookshelf for this month’s TBR, and I’m so excited for a month full of spine-tingling reads.

• The Book of Witching by C.J. Cooke - I just finished this yesterday, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I’m trying to make my way through my Book of the Month (my referral code is here if you’re interested in signing up) stack, and this was my October pick from last year. It’s a dual-timeline, multi-POV novel about witchcraft, so it was right up my alley. It wasn’t the best written book I’ve ever read, and the plot was largely forgettable, but I still had fun and sometimes that’s all you need. I gave it 3.5/5 stars.

• Play Nice by Rachel Harrison - Another BOTM I’m trying to get through, but this one is about an influencer who inherits a haunted house. I just started it, so I don’t have any fleshed-out thoughts on it yet, but I have a feeling it’s one of those books that you go into to have a good time and not take it too seriously. Also, what a fun cover!

Eating:

Fall harvest salads - Summer produce season is my favorite, but I do get super excited about seasonal fall foods as well. I love apple, pumpkin, maple, and butternut squash and how well they all work together. This week for my lunches, I made fall harvest salads, which consisted of greens, honeycrisp apple, sweet potatoes, caramelized onion goat cheese, chicken, and a maple dijon vinaigrette. I kept it fairly simple, but you could also add pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, or pecans to yours.

Playing:

Taylor Swift’s newest album, The Life of a Showgirl - I assume you knew this was coming. I was going to make a post dedicated to my thoughts on this album, but I think the market is plenty saturated already. All the discourse is exhausting, and I’m not keen to add to it. What I will say is that I don’t think this is her strongest album lyrically — I’m not obsessed with all the internet language and slang she uses — but I don’t think it was supposed to be! This isn’t my favorite kind of Taylor music; I prefer her sad slow songs because I am a sad slow person, and that’s okay. I do think the album is fun though, and so far my favorites are The Fate of Ophelia, Opalite, and The Life of a Showgirl.

Obsessing over:

Advent Calendars - Every year, I do advent calendar unboxings on my TikTok (this is a very TikTok-heavy blog post, woof), and people love it. I love it! I always do the Bonne Maman jam advent calendar, and the last couple years I’ve also enjoyed the Nespresso one, but I love finding fun new calendars to mix it up. I’ve been researching, and I’m tempted by the Anthropologie 24 Days of Beauty advent calendar (though the $98 price point is a little more than I usually like to spend, especially when I’m trying to do multiples). One of my friends also suggested that I do a puzzle calendar, which is right up my alley and a little more wallet friendly, so I likely will be doing one of those as well. Please send me your suggestions!

Recommending:

This post is already very fall-themed, so I’m just going to lean into it. This week, I’m recommending that you make the most of fall even when it’s 84 degrees outside (or at least it is here in Michigan) and go find a cider mill or a pumpkin patch to frolic around in. This weekend, my boyfriend and I drove out to Uncle John’s Cider Mill to meet my camp friends for a festive fall day. It ended up being more of a desperate race to find a shaded area while we drank hard cider and ate donuts, but hey, you can’t say we didn’t try. I love a cider mill, and I try to go to at least a few every year, so hopefully this will be the first of several. If you have any favorites within driving distance of Detroit, please do let me know!

Treat:

I’m never one to deprive myself of a treat, okay? We live in a capitalist hellscape with the equivalent of a daycare full of toddlers throwing temper tantrums as our government, so if I want to buy myself a coffee or a sweet treat every time I leave the house, I’m going to go ahead and do that, and you’re not going to say anything about it! This week’s treat highlights were the Dutch apple pie soft serve from Erma’s and some Nola cold brew concentrate that my friend picked up for me from Blue Bottle Coffee while she was in Chicago last week. I’m quite literally desperate for a Blue Bottle location in Detroit, which is not likely to ever come to fruition, but that won’t stop me from attempting to manifest it. If they do ever open a location here, I will be taking full credit, tysm.

And that was my week!

I have a short work week this week because I’m headed to NYC on Thursday, and it cannot come quickly enough. I apologize in advance for how insufferable I’ll be about New York, but I just love it so much!!!