Happy Monday, friends!

This weekend finally felt like summer and my country music consumption is back to its June through August high. Unlike the past two summers, I have no homework (!) to keep my Saturdays and Sundays occupied, so I want to do a better job of spending time outside with friends. My current apartment community has a great courtyard, large swimming pool, and roof overlooking DC. I used to be so good about having friends over to enjoy these spaces, but have really slacked the past two years.

Recently, my favorite place for home goods, Z Gallerie, opened a new location in the Mosaic District in Fairfax. For those of you unfamiliar or not in the area, Mosaic is an awesome mixed-use community with everything you could want in one place—fast casual like sweetgreen and Cava Grill, fabulous restaurants like Brine and True Food Kitchen, an Angelika Film Center, and now, Z Gallerie is joining the fabulous line up. Z Gallerie is great because they have on-trend, super chic finds that really stand out/are hard to find elsewhere. While some of their furniture is a bit out of my budget, I love their home accessories and smaller items that really make a big impact—without breaking the bank.

Ahead of the new store opening, Z Gallerie sent me over some fun money to pick out anything I wanted from the store. I knew immediately I had to get my hands on this umbrella holder that I’ve always wanted. I also picked up some new gold (#duh) and glass barware for my new apartment later this summer. (Background on the move is here—more on that below.)

Admittedly, my glassware currently is what you would call mix-and-match. A wine glass from King Family Vineyards here, a stemless wine glass with a Christmas tree there. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to stock up on Z Gallerie barware since it is so “me”—and figured it’s high time to have more “adult” glassware that is, ahem, matching.

So, I grabbed these Olympia Double Old Fashioned Glasses, perfect for cocktails or wine, and these super fun Soiree Double Old-Fashioned Patterned Glasses. Since I don’t move until August, they will be perfect for entertaining guests al fresco in the aforementioned outdoor spaces at my apartment this summer and for breaking in the new place this fall.

Speaking of apartments—I wanted to give you all a bit of an update since a few of you had mentioned being interested in my move in my reader survey.

In short, I haven’t made any decisions yet—mostly because I really can’t. I want to stay in an apartment building managed by a property manager—as opposed to finding something on Craigslist—in the same part of Arlington I live in now. In Virginia, residents are required to give their landlord 60 days notice, and since my lease here isn’t up until August 15, it’s hard to get a full sense of what the market will look like then. I’ve identified a few buildings where I’d like to live, but it really just depends what stock they have available for when I need to move. Ideally, I’d like to have a true one bedroom or some sort of a separate sleeping area—true studios aren’t as appealing to me—but, of course, I want to be renting within my means and still have a little bit of fun money to play with.

The one big piece of furniture I am missing is a couch—but, I don’t want to commit to buying that until I have an idea of what the square footage and layout of my new place are. I really want one with a chaise—so if you see any cute ones, be sure to send them my way.

(PS—if you’re moving this summer too, I’ve shared some of my moving tips here.)