It’s full on summer this week in Berlin and that means it is H-O-T! Living in the heat never made much difference to me, until I moved to region where ice cubes are scare and air conditioning is even less prevalent. So one of this month’s favorites is directly related to our latest heat wave and the rest are just a few things that I’ve been using lately and have fallen in love with.

1. Nathan hydration backpack — If you are a runner, you probably know that there are few things worse than taking a 20km run on a hot summer day without any water. To date, I have once made the mistake of running in a 10km race without my own water belt or pack, and I definitely will not ever do that again. And now that I have one of these great Nathan hydration backpacks (Stefan got one a few weeks back and was instantly in love with it), I definitely won’t be leaving home without it.
   
   Equipped with a 2 liter (70 ounce) hydration pouch in the bag, this is the perfect size to carry whatever you need, from extra sunscreen to lip balm, whether you are heading out on a 10km run or a 42.6km marathon…or even beyond. A friend of ours is an ultra runner (i.e. he likes to run FAR as in 100-mile races or 50km practice runs) and he has a similar pack. When we saw him and ran with him several weeks ago here in Berlin, Stefan started researching hydration back packs and we were already in love with our Nathan water bottles. So when we kept reading about how great these back packs are from Nathan, we knew we had to give it a try. The great thing is that you fit it to yourself once, and then you can take it on and off, run after run, without ever needing to make further adjustments. That’s a very awesome thing, since with all the other belts we have tried recently, we’ve found ourselves adjusting over and over again during every run and it’s just no fun.
2. StarTech Hard Drive Docking Station — Whether you are tech savvy or not, almost everyone has suffered from a dead computer at some point and losing all the data on it totally sucks. So when I discovered that you no longer have to go to a PC expert to salvage the data (which usually costs a small fortune) and can have a cute little drive at your desk that salvages your old hard drives (even the ones that used to have their own power source in an external case), I was totally giddy. Yeah, I’m a geek at heart — what can I say.
   
3. Terra laptop — I’ve had quite a few laptops in the last 5 or so years; some good and several not so good. When my Samsung died a few months ago, I was convinced I could go without a laptop for a while. And I did manage to get a lot of use from Stefan’s iPad for a while. But an iPad will never replace a real laptop IMO, especially when you are trying to do actual work on it. So I recently purchased a new laptop which I have to admit I love. It’s a Terra Mobile 1450 Ultrabook and made right here in Germany by Wortmann AG. The somewhat small company has been turning heads with their computer equipment at very reasonable prices, and I have to admit that I really love my little super laptop which is just barely bigger than a MacBook.
4. Roux Maison laundry detergent — I recently received a bottle of Roux Maison Sport Laundry Detergent to try out and now I am hooked. One of the things that I was beginning to dislike about our old detergent is that you can smell it in the running clothes long after everything had been washed. Normally I’m a fan of fresh smelling clothes, but for some reason, that smell in my running shirts was not a good thing and often left me feeling out of breath before I even started running. Thankfully, with this new detergent, smells are a thing of the past. Something else I love about it is that it’s totally natural, and a tiny 16 ounce bottle has enough detergent in it to was 40 loads!! You just need two capfuls for a wash and you’re good to go.
   
5. Never Eat Alone — Regardless of what type of business you are in, having the skills needed to build a thriving network of friends and colleagues who can contribute to your success (and even more importantly, you to theirs) is essential for survival. Keith Ferrazzi is a master of building relationships and this book tells you where to start, how to go about mapping out your successful network to achieve you goals, and what strategies to use for certain events like conferences or networking events. I highly recommend you give it a read.
   

What are you in love with right now? Is it something old, new, borrowed or blue? 😉 Tell us all about it below!