|
|
By Amber, on September 30, 2010, at 10:00 pm My evening spinning class was unexpectedly cancelled, so I got home early with nothing to do and finally had a chance to sit down and paint my nails:
I really enjoy nail polish, but sometimes it seems impossible to find the time, even with a quick-dry coat. I used to be afraid to wear dark or bold colors because I have big rower paws instead of delicate mannequin hands and I work in a conservative environment, but one day I got over it (and it helps that my boss’s boss wears strange shades of polish), and now I prefer them! Embarrassingly enough, this polish is one of the Gossip Girl shades for Nicole by OPI (‘Too Rich For You’), but it was exactly the color I was looking for at the time, so who cares.
Today’s other little thrill was the arrival of a Sephora package. I needed some boring skincare stuff that I was running out of, but I try to wait to place an order until I see a special insider bonus that I like. A lot of them don’t interest me because I’m pretty set in my ways when it comes to skincare products. I do like sample-sizes of cosmetics that I haven’t tried, though, and I’ve never used anything by Benefit, so I jumped on this one:
It’s got a few minis: High Beam highlighter, Posie Tint cheek/lip tint, and Bad Gal Lash in both black and plum. I’m trying them all this weekend!
Did anything thrill you today?
By Amber, on September 28, 2010, at 10:00 pm A little splurge that Mark talked me into (I was going to see if I could find a cheap, Chinese version on Harwin St., until he talked sense into me):
Love them! They’re so sparkly. What will I wear them with? Oh, everything…but what will I wear them with first? I have until Friday night to decide.
By Amber, on September 26, 2010, at 10:00 pm I was in the produce section and found something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time: dragonfruit! There was a basket of small yellow guavas next to it, so I grabbed some of those as well. I bought a banana for a thickener and some pre-cut pineapple for sweetness:
If you’re not familiar with dragonfruit, it is pretty neat. It grows on a cactus and tastes a bit like a kiwi, but milder. (To my disappointment, it does not taste like dragonfruit Starburst.)
You can cut it in half and gently pop the fruit out to separate it from the skin:
I’ve seen photos of the skin used as a bowl, with cubed fruit placed inside. I think that would be an adorable summer side dish! But I was going to blend the heck out of my dragonfruit, and I did, after slicing the stem ends off of the guavas:
I have to admit that this smoothie really didn’t do it for me. It was pretty mild, and Mark thought it was a perfect combination of sweet and tart, but like my smoothies really, really sweet — so I poured a bunch of mixed frozen fruit in there until it looked and tasted more like what I’m used to. I didn’t see any reason to share a photo of that.
If sweet and tart sounds good to you, I will offer this advice — make sure you blend the heck out of it with a powerful blender, because between the dragonfruit and the guavas, it’s seed city.
Have you tried dragonfruit?
By Amber, on September 23, 2010, at 10:00 pm I have mentioned that I don’t sew. I would like to be a person who can sew, and I think I may try again eventually, but right now I have 100 other hobbies that I already know I like and don’t have time/space for. So not yet. But I do own clothes that other people made, and occasionally the need for mending arises. I can do some of this, so I keep some basic supplies. Oh, and every spare button, sequin or loop of thread that has ever come with a garment:
That mess is how you know I’m not someone who sews. That thing, which originally contained some kind of bath gift set, was packed to the gills. But, lo! I found myself with a freebie compartmented case that I had no real use for:
It’s meant for traveling with cosmetics, but in my view it is suboptimal for that purpose. So I repurposed it:
The buttons that I couldn’t identify (or whose garments I no longer own) got sorted by color, and the rest stayed in their original bags.
Now I might actually mend things! But the truth is that I usually stain garments before they get to that point. How did you think I ended up with so many buttons?
By Amber, on September 21, 2010, at 10:00 pm Tonight I hit Houston’s launch party for MAC’s new Venomous Villains collection. I’ve never been to one of these things before, so I was not prepared for the utter chaos. We all had to stand in line for a turn at the goods while a security guard made sure the store contained only as many people as could fit shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of floorspace. I was behind a couple in the running for Parents of the Year as they studied the annotations their daughter had made to a cheat sheet, marked in purple and pink highlighter to delineate what she ‘needed’ and what she ‘would like to have.’ I’d estimate about $400 worth of cosmetics on her list. The women behind me, nurses or med students from the sound of it, conducted a caffeine-fueled discussion with more than a couple TMI tidbits.
I’m not necessarily a Disney fanatic, but I am a Maleficent fanatic and always have been, so I have eagerly anticipated this collection. I don’t know whether it’s the raven sidekick or the horned hat, but being bad never looked so good. The launch party tonight had Cruella de Vil and Evil Queen costumes to try on and pose for a photo in, but I will only risk headlice for Maleficent, and sadly that was not an option.
If you, too, have been waiting for this collection, you probably just want to know what I picked.
I picked up She Who Dares mineralize eyeshadow, Devilishly Stylish lipglass, and Bad Fairy nail polish (I really liked the other two polishes as well, but I’ll probably hunt down the Orly dupes). Can’t wait to use all of them. I put the lipglass on as soon as I got home, and it is an absolutely perfect nude for me (N4, if you’re curious).
Did you attend a launch party (and did you try on a costume)? If not, what (if anything) are you planning to buy?
By Amber, on September 19, 2010, at 9:15 pm I am a hoarder. Of jewelry. Especially since I discovered Harwin Street. Sure, it was a great idea to buy a million-billion gold bangles — they were cheap and I use them all the time! But the problem is that now I have a million-billion gold bangles, along with all the other wonderful things I’ve been amassing, and it all has to go somewhere when it’s not on my body. Most of it collects on top of the built-in dresser in the closet. Some of it has migrated to the top drawer. The jewelry tree that my sister gave me is wishing lightning would strike it and put it out of its overburdened misery.
Recently I saw this and remembered that I have a similar drawer unit that my mother bought for me long ago! It’s been sitting on the top shelf in the guest closet since we moved here two years ago. It was full of old jewelry and junk like receipts and movie stubs from 2000:
And concert tickets from even longer ago:
I shredded the old receipts, sorted the jewelry as ‘donate’ or ‘keep for parts,’ and squirreled away the few things I wasn’t ready to part with (like an enormous stack of concert tickets, for reasons I cannot explain). Then I got to organizing the things I do use. I have a bunch of little satin pouches that I bought on Harwin Street for $1 each, and some cute paper tags that I bought from the scrapbooking section of Michael’s when I was putting together gift bags for my wedding. I sorted categories like silver pendants into individual bags and tagged them with descriptions:
A perfect fit! I need to pick up more bags and tags. Those tags are the only hope I have of not completely forgetting what’s in there once it is all tucked out of sight. So here are the results (the bags on the front left corner carry each day’s jewelry selection to the gym):
I set a few of the most unwieldy bracelets and rings on top of the little chest, where I can see and be inspired by them:
I’m very good at organizing, but I’m terrible at maintaining organization, so hopefully this will make it easier. I still need a better solution for the necklaces, but this will do for now.
By Amber, on September 16, 2010, at 10:00 pm The Irish diplomats of the US, Southerners often have a nice way of saying things — like ‘bless your heart’ when they’d rather give you the finger. Or ‘palmetto bug‘ when they mean ‘the most enormous cockroach you’ll see outside of a zoo.’
Giant roaches are a fact of life down here in the subtropics. Mark keeps our house extremely clean (no small feat with me as his roommate), but we still see them once or twice a year. A couple nights ago Sweet Pea found one, and it was clearly the highlight of her life so far. It was either too dumb or too young to fly, so I let her chase it around until it became obvious that she had no idea what to do with the thing as it flailed on its back. I caught it under a glass where she eagerly inspected it until I decided it had been tortured enough, at which point I carried it downstairs and flung it over the fence into the vacant lot.
Yes, I know, it’s really not that large, but trust me — when they surprise you, they appear about five times their actual size! Click below for a video of Sweet Pea vs. the roach:
By Amber, on September 14, 2010, at 10:00 pm Just some foolishness from the weekend (click for video):
She really seemed to enjoy that game (though maybe not quite as much as my mom and I did). She’s definitely better at twirling clockwise than counter-clockwise. And now that the replacement part for the robopooper is here, we all have something to twirl about!
Bonus photo from the Houston Eating Tour’s grand finale dinner at Rattan:
By Amber, on September 12, 2010, at 11:01 pm The Houston Food Tour, Fall 2010 Edition, is going well. We still have a day to go, so this will be brief.
Tonight we ate at Rainbow Lodge. Last week Mark and I tried it for the first time, and we’ve been talking about the food ever since. If you visit Houston, you MUST eat there. Last week I had duck gumbo and the mixed grill, which included game sausage (made from venison, wild boar, and nilgai antelope), a small wild boar chop, venison backstrap, and quail a couple different ways. Tonight I had the antelope steak with fava beans, white asparagus, and truffled wild mushroom & foie gras ravioli. So amazing. I wish we could go every week, but I think we’ll go at least once a month!
I hope you had a nice weekend! I’m extending mine one more day!
By Amber, on September 9, 2010, at 10:00 pm Tired? We are, too!
It’s been a long [short] week, but no disasters (knock on wood!). My parents are coming to visit this weekend for a three-day eating extravaganza! There are some fun things to do in Houston, but our guests may never know what they are because we make everyone spend their visit eating — and recovering from eating so we can eat again. Sometimes we just sit around talking about what we’ll eat next.
What do you have planned this weekend? Is the tour you give of your city similar to the one I give of mine?
|
|
