Surprise from Japan

Dearest Janine, also known as the Crafty Tokyo Mama surprised me recently with a care package. And she was spot on with her little message - I was very surprised!

I always love checking out the stamps she uses.

And the inside was pretty as well! She takes such great care with her packaging, it is always a treat.

Inside was this fantastic chocolate...which lasted all of a day and a half. And it wasn't until I'd eaten it all that I figured it out. The segments were each a different flavor like it shows on the package. Oh well, each was still amazing. Like the mango and chocolate together; how did I not know that existed?!

 This adorable pouch had the most interesting opening/closure mechanism I've ever seen. Is is getting a lot of use holding my lip balms in my purse.

Love this little journal! I am alwas carrying something like this around and calling it my brain because I write down everything so I don't forget. Just in case I have a genius idea or something.

And the card - such neat artwork.

Janine sent me this package after my last couple posts mentioning I was down. She is such a dear lady. If you haven't yet (even though I've blabbed about  it several times) visit her blog and shop - both are lots of fun!

Thank you Janine, it made my month to get such a thoughtful gift.

Purple

Zoom zoom bloomity bloom! I blinked and now everything around me is blooming. Mostly purple things, but that's just fine because I love purple.

Wild lupine growing in my neighbor's field.

I don't know if you can tell but I'm surrounded by horses. Literally on all sides of me are fields and 3 out of 4 of those fields have horses.

I just love lavender and so do my honeybees. I planted 4 extra plants last year and they have really sprouted this spring. Looking forward to having a different kind of blossom.

Two colors of lilacs because just one isn't enough!

We've had a lovely warm and dry spell and the flowers are really going for it, especially the rhododendrons - I don't recall ever seeing such beautiful rhododendrons as I have this year. In fact I took my camera to work to sneak some photos of the house across from my office because it looks so amazing! I gave a sneak peek here on twitter, but will show my camera photos soon.

Totally Random Thursday - shot it

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy Top Shot on History Channel and now they have a "spin-off" of sorts called Top Guns which I have really enjoyed as well. Thing is, they make me want to try some of these things. Like...I bought a throwing knife. Yes, I did. And some days I'm pretty good with it (when I first typed that it came out 'goof with  it' which may have been what I truly intended) but mostly it's just a lot of excercise of me walking around to pick up my knife that missed the board.

I proved a little better with the shotgun; I had never fired one though I have fired pistols and rifles. My brother decided to show me how to fire the shotgun and we set up a little range of cans. He grabbed the most ancient double-barreled shotgun I think I've ever seen; it said "Hercules" on the side of the barrel and has battle scars all over both sides.

Do these triggers look sketchy to you? They did to me. He even convinced me to fire both barrels at once saying, "Don't be a wimp; it's fine." NO IT WAS NOT FINE. And he thought it was hilarious the twerp.

However I did manage to hit my target.

Have you been inspired to try anything new lately?

Hair don't

I have gotten ridiculously lazy about my hair. Today I actually thought 'can't my hair just look nice and sit on my head all week and not require my attention every day?' Too much to ask?
I've been trying all kinds of no-heat curling methods. Don't you think it's interesting how, that used to be just the normal way and now we have all these expensive gadgets and we are fascinated with how we can do it for free and without electricity? Ah commercialism. But I digress.

I've done the sock one and it worked...but not that great. Mostly I just think I'm inept at curling the sock into my hair.
Then I tried this one and when I had long hair it worked fantastic. Since then I've cut my hair and I decided to try it again. And this happened.

Wowie wow! Uh...what do I do with this? Other than take a photo and share it to the entire internet as a warning to others. I suppose there is a way to tame this but I don't know what way that is. I have plans to try again and see if I can't make this work for me, but with the time constraints I had getting ready for work I ended up taking the flat iron to my hair. Thankfully I have a nice friend who bought me a nice flat iron and I went from above to:

It's a little dull after that bounce in the above photo (which admittedly was pretty awesome) but it wasn't quite so.....SO. Knowwhatimean?

Also I stopped by the store the other night and perused the makeup aisle, not expecting to find anything but looking anyway. What do we call that? Crazy? Anyway. I did find something. I found L'Oreal Paris' Infallible 24 hour eyeshadow.

I usually scoff at this sort of thing but secretly dream and wish they will work. I have hooded eyes and I have given up wearing eyeshadow altogether. But this looked so pretty and hey it PROMISED.
I put it on and checked 3 hours later and it was totally melted into my crease. Noooooo! So sad. :(

If you try the hair thing I expect to see photos of you as well. ;)

A few of my favorite things

Things have still been pretty quiet. I never thought I'd be one of those people whose lives were ruled by drama but that is pretty much what it has become. That line from Meet the Robinsons "Well it's been a long, hard day filled with emotional turmoil and dinosaur fights." has me nodding saying, "yeah that's accurate!"

What that means is that I haven't really had any creative inspiration whatsoever, which is sad because it has really been my whole life the past two years. When you are sad and then lose interest in things you love it makes you even more sad. It's a spiral really. I'm working on it. I'm ordering Pollyanna on DVD today so maybe that will help.

In the meantime, since I haven't really done any projects I thought I would share some of my favorite things I've been using lately.

I love coloring my hair and I love straightening my hair which means I have a lot of damaged hair. I was reading Mandy's blog Prettymaking and she recommended this product which I bought and have used like crazy since.

Now that I work within close distance to a Rite-Aid I find myself buying all kinds of silly things. Like....

I have bought Wet n Wild polish for years and it usually lasts two days before chipping. But these little bottles of "megalast" last a week. I have a job where I use my hands a lot so my nails get a lot of abuse. At $1.99 a pop, I don't mind buying in multiple colors. Actually I think they've changed the bottle design since I got these but the product is still nice.

 Deep sparkle "Disturbia"

Soft and creamy "Bite the Bullet"

I also spotted these fun lip colors by Revlon. They look both retro and modern and I found not one but two colors I liked? Have I ever bought a drugstore lipstick? Um...I don't actually think I have. Lipgloss sure, but never a lipstick-like product and it is always because there's never been a color I liked.

One is a shade of pink that actually goes with my skintone ("Pink Frosting") and the other is purply ("Gumdrop") which I was ridiculously excited about.

They are smooth, not sticky and sheer, which honestly is how I prefer my lip color.

I'm always hunting for a lipcolor and very frequently not succeeding.

My baby tote of lip products. I have problems.

We had two days of super warm sun and it was enough for me to break out my bronzer. I am quite pale so normal bronzers do not work for me. However, "Maracaibo" by local company Alima Pure is p-e-r-f-e-c-t. The only bronzer I've ever seen that pale people can wear with ease and avoid looking tacky.

Put a bird on it.

And I finally bought some of these:



That are thick enough and will stay put enough, for me to do [this].

And not at all beauty-related but if you haven't tried this

You are missing out!