Lush rush

I had a Lush rush two months ago. You'll always know when a Lush store is near, their smell automatically make their presence known. Usually that gets me really excited, except when my nose is being difficult and sensitive, then I'd be sneezing non-stop and cursing. Anyway, I like their concept, and once in a while I'd give myself a little treat and choose something.

Back in London I was crazy about their lemon nail and cuticle cream, but after a while found it a bit too tedious to apply cream to my fingers and toes every night. And it got into the way of my enjoying biting my fingernails. The cream smells very good but doesn't taste great.

My latest happy discovery is Baby Face. It is perfect as a makeup remover. All I need to do is to rub the soap till it melts (as the weather gets colder here it gets harder to melt), then transfer some to my eyelids (my only makeup area), rub gently and then wipe off with moist cotton pads. It smells heavenly and doesn't irritate my eyes! I lopped off a chunk into a tiny container to bring along whenever I travel. Light and easy, no more juggling your liquids around trying to fit within the on-board quota! My bottle of L'oreal makeup remover leaked and I hated that. No more leakage problems now. I guess the drawback is you probably need to spend more time melting the soap with your body heat before you can de-makeup. I read some customer reviews that the soap can also be used as a facial cleanser but I haven't got the patience to melt enough in my palms to smother all over my face.

YC sent me Mr Butterball, a fizzing bath salt for Christmas. He made me feel damn good. The vanilla musk lingered for hours and my skin had this protective oily (not greasy, mind you) layer after soaking that felt so nutritious, I didn't need to lotion up even with the superdrying central heating on (it's winter!).

I wasn't so happy with their solid shampoo though. You can find out why here.

Reorganisation

I'm giving my blog a new face. And I'm discovering "labels" for the first time. Tonight I embarked on the journey of rediscovering my blogposts from donkey years ago and see if anything is worth labeling. Three hours (and three years) later... and to my horror I saw that Photobucket stopped hosting my pictures because I haven't logged in for more than 90 days. More like 90 months but nevermind that. Now I have the additional joyful task of hunting down the missing pictures from my backup CDs (yup those were the days), DVDs (more like it) and harddisks, if I still have them. Bleh.

Baboons

Today is an important day. The date is in ascending order when you write it American style. It's daddy's birthday. And now, also the date I'm half-married.

I'm also a very good travel-mate to have when backpacking in exotic places.

Created by Oatmeal

Barcelona

I love Barcelona. The fresh seafood, the cheap public transport (except the after-midnight crazyass expensive airport taxi to our B&B), the sunny weather... And of course the little incident that will forever mark this place as being special. (no I didn't poo my pants)

There was the obligatory marvelling at Gaudi's brilliantly organic buildings.

There's strolling down the busy La Rambla towards the port. And just sit at the marina and daydream the afternoon away. Or launch into an intelligent debate on why the bigger fish don't team up and attack a seagull.

The magical fountain of Montjuic (I had to wikipedia to find out that the name means Jewish Mountain. Duh.) where all your dreams come true! Or at least, you go aaaaaaaah.

Squids are a must-try when in Barcelona. Grilled, deepfried, whatever way they come in, try. I miss them so much, oh my chipirones.

I suppose a visit to Spain wouldn't be complete without looting their Zara and Mango (and Desigual) outlets. And so I had my first shopping spree in Europe.

My only regret this trip? Not buying a Barcelona FC jersey. Boohoo!

Cupcake mild fever

I must admit, I got hit by the cupcake fever a bit late. It suddenly came about a month ago, and 48 cupcakes later, I've recovered. All the frosting and decorating and witnessing the oohs and aahs emitted from guests were quite fun though, while it lasted.

Now that the mild fever has gone... what am I to do with the 2 boxes of muffin ready-mix I didn't really get to use?

Ok

Right. I have made up my mind to pick this up again. Thanks to the economic downturn (and the deterioration of my writing skills) I will be getting even lesser writing jobs so this could be the only place I get to be a scribe.

Now. Where do I start. I've been home for about 2 months now and have done... almost nothing. Except for a cross-stitch paper complete with a blank yellowed cloth and a set of threads which I found in a corner of my wardrobe and have taken to put into action what I wanted to do 10 years ago. Mmm college days. MUST be that long ago.

Minus the random weeks of holidays and days of laziness, I have thus progressed to...