cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

My folks gave us some money for xmas with the instruction to spend it on something fun. So I went to Lush.com and bought some of the products that I loved back before they raised their prices to obnoxious levels. I made sure that I only picked out items that Emi's not allergic to (harder than you'd think) so that I could share them with her if I felt like it.

So there we were, getting ready for her nightly bath. I chopped up a Ma Bar and put about 1/4 of it into the tub. In short order, there were more bubbles in the tub than water. Emi flipped out, demanding to get into the tub OMG RITE NAO!

I don't think she ate too many of the bubbles. There were a couple of over-enthusiastic splashes that soaked me, but most of the bubbles stayed in the tub. The best part of all of it was that she wasn't itching! Usually she spends the majority of the bath itching like mad, but the bubbles completely distracted her from it. Also, it was super cute.

Tonight I plan on giving her a little of the Jilted Elf shower jelly to play with. It's bright green with gold glitter, smells like xmas and vodka, and has the consistency of gummy worms. I predict good things will come from this.

So far Lush's American Cream is winning the head-to-head competition with Jungle and Veganese for Best Lush Conditioner for Sabine's hair.  It performs beautifully with New!Hair, Soak and Float, and Rehab.  It has an amazing vanilla fragrance that actually sticks to my hair for most of the morning.  Jungle has a yummier scent, but doesn't stick at all.  I like the lemon of Veganese, but it's just not making me as much of a pretty, pretty princess as American Cream.

OPI's I'm Not Really A Waitress might just be the perfect shade of red for me.  It's got enough blue that it doesn't make my skin look cadaverous and the shine is downright gorgeous.  Now, if I could just get a bottle of the same top coat as the salon, maybe I'd be able to keep paint on my nails for more than 30 hours without chipping it.  Because nothing says "class" like bright nail polish with several large chunks missing.

I'm not sure what my dentist did to one of my upper molars, but it can't have been good for the tooth.  For the last month or so, it's been getting steadily more uncomfortable.  He mentioned that it might need a root canal back in October, but I managed to squeak by without one.  I have an appointment on March something and I'll know more about it then.  Stupid teeth.

I got a couple of inches hacked off of my hair on Sunday.  It hadn't had scissors touch it in...probably almost two years.  There were a TON of split ends that needed removed.  It looks and feels better now.  I'm still planning on donating it when it gets long enough that I'll still be able to have chin/shoulder length hair after they take the 10" they need for the wig.  I figure that being set back by four months isn't that big of a deal, especially when it'll be better quality in the end.  Downwood also got his hair cut and left a small Pomeranian worth of hair behind.  It was really impressive.

If Lush made a shower jelly with the same cinnamon/clove scent as the Marathon bubble bar, Christmas Kisses bubble bar, or the Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar, I would be a gleeful Sabine.  Instead, I've been using the (discontinued) Spank Me With Saplings and the Woosh shower jellies.  Both are very good at quick wake-ups and Woosh has the same potent calming agents in shower jelly form as it does in temple balm form.  The Woosh combines really nicely with the Cordelia perfume from BPAL.  It is very similar to one of my longtime favorites - Arcana - but where Arcana is an herbalist's scent, Cordelia is a wise woman: same base notes, but somehow richer and more feminine.

Speaking of BPAL, I have a box of imps I'm going to be looking to unload in the not-too-distant future.  When I've gone through my stash, I'll post the list.  I have some 5 ml bottles of LE scents that I'm going to put on eBay.

I finished re-reading de Lint's Dreams Underfoot collection last week, so I started up with the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks for the bus to staff meeting yesterday and the gym today.  I am woefully unprepared for the eventual zombie invasion.  I need to start scouting land and gear to build my eventual sanctum.  In the event that the zombies never arise, I will have my Evil Genius base well underway.  I don't really see a downside to this plan.

A couple weeks ago, I started running a very different type of game.  I took the concept of the Letter Game and ran with it.  The results are very surprising in that "jump up and down for joy" sort of way.  th_lttr_gm is the community where the various stories are getting posted as they're being written.  It's way too much fun, even if I'm about to hunt down my Alice!muse and threaten her with extreme bodily harm until she tells me exactly what happened in the mine.  Yes, I sound crazy.  No, I don't care.

Also, oatmeal with walnuts, applesauce, cinnamon, and maple syrup makes for a very good dinner, especially with a glass of milk and a mug of Stash's Decaf Pumpkin Spice tea.  It makes for many happy sighs and mutterings of how good life is.

Today is a good day. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons why:

• FFXII rocks my socks off. The game is so very pretty to play and it's laced with all the side-quest and mini-game crack that I've come to expect from the franchise. Long live Final Fantasy!
  
• Though we had no trick-or-treaters deign to visit our doorstep, there's a big bowl of candy still sitting right behind where I sit to play video games. Oh, darn.
  
• The absolute BEST TEA IN THE WORLD is back on sale. Normally, I'd want to rant about seeing Christmas stuff in the stores this early, but when it's my Candy Cane Lane tea from Celestial Seasonings, I'll not only let it slide, but I'll buy several boxes, audibly squee when the cashier hands me the bag, and do the Ecstatic Favorite Tea Dance all the way out to the car.
  
• The Horrible, Soul-Sucking Project of Doomy Doom at work is almost at an end. It tried to thwart me again this afternoon, but I am a Data Ninja and not so easily vanquished.
  
• Downwood bought me what could be the Cutest Mug on the Planet. It's a penguin in a striped hat and scarf and holds a goodly serving of My Favorite Tea. It is both dangerously cute and roomy enough to be exceedingly practical.
  
• My new glasses make me look more adult and even more adorable. I love them. I can't wait to get a chance to use the matching magnetic sunglasses. Finally, I will be able to drive or walk about and not be blinded by the sun! All hail the Magnetic Sunglasses of Adorable Doom! Hail!
  
• Downwood's mother gave us an espresso/coffee machine for our birthdays. It is The Shiny. I'm going to be testing it out in the morning, and I expect to be wired well into the afternoon. Rock on.
  
• Downwood and I are going to be married in roughly 357 hours. Not that I'm counting or excited or anything. Nope, I'm calm and serene and utterly unfazed. And if you believe that...well, um, welcome to my LJ since you are obviously new to this scene.
  
• I have the Cutest Greyhound in the Whole World.
  
• The Annoying Project of No Hope is once again stalled out at work, but this time it's not my fault. I'm waiting on another vendor to get off their voluminous asses and get to work finding me the information and documentation I've requested three times this week. On the up side, it's getting me known to several other application teams in the Evil Empire as She Who Gets Answers For You. Boo. yah.
  
• The workouts that had been making me feel like I was dying now only make me feel like I'm about to die. This improvement pleases me.
  
• There's a vat of chicken marinating on the counter and a bottle of, I kid you not, Transylvanian Vampire merlot waiting to be drunk with dinner. Imagine the excitement of finding that in Meijer when utterly strung out and hating the world. It's nice when the universe rearranges itself to amuse me.
  
• I get to run a Shadowrun one-shot tomorrow. I have a plot, I have handouts, I even have a resolution. Hopefully, I'll stay sober enough to actually go through the game instead of falling down in a giggling heap of drunkenness. Either way will be fun, so I won't complain if the latter happens rather than the former.
  
• There's a Sooper Sekrit Guesty Type (aka The Mad Clicker) coming to my house in about 70 minutes. This pleases me to no end.
  
• The Massive Box of Lush that I got two weeks ago has all been tested and the products found to perfectly fill the niche that I needed. Recon, though slightly stinky and OMG!hard to wash out, has calmed down the terror that was my scalp. Ultralight facial moisturizer kicks ass, and the New! Hair shampoo is cinnamony goodness.
  
• I have the best friends anyone could ever ask for.

There are many more reasons, but my tea is cooling and the phone is ringing. I need to put on my fuzzy red socks so my toes will be warm. Also, my new psychiatrist is amazingly wonderful and refilled my 'scripts for me, so I'm no longer out of meds and off my rocker.

Life rocks.

Though I am currently unpantsless, I have exciting news to report. This evening, Downwood and I performed a cosmetic experiment. The Downwood's assistance in this venture was necessary for reasons that shall become clear.

For several years of undergrad, I had hair like cabell's. I adored it. About two inches long with spiky bits of color found in flower boxes and Crayola. It started as a "I think my brain just snapped" stress relief one midterm and didn't stop until I got convinced that I should be "respectable".

So I grew my hair out and didn't touch it with dye, shocking all my friends in the process.

As of this afternoon, my hair was past my shoulder blades and a fairly unremarkable blond-brown. Now, however, it's still long, but bright red.

We used Lush's Caca Rouge Mama Henna. The package is $16, but has enough in it to do my hair four times. It took about 30 min of application and 2 hours of sitting under saran wrap, but it looks fabulous. Best part? It smells like strong tea. No ammonia, no harshness, just wonderful, soft, RED hair. I? Am an extremely happy Sabine.

Pictures forthcoming when it's completely dry.

If I manage to not totally vibrate myself into little shards of Sabine over the course of the next 64 minutes, it will be a near-miracle. I just received word that a shipment of BPAL is on its way to my door. So is some Lush. And my copy of MirrorMask? Is already here!

*happy dance*^12884

(EEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!)

I'd been wanting to try Lush's Black Pearl bath bomb for several days now. I finally got my chance tonight.

The bath water was a mildly unappealing grey and I'm going to have to scrub the tub to get rid of the ring of black sludge. I'm also covered in glitter. Covered. I sparkle. No, I'm not sure if that is a plus or a minus.

The lavender scent is very nice and I smell awfully good right now. I only added more hot water twice and the glass of wine that Downwood brought me made an absolutely lovely accompaniment to the warm water, good smell, and frivolous book. Makes for a good evening.



I still need Lush and BPAL icons, if anyone is feeling creative...

*sips champagne* Mrrrr...

I used Sweetie Pie shower jelly this morning. It was kind of fun to wash using a chunk of frozen jell-o. I'm not sure that I like the scent, though. I smell like a purple Tootsie Roll. I'm assuming that's the black currant and cherries coming through. I don't know if I'll buy this one again, though I'm planning on getting Spank Me With Saplings the next time that I order.

I am certain that I'll be reordering Angels on Bare Skin when I get through this container. My skin has not felt this good in a very long time. I don't need to put on lotion after I wash my face and most of the "ickies" have started to clear up. I love this soap. It smells really good and it doesn't irritate my skin.

With the exception of the bath bombs and bubble bars, I'm really impressed by how long it's going to take me to go through the soaps that I ordered. I was apprehensive by how expensive this stuff is, but it takes a surprisingly small amount to get clean.

Using one of Lush's Christmas Kisses Bubble Bars is like taking a bath in a cup of Koolaid-red Bengal Spice tea with mounds and piles of bubbles. Life is gooooooooood!







And I can't stop sniffing myself. Yum.