Outfit of the day + link

I did an face of the day makeup look on youtube today, and then decided to do an outfit of the day as well. The weather has warmed up a bit so I can wear my new thrifted raincoat! Even with it raining, I am glad to not have to run the heater all night long in our bedroom! I hope everyone is having a good day! :)
(Click here for youtube link)

Outfit: Costa Blanca raincoat (thrift), H&M sweater turtleneck, H&M long sleeved t-shirt, Flying Monkey Skinny jeans from Winners, Diesel Boots from Winners, Scarf from Sears, Purse from H&M. :)

Nail Polish Collection in Pictures

I have a bit of an obsession with nail polishes. Even though I have only started doing manicures for the last two years, I have collected quite a few nail polishes. So, without further ado, here are the pictures of my collection. :)
To see the video that accompanies this blog, Click Here.

Long Time Since I've Seen You and I Made a Delicious Stew!

This blog is full of cobwebs! lol I have neglected my blog while I started getting into youtube, but I am back! I have been cooking lots of stews and soups since the weather is getting colder. I thought I would share with you how I make a stew. I adopted this method from a beef stew recipe from one of my older cookbooks. You can use any meat you like in this recipe, and if you don't eat meat, you might want to make a roux to get a nice thick rich stew.

Step one is to fry chopped onion, carrots, and potatoes in oil for 5-6 minutes. While the vegetables are sauteing, coat the stew meat in the flour spice mixture (see recipe below for details).
Take the vegetables out of the pan and fry the stew meat until brown on both sides.

After the meat has browned, take it out of the pan. There should be some brown bits at the bottom of the pan. You want to deglaze the pan with either wine, beer, or some stock and stir to pick up all of the bits on the pan. If using wine or beer to deglaze, make sure to let it bubble a bit to burn off any alcohol.

Then put in a can of either crushed, diced, or whole tomatoes. If using whole tomatoes, you can just mash them down a bit to 'cut' them up.

Then add stock and/or water to the pan. Add back the vegetables and meat to the pan as well.



Bring to the boil and place bay leaf and any other seasonings to the stew. Turn down heat to simmer stew for at least 30 - 45 minutes. You can serve this with some warm crusty garlic bread. Enjoy! :)

Lamb Stew
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped (optional)
1/2 Tbsp oil
1/2 to 1 lb stew meat
Flour spice mixture: 2-4 Tbsp flour, 2-4 Tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)
2 Tbsp to 1/4 cup wine, beer or stock (to deglaze pan)
1/2 to full can of tomatoes (crushed, diced, or whole)
2 to 4 cups of stock ( veggie, chicken, beef, or lamb) or water
1 to 3 bay leaves

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Dave and I went to a Halloween house party on Saturday. Dave went as a dark wizard and I went as a psycho clown inspired by Captain Buggy in the manga called One Piece.
I wanted to do a video on how I did the makeup, but the lighting was too bad to even tell what was going on. Instead, I have pictures of our adventures.
The party hosts decorated the house with lots of scary blood and spider webs! I was happy to see Halloween pumpkin peeps but not so happy to see a cat litter cake inside a real cat litter box. It was a bit to weird for me, but I heard it was good cake. lol
I hope everyone had a great Halloween!!! I sure did! :)

August Favorites

I decided to make a video of my favorites this month. Let me know what you think. :) Enjoy!

A review and DIY fail - or maybe not?

A few weeks ago, I went to my local London Drugs and saw they had Vichy Aqualia Antiox fresh serum on sale. I was looking to do a bit of a end of summer treatment for my face as it took quite a beating from all the sun and travel. I have used vitamin C treatments before with much success and bought this serum without another thought. I loved that it was a preservative free product and that you had to mix it up yourself. I think it reminded me of a science project. lol Anyway, I started using it around the beginning of August and 3 days later, my neck started itching. I had red bumps all over and had to take some benadryl to calm my skin down. After searching online, I realized that it would take a few days for the vitamin C to dissipate from my skin. So I had a very drugged up few days! I assume that the concentration of vitamin C is greater than other treatments I had tried. I was really disappointed to have wasted my money but in the end, it had to be tossed.

The same time I started the serum, I decided to make a little DIY body scrub. Well, to be honest, this was an attempt to correct a mistake I made a while back at the grocery store. I bought two bottles of a moisturizing body wash because it was on sale for so cheap. Long story short, got it home and tried it out - figured out that it was on sale because it was non foaming wash. It felt like putting lotion on as soap - yeah, not that pleasant. lol So, I had this great idea to mix the body wash with salt to make a nice moisturizing scrub. I used an old (clean) body butter container to store the scrub. I used kosher salt because it was the only coarse salt I had in the house. I used 3 to 4 parts salt to 1 part body wash and mixed it all together with the end of a clean comb I had with a long skinny handle. The next day I went to use it and realized kosher salt is not quite coarse enough for the body! It also dissolves quite easily too! I was really not having good luck to say the least. But I used it on my face and WOOHOO, it worked! I actually really like how it is gentle and moisturizing. My face feels smooth and I was happy to not have another useless product in my bathroom. lol I have plans to make a different scrub soon, but for now, I will quit while I am ahead.

To Do Lists

As my day is winding down today, I realize that I usually follow a To Do list. If for some reason I forget to make a list, I waste a good part of my day floundering about trying to figure out what to do. I end up overwhelmed with all the things that need to get done. I even forget what to pick up at the grocery store if I don't have a list. Sounds like a good thing to make a list, right? Well, in my case, I seem to think of it as a time to put EVERY task that needs to get done ever on my list. Of course, I am not superwoman, so I end up feeling like I didn't accomplish much at the end of each day. So, my new challenge for the month is to make a sensible To Do list that will allow me to be productive, but still have energy enough to put dinner on the table at night. lol Today's list was as follows:
-get dressed
-breakfast ( i previously would forget to schedule a time to eat!)
-wash bedding / air out bed/pillows
-clean sofas and sofa blankets
-wash shower curtain
-clean bathtub/tile
-wash towels
-wash clothes
-cook beans (i had soaked some black beans and chickpeas the night before)
-put beans in containers and put in refrigerator and freezer.
-put away clean dishes from the dishwasher
-put dirty dishes in the dishwasher
-clean pots/pans from last night (only needed to clean the pot used to cook the black beans so I could cook the chickpeas. lol)
-straighten living room/dining room
-recycle newspapers/junk mail
-sweep/mop floors
-pre-condition my hair
-manicure
-wash/dry hair
-dinner ( i actually forgot to put lunch on this list, but I did have pizza for lunch :P )
-blog/ translate blog

Yeah, and that is the small revised list. lol I know a lot of people wonder what I do on a typical day...there it is! I have yet to make dinner or wash and dry my hair, but I wanted to make this blog as a time to take a much deserved break. The time goes much faster for me because I usually have my ipod on me and the tunes blasting in my ears. Not good for the hearing, but good for motivation. :) Now to remember to put all three meals on my list...

July Favorites

It is the beginning of August, so I want to let you know what I have been loving during July. I stumbled on the first item when I was at the drug store around June. They had a sale on Jordan's morning crisp cereal for $3.99. The box showed whole pecans, Brazil, and hazelnuts which totally sold me. What surprised me was that it actually had huge whole pieces of all those nuts! It was full of of them the whole box through! I was really impressed and it was very tasty as well. Even though we usually eat different cereal, my husband ended up mysteriously finishing the box...so I guess it was to his liking as well. lol
The second thing is an eye makeup brush. I should probably let most of you know that I am now an avid makeup lover. I will probably do a whole blog post on that so I won't go into it now. As I was saying, I found a eye makeup brush from Annebelle that has made me VERY happy. Funny enough, I found it on sale at the same drug store as the cereal. This brush works so well, even with my most difficult, powdery, chunky, glittery eyeshadows. It makes it look so nice and smooth and also blends well. I love it so much, I bought 2 other ones. lol I know it seems a bit crazy, but I do not want to be without this brush!
Because of the brush, I have revisited my Almay pure blend eyeshadows I have had for a while now. I am very into natural makeup without harsh chemicals so these were right up my alley. But I couldn't get them to work well as some of my other eyeshadows, so they when to the back of the drawer. But I wanted to see how good the new Annebelle brush was so I tried them out. It worked so well, that I have used them EVERY day of July and still going strong into August! I don't think I would repurchase them, as I have found success with other brands, but I am glad not to have them go to waste.
I received the next one from my husband for Valentine's Day. This Clean perfume called Sweet Layer was the perfect light lemon/lime citrus smell for the summer. Unfortunately, I have just finished it as of Aug 1st! I really enjoyed it and have to thank my husband for buying it. :)
Lastly, I can not forget my Japanese course I took in July. It was quite a trial for me and it took quite a toll on me. It challenges me in so many ways that I get frustrated easily. But I had a great instructor and study partner- both giving me a great deal of encouragement. I don't think I would have even lasted the first week without that support and I am incredibility lucky to have been in the class. I learned more than I ever thought possible in one month. Thank you to all of you who were in the class. I will probably be emailing my sensei as I make my way through making my blog bilingual! Now if I could only stop procrastinating... lol

Update

So, its been 6 months and a lot has happened. Unfortunately, I didn't put any of it on my blog. haha I might do a "retro" post of things that I have done, but for now, let us focus on the here and now. I just finished an intensive Japanese course at UBC and I now want to start using what I know to the best of my ability. So, both my blogs will now be in both English and Japanese. I am going to challenge myself to start speaking Japanese too, so watch out for videos. Oh and please don't laugh too much at me. :) It is now the end of summer and almost back to school time for some, so I will be doing a bit about packable lunches. Oh, and maybe talk about bento boxes a bit as well. Anywho, gotta run and make dinner (BBQ salmon). Hope all is well with you. :)

Wednesday recipe for Valentine's Day?

As the title states, this post is for Valentine's day but not quite a recipe. I had hoped to show off a recipe every Wednesday, but instead I have pictures of the early Valentine's dinner I had with my husband. We used to go to Milestones for their "date night special" on Wednesday, but have not been for months. And with the Olympics coming to town Feb 12th to the 28th, we figured it was best to have a nice quiet dinner out before the 14th.

For this "date night", you get to choose a appetizer to share, main course, and a dessert to share. We had a roasted garlic caesar salad for the appetizer, which is a full entree size.
They had a few things different on the menu, so we both tried the lamb shank. (no pic as we were too busy eating hehe) As for dessert, we had this yummy chocolate "cookie", which is like a cross between a cookie and brownie, topped with vanilla gelato on top.

We also had a bottle of red wine to share for the evening.

It was a nice quiet evening of good food. Unfortunately, getting the leftovers to go meant foregoing some of what was left on my plate, like the mushrooms and gravy. Next time, I will remember to box it up myself or come more hungry! Hope everyone's Wednesday was well and two more days until the weekend! woohoo!

PS. To make up for the loss of lamb shank photos, I have a couple of bbq lamb dinner photos from this past weekend. Yes, I still bbq in January and will continue all year round as long as its not raining/snowing. :D Enjoy the pics.

New post, new month!

Happy new year and February! I have been busy getting sick for half of January and the other half was spent working hard on back projects I want to complete. So, today's post are things that I am happy to have / use lately and things that can stay in 2009 and never spoken of again. hehe Enjoy.

Things that I am ready to let go of immediately:
1) Clutter! I am really done with keeping unnecessary things around me and cluttering up my space and mind. I just have to make sure not to overdo it and have nothing left!
2) Negative thinking/talking about the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I understand many have issues with the handling of the Olympics, but its almost here now! Let's all try to enjoy it and cheer on the athletes that have trained and dreamt of being a part of the Olympics. I will be blogging about any events I go to on my "Jacks in the City" blog since its in "the city".
3) Jay vs Conan. Even though I don't even watch late night TV these days, I got totally carried away with this one. So I can go on with the rest of 2010 without hearing about it again.

Things I am embracing and loving from now on:
1) Fishtail braids! Ok, so this is a bit odd, but these braids are so cool. A side benefit is it gives me the most natural looking waves to my hair. I love effortless hair styling. :)
2) EL NINO!!! Best winter weather I have experienced in years. Although it might not be best for Whistler...
3) Tea - green, white, red, black, herbal, etc. I usually have one cup in the morning and one in the evening. My new favorite is kombucha green tea (reg and decaf) from Yogi teas. It was on sale here and I am now hooked.