2 Year Blogaversary

It's been another year! Which means it's been 2 years since I started BJB, which is...really freaking weird to think about. I feel like this blog has grown and changed with me; this past year has seen a move away from just reviews to things completely unrelated to beauty (depression, sexual assault, crap why is grad school so much work). Other things have started taking up more of my time, but y'all keep reading my sporadic posts, and for that, I thank you. This blog is a place for me to talk about pretty things, and ugly things, and things that interest me, which has certainly shifted over time, so I'm very grateful that you've decided to accompany for the ride, bumpy as it is!

It wouldn't be a BJB blogaversary without a giveaway, now would it? Since I am currently overwhelmed with work, I'm going to make this an electronic gift so I don't have to worry about getting to the post office (but hang tight for the end of the term, when I'll have a giveaway with physical goods!). Namely, a $20 gift certificate to Sonoma Scent Studio, maker of some of my absolute favorite perfumes (Forest Walk, Winter Woods, and Jour Ensoillelé are particularly beloved, but I really like pretty much everything I've tried!). This is open to US and Canada residents, must be of legal age, etc., and will run until May 26 (1 week). Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Today is also the 1 year anniversary of my first date with the boy, so I made him anniversary chocolate-dipped chocolate chip cookies. It's been ages since I've baked anything, and making these reminded me how much I enjoy it! Now I just need more time...

sea of cookies!

The recipe, should you like to recreate the magic for yourself, is:

Coast Meanderings

Last week I went to Bandon, a town on the southern Oregon coast, with my mother as an end-of-the-year vacation. It was lovely. Here, have some pictures and nattering! (This is really pic-heavy, natch.)

On our way down, we stopped at the Pancake Mill in Coos Bay, which has delicious foods (not just pancakes!), and got brunch. I neglected to take pictures (of most of the food we ate, whoops), but if you're ever in the Coos Bay area, you should stop by! Awesome link sausage. Then we stopped by Shore Acres, a gorgeous state park on the coast. It was originally owned by a lumber baron, and was donated to (or bought by? I'm not sure) the state after he died. It's got amazing views of the ocean, as well as some truly stunning gardens.

Ocean!

My beautiful mother :)

Me, in my movie star sunglasses and glamorous hat
(I didn't want to get sunburned! And yes, it worked)

More ocean!

They decorate everything with thousands of lights during the holidays, which is apparently quite the sight to behold. This time of year, there are oodles of blooms, though sadly we were past the time for tulips and rhododendrons, and some of the roses hadn't started blooming yet. I took too many pictures. Here are some of them:

What's This? Why, Another Non-Post! This Time, Co-Authored by You!

I'm super-busy with end of term "fun" (there is not enough sarcasm in the world to negate the need for those quotes), but I promised a quick recap of the giveaway comments, and it's short enough that I can call it a study break! (Okay, it actually ended up taking me, like, 40 minutes to write this up. Whoops.)

Suggestions for products I should try:
MAC Paint Pots (I'll try these out once my TFSI runs out! So, like, in a year.)
Powder deodorants (I didn't even know this was a thing?)
Lancome Erika F eyeshadow, the "holy grail easter bunny of taupe" (assuming I can get my hands on it, wily little Asia exclusive)
ProStrong Nail Care (if the whole biotin thing doesn't work out, I'll definitely have to hunt this down)
Shiseido products
Something with shea butter
Sephora Collection foundation

Happy Mother's Day!

My mother is in her early 50s and is as pale as me, but as a natural redhead, on the opposite end of the temperature spectrum. She's received a number of beauty products that were too warm for me, as they flatter her immensely (she is the epitome of an "Autumn").

Us on vacation in Florida during my senior spring break, my mother's graduation present to me!

I have slayed (that is *fine*, spellcheck, stop trying to make "slain/slew" happen!) the dragon...

And am done with finals! I'm headed to New York today, and cannot wait to see everyone! Now, if I could just get out of the whole flying there process, that'd be great...

Today (okay, technically, yesterday; using deictic temporal adverbs is very challenging when writing after midnight but before one has gone to bed) it snowed 8 inches of wet, heavy snow. This is extremely weird. Eugene rarely gets that much snow, and never this late in the year. It really screwed up the finals schedule at the university, since the roads were a mess (not just because we don't know how to handle snowstorms, but also because it was icy and slick, and oh right a bunch of trees fell, see the picture below) and campus was closed until 1:00. I don't envy those who had to venture in to take a final, or those who had to rearrange the finals schedule!

I took this with my phone at 8 this morning when I was mostly asleep. That's my parrot. I've had it ever since I can remember. It's wooden, just in case that doesn't show. Don't worry, I wouldn't hide a pet parrot from you. There'd be pictures of him/her (a real pet would be worthy of gendered pronouns) all over this blog.

A different angle. See that tree in the background? That's fallen all over the place? Yeah, that was loud. Mom says it was rotten which is what made it split like that.

Because You Can Never Have Too Many Posts of Random Sh*t: Street Fair!

The title of this post pretty much sums it up!  There's a street fair on campus through tomorrow, and I paid it a visit today for lunch and to look for gifts for people.  Oodles of food, and even more craft booths.  I can definitely see the advantages of being at a big school in a legitimate college town (Swarthmore, this is a diss towards you, just fyi)!  This plus the (literally) hundreds of coupons I've received have got me pretty firmly in the "yeah, I like it here" camp.  It's even been sunny some today!  Sure, it was when I had class, but whatever.

Rice wok from 3 Forks, with various vegetables, peanut sauce, bean sprouts, and sesame seeds...nommmm

I tried to get a picture of the street, but there were so many people and I'm short so I wasn't able to get above the fray.

Ramblings and Pictures of Bunnies, Sorbet, and a Wallaby (not all at once, unfortunately)

It took forever for summer to arrive this year: mid-July was the first weather that could be considered "summery".  We all figured (or, perhaps more accurately, merely hoped) that it would mean that fall would take its time getting here.  No such luck :-(  It's been rainy off-and-on for the past few days, and it looks to continue for the foreseeable future.  Fingers crossed for an Indian summer in mid- or late-October!  I'm not ready to wear my rain jacket all the time (though it is cute, and it was only $18!  Yes, I purchased an item of clothing new, what the heck).  This means, in part, that I have less motivation to do bloggery stuff, because all I want to do is sit inside drinking tea and reading a novel (still The Brothers Karamazov), and the lack of sunshine makes taking good swatch pictures veeeeery challenging.  I do have a few things to review over the next couple of weeks, and I'll have a bunch of stuff after the Sephora Friends & Family sale (I. am. so. excited!), but, as I'm sure you've noticed, the blog has definitely slowed down!  As recompense, here are some pictures of animals, and one of food:

A wallaby!!  At a pet store where I got mealworms for "the boys" (as my mother calls Bandit and Tim, the sugar gliders; yes, I will work on getting you a video of both of them)

Bunny 1: she was cleaning herself by licking her paws and then rubbing them over her face/ears.  It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen, and I was literally hopping with excitement in the store (fortunately, no one else was there to see)

Bunny 2!  Very sedately nomming on greens.

Chocolate sorbet from Provisions by Marché.  That scoop was $1, and it was so rich and decadent that I couldn't even finish it.  Amazing, right?!

So how are things in your world?  Is the weather fallish for you yet?  Do you welcome the changing weather, or wish summer would hang around longer?

Mini Mid-Trip Post

I'm still in DC, but I thought I should post some photos and updates of my trip!  I won't bore you with all the details, but here's a few pictures and some notes.

The Chili Cheeseburger from Ben's Chili Bowl, where we went after a night out (drinking and socializing always makes me ravenous); it's right next to the U Street Metro and they're open til 4 am.  Their cheese fries are unbelievable.  I don't usually like cheese sauce, but something about theirs was just so delicious.  You should definitely get them if you're ever in the area.

Gingerbread Oven Pancake with Fresh Peaches and Nectarines

Local nectarines and peaches are finally in season, so my mom made this delicious recipe to take advantage of them (there are definite advantages to living at home!).  The fruit lightens the spice of the gingerbread and makes it less Christmas-y and more summery.  Truly delicious, and a treat for all the senses!

pancake shortly after being removed from the oven; the poufy soufléness has gone down a little here

Blackberries!

Fresh-picked blackberries from up the road. Eating them with homemade granola. Yum!

100th Post!

Happy hundredth post!  Let's all celebrate with some cheesecake from Sweet Life :-)

Thank you all for reading and commenting.  You're what makes the blog worthwhile and rewarding!

Sweet Butter Roasted Almonds

Look, guys!  I'm posting about something besides beauty!  My blog title is no longer nonsensical!  Me being me, of course, this is about food.  Delicious sweet, crunchy, butter-roasted nuts, in fact.  They're easier than falling off a log to make, and even easier than that (though I'm not sure what could be easier than falling off a log, if we're being honest) to eat.  If you don't dilly dally, these take about 20 minutes to make; if you're like me and continually get distracted/feel the need to wash your hands because you can't stand it when they're dirty, it'll take more like half an hour or 40 minutes.  Roughly half of that is waiting for them to cook, though, so it hardly counts--you could even write a blog post about them while you're waiting for them to cook (which may be what I'm doing...).

Local Produce and Target Goodies

Summer has officially arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and today I went on a little excursion with Nana and Papa to some local farms to stock up on produce (something they do at least once a week, but I haven't been in ages).  Some of the yummies we came home with:

Clockwise from top left: corn, lambert cherries, cantaloupe, string beans, pea pods, apricots, tomatoes, kiwis, bing cherries

Add this to the blueberries, marionberries, plums, and nectarines we already had, and you can get an idea of the wealth of riches available in the summertime in Oregon :)

I also jaunted over to Target while I was out with the intention of getting some canvas sneakers (on sale this week for $8), and ended up buying three things––none of which were the sneakers.  My no-buy ended with my birthday, and I went to Freddy's yesterday to pick up a couple of things from Essence that I'll be reviewing later this week, and then I got distracted by the makeup section at Target today...methinks I need to instate another no-buy!

Clockwise from top: e.l.f. primer set, Sonia Kashuk makeup bag, Sonia Kashuk contour brush

A lot of stuff in the makeup section is on clearance sale for half-off, so I grabbed a couple things from Sonia Kashuk.  I loved the pattern of the makeup bag, and thought it would come in very handy when I start school again this fall and have to be away from home for a few hours/don't have time to apply in the morning.  Here it is opened up (it has two clear pockets, which you can't really see, since they're transparent and all):

The makeup brush is similar to my E.L.F. powder brush (both flat-topped) but I intend to use it as my bronzer brush (currently using the same brush for foundation and bronzer, which is not ideal for me).  There was also a small E.L.F. display with several back-to-school palettes and such, including a set of eyeshadow primers!  I've been worrying what I'll do when my current tube of primer runs out, since I use it more often now with swatching, and was thrilled to get to try 3 for $3.  I'll test them for wear and to see how they differ and write a post about them later this week, yay!  I'm hoping I love them so that I can go back to Target and get another set or two, and while there maybe actually get those shoes...

Dinner tonight is steelhead trout, caught by my neighbor, topped with a lemon-ginger puree, with wild rice, fresh salad, corn (the corn pictured above, in fact!), and wine, eaten outside in the shade.  I'll be missing this when winter comes and the sun hides for a few months!

What did you have for dinner?  How's the produce sitch where you live?  What do you think of the goodies from Target?