Haulage

20% off sales are a terrible, wonderful thing. In spite of my ongoing malaise, or perhaps because of it, I've taken advantage of the Sephora and Beauty.com sales the past week. I'm really still not up to writing actual posts, or taking pictures, or being, y'know, a decent blogger, so instead, here are some pictures of the things I've ordered (which you can expect to see posts on at some point in the future). I also ordered several Christmas presents, but those aren't shown below, because some of them are for people who read the blog :)

Make Up For Ever Aqua Brow
in 25 Ash

Tarina Tarantino Conditioning Lip
Sheen in Queen Alice

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:

Finger Paints Flakies Swatch Fest

I have been eagerly awaiting the Finger Paints collection of 5 flakies since I saw the press release several weeks ago ($4.99 for 0.50 oz each with Sally's card, $5.99 without; if you want the collection, it's definitely worth getting the card if you don't have one already). I'd gone to the nearest Sally's twice in the week before leaving for DC in the hopes they had gotten it early, but to no avail. Today, though, since I was finally feeling mostly human again (thank god for modern medicine), I decided to go out for some (more!) retail therapy. I was thrilled to death and flailed about in glee when I saw they had all of them in stock, and quickly snatched them up and traipsed home to play around with them. There is no shortage of awesome swatches and reviews online, and I definitely suggest looking at them for further ideas, since, while I did a lot of layering combinations, my polish collection is not entirely extensive and I'm only including the ones I liked best.

Now, on to the pictures! As always, enlarge for a more detailed (read: rainbowier) view.

Left to right: Flashy, Flecked, Motley, Asylum, Twisted

All layered––it looks like stained glass!

Beach Meanderings

I've been feeling rather massively unmotivated the past few days, and I'm going to blame it on Christmas ('tis the season and all that). I hope I get my mojo back soon, because I have some more things to review, and I'd like to get back into the swing of my weekly features, since nothing but reviews can get a bit tedious. Until then, though, here's a bunch of pictures from the trip to the coast that my mother and I just took. Enjoy! (Note: It was the biggest pain in the butt to get these pictures to upload, so I sincerely hope you enjoy them. Feel free to click on any to enlarge them.)

The Gilbert Inn in Seaside, where we stayed; it was first built in 1892 but has since been remodeled (duh) and recently reopened

We stayed in the Renee room

Various rooms in the inn's shared living area; it was just us and one or two other groups, though we saw neither hide nor hair of the other guests, so we essentially had the whole house to ourselves

Festive Christmas tree

Free chocolate chip oatmeal cookies!!! I ate no less than 6 during my stay. It was especially amazing when they were fresh from the oven and still gooey. Yum

Seaside has a boardwalk along the beach that we walked along for a little ways. The current Seaside is where Lewis and Clark (the latter of whom is an ancestor of mine) spent their winter on the Pacific, so there's many placards and signs around commemorating and explaining, though I didn't bother to take a picture of any (whoops)

Isn't it gorgeous?? Much of the Seaside area is really flat, so when the tsunami comes (as it eventually will; it's long-overdue, actually), the whole area will be wiped out. But it's lovely for now!

It's aliiiiiiive!

Hello, lovelies! I'm sorry the blog has been a bit slow lately; it's the end of the term, and I've had mountains of stuff to do. Happily, I am all done with my own papers, and I finished grading my students' finals, so after I turn grades in, I am done for a month! I have lots of stuff coming your way in the next few weeks, but here's a quick preview:

My current manicure, with Color Club's Gingerbread; full review to come in the next few days, I hope!

Chanel Illusion d'Ombre in Illusoire; this is a gorgeous sparkly purple-taupe cream-gel eyeshadow that I bought so I wouldn't have to pay shipping, but that will be going back tomorrow, as 1) I cannot afford a $36 eyeshadow, no matter how pretty, and 2) It creases on me (wtf).

It comes with its own little brush!! SO CUTE. And, because it's Chanel, classy. Also, functional. Full review to come, eventually.