mascara 101, day 4

it's halloween, but i'm not sporting orange mascara. or a witch's hat. or a kitty on my shoulder (i tried that this morning, but alphie only made it halfway down the hallway). i am, though, wearing cargo's texaslash mascara today. yee-hah! this one's got big bristles, and you know what they say about a wand with a big end! yeah, it clumps. luckily i had a dry eyebrow brush to carefully wipe away the mini-mascara boulders. with it's red state moniker, i was hoping texaslash would make me look just like those young pipsqueaks on cmt's dallas cowboy cheerleaders show, granting me perky boobs, sparkling teeth, and a can-do-even-when-totally beaten-down-by-two-way-over-the-hill-and-facially-reconstructed-den-mother-types attitude, all with the swivel of the brush. but it didn't. but if it could, it'd sell like hotcakes. think about it cargo. just think about it.

mascara 101, day 3

today's feature is too faced's lash injection pinpoint, a mascara with a very fine wand/brush combination. i was very impressed with how easy the brush coated each lash, and the bristles didn't overpowered my lashes, either. in fact, i felt like i had very ariel/little mermaid-ish eyelashes. on the bus, i was primed and ready to flirt with an old dude in a crisp suit and my hoodie-clad, pig tailed, miley cyrus-loving seatmate. the baristo at whole foods even put almond milk in my hot cocoa at no extra charge. oh, and too faced is cruelty free!

mascara 101, day .5

i realized that i never posted a "before" photos. here are my naked little lashes. sexy.

mascara 101, day 2

today i broke out make up for ever's smoky lash mascara. the bristles were thick and foresty, and the mascara went on smooth. a step up from yesterday, i think. also, taking a picture of your own eye is really, really hard.

mascara 101, day 1

i'm on the prowl for a new mascara. i loved my old clinique standby for work, but when it ran out, i wondered if i could do better. i tried to go the drugstore route, but apparently walgreens doesn't restock often, so the tubes of l'oreal and maybelline i bought were pretty dry. then i tested some vegetarian mascara, but the stuff just wouldn't stick. i'm sorry, animals, but i can't pull off the raccoon look like you can.

cue sephora, who hasn't yet sold-out with it's latest round of "lash stash." i tried to buy the first one months ago, which featured eight mascaras, but it sold out in a snap. now it's back with 10 sample-sized mascaras, each good for at least several trial runs. could it be any more perfect? i think not!

today's lashes featured vincent longo's the curl mascara. i liked the brush: thick bristles with a curved applicator. but the mascara itself didn't do much for me. maybe i need to layer it better? or pump the brush more? i think this one deserves a second go.

baking with becca

this week i made a mini-cake for a colleague's birthday. my previous one-and-only layer cake experience tanked big time; had i repeated that effort, i would have had to secretly compost the cake and rely on my amazing card-writing skills to pull me through. like "happy birthday! hope you enjoy this card! it goes well with chocolate buttercream. not that i would know." but this week i proceeded to bake with caution, and the mini-cake (using a great 4-inch cutter from sur la table similar to this) turned out well! i also made a second for the chef's cheerleading squad (led by todd), and in addition, we now have unassembled leftover layer pieces that'll be snackworthy for weeks. or days. or in some cases, minutes.

a few notes on the barefoot contessa recipe linked above: i used low fat buttermilk and egg whites in the cake. i also replaced 1/2 of the coffee for 1/2 cup of nonfat greek yogurt in the batter. the cake turned out very rich and moist!

i baked the two layers in silicone cake pans. the centers were definitely more moist than the outer edges; maybe my oven's off? i also had a hard time "popping" them out once they had cooled (about 80 minutes).

here's the valrhona chocolate melting in the double broiler. yum!

i admit that this is the "test" cake that i made first (we've slowly chomped away at it at home). it's leaned a little bit (note that i tilted the camera to one side so that the center filling looks even), but after a little refrigeration, it stayed put! the leaning came from the center of the cakes not "drying" as much as the rest of the cake, so in the "real" mini-cake, I added to the layers a bit. the cake was moist enough where it restuck (thanks to some expert smushing on my part) where needed.

a slice of (blurry) leftover bday cake. small pieces, but very rich!

the final, official product! not too shabby for a teeny tiny cake.

signs minus m. night shyamalan

some signs we came across in british columbia:

i've always wanted to learn air guitar, but until now, it's been such an expensive instrument!

i really don't want to know what the second image means, and for this, i'm thankful.


these are all along the route to tofino. whoosh!


we looked for the bear, but came up empty, yet honey-filled, handed.


canadian life preservers get good ideas, too.


lastly, this one made us giggle for all the wrong reasons. dam.

it was still a pretty good week

in the past week, i have:

1. told a canadian customs agent that i had never, ever been to canada before, when in fact, todd and i visited montreal in july 1999.

2. entered a (canadian) restroom to find 2 stalls without locks. one toilet had no seat. the other had a seat, but a door that barely closed. i exercised option b, using one hand to hold the door and the other to navigate way down there. as i left through the wooden double-doors, wyatt earp-style, i realized that i had used the men's room. the women's was down a separate hall with a sign that said, "chicks." my crass bathroom had no sign, but maybe needed one labeled "sticks."

3. accidentally brushed my teeth with finacea instead of toothpaste.

4. went to make a pizza, but found i had put the packaged dough in the freezer instead of the fridge.

boo to you, too

halloween is right around the corner. well, if the corner equals 24 days. maybe this is a long and winding corner... my neighborhood's younger family quotient keeps shooting skywards, and we've even gained a bouncing baby boy right across our hall. here in the semi-big city by the bay, halloween's a sight on the bus, what with people dressing up in crazy costumes at 7am and trying to balance their pointy hats, capes, newspapers, blackberries, and pumpkin spice chai all in one hand while we lurch up alamo square. but in reality, at least my reality, halloween's sole purpose is to jumpstart pumpkin pie testing. and tasting. and then some more testing.

my costume skillz back in high school tended to lean towards the robe and slippers. what am i, people would ask. i'm at home! haha! harhar! oogabooga! yeah. not funny. i think the best time to dress up was when i was a toddler. there wasn't much judging who had the best/coolest/hairraisingest costume (although i remember finally giving in to a hideous neon green barmaid costume for my 12th birthdy party... but that was a birthday, not halloween, so it doesn't count!!!); instead, back in the day, all hallows eve focused on using your imagination and celebrating the naive idea that everyone had an inner cauldron-stirring witch who wore a tiara.

today if i were a tiny tot, knew how to use the internet, and was left to my own devices to trick-or-treat sans stroller, i'd be all set to hit the town el cheapo style, thanks to drugstore.com's plethora of buyseasons' hokey costumes. and as a side note, mom: thank you thank you thank you for handmaking the strawberry and cat costumes. and for not sewing together a whoopie cushion one. or any costume featuring fake muscles or boobs or alluding to a stinky smell.

but not engrench

me: i'm trying to multitask with work, but also planning this trip to vancouver. we decided to ditch whistler and victoria, and just split our time between vancouver (city) and vancouver island. whoever thought that vancouver island had a rainforest??
em: oh
me: and there are orca pods. and hiking. and sunsets. and storm watching.
em: it looks gorgeous.
me: funny enough, we'll be there for canadian thanksgiving.
em: haha. tofurkey?
me: are canadian tofurkies bilingual? maybe they squawk english and french canadian...
em: i think they do. my friend (from bc) speaks only a little bit of french so i think the tofurkies speak frenglish.