Frightening Photo Friday

Seems as if Ian and I ruined an otherwise super cute pic of Helena and Erik.
This was in Laughlin, at the piano bar.

Frightening Photo Friday

This was quite a while ago when Ian discovered this fun little iphone app.
I don't think I was wasted... I don't look it at all.

Sephora Collection: Purifying Brush Shampoo

I’m practicing up on my product reviews so I can guest post over at my girl Lindsay’s blog, Pretty As Peaches. She could use some more content for the regular people like me who need extra help, beyond makeup. Preggo Peaches is busy these days and hardly posts about anything but M.A.C. I like M.A.C. But I’m too cheap to go there every day to buy something from their gazillion new collections every week. She humors me by apologizing for M.A.C. posts now. I’m still a dedicated reader though, regardless.

I’ll admit it. I use the $30 Costco makeup brush set that I got last year for my birthday. It’s awesome though!! The handles are certainly showing some age after almost a year of use, but the bristles themselves are still soft as ever and make me happy.

Guess how often I’ve cleaned my brushes since I first got them? If you guessed 6 times, you are wrong. If you guessed zero times, you win a hug next time I see you.

Trust me, I know. It was getting a little absurd trying to apply foundation with a “full” brush that ended up leaving streaks all over my face until I worked it all in 5 minutes later. And when I’d apply shadow and the excess powder would fly all around my eye because it had nowhere else to go. My brushes needed a bath and they needed it in a bad, bad way.

As fate would have it, I received a small bottle of Sephora’s Purifying Brush Shampoo for Christmas. Happy happy joy joy.

I put –er to the test this weekend and she got the job done, that’s for sure! The directions say to put a small amount either in your hand, or on a smooth surface, and then gently swirl your damp brush though it as it lathers up. I opted to use my countertop surface to do my swirling. It was fun. Didn’t lather very much, but I could tell it was working as the clear wet surfaces turned lovely shades of tan, brown and pink. I rinsed and repeated 3 times total.

I have a feeling if you do this much more regularly, as is generally recommended by makeup people (right? or did I make that up?) then you would only have to shampoo your brushes once a sitting. But what do I know? I was a virgin brush cleaner until this weekend. I’ll try and do it again soon – like 6 months – haha – and see if I need to go through the lathering less than 3 times in order to get a totally clean foundation brush.

This morning when all my brushes were clean and dry, they felt great. No residue or anything funky going on. This little bottle will only set you back a couple bucks so if you’re looking for something, I’d definitely recommend the only brush cleaner I’ve ever tried!

A/C Fiasco

I know it's freezing here in San Diego these days so talking about our air conditioner is a little out of context, but I figure I owed you.  Wear a sweater or something if that will help you get through this little post.

I think I eluded to our minor disaster a couple months back and never elaborated on it.  Wanna know why?  Well I hadn't downloaded the pictures until just today and was reminded of all the fun-ness.

Basically, we had been using our A/C pretty liberally over the summer.  One day, as I was doing #1 (or #2, can't remember, not relevant now, I guess) in the guest bath, I noticed some water under the sub floor lining that extended into the unfinished bath.  We established that it wasn't coming from me, or the toilet, so the only option we had was to start pulling boards.  It was sad.

We pulled and pulled until we didn't seen anymore water.  Studies showed it had come from beneath our A/C, through the wall, and down between flooring.  Thankfully, the house is not level and the water only went in one direction.  We would have been screwed if it'd gone into the spare bedroom as well...

Who knows how long the A/C had been leaking.  There was standing water under the unit and it probably took a long time for it to get as bad as did.  And more than likely, if it weren't for the break in flooring where the bathroom remains unfinished, it would have taken a lot more for us to ever know.

But now (yes, still now) we are left with our hallways looking like this.  Except they're dry now of course.  Fun Fun.

Freeman Family Holidays 2011

Ian worked on Christmas so I spent the entire day in my stretchy pants at my parents house.  We celebrated the holidays with the O'Connors earlier that week, and with the Eldridges the day after.

My mom has this Christmas tree cake pan that she's ever actually used.  Naturally, she gave it to me and told me to make something for the occasion.... something that was chocolate with mint buttercream.  Yum!  It was fun to go back to decorating with buttercream for a change.

Since it was a holiday and all, I let Kaiser stretch out a bit and rest his feet on the ottoman.

The tree loot.
Do you think my mom has enough ornaments? 

From left to right
Top: Mom, Cousin Katherine
Bottom: Brother-In-Law Matthew, Sister Hannah, Dad, Sister Becky, Aunt Mary

Kasier's Cousin, Woz, showing off his Christmas tie

Gift time.  Love this hilarious pic of my mom!

I was so happy to get the 70th Anniversary addition of Wizard of Oz.  Guess what? It has a sing-along viewing option.  Hellz ya!  We had lots of fun singing our way through. It was quite amusing.  If you haven't heard, I have a beautiful voice.

This is later on New Year's Day where we dined on traditional ham and bean soup with cornbread.
From left: Aunt Julia, Mom, Aunt Mary, Dad

Crochet Projects - The Beginning

I took a beginning crochet class with my mom forever ago and never really did much with it after the fact.  With all my friends having babies though, I was inspired to try my hand at it once again.  I bought a few patterns off Etsy and quickly became thoroughly confused.  Ya, crochet patterns are written in a different language.... It took me a LONG time to figure out the shorthand and what it all meant.  After a few attempts to start, I was able to finish up with this little beauty.

 Princess Juliette was the recipient of my very first finished product and I think she liked it. See?

I then came to find out that my little buddy Chase was an avid hat-wearer so I had to do a little something for him too.  Love the little ear flaps on this one!

So Cute!

Ian was very jealous that I was always working on projects for other people.  When he quit asking for a c*^k sock, he decided he seriously wanted a hat...something he could wear at work around the station.  In fact, he was pretty particular in that he wanted it to say "Santee Fire" in red across a navy blue hat.  My response was "yeah, who the hell do you think I am?  Martha f-ing Stewart?  Ya, sorry...no WORDS".  So we agreed on this much more simple design and my hubby was happy:

So ya, I take requests but you have to model for me after.  =P