It Started with a Journal

Welp! This should be the last month in which I detail 3 beauty boxes, because I have canceled Ipsy. It's slightly too bad, because they've been doing all right the past couple of months, but overall it's still the one I look forward to the least, and I really don't need 3 subscriptions. I probably don't even need 2, but right now I wouldn't be able to choose between Birchbox or Sephora Play.

( On to August's stuff! )

All of my July boxes just arrived, so it's time to take a look at June's! Because I'm perpetually behind!

( Why does a year's worth seem like so many... )

Just got the last of the April boxes yesterday, so now I'm all caught up!

( Le April boxeez. )

I have a very long K-drama post I've been working on for ages, but I realized I'm totally behind on doing beauty box posts, so I'll do those first! It's super helpful to me to have these to refer back to, actually.

( What February wrought. )

It snowed here over the weekend, and I worked from home the last two days because I hate driving on icy, snowy roads. It's supposed to rain a lot over the next couple of days, so hopefully that will melt everything away.

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A coworker of mine's mother has her cosmetology license, and she offered to put in an order for us if we wanted anything (at wholesale). I ended up buying Kevin Murphy and Davines shampoo and conditioner, along with Davines's Oi All-in-One Milk treatment. I can't believe how much this stuff normally costs! Woohoo for hookups!

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I've been watching Shut Up Flower Boy Band. It's been on my DF watchlist for forever, even though nothing about it appealed to me enough to actually get me to start watching. I finally did it after finishing Answer Me 1997, and seeing several comments from people mentioning SUFBB in the same breath.

Wow, lucky I wasn't expecting too much, because it is NOT good. It's not bad -- well, some of it is bad -- but it's nothing I'd ever recommend to anyone. I do like some of the music, and the story as a kind of wish fulfillment is okay, but... yeah.

The lead actor is pretty much the opposite of attractive. The lead actress is pretty but bland (well, her character is, and she doesn't help). The high school drama part of it is super weak, full of the same stuff that I can't stand from other K-drama high school dramas -- a ridiculous amount of bullying, with the student population constantly changing their minds about who's cool and who's not, rumors that get blown completely out of proportion, etc. The supporting characters are also incredibly annoying -- the heroine's best friend, the second male lead's minions, all ugh. The second male lead is played by one of the standout actors from BOF, who played brothers, I believe -- one who was bullied by F4, the other who took revenge for his brother. He is FAR less compelling in SUFBB, and his career seems to have petered out since, so I can't be the only one to feel that way.

I like the boys in the band, especially Kim Min-seok and L, but I've liked them from other things, so I'm predisposed to liking them. Kim Min-seok I first saw in High School: Love On, playing one of the bully's minions, but I ended up loving him, and he also has a small role in Descendants of the Sun. L I know from playing the younger version of So Ji-sub's character in Master's Sun, and thought he was really cute. He's also in Infinite, the boy band that the lead guys from High School: Love On are in, as is Joon-hee from Answer Me 1997.

L (I have no idea how he came to be know as that; his real name is Kim Myung-soo) reminds me of Kim Bum. They actually look alike, with handsome, babyface features and dimples -- L could literally be Bummie's younger brother. Unfortunately they also have the same acting ability, in that it's a little questionable. >< You can see them trying so hard, particularly in scenes where they're trying to be intense. Poor dears. :))

The thing I like most in SUFBB is the secondary pairing (like BOF all over again!), of Hyun-soo (L) with Ye-rim. But they give the secondary pairing hardly any screen time at all -- I would say it takes up about 5% of the overall story, whereas Yi-jeong/Ga-eul was at least 30% in BOF, from what I recall. Maybe it's because of L's lack of acting ability, but I definitely would be more into the overall story if there was more of it. The main pairing started off well, then devolved into something that didn't seem to make a lot of sense or have much feeling behind it.

*****

OK, so I knew Seo In-guk was an excellent actor and singer, who could also play the guitar and piano. But the fact that he can also dance like this is insane. INSANE!

This weekend, adelagia and I made kimchi! :D We are totes ready for when we're dating and/or married to Onew and Seo In-guk, respectively. LOL. (Links go to pics of said celebs, in case you're curious.)

Here's adelagia mixing up our batch. I had a HUGE tub, so there's more kimchi there than it might seem. More than six pounds worth!



I also made buchu (Asian chive) kimchi and dwaejigogi-bokkeum (spicy stir-fried pork), both of which were AMAZING. Soooooooo delicious. I only have a pic of the pork pre-cooking because I was too hungry to remember to take a picture of it after it was cooked. >< Also, I didn't have a pound's worth of pork belly, so subbed some shrimp instead. ALSO DELICIOUS. I think you could easily substitute with firm tofu for a more healthy version... which I may try in the near future. The buchu kimchi is a little too salty, which may or may not be because I didn't have enough chives... I halved the recipe, but I was using older chives, so I had to weed out a lot not-so-good ones. Anyway, I will probably use less fish sauce next time.



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One of my Christmas gifts to myself arrived today, and I'm soooooooooo happy. I love American Giant's stuff, especially their Essential Full-Zip Hoodie. I have several of the Classic, as well, but I like the lighter weight and softer feel of the Essential.

ANYWAY... Recently, they came out with a new product, a stadium blanket. I saw the email about it, but wasn't able to actually take a look until two hours later... and they were all sold out already! GRRRRR. A few days later, they said they'd made a limited quantity available again, and I was able to nab two in the only color that remained at that point, a heather navy. I would link it, but it looks like they're totally sold out now, and have even deleted those webpages. Sheesh. Like all their stuff, the blanket is really well made, heavy with quality material, and very warm. <333333

(I was going to link a promo code for 15% off, but it looks like it can only be sent through email. So let me know if you want it! And of course, I get something out of it as well, natch.)

I'm a big blanket person, kind of like Linus. Even when I'm not cold, I like having a blanket on me. It just feels so much cozier! Anyway, I have a lot of blankets.

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Watched another episode of Descendants of the Sun. I'm actually still OK with the show, despite the fact that, as expected, the two leads are already "broken up." It helps that I like the male lead, and the female lead isn't super annoying.

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I wasn't going to take any time off during the holidays -- other than the days off that everyone gets -- because it's a super quiet time anyway, and I was thinking I'd save my vacation days. Only... it turns out that I have so much vacation saved up (I can only carry over a year's worth, which for me at this point is 200 hours/5 weeks) that I would be forfeiting over 43 hours if I didn't take it! Which would be intolerable. So now I'm going to take Wed/Thu off, as well as all of next week. I still might be sacrificing a few hours, but that's better than 43. I don't work for free, yo.

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Speaking of work, we did a white elephant gift exchange... only I had my annual physical during that time so I couldn't actually participate. I contributed a set of R2D2/R2Q5 salt and pepper shakers and an R2D2 measuring cup set. (I may have little use for Star Wars, but I know other people love it, so that stuff makes for good anonymous gifts.) My manager played for me, and he had told me ahead of time what he'd gotten for the exchange (a cast-iron fondue set). Since they were going to allow "me" to go last, thus being able to nab whatever I wanted, I told him that that's what I wanted. I figured it was a safe bet -- I didn't know what random crap other people were going to bring, and I don't really trust my manager to know what I'd really want, so it seemed the most prudent course of action. I still need to get it from him, though.

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My December beauty boxes have arrived! I know, it's once a month but seems so much more frequent, doesn't it?

( What this month brought! )

I have found an awesome lip balm. Well, Smashbox calls it a "gloss," but to me it's more of a balm. While waiting at the gate for my flight to NYC, I reached for my lip balm only to realize that my makeup bag wasn't in my purse. (I feared I had forgotten it entirely, but luckily it was just that I had packed it into my checked bag.) My lips already felt dry and I couldn't stand the idea of a 5-hour flight that way, so I went to Duty Free, which was just across the way, and bought the first lip gloss I saw, Smashbox's O-Gloss. I didn't read the box or anything; I just saw the word "gloss" and went for it. It was kind of expensive, $26, but beggars and all that. I felt kind of ripped off, though, because it was just a clear, transparent gloss that didn't seem special in any way; I thought to myself that I could have just bought some Vaseline to accomplish the same thing.

I got up a couple of times to use the airplane bathroom (I wish I could hold it, but this is why I always get aisle seats whenever possible ><), and I was kind of mystified by the fact that I did not look like shit. In fact, it looked like I had, if not exactly makeup on, then at least some kind of natural color/glow that surprised me, given it was a red eye flight and I was really tired. It was only later, after conversing with akscully, that the truth was revealed... O-Gloss ISN'T just plain gloss. I don't know how it works, but the description of it on Smashbox's site says that it will "read your personal skin chemistry and transform into the perfect customized shade." How crazy is that? Even crazier is that it works. It ISN'T lipstick. If you want actual color/shade on your lips, this isn't that. This just somehow gives your lips a natural pink hue without actually being a color. I don't know how else to describe it. If your lips are naturally pink, then lucky you, you can just put on some balm and be on your way. But my lips, if I don't do anything to them, are super pale... sometimes to the point where they almost look purple, they're so bloodless. It's awful. Yet I don't always want to actually wear lipstick, so this is the perfect solution!

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I'm rewatching Oh My Ghostess. :D Only this time I don't understand a lot of what's going on, because my mom prefers to read Chinese subtitles, and really she's the one who's watching. She's enjoying it because it's so funny, she says. I'm going to have to watch it again with English subtitles.

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I'm also nearly done with Coffee Prince. I have 2-3 episodes left. I've enjoyed it for the most part, but man, much of it was a slog. I just don't think the gender-identity-confusion trope is for me. The only part I like about it is that the hero (it's always the hero) throws aside all convention and recognizes he just loves the person. But everything else about it is just super unappealing/tiresome, especially because in the end, she turns out to be a girl, so they get to have their cake and eat it too, rendering all the angst pointless.

( More specific, spoilery commentary. )

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There's a show over on Viki that I want to check out, Shopping King Louie. The premise is actually very close to the fan drama Love Is, which was a Soeulmate production. Set in an alternate history where Korea still has a monarchy, Kim Bum is the crown prince who was raised abroad and doesn't want the responsibilities of the life he was born into... he runs away and is taken in by Kim So Eun, who has no idea who he really is, and has money/love problems of her own. It's super cute and well done, but unfortunately not finished. :/ Anyway, Shopping King Louie is exactly this premise, only the male lead (Seo In-guk) is a chaebol instead of crown prince, and he has amnesia instead of deliberately running away.

Twelve of 16 eps have aired so far, so I'm just going to wait until it's done.

It's over. :( Watched the finale of Oh My Ghostess last night, and now there’s no moooooooooore. Waaaaaah. (I’ve gone ahead and ordered the DVD set from Amazon, if only to make a bunch of gifs. There’s a dearth of them on Tumblr, weird considering how popular the show was.) It’s always hard to read/watch something you love and know it’s about to end… harder still when you’ve seen two such awesome shows in a row. I mean, what are the chances I can make it three?

Then again, I did manage to watch a bunch of great movies in a row, so I suppose there’s that. Also, I always meant to go back to finish Master’s Sun, so I suppose I can do that. I can’t remember now why I stopped watching that one. I think it might be because I was actually watching that in real time and it got to a point where I wasn’t enjoying it that much, so I just stopped following it. That’s the danger of watching stuff in real time, because when a drama loses a step or has a slow episode, it’s much harder to get over the hump. If you have more episodes in front of you, you can just keep going and another ep might capture your interest again. Master’s Sun also suffers from the fact that I’m not really into the male lead. I don’t even remember Seo In-guk in it, and he’s apparently the second male lead. He had an amusing cameo in the OMG finale, so that might be what’s sparking my interest in watching it again.

It’s possible that more than anything, I’m going to miss the antics of everyone who worked in the Sun Restaurant kitchen. Those guys were the best!

( Spoilers! )

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In beauty stuff news, I’ve purchased an Air Repair kit. I just wanted the moisturizer, but apparently they really only do travel-sized things, and the kit had the full-size moisturizer plus a bunch of other stuff for only $10 more or something. I know it’s a little ironic that the first thing that I actually bought after trying a sample from the beauty boxes was something that I initially pooh-poohed, but I just love that moisturizer. I still don’t understand how it can feel so thick yet go on so light, and it smells like lemon verbena.

It's been a fairly nice week, but of COURSE the clouds are rolling in and it's supposed to rain all weekend. Why do you do this to us, Seattle? Why?

My September Ipsy and Birchbox hauls have arrived. ( Pics )

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I mentioned that I won both of my fantasy matchups last weekend, but Monday's game hadn't been played yet so I didn't know if I would get high score of the week in my ESPN league, but I did! Seriously crazy considering I was SO far behind early on, and my TE scored a big fat 0. However, all of the rest of my lineup scored double digits, so that help me beat the second-highest scorer of the week 121.1 to 120.5. I squeaked by with 0.6 points! Ha.

I am extremely waffley about my lineups this weekend. ( Fantasy football blah blah )

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I've been chatting with ropo and lore about Jamberry nail wraps, and after checking them out I've decided that while they are nice, they are way too pricey for me, because I have so much nail polish and I've just invested in nail stamping tools, etc.

In fact, I put that to good use last night:



( Another pic )

Did an ombre gradient of purple, pink, and blue-purple. Put on a single glitter trace coat. Topped that with Seche Vite. I chose a sketchy flower design on one of my plates, and used white stamping polish to stamp. Topped that with Seche Vite again, and viola!

After having used the stamping plates a few times now, I can say that my experience with it has been hit and miss. ( My explanation, if you're interested. )

So... I haven't gotten this month's Ipsy Glambag yet, but just like Birchbox, they sent a "Do you want to be spoiled?" email, and since I refrained from peeking with Birchbox, I decided to go for it with Ipsy. And my fear that this would jinx what was inside it (I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS RATIONAL) came true! :( I pretty much have almost no use for this month's bag. Booooooo.

( Inside my September Ipsy Glambag )

These are just my preliminary thoughts. I know, just like with my Birchbox, some of these could end up surprising me. Time will tell!