28Jan14- New Years Update and January Birchbox Review

So!! Been awhile. 

As always, I feel like it... 

Moving on!

I hope everyone had a great winter break/holiday/vacation/etc...

My husband and I went back to the States for 2 weeks to visit family and friends and bring our pets to Turkey upon our return. 

What a journey that was!

It was a lot of driving, but I kind of liked it. It further set in me how much I enjoy travelling and all that jazz. Although the driving part wasn't as fun, but ehh, at least I wasn't alone in that.

I'm really hoping to do more travelling this year, but with the Air Force being crazy with cutting people, it makes me wary to spend any money on such things.

C'est la vie~

I revamped my blog a little. 

Really, I just chose another layout. 

I like it so far though I wonder if the dynamic-ness of it makes it hard to load.

Ah well.

Is this oddly aligned text annoying?

 I made a video!

Finally.

It's nothing fancy. I just briefly talk about new stuff and then talk about Birchbox stuff. Even though I don't consider myself to be some kind of awesome reviewer or makeup persona, I find that getting Birchbox stuff gives me something to talk about. So I do it.

Here's the video!

 

Mmm flattering~

 

I didn't do reviews for the products in my video (because I hadn't really tried them yet); so I figure I'd do them here!

Beauty Protector Protect & Detangle: This stuff smells awesome! I sniffed this stuff like 5 times before I finally sprayed it on my hair. It did a nice job of softening my hair too! I actually have a leave-in conditioner already so this gave me an opportunity to compare this new product to something else. Aaand, I like the new product! This stuff didn't make my hair feel slick like my other leave-in conditioner. Just soft. Which I like.

100% Pure Nourishing Body Cream in Pink Grapefruit: Another awesome-smelling product! I'm not even a huge fan of grapefruit, but this smelled sooo good. Nice and fresh and not sickly overpowering. The smell fades somewhat quickly though so if you're worried of smelling like grapefruit for the day, don't be. It's not as thick as I thought a body cream would be (it seems more like lotion consistency), but it absorbs nicely and isn't very greasy.

Ruby Wing Color Changing Nail Polish: I was really excited for this, as I've never had anything like it. The color I got is a bright and vibrant pink that's supposed to change colors to a dark red. Unfortunately, I haven't seen this effect. I don't know what's supposed to make it change colors, but I feel like it's gone through enough exposure to at least change a little bit. I checked other recent reviews and a good bit mentioned the same issue so it looks to be something to do with this color perhaps? The bright pink is nice at least. A very fun color! I also feel like it covers nicely with just one coat. Can't say much for wear since I split the polish with another one and this one got the roots instead of the tips.

Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish™ Hot Cloth Cleanser Starter Kit: While I was pretty excited for the nail polish, I was way more excited for this! I was actually looking through the store on Birchbox for something I could spend some points on and thought about getting this. Luckily I decided to check what would be in my Birchbox and saw that this was part of it. It's definitely a unique experience for me, but a welcome one. It leaves my skin feeling soft and nourished so I don't have to apply a moisturizer afterwards (win!). The cleanser will last me a while, but I'm thinking of getting some more cloths as they're recommended washings are every 2-3 uses.

Ahmad Teas in Black Tea English Tea No. 1, Green Tea Jasmine Romance, and Black Tea Peach & Passion Fruit: Peach and Passion Fruit was my favorite flavor of the teas I got. I'm not really well educated on teas so I can't say too much, but I will say that I enjoyed them and their fun flavors and I wouldn't mind getting more.

So overall I was very very happy with my box this month. :D

Aand I think that's it for now! 

So far I've been pretty proactive in the new year so I hope to keep the momentum up and continue.

I have another blog, videos to do, and tweets to tweet so I often wonder what I can really post about that has substance and isn't just me rambling. Hopefully I get a better grasp at it, but for now I'm glad to just start up again. 

I do have some exciting plans for this year though! 

But that's for another entry. 

:P

Byyye!!

Crafty 火曜日(Tuesday)

Last month I decided to do something festive and decorative; dry apple slices!  I can't remember what settings I had anything on, but basically, I used a mandolin to make apple slices, sprinkled them with cinnamon and stuck them in the oven until I felt they were sufficiently dried. I kept them on a low setting and just checked them every so often. I a few of the very thin slices ended up sticking to the sheet so be wary of that if you end up trying this out. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this as well so just take your pick of them and try it out!
It made the house smell amazing and provided me with some very lovely and festive decor.

Mmmm~

An Outing with Turkish Ladies

Recently, I've become involved with a group of Turkish ladies. The basis of the group is to bring together Turkish and American women to mingle and learn and overall improve international relationships. It's a nice way of discovering new places, meeting new people, and getting more comfortable in Adana.

Our last meeting took place at a very nice restaurant called Wu Mila.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to try the food because our host of the group new the owner of the restaurant and he permitted her to bring her own food, but the atmosphere of the restaurant was great!

Lots of windows!

A great view of the lake.

Oops, there's some trash, but it's still pretty!

How awesome!

Home cooked meals, yum!

Aww hello!

I'm told that the place next to Wu Mila's is a popular wedding venue so there's a thought if you're looking for something like that! There's also another place on the other side of Wu Mila's that serves delicious fish. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm glad to have recommendations and now, new but still familiar places to try. :D

Foodie Friday: Baked Pumpkin Donut Holes and Pumpkin Chai Tea

I've decided to start a new segment of my blogging. Foodie Friday! I'm sure this concept isn't new and since that's the case, I make no claims that this is something I've made up on my own and hold idea ownership over. It was one of those "hey they both start with F." More than likely they will be recipes I've tried myself, but I'm sure that sometimes they will be food I've tried in restaurants or other places. Either way, post for food = win.

To kick off this new aspect of my blogging, what better way than to try out pumpkin recipes!
I admit, I'm starting to go pumpkin crazy! I had been resisting it for a while, but being invited to a brunch was the perfect excuse to look for some way to indulge in pumpkin delight.

The first recipe is the donut holes: linked here.

And the second is the pumpkin chai tea: linked here.
Since the pumpkin chai tea is pretty simple, I omitted taking progress pictures.

The first step is the dry ingredients! I had to take a trip to the store to get some I didn't have (nutmeg, allspice, cloves), but otherwise the dry ingredients are pretty easy to come by or have on hand.

I should have made a face...

The next step is the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Again, mostly basic or easy to come by ingredients.

Sexy.

All mixed up and much better!

Then you mix the dry into the wet.

Mixed and ready for scooping into tins!

Because this recipe uses mini-muffin pans, I expected the batter to be a lot more liquidy. Thankfully, it wasn't and I was able to use regular-sized muffin tins and measure and shape each dough ball.

They don't have to worry about overcrowding at least.

I baked them between 8-10 minutes. My first batch, I made much larger ones and baked for at least 10 minutes (I also only made 24, while cutting the portion size down gave me 36 this time. Or more really as I decided to just split some more of the leftover dough between them for the last batch.)

They look like chicken nuggets.

They cooled pretty quickly and the last step was just dipping them in butter and then in the cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Mmmmm~

The only sweetness within the dough itself is from the light brown sugar so without the cinnamon and sugar mixture, it's a very nice and not overly sweet treat. Paired together my with pumpkin chai tea, it makes for the perfect brunch or afternoon treat.

:)

Growing nail polish collection

I've never really been big into nail care. I've had fake nails a couple of times, and didn't mind them while I had them, but they aren't really my thing. Although this might be changing as a explore those ready-made fake nails rather than gel ones, whatever they're actually called.

Since I'm not really into nail care though, I haven't suffered too much since our stuff still isn't here. But lately (and especially after a job interview I had) I've bought more and more things for my nails. I even actually file and shape my nails instead of just cutting them down when they get too long (what is the world coming to).

My little collection of nail things grew rapidly one day when I bought nail polish remover and 5 different nail polish colors! Granted, I bought them because I was trying to do the whole galaxy or universe look on my nails (which didn't turn out so great because I'm untalented).

So what started out as two, then three, quickly grew to eight!

Colors!

I haven't properly used the pink and purple yet, but I'm very tempted. Currently I have my left hand nails painted white all white and my right hand nails painted metallic (the two Rimmel colors in the upper right). I actually quite like this look too!  But Halloween is soon so I think I need to orange and yellow and brown to my brigade. ;D