I know it’s been a bit since my last post and I apologize. I’ve been scaling back social media in general and retreating back to books and people. It’s all getting a little overwhelming, don’t you think? Anyway. To ease me back into the blogverse, I thought I’d do a Good Stuff post. A mixed bag, really.

LIPPIES! 

1. Sugar Rose: Got this in my first ever Birchbox. Mad on it. So soft and silky, really good natural pinky color. 2. MAC’S Vegas Volt: The brightest thing I’ve ever put on my lips and so much fun. Peachy Pink that goes great with spring/summer neons. 3. MAC’S Brave: I’ve wanted this since I saw it on Sami from beautycrush. It’s a really lovely nudey pink color (“Your lip color but better”). In the same vein, I’m o this kick for nudey peachy colors so I went to Walgreens and snagged 4. Revlon’s Smoked Peach , also on Sami’s instructions and 5. Revlon’s Mauve It Over. I think I’m favoring Smoked Peach these days for my skin tone. It’s so gray and gross outside that the little brightness is pleasant.

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MARC ANTHONY DREAM WAVES BEACH SPRAY

Fact: My best hair is beach hair. In the winter or when I can’t get to the beach, my hair is not at its fullest and waviest. So I’ve been looking for a good beachy salt spray. I wanted to try the Bumble & Bumble Surf Spray but that mess is @28 for a 4oz bottle. So I looked for a cheaper alternative and found this. Bottom line: it works. It smells great. It’s not sticky but you feel the waves holding. And for $8 i’m sold.

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THE ARTHUR TRILOGY BY BERNARD CORNWELL

If you follow my blog at all you know I’m in love with Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles. I’m also a giant Arthurian legend nerd so when I saw that he’d written  a trilogy using a historical perspective to tell the Arthur tale in the Dark Ages, I was in. I’m 3/4 of the way through the second novel now and already putting Excalibur on hold. They’re wonderful and violent and sad. It’s a good story. My only critique is that if you’ve read the Saxon Chronicle, you’ll notice he uses a lot of the same battle images. But that’s writers for you.

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300% DYNAMITE ; BEN WEBSTER’S SOULVILLE ; BUDOS BAND’S BUDOS BAND III

I get a lot of musical influence now from the 16 Tons family and the favorites lately are these. 300% Dynamite is a collection of soul, rocksteady, ska and funk from Jamaica and it’s great. “Bam Bam” by Sister Nancy being one of my new favorite songs. And Toots is on there.. it’s good. Check it out. And then Elan gave me Ben Webster on a rainy Monday three weeks ago. I can’t believe I’ve been listening to jazz as long as I have and completely missed Ben Webster! Especially because I love Oscar Peterson and they played together so often. Anyway, if you like tenor sax, this is a must listen. As for the Budos Band: I listen to them in the store a lot but really this is driving music. On a mission driving music. Possibly on a mission with Samuel L. Jackson while driving. And you’re both wearing cool hats.

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So there’s that. Lots of fun stuff has happened and I have pictures of all of it that I’ll put up eventually. But again, I’m less in front of a computer these days than normal.

Be well. H.

.h.

Life as a movie…
Opening Credits: “Bluish”,  Animal Collective

Anthem: “Excuses”, The Morning Benders

Growing-Up Scenes: “You Can’t Hurry Love”,  The Concretes

Problems At Home Scene: “Top of the City”, Kate Bush

Unrequited Love Scene: “Natasha”, Rufus Wainwright

Going off to College Scene: “Quite Nice People” , Ida Maria

Party Scene: “Don’t You Want Me”, Human League

Questioning the Meaning of Life Scene: “Farther Along”, Josh Garrells

Learned A Valuable Lesson Scene: “Shake it Out”, Florence & the Machine

More later.
This week:
EDITING. Possible date night tomorrow w/Spence @ Heavy Seas
Wed:  EDITING! info session at UBalt for possible business fundamentals certificate program
Thurs: FINISHING EDITS. Dessert night w/Jen at Rocket to Venus for fried PBJs (blog posts to come)
Fri.: Spring fair starts?
Sat.: ECOFEST at Druid Hill Park. Food, vendors, music, fun. Come out and enjoy the day and celebrate Greener Baltimore. JHU Spring Fair! So stoked for beer garden antics and good bands. Hopefully Luke, Iz & Tess will make it up. Miss them.
Sun.: Church and Jess’s baby shower.

Not  bad.
H. 

 PS. Been listening to/loving the 300% Dynamite reggae collection at the shop this morning. Everyone get this. Reggae cover of “Mission Impossible” = so pleasing.

iPAD

Spence and I got the iPad 2  Wi-Fi for the plane ride to Hawaii b/c he needed to work on a midterm and reading. His laptop battery life is for naught. When the pad3 came out, the 2 jumped down like $150 so it was much more reasonable. I have been resisting the iPad craze since it started. But I’ll tell you something- it’s gorgeous. It has a lot of great apps. With Pages, Spence had a pdf reader and a document editor. I was able to work on a short story by the pool. Plus, there’s games. We’re big on Settlers of Catan. And I’m a Monopoly nut. I love having a bigger device to edit my emails on and I can do work on the web without lugging my laptop everywhere. I’m not saying get one. But I will say that if you decide to, it’s worth it. If you’re going to use it.

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MAUI BREWING COMPANY’S COCONUT PORTER

We found this when we were in Hawaii. When we started dating (THREE YEARS AGO, sheesh), I hated dark beers. And now I’m working my way towards being a Guinness drinker. But not quite. I am a porter girl now, though. And this one is particularly good. Extremely flavorful, extremely filling. Great with a burger.

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The CLEARING by BOWERBIRDS

I first saw Bowerbirds when Mike took me to a Mountain Goats show as one of our first dates my Sophomore year of college. BB were the opening act. I loved them then, the mixture of high and sweet and low and smokey voices and the bluesy acoustic sound. I lost sight of them for a while but they’ve come back with The Clearing , a album tribute to their year of building their dream house in the woods together and going through the toughness of being married. The singles are great, the album is solid. Give it a listen on Spotify or buy it on Amazon. It’ll be worth it for good spring music.

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BRIGHT NAILS

I’ve had Tart Deco by Essie for a while now and pull it out as soon as the weather starts to be sunny. I love it for fingers or toes. The RIMMEL Lasting Finish Pro in English Rose is my new favorite thing. I’m not really sure when or why I started liking pink again but I did and I do and this color is wonderful. I like it better than the Avon Strawberry I’ve been wearing on my fingers but I do still love that polish for my toes. The Scotch Naturals in Leprechaun Lynch isn’t one I own yet but I’m desperate to try their stuff. They’re $15 a pop, which I usually reserve for my Deborah Lippman and Butter London  obsession but I may have to shell out the dough to have that pretty bright green.

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The SAXON CHRONICLE

The sixth book in the Saxon Chronicle series came out in March and I made myself wait until I finished Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Mad King before I got it. Bought it before the plane ride back from Hawaii and I’m about 60% through. I’ve missed Uhtred so much, and the invading Danes and all the great history. Cornwell is an incredible story teller and it always prompts me to look up more Danish/Nordic culture and Saxon history. Anyway, it’s great and I’ll be crushed when it’s finished, obviously but if you’ve never read them, I highly suggest picking up the first book (The Last Kingdom,   $8.55 paperback, $6.99 Kindle) and getting busy.

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Alright, a short one, I know. But updates were needed. I’ll be doing a Baltimore Beauty post at some point next week and a  life update.  Tonight, there’s a cocktail hour for the new art hanging at 16 Tons in Hampden from 6-9, and a Good Friday service at my church, the Garden @7. Come out if you’re looking for a great time of fellowship.  Until then, Happy Passover and/or Easter.

h.

1. I’ve started reading Desiring God by John Piper. It’s not bad. I’m having more conflict with it than I thought I would. I feel maybe that Piper has the underlying arrogance that comes from a long relationship with writing and being successful at it. But his heart is with God and his philosophy is soundly Biblical as far as I can tell, so I don’t mind being challenged by this book. He’s made the writings of Pascal much more accessible for me so I’ve also started reading the Pensees and am enjoying them a whole bunch. I like Piper’s expression of human’s enjoying pleasure as a form of glorying in God, glorifying Him, and his elaboration on Lewis’s ideas that we’re just enjoying lesser, tainted pleasures when we could be enjoying the infinite ones. He quotes Pascal’s pensee 113, which I just love:

there was once in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God himself.

Anyway, I’ll do a post on the whole book when I’m finished and am thinking of holding a book discussion on Google Hangout, if there’s enough interest.

2. Hawaii is GORGEOUS. It’s honestly been a smidge chilly here, with random sun showers. But spence and I walked around all day yesterday and even the Waikiki/Honolulu area is amazing. Weird though. So many tourists, so many designer stores. Fabulous little aquarium collection, though. We’re going over to the other side of the island later today to stay at the hotel with spener’s co workers. I’m pretty excited. My week of beach reading and exploring begins!

3. I have a playlist post coming up- songs I’ve been listening to a LOT lately. I’m going to share it on Spotify as soon as I can put it on the iPad. The hotel wireless is a bit slow. But, you know…FIRST WORLD PROBLEM! The descriptions will come up sometime later this week.

4. Spence is off somewhere finishing his midterm. Poor boy. But at least he gets to do it in the most beautiful place we’ve ever been (although, actually, for me that’s in the Grand Canyon but whatever). Send him an encouraging email or text or something.

Happy Sunday and have a great week everyone!
H

Thanks for your patience. And to you, Madam Suzie, thanks for being a reader! It was great to see you at the EcoBall!

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JUNE:JULY a film by Joshua Gleason
My friend, Josh, is making his first film at CalArts. He’s trying to raise $3200 by April 5th and could use any help you can provide. Josh has made gorgeous films in the past. He has a passion for French New Wave, focuses on the little things of relationships and knows the power of basic syntax and how we interpret it. He’s a little neurotic, in the best, most Woody Allen-like way. You can see some of his otherwork here.

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AVON SPEED DRY+ PRO NAIL ENAMEL in Sunshine and Strawberry
My aunt works for Avon and after some review research, I decided to try out some of their products.
I’m totally mad on the nail colours. They’re wonderfully easy to use, the brush is medium but the polish goes on so well it’s not a problem. I also got another orangey pink that I’m not fond of but the Sunshine yellow is my new favorite nail polish and Strawberry is my toe color for the warm season.
Also excellent from Avon: The  Smooth Minerals blush in Radiance and the Smooth Minerals Pressed Foundation (I’m using Medium-Beige b/c it’s my tone in Chanel’s foundation) and the Ideal Flawless Pressed Powder (replacing my Neutrogena pressed powder in Translucent).

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 JOY THE BAKER The Cookbook
I’ve been waiting patiently for this to come out for a while now. Her recipes are so amazing and I’ve been following her blog for ages.
Not even knowing any of that, Mom sent me this cookbook last week and I’ve been going bonkers making stuff out of it. So far, the kettle corn is my favorite but that’s only b/c I botched the praline topping on the buttermilk skillet cake and didn’t use enough apples in the “Man Bait” apple crisp (though it’s still pretty delicious). Today I’m going to attempt the Honey Chamomile Cupcakes and maybe the Lavender Lemon Squares. Joy is fantastic and adorable and I’m so stoked to bake through her book.

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Bolts & Chains Earrings from Double Dutch Boutique
I saw these at Double Dutch yesterday and had to have them. I had gauges for the last three years and gave away a lot of my dangly earrings to friends with normal sized piercings. But I’ve come ’round again and got bored of gauges so I’m rebuilding my earring collection. Can’t wear studs yet, holes haven’t closed up enough, so I’m rocking things like this more.

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SMITH’S MINTED ROSE LIP BALM
I mentioned this product in my ‘What’s in this thing?’ bag post but I just wanted to highlight it again. I’ve been using it overtop of most of my lip sticks b/c it’s wonderfully moisturizing and gives a nice light shine to the finish. It smells wonderful and if you don’t get it too warm, it’s a really nice consistency, not too gooey. Plus, I love that it’s from MD. Represent.

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CLEOTHOMASSON Photography
I found her stuff trolling Flickr this morning and fell in love. Beautiful work and a great eye.
I recommend checking her stuff out (click the photo).

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