January « 2017 « ((little fat notebook))

Prospurly November 2016 review

laelene Posted in reviews, subscriptions，Tags: bath soaks, boxes, cards, cleansers, food, oils, pictures, products, prospurly, reviews, snacks, subscriptions, teas

29 January 2017

Where does the time go?? I feel like there is so much to do and not enough time to do it all. We’re already about to start our fourth week of classes, which feels so far into the program (yet also so far from the end of the semester). If I want to get caught up with these reviews, I’m going to have to post more frequently!

Prospurly is just under $45 per box (with code for 10% off your subscription – use my referral links from this post) and comes with artisan foods, bath & body items, home products, and other sustainably crafted items. Boxes are sent monthly with no option to skip. They offer a referral program that earns you free boxes.

Prospurly greeting cards – These are nice little thank you cards that can be used when gifting something to someone. Since they didn’t come in envelopes, I’d tape/tie them to a present and use them that way, rather than on their per se (unless it’s a small thank you meant for a professor or something like that). I appreciate that they are printed on recycled card stock.

St. Fiacre’s Farm Coastal Cranberry Spice tea – Now this smells like a great tea, but I need to be careful with the cranberry because it is quite strong. I have liked pairing this with a plain green/black/oolong tea so there’s a stronger base, otherwise it can be quite tart. I wish the spice part came out heavier in the flavor – it smells great but doesn’t contribute to taste as much.

Oak Street Soap White Tea & Ginger bubble bar – Oh my, .how I love the smell of this! It’s so very refreshing and clean-smelling. I kind of like it as an air freshener. My apartment bathtub just isn’t that conducive to bubble baths, so I haven’t used it yet and will probably wait until I have my nice big tub back home.

Foxes & Ferns Rosey facial cleanser – I definitely expected this to be a toner and was surprised that you wipe it on your face with a cotton pad like one, but then you’re supposed to rinse your face. It was very cooling and felt good on my skin. It’s a great way to cleanse the skin right before bed, as I’ve just done.

Nature’s Skin Nutrition Winter Chest Rub – As expected, this chest rub has a menthol scent that helps clear the airways. I haven’t gotten sick since my Utah trip, so I haven’t needed it yet, but I’ll keep it handy whenever I need to open my stuffy nose. Although, am I supposed to use to prevent a cold too?

Neelu Kaur Amrit Nectar of the Divine oil – This is such a unique scent that I can’t place. It’s more on the earthy side but I don’t know how to describe it. I like rolling on oils like this to help me relax before sleep. It has a nice metal roller ball that is cold upon application and adds a little zing to the experience.

This was a nice box that I’ve made good use of! I really enjoyed the variety of scents. What do you think of this month’s box?

[This post contains affiliate links. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. 🙂 All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review. I just purchased this box and wanted to share what I got!]

Second semester

laelene Posted in mba，Tags: business schools, education, mba, students

19 January 2017

I had hoped that with the new semester, I might be able to post more frequently, but it looks like I may have underestimated the demands on my time and energy. Things certainly are more manageable, but we need to start planning Admit Weekend and I have a class that doesn’t start until the second half of the semester, so I have a feeling March is going to be a crazy month.

So far the first two weeks have been really nice. At the tail end of winter break, I attended Tech Trek up in the Bay Area, where we visited a bunch of companies (more on that in another post). Then we kicked off classes last week (has it only been that recent?!! I feel like it’s been a month) and I started taking a bunch of fitness classes at the gym since they’re free for the first two weeks, giving us an opportunity to preview them before committing.

This past weekend we had a trip out to Mammoth, which was timed perfectly with the crazy snow they’ve been getting. They’ve received massive amounts of snowfall and have the most snow anywhere in the country at the moment (somewhere around 15-20 feet). It didn’t snow while we were there, offering my classmates excellent skiing and snowboarding options. Meanwhile, I stayed at the cabin and enjoyed my book the first day and did some homework and had a group meeting the second day. I will try to get a post up about that as well, so you can see the massive mounds of snow and the giant icicle formations.

Tonight I wrapped up my last class of the week and many of my classmates are off to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. I’ll be attempting to get ahead of the mounds of reading that my classes seem to require. In true Core fashion (aka insanely fast and front-loaded), we have a midterm on Monday. Already. It’s for global economics and I’m amazed at how I can read something and then basically forget the entire contents by the time I get to class.

I’m also taking two human capital courses – Designing High Performance Organizations & Human Capital Performance and Motivation. They’re both night classes, but I find them so engaging and interesting that they haven’t felt long. I think I also do better on energy later in the day. My fourth class is Getting the Organization Ready for Big Data, which seemed interesting and useful, but I’m not feeling great about it and I’m considering switching to something else. The professor is brand new (just got his PhD in 2015), the class has never been taught, and he speaks in a rather quiet monotone voice with low energy. He’s nice enough but the class isn’t very exciting.

The class that kicks in in two months is my LEAD class – Leadership Education and Development. We have a cohort of LEAD Fellows from my class who will be taking this and also another class in the fall. LEAD is designed to give us hands-on opportunities to develop our leadership styles, with a community project, off-sites, the class, and a speaker series. I can’t wait to see how the program goes! We’re the first class to have this full-fledged program and I feel very lucky to be part of it.

So that’s a synopsis of how this spring semester is going so far. Sometime next month, global econ gives away to global strategy. Then we start to focus on the countries that we will be traveling to and do projects specific to companies we’ll be visiting. I’m on the Shanghai Taipei trip and I’m so excited!! Also, I’ve scheduled an awesome trip to Israel for spring break, which my classmates planned for us. This is going to be an exciting four months.

Prospurly October 2016 review

laelene Posted in reviews, subscriptions，Tags: boxes, candles, food, jams, jewelry, lotions, mists, necklaces, reviews, skincare, sprays, subscriptions

09 January 2017

My goal is to get caught up with these reviews by spring… I’m thinking this semester will offer me more time! So far it’s been nice, but I’ve only done one day of classes, so we’ll see how it pans out.

Momoko Therapeutics Orange Spice aromatherapy mist – Ahh, the sweet spicy scent of orange and cloves comes through strong with this one. It’s a great room spray when I want to feel like the holidays are here. It makes me think of those basket arrangements with the dried plants, which often have a similar smell. What a great way to freshen a room in a natural way!

Loverin Crafts Pumpkin Souffle natural soy candle – Whoa, this candle packs a punch! It has a very rich pumpkin scent that would certainly warm a room. I like that it’s a soy candle for a clean burn and that they will take the tins back for a discount on your next candle! After all, I can only reuse so many of these tins…

Chakra Love Sacral Chakra Aventurine necklace – This is a very earthy type of jewelry that generally isn’t my style, so I’ll either hang it up as decoration or find someone who will appreciate it more. I guess it’s supposed to bring self-gratification and enhance emotions, sensuality, and movement.

smashed! Boozy Jams Pear Whiskey + Garam Masala spread – I know the whiskey part of this will not appeal to me, so I hope one of my roommates will like using this jam. It’s such a different style that I’m curious what it will smell and taste like.

Ruby Rain Organics Nourishing Lotion Bar – Since this is sealed, I don’t want to open it until I’m ready to use it. It has a scent using lavender, frankincense, and myrrh, which should be quite interesting. I think this will be great to keep in the car when I need a little lotion and don’t want a mess.

This definitely felt like a fall box, though I wish they’d included more items. Why does jewelry always seem to be worth so much? I’m glad they don’t come often, because I much prefer skincare, home goods, and the like. What do you think of this month’s box?

Feline road trip

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: animals, cats, pets, pictures, travel

04 January 2017

Happy New Year! One of the last things we did as a family last year was take a road trip with the cats. This was the first time we took both cats in the car and it was quite an adventure.