Panda and I got a chance to go to Myrtle Beach and this is what we encountered along the way!
Posts Tagged ‘pictures’
On the road from VA to SC
Yuzen August 2012 edition
Wondering about the second Yuzen box? Never fear! I’m here to show you what came in it and give you the low-down on each item. This time around, the color scheme was yellow and there were six fantastic brands included.
Yuzen is $26 per month and comes with around 5 or 6 eco-friendly beauty, skincare, food/snacks, and home products. Boxes are sent monthly with no option to skip. Sometimes there’s a waitlist to get the subscription. They do not offer a referral program.
Click on the pictures for the full sizes so you can enjoy all the details of each product! You can even zoom in to read all the messaging.
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day – Lemon Verbena All Purpose Soap Bar: As I was opening the box, I got a hint of this soap bar’s clean scent wafting up. It’s a huge full-size bar that will last me a LONG time! The wrapping was a nice smooth texture and it wasn’t glued too strongly together, so opening the packaging was actually a pleasant experience. I’d heard great things about Mrs. Meyer’s products, so I was pretty happy to get a chance to try it out. The soap suds nicely and gently cleans your entire body.
Cowgirl Skincare – Desert Recovery Cleanser: This is a fun new brand I hadn’t encountered before! The smell of the face wash is soothing and slightly sweet – maybe rose? It’s perfect for washing away whatever managed to accumulate on your face and doesn’t strip your skin of moisture. It’s meant for dry, aging, or sensitive skin but it’s useful for any type of skin. The container reminds me of elixirs from a Western (or maybe it’s just because their name is Cowgirl :-P). Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, anyone?
Organic India – Tulsi Original, Lemon Ginger, Sweet Rose, & Sleep teas: I enjoyed each one of these Tulsi teas! I’ve never heard of Tulsi before, so I was definitely intrigued by this “holy basil of India” that is incorporated in Ayurvedic practices. It’s apparently popular as an herbal remedy and has both general health and medicinal values.
It didn’t taste much different to me than normal teas, so it’d be easy to substitute them in while still enjoying the taste of tea, yet getting the added (healing) benefits of tulsi. With a name meaning “the incomparable one” how could you not give it a whirl too?
Coola Suncare – Cucumber Mineral Sunscreen for Face: Haha! Funny that just like the first Yuzen box, I happen to already use one of the products included. This is that particular product from this box and I’m more than happy for another! In fact, I happen to have one at Panda’s and one at my parents’ now so I can protect my face wherever “home” is. The cucumber scent is so relaxing and the sunscreen absorbs into the skin well, with no greasy layer to worry about. It’s perfect for your face and hands. Don’t forget to apply it to your neck too, if it’ll be exposed!
Olomomo Nut Co – Chai Bliss Almonds: Oh yum! Talk about wonderfully fragrant and oh so delicious. These almonds are covered in a sweet layer of vanilla and cardamom flavoring that is just delightful. I don’t normally like to eat nuts, but if they all came like this, I could definitely incorporate them into my routine! Plus, who doesn’t want a product made with love? (See ingredient list, hehe.)
Tilvee – Calendula & Comfrey Healing Balm: WOW. Not only do I love the usefulness of this product, it smells wonderful too! I can hardly get enough of it. It’s basically what you’d put on for anything adverse that happens to your skin, whether it be cuts and scrapes, rashes or sunburn, even plain old dry patches! Not long after getting it, I actually got a scratch and I applied it until my skin healed. Worked great, though it’s not meant for eliminating scars. Still, my skin would have scarred horribly had it not been for this healing balm. I’m obsessed and I use it on just about all skin conditions that ail me. Oh, and I absolutely love that it comes in stick form for easy application and ultimate portability!
Green Festival DC 2012
This weekend, Panda and I volunteered for Green Festival and it was a grand old time! It’s the first time I’ve experienced a green conference outside of Opportunity Green and it’s quite the different experience. When we weren’t volunteering, we got a chance to go around to a bunch of the vendors/exhibitors and not only did I learn a lot, we managed to score some sweet freebies too.
Day 1 goodies: Bright Green tote bag, Bright Green laundry detergent, Repax water canister, Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies, Maid Brigade nail file, Maid Brigade small reusable tote, apple sauce, bananas & apple, Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One soaps (baby-mild, peppermint, rose), Yogi Chai Rooibos tea bags, Ford chapstick, Nature’s Path Sunny Hemp trail mix, Clif Kit’s Organic fruit & nut bar in Cashew, Yummy Earth organic pomegranate pucker, O Organics raisins, wood chip for casting Ford Grant vote, Ford keychains, Ford Chicobag, Jarrow formulas supplements (Phosphomega, Jarro-Dophilus EPS, Bone-Up), Pharma GABA tablets, Joyful Bath Co soap Citrus Buzz, Joyful Bath Co pin, Mind Body & Salt soap, Truly-life soap, & of course a cotton Volunteer t-shirt! The orange Chicobag and pens were actually from a LOHAS event the night before.
Day 2 goodies: Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies, Hemp Hearts hemp seeds, Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One liquid soaps & bars (spearmint peppermint, peppermint, lavender), Yogi Chai Rooibos tea bags, Ford chapstick, Yummy Earth organic puckers (pomegranate, blueberry, sour apple), Bright Green laundry detergent, Truly-life soap, & a The Oink Pad pen.
Panda’s Day 2 goodies: Hemp Hearts hemp seeds, Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies, Clif Kid Z bar crispy rice in Cookies ‘N Cream, Nature’s Path Sunny Hemp trail mix, Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One liquid soaps & bars (spearmint peppermint, peppermint, lavender, baby-mild), Yogi Chai Rooibos tea bags, Ford chapstick, Yummy Earth organic blueberry pucker, Bright Green tote bag, Bright Green laundry detergent, Repax water canister, & Truly-life soap.
Products bought: Bumboosa bamboo baby wipes, Hawaiian Moon Aloe cream, Berryplus liquid laundry soap, & Truly-life solid lotion leaves.
Entrees just aren’t my style
For a period, Panda and I were eating out consistently (something like 3 times a week). In that time, I came to a realization after he commented that I seemed to gravitate towards appetizers and desserts. Indeed it’s true that I tend to prefer appetizer dishes, soups, salads, bread, tapas, dim sum, hors d’oeuvres, finger foods, and desserts. These are generally things that come in smaller portions, don’t usually include much if any staple items (like pasta or rice), have stronger flavors, and are fun to eat. All of that make them so much more appealing to me.
Smaller dishes mean you can try out a more varied set of food and it’s all the better when you can get a sampler platter! This also fits really well into my snacking eating habit, where I can’t seem to eat much in one sitting, but I get hungry again soon after. I have to eat about 4-5 times a day, just a little each time. There are probably other reasons I can’t quite pinpoint, but non-entree dishes just feel right to me. Meanwhile, full-on main courses are over-sized (especially in America), more bland, and generally less exciting. Don’t you think so?
Cartwheeling panorama
You know the first thing I thought of when I found out you can do panorama shots within the iPhone’s native camera app? Cartwheeling. I was curious how it’d turn out, so this weekend, Panda and I gave it a try and it turned out to be pretty hilarious. I guess next time I should go for burst mode with a 3rd party app instead. Click on images to enlarge!
What I love about AT&T
I did a lot of research leading up to the pre-order of my iPhone 5 (I even wrote a full-on how-to about it). One of the things that I spent time looking into was whether I should stay with AT&T or move to another carrier. And you know what? For all the bad rap that AT&T gets, I really think they’re not that bad. In fact, they’ve got some great selling points that made it easy for me to decide to stick with them for the foreseeable future. So while a lot of people may have jumped ship, I’m going to remain a loyal customer… which I’ve been, ever since the Cingular days!
First of all, I got scared when I read that Verizon customers would be losing their grandfathered unlimited plans once they went from 3G to 4G LTE. It hadn’t occurred to me that this could be an issue, so I quickly set about looking up whether the same thing would happen to AT&T customers. Some online searches didn’t provide the answer, so I called up customer service and spoke to a very nice lady who assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. Whew! AT&T: 1, other carriers: 0. (Oh, though she did note that I wouldn’t be able to use FaceTime over cellular since that’s only for people with shared data plans… and shared data plans meant forfeiting grandfathered unlimited data plans. That doesn’t matter to me since I wasn’t planning on using it anyway.)
Secondly, I’ve been so used to being able to talk and surf at the same time that it didn’t even occur to me that others can’t. I assumed it would just be something you can do across all devices and carriers, but for iPhones, the only US carrier that supports it is AT&T. I happen to be a huge multi-tasker so I definitely put this feature high on my list of “needs” for my phone service! After all, if I can’t look something up while talking to someone on the phone, I end up being very inefficient having to call them back or text them a reply. If nothing else, I love being efficient.
Also, I find that AT&T has a good balance between 3G and 4G LTE coverage areas and the types of plans offered. To the first point, Sprint I hear has limited coverage so getting a consistent signal on the move might be more challenging. I took a look at the AT&T 4G LTE coverage map and found great coverage in all the places I’d spend 99% of my time in. To the second point, Verizon forces new customers to sign up for a shared data plan, which makes no sense to me… explain to me again why I’d need to share data with myself? Oh, that’s right – I shouldn’t. Plus, there was the earlier point that you can keep the unlimited data plan if you have it already.
Granted, I don’t really use my phone for phone calls very often, so I don’t usually run into the issues that people complain about with AT&T calls dropping. As for poor customer service, I find that when you start off the call on the right note, you can almost always get what you were looking for (assuming you’re being reasonable, of course). In fact, I had a grand time chatting with my customer service rep the last time I was on a call! And so it is, AT&T is most definitely the best carrier for me.
Oh yeah – one last thing: bonus points for having their site up 12 minutes before midnight for pre-orders. If I was going to be at my normal billing address the day the phones were being delivered, I totally could have completed my order with them before the Apple Store was even ready.
Pure Leaf delivery!
Today I got an awesome delivery – part 2 of my PureWow & Pure Leaf Pin It to Win It winnings!
Crack Caramel
Not too long ago, I discovered Crack Caramel, thanks to the PureWow newsletterI got. Being a sucker for all things caramel, I just had to get my hands on some! Since they do overnight shipping to ensure the product comes to you fresh, it can get pretty pricey. Luckily, I was able to get in touch with them and arrange to pick mine up since they’re located in LA. I’ve gone through and devoured about a quarter of my Crack Batch in the first day. As promised, their caramel is amazing! Not only is it fresh, it’s made from such simple, awesome ingredients. None of that odd stuff you’d find in mass-produced candy. And boy does it make Crack Caramel divine. 🙂
Ultimate Summer Day, courtesy PureWow & Pure Leaf
A little while ago, PureWow held a “pin it to win it” contest on Pinterest, where a random follower who pinned his/her favorite picture of the 10 finalists in the “Ultimate Summer Day” competition would also get to win a set of tea party-ready gear! I, being the eager gal I am, pinned one that I enjoyed, crossed my fingers, and went on my merry way. Then one day, I got an email saying that I had won!! How thrilling. 🙂
Included in the set were 8 goblets (or stemless glasses to be more accurate), a pack of 25 orange striped paper straws, a jumbo ice tray (makes 2-oz cubes!), a tray with handles, two stir rods/muddlers (hehe what a funny name), and my personal favorite – a gorgeous pitcher! I’m just waiting for the Pure Leaf tea to ship to me and then I can have the ultimate (iced) tea party! I can hardly wait – I feel like this is straight out of a Home & Garden magazine picture or something. 😛