A good scrub, a dub, dub

Last week I got this insanely cute black romper. My only oversight was how fair (aka white) I am. I could say "How white I am right now" but I'd only be kidding myself. I've been "porcelain" year around since I hit my twenties for a mixture of reasons. I embrace it now instead of taking pleasure from feeling my skin burn in the sun. I got my romper for my upcoming trip to NYC later this month. So a little self tanning was in order. Tip 1 for a good self tan seems to be exfoliating beforehand. So I went on the hunt for a good scrub. I came across these 2 by Bliss & Hugo Naturals (available at Whole Foods Market).




Option 1 - Bliss "Hot Salt Scrub" for $36 is available at Sephora. I tested this one out at the store and it heats up once you start applying it on your skin. My hand was baby soft after using but it was a little hard for me to validate the price tag. If you don't mind the price then I would definitely go with this one. It brings the spa to you.

Option 2 - Hugo Naturals "French Lavendar Dead Sea Salt Scrub" for $17.99. What can I say I'm a sucker for lavender? There is a bunch of aromatic oils (almond oil, jojoba ester, etc.) mixed in with the salt. Your skin will feel fantastic after using this bad boy and you won't need to put on lotion afterwards. Using a salt scrub (vs. a sugar scrub) is supposed to kill toxins. If you haven't figured it out . Yes, I went with this one and I'm VERY happy. Self-tan results pending.

Weekend Visit

My little cousin Kim finally (well I've only been here for a month) came for her weekend visit with me at my new place in San Diego. I had tons of fun with her and am going to opportunistically post pictures of her on the blog that she does not know that I have ;). She picked up the clothes to the left at Ragz Dressware in Carlsbad, Ca.










Along with a pic of the Rigatoni in Pesto cream sauce with Peas that I made at the start of the weekend.

Split Second

Yesterday was the worst day for me. I can't put my finger on exactly one thing that brought my day down. It was a million little things. I felt like everything I touched just turned to crap. I spent entirely too much time putting together one of my "e" marketing projects. Usually when I work on putting together eMails, Flyers, Posters for one of my clients. I just open Photoshop and get the layout, type, etc. figured out as I go. For the sake of not pulling my hair out I'm going to try to start sketching these out before I start to build them. That's what my old creative director used to do (with good reason).

But this story has a happy ending. Against all internal instinct I drove to the College area to meet my friend, Erin for the MGMT concert. I'm one of those people where I have to force myself to go out. Then once I'm out I have a great time. But my day was going so bad that I was nervous about getting into a car accident on the way to the concert!

We weren't able to buy tickets. So we were stuck sitting outside the concert (all outside sitting with a view was blocked off) listening to this amazing show on a cement bench. We're sulking on a bench and this guy walks up and asks us if we want two tickets for the show. Apprehensive Erin asks, "How much?". To which the guy hands the tickets to us and says, "FREE". Can you believe it? I swear as soon as he said it I felt all the ugliness of my day just wash right off of me. The show was AMAZING. Probably even more so for me. They sound exactly the same live as they do on the record.

Old friends make my heart go BOOM

For the last 3 years I lived in the Bay Area. I wish I could say that I loved it but the truth is the weather depressed the heck out of me up there. I think they call that SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) but there's not really a definitive test for it so I guess I'll never know. Best believe I won't be signing up to live in Seattle anytime soon. It probably took me 2 years to get adjusted to the cold, overcast-ness and gather a small group of friends (most of them co-workers). So really I just enjoyed that last year and the food.

Last weekend, one of my friends (Bex, short for Rebecca) came down here (San Diego) because a friend of hers was relocated temporarily for work. The funny thing is Bex is a San Franciscan (born & raised) through and through. Even though I lived just over the bridge in Emeryville I only managed to see her a handful of times. Most of those times involved Dim Sum. I see her more now that I live in the opposite part of the state from her. Ooh should tell you that I met Bex all the way back in 2004 when I was living in San Francisco and going to Culinary School. We were pretty inseparable. I saw her everyday! Usually she followed me home because she was still living at home. I miss my little apartment in the Haight sometimes.

Anyhoo, Bex has this huge group of friends that she goes everywhere with. I finally got to meet about 10 of them. They were so so nice. Do you ever meet someone and it just feels like you've talked to them a million times before? Well that's how this went. Ooh and they are all so stylish. Wish I was petite and Chinese so I could borrow all of their clothes and more importantly their minuscule sized shoes. I met them in the Gaslamp and we went out to this really horrible bar called, The Fleetwood. I say horrible because it was so, so hot in there. It felt like you were going to melt. I even welcomed escaping with Bex on the smoke deck. For anyone who has never met me I have a serious dislike of anything that involves smoke. I'm usually that one annoying non-smoker friend you have that tries to get you to quit every 5 seconds and reminds you that you are killing yourself (politely of course). Oh and some of the shot/wine glasses they gave us were warm. But regardless I had a great time with the old bestie!