Mini Product Review - First Impressions

Monday, August 31st, 2015

SALUTATIONS FELLOW BLOGGERS!

This week has been absolutely crazy!! Getting ready for University since it's starting on Monday is a whole journey honestly! But I am excited all the same! The Nursing Program I heard is a brutal one, but at the same time, I am excited to start a new semester, a new year and to get back into the swing of things. I got myself my scrubs, my watch, and my textbooks are slowly making their way to our house! I organized them on my shelf into piles for each class. 

I honestly don't have much to write, unfortunately... I've been trying out some products recently but haven't tried them out to their fullest yet so I can't tell you guys about them just yet, but I'm thinking about doing a LUSH Haul or a review on the L'oreal Paris Infallible Pro-Setting Spray. The Urban Decay Chill/All-nighter setting sprays never did anything for me, so I'm really hoping that this one does... Will get back to you on that!

I've also picked up a couple Milani Bella Eyeshadows, and to give you a first impression already, I'm not impressed with the Bella Rouge color. It was not nearly as pigmented as I thought it would be however the Bella Gold one was very pretty when I layered it on another eyeshadow. I will try it on separately and see how I feel about it on its own and let you know but so far big thumbs up for the color.

I also bought some Milani Lipstick, and this was is in the Dulce Caramelo shade and oh my gosh...It smells like a watermelon sorbet.... or watermelon Italian ice.... I love the color, it looks extremely flattering on me and makes my teeth look white. It is also extremely moisturizing and like I said, it smells AMAZING! 

Well, hopefully, I will be bringing you guys some reviews in the future and will get back to you about how the program is going and how the studying and managing time is going! Adios, and God Bless You all!!

~ Suzanochka ~

How I De-Clutter!

Sunday, August 16th, 2015

SALUTATIONS FELLOW BLOGGERS!

Wow, I just did a MAJOR clearing out of my office and in the process I realized some things! With a cluttered office, I have a cluttered brain! So when I de-clutter my office, I find that my mind begins to work so much better and more efficiently!

I've been cleaning this office for the past 4 hours, and it is now 1 am and I can finally say that I'm extremely happy with how it all turned out. I have an office where when you come in, you seem y vanity to the right (this has all my makeup products and all my skincare and all that jazz), my shelves with a fish tank on top, and a large floating corner desk in front of you (that spans almost the length of my two walls) with 4 shelves of books right above it. 

The problem I had was that when I moved in, I kind of tucked a couple of boxes underneath my corner desk that I never had time to go through and deal with (since we moved in right during Thanksgiving break and exams were going on and so were final projects). Because of this, 9 months later, I finally have gotten to those boxes and completely cleared out the bottom of my desk and got rid of a lot of junk and went through all the stuff in there.

I notice that when I'm in these cleaning moods, I'm less likely to be someone who hoards items, and I'll be more likely to throw away the stuff I don't need. I think that a good rule of thumb is that if you haven't touched it in a year, then you probably will not touch it next year either and then it will just end up clogging up your space and harshing with your mellow man! :) 

After going through all those boxes, I windexed my vanity and organized all my makeup. I kind of did a perusal through my collection and threw out some things that I knew were old and not healthy to use anymore but one of these days I need to sit down and go through my whole collection and really get rid of all the stuff I don't use and make an organized collection of what I have so that I actually use it and mix and match more easily, knowing where everything is.

After doing that, I went through one of my bookshelves that stand on their own and did a complete reorganization of that. It looked really cluttered before because I had a lot of bags and extra miscellaneous items sticking either way but I went through everything, organized it all and made sure everything had it's own spot and place where it belonged. I also started laying out all the nursing textbooks that I already bought that way I could figure out what I still need to get.

After that, I went through everything on my desk and asked myself "Is this important information or can I throw it away? Or move to somewhere else where I can store it if it is important information?" That way I cleared my desk and the only things on it really are my computer, my printer and my jewelry holder! I've noticed that if you keep your surfaces cleaner and less cluttered with 40 million different things, it looks so much more clean-lined and organized. That way people are not going to be distracted by all the papers and all the magazines or books you have on the desk but can overall see cleanliness is a state of mind you like to stay in.

During this whole process, I lit a gorgeous smelling Green Tea Candle (that I mentioned in a previous post) and I turned on my computer and watched/listened to YouTube Videos. That way I can get in my videos and keep up with all the YouTubers I love watching while using my time wisely and cleaning. I also like to watch YouTube Videos while folding laundry or cleaning my kitchen, that way I'm not just sitting in front of the computer for hours not doing anything, but I'm multi-tasking!

Well, it's been a crazy day since right after coming home from work I went right to work on re-vamping our first floor (We've finished tearing up the floor, and putting new flooring down and today we painted everything - baseboards and all the molding and then all the walls too). So after doing that and then making food, and then cleaning my office, I'm ready for a long and hot bath! I think I'm going to use one of my Lush bath bombs (Review is coming soon!) so I'll talk to you all later and hope you have a wonderful and blessed Sunday! Stay Fabulous Darlings! :)

- Suzanochka - 

Busy Bee Kind of Day

Tuesday, August 11th, 2015

SALUTATIONS FELLOW BLOGGERS!

What an exhausting day today! It was quite jam-packed and right now, at 11:53 pm is the first time I'm really sitting and relaxing, so I decided to write a blog post on it!

Today we woke up early in the morning to go look at flooring that we're installing in (in? on?) our first floor of our house. It's laminate flooring and I'm really happy with the color we picked out! It's a darker wood than an oak color, but it's not like black or chocolate brown. It has somewhat of a red tone to it and it's really pretty in my view :) Maybe I'll post a picture when it's all done!

After that, we came back home and got right to it! We started taking off all the doors and marking off lines. After a good hour or two or just working away, we decided to have some lunch and Andrey made some de-licious Jennie-O Turkey Burgers for us on the grill! They're healthier than regular burgers but taste just as good! Especially with some sauteed onions and some pickles and ketchup. Yum! :) I made a tomato-cucumber salad that was really simple and easy to go with the burgers. 

I took a lot of tomatoes (bigger than Grape Tomatoes but smaller than the Roma ones) and cut them into quarters and then I took a large English cucumber and sliced it down the middle in half and then cut the two halves into many pieces. I put that all together, added some salt, pepper, dill and green onions and voila! You have a delicious and refreshing summer salad! The juices from the tomatoes and a little from the cucumbers is enough liquid that you don't even need any kind of dressing. But if you really wanted to make one, you easily could with just some oil and vinegar and a little salt and pepper too! Some other ingredients that you could add to such a salad could be Feta cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, Red Onions, Yellow Onions, or even Avocado.

After this, we continued on with the flooring and I was helping out with the math calculations (I now remember why I never liked fractions before...). Afterward, my sister and I decided to go do some shopping and I even found a bird feeder! I've been looking for one for the longest time and when we went to Michael's, I found one for $4.99! It's wooden and I can paint it however I want! It looks like this but instead of wood on the sides, it's all glass and there are gaps on the bottom where the food can come out for the birds! I think it's going to be a perfect little thing, especially in the winter when the birds are going to have a little bit of a harder time finding food.

I also got a planner for the new school year coming up (school's starting in less than 3 weeks and that is kind of giving me anxiety right now...). It's actually called a Family Planner and it is a 16-month one which is awesome. It has 270 stickers and a whole bunch of stuff that I can use to keep track of appointments and exams and such. I'll post a blog post on it soon probably and tell you if I think it's effective or not. 

I've been looking for Soy Candles recently and I'm trying to slowly transition all my candles into soy candles. They burn better and are much healthier for you in terms of what they give off when they burn. I have found that when I burn candles that are not soy, and I burn them consistently or even for a long time, I get really big headaches and they're not fun whatsoever. So this one that I got is a Green Tea scent from Scentsational. I got it for $9.99 because I got it from Home Goods, but I believe they're around $22 originally, so I think I got a pretty good deal! It smells very refreshing and clean, and I almost get these kind of citrus notes in the scent so I really like it :) I think it will be a great candle to burn if I want to take a bath or am trying to decompress after exams :)

Hope you liked this blog post and I'll talk to you all later!! :)

Meet the new members to our family!!

August 2015

SALUTATIONS FELLOW BLOGGERS!

Welcome back! I just wanted to introduce you guys to the new members in our household! I've never had pets of my own. I had a cat, but really my dad was the one who took care of him, but these are the first pets that I actually have to take care of myself! The two pictures below are pictures of my aquarium! It's a 20-gallon tank that I got from PetSmart for $20! They were having a deal where it was a $1 per gallon, so I saved $13 because typically the 20-gallon tanks are around $32.99! In total I have about 16 fish in the tank (but we're going to move three of the bigger ones to a smaller 10-gallon tank soon to give the others room!). I have 6 orange goldfish, I have a black tetra-fin fish, and I have 2 speckled goldfish, I have three algae-eating fish, and I have 3 minnows, and then I have Freddie...

In the top right of this picture, you can see my Shubunkin Goldfish. I have two of them, however, the other one is on the bottom left and almost blends into the aquarium! They're both really pretty and I can't wait to see what they look like when they grow to their full size!!:)

Here on the right you see a picture of my tetra-fin fish! I decided to name her (because I think it's a female) Venus, which in Latin means "loveliness, charm, attractiveness, beauty" and she's so graceful when she swims around and looks beautiful :) The other goldfish (there are 6 of them) I haven't been able to find names for, so when we separate them I think it will be easier then. Any suggestions guys? I've tried doing close up pictures of them, but none will cooperate :(

Remember Freddie? Well here he is in all his glory ;) Freddie is my personal favorite out of all the fish. Andrey and I have a theory that Freddie might look the way he does because he comes from Venus + another goldfish... This is because he has Venus' eyes but the body of a goldfish. He is an odd sort of fish, but I love him dearly and always looking for him in the mornings when I come to feed them :)

If you look closely this is not just a picture of a plant in my aquarium, but rather this is a picture of 3 Otocincli! (singular - Otocinclus) They are referred to as "algae-eating fish" and like to suck the sides of the tank clean from algae! Sometimes they flit about in the water (and they're super fast!) but typically they like just either being in a plant or being on the side of the tank! 

The minnows were absolutely impossible to take a picture of so maybe in a different post I'll post a video of them all so that you could see them more clearly!

Ultimately, one day I would love to have a HUGE aquarium, something like a 75 gallon one, that would hold beautiful fish like even Koi though I think those would look more beautiful in a pond and they would feel more at home there! :)

Thank you all for giving me your time and I hope you have a wonderful day/night depending what time zone you're in! :) God bless you all and peace be with you! :)

Drugstore Haul!

Sunday, August 2nd, 2015

SALUTATIONS FELLOW BLOGGERS!

Like I said in the last blog, my skin has been very mad at me recently so I've gone on the hunt to find new products to make it happier and more cooperative.... So here's what I got! 

Recently I have really been loving the Simple brand of skin products and they have been making my skin extremely happy! I haven't been using SPF and considering it's summer already and I don't want to get skin cancer I went out on the hunt for SPF lotion/moisturizer with SPF that would be great for my skin and would protect me against the harmful UV rays! I came across this one, and although it's only SPF 15, it's at least something! It's really gentle and a little bit goes a long way (which I like). It's smell is fresh and clean, and kind of smells like plants but not in a bad way. One of the only downfalls is that you have to give this moisturizer a good 15 minutes to soak into the skin before putting on any kind of makeup, otherwise your foundation/makeup will just sit on top of your skin if you don't give it time to sink in. 

The other product I got was eye-cream. I've been meaning to get some for the longest time, however I just couldn't bear to spend $50 or $60 on a little pot of eye cream that wasn't even half an ounce so I started out small and just picked a generic store brand of eye cream that was 1/2 an ounce and was only about $8 and it seems to be working really well! The only thing that I don't really like is that it's anti-aging and I don't feel like I need that right now. I don't understand why it's so hard to find one that's not anti-aging or has nothing to do with defying the aging process. My under-eye area was getting really dry and I knew that if I put normal lotion on them then it would get the white bumps, but I didn't want to start using anti-aging products just yet... Anyone know of any eye creams that are not for anti-aging purposes? Comment below and let me know so that I can check them out!

The Rimmel STAY MATTE Pressed Powder I have been using for years and it's one of my staple products to set all                                               my makeup with! So I just restocked my                                           powder! Love it!

I wanted to try a new foundation because I felt like all of the foundations I was using were oxidizing on me and making my face orange while my neck would be stark white and that is never a nice combination... I heard a lot of good things about this foundation so I decided to pick it up and give it a try. If you guys would like to know more about it, just comment below or like this post and I will do so!

I wanted to get a new lipstick and something that was matte and wouldn't transfer. I decided to go with this since I saw that Tati Westbrook was raving about them in her favorites video and I really like them! They're not as drying as most matte lipstick/lip stains/lip products are but at the same time, I don't think I'm totally on board with this matte lip trend, because I love putting a lipgloss over this color and then it looks gorgeous! Don't mind my fuzzy face and spots, just look at the lip color ;) I tried to swatch it for you! :)

Well, I hope y'all enjoyed this little blog post and I hope you have a wonderful Sunday that's both relaxing and invigorating! May God bless you and I'll blog again soon! :)

~ Suzanochka ~