Sephora VIB Points.

"I need new make-up brushes. Let's hit up Sephora."

I was trying to squeeze a little more time with The Husband before I go back to NYC this afternoon.  But I needed to run an errand. A girlie errand.

The Husband is not a fan of Sephora. Simply because he knows I spend a lit of time and $$$$ there.  But he was a good sport, and was willing to come with me. And I knew exactly what it was I needed to get, so there wouldn't be any unnecessary dawdling.

Brushes were located quickly...

New brushes for my eye make-up. Clean and pristine! Took them up to the counter to pay, and threw down my Sephora VIB points card.

(Side note: I love that I can use my card in either the US or Canada, and the points still add up.)

"You have 823 points," the shop girl told me.  "Would you like to redeem them?"

I looked my options. I wasn't enthused by the 100-point or 500-point options.

"No thanks," I said. "I'll just keep them for now."

I smiled at The Husband.

"Try not to think about what it means that I have 823 points on my card," I said to him.

He laughed.

"Oh no," he informed me. "I know exactly what it means that you have accumulated 823 points.  And I know that you redeemed some of your points just in December."

Guilty!

I like shopping at Sephora. And spend quite a pretty penny there each year.

Short List Of Reasons To Live: February 19, 2012.

Holy shiz! It's been like three weeks since I last did this. How careless and uncommitted of me!

Gives you a bit of an idea of how busy I have these past few weeks. But now it is time to catch up...

Here is this week's Short List of Reasons to Live:

• Downton Abbey Season Finale. Well, it's tonight. So technically this only gives me a reason to live till the end of today.  But it is still critical and needs to be recognized. 
• Phoenix Next Weekend.  Friday I head to the Valley of the Sun to visit family. Haven't been to Phoenix since last May.
• Jax's First Birthday. Yay! My nephew - who is the cutest little boy ever - turns one.  His parents are throwing him a totally awesome rager. I love kids when they are so little.
• London Fashion Week. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was fairly bored with NYFW this year. London FW just started. I have high hopes for it, and have even seen a few things I love from Issa.
• Four Weeks Till The Hunger Games. Have you read the series yet? Get off your bum and do it NOW! At least read the first book. "Sappy teenage chick lit" MY ASS.
• Four Weeks Till Mad Men Returns. I feel like there has been a whole inside me. One that began with the last season that aired in 2010. The season that left me feeling all "WTF?!?!?!"  I fear that we have jumped the shark with this show. But let's see if Matt Weiner can bring this next season back for us. 
• Four Weeks Till Spring Arrives. I really need to get my shiz together and give my Spring/Summer 2012 style purchases some serious thoughts. This isn't that far.

Till next week...

NYFW: My Favorites.

Overall, I was bored looking at the Ready-to-Wear collections. I guess because I am at an age where I envision myself actually wearing the pieces in some way.

Indulgent? Yes. But practical.

Runway fashion has always been fantasy for me, even with the RTW collections. But now I am ready to actually go out and possibly by some of these pieces.

So here is what I liked...

3.1 Phillip Lim

  

Rodarte
Diane von Furstenburg

Marc Jacobs

Envision it cut just below the knee, paired with cherry red tights and minus that hat.

J. Crew

That's NOT A Skin Tag, Lady.

About a month ago, I noticed something on my eyelid.

I was putting primer on my eyelid - which I always do before adding my eye make-up - and I noticed a tiny flap of skin on my eyelid crease.

"This must be a skin tag," I said to myself.

So I went to research them online. Turns out they are common on eyelids as you age... Since we often tend to rub our eyes a lot.

I researched how to get rid of them, and because it was on my eyelid, the best solution was to go to the doctor to have it sliced off.  Even though they are so tiny, it's still your eye.  And you don't want to eff with your eyes.

I kept meaning to make an appointment with my dermatologist. But I have been so busy that I kept putting it off for the time being. Till about two weeks ago.

The Husband was down in NYC visiting me.  One morning we woke up, and he mentioned "the thing" on my eye. It had gotten bigger. And was REALLY noticeable.

"You should get that looked at," he said.

"Yeah? You think so, buddy?" I thought. "No shit."

So an appointment was made, and this past week I saw my dermatologist. She peered at it with her magnifying glasses.

"I don't think that's a skin tag," she informed me. "It looks like a wart."

"EWWWW!" I screeched. "How the hell does one get a WART on their eyelid? I am super anal in Bikram and ONLY use my own towels to practice on on class.  And I ALWAYS stand front row, so no one is in front of me and can stick their nasty feet in my face."

"Warts are caused by viruses," she reminded me. "You could touch something on the subway, and then rub your eye and not realize you've transferred it."

She assured me she could remove it just as easily as a skin tag. But she mentioned she wanted to have it biopsied - just in case.

So a small pinch of local anesthetic, a minute of waiting for it to kick in... And she took small scissors to it.

I didn't feel a thing. And there was no blood.  She dabbed Neosporin on it, and told me to lay off the hot yoga and eye make-up for a number of days.

It is starting to heal nicely. But it looked a little red earlier this weekend.  The biopsy should confirm for her if it was just a skin tag, or indeed a wart like she thought. Either way, she said it won't come back.

And you can sure as hell bet I am going to start walking to work, rather than taking the damn subway. Going to avoid it as much as possible.

Every Last Dime.

The Husband does not like to waste anything. Especially money.

Each day, when he comes home, he empties his change into a large vase in our family room above the fireplace.  I do the same every week with the change I've accumulated in my wallet.  So we have a large amount of random change in it.

At the start of each week, The Husband goes through the vase and picks out all the two-dollar, one-dollar and quarter coins.  He uses them for the bus he takes to work, and the subway he takes home each day. He puts them in a dish by the front door so that he can scrape what he needs each day.

But since I don't live in Toronto fill time right now, I have stopped contributing to the collection.  And as a result, The Husband doesn't have as robust a collection of various dollar coins and quarters. So now he is down to using mostly these...

Dimes.

He doesn't use dimes to pay for all of his bus and subway fare... As that would be completely ridiculous and piss off other customers.  The subway/bus fare (one way) is $3.  So that would be 30 dimes he would be pumping into the fare box.  And that would mean he need to carry around 60 dimes a day to pay for the trip to work and back. 

Imagine how much that would peeve off the people behind him, as well as the fare collectors!  He's conservative with his money... Not an a-hole.

So he only takes 20 dimes a day to pay for part of his fare, and uses quarters or dollar coins to pay for the rest.  And I find it charming about him.  

A Whole Weekend Of Relaxing!

I am up in Toronto this weekend. First trip back to the Great White North that didn't involve work.  And I like it!

Before I moved back down to NYC, I had intended for all my trips back to Canada to be purely to relax and visit The Husband. But the first day I started my job, that changed.

"We're giving you Canada to figure out," I was told. This meant partnering with the agencies up here and finding opportunities to help make their offering more robust.

It sounded exciting. But that meant that every trip I took to Canada had me working. And Canada was no longer my sacred place.

But this weekend, I was adamant that I have to myself. No way was I going to work. Or so I thought. Even with the day off yesterday, I did get pulled into something while waiting for an appointment. It didn't bother me; it's what I like doing. But I had hoped to not have to put anything off to deal with work.

But now that it is Saturday, I am not doing any work. Not this time. (Though, confession: I did deal with one easy email this morning. It's hard to not always be wired in.)

And now, I am going to spend the rest of the day with The Husband. We have a fancy dinner planned for one of our favorite restaurants in the neighborhood. And I may go do some shopping in a little while.

Bag Storage When You Have No Space.

In the Toronto home, I have a walk-in closet/small dressing room. Here in NYC, I have closet the length of a small wall.

Not bad. It's certainly generous by NYC standards.  But I have been hesitant to buy lots of furniture for my bedroom here. And thus, my closet is quite over-flowing... With no dresser or table in the bedroom. (Just a bed and a mirror!)

The one group of things that takes up a lot of valuable shelf-space in my closet are my bags. I only brought my favorites down here with me, which includes a few bulky Balenciagas.  So I had to find a way to store them off the shelf.

My solution was Command Hooks.

I placed them all on the inside doors of the closet.  And it's worked out quite well.  And the hooks are easy to remove.  I love these things.

Bikram: Morning Practice Versus Later Practice.

There is a world of difference between my morning Bikram practice and my later-in-the-day practice.

There are elements of each that really suck.

The Mornings

• Stiff joints.
• Creaky knees.
• No flexibility in the spine, so backbends and side bends (think "Half Moon") are rough.
• But forward bends rock, because I have no food in me and very little liquids.
• Spine-strengthening series is actually achievable and productive.

Later-In-The-Day

• Loose joints.
• Juicy knees.
• Super flexibility in the spine. Backbends are a piece of blueberry cheesecake! And nobody goes deeper in Half Moon than me.
• Forward bends, because I have eaten and been drinking all day, SUCK ASS. And is often evry difficult.
• Spine-strengthening series is awful.

But none of these are valid excuses for skipping class or postures. Always put forth your 100% best effort.

That's what I tell myself, at least.

Like this morning... My alarm went off at 6:45am, because I had the intention of going to the 8am class.  I set my alarm to "snooze" till 7:15am. When that alarm went off, I looked at the temperature app on my phone and determined, "There is no freaking way I am going out there in this cold!"

Then, a voice inside my feeble brain said, "That is weak. Besides, wouldn't it be nice to actually do Floor Bow pose for once? You usually have so much trouble in the evening classes with it."

I was able to coax myself out of bed with this thought.

But man did my backbends suck ass!

Happy As A Canary.

Out and about shopping today when I came across this dress at Anthropologie...

Beautiful cut. I loved the silky fabric when my fingertips danced on it, checking the seems. (Something I always do when I buy a new piece of clothing.) And the color is just pure "happiness."

Pair with a bright color on your lips - like red or coral - and open-toed wedges or flats... And this makes for a gorgeous Spring/Summer look.

Yoga Kit Essentials: Balenciaga & Tom Ford.

This is just how I roll to Bikram class on Saturdays...

Yep. I pack my yoga kit in my Balenciaga "Work" bag (because hot yoga IS work!) and it includes my Tom Ford True Coral lipstick.

GLAMOUR!

Here is me before class.  No make-up at all, just the lipstick.

And here is me after a full two hours in the room, having burned close to 900 calories and sweating more than I have in a long time.

And before you accuse me of it... No, I didn't reapply the lipstick. And yes, I did kiss the floor in Locust pose (although my Locust pose sucks ass lately.)

Health Dish For The Weak: Roasted Bone Marrow.

Yeah... So I know that four years ago when I tried it, I said I would never eat it again.  Even though it was delicious.

Well here it is years later, and a fellow Bikram teacher (and fitness model/chef) wrote a post about a recipe she put together for Roasted Bone Marrow with Parsley Salad.  It sounded too delicious and simple, I had to try it.

So yesterday I went to a butcher in the West Village and picked up three small bone pieces, which were super cheap... As well as the rest of the ingredients...

Parsley, lemon, shallot, capers, cornichons, baguette...

Then I dropped the marrow pieces into a pot and popped them into a 400 degree oven...

Super simple...  Didn't need to put anything on them, just simply put them in a pan on their own and pop into the oven.

Only 15 minutes and they are done.

You serve with the Parsley Salad and some the baguette, toasted.

The toast is for spreading the bone marrow onto.

Looks creepy... But is really, really good. And good for you.

Short List Of Reasons To Live: January 29, 2012.

The past two weeks have been filled with travel.  It's actually been a very busy travel month so far. I am ready for it to be a little quiet on the travel front for me. Gives me a chance to settle in a little.  And it's definitely something that makes my Short List of Reasons to Live this week.

• No Travel. Like I said above... Not having to head to an airport this week, and being able to be home in NYC is lovely. Can actually commit to a schedule of Bikram classes and get some much needed stuff done at work.
• The Ringer. It's about to get real, people! The show returns this week with new episodes on the CW. I am amped for this how. The sexy Kelly sisters are enemies and crazy... And there was cliffhanger shit mid-season, and I am dying to see how it gets resolved. Bet it just gets crazier.
• The Husband Visits. I love it when people ask when my husband is moving to NYC... And I respond with, "Not anytime soon." They look confused and then ask, "But don't you miss him?" Truthfully... A little. But I see him every day on Skype.  And we seem to visit each other every other week lately. Then with how busy our jobs keep us, we really don't have time to get lonely or miss each other. So far, this is working. And he visits this weekend.
• The Super Bowl. Now, please don't think I suddenly have an interest in sports... In particular, football. Sports bore me. Always have. Always will. But you can bet I will be watching the Super Bowl this coming weekend. I will forever and ever be a Boston fan when it comes to sports. So I am jazzed about this game.  My old home town taking on my new home town... GO PATS!!!! 
• Providenciales Vacation. Only 11 weeks to go till I head to the Turks and Caicos. Laying under an umbrella, wearing 100 spf sunblock, reading books and watching the waves... I can hardly wait.