October Wrap Up

What a big month October has been!  Emma and Ringo survived football/competition season which included 2 out of town competitions.  One of which had a call time of 4AM.  That means they had to be at the school at around 3:30/3:45 AM.  This wouldn't have been such a big deal but since J was going to the competition he had to leave at about 6.  Not much sleep was had by anyone that day.
The Tornado survived his first illness that was caught from school and then promptly gave it to me.  He was sick for about 6 hours on a Sunday.  I was fighting the death cold for about 2 1/2 weeks.  He also survived his very time Trick or Treating.  He had been wanting to be a zombie for a few weeks but then thankfully Daniel Tiger was a sheriff on an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood so we were able to convince him to wear the very cute sheriff costume we had found.  His school had a Wizard of Oz themed party on the 30th and then we went Trick or Treating on the 31st.  He did great about saying Trick or Treat and thank you and then added Happy Halloween on his own which got him some extra candy.  Unfortunately, it started pouring down rain about 20 minutes in but a local church was doing an indoor thing so Halloween was saved.

Chef of the Month - I was surprisingly disappointed this month with Giada De Laurentiis.  Dinner for the month of October were pretty much exclusively her recipes and there were very few things that we really were impressed with.  Most of the food was okay, a couple of things turned out badly but there were only one or two things that were "Wow this is really good".  I did end up ordering Everyday Italian which I got the most use out of.  This one has a lot of good basic recipes including the Alfredo sauce and the tortellini in light broth which were probably our favorites.  Overall it ended up being a pretty uninspiring month of food.  I'm hoping that November will be a little more interesting with The Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten) though I doubt my grocery store level ingredients will be quite good enough for her!

Favorite Beauty Buy:  I've been looking for a daytime red lipstick forever.  I've got a drawer full of attempts but they've all ended up being too orange or too glossy or too something.  Luckily on a spur of the moment trip to Sephora the guy who had spent quite awhile showing me perfumes steered me towards the Sephora brand lipstick in Courtisane.  It's brown enough that it's a neutral but still dark enough to have some impact.  The formula is a little drying but not too bad.  I need to go pick up a second tube to keep in my purse!



Favorite Thrift Store Find: I actually got this at a consignment store but it was in the 75% off section so it was still less than $5.  Last year I was drooling over a shirt at Anthropologie with a teacup pattern.  I finally decided not to get it because $48 was just a little too much for a novelty shirt.  Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled upon that same shirt in my size for less than $5!  If I wasn't already convinced that thrift stores were the way to go this would've done it!

Favorite Beauty Box Product: I had 2 great boxes this month but the product I'm still using the most is from my Ipsy bag.  I'm loving this Sexy Hair Blow Dry Volumizing Hair Gel the most right now.  I rub about a nickle size into the roots of towel dryed hair, then blow dry it for a few minutes with my hair flipped over. I've had no issue with stickiness or greasiness and have gotten the perfect amount of lift and volume.  Love this stuff!

Random Find: J and I were thrilled when we discovered the Daniel Tiger Toys last time we were at a toy store.  The Tornado loves him some Daniel Tiger and is now the proud owner of the trolley and a set of figures.  Daniel's house and O the Owl's treehouse will be joining the collection  on Christmas.  The toys were originally scheduled to come out in spring of 2014 and I was really worried that he would outgrow them by then.