Just For Fun

The sample lady at TJ’s was giving out tiny cups filled with this fruit-and-cheese duo at last weekend. Connor took two bites and said, “Mama, this is the good-est cheese ever!”

Have you had Asian pears before? They look like apples, but they aren’t. I grew up eating different varieties of them. I think they taste like regular green pears, except they’re crunchier, slightly grainier and slightly more watery… Waterier? And they’re usually a bit sweeter too. The skin is also thicker than regular pears, which I don’t mind, but Connor likes it better when I peel them for her and serve them with the “good-est” cheese, also known as “creamy Toscano,” which TJ’s describes like so: “Trader Joe’s Toscano Cheese combines the robust, nutty characteristics of aged Parmesan with a creamy farmstead Cheddar — a particular profile that allows for maximum fromage flavoring.”

Man, that sounds good, doesn’t it? ? AND IT IS.

Asian pears are all over the place right now. The one I got is a Korean pear, and it’s almost as big as a grapefruit!

We may or may not have eaten the entire thing in one sitting!

I also found this three-pack of Nansui Japanese pears for five bucks at Target.

If you run into one of those Korean pears, you have to try it! Ideally, with cheese. ?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

1. You stash pet hair remover rollers everywhere — inside your bathroom, your car, at work — EVERYWHERE. You may even have mini travel ones stuffed in each and every one of your purses.
2. You’re friends with all the neighborhood cats, and you even know what treats each and every one of them likes/doesn’t like. ?
3. Occasionally, random cats you’ve never seen before will enter you house and kick it with you for a few hours, and you’re totally fine with it. Side note: One time I came home to find a stranger cat on top of my fridge. I called him Katmandu, and he loved bacon.
4. You maintain a list of potential cat names you like, just in case the universe decides to send along another kitty friend. Current names on my list include Sheila E. (my brother lives with a cat named Sheila E. How cool is that?), Baroness Schraeder and Sugar.
5. Even though your heart has broken into a million pieces after the kitty love of your life leaves you, you’re eventually able to make space for another feline friend, and you remember why you love cats so, so much.



6. You’re often surprised by how finicky some cats are about food. Like, one minute they loooooove Sheba Salmon and can’t get enough of it. The next minute (LITERALLY THE NEXT MINUTE), they won’t have anything to do with it. In fact, they’re utterly repulsed by the very idea, and you end up stuck with 24 cans you just ordered from Amazon Prime. ?
7. Teary-eyed, you wonder things like what your friends or family will do with the wooden memorial box of your former cat’s ashes when you pass away…
8. You keep cat treats in your purse…because it never hurts to be prepared.
9. When you come across a new cat in the neighborhood, you immediately bestow a name upon him or her. Because it’s the right thing to do. ??
10. When you find a stranger cat sleeping in the back seat of your car, your first thought is, “Oh, cool. Make yourself at home.” And, yes, this has totally happened to me more than once.
11. You’ve often wished that you could bring your cat with you on family vacations.



12. You have cat-related reminders scheduled on your calendar. (Side note: “Siri, remind me to buy cat litter and litter pan liners.”)
13. When your cat talks to you, you can hear her “voice” in your head, clear as day. ?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict (and cat lady at large),

Karen

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Excellent question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll, like with little clicky buttons. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past quadrillion years (since 2007). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a good start.

1. How skilled are you at using chopsticks?

I won’t be winning the gold at the Chopsticks Olympics or anything, but I can hold my own. I can wield them adequately for sushi, rice and most dishes, but noodles are rough, man!

2. How often do you go to sleep with the TV on?

Never. We don’t have a TV in our room because it’s too stimulating for me. I can’t do it.

3. What comes to mind when you think of ”eyebrows”?

Right now? Super sharp blocky Instagram brows, but only because we were talking about them at the bakery the other day.

4. What comes to mind when you think of ”cabbage”?

Corned beef. LOL! And Cabbage Patch Kids. And this dude my high school friend Cindy dated for, seriously, a day (she claims he smelled like cabbage, which is part of the reason she broke up with him).

5. Describe your favorite sweatshirt.

Girlfriend, I’m wearing it right now. It’s a mauve sweatshirt by Wander Beauty, and it says “Off Duty” in rose gold letters. It’s about two sizes too big for me, but it’s warm and super comfortable, and I seriously live in it!

Sweet thang

Yet another important question for you: WHO WANTS CAKE FOR BREAKFAST?

(Hiya and happy Monday, by the way.) 🙂

My mom recently turned 71, so we took her out to brunch to celebrate, and then we popped over to my house for dessert.

I made her Italian cream cupcakes, which were a hit with my fam-bam.

Have you had an Italian cream cake or cupcake before? If you haven’t, you have to grab a slice ASAP…and then grab another and save it for breakfast the next morning. 🙂 Ha.

Seriously! It’s the best cake to have first thing in the morning with coffee. It’s a fluffy butter-based cake with shredded coconuts and pecans, topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting… The light melt-in-your-mouth texture comes from whipped egg whites, which are folded into the batter. Since it’s a butter-based batter, it’s a little more finicky and requires more steps to make than an oil-based batter, so it takes as little more time and effort, but if you’re in the mood for it, it’s worth it.

I posted this recipe as a cake (rather than a cupcake), 10 years ago here on MBB (!), and it’s still one of my favorite cakes to this day.

Today’s my day off from the bakery, so I’ve got lots of writing and makeup testing on my plate. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you get to ease your way in back into things. It’s tough getting back into a regular routine after the holidays, isn’t it?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy/paste with your answers in a comment. Talk to ya soon.

1. How skilled are you at using chopsticks?
2. How often do you go to sleep with the TV on?
3. What comes to mind when you think of ”eyebrows”?
4. What comes to mind when you think of ”cabbage”?
5. Describe your favorite sweatshirt.

How you doin’, Caturday?!

I’m low-key thrilled right meow because of this unexpected discovery I found on the bottom of my Trader Joe’s New Hampshire shopping bag, which I got in one of the Trader Joe’s 1-2-3 Mystery Packs before Christmas.

It’s a — wait for it! — recipe for a maple bacon sundae. ???

How cool is this? I may never have seen it if it hadn’t been for my coworker, who also got the same bag in her Mystery Pack. She was maneuvering her New Hampshire bag sideways into the trunk of her car one day to make it fit, and that’s when she spotted the recipe on the bottom.

I swear, this bag keeps on giving…

I’m into salty-sweet combos, so I would totally get down with this sundae in a heartbeat, but when I told El Hub about it, he was grossed out and compared it to putting mint chocolate chip ice cream on ground beef…which, yeah, makes my stomach turn. But I still feel like the vanilla and bacon would work together in a sundae, because the vanilla is like a blank canvas, right? Hmm… What do you think? Yummy? Disgusting?

On that note, your Saturday reading…

• Is one of your makeup goals for 2020 to KonMari your collection (HELLO, ME!)? These storage ideas could help you quickly organize your stash. (I like the idea of the drawer inserts.)
• These eight tips to not look like you’re hungover are also good for not looking tired in general, methinks.
• What is vitamin F, and what can it do for your skin?
• Do you see any of your favorites on this list of the most popular nail polish shades of the decade (hi, Essie Mint Candy Apple!)?
• Speaking of nails, here are seven different types of manicures! (Side note: I’ve gotten a salon gel manicure before, and it trashed my nails.)
• Fun fact: Charlotte Tilbury wears makeup to bed.
• California becomes the first state to officially ban natural-hair discrimination.
• Oud, a resin used in perfumes, is often referred to as “liquid gold.”
• When is it officially too cold for your cat to go outside?
• I wanna try the Bioderma Atoderm stick ASAP.
• Writer and mom Christine Barberich gets candid about things that happen to your face when you turn 50.
• Derms say this is what *really* works for dry winter skin (hint: petroleum jelly).

Connor has a dance recital next week, so I’m off to take her to rehearsal now. What are you up today? I hope you’ll have some time to yourself to relax.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Before things went absolutely bonkers beneath a cloud of powdered sugar and flour at the bakery right before Christmas, there was a brief lull, during which my coworkers and I talked about our New Year’s Eve traditions — ya know, things our families do to ring in the New Year.

One tradition that seems to be shared by many families is that of cleaning the house to make it spic and span (or as close to it as possible) before January 1.

Now…I used to do this religiously every December 31. I’d get the floors so clean you could eat off them, but I let that one go a few years ago (around the time Connor Claire arrived)… I’m thinking about doing as much as I can today, though. I want to maximize my luck as we start a new decade. (Side note: When you have a small child, you live in a state of high-functioning exhaustion, always.)

Anyway, I’m going to do as much as I can before the new year starts.

One thing I like to do — which I carried over from my parents — happens right at the stroke of midnight, when we jump up and down and shout “Happy New Year!” repeatedly. Then we open the front door to welcome all of the good luck into our house and our lives. And you do this while holding your cat, of course, so she doesn’t escape into the night! 🙂

At my parents’ house, my mom also does these things, which I don’t know if they’re exclusive to her family or if they’re more of a Filipino thing, but she’ll put 13 coins underneath the welcome mat at the front door for good luck.

They’re usually pennies…but I don’t know if they specifically have to be pennies, or if you can mix and match your change, because my mom is a self-proclaimed cheapskate, and she’s not about to be putting silver dollars or quarters under the mat, LOL! So, yeah, she puts 13 pennies under the mat and leaves them there all year long, then replaces them with fresh coins every New Year’s Eve.

And she’ll also hang a bunch of grapes (13 to be exact!) in the middle of the front door jamb, where they’ll hang all year long. Again, she does this for good luck.

My coworker, who’s also Filipino, said that her family, in addition to opening up the front door and doing the thing with the grapes, would bang pots and pans to scare any evil sprits away at midnight. They’d also throw coins up the staircase (not sure why).

Oh, and food! Growing up, my mom would make this savory rice soup called arroz caldo. It wasn’t my favorite thing to eat because my mom always made it extra gingery, and I reeeeally don’t like ginger (I only like it in sweet baked goods), so I’d sit there and suffer through a few bites while everybody else devoured it.

How about you? What are your New Year’s Eve traditions?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Excellent question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll, like with little clicky buttons. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past quadrillion years (since 2007). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a good start.

1. First thing you wash in the shower?

Totally depends on the scenario. (Side note: Leave it to me to make a shower complicated, HA HA HA!) If I’m wearing makeup, then the first thing I’ll wash is the makeup from my face using an oil-based cleanser…but I won’t officially “wash” my face with my Fresh Soy Cleanser until the very end of my shower, because it’s just easier for me to remove my makeup at the beginning when my face is still dry, which is why I do it. 🙂 Then, I’ll wash my face with the Fresh Soy after I’ve shampooed and conditioned my hair (so I don’t end up with any leftover hair product on my face).

Scenario two: If I’m not wearing any makeup, then I’ll wash my hair first.

Scenario three: If I’m only in the shower to do a quick rinse-off (like after a morning or a midday workout), then I’ll wash my face and neck first.

2. How often do you plan your makeup?

Pretty often… I’d say about half the time, just because I like having a general idea of what I’m going to do before I start; otherwise, I always end up with some variation of the same bronzed neutral look.

It’s my default, and it’s easy. ?‍♀️

3. Are you sarcastic?

Um…no, not normally in print, because it’s just too hard to convey without facial expressions and intonation. In person, however? No, never. /s

4. What color is your favorite lipstick?

Lately, I’ve been all about warm rosy beige with a touch of peach. YES.

5. Would you go sky diving?

If you’d asked me 20 years ago, I would have screamed “YAAASSS!” I did it once a long time ago and had a blast, but it doesn’t sound as fun to me now… Purposefully putting myself in an unnecessarily dangerous situation seems less…appealing now. The world is dangerous enough without me willingly jumping out of airplanes, LOL!

Is it just me…

Or has the “dawn of a new decade” thing turned everything up a notch? Apparently, EVERYONE (including my cat, who’s an extra talkative torbie this morning) is “coming for 2020.” I don’t mind it because I do love a fresh start, although when I do the math, I try not to hyperventilate when I realize that I’ll be in my 50s in 10 years, and Connor will be a teenager (!).

Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve? We’ll be keeping it low-key here and celebrating at home.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy/paste with your answers in a comment. Talk to ya soon.

1. First thing you wash in the shower?
2. How often do you plan your makeup?
3. Are you sarcastic?
4. What color is your favorite lipstick?
5. Would you go sky diving?