Bookworming: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Hello there! I'm still catching up with reviews of my book haul last November, so I'm making this short and sweet.

After Eleanor & Park and Attachments, I went straight to Fangirl. It's Rainbow Rowell's most recent book, and it proved to be a quick read. Like her first two books, I couldn't put this one down. I just felt like I wanted to know what happens next and I didn't have the willpower to wait.

Beauty Barrage: Manicure Monday - Hello Summer Polish

Here in the tropics, summer arrived about a week or two ago. I was feeling the heat already last week, so I thought I'd welcome my favorite season with fun, bright polish.

I chose an orange shade of course! If you know me or you've been following this blog, you'd know that orange and blue are my favorite colors. I also knew that I would be spending the weekend swimming, and that orange would be really pretty against the blue color of pool water.

I did my nails a few days before and did a late-night rush job of it on Thursday because I had an event to go to on Friday. I picked out Y'All Come Back Ya Hear by OPI from the many orange lacquers in my collection because I knew it would apply easily and I'm not likely to make a mess with it. Despite being manicure-challenged, I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to nails and I can't stand it when manicured digits look uneven or simply don't look as neat as I would like them to. When a polish formula is giving me a hard time, I would take hours just doing my nails over. That's why when I'm in a rush, I pick lacquers that have super smooth, manicure-challenged-proof formulas. 

Home Base: The Life Domestic - Insomnia Busters

For the past few months I've been having a tough time falling asleep at night. My normal sleep time these days is 2am or 3am, and there have been days when I was only able to catch the zzzs at 4am and 5am. There were a couple of times when I was actually up until 7am!

I have always had some form of sleep trouble. There are months when I am perfectly fine and then suddenly, I'm not. The weird thing is that I sometimes fall asleep when I'm not supposed to and I'm actually doing stuff. I've fallen asleep while watching TV, reading a book, and texting on my phone, but this has never happened to me at night.

I figure stress is the main cause of my insomnia problems so I'm mainly trying to be happy and not worry too much. I've also stopped having any form of caffeine in the evenings, and sometimes I just have warm milk instead. I also try to relax at night now. I avoid cramming work and pulling all-nighters if I can help it. I am also currently trying to stop surfing on my phone whenever I can't fall asleep because it only makes me even more awake.

There are three things however that have helped me immensely. I call them my insomnia busters. Note that I have never considered sleeping pills, and I've only been trying natural remedies. Here's a rundown.

Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Herbal Tea
This tea is wonderful at helping me get drowsy. I first tried chamomile tea in Shanghai and I was really surprised then that it made me really sleepy. When I started having bouts of insomnia, I tried the K-cup version for the Keurig, and thought it was even better than plain chamomile tea!

It's a blend of chamomile, spearmint, and lemongrass, that's why it's so good. Other ingredients include tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn, and rosebuds, which give it such a soothing scent and flavor. We only had a limited number of the K-cups though and have yet to find a seller here. Luckily, I found the tea bag version at the grocery store and bought a box. Now whenever I still feel active around bedtime, I just steep a bag. This tea really helps me relax before bed. It's a real cup of comfort.

Bookworming: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I got into a big Rainbow Rowell phase last year after I read Eleanor & Park. I loved the book so much, I needed to check out her other books immediately. I wanted to see if they had the same kind of young and fresh but with an edge stories as that of Eleanor & Park.

Well, I wasn't disappointed. I got Attachments and Fangirl, and they were just as addictive. I read both really fast. I wanted to know what happened in the stories that bad. The books were actually part of my book haul last November, but I got caught up reading other books since then and haven't been able to make a lot of book posts. Yep, that's me -- always catching up! 

Let's start with Attachments. Unlike Eleanor & Park, this book isn't YA (young adult). It's like chick lit actually, since it involves a love story and will make you giggle a lot. The story is about Beth and Jennifer, who work at a newspaper office and have a tendency to email each other frequently on the job, and Lincoln, their colleague, who  keeps track of their correspondence.

Beauty Loot: Mini Weekend Haul 03.09.14

This is a quick post to talk about a couple of items I picked up over the weekend. As mentioned in this blog, I haven't been buying much makeup, mainly because I want to save money as well as be able to use up the products in my stash first so that nothing goes to waste. I don't always have that much willpower and self-control though! While I try to stick to the essentials, I sometimes indulge in something nice. I think I'm doing good in balancing my obsession with makeup and being practical though.

The beauty loot I got this weekend is one example of what I'm talking about. One product is a necessity, while the other is a product I've always wanted to try.

• Maybelline The Rocket Volume Express Mascara - I've been using Origins mascara, but it has been with me a while and while it hasn't gotten clunky or funky, I decided to trash it. Mascara only has a shelf life of a few months, so I really needed a new one. I got Maybelline The Rocket because I've been seeing it in YouTube beauty guru channels so much, it must be good. Hopefully, it helps my stubborn straight eyelashes keep their curls.
• Smith's Rose & Mandarin Lip Balm - I've always wanted to try Smith's Rosebud Salve because it's kind of a cult product and a lot of beauty editors swear by it. I had no idea that the brand has arrived in our shores though, until I found it at PCX. It was totally a case of I-had-to-get-it. I'm a sucker for lip balm and I always have a zillion lying around so this was a no-brainer. There were a lot of variants and I was torn between getting the original or Rose & Mandarin. The latter won out because I really can't resist anything orange, and the addition of rose -- which I also love -- made it even more enticing to me. It's also Smith's latest flavor for Spring 2014. 

Can't wait to try these and do a post on them!

For past beauty hauls, check out this tag: Beauty Loot.

Makeup Madness: My Wedding Makeup

Hi! This blog has been quiet this week because I've been busy with work and the wedding blog, That Happy Day. I've started writing about our wedding details over there, just trying to get things done.

This is going to be a "when worlds collide" kind of post. I thought I'd share some things from there that are relevant to The BluePurse, like the What We Wore entry I did in the past. Today is all about the makeup! We chose to go with Japanese brand Shu Uemura for the wedding. I need everything that was used that day in my life! That Happy Day has all the happy details. Here's a sneak peak:

 Product love!

Makeup Madness: The Lipstick Tag

When my friend Sheva tagged me this morning to do the Lipstick Tag, I got really excited. I LOVE LIPSTICK. I can leave the house without any makeup on except lipstick. It's also the perfect time to do this post because I just finished organizing my lipstick stash and unloading the ones that I haven't been using and those that have expired.

This is a chance to talk about my favorite beauty product -- even more so than usual! I decided to spice it up and include some pics, since this is essentially a geek-out post over the makeup I get the most obsessive about. Without further ado, here is my lipstick story.

Me wearing NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in San Paulo