Make-up Counter Women

Can you trust them?

Rach and I happened to be in town the other day, I wanted some eyeliner, in brown, that was my goal for the day! We wandered through Debenhams and into the "beauty hall" and started browsing. I squeeed over the new Benefit counter (I have an obsession, what can I say!) and then stopped by Urban Decay. They had some awesome eyeshadow palettes with some really bold, striking colours in them, and the counter woman offered to do my eyes for me, so I could see how they looked on my skin.

Bonus! I said yes of course, well, why not. I tried out Fishnet and Ransom, two brilliantly pigmented purples.
While she was doing my eyes, the lady commented that I had really good skin. Without sounding conceited, this isn't the first time a counter lady has said this, at the Benefit counter in Leeds Boots they said the same thing, but I never take them seriously! They're there to sell products, and I just hear a ploy to sell me something. Am I being silly? Maybe they genuinely think I have great skin (a thousand thank yous to Lush skincare if so!). I just find it hard to trust the opinion of someone who's job is to sell.

I ended up getting two things from Urban Decay - the eyeshadow palette I tried, and a set of super bright eyeliner pencils. Then I swung by the Gosh cosmetics rack, and grabbed some more eyeliners. Let's just say, I've enough eye colours to last me a long long while now, especially considering my recent purchase from Coastal Scents *blush*
I also noticed a small small sign on the Urban Decay counter. They're doing a makeup evening, where the counter people help you learn which colours work for you, help improve your application techniques and so on. It costs €40 for the evening, which is then redeemable against UD cosmetics purchases on the night. I'm very tempted, but then, can I trust them to tell me the truth...

I've always been interested in make-up, and I've recently become the make-up artist for a friend of mine. He's started doing drag, and needed some help in the "face" department, so I stepped up and volunteered. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying the process each week, using bold colours, trying out new things, and it's made me more creative with my own style at the same time, so much so, that I buy mad eyeshadow palettes with insane colours in, and actually consider wearing them outside the house! Stay tuned for my Pride look, something a bit special for the parade! :)

The house that almost was ...

Ever since my recent run-in with our landlord (a small conflict over the hoovering and so on, that he yelled about on a "drop-in" visit - long story!) we've been looking at houses, to buy, wondering if we could do it.

I started looking at mortgages, and with our wages, we are approved in principal for some fairly hefty sums of money. This got us a bit excited, if we can get a mortgage, we can buy a house! So we started looking. I like modern houses - but I also like a bit of quirk and interesting-ness too. Older houses tend to come with problems, and since we don't have family close-by to help us out with issues, modern seems to be the way to go. I heard about the site chap.ie on the radio, and started idly browsing, seeing what was available in the area.

We started looking in the village we live in at the moment, it's somewhere we know, and like, and we're comfortable here, but sadly, the prices are just a little beyond what we'd really like to pay. Which is a shame, because there are some nice houses round here! (For example this one, this one and even this one)

So one afternoon I just checked out all the available developments around Cork. We're not tied to a specific area, we have our own car, so transport isn't an issue, and we don't have to rely on buses or trains to get to work. So we could pretty much go anywhere, and this opened up a whole host of opportunities. Then one particular development caught my attention. Mullavale, in Castletownroche.

The thing that really got me about this place, was that it was an "eco-build". By that I don't mean it has a grass roof and a reed bed for it's own water filtration, nothing quite so eco! But it's designed and built with a higher level of energy efficiency in mind. I like that, that means we save money on heating! It even has a really cool wood-pellet stove in the living room, that serves as a focal point much like a fire would, but also, acts as the central heating boiler. Nifty!

The boiler even goes with the colour scheme we had always wanted to put in our living room, black and red! It was like fate.

We booked a viewing, and were really excited to go and have a look round, check out the village, and try and picture ourselves living in our own house! Imagine that! The viewing didn't disappoint. The furniture and decoration weren't exactly to our taste, but that's fine, it's just a show house, we could do anything we wanted in our own version! Paint the walls! Put up shelves! Design our own kitchen. After 10 years of renting, these are big things, trust me.

We set to arranging finance the very next day, our hearts in our mouths as we phoned the bank and applied for a loan to cover the deposit. Sadly, through one thing and another, we've never had a chance to put away savings. For nearly 4 years we had only one wage, and everything that was earned went on living costs, so our savings are fairly pitiful. We prayed and prayed that the bank would look at our history with them since we moved to Ireland, and agree to loan us the money.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be, I guess in the current climate, we're just too risky. We don't have enough credit at the moment, to show we can responsibly pay back money. How stupid is that? So, having spoken to a friend who had the same issue, she recommended another bank, who had happily given her a loan when our own bank hadn't. We tried again, with less excitement and anticipation, knowing that the answer would likely be no. And we were right, still no luck.

This story doesn't have a happy ending yet, we're still renting, and still don't have the deposit to put down on the house we have totally fallen in love with. We might try the Credit Union, but at this point, we're really not expecting a different answer. So for now, we will keep saving, and hope that in a year, we're in a better position, and that phase 2 of the development is well underway, and we can book one of the houses in that phase instead. I just hope they don't go back to pre-recession prices, otherwise we'll be needing another €60,000 overall. Ouch!

Retro Style

My dad came to visit a few weeks ago (and I didn't take a single picture, stupid of me!) and while he was here, he mentioned that he had been scanning all the photos of our old photo scrap books from my mums house. Of course I begged for the pics on CD, and they arrived today! Yay!

Here are some of my favourites.

Me and my dad at the beach. :)

Me on my rocking horse, I believe it was a birthday present.

Me and my mum sitting on the little bridge over the stream at my Grandma and Grandads cottage.

I'm going to upload the full lot to Flickr shortly. It's so cool to have access to all these pictures again, and this is only from the first half of the albums.

What we woke up to!

Snow!

Not a huge amount, but snow none-the-less! Was an interesting drive to work, and now I'm going to have to make up some time afterwards. Hopefully, it won't get worse before I go home, not sure the car will get up the 3 hills to home otherwise. :)

Speedy update

I realise I have been slack lately, and I apologise. There's been lots of changes at home, and I've ended up with very little PC-time! Which is why I'm taking a sneaky break at work to post this. :)
One place I've managed to keep up-to-date, is Twitter, I have become a Tweet-o-holic of late! Such a simple system, but damn, it's fun! I use Tweetdeck at home, and Twitterfox at work to keep up to date with my tweets. Feel free to follow me as you wish.

Workwise - I got promoted. No longer a frontline monkey, I'm now part of the team that grade, coach, and train the frontline monkeys! Taking the best parts of my previous job, and helping other people improve. It's very much "me", and the pace of work is awesome. It used to be a case of a constant flow of work, no downtime other than a lunch break, and it was making me very stressed. Now I have a weekly quota, and I plan my own time accordingly. The hours are very different, I finally have a "real" working week! No more shifts for me. Just plain old Monday-Friday, 9-6. Unfortunately, Rach is still on shifts, but she's at least managed to switch teams, so she now works Tuesday-Friday, 12-11.

Rach and I recently returned from a trip to her parents. We had a really great time, catching up with family, and did a lot of shopping! I finally got to visit the B Never store in Leeds too, and wow, it didn't disappoint. I'm more hooked than I was before! My favourite purchase has to be the Ding Dong box set, of 21 liquid eyeshadows! I use them as bright eyeliner, and am having lots of fun experimenting.The other major change, is our new regime/lifestyle/whatever you want to call it. Choosing healthier options, consciously cutting out on "junk" food, and regular visits to the gym over the road! It's costing us a fair whack to join, which we are hoping will be extra motivation to go. To help us track our progress, and also hopefully get support, we're blogging our slimming journey as we go. In the next few days Chicka Cuccina will get updated with our goals, and loads of other details. Rach and I will both be blogging there, so please follow us, comment, and give us plenty of encouragement along the way!

For now I shall bid you all adieu. Have a great Wednesday!

would like to let everyone know that her mobile is on the blink. Call me at home if you need me!

has misplaced her Holga in the move, and is quite saddened by this. :(

is carrying around a box of tissues, and feeling a bit sorry for herself

hmm, awake a bit earlier than planned, oh well! guess I'll do more levelling then.

off to make cranberry sauce, and get the chestnuts soaked and peeled!

Etsy shopping goodness!

Today I have been spending money in a virtual way (sadly, it's real money I'm spending!). Firstly I bought some things on Freckled Nest:

A 6x6 album, a tiny photobooth album, and a minibook it! Very cute, can't wait for them to arrive, as with all my Freckled Nest purchases! While I'm here, I should mention that they are having a 50% sale this weekend - Friday 24th October to Tuesday 28th, so if there's anything you've had your eye on, now's the time to buy! The shop can be found at: http://www.FreckledNest.etsy.com

I've also been checking out ideas for advent calendars, and figuring out what I want to make (because I know I want a personal one, not a generic cheap chocolate job from the supermarket!) I think the idea we love the most so far is something along the lines of the project shown in this blog. I think we're going to put magnets on the back, and use the fridge as the "base" for the calendar! We're also going to take half the boxes each and fill them, so that we get a surprise every other day! :) So I'm also on the hunt for some small fun little things to hide in boxes, any ideas gratefully received!

Lush have also announced the winners of the forum vote for fragrances, and there are at least three that we want, and they all come with matching body lotions! *drools* so .. ouch! Credit card spending ahoy.

Of course add to this that we're in the throws of moving (and so far, nothing, absolutely nothing, is packed!), trying to organise to be without internet for the shortest time possible in the new house, and Rach and I have had a killer cold this week, and well, we're having a real fun time of it at the moment! But once we settle into the new house it's going to be amazing. Christmas is coming up, we're hoping to have a tree for the first time in years! We're also looking at using the deposit on our old house to buy ourselves a cheap run around since we're moving further out of the city. It's going to be well used I think!

New shoes!

I've always hated buying shoes, I have size 9 feet (UK size) and in general, ladies shoes stop at an 8. Very few are made bigger, and generally, the "old lady" styles, the kind you often see advertised in the colour supplement of the Sunday newspaper .. you know the ones I mean!

Anyway, since moving to Ireland, I have been rather blessed, the local cheap shoe shop (ie fashion styles that only last the season they're fashionable in, if you're lucky!) actually stock their entire ladies range in a size 9! I can buy any shoes I want, and cheaply, and I love it!

These are my latest buy, they're a lot like a pair of Vans I really wanted (but predictably couldn't get in my size) so I'm happy with that. They won't last, and I know they won't, but they only cost €20, so it's no real loss.

I'm also working on a small fun project, which is vaguely work related. We have a halloween fancy dress competition every year, and this year I'm in charge of making part of the costumes for our team. I need to find a way to create speech bubbles for each of us, and attach them to us. Requires some logical thinking!

Ooops!

Just noticed my recently played tracks thing too, I must remember that everything I play at home gets Scrobbled!

LeoMonkey's Recently Played Tracks

• The Ting Tings – That's Not My Name
• The Ting Tings – That's Not My Name
• The Ting Tings – That's Not My Name
• The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
• Kate Nash – Foundations (Full Explicit Version)

Yeh, I kinda like The Ting Tings song! ;)

Introducing..

Baxter (playing with his now favourite catnip mouse toy!)

and Miss Daisy, sat on Rachie's shoulder, checking out her new domain.

They are the latest additions to our family, and we got them this morning! Kimba and Kobi are currently a little unsure what to make of the extra felines in the house, but Kobi at least was making an effort to say hi when they arrived. The babies have a few days of settling in, and then we'll start the process of introductions over the weekend, when they'll be supervised.

Other than that things are ticking along, still looking at pet-friendly homes in the Cork area, and if we find that perfect place, well, we'll be in it like a shot I'm sure!

Tired from a very long weekend!

I realise I have been very slack in updating. Remember I said I was mad-busy? That was to get everything ready for this weekend, for my birthday. :) We had people coming from all over to stay for varying lengths of the weekend, so we needed plans for everything. It was stressful planning, but it's been great fun!

We basically ended up drinking in Fred Zeppelins on Saturday night, after dinner at Zanzibar's on the way out. Then Sunday we had a relaxed bbq at home, and thankfully, the Irish weather stayed away and we had some glorious sunshine! A great time was had with good food, plenty of booze, and lots of time on the Wii! All the photos are available at Flickr, and some of the best are below! Normal blogging service shall resume this week!

Mmm. pear cider!


BBQ lunch


Guitar Hero was popular!


Oh dear?

Dinner at Zanzibar's

Dysons are <3

When we first moved into our place in Cork, we had this rug on the floor. However, at that time, we didn't have a hoover, since we had no soft floors (all marble tile and laminate) we figured we could make do with a broom. How wrong we were! The poor rug, seemed to attract all the fluff and dust and hair from all over the house, and ended up being, well, almost black!

So, we took it up off the floor, since we had no way of sweeping it clean for the time being. Now, very recently we purchased a Dyson DC20 Animal. Since we realised that our broom sweeping efforts were just moving the fluff piles around. This weekend I spied the rug, rolled up behind the door, and figured I would do a little experiment. So down it went, and hoover it we did (for about an hour, and we emptied the Dyson bin 3 times I might add! Ewwwww!)

However, it is now beautifully cream and beige once more, and it's sooo nice having it back on the floor. It defines the living room from the kitchen and as you can see, the cats love rolling around on it, and can now often be found sitting at our feet while we watch tv!

Bad Blogger!

I've been terrible at updating this past week, it's been mad busy! Lots of things to catch up on though, so here's a quick round up:

* The labret is healing nicely, got some new jewellery on the way from Stu that should help too (a soft Bioplast labret stud, to reduce teeth banging!)
* My Holga finally arrived, and I found a really lovely shop in town that sells film, and develops it, so we're all set for pretty pictures coming Soon™
* The mini album project kit from Leigh-Ann arrived. It was so cute opening it up, everything was wrapped up so nicely! I was so busy diving in, I didn't take any pictures, bad bad me! Rach and I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon constructing our new album. The basics are all done, now we have the fun journaling additions to make, hopefully this weekend.
* I won a competition! Retro Lush released their second movie, with over 100 current and discontinued product names in. I managed to find the 75 required, and dashed to the shop in Cork to claim my prize. I was the first one there, and won the Retro gift box #2. :D


We're also busy planning for my birthday get-together later this month. We have people flying in from different places, on different days, people staying different lengths of time so I have a major list of chores, who to pick up from where and when, and meal plans so we can feed everyone! Hopefully we have enough camp beds and sofa space for everyone to get some sleep. :) It's going to be a crazy weekend (more of a week actually, I've even booked some holiday!) but so so cool to catch up with people I've not seen (some I've not seen for months, some for over 2 years, and one we've never met face-to-face!). I'm very excited, and in full-on stressed planning mode to make sure it all goes perfectly.

Damp and Damper!

As Rach and I got up this morning, we both heard the very distinctive noise of Cork getting pissed on from above! We looked at each other, we had plans today, to go to the piercer/tattooist before work, and also pick up Rachie's phone from the service centre.

Having got ready to go, it stopped raining, so we made a break for it into the outside world. No more than 10 paces up the road, the heavens opened. Needless to say, after the rest of the 15 minute walk to the service centre, we were damp, to the point of saturation!

It was still a very productive day though, the phone is repaired and working once more. I handed in my example pics and spoke with the tattooist. He understood totally what I was after, and I'm now really excited about finally getting this tattoo done. I've been designing it in my head for about 5 years!

AND....

*drumroll*

I got my labret pierced! For those not in the know, that means I now have a small stud sticking out under my bottom lip. I was calm and collected, and I think the piercer was more scared than I was. I've been wanting to get it done for about 6 years, but have either chickened out, or not had the money, or the time to travel to the piercer. It looks really cool, my lip is crazy swollen (in a bee sting way that some women pay a fortune in cosmetics and surgery to achieve!) and eating and talking are a little odd at the moment.

I shall try and post a decent shot tomorrow, when it's cleaned up and not quite so gakky!

*bounces away*

Seeing Stars

Rachie made me a provisional booking at the tattooist for the 24th! Yay! I'm going to see the guy before work tomorrow, with my examples, and the big huge ramble about what I'm after, and hope that he doesn't laugh me out of the shop ^^ 100 euros per hour for custom work, so hopefully he's good. A friend at work has had about 36 hours with him since we got to Cork, all custom, so that's a good recommendation to me.

This picture I found while browsing Google images also reminded me that my friend Pui at school used to make stars like this for us. I used to have loads of them in my pencil case at all times! Odd how you can suddenly remember things like that.

Hope you're all having a great week. I might have a surprise tomorrow ^^

Ooops

This is actually yesterdays post, and I forgot to publish it. Whoopsie.

Rach got me this cute little set of perfumes from Be Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful at the weekend. It was actually a birthday present (my birthday is next month) but since I knew she was going to visit the shop while she was in England, I had asked for it specifically, and she was too excited and wanted me to have it now! Today I'm wearing Ladyboy, which is a really yummy smell. Unusual, but yummy. I think I'm going to go with Keep it Fluffy as my perfume of choice though. It's sweet in a different way, and very me.

She took a whole bunch of pictures at the shop, since I've never had the opportunity to visit one, and it looks every bit as magical as I expected it to be. They're the sister company of Lush cosmetics, and have the same ethos, natural, handmade, cruelty free (and that means the whole process, raw ingredient to finished product, not like a number of so-called cruelty free products available). You can see all the pics on her Flickr.




Saturday:

Today is going to be crazy-busy at work. I don't usually work Saturdays, but they changed my weekends to cover for the Worldwide Invitational that we're running this weekend. There are new game announcements and all sorts going on and the tickets are going to be insane I'm sure. Long, tiring, stressful day, but then I have 2 days off to kick back with Rach, so I'm really looking forward to that. We're finally going to see Sex and the City as well. Yay!

If you're into gaming and Blizzard games in particular, below are some sites to get info and details on what's going on this weekend. Have a great weekend all, and think of me, hammering away at the keyboard for the next 11 hours!

http://www.blizzard.com
http://www.wow-europe.com
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com
http://www.mmo-champion.com