Back from Vacation

 

So Tuesday was my first day back from vacation. It wasn't a great vacation, let alone good. Between my mother repeatedly calling from the hospital either wanting clothes or just angry calling, it was marked by appointments or visiting my mother. So it was not very relaxing. I have a little under 3 weeks to go before my next vacation. I enjoy taking most of my vacations a little later in the year.

I wore a few of my perfumes that I don't exactly get to wear too often. I was wearing more of the bombastic perfumes like Lyric, Number One Intense and Nuda. I figured that if I am going to be on vacation, why not wear my louder ones and it wasn't hot and humid so a louder perfume was and is easier to wear.

Was I able to make progress with my candle collection? The only progress that I was able to make was finishing that Winter candle from Bath and Body Works and start a Sun Drenched Linen from Bath and Body Works in single wick form. I was hoping to make more progress with that but between all the appointments, phone calls and other bigger projects, it wasn't really possible to do.

Even my Kindle was being an ass. I wasn't able to watch Prime Video for some reason and after talking to Amazon, I had to do the option of last resort and that was resetting my Kindle to factory settings. Let's just say that I wasn't to happy with that. I could have used my Fire stick but with my mother always calling or the appointments, the Fire stick was a bigger pain in the ass for pausing movies and shows that I was willing to go through.

So now, things are getting a little more back to normal. The only things that are different is how my mother is still in the hospital and we have a holiday weekend coming up. I am planning to go to the county fair on Sunday and eating a bunch of junk food and seeing the animals. I do not plan to go with one of my friends though. He is more interested in a certain section of the fair with the folks that take pictures of wildlife. I have no problem going over there and looking at the pictures and talking to them for a couple minutes. I do take issue with the fact he wants to rush me through so he can do nothing but deep fried Oreos, eat from the Italian food stand and see if there is a way he can get business for his photography stuff. So he seems to take away the enjoyment from anything because he wants to use certain events to see if he get an opportunity to make money. I asked him once if he can just enjoy fairs and festivals with friends and family without looking for ways to bullshit or bully his way into some kind of minor side hustle. If he wants to keep friends and family in his life , he has to give it a rest. I want to enjoy small things like that. I have enough problems and want to try and enjoy something, even if it is something small.

Subscriptions

 

Every so often, I do look at subscription services and if they look like they might be worth the money, I look for a free trial. It seems like I have become more aware of subscription services. I have been a Prime member since the beginning of time and ever since Amazon stepped up their game with Prime, I started to take notice. Then it was Barkbox and my dogs love their Barkbox. Wal-Mart Plus is questionable and I am debating on if I should discontinue the Wal-Mart Plus since I don't see any worthwhile benefit to it.

For a while, I have been taking a look at the Sephora same day delivery subscription. When it was offered for free around Christmas, I decided to give it a whirl to finish off a Christmas gift. While I didn't subscribe to the free 30 day trial then, I kind of liked it but it saved my bacon on Christmas Eve and I forgot about it. But a few days ago, I decided to give it a go. I was completely out of my retinol and was almost out of one of the shampoos that I like and figured what do I have to lose? While I ordered the shampoo and retinol, I threw an Infusion d'iris travel spray. My order arrived pretty quickly and I was impressed with that. Even though Ulta doesn't offer a same day delivery subscription like Sephora, I can order at 6am and I might not get it until 7 or 8pm. So it is Sephora for the win for prompt delivery.

After 30 days, I will have to make a choice on if I want to keep the same day delivery from Sephora. At the end of the day, it would only cost me $50 per year to keep it. I don't think that that is a bad price for what is being offered. If you are a huge Sephora shopper, I think that this is a pretty good deal. I am becoming a bigger Sephora shopper than I have been in the past and I do think that this would be worth the $50 per year. If my math is correct, you would only have to use it 7 times before it pays for itself. On Sephora, same day delivery is $6.95 per delivery.

It's getting to the end of August and normally, I have already hit the threshold to keep my diamond status with ULTA but I am only 27% there. So I am probably not going to hit that by the end of December. I am only $60 from maintaining my VIP status on Sephora for the next year.So with the same day delivery subscription, Sephora is starting to become a little more of my go to for some of my beauty needs. Now if they sold Lush and have No. 5 in extrait form, I would be a fairly happy camper.

The 2nd Vacation

Yesterday was the beginning of my 2nd vacation of the year and began with a shaky start. My mother is in the hospital yet again. It seems like with every medication change something seems to go wrong and she ends up in the hospital. I am thinking of she might be more sensitive to medication changes and yesterday's visit wasn't great and it looks like today will not be a great day to visit. So I will stay away today and take care of things at home, like grocery shopping since I am just about out of quite a bit of things.

But being on vacation means that I can wear what perfumes that I want. I was starting to get a little aggravated at wearing Cheirosa 62 for the days that I work. So with yesterday being my first day, I wore Nasomatto Nuda. I was game for a massive jasmine bomb and I am thinking about wearing Lyric today and haven't worn that in a while or maybe Jubilation 25.

What I am hoping to do is to burn a couple candles this week, granted that the only things that I can't miss is my dog's surgery tomorrow and my dental appointment on Thursday. The dental stuff is just a cleaning and nothing major. If they want to do any kind of fillings, it is going to have to be a no. It's not so much about the money but it is supposed to be just a cleaning. The last time I was at the dentist, it was supposed to be checking how I was healing and they checked that but decided to take care of a small cavity. I just don't want to spend any more time in the dentist chair than I need to.

But back to the candles. Every time I make any kind d of promise, I back slide a little bit. I have used up 3 candles and then Bath and Body Works has some kind of promo. I took advantage of their BOGO candle sale and had to replenish my Honeycrisp Apple candles. I did want to get a couple more but it wasn't exactly a great idea. And yesterday, there was a promotion for the foaming hand soaps and I used my reward for a Sweet Whiskey single wick. The apple candle I got is only available in 3 wick form. So it is back on the bandwagon of no buy for candles right mow.

My big annoyance for the past few days was my Kindle. Everything except the Prime Video app worked and worked just fine. I did just about everything except the restore to factory settings. I was hoping that customer service would have a different solution nut as it turns out, it was the only solution. But when I did the factory reset and went through the whole rigamarol of putting in the WiFi password and entering my Amazon imfo, everything on my Kindle works just fine at the moment. 

So now it is off to get a shopping list together and get the said shopping done.
 

Sezzle and Getting Older

I don't know how this got to be somewhat of a financial review spot. I still am not in with PayPal, Klarna or Affirm and I am okay with that. But somehow, Sezzle decided that I would be worthy enough to be able to use $150.

Let's just say that it works like Afterpay and Zip or like any BNPL service. Like Zip, you do have to pay a $4 finance charge. With Afterpay, I am not spending $4 to use the platform and maybe be able to use the limit I have been given. So, like Zip, I can pay some bills with it, if I am running short of funds but it won't be something I would use often.
 

Getting older sucks. At the ripe old age of 42, my knees are starting to bug me and I am not thrilled with the prospect of having to make a doctor's appointment for knees that hurt. But I fell on one knee and that one really isn't getting much better. Nor am I thrilled with the idea of having to make an appointment for a dermatologist for getting some skin tags removed before I start picking at them. I am not going to worry about my hair turning gray but I do want the hair on my chin to disappear and will look.into that nut that isn't quite so important.

Getting older sucks when one gets excited about finding really good deals, especially online for very basic stuff like toothpaste or shampoo. And I have taken to deal shopping for stuff like that. Since I put discretionary spending on hold, I have to get a little bit excited about something.

It was either Thursday or Sunday, I wore Epic 56 from one of the two dabbers that I have. When I visited my mother in the hospital that day, she said that I smelled really good. But for a good long while, I couldn't place which perfume Epic 56 reminded me of. Then it eventually came to me. Epic 56 is a fancier version L'Air du Desert Morrocain. It has been a while since I have worn the original Epic and LADDM but I am sure that the original Epic would be the same thing.

Shopping

I have been working on curbing needless shopping, especially when it comes to things that I do not need. Let's say it is really difficult to do. I have made progress but I did back slide on that a little bit. My mother ended up in the hospital on Friday night and they say she might be coming home on Thursday. So I did back slide a little bit and after looking back on the past month, it is starting to look like it's been marginally more than a little bit. 

The things that were on the excessive side were those two Luckyscent orders. One was the Hiram Green sample set and the second order was the spray decants of the two new Andy Tauer releases. The Bath and Body Works order was on the excessive side too, in its own way. I didn't need that single wick candle or those three hand soaps. They might have been on sale but I still didn't need them. I am having a hell of a time trying to use up what I already have. I am hoping that I can make progress on the candle that I started three weeks ago.

The past Prime Day, I was getting some of the essentials. You know, the boring stuff like vitamins and toothpaste. So I did find the vitamins that I really wanted and used my gift card for that and a set of jasmine and gardenia candles. Those two candles are little and would make either a house warming gift or a birthday gift. The good thing is that I haven't hit up Ulta or Sephora. I know that I am probably going to lose my diamond status at Ulta this year and I am okay with that. I will just have to remember to use those points before the end of the year.

Since I am getting back on track, I have to really behave these next few weeks. I have a vacation coming up and I want to make sure that I do have some kind of fun money for it. On Sunday, I did.notice that I was getting low on the chai reach concentrate. When  I was starting the checkout process, there was something that popped up about bed sheets. I do need some bed sheets but it wasn't that night on the priority list. But I did cave and got some new bed sheets in black. I don't know what possessed me to chose black, but I did.

The only good thing right now is that I haven't gotten a full bottle of anything at this point.

Amazon Prime Day 2025

Since we have gotten through another Amazon Prime Day, I have some thoughts on Amazon. Amazon used to be a website that used to sell only books way back in the day when online shopping really wasn't much of a thing. So I have been shopping from Amazon for quite a while. Eventually, Amazon became this huge thing.and I became Prime member. Back in the day, I would have to wait the better part of a week before I got my books and it was the shipping cost was atrocious but as online shopping evolved, so did Amazon.

For quite a while, I was a Prime member off and on but for the past couple years, I have stuck with Amazon Prime. With how much Prime shows I watch and how much my dad likes the 2 day shipping, it's worth it. But for the past couple Prime Days, I haven't been too interested. This year, I did spend a little bit but not much. I ordered a 4 pack of spearmint tooth paste, 2 bottles of hair and nail vitamins and a video game for my dad to give on his birthday. Do you know how hard it is to find spearmint toothpaste? It is pretty difficult. When I got my package, the game and toothpaste were correct but what I got instead of the vitamins that I ordered, I got Poo Pourri. That is nowhere near what I ordered. I chatted with Amazon and wondered how vitamins and the Poo Pourri were similar. I got a refund via an Amazon gift card and I didn't have to return the wrong item. I can use the Poo Pourri as a gag gift. I did have to download a couple songs that I was thinking of getting.

But last week, I did get some things accomplished. I went through all of my clothes and got rid of what I didn't want and organized the rest of it. Do you k ow how hard it was just to even get started on just my closet? It was rough. It was a grand total of three and a half black trash bags of clothes for donation. I wasn't quite so willing to go through my makeup and perfume to see what can be either donated or possibly sold. I did find a place that will accept the candles that I do not want but I do have to sit down and really think about what needs to go and what stays.

 

Lush Sleepy Review

 

Since I have used up my Lyric hand lotion and shower gel, I decided to start something new in terms of body stuff. I still have the Lyric body butter and even though I don't have a lot left, I am hoarding it. Right now it's the Lush Sleepy shower gel and body lotion.

I do have the Lush Rose Jam body wash but not the lotion of Rose Jam. I think that Rose Jam has a gift set on ULTA and I will eventually check it out but right this second.

I had a dentist appointment on Monday and wanted something a little more calming. Going to the dentist is always rough for me because it never seems to be good news when I go.

Sleepy is a lavender dominant line up but it's nothing to loud. Sometimes lavender can be loud but Sleepy is not loud in anyway shape or form, it is soothing. I can't say that it made me sleepy but made.me feel calmer. I did find that the body lotion felt a little greasy on me for a good long while. The greasy aspect took me by surprise because my skin is really dry and sucks up lotion like it is going out of fashion. Sleepy is a little loud when I first apply it but quickly calms down. 

For a while after my dentist appointment, I had the bright idea or remembered the bright idea of layering Sleepy with Jicky. Jicky is a slutty lavender bomb. I couldn't find my spray bottle of the edp but found some last dregs of a Jicky extrait that I had gotten at Saks Fifth when I was first starting out in my perfume journey 15 years ago. Granted that this was a sample of what was the current extrait at the time.  I don't even know if Guerlain still makes the extrait of anything anymore. Let's just say that the Jicky extrait that I had and Sleepy play together beautifully. This combo is something that I would do again when I find my full spray bottle of Jicky or just say to hell with it and pull out my monster bottle of vintage Jicky. My monster bottle of vintage Jicky is probably the last time that Guerlain had the tear drop bottle of anything. Now I am wondering if Iris Silver Mist would play nicely with Sleepy.