More Exceptional Extraits

It was either yesterday or the day before I had gotten an email from Amouage. Normally, I delete emails from my inbox. I think what made me open the email was the fact that there are going to be more Exceptional Extraits coming out. The email didn't say which ones, so it's going to be a surprise on which ones.

For a long time, I did have a real thing for Amouage. Up until either Honour or Beloved, if Amouage was rolling out a new perfume, I badly wanted to get my paws on it. But after either Honour or Beloved, I really didn''t care so much. I don't know what exactly changed. Maybe it was similar to Serge Lutens. It seemed like both Amouage and Serge Lutens seemed to be releasing perfumes every 6 months or so. So in ways, I lost interest. At the time, I had all the Amouage offerings that I more or less wanted. For a long time, my Amouage holy grail was Lyric. It took me around 2 years to save up for a bottle of Lyric. I don't think that I will ever forget that the lady who ran her online shop, called me and said that she was out of the 50ml bottle that I had ordered and offered me one of the 100ml bottles for the same price. Of course, I jumped at the chance to get a larger bottle. But back to that email.

I am not exactly enthused by getting that email saying that more were going to be released. The sheer cost of those full bottles. Even on discounters, the price is still out there. But I always try to keep in mind that Amouage has never been cheap. But after having the regular extraits and body line pulled from their shelves, my thoughts were that those were either sold out or discontinued. I didn't exactly think about the fact they were shaking things up. The other reason on why I wasn't so enthused is because I don't exactly want Lyric to be on this go around of the Exceptional Extrait releases.

While I did manage to get my hands on a sample of Epic 56 and Honour 43, I wasn't quite head over heels in love. I would like to have a full bottle of Epic 56, it's not so vital for me to find a way to get a bottle. Honour and I have a pretty strange relationship. One minute, I can't get enough of it and then the next minute, I can't stand it. So Honour and mostly avoid one another and I am happy that I could never quite commit to getting myself a bottle. But I do think that I should have just gotten Honour instead of Gold. In theory, I should love Gold because I love no 5 so much but Gold smells like I stepped in dog poop.

Make no mistake, I still love and adore Lyric. My adoration for Lyric is well known. My collection of Lyric is three 100ml bottles, travel spray set and matching soap and lotion. The only thing that I am missing is the extrait bottle that Amouage used to sell a year or two ago. But the reason that I don't want Lyric to be a part of the Exceptional Extrait is the fact that I don't want to have that full bottle craving that will last for years. But knowing on how my luck seems to go, it will be an Exceptional Extrait. If it goes that way, I will probably move heaven and earth just to get my hands on a sample and who knows what I would do to get my hands on a full bottle. I just love Lyric that much. Sooner or later, I will find myself in better financial shape to get a bottle. I am hoping that by year 2026, my finances will be in better shape.
 

The Wonderful World of Grocery Delivery

Ever since I have started to subscribe to Walmart Plus, I had been slowly transferring quite a bit of my grocery shopping to Walmart. Most places that are around me don't have something like Amazon Prime or Walmart Plus and if they do, it's more cash than I am willing to pay. Since I have spent a couple days going through all of my subscriptions and saving myself $50 a month, I am just not willing to spend money on another subscription that I might not use often enough to keep using it. Barkbox, Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus are enough for me.

The reason for Walmart Plus is because of the fact that I don't drive, limited financial means and live in a rural area. So grocery delivery is a lifesaver. With Walmart Plus, I can basically get all the groceries delivered and not have to pay massive amounts in delivery fees. If Walmart doesn't have any item but Target does, I might just bite the bullet and just spend the $10 for delivery. It just depends on how badly I need said item and what is the cost of item is. I might have an Aldi that isn't far from me but it's a pain in the ass to make arrangements to get there for groceries. The grocery store that I work at has gotten a little too expensive and ever since the beginning of Covid, they don't carry about half of what I consume. So Walmart is my only real option. I could go to Target but Target is a little too fancy and a little too expensive for food.

Last night, I knew that I was getting pretty close to not having any of the Tazo Chai Latte concentrate. So I placed a delivery order thinking that everything would be fine. Was it fine? Hell no. I fully expected the $2 fleece throw to be out of stock along with another clearance item and not get those. Somehow I got the clearance items but was only able to get 1 of my Tazo chai. Since I wasn't charged for what I didn't get, I figured that I made the delivery time pretty early, I would place another order since maybe the Walmart closest to me might not have gotten their delivery truck yet and schedule it for much later in the day. Nope, didn't get that either. So now I am having it shipped to me and will have it by Sunday. I have already complained to Walmart about how the website needs updating. If Bath and Body Works can keep their website updated for ordering online and someone picks it up, why can't they? Other companies are able to do that. With all the money Walmart makes, they can't invest the time, money, people and technology to do that? So Walmart just said sorry but tough luck. If something went sideways with an order from Amazon, they would have offered a month of Prime for free. Barkbox would try to find some kind of solution to make it right. All to try and keep a customer. Maybe it is time to revisit the Walmart Plus subscription.
 

It's the New Year

 Now we are in 2025 and my New Year's Eve and day were pretty much low key. I got off work at 8 last night and let me tell you that New Year's Eve can be busier than Christmas Eve in a grocery store. One would think that in my neck of the woods, Christmas would be the bigger deal but ever since Covid, it seems like New Year's has become the bigger deal than Christmas. But I live in a rural area so I can only comment on what I see here and not in the suburbs. My aunts and uncles said that their grocery stores were packed but mine wasn't too horribly busy on Christmas. Maybe because I work in the bakery that now requires 48 hour notice for any kind of order, maybe people started to get their shit together to plan a little better. So after I got off work, I ate dinner, watched YouTube until about 11:30, watched the ball drop and then went to bed. At the age of 42, I am not game for dealing with drunk people in public in bars or driving. Plus, I don't have the tolerance for booze that I used to.

I managed to get New Year's day off and I just hung around at home. You know that mulled white wine thing that I was going to make? That didn't happen. There was too much chaos and drama in the kitchen with the pork roast and potatoes to make that happen. So the mulled wine is going to have to wait another time. But I was kicking around a few ideas for the new year.

My first idea would be to binge watch Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace and Tales of Yanxi Palace. Both of those shows are now on Amazon Prime so I can watch those in my room instead of watching them on my Kindle Fire. At this point, there isn't much on television right now. The new season on All Creatures Great and Small won't air on PBS until the 12th. Call the Midwife won't be on until spring and Grantchester will probably air sometime in the summer.

My second idea is to make a serious effort on using up my Amouage body products. This idea came about when I applied some Epic body butter. The body butters that I have from Amouage haven't gone off in terms of smell but the consistency of the lotion itself has changed. So I want to use the body butters up before the smell goes off. I didn't notice anything when it came to the Amouage soaps though. Yes, I decided that I wanted to go big or go home for the new year, especially since I wore Clinique Happy for New Year's Eve.

My third idea is to start getting back into playing some of my video games. I am still waiting for my Quake II game to arrive but since I am trying to make a concerted effort to reduce my spending, I want to appreciate what I already have. I want to replace window shopping and shopping itself with other things. I know that I can't entirely avoid shopping, I want to do less of it. I want this to be a year of actual change and not lip service.