Friday Faves: Lushies Anonymous

Hi friends.

Hi friend!

My name is Kristen and I have a problem.

LUSH. 

LUSH is the best

I blame it all on Brigette. She is a wonderful friend who has a terrible habit of getting me hooked on everything cool. You should all get a friend like her. Furthermore, this nasty habit is perpetuate by my other best friends, Kelli and Pip and Katie. Yeah, you two know why.

So scapegoating aside, LUSH is an amazing bath and body company. They have several schticks that raise them to a somewhat hipster status including vegan products, little to no packaging, ethical ingredient buying, and using recyclable materials. They have products who's proceeds go to charitable causes, and they are involved in various philanthropic endeavors world-wide.

I think that is all well and good, but the products in and of themselves are incredible. Yep, I'm driving this bandwagon y'all.

This is when I walk into a LUSH store.



At first glance, their products look pretty pricey. But you just have to remember what you are getting. A lot of their products last a long time. So in my opinion, you actually get a big bang for your buck.

Also, and this may be hard to hear, but it is time to grow up. When you are in high school and even college, I give you permission to have your drivers permit = Bath and Body Works. But there comes a time in your life (like your move from low-class IKEA) where your probationary period is over, and you move on to the good stuff. LUSH.

I too had my Bath and Body Works heyday. Please note the layers upon layers of B&BW in this photo, this wasn't even all of it.

There is a purpose to this post, and its not because I am so incredibly good at blogging, alliteration, and themed days that I wanted to add a "Friday Faves" to my repertoire. It's because in my STBL, I resolved to write online reviews for 10 products. I know this seems weird, but I am a die hard review reader. It doesn't matter if it is a product I already own, one I want to buy, or a recipe I haven't tried, I have to read the reviews. And I finally decided to pay it forward.

Here are some products that I reviewed. Yes, I am woman enough to admit that all 10 were exclusively for LUSH products. Here are some of my favorites.

My top three favorite products from this collage:

1) Solid Shampoo Bars. I have officially tried 4 of their solid shampoo bars (and one on the way). Besides Squeaky Clean, which yanked my hair out, I love them. They are genius. One bar lasts me literally months of washing. It's small, compact, and light. So for an ex-pat like me it's a no brainer. They clean great, and they smell amazing. Just remember that they aren't 2-in-1 bars, I still follow with a conditioner. NEW! has been my favorite, it smells like Christmas in my shower!

It's not a secret that I have real problems with acne. I've tried lots of different things, but on a YouTube crusade to try something completely different, I found lots of videos of cleansing routines that involved LUSH products. With a shopping list and a lot of questions I went to LUSH when I was finally back in the states.

Here is the thing about LUSH employees, I think they are all on crack cocaine. Most of them are the hippest, happiest, most energetic people ever. They are more than happy to answer all of your questions, and let you try free samples. The woman at the store ended up giving me an hour long facial so I could try out about 8 different facial products. Needless to say it was the best day of my life (sorry wedding).

But that brings me to 2) Fresh Farmacy cleanser. This is a beautiful cleanser that leaves your skin feeling balanced and clean. It smells great too. I don't like cleansers that dry out my face too much, but I don't like ones that don't clean deep enough. Well look no further, Fresh Farmacy is your answer.

This post is getting long, and I could go on forever, but I will leave you gawking at the magical powers of LUSH's fresh face masks. They are about $7 and you get several applications from each one. Because they are so fresh, you can only get them in-stores and you must keep them in the fridge. I think it is best to share it with someone, since they only last two weeks you have to work quick.

I've tried a few different masks. All of them are different and all of them are amazing. I have no share-able photographic proof because I value my life more than posting pictures of my sisters and mom with the masks on. ;) Cosmetic Warrior is amazing, instantly made my skin look more even and less red. My mom was really impressed, but it smells like you washed your face in a garlic press. The smell wears off when you wash it off though, which, I guess if you love garlic, might make you a little sad. If you want to be on the safe side go with 3) Catastrophe Cosmetic, which is not a catastrophe at all but actually makes you want to eat your face because it smells like fresh blueberries!

Needless to say, by the time I am done in LUSH I walk out in love, excited, optimistic, and thinking:

I did it!

Well, I did it folks! I can cross another item off my Short Term Bucket List!

I blogged every day of a whole entire week. Can't say the posts were thrilling, but that wasn't part of the deal. Haha. 

To commemorate this event I will post this picture of a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie in strawberry ice cream. 

Lazy Dayz

Some days in Grenada (mostly all of them) go by pretty slow. One question that I always get asked is

"What do you do all day?"

And yeah, there is always a bit of disdain in the delivery. People expect me to be really tan, or saving the world, or exponentially improving my resume, or at least be pregnant.

Buut, I'm not. I'm just lazy.

Or maybe I don't care? A couple Saturdays ago I was especially, disdainfully lazy/ apathetic.

I took about a dozen Zimbio quizzes.

I felt like I was in junior high all over again. Sneaking on the dial-up internet before my parents got mad that I was clogging up the phone line. Those were the days.

In my even younger days I subscribed to American Girl magazine and the second thing I would do when that glorious magazine came in the mail was look for any quizzes they might have (the first, mind you, was rip out what ever cool stickers or paper dolls they had).

It's all Teo's fault. He got me started with, "Which Hunger Games Character Are You?" quiz.

Any guesses for who I got? It's pretty obvious if you know me.


I was laughing so hard when I got this, there is not one thing on that description that is not me (IMO). It's like Zimbio had my DNA or something. So I figured, no harm in one more.

Or two,

Or three... or more.

And before long I knew it, everything I wanted to know about myself including what Muppet I am and which Sesame Street character I'd be.

Eye-opening.


What do you think? Me? At least the cookie part. Take it for yourself here.

Ross helping me in the kitchen will vouch for this one:

I mean, I do love a good sharp knife. 

Here is my character from Orange is the New Black. I won't judge you if you don't judge me: 

Why do so many of these involve foods?! Haha. I don't mind. 

Okay, here is the last one for now. I couldn't resist because it is my all time favorite young adult literature series! The Series of Unfortunate Events. I was very enthusiastic about getting Sunny.

When Ross eventually got home, I immediately made him take the ASOUE quiz. I just had to know who he would be. It didn't mean much to him because he never read the books and barely remembered the movie. But the results were even more atrocious than I could have imagined:

Thirteen books of unfortunate characters and he got Esme?! I was devastated. But when I read the description, I did feel a little better because every word could not be farther from the truth. I guess some of us are a little more read-able than others. The lesson we learn today is don't let Ross put the fate of his future in the hands of Zimbio. On the other hand, that wouldn't be such a bad idea for me.  

Low Battery: Change Battery Pack

As a society (read: Americans) I think we tend to take a lot of pictures. With social media running rampant, it is a must right?

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say; they said before Facebook ever existed.



Tonight I decided to go on a little walk to the close-by beach. Being a twenty-something in 2014, I took a photo capturing device.

 It was a short walk, but after a few beach shots I got that terrible, horrible, inevitable "low battery signal." The bane of the 21st Century.

A few more shots, and it was gone. "Change the battery pack."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I had to sit there on the beach surrounded by beauty, without having a single thing to show for it.



I sat in silence and just listened to the calm of the sea lapping against the sand. I watched the sky turn bight pink and light green. I saw the hues on the water, yellows, blues, I saw the last rays of sun play on the water. I saw the cliffs and houses turn to silhouettes. And I thought of how indescribable it all was.

We take pictures to share what we cannot describe in words.

I thought of how that is a lot like feelings. We cannot use words, but we want people to see us. We want people to understand us. We want to share so that, we don't feel so alone in this huge universe. Sometimes we get real close to accurately conveying it all. But a lot of times, it's hard with #nofilter.

That's my life right now #nofilter. This is all I got. And all I got is me. Here in Grenada, alone in my thoughts, with my battery running low. Daily, I feel like I won't make it. But I have these moments of perfect stillness in my unpredictable life where I have clarity. Moments where after the battery is dead, I still have lessons to learn. The sun will still set (beautifully) and rise again. Even if I have nothing to show for it.

Day In & Day Out

I've been doing a lot of catch-up on my blog and it has given me a nice escape, remembering all the fun I had over Christmas break. Yeah, I live in a beautiful country, but the fact of the matter is I LIVE here. I work here, I clean here, I eat here, I sweat my guts out here, I miss the bus here, I haul 50 pounds of groceries on my tiny back up the flight of stairs here.

Fun trips to Carriacou and feeding mona monkeys aren't my day in and day out life. So shocking I know. Sometimes you have to do mundane errands on Saturday mornings like hunt down allergy pills.

Pharmacies here are kind of funny, maybe just funny because its too disconcerting?

Maybe.

When Ross and I were in Carriacou we asked the Pharmacist, at least I hope she was a pharmacist for some dramamine-esque pills. We only needed one so... she takes out this pill and puts it in a little baggy. No label, no orgin, just magically here was a tiny pill in a tiny baggy.

That is about what I was expecting when I hit up the nearest pharmacy.

This one is particularly small, it is part of a convenience store on the SGU bus route. I walked up to the man who (again) I assumed to be the pharmacist. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I asked him for the this *shows bottle* and before I knew it he had a (this time) marked box of generic zyrtec. I was so ecstatic that I forgot I didn't have enough money for them. Once the man at the counter reminded me of this, I went back to the "pharmacist" and no problem, he just cut me 16 pills.

Not 30, 16.

Nothing a little bit of scissors can't fix. Also, I think that is braille on the outside.Cool.

Guess you can't see it too well on this super high quality photo. 

I got the goods, walked there and back. Said hi to some goats, and tried to travel fast before the sun rose too high. 

The Greek Food Truck

I've been working a lot this semester, which has its benefits and drawbacks for sure. One drawback is that I am always scrambling for dinner. The benefit though, is that Ross introduced me to this awesome Greek food truck just outside campus. I was a bit skeptical at first, (you kind of need to have low expectations to really enjoy yourself) but oh man was I wrong! 

This. 

Food.

Is. 

Amazing. 

Why I am just discovering this now. I don't know. But what I do know, is that it's a good thing because bye bye loan money... 

HELLO GREEK FOOD!!

I may or may not have eaten there several times in the span of a couple weeks. Hey, it's not my fault, it's all these long hours mmkay?! 

For like $22 EC you get a big plate of lamb, yogurt, and taziki. And you get a decent sized Greek side salad with a lemon vinaigrette, cheese crumbles, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce. Mmm. The first time I ate there I had enough leftovers for lunch the next day. Buuut, I guess I was hungrier the next time because I finished the whole entire thing.  

Recently they cleared out the space behind the truck, and I like how this picture makes it look a little more epic. 

Now the only thing that is missing from my Greek food experience is Kelli and Larry!

Happy Birthday Brigette!

I don't have many friends. And I know that part of this is because I am totally weird. Like TOTALLY.

Imagine. Just imagine for a second, having to be my best friend for 12 YEARS.

I feel like we have been through it all! We haven't always been literally by each others' side, but we've always been there for each other. That is the way friendship works.

For that fact alone, you know that she is going to be amazing. 

A friend holds the camera when I decide to make a reality show about pizza crusts.

A friend gets my lame jokes and laughs at them.

A friend visits me late at night when I'm sick of packing and not ready to go back to school.

A friend finds something else to do when the NYE dance is super lame. And then together we get to take strange pictures and get into trouble with creepy people.

A friend is the only one I will let be legitimately jealous of my PKHS-07-Lifetime-Warranty Watch (don't lie!).



























A friend will pose with you in your homemade Napoleon Dynamite shirt (I call it avant-garde).

And let you wear your leopard print sunglasses.

A friend will come over and make a birthday cake for inanimate objects cos you are kinda pathetic and really heart-broken.

A friend sells her firstborn child to send you massive amounts of LUSH products when you are living in a far away land.

A friend drives you to Warped Tour and walks around with you even though you look stupid with that free shirt wrapped around your neck like a sweat scarf.

A friend keeps your crafts even if they are a little special. 

A friend doesn't care that you used a Lisa Franktastic rainbow unicorn border around a photo collage. 

A best friend calls you out when you are being ridiculous, and forgives you anyways. 

A friend has a million memories and a dozen pictures that don't even touch the jokes there. 

Here us our classic first friends picture that will seriously never get old (hellloooo disposable camera film!).

And a picture from my wedding. I have no idea what is going on, but I love it. 

I was going through pictures of the two of us and we don't have a TON, considering we have been friends since we were 12. But then I thought about it. You don't take pictures when you go to the grocery store. You don't take pictures when you brush your hair. You don't take pictures when you eat dinner (well, sometimes you do). You don't take pictures of normal, natural things that you do day in and day out.

And that is our friendship. It will always be there, forever and ever. 

Happy Birthday to my best friend forever Brigette! I love you so much. You are so beautiful and talented and intelligent and funny! You make my world go round, and I know that I could never go through all I have without you.

Here is to the year left before we "die."

Teo, Cats & Stuff

I am doing my #whitegirlproblems STBL. Short Term Bucket List y'all. And here I am doing the "blog everyday for a week" or whatever it is goal. Hopefully it isn't longer, because this is not a walk in the park. 

So today's post it brought to you,



My best friend loves cats. He LOVES cats. Cats are pretty cool.

So this post is also brought to you,

The Bachelor Monday Sundaes on Tuesday

Grenada turns you into a monster. Have I mentioned that before?

All of a sudden I find myself doing things I never would have done before. Since when do I watch The Bachelor? 

Since Grenada. 

This show is terrible people. I don't know what is worse, the scripted predictable drama or the fact that I have watched enough Bachelor/ Bachelorette (yeah I'm admitting to both) to know there is scripted predictable drama. 

Yeah, I'm a monster. 

Since the show is so ridiculous, Ross has grown a love for it too. So us monsters, we sit and watch the show together if he happens to be home in time. If not, we watch it together the next day. We're so loyal, I know. 

This time I got fancy and had an ice cream Sunday bar! 

And because Charlene (one of the contestants) is so obnoxious I distracted myself by playing with this new photo collage app Brigette recommended. It is awesome! I love it.

 Which background do you like better? 

Ice cream sundaes, making bad tv good since I started avidly watching bad tv in 2012. 

"How the Time Flies!": Gren-ception

Have you guys ever seen Inception?



It is an exceptional movie. A dream, inside a dream, inside a dream? With all this blog cleaning I have been doing I stumbled upon this draft that I not only tried to write once... but TWICE. Third time's a charm?

I'm guessing the first part in purple was written beginng/mid 1st term. The second part in green was written half-way through 2nd term.

"I am now a wise and old SO. My husband is over half way done with Second Term so I have all the answers! Haha that was sarcasm, btw.

I was looking back on some old blog post drafts that never got published and I found this little gem.

'Sometimes I wonder what I could possibly post about. 

Then I think of all the things I do, and start to process that all the things I have done. Then I realize it has only been a week, or a day or a morning and I have already accomplished so many things! It is nice to be so busy. 

This morning, before even 11:00am I: 

-rode about 5 buses-shopped at 4 different stores-explored a new place-spent lots of money 

Before 11am! I wake up early here, because the sun rises, and once the sun rises and the apartment starts to heat up... good luck trying to get back to sleep. This morning I actually caught the bus with Ross!'

The younger version of myself was so ambitious! Haha.
And yes you can all laugh that I still wake up at 6am or 6:30am. Everyone does."

Wake up!



The only thing we are all laughing about little Kristen is how ambitious you are. Did you just get to the island? Are you still in first year? Have you even wet your feet with 4th term?

This is 5th FRICKIN' term darlin' we don't do stuff like that anymore. Amateur Hour was months ago.

Yet.... I still have this feeling like I haven't woken up...

Music Monday #2 Kina Grannis

I don't watch American Idol. Haha, I know right? I don't watch much TV in general. I had a brief stint with The Voice, like I watched it two weeks in a row.

What I am getting at is, I do not know who Phillip Phillips is. But I stumbled across his song "Home" whilst on Pandora sometime last year. My bestie Teo introduced me to this incredible musician Kina Grannis. It was love a first listen. I'm no pro at things like this, but I know that her voice makes me melt. And makes me feel a little angry that I can't sing like that.

Kina writes and sings her own stuff, she tags along with some musicians, and she does a bunch of covers. It is really hard to choose a favorite, so I just chose two.

Home - Philip Philips (Cover by Kina Grannis)

The Scientist - Coldplay (Cover by Kina Grannis, Tyler Ward, Lindsey Stirling) 

I just love the way all the musicians fit together, like pieces of a puzzle, to present such a enchanting cover of this amazing song by Coldplay.

I love musicians that are versatile. I think it's hard to find popular, real talent. Anyone can sing if you fix it up post-production and make them sound perfect. But live performances, and working with different kinds of artists really showcases true talent.

My last and maybe favorite (but let's be honest I could never choose a favorite) is a song she worked on for Fuse with Hoodie Allen. I know you'll never guess it, but Teo also told me about this song.

Make it Home - Hoodie Allen & Kina Grannis 

Lately it has been stuck in my head non-stop, but I'm not complaining. I find myself singing random bits of it around the house. You can check out the live version if you want, because why wouldn't you want to stare at those two for 4 minutes?... or more if you happen to put it on repeat. 

"I wanna go where the lights are low and the dreamers are chasin'.

I wanna live like we don't know much but we know we're gonna make it." 

Blogging Update

It's not a secret, I am not only slow and lazy about blogging, but I kinda suck at it. The formatting is always off and it drives me NUTS. Someday I might learn how to make it all look nice and fancy.

But last week I learned you can change the published date on each post.

Mind = BLOWN!

I know, how dumb right? I had figured there must MUST be a way to do it, and I swear I tried that same exact way before, but for some reason it clicked today. So now that I am finally, slowly but surely catching up on holiday break posts, I am moving them to the correct days. Which also means they will be in the correct year. Wahoo!

Amazon Woman: Hear Me Roar

2/16

When you move to Grenada, it isn't long before you turn into a monster. I mean that in a few different ways.

Today, I mean that in a why-are-there-a-dozen-pictures-of-dead-cockroaches-on-my-camera way.

Yeeaaah.

Pre-Grenada (this is how I measure all time) I killed maybe a handful of cockroaches. Yeah maybe I coulda described that differently so my hand doesn't feel itchy now. 

During-Grenada? Innumerable (besides the numerable evidence on my camera). And for some reason I feel the need to document all of this photographically? I kept the collage small, but if you would like a larger version just PM me.

What.
Is.
Wrong.
With.
Me.

I am a monster.

I am pretty sure all normal people hate cockroaches. When Ross sees a cockroach, he takes it personally. 

He has to take time to devise a plan and make sure that without a shadow of a doubt, that sucker is DEAD! His plans involve shoes on your hands and feet (his, more surface room of course), Raid, moving furniture, and plan Bs. So when I see one, I've just gotten into the habit of taking matters into my own hands (again, with the hands thing! Yeesh). 

Now whenever I see a cockroach it's kinda like, "Oh hey, give me a sec *grabs closest shoe*

*SMASH*

*The moral of that story is never put your shoes away so you always have one close.

But what I realized, is that people are starting to pick up on my special talent. When I was in California last summer my sister comes dashing out of the bathroom, alarmed that there was a cockroach.

Did I bat an eyelash?

Nope.

I don't mean to brag but I wasn't even scared. I just did what I do best, grabbed the closest shoe and took care of business. I AM A MONSTER.

See, Grenada turns you into some sort of an Amazon woman, and suddenly you are responsible for all the nasty chores like hunting and killing spiders and super smashing roaches. It's suddenly your responsibility to pick out the best mosquito repellent, smash the cockroaches, and catch the mosquitos mid-air. Have I mentioned the mosquito pictures?



Actually, living here in Grenada qualifies me for all sorts of things. I'm also responsible to give full reports on the best sunscreen, counsel how to get cheap airfare, devise how to smash 50 pounds worth of candy into your carry on, and how to cook breadfruit. People think you are some sort of formidable island woman. 

This is paradise folks! 

Just in case this post  hasn't creeped you out yet, I will leave you with this.