MIA. What's new?

Let's see if I can make this post short & simple.  I seem to not be able to do that whenever I want to.  I like to elaborate, or go into details on things.

Where have I been?  What have I been up to?  October is a busy month with the 1st 1/2 full of birthday get together & celebrations.  Also I am still battling complications with my health.  So, I know I am not dying (yet) and it's nothing serious enough that they can pick up on any of their normal tests but it's bad enough to keep me out of work at times, from seeing friends & doing daily activities at times.  They can treat it, but we don't know the cause.  So, I am sick of being over medicated & am now going to see a pulmonologist at the end of the month because my doctors feel this is the next step.

2 of my major problems are asthma and migraines.  The mystery of the asthma is why is my allergist is always telling me that my breathing tests are coming back above normal, yet I feel like I still cannot breathe & I ended up in the hospital in August with symptoms that could have been either (a) a heart attack, (b) collapsed lung, (c) or a blood clot & it was none of those.  Something came up on the blood test that concerned them which made them do a CT scan but that came back clear also. So I was put on prednisone & lortabs then released.

Last weekend I started getting the same feeling in the left side of my chest that put me in the hospital in August.  Every now & then I can still feel it lingering & it has not progressed to the severity in which it had previously but I am being very careful about it.  I have upped my asthma steroid medication & keeping my activities at a slow pace.  Tried heating pad & epsom salt baths but because it's more internal those didn't work all that well.  This caused a doctor appointment on Monday, decision on the new specialist, fasting blood labs today which resulted in an awful migraine for most of the day.  Now I have a sore throat that's bugging me.  Unrelated.

Overall, I am doing better.  After work though I pretty much come home, sleep, wake up, get online & e-mail, try to work on mail or chores, have my bath, then fall asleep again until Chris comes home & we have dinner.  Then I fall asleep again.  So I have been very fatigued.  I am working on tapering off another medication so it may be a result of that.

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Another thing about me is that I work for GEICO in the customer service department.  I really love my job.  I love it when I can find people savings, when I make people happy, when I connect with people.  I have licenses in, I think, 8 states now. (I have a folder full of them!)  I mostly handle the New England states.  PLEASE do not ask me about car insurance on here!  This is not what this blog is for.  Call your local company.  I am sure they are great.  Or if you are insured with us call any of our agents & they will be happy to help.

So we do a lot of charitable things within the company for local & world wide organizations.  I recently donated to a local animal shelter through our company & now we are making up baskets for a raffle that will have the money donated to the United Way.  You can only imagine why I would be posting about it here!  Because it is going to be filled with bathing goodness!

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See?  I am already writing too much & I am very sleep, not feeling all too well, & must make a Betty trip to Rochester tomorrow to see Brown & Deenok for a meeting of the minds & to also celebrate the Libra's of our group.

So tonight's bath consisted of milk & honey bubble bath & Philosophy's Pink Cotton Confection, which reminds me exactly of Aquolina's Pink Sugar.  Philosophy is coming out with their winter items now.  I am getting excited looking at their site!

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Want to try Bath & Body Works new 2 oz. Be Enchanted lotion for FREE?  Print this coupon or show it on your phone in stores, or use code FBF114231 online.  Good only October 14-16, 2011.

Daily bath October 5, 2011 & disappointment in The Body Shop.

• Cinnamon Buns as a bubble bath from Philosophy.
• Hot Spiced Chocolate (hot chocolate & brandy soaked pudding) shower gel by Korres.
• Honey shampoo from The Body Shop.

Just a F.Y.I. the pictures I use on my sites are either picture of the products I own, taken by myself, or pictures directly from the URL sites of the manufactures.  So that's why I link directly to the product.  All the other photos are mine, like the plants, insects, etc.  So if I find they are being used by anyone else w/out permission, for sale, or w/out credit...  expect trouble because I have an awesome attorney.

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Anyhoo.  Today I received an e-mail from TBS & they were having a contest to have a consumer come up with a new scent for a body wash of theirs & it was about their winner.  Awesome.  Now, leave it up to the general public to decide & be brainwashed into what it's going to be, or what their marketing department think what will sell the most this time of year.  Let us see as it was down to 3 scents, espresso, rhubarb, & pumpkin.  I'll give you ONE guess which one won.  The pumpkin.  Ugh.  Yes, I KNOW it's October but you are a huge company & everyone in the world is doing this scent right now & I'll be honest I think the only reason they did it was for marketing because of the time of year.  I have enough pumpkin stuff going back last year, maybe even the year before so I'm not even going to go back to even see what I think of it.  If it was one of the other 2, I probably would have, especially the rhubarb.

Like I posted the other day, I'm getting bored with them.  I go into their store, it's all body butters, lotions, soaps, body washes, same products but different scents but not by much.  I'd really like to see more bath products, salts, bubble baths, bath oils, oil beads.  I'm really hoping they expand their holiday line this year also & not keep it all the same cranberry, vanilla, orange & plum crap they seem to recycle through year after year.  Ok, I did really love the orange line they released last year but some of the products in it were limited or hard to get.

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So the last few days I have been using the Cinnamon Buns in the bath more for the scent, like I had noted before, Philosophy products really don't bubble well.  They might do better if you have a jet tub.  I have been mixing it up w/these Korres shower gels that I got last year for the Betties.  They came in a pack of 3 & I have a bit left of each.  The 1 I listed above & then also Honey Spice (honey cookies & roasted pecans), & Sugar Glazed Clementine (candied clementine & star aniseed).  I think my favorite is the clementine but they are all amazing, & natural but they do contain sodium laureth sulfate.

Products w/SLS or SLES tend to dry out my skin a little more so I usually use lotions after.  Autumn is kind of hit & miss if I want to or not, winter I usually do all the time because of where I live.  Cold, dry, snow!!

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To end, here is a moth I saw the other day.

Let's make a deal.

I like to scope out eBay all the time for deals on products I love & to also try new things.  I try to be a smart shopper though.  If something is currently available retail, I'll actually search the retail sites where it's available & see if I am really getting a good deal through eBay or not.  I think that a lot of people also do not take shipping costs into consideration & that's not good.  You might be getting a good deal on a products but then pay $20 for priority shipping when they may be paying just under $5 to ship it. (& USPS provides the boxes & envelopes for free unless they are the prepaid ones.)  I also do not like getting into bidding wars with people.  So if I can find a good deal under Buy It Now, I usually go that route.

Here are some things I received in the mail today that were purchased through eBay!

I LOVE Philosophy products & have a lot of them so you will see me post about them a lot.  Lavender Pound Cake probably has to be my all time favorite.  So, when I found out it was discontinued, I was heartbroken.  Especially due to the fact that I was running out of my only bottle.

So, how are these deals?

The philosophy items were purchased on eBay through plentycosas at $16.20-$16.50 each with free shipping.  Unless on sale, 16 oz.philosophy items usually start at $16.00.  So for discontinued items that are hard to find anyway AND free shipping, it's a deal w/a markup cost of only $0.20-$0.50 each.

The Stila Mandarin Mist is also a discontinued item & their 50ml fragrances retail at $40.  So when I saw this on eBay being sold by sunshinedeals1 for $14.94 ($9.99 + $4.95 shipping), that's a HUGE deal!

For searching tips, when I am looking for something particular, I always change the location to Worldwide & I always sort by Price + Shipping: Lowest First.  These both came back as the lowest & I am very happy to have them in my possession.

Now, about the items.

I have a love/hate relationship with the scent of lavender, so when I 1st picked up the Lavender Pound Cake & took a deep breath in of a pound cake scent with a hint of lemon, I was in comfort heaven.  I'm wondering if they used any lavender fragrance at all in this, even the tiniest amount?  I have a sensitive nose so usually I can tell right away if something even has a hint of lavender in it, but I can't smell any at all.  The Muffin Man smells exactly like another (also discontinued) item of theirs, Lemon Custard.  The bottle tells a story about lemon custard muffins but I am wondering if the 2 are one & one alike, most likely just released at different times?  I was hoping The Muffin Man would have a little more bakery-type smell to it, but if you like how lemon custard smells, you'll love this.

I also love how most philosophy items can be used as shampoo, shower gel, AND bubble baths.  I like to use them as shampoos & shower gels the most because I adore the light scent they leave in my hair & on my skin.  They lather very well but, I've never found their products to be great as bubble baths as you have to use a hefty amount to get a good amount of bubble in the bath, up to 6 cap fulls or more.  2 will leave a light foam that dissipates in a rather short time.  Save the product for your skin & hair & the product will last a lot longer.

As for the Stila Mandarin Mist, I've read a few reviews from other people on this who advise it have a very orange-type scent to it.  I completely disagree.  Stila advised the products has hints mimosa & yuzu mixed with floral.  I think the floral slightly outweighs the mandarin-type scent.  Mandarin and orange are very different scents, though both in the citrus line, & I can definitely pick up the "mandarin" in this fragrance but do not find it to be overpowering at all.  I wish I knew what floral scents they used for it.  I find it a very light scent that if used throughout the day. may need to be re-applied.  I would probably say this is a better fragrance for a date, an early night out on the town, or a sophisticated party.  Not something you would wear to work or daily.  Its intoxicating scent is mixed well & I can't determine yet if I would place it into specific seasons it may be good for.  Definitely summer & maybe I'll add it into autumn & winter once those come.