February 2014 Favorites

February is almost over and I'm kind of glad.  The month started out great but we got slammed at work towards the end, which has put me in a very bad frame of mind.  Things should be back to normal for a couple of weeks before the rotation of spring breaks start to happen. But anyway, it's been a while since I've done a favorites post, and I actually have somethings to talk about this month.

Topic #4: High End vs High Street

As much as I enjoy reading reviews and looking up swatches of various high end brands, I'm always wary of buying it.  I hardly ever go to makeup counters (a lot of sales associates that man the counters that I've been to tend to be a bit too aggressive in their pitch to make me buy something and can get rather offended if I don't).  My first experience with brands that weren't drugstore was during my first trip to Sephora; Urban Decay really caught my eye, but I also really liked Benefit and Stila.  UD is still a top favorite while I've drifted away from the other two. I know some consider these high end brands, but I tend to view them (and a lot of brands available at Sephora) as being in the middle: quite a bit more expensive than drugstore, but something I'm comfortable with spending.

However, I still would love to start owning more high end makeup. I tend to follow Lancome and Guerlain releases more than others (and are the brands that I actually own pieces from), but Chanel and Dior have a few items that I love to try.  Here are the two high end products I do have:

Lancome Color Design palette in Teal Fury. I'd been eyeing the palettes for a while and wanted one of the more colorful ones as I have plenty of palettes with a neutral focus. Overall, I think it's really nice.  The lid and highlight colors are very pretty; the majority of the shadows are very smooth and not that difficult to work with (for more color payoff, I use my fingers to apply the lid color).  The only problem shadow is the the crease shade for the fact that I hardly get anything on the brush and I feel that I need to apply quite a bit of it to have any impact.

Food Adventure in Canada *pic heavy*

This past Sunday me and my friend Nina drove up to Vancouver to try out some restaurants. What better way to spend a day eating around the city?  I completely had forgotten that it was Superbowl Sunday when I put in my time off request (and it was nice to see that the Seahawks won when we crossed back over the border).  We had an easy trip up and over the border and an equally easy trip back home (thank god for clear weather).

Our first stop was Peaceful restaurant, which was the restaurant that started this idea. I had gone to grab some food and the restaurant at Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on while I was there and it was the episode that featured Peaceful.  Later that night, Nina had brought it up and so began our idea for a trip.

The Peaceful Beef Roll

Topic #3: Once Upon a Time...

So for the third topic we were tasked with writing about a book.  I tend to read series more often than stand alone books, so I thought I would talk about the current series that I've been reading: The Last Apprentice (or the Wardstone Chronicles) by Joseph Delaney .

I got into the series because the movie Seventh Son is loosely based on it and wanted to get some background knowledge of it. After reading the first book and comparing it to the movie trailer, it's already going to be a vast different story I think. This young adult dark fantasy series is about Tom Ward (who is the seventh son of a seventh son) and his apprenticeship to Master Gregory to become a Spook, someone who goes about dealing with 'the dark' in the County.  There is a total of 13 books in the series (I'm currently on book 5), with a few additional books that expand on the world.

(Everything else under a cut, because this could be taken as being a bit spoilery)