Aveda!

Earlier this week I had an on campus interview at a college, and I think it went pretty well. However, this blog will not be about the college. Trust me, it's a lovely campus and I'd be honored to work there.

I'm here to talk to you today about the shampoo and conditioner that were in the hotel room I stayed in.Aveda Rosemary Mint shampoo and conditioner is the best thing to ever happen to my head in a long time. It's just so refreshing, it makes my scalp tingle, and it smells amazing! It just wakes you up!

I am bummed at the moment because the mini bottle from the hotel is nearly empty, but today I plan on canvasing the city of St. Cloud to try and find some full sized bottles of this wonder shampoo and conditioner duo. I'm intrigued by the soap in the picture as well, I might have to get my hands on some of that too.

Posted by: Nicci

Spring

Spring has sprung in the UK! This is very exciting news because our good weather is few and far between. For the last couple of years our summers have been complete wash outs, so this year I’m going to enjoy spring while I can, just in case it’s the only warmth we get.

I love spring. The blacks and greys of winter fashion can be folded up and put in your bottom drawer and the bright dresses and vests of sunny weather can be worn with a smug smile. ‘Yes, it’s warm, and yes, this fabulous dress cost me £6 from Primark!’ The re-emergence of the flip-flop is also and exciting time for me, breaking them in again after six months of trainers and boots is always painful for one day, then rewarding for 100 more.

Spring is the time for blossom, cute baby animals and warmer, lighter evenings. I love driving home with the sun baking me through my car windows because my car is too old to have air-con and it’s too noisy to have the windows down on the motorway. My ipod playlists become poppier, my shoes become plimsolls and I have permanent marks on my nose from my sunglasses.

The best thing about Spring though, is that you can go to the park with your friends, have a picnic and chill out in the sunshine for free. Thank you Mother Nature.

Posted By: Cat

Tweet, Tweet

I first signed up for Twitter in January 2008. I didn't use it. I thought, "What the hell did I just sign up for? This makes no sense. Who in the world would use this?" I abandoned it.

Well, it turns out that everyone and their mother uses Twitter. Personally, my mother doesn't. Yet. She just got Facebook. I'll let her figure that out before I let her know what a Twitter is.

I don't have many "real" friends that use Twitter. I think I have one, and she is the only one who gets my updates. I do have 7 followers though, and I'm kind of creeped out by that but I doubt they read what I write, or tweet. Daniel Radcliffe follows me though, I think it's because he knows I saw him naked.

For some reason I thought it would be awesome to get the people I follow Tweets sent to my phone. I mostly follow celebrities.

At first it was cool, I would text Cat to tell her that it feels like John Mayer is sending me texts, and I'm a loser and think that's awesome. Now I wake up to like 15 John Mayer Tweets, and when he was still with Jennifer Aniston I cursed him and thought he has to have better things to do right now then Tweet...like Jennifer Aniston. Rainn Wilson from The Office Tweets A LOT. As I write this blog he has sent 4 Tweets. I am dead serious. I mean, I'm not that upset about it because I still get them to my phone, but it's kind of weird to me how this thing has caught on.

http://twitter.com/, that's where to do it. Follow me! I'm nsunny!

Posted by: Nicci

Lady GaGa

Her music I can take or leave, but Lady GaGa herself is pretty darn fabulous. The name alone is wonderful, Lady GaGa. It promotes images of royalty but also of ridiculousness. I love it!

Even though Just Dance and Pokerface are constantly on the radio, I am not yet tired of Gaga, because she does things like this:

Yes, that is a zipper over her eye and yes, that is fabulous. I love that she is all about the image and performance. She embodies what it means to be a performer. She’s on all the time. She thinks about every aspect of her persona and that will make her an icon, just like Madonna with her conical bras before her. On her recent trip to the UK, GaGa was often photographed leaving clubs wearing things like this:

I live in the UK, and let me tell you, February is pretty chilly here, certainly not bra and skirt weather. It seems as though wearing a shirt and trousers is offensive to GaGa, only one or the other must be worn, never both.

I found this on her official bio at her website: ‘GaGa adds with a wink in her eye, “And, now, I’m just trying to change the world one sequin at a time.”’ Oh Gaga, change the world you will. Soon we’ll all be zipping one eye shut before we bust out our bows made of hair.

Posted By: Cat

Aviators

This spring I have developed a sunglasses habit. I keep buying them, and I’m not even sure why. What I do know, from the two pairs sitting on my shelf, is that my buying tendency is towards aviators. I have a navy/black pair and a white pair. I rock the dark pair with leggings and long cardigans and the white pair with this cute white and navy dress I got last week.

The navy/black aviators are all business - they say ‘yes, it’s sunny and I think I’m cool’; they get the job done. The white rimmed ones are my ‘LOOK AT ME’ pair. They are not worn regularly, but instead compliment certain outfits. I feel their time might come while away on holiday in June, but there’s two months worth of sunglass buying time between now and then, so who knows.

You don’t need to be a cop or a pilot to look good in aviators, just wear them with confidence.

Posted by: Cat

Double Choc Muffins

I love baking. Its fun, its cathartic and you get to eat the finished product. My new favourite creations are these double chocolate muffins:

I found the recipe by chance last week. I was staying with a friend in Poland and I was looking through one of her baking books (it was in English, I’m not that awesome). Folded in between two pages was a photocopy of this recipe, and I have no idea where it was originally from, but it was as though fate meant for us to find one another.

To make your own, here’s the breakdown:
(apologies to any American’s, but in the UK we deal in ounces and grams, none of this cup business)

9oz (255g) plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
5oz (140g) caster sugar
4 tblsp cocoa powder
1 egg
250ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
90ml vegetable oil
Choc chips/chunks

Pre-heat oven to 375-400F (190-200°C [I have a fan oven so I set it to about 170°C], gas mark 5-6). Prepare a muffin tray with cases; this amount of mixture should comfortably make 12 muffins. 

Sieve the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Beat the egg in a separate bowl and add the milk and oil. Poor the wet mixture into the dry and mix, don’t beat it - it’s okay if it’s lumpy as long as it’s all mixed in. Divide into muffin cases so each case is two thirds full with mixture. Take your chocolate chips (I just buy a bar and cut it into chunks) and push into the top of each case, put at least four chunks. If you want them super chocolatey, mix some in when you add the milk, egg and oil.

Bake for 20-25 minutes [again, our fan oven only takes about 10 minutes]. Test by breaking the surface with a sharp knife, if the knife comes out clear, they’re ready.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Cat

Rupert Friend

Why can't I see a film without falling in love with the leading man? Instead of turning this post into an analysis of my real-life-love deprived psyche, let’s just present the facts:

1. Rupert Friend looks very dashing in a costume drama:

2. He looks like Orlando Bloom:

3. He makes some interesting movies: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, The Young Victoria, Pride and Prejudice, The Libertine...

4. He dates Keira Knightly, but we can’t all be perfect so I’m willing to overlook this fact. As a side note, the cheekbones on these two are wondrous.

Yes or No? I would consider this a ‘yes, I definitely would’.

Posted By: Cat

The Flying Troutmans

I like reading, and sometimes I find a book that I literally cannot put down. In these cases, I'll consume a book in a day, forgetting anything else I should be doing. The Flying Troutmans was one of those books.

Hattie has to fly back to Canada from her crumbling relationship in Paris to take care of her sister Min’s kids when she’s put into a psych hospital. Hattie decides to take Thebes and Logan on a road trip to California to find their Dad, who hasn’t seen them in ten years.

Precocious Thebes and surly Logan are such rich characters, crafted with insight of how modern teens talk and react. I especially loved that eleven year old Thebes sometimes likes to talk in hip hop slang, while Logan drops an f-bomb or two while still being a sensitive, complicated fifteen year old.

I loved this book. The writing is original and stylistic not to mention relevant. 

Buy it at amazon: The Flying Troutmans

Posted By: Cat

Leggings

When typing leggings into Google, I was greeted with a plethora of pictures featuring Lindsay Lohan, which almost put me off writing this entry. I have never been a leggings supporter, and have firmly stood my ground remembering that in the 90's, when I didn't know better, I even had a pair with stirrups. Stirrups people.

So when they came back in fashion, as with most things better best forgotten, I kept away. My black tights were staple enough; I'll just wear jeans thank you, etc. Then yesterday, on impulse, I brought two pairs for £6 because I can't resist a bargain. 

I hate to say it, but I love them. They fit like a dream and are super comfortable. I wore them to uni today with a cute long t-shirt and long black cardigan and someone commented that I looked great, which I'm pretty sure hasn't happened before at school. 

After all the snow we've had this year, Spring is in the air and its turned warm. Because warm for us is still only the 50's, there's still a chill in the air so leggings are perfect for that 'half my legs are warm but the other half are brave enough to salute the sunshine'. Below the knee is just fine, but I'm still not sold on the 'wet look' leggings that are currently en vogue; baby steps. 

Topshop have a leggings section on their website, so maybe they're here to stay. Embrace the leggings! 

I have never typed the word 'leggings' so much in my entire life.

Posted By: Cat

80’s Nostalgia

After 24 years of living in the same house, my parents are selling my family home. It’s upsetting.

There is a silver lining to this distressing cloud though - With 24 years worth of collecting and accumulating, our loft is full of the memories of my youth. I’ve found old school books (all with graffiti inside of embarrassing conversations between high school friends, no wonder I retained so little of what I was supposed to learn), hats I can’t believe I wore in public, and various oddities. By far though, the best finds have been the toys of my childhood.

Fisherprice adjustable skates.

If you were a child between 1980 and 1990, you had a pair of these skates. Note the flashy colours, to help you fit in at the disco rink. The moulded plastic uppers cut your feet to shreds, but no good skate was successful unless returning home with blood pouring from your wounds. I am so excited that they fit me now, with a little creative toe curling. They can only be worn for a maximum of ten minutes before paralysing cramp sets in.

Various board games from my youth.

Guess Who is still going strong today, and can’t be beaten for pure, simple entertainment. Remember picking Claire and being gutted because she had glasses, a hat AND she was a woman.

Build a Better Burger was a game only I seem to remember from my circle of friends, which is a shame. Game play involved making a fast food order quicker than your opponent and involved plastic burger buns and lettuce, milkshakes with straws so easily snapped in haste and the apple or cherry pie desert option. For years I had aspirations of working at McDonalds.

Hungry Hippos has also gone through a revival of late, but I still remember the heady days of finger cramp from tapping those leavers until your hands spasmed.

The Nintendo Game Boy.

Words cannot explain the joy I felt when I eased four double A batteries into the back and tentatively slide the power switch to on. That descending Nintendo logo greeted me like the last fifteen years hadn’t happened. Thus, I have been playing Super Mario Land 2 all day and have been overtaken by rage at being unable to defeat big boss Wario. Just like old times.

Posted By: Cat