We haven’t fostered any dogs since we had the mama and a litter of puppies last year. And quite frankly, my dogs really enjoyed the time off. Meanwhile, we were going through a lot of stuff in our lives that wouldn’t have lent itself well to having foster dogs around. We did take care of a few foster dogs for other foster homes for short periods of time, and that’s how we were able to engage in our rescue dog assistance.
However, I’d agreed to a very small, only 18 pound dog right before my mother in law broke her hip for the third time. In what was perhaps the absolute worst timing imaginable, that dog arrived in our city on a transport the last day of my mother in law’s life. Thankfully another foster home in the rescue was able to take her for a few days while we got ourselves sorted with family and funeral arrangements. And even more thankfully, she contacted me to let me know that this little dog was very easy and easy going and would have no trouble fitting into our household. She was correct.
This little dog arrived at our home at a time in which there were like often 12-15 people at our house at a given time. And she charmed ALL of them. She had no trouble at all fitting in our home and at the age of over 2 years, was also housetrained and perfectly well behaved.
She is spunky and happy and really good, and has found her new home which she will join this evening. Works out well for us because we have another foster dog arriving Saturday. Just enough time to give my dogs a bit of a break. And, I promise to actually post a photo of the one arriving this weekend before she’s leaving our home!
A brief overview, I picked a full face of makeup to concentrate on for the second quarter with hopes of using some and finishing some, here’s what I started with:
A month and a half in I’ve had some very nice progress. The photo was taken outside and I am now thinking that wasn’t the wisest choice as it was early morning and I had a lot of shadows going on, but here we are anyhow:
The Nars concealer, I hadn’t really used it before but in this month and a half I’ve used it almost exclusively and really enjoyed it. I’ve used 1 gram of product.
The Mario Badescu facial spray has decent progress being made. I won’t finish it before the quarter is over but I’ll have made a good dent.
The CYO foundation is obviously going to be done by the time I finish the project. I am excited about finishing up a second foundation this year. I won’t roll in anything new, I’ll just explore my stash until I choose one for the third quarter once this is done.
Becca Backlight priming filter is also likely to be done this quarter. I didn’t have a primer in the first quarter as it didn’t work with the sunscreen I was trying to finish. So, this will be the first primer finish this year.
I’ve really been enjoying the Natasha Denona Bloom palette. However, it’s just so full of pigment that I can’t see any progress. There’s been no weight change either. I am really hoping that I can use a gram of this by the time the quarter is over.
I’ve made great progress on the ciate london powder! I started with 46 grams and am down to 41 grams. I don’t think I can finish this up in the quarter but I am delighted to be working on it and maybe I can finish it before the end of the year.
The bronzer is also pigmented and does not show any difference in weight. But I do believe I am seeing a slight dip in the product so that feels like a decent start.
2 grams of milani eyeshadow primer have been used up. I really appreciate this primer and will likely purchase it again in the future once I have finished this one up.
Here’s a surprise item, it’s the anastasia beverly hills brow gel, which I thought I put in the original stash shop but did not. I have been using it regularly though and am hoping to use it up this year as it’s just a tiny sample size.
Rare Beauty mascara, I’ve used this exclusively and really liked it. If I were to see it on sale again I’d purchase it. It does not transfer and looks great. It is, however, either drying out or getting used up as I now have to layer it quite a lot to get the results I did at the beginning.
Charlotte Tilbury sample size lip gloss is gone! And on that note, I failed to get a photo of the melt lipstick but it’s about halfway gone. I believe I can finish that as well over the next month and a half. And if not then, certainly by the end of this project.
Wayne Goss eye pencil, this is a very creamy formula and wearing it during the last month and a half has shown me that it slides around and doesn’t really stay put. Now that I say that, I think it may benefit from a bit of eyeshadow or powder over it. That being said, I like the look of it, kind of smudgy and unkempt. I don’t hate it but I am not wearing it all that often. I’ve sharpened it once now.
The l’oreal brow pencil, I know you cannot see it, but it’s almost finished. So, that’s another one I’ll have completely finished by next month. Out of what I started with, 6 items should be gone by the time I am done with the current quarter. I feel great about that!
I am rather delighted with this project. Despite saying I was not going to do a panning project this year, I finished 5 items last quarter and will finish 6 this quarter which would be a very successful project pan if that’s what I was calling it. The combo of choosing items in my collection that I want to enjoy plus choosing a few strategic items to work toward finishing has been extremely effective in keeping me engaged plus motivated.
I still think I’ll do a 2 month at a time stash shop next year, but for this year, the project is working very well as I envisioned it at the end of last year. I do have something a bit interesting up my sleeve for the final quarter though. I’ve got enough sample sizes or categories where I just don’t have a lot of collection to go through, and I am thinking for the last quarter I may roll back in anything I got close to finishing this year but wasn’t quite successful with in hopes to finish it up completely in the final quarter.
The slow mo weekend we really needed after the funeral and all the family left happened last weekend. I had a very long to do list but had also been suffering from a great deal of inertia and so I knew that I also needed to rest and contemplate and have a lot of quiet. Which I did get and I did go into this week feeling so much better overall. The to do list is still too long but looks a bit more manageable from where I am standing now.
I got a Lowrey stand for my stitching a couple weeks ago and have been testing it out. I found that the 11″x17″ frame I was working with for my fox and rabbit mystery sampler is so large that it throws off the balance of the stand and tips it over. So I popped on down to the stitching shop this weekend to get an 11″x11″ frame to see if that made a difference. While I moved everything over to the new frame, I took an opportunity to photograph the project. This is 3 out of the current 5 clues complete:
So far so good! I am still really enjoying this one. However, I’ve set it down and will need to pick it back up here shortly.
Meanwhile I’ve been working hard on my Bothy Threads poppies. I finished the orange poppy and moved on down to the white one, plus got to start on some of the greenery as well.
So, obviously stitching is still going well and I am enjoying it immensely as my relaxing hobby of choice.
My Bothy Threads poppies are really coming along! I kept meaning to go back to my mystery stitch along but I just haven’t.
Since the last update I finished the red flower and am now almost done with the orange one. After this, there’ll be a white flower and a whole lot of greenery. I am kind of looking forward to the greenery at this point. But, I do want to get back to my temperature tree and then my stitch along.
Let me start at the top, over this past month my mother in law experienced health problems that ended up with her in hospice and then subsequently passing away. As such, we also moved her out of her assisted living apartment, and I absorbed some things into my collection. I also found a few things in sorting and organizing that I added to my collection. I did not purchase them but I did not previously know about them to list them. So I accounted for them this month.
The only items that came into my collection via purchase were from the lush subscription box. And here’s the empties that were worth noting:
I finished a texture spray and a hairspray. I also finished a handcream which was not a scent I appreciated. I finished a clinique eye makeup remover (but found another in my basement). I had a travel size of Cosrx aha/bha toner and an elf moisturizer I was able to finish up. And I finally finished my travel size of Mugler Alien perfume. I finished up a couple other sample size items as well, and one thing I finished was a travel size of briogeo shampoo but it didn’t get photographed.
Overall, even with accepting items into my collection the numbers are going down. I started keeping overall numbers. I began all this with 207 items I was tracking-again many of them sample, travel, or sachet sized. I am now at 167 at this point in the year. I am also at a point where I may have to purchase a thing or two, but I also intend to keep waiting it out until the situation is dire and/or there’s a sale going on I can take advantage of to replace a thing or two. I am going to add the overview below, and again, I will only talk about a category if there’s been a change.
Cleansing Oil is a category I used, and I had 1 cleansing oil. I found a half finished micellar water in my basement and for lack of a better category to put it in, I added it to this category, now I have 2.
Nighttime moisturizer went from 3 to 2.
Toner went from 5 to 4.
Hairspray went from 2 to 1.
Hair wax went from 2 to 1-but only because my husband had his first professional haircut in 20 years and I gave one to him.
Texture spray went from 3 to 2.
Shampoo went from 7 to 6.
Body Moisturizer, this one went way up. I received one in my lush subscription box and then also added 3 from my mother in law’s apartment. So I went from 6 to 9 in that category (as I’d also used one up) and I’ll be working hard on finishing these.
Body wash went from 6 to 7 because I again received a lush body wash in my subscription box.
For fragrance, I went from 40 to 36, using up one travel size and 3 sample sizes. And I am on a mission to be working my way through more sample sizes this month. I am delighted with the results here.
Overall it feels like a bit of a light month for empties but I also feel like I knew that going into it already and I did manage to go through more than I thought. Further, with all that was going on this month really any empties at all feel like an accomplishment.
As for the upcoming month I think there are a solid 7 items that I will certainly finish and then add to that whatever fragrance samples I manage to get through this month. I am imagining 2 or 3 lush items will arrive via subscription box, so I should stay well within my goal of more leaving than arriving.
Suzy Sells Sea Shells 