Cooperative Capers

  Awhile back I decided to try out a cosmetic brand I had seen doing a collaboration with Tone It Up. PUR Cosmetics sells a combination of makeup and skincare products. I ordered the Eyes for You Eye Makeup Trio which includes: Full Size On Point Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner Full Size On Point Metallic Eye Gloss (I ordered the rose gold, a "soft shade of pink") Mini Fully Charged Mascara (which I haven't tried yet) As a free gift with purchase, I also received the Skin Perfecting Foundation Brush. Skin Perfecting Foundation Brush:  I don't regularly wear foundation, so I have been using this primarily for application of bronzer and to apply the eye gloss to the high points of my cheeks. The brush is soft and dense. The handle is pretty comfortable and the curve is ergonomic, but I can feel it separate slightly with firm pressure, so I think that it may not hold up for many years of daily use. My hand also cramps a little if I am using it over my whole face; I think it p

Today's review is of Marvel Unlimited! I didn't want to post a screenshot of a comic because that seems illegal, so here is a picture of my cat. For the uninitiated, Marvel Unlimited is a comic book app. Think e-reader meets subscription here. For $70 per year (or $10 per month), you get, yes, unlimited access to all of the Marvel comics in the subscription. That is almost all of them, although the really old ones are clearly scanned in, and it seems like they had trouble tracking down some of the issues, so there might be some weird time skips for the older ones. It's a nice economical and space-efficient way to read a bunch of comics. Here are some random thoughts: You can stick to one series and it'll remember your place in all the ones you follow. There's a convenient "read" checkmark that appears after you've read something. Automatic spot-saving is device specific, so if you have it in a family library for example, everyone can read on their own.

  Today's post is a review and walkthrough of the Tone It Up (TIU) cilantro lime quinoa bowls from page 109 of the Summer Tone Up Meal Plan. Let's start with the review so you can decide whether you want to try making it before you go through the trouble of planning. Overall I would say it's one of the better Tone It Up recipes. It feels like a healthy substitute for something like a burrito bowl. It's pretty quick once you get a routine down and takes me about 30 minutes. It also doesn't involve any actual cooking, just microwave, chopping, and assembly. I've made a few edits to the original recipe. The original recipe is very, very heavy on the lime, so I have greatly reduced it. I also usually skip the onion. Equipment:  microwave, cutting board, knife, medium-large bowl, large bowl, strainer or colander, wooden spoon, silicone scraper, a tablespoon, and 2 storage containers. Shopping List:  Since I make this every week, I have two versions of my shopping lis

  Help save Christmas in this fun seasonal escape room! Exodus is my favorite escape room company because the rooms are a consistent quality level and they are home to my favorite room, Elevate. So of course we had to try out the new seasonal Christmas room at the Diamond Jamboree location! They recently overhauled their Sherlock Holmes Haunted Study and turned it into Santa Clause 2.  We loved the room. The decorations and music were so fun and festive and really got us in the holiday spirit. There was a nice mix of mechanical and and physical puzzles which made the setting feel very interactive. As with all of the Exodus rooms, it was designed to be family-friendly, and this one is not scary at all. The game master was pretty hands off and did not give any unsolicited hints. We were only the second group to try the room ever, so despite a week and a half of playtesting with everything going smoothly, we did have one piece of the room not work. However, there was a very clear noise th

Black Friday this year was special because The Glass Onion, the new Knives Out  mystery, was playing in theatres for 1 week only! We braved the crowds and went to see it at the Irvine Spectrum Center, which features a Regal movie theatre. This was renovated relatively recently, but unfortunately it is not our favorite theater for a few reasons. One problem is cleanliness. The bathrooms are generally trashed, and it is hard to find soap (it took me 5 sinks before I found a pump that both worked and had soap left in it). The other is the uncomfortable seating. The seats recline, but they only stay that way if you brace against something. I knew this from previous experiences and did not even try, and the seats were still pretty uncomfortable. The cushions are very firm and full, which pushed my head out forward in relation to my neck. On the plus side, the theatre has a Lavazza, so if you need to buy coffee for your show, you won't run into the perennial problem of the teenager behin

It's been a little over a week since the Pokémon company released their newest set of games, Scarlet and Violet, for the Nintendo Switch. For those who don't know, the story of both games is the same, but if you want to catch all of the 400ish pokémon in the pokedex, you'll need a friend with the other version of the game to catch the exclusive ones. Shannon is playing Scarlet, and I am playing Violet, so that is what I am looking at today. Now, this game is addictive. In contrast to previous games (disclaimer: I have only played Sword prior to this), this generation takes place in an open world format. That means there are things EVERYWHERE. Once you get off of tutorial island, you can complete the main story in any order you choose, meaning that all of the main quests are given to you at once. You can freely walk anywhere on the map, which means you can explore, get lost, find things on the ground (useful items, pokémon, etc)...you get the idea. I don't normally like