Cooperative Capers

  Have a parfait picture so you don't get spoilers on the home page. ;) Pictured: watermelon kiss and blue raspberry topped with vanilla custard from Confetti (small parfait) We recently watched the new movie Belle  from the director of Summer Wars.  We generally prefer subs, but we watched the dub for this and I thought it worked well. The voice acting in English was good, and there are some songs, so it might be easier to appreciate them in your own language. Overall, I liked the movie. It was a very creative take on the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast. It was definitely darker than the Disney movie without some of the problematic species questions. Some of the characters were well fleshed-out and many had good intentions. The movie did an excellent job demonstrating a main character with depression and how that can distort our interactions with others. She continually pushes away friends who are clearly (to the viewer) attempting to connect with her. She also se...

  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...