CoverGirl Professional Loose Powder

One of my favorite, affordable makeup brand is CoverGirl. It’s also widely available everywhere too. I mean, you’re probably not going to be able to get some high-end makeup at 3AM… but even in the podunk towns, if you’ve got a 24/hours Walmart opened, you’ll be able to get CoverGirl for any last minute quick fix!

I love the CoverGirl Professional Loose Powder as my favorite face powder to use. (Amazon Associates Program) It has this amazing fresh scent that I love, and it actually reminds me of the Noxzema face cleansing cream that was really popular back in the day. I think at one point they even had a collab with each other, which might be why I think it smells kind of like that. Whatever it is, it’s a very clean, fresh scent that I really love because there’s been so many makeup products that I’ve wasted money on never wearing because the scent was too heavy or fragrant.

Even the cotton powder pad that it comes with is so cute and fluffy. I like the included pad better than using a brush to put the powder on. The quality is excellent and it really does even out your skin tone and make your skin look smoother. It goes on flawlessly so that it doesn’t even look like you’re wearing anything! It’s also a must needed item for absorbing oily spots like on the nose, the chin, or the forehead — better known as the “T-zone”. I haven’t found anything else that works as good, or looks as natural as the CoverGirl Professional Loose Face Powder.

Earwax Microsuction

Have you ever looked inside your ears? It’s actually really gross. Since the phenomenon of YouTube, the public now gets to continuously binge watch gross (but weirdly satisfying) video clips of things like professionals popping humongous pimples and blackhead removals, and my personal gross-fetish — earwax removal.

I guess for me, this gross-fetish is because unlike pimples, everyone has earwax… just like everyone has snots in their nose. Okay, but unlike your nose, where the holes are big enough to stick a finger up there, or anatomically designed to be able to just blow the snots out when you’re in the shower or into a tissue — you really can’t do that with earwax.

So what do people usually do? Well, they stick Q-tips in there, which is a big NO. Instead of using them correctly, people tend to stick it into the narrow ear canal and end up pushing the earwax further into the ear canal, impacting it, and sometimes having the wax sitting on top of the eardrum.

Wearing earbuds also doesn’t help… basically anything put into your ears doesn’t help as far as wax goes, including hearing aids. Yet, ear cleaning is not something that most people even have second thoughts about though. Older people are also more likely to have a built-up of excessive earwax, lots of times it’s because older people wear hearing aids.

I suppose it’s because you can’t see into the ears with the naked eyes, so it doesn’t matter how bad your earwax are. Also, ENT doctors will tell you wax is good for you and don’t go digging around in there. Most of the time, people do not get their ears professionally cleaned unless they ended up at the ENT office because their ears are hurting or because the wax is so excessive and impact that it’s blocking the visual of the eardrum.

That’s how it came about with me.

Back in 2005, I had an earache, and because I was in NYC with great insurance (which did not require referrals), I went to an ENT doctor to look at my ears. The doctor prescribed me medication because one of my ears looked inflamed, but he also did something that was very interesting — he said I had a lot of wax in my ears, and then he inserted this small tube into my ear (a microsuction device), and it sucked up my earwax!

I was mortified to see the thing! I always thought I had good hygiene. Ewww.

My doctor’s reply to my repulsed reaction was that everyone has earwax, and mine definitely was not even that bad; and most people go their whole lives never getting their ears clean until they see an ENT who removes it for them with that nifty suction device.

It’s a weird feeling. The vacuum was loud, and I was worried it would damage my eardrums or hearing, but the whole thing takes less than 5 minutes to do (at least for me anyway). In the ear that was inflamed, he used a tool to manually remove it before using the vacuum on that ear. The tool was a weird feeling. It didn’t hurt, but you could definitely feel it scraping the wax off, and because that ear was sensitive due to pressure buildup in the sinuses and the eustachian tube, manual removal was done first on that ear — on the other ear, it just got sucked right up by the vacuum.

I had it done again in 2008, but this time it was just a cleaning I wanted and not because my ears hurt or anything. After I had it done the first time, I felt it was the same as going to the dentist for a cleaning… you want to keep up with the ear cleaning the way you do with your 6-months dental cleaning. I did not have it done again though, from 2008 until now in 2020… so 12 years already.

Mostly because circumstances changed. I no longer lived in NYC and did not have access to great services and multiple providers, and even the insurance I have was not as great as the one I had. Well, the good thing is that for the most part, Tricare is an EXCELLENT insurance and covers a lot of services that most other insurances don’t… the bad thing is you rarely get to see the same provider more than once… and you need referrals for specialists like ob/gyn and ENT.

Thankfully, I finally got a really great provider this summer who listened to me. See, for about a week or so, I had a feeling of fullness and pressure in my left ear (probably my sinuses), and she gave me a 12-visit referral to the ENT. My provider is great because she listens and isn’t dismissive of your concerns, so I was finally able to get my ears cleaned today at the ENT after she gave me a referral last week.

I was curious to see what it actually looks like in there, which is why I finally decided to be one of those YouTube binge watchers off earwax removals over the weekend. Ewww. I have no idea how my ears actually looked, but seeing all of these videos made me realize how “unclean” everyone’s ears actually are. If you’re able to, I’d recommend a professional ear cleaning at least once in your life time… preferably at least once a year if your insurance will provide for a visit to an ENT without a referral.

One of the cool gadgets I got to review recently is a digital otoscope. Now, they’re usually also marketed on Amazon as “earwax removal kits”, but I strongly advise against it. You’ll most likely do some damage to either your ear canal or worse, your eardrums, if you decide to use the otoscope to go scooping out wax… but it is interesting to look in your ears, and it is very addicting. Be warned, your ears are very gross, but you’ll become obsessive with checking on the wax, and you’ll have to fight the temptation to not stick your pinky in there to try to feel around for the wax and dig it out!

As for the professional cleaning at an ENT… your ears will feel as clean as your teeth does after your dental cleaning.

Facebook Portal [Review]

I got a free Portal about a month ago, and I honestly had no idea what it was when I got it. So, to give you guys a little backstory — someone rung my doorbell around 10AM (but because of COVID-19, the kids and I have been keeping awful hours, and I basically wasn’t fully awake yet)… and I opened my door to a delivery person who was safely social-distancing from my front door after she dropped off the Portal on my doorstep.

This is some weird times we’re living in.

As stated, I had no idea what a Portal even was. I had to Google what a Portal was… which led me to Facebook. Apparently it’s Facebook’s version of Google Assistant, or Amazon’s Alexa, or iPhone’s Siri — but for the home.

I don’t use any of those virtual voice assistants though — except in my car, and that’s because my car has Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, and it’s safer and more convenient for me to say, “Hey, Google!”, when I’m doing 70 on a highway… but I digress.

Honestly, I much rather have had a Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo — but don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely appreciative and grateful that I got the Portal for free… but I am being honest, which is one of the hallmarks of my reviews — my honest opinion on products.

So here’s another honesty — if I didn’t get it for free, I would never buy one of these home assistants anyway. I have had numerous sellers asking me if I wanted to review their cameras… usually hunting cameras, dashboard cameras for cars, nanny-cams, and home security cameras. A few I was very interested in, but my hubby always said no because according to him he didn’t want Big Brother watching us. So imagine my surprise when he wanted a Portal (again, only because it was free).

I really don’t feel like I need it because we all have smartphones; we have a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a chromebook — what do we need another electronic device for? Especially since we’re all on our phones all the time anyway.

I like that the Portal comes with a cover to put over the camera. Facebook received a lot of criticism about privacy concerns regarding the camera. I don’t like that the Portal sometimes thinks I’m talking to it when I’m not (this is rare though, and usually it’s very good about voice activation). I like that it has Alexa, but it kind of defeats the purpose of its own AI assistant if you’re using Alexa instead.

Video messaging via Facebook Messenger is excellent quality. The display is nice, touch screen is very responsive, videos are sharp, calls (via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger) are clear, and voice activation is very good… but again, it’s kind of useless in our household though. I use it mostly to catch up on the latest news, listen to music, and find recipes when I’m cooking. Like most people with virtual home assistant devices, mine is also on the island counter of our kitchen.

If you have a smartphone/tablet, these home assistants are not worth it. The Portal is an excellent choice though, if you do want one.

Oscar’s Out of Brumation!

So over the weekend I finally took Oscar out of brumation.

Brumation is kind of like what mammals do when they hibernate, but it’s the reptile version of it. Reptiles depend on their environment for body temperature; so tortoises in the wild that “hibernate”, will start digging a burrow that’s really quite deep as a sleeping place. When the temperature rises, they should automatically come out of their burrows on their own.

However, often that’s not the case with a lot of pet tortoises. I’m not an expert, so my experience are just of my own with my Russian Horsfield tortoise. I had read and watched a lot of YouTube videos from self-claimed experts and breeders about what to do and what not to do… but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to most of them, as a lot of them were typical tortoise owners from pet store chains who just went off of whatever nonsense the employee told them.

I put Oscar in this huge 25 gallon round planter that until fall was holding one of my cherry tomato plants (that I’ve grown from seeds). In the first week of November, I pulled out the remnants of the plants, and used it for Oscar’s brumation. All the videos and article I’ve read said to use a shoebox or small container, put newspaper and blahblahblah… I couldn’t understand why you couldn’t brumate your tortoise in as close a natural environment as possible (a shoebox definitely is not natural).

One of the reasons why I didn’t let Oscar stay in the garden is because I had lost him for about 4 days. He had dug a burrow that was already about a foot deep, and I didn’t know where it was, but by chance I managed to find him when I was determined to start digging up my little garden plot to search for him. Even in the wild, a lot of tortoises will die during brumation because they cannot get themselves back out for a number of reasons. Also, we’ve had so much rain I was worried that his little burrow would flood and he would drown.

When I put Oscar in the planter, I buried him about 5 inches, and my hubby moved the planter to the garage. I haven’t seen Oscar for 3 months already, and to be honest I wasn’t even sure if he was still in the planter or had crawled out, or if he was in the planter I didn’t know if he was still alive.

I decided 3 months was ideal because they don’t need to brumate for long anyway, and because the weather has been very mild (we’ve hardly had a winter at all). Also, they shouldn’t brumate for more than 3 or 4 months anyway because they have a limited amount of energy supply that they’ve stored up in their body. Also, I decided to do it now because I’ve noticed that the sun was starting to stay out longer, and that it wasn’t getting as dark quite as early.

Well, I dug up the soil from the planter, about a foot of it, and then I decided to just tip the planter over because if Oscar was still in there, he most certainly would be at the bottom (and he was). He was all the way at the very bottom, so that when I turned the planter over and all the soil came out, I didn’t even have to dig for him. He was motionless and looked dead, his limbs were out so that he was spread eagle style, and even his head was out of his shell.

I picked him up, and he still had a nice weight to him. I immediately put him in the laundry room, where we have a basin, and I “soaked” him in warm water for about 30 minutes. He started moving around, and I was ecstatic because I knew he had gone through brumation alright.

Since the weather was mild, I let him out in the yard so that he could get some sun, and also because I wanted him to eat or drink. The ground was still wet from the rain that we’ve had recently. He’s currently in our large inside planter bed that I had made into his little habitat for when I have to bring him inside.

I do want to say though, that I’ve been soaking him every day in warm water, because hydration is very important. I’m not sure if he’s been drinking or not though, because usually they poop after they’ve been soaked — but at the same time, it could be because he’s not eating, which means he wouldn’t have anything to poop out anyway.

I do want to say that if you brumate your tortoise, you’ll have to be sure they haven’t had anything to eat for about two weeks so that they can clean out their system. Now, I didn’t have to worry about that because Oscar is an outside tortoise, and I knew that his natural instincts would tell him to do that on his own. Another reason why I decided to put him in the potted planter was because I hadn’t seen him for almost a week, so I knew that he had naturally made himself ready for his long sleep.

Pan Seared Salmon Recipe

I love seafood, especially shellfish and salmon… this is a super quick and easy recipe (perfect as a workday dinner for the weekdays when you don’t have time for anything)… I was missing onions and lemons — but the kids still loved it and there was no leftovers for my poor hubby.

My First Food Vlog!

Made my first food vlog today!

Usually when I make this I add clams, mussels, and other seafood to it — it’s really hearty that way. Other Asians like it with beef, or a mixture of meats and seafood (there’s so many varieties).

Unfortunately, I’m really limited when it comes to fresh seafood because I’m in a landlocked area and no where near an ocean. One of the things I miss the most about New York City is the Atlantic Ocean.

The Nanny Complete Series Boxset Review

UPDATED: So a few days after I wrote my original post, the Roku Channel is no longer currently streaming The Nanny (seasons 1 and 2) anymore. This happens when they expire some of the shows that are available for streaming, just like with Netflix. No big deal, as now they’re showing seasons 3 and 4 anyway.

I ended up getting the complete series boxset from Walmart.com (currently retails at $75, and sold directly from them), and then returning it about 2 weeks later because at the store they have it for $45 (minus the reunion special… but for $30 less, I can do without the reunion disc). The only disappointment is on music licensing, which has prevented a lot of TV shows from being able to be released (like Cold Case, which features popular music heavily on its show). Anyway, I’m waiting for California Dreams to he release as a series boxset eventually (I mean, it’s produced by the same people that did Saved By the Bell)… but I digress!

Below is my original post.

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Ahhhhh!!! One of my favorite TV sitcoms (I have a few) is currently available for FREE streaming on the Roku Channel (ahhhhh!!!), The Nanny!

Okay, so I’ve been waiting for it — and Hulu is usually great with streaming sitcoms (the whole ABC network’s TGIF lineup is available right now), as well as having lots of other series that I’m a fan of (The Golden Girls, specifically). I’ve been waiting for this and even tried looking for it on DVD, but it’s been unavailable… until now, that is.

I love this show because Fran has that nasal Queens voice (it reminds me of home so much), and I generally just love any show that’s set in NYC. The show also makes me feel nostalgic about my youth because it was a show I enjoyed when it was in syndication during my late teen years, and the fashion of the 1990’s (that is, in the 90’s the 70’s fashion was back in style).

It’s as exciting as when the whole series of The Golden Girls were available on Hulu… unfortunately, it’s only streaming seasons 1 and 2 of the series on Roku though (hopefully Hulu will pick it up eventually). I’m waiting for Cold Case to become available too (they had some great music, but that’s the main problem, music licensing for a lot of their episodes prevents it from being available).

Just an FYI for those that are also fans of the show, and the Roku Channel is a free channel (like Crackel is too).

[Pattern] Crochet Sunflower

I love sunflowers. It’s my favorite flower. I knew my hubby was my real prince charming the moment he sent me a gorgeous sunflower bouquet mix from the florist.

I draw them, buy them, plant them (eat their seeds), and are always given them by those who know me — and I’m also always coming up with new ways to get them in my life, ha!

The video starts when I’m already on the second round — Start the pattern with a ch 4, sl st to first ch to form a ring, and then 12 dc into the center of the ring.

[Review] I Love Lucy: the Complete Series Boxset

I Love Lucy: the Complete Series boxset (Amazon Associate Program), is currently available for about $30. (I got mine at Walmart.)

The first thing I love right away is that finally they released a complete series boxset! I’ve been waiting years for this to come out, and the great part is that it’s the affordable price… which leads me to believe that I was right, eventually they will colorize the whole series (but not before they milk it for all it’s worth).

See, years ago (like 15 years ago), I bought the whole series as individual seasons when they first came out. It was expensive too! The first season was a boxset that had like 7 DVD cases in it, and cost around $100. Eventually the other seasons came out too, but they were packaged differently, in a more compact way, and cost a lot less too. They repackaged season 1 so that it was uniformed with the other seasons, but there was never anything like this current boxset that was available though.

I had the whole series, and I actually resold most of the seasons on Amazon, but each year the DVDs got less and less costly. I eventually started seeing the individual seasons at Walmart and Amazon for like $29.99, $19.99, $14.99… and the individual seasons now retails around $10 each. A huge difference from when it used to cost about $500 to own the whole series. I’m sure collectors and I Love Lucy fans are probably pissed at having wasted so much money instead of waiting for this boxset to finally be released. I’m glad I resisted re-buying the whole series each time I saw the price drops, because now I own the whole thing for a lot less.

It comes with 2 DVD cases inside of the box. One case is really thick, and that case holds all the discs from season 1-5, and the second case holds all the disc from season 6-9 (which includes the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episodes). It’s also in its original format, which is the stick-figure cartoon of Lucy and Ricky (instead of the syndicated heart on a stain background). I absolutely LOVE it!

This is the ultimate DVD release for I Love Lucy fans. Obviously if you already have all of the seasons and completed the series, there’s no reason to buy this — but if you don’t, then definitely buy this! One of the reasons why this is so affordable now is because DVD isn’t what it used to be (even like 10 years ago)… soon, DVDs will be as old news and historical as beepers, VHS, and cassette tapes.

A lot of people rather stream videos now instead — it’s instant, and you don’t have to worry about it getting lost, stolen, or damaged like you do with discs. One thing I do have to mention is that the discs are overlapping each other in the two cases, and I find this to be prone to scratching.

Hulu, Amazon Prime, and the CBS app has episodes of I Love Lucy available for streaming, but it is NOT the complete series (there are a lot of episodes missing, and it’s labeled as “The Best of I Love Lucy Season…”). So while you can watch a lot of the most popular episodes of the show whenever you want as part of those streaming apps, you don’t get every episode. This is definitely worth it if you’re a fan of the show, as the whole series is very affordable right now. I really think that this will sell out by Christmas time (if not before), and you’ll have to buy it on eBay or from a third-party seller on Amazon for like $150 or something.

As an after-thought, I probably should have not gotten the colorized “collection” DVD. It cost $20 and you get 16 episodes… but I have a feeling that CBS is probably going to keep releasing these colorized collections in volumes, then releasing individual colorized seasons, and eventually about 5 or 10 years from now they’ll have the whole series colorized that is available in a box set that cost about $35 (that is, if DVDs are still around 10 years from now). As a huge fan of the show though, the temptation is too great to not buy it whenever something like that comes out though… the worse part is that I know better.

The first release of anything is always more expensive and not as great as later releases. I’m sure if I wait a few more years, the series will be digitally enhanced or remastered, and the coloring process much better quality… and the price more affordable, with the availability to buy the whole series in color in like a compact boxset. As the saying goes, good things are worth waiting for.

[Review] I Love Lucy: the Colorized Collection

Today I received my I Love Lucy: Colorized Collection (Amazon Associate Program). Available for $20, I got mine from Walmart online.

It comes with two discs. There is only bonus features on the second disc, and it’s just the colorized episodes that have already aired on CBS during their Lucy specials. Also, it is not done in its original opening and closing credits (with the cartoons of Lucy and Ricky), instead it’s the syndicated heart on a satin background. It’s not a bad price for $20 (there’s 16 colorized episodes).

The episodes that are colorized are: Pioneer Women, Lucy Does a TV Commercial, Job Switching, The Million Dollar Idea, Bonus Bucks, L.A. at Last, Lucy Gets in Pictures, The Fashion Show, The Dancing Star, Harpo Marx, Lucy Visits Grauman’s, Lucy and John Wayne, Lucy Goes to Scotland, Lucy’s Italian Movie, Christmas Show, and Lucy and Superman.

Okay, first, the format kills me. I hate it. You have to use whatever zoom mode is available on your TV to get it to full screen, otherwise you get the box-cut screen. Not a big deal, except that when you zoom to fill the screen, it cuts out some of the picture (including cutting out parts of a person’s head even!), and zooming makes the picture very noticeably flawed. As for the coloration… well, it’s better than when Ted Turner did it back in the 1980’s, but it’s still not the same as it would have been if the show was originally produced in color.

It’s not the same as watching the seasons of The Lucy Show, Bewitched, or I Dream of Jeannie when they switched to color production in later seasons. The best way I can try to describe it is an Andy Warhol-looking design. The colors definitely do pop, but it’s very unrealistic — it’s definitely not the same “pop” that you get with Technicolor (I’m a huge fan of Technicolor)… instead, it looks like Andy Warhol’s pop art paintings, even the colorized blonde hair on the show looks like the blonde hair of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe painting.

Also, certain frames the picture is not steady and seems shaky. I’m not sure if that was caused during the coloring process, or if it was always like that and I just didn’t noticed it because it was in black and white. The colors also seem overly aggressive, like you’re in Willy Wonka’s world or something — like green, fuchsia, orange, yellow, pink — the colors are very bold and loud (and I can’t help but wonder if they got the colors wrong when they were processing it). When they finally arrive in Hollywood, their hotel room was a ridiculous color, and it just seems like such a stark contrast because in the colored seasons of The Lucy Show, all the furniture and clothes looked normal.

However, you can own the whole series in its original version for $45, also available on Amazon (I Love Lucy Complete Series Boxset). That’s a great price, because about 15 years ago, I spent about $300 buying the series; and I remember the first season was over $100 and there were like 9 discs or something in a box (a few years later it was $30 and they repackaged it to look like the other seasons). Prime instant video and Hulu have I Love Lucy available to stream, but it’s not the complete series, and a lot of the best episodes are missing, but now each season is only around $10 and very compact (I guess prices don’t always go up after all).

Anyway, if you’re a fan of Lucy, you’ll enjoy this. I hope they’ll eventually colorized the whole series… and technology is always advancing, so maybe the next process will make it digitally better.