antimony

A gentlemen's blend, possessed of dignity, charm and refinement, but in truth masking a corrupted, hideous, soulless core. White musk, lime, lilac and citron. Don't let the decription fool you... this is not too masculine for a woman to wear. This smells *so* enticing. This is citrus that slithers. The lime is deliciously citrus, but unlike lemon-based scents, keeps it from smelling like furniture polish. The lilac is sneaky... it slips in under the citrus, and it smells like someone plotting. A beautiful but evil person. This is a truly a gorgeous perfume, this may even be a 5ml for me, but it makes me feel devious and ready for a day of office politics.

A gentlemen's lavender-citron cologne unhinged by the feral pungence of black musk and a paroxysm of pennyroyal. When I first put this on, it reminded me of some kind of food, it wasn't chocolate, but it was probably candy. I couldn't pu my finger on it. When I went back to look at the description of the scent, I realized what it was... This smells exactly like Lavender Pastilles taste. It lasted probably through to the beginning of the afternoon... not all day, but it didn't fade right away.

Azrael is the Angel of Death, marked as the last being to die in the Apocalypse. Though a harbinger of doom, his duties are an act of mercy: he curtails human life before world-weariness and despair destroys our spirits. Warm myrrh swirled with a bittersweet blend of violet, Lily of the Valley, juniper, cypess and cajeput. Quoting myself from when I first ordered this: Don't get me wrong, this is a marvelous perfume - for someone else. Lily of the Valley just doesn't suit me. However, if any of the rest of you smell good in flowers, you will *love* this one.

A quote from the Lab site: However, some fragrances cannot be obtained purely through natural extraction processes, therefore some of the scents that we use are ‘bouquets’ – essentially a combination of natural scents created to imitate a fragrance that is irreproducible by other means. All the fun of ambergris without the dead whale. ;-) I ordered some single notes for my boyfriend, who is a bit of an alchemist scent-wise. When he gets ready to go out, he'll pull out about half a dozen single note oils and start putting them on one on top of the other. Anyway, since I had mentioned this in my order, Elizabeth included a couple of imps of single notes, including this one. Anyway. He put it on today, and I almost jumped him. This is the sexiest smell imaginable. Wow. Warm, enticing, and very male, but not harsh. Almost foody, but not quite.

Imbues you with enormous amounts of courage. Use this blend when you feel weak, scared, or intimidated. Helps you find the strength to confront dangerous or frightening situations. In the vial: Smels herby, smells nice, a little sharp but nothing shocking. On my skin: This stuff smells exactly like soap. Not just kinda soapy like a lot of "clean" scents do, but exactly like real oil-and-lye handmade soap. Soap scented with kitchen herbs, nothing exotic. This is a scent that suggests a place for everything and everything in its place. I can almost feel the lather on my skin. I can hear my mom saying, "Quit dreaming up these stupid worst-case scenarios. Just pull yourself together and do what you need to do." Edit: wow, this stuff has some staying power. Even well into the afternoon, I felt like I had soap suds up my nose. NOTE: This review thread is for the BPAL Voodoo Blend that was discontinued in October 2004. Twilight Alchemy Lab has since released its own Crucible of Courage, and you can find those reviews here. --Shollin

The incense of a black mass, the perfume of perdition. White sandalwood, cedar, frankincense and swarthy vetiver. Quoting myself from when I first tried it: Ceder and Vetivert on me combine to create something like moldy trees. Add the sandalwood, and we wnd up with my wrists smelling something like smoky moldy trees.

Description: None, that I can find. (It's not even in the up-and-comings!) Before I sniffed this one, I was expecting a perfume called "Peace" to be soft, floral, light, etc. It's not. This is a very woodsy scent. I think the top note is juniper, or something similar. It's the smell of an actual juniper tree, though, it's not like gin. And there's no pine-ness, either. Wait a second, It's fall already... peace? Is this a Yule prototype? It *smells* Christmassy, like fresh evergreen decorations (but not pine, so that's good for people who make pine scents smell like pine-sol) and maybe it's "Peace" as in "Peace on Earth, goowill to all." There's more to it, though. (Though the juniper is pretty strong) Maybe lily of the valley? It's definately not primarily floral though, the flowers are just there as an accent, to round the corners and fill in the background, give the scent depth, and all. I may come in and edit in a couple hours if it dries down significantly different from how it smells now. [Note: This is the first time, I think, that I've ever been the first to review a scent. Hee hee.] NOTE: Though there is now a Twilight Alchemy Lab oil named Peace, these prototype frimps were being sent out long before TAL went live (as you can see) and it's unlikely the Lab would be sending out frimps of a "full-oomph" magical blend. We're therefore choosing to keep the review threads separate. --Shollin

Woo Hoo!

I love the "notes" feature in Flickr. I took pictures of my brown, dead winter yard, and notated where I've planted all of my bulbs (or at least where I think I've planted them) The pictures are kinda boring, but I'm excited and looking forward to a few months from now, when things start sprouting, and I can match them up to the pictures. Have a look at all the ugly landscaping I'm trying to work around!

For three days before my period every month, I go into this wild phase where I will scrub/swiffer/sweep/etc anything in the house that will sit still long enough to be cleaned. This is the time of the month when floors get mopped, closets get organized, etc. I have to say, if I had to pick and chose my PMS symptoms, this is definately the most useful. I am fairly tidy the rest of the month, but not stepford-clean-freak. Unfortunately, my fairly tidiness would be enough if I lived alone, but I don't. I live with the king of the slobs. The guy who tells me, "oh, no, honey, you don't have to clean up after dinner, I'll do it." But two weeks later, the pans would still be on the stove if I left it to him. He left a 2 square foot pile of Magic cards right in front off his side of the couch for over 2 weeks, so he had to sit down at the middle of the couch and scooch over. Every time I suggested he move them, he informed me he wasn't done sorting them yet. (the baffling part is that he bought two huge boxes of Magic cards on Ebay to replace the collection he had as a teenager - but doesn't know anyone here who plays, so plays the computer game version instead!) Anyway, he's been all like "I don't have time to do anything other than cook because I work 50 hours a week" - Except I work 40 hours, then study for another 12+ every week, and I still find time to keep up with the dishwasher, take out the trash, change the cat's litter, and do all of both of our laundry. Of course, he also sleeps 12-13 hours every friday and saturday night, routinely waking up well into the afternoon. But he refuses to acknowledge the fact that if he took better care of his body, by quitting smoking, eating better and working out, he would need less sleep to recover. He's 30 freaking years old, It's time he started to realize his body's not going to hold out forever. And the part that makes it the most frustrating is that he's a computer security engineer. He's smart and capable of rational analysis. He'll sulk and be moody for a week if he put on enough weight to have to go out and buy 3 new bigger pairs of pants. But he isn't willing to give up his 48-64 oz per day of Minute Maid Lemonade (why not just eat the corn syrup with a spoon?) and wonders why he puts on weight. He thinks he'll get thinner doing situps, but thinks cardio is useless and horrifying. Why is he willing to put in so much energy into a job he despises, but is completely unwilling to put any effort at all into us having a nice, relaxing, and non-chaotic home... whoich I would have thought would be more motivating than the world's most soul-sucking job?

Perhaps the lobbyist wanted to ask you out but didn't feel comfortable asking you out on a "real date" Today, I've got a full 8 hour day of studying, and tommorrow I have to go into work, since the year-end reserve analysis is due on the 15th - though thankfully I do get an extra day of vacation in return.

Don't sweat it... speaking as a person who majored in math and works in the math field now: You don't need a calculator on an algebra test. You'll always have to do all of the actual algebra yourself (even the fanciest graphing calculators can't do the intermediate steps for you) and the calculator could only be useful for plugging in the numbers and doing the basic arithmetic at the end. And because of this, your instructor will write the test to make the arithmetic straightforward enough to do quickly by hand. And even in those cases, every professor I had who didn't allow calculators still gave generous partial credit if you did the algebra right but flaked on the arithmetic.

Seriously, where the hell did 2006 go? It was a big year for me. I went to England, I passed an actuarial exam, my mom had her hip replaced, I bought a house - I feel like there were even more big things that happened, but I don't even remember anymore. But needless to say - It was quite a full year. This year, I'm hoping for a little more simplicity. I still want to pass exams, but I'd be happy to let the rest of my life chill out a little bit, and spend a year on personal growth and stuff. I set some pretty ambitious dance-related goals, but I've resisted making "resolutions" for my regular life. I do have some plans, though: I mentioned it in my dance goals, but I'm working the Couch-to-5k plan already. I'm a week in, and it's so gratifying, though it's hard to believe that I will ever be able to run 3 miles at a time. Once I can, I'm hoping to enter a couple of local 5k races this spring. I've been putting together my study plan for my next exam. I'm starting 4 months in advance, so I can take it easy with just studying a couple of days a week, and still make it to 400 hours of study time by the time I sit for the test. If I can put in 400 really, honestly committed hours, I should have no trouble passing. I'm putting a moratorium on buying stuff. No BPAL, not bath/body stuff, no tea, no books, no yarn, etc. I have more than enough of all of the above, and I'm just not going to buy more until I use what I've got. It's all just sitting around waiting to go bad or go stale, and taking up space. This way, I save money, I don't let the things I already have go to waste, and most importantly, I get back the space I was using to store all of that stuff. And I am 100% sure I need less clutter in my life. There we are, no resolutions, just a few straightforward goals. (and I think there's a huge difference between goals and resolutions.)

In just over 4 hours, I will be a home owner! The scay part is getting the enormous cashier's check. I've been just staring at my bank account balance all weekend, all of my down payment money is in there, and I've never had so much money all at once. I'm going to own a house! I'm so excited!

I wax my armpits. I've let them grow before, but I found that there was an inverse relationship between the amount of armpit hair I have and the effectiveness of my antiperspirant. And I hate the feeling of moist armpits. I would not be freaked out by a guy who shaved his pits, and honestly, I would love to see all guys at least trim to their pit hair occationally.

I've signed up to fund two different loans so far (I'm sure I'll add more over time) I love the concept, and I'm enjoying being involved in the whole micro-loan thing. Araceli Romero Herrera Walter Siavichay I am looking forward to watching these business prosper. And I can't wait to see how far they expand into more countries.

I put in an offer on a townhouse yesterday. Holy crap, this attaching an album to an entry thing is *cool*. Only it seems to only have 9 out of my 11 pictures, and it doesn't include the captions. See the full gallery for more details. Anyway, check out the pictures. It's an end unit, so I only have a neighbor on one side, and there's no neighbors to the back, just a stand of trees and way back behind those is the fitness center. I ran out of charge on my camera before I got pictures of the bedrooms, but there's really nothing exciting about those. It's hot a new heating/ac system (with a digital thermostat! so I'll be able to program it to heat when I'm nome and not when I'm not and stuff) and I'll have a full-on laundry room in the basement, where I can have a normal, not stacked washer and dryer. I'm excited. And this is the development it's in: Chesterfield Village Townhomes

I've never bothered with the "insert link" thing, I just code the links in myself. It takes the same amount of time and always works.

Oh my god, I dropped the ball. I undid a ton of really hard work with a little oversight. Something no one in their right mind should have done. So you know those exams I talk about periodically? And you know how I've been studying for this one, and my company sent me to Chicago for a week to prepare, and bought me hundreds of dollars of books? I forgot to register. It would have taken me 10 minutes, and I forgot to do it. My boss has been fairly supportive. That is, once he finished laughing at me. I know he didn't mean to be mean. I can certainly see the humor in it. And they're not making me pay back the money or anything, unless I quit my job before next fall, which I doubt I'll do. I feel like an idiot, a bonehead. And the sad thing is that telling my boss was the easy part. Now I wonder how I'll tell my mom! She'll be disapointed and angry, and I just won't be able to bear it. Even though there's nothing she can do to me. And I'll here about it for the rest of my exam-taking career. My mom will nag me about every one, reminding me to register because "remember how unhappy I was this time", every sitting for the next 3 or 4 years until I'm done. Worse than that, for *at least* the next 10 years, she'll bring it up whenever I have to remember something important. I won't get to live it down. She'll ask me if I am depressed. I am not depressed, I am exhausted. I have been traveling far too much lately, and I hate it. It throws off my schedule, it throws off my rhythm, and I just don't enjoy it. 3 of the 4 trips were to see my parents, and it's great to see them, and they want to see me as often as possible, but they don't really understand how much it wears me out. They don't get how hard it is on me to be away from my home. And my mom is having her hip replaced in a week and a half. My parents don't really understand that this is stressful for my sister and I. After all, we're not the ones going through surgery. And yeah, it's a planned thing, not an emergency, but seriously, it's my mom. I am not so excited about facing the fact that she's getting older. And I'm buying a house. And that's kind of daunting too. I have great credit, and I can afford it, but it's still a really big deal. I want to do it, but I'm afraid of moving again, afraid of change. Afraid of messing something up because I've never done this before. Or what if I forget to do something minor but crucial, and mess up my mortgage the same way I did my exam? I am so damn tired. I want my mother. (except I want my mother when she's sweet and supportinve, not the way she is when she's all disapointed and disapproving.)

Do you guys have any idea how hard it is to take pictures of your own hands? Excuse the fact that I'm tossing in a ton of pictures but no one picture really captures it. A close up of the ring on my finger: A close up of the ring with the ring I wear on my left middle finger (It's a bonzai tree, it was a gift from my dad): A little less close-up: In context with the other ring and my watch: The amazing glow in the saphire:

A girl I knew from a knitting club who was left handed said she had started out by finding a book with detailed pictures, then scanning them in, and mirror imaging the pictures from right to left.

are you left handed?

Ok... imagine you have a length of yarn aranged into a zig-zag of alternating mountains and valleys. The cast on edge anchors each valley, or the bottom of each zig. Now, imagine you lay a length of yarn behind the zig zag. Reach under the first mountain, and pluck a loop through. Then reach under the second, and pluck a loop through. Once you've reached the end of the row, the second piece of yarn is just a second zig-zag interlocking with the first. Then you would flip the whole thing over and go back the other way. When you are knitting, the loops on the needle are the mountains, and they have their backs turned to you. That's why you enter the stitch from the left side (that's if you knit western style, if you knit eastern or combination, it will vary - however 99% of books teach western style, so I'm assuming that's what you're learning). If you look carefully at the base of the stitch, you can see how you are opening it up to "face front". Then you use the tip of the right needle to pull the working yarn through to make a new loop on the right hand needle. To be sure you are pulling the yarn through the correct way, look at the new loop on the right needle, does it angle the same direction laying on top of the needle as the stitches on your left needle? then you have made the stitch correctly. I hope this explanation didn't make it worse! --- ETA: Purling is just what would happen if you laid the yarn in *front* of the zig zag, and made the loops by reaching from behind the mountain and pulling through a loop from front to back.

So I was lame and skipped last weeks garden pics, but honestly, the summer has already peaked, and the garden isn't changing much. The big tomato is still lush and huge. We picked a huge bowl of tomatoes for a salad this afternoon. The experimental tomato has also turned into a jungle. tomato production has slowed down since the weather cooled off, so I'm hoping at least some of those flowers become tomatoes before the frost comes. I'll be happy to make a big pile of fried green cherry tomatoes when the time comes, but I want more tomatoes! Still trying to figure out what to do with all the habaneros The Christmas cactus leaf isn't showing any sprouts, but it isn't whithering either. (I guess it's been 3 weeks since I planted it) The jade leaves, however, shrivelled up to nothing. Pout. I need to pick something else for that pot.

Oh my god. I am so with you! My biggest pet peeve though is cutsy intentional misspellings. On a mailing list I read, someone posted something like, "It's mah birfday!" Ooof. First of all, it looks inane. (And this girl has bragged on the same list about being in Mensa) and 2nd of all, it's not even "writing like she talks" because I'm pretty sure I've met her in person, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't say "mah birfday" out loud! Oh, and to all the people that use "u" for "you": You are not Prince! It's only two letters more, you won't die of exhaustion from typing two extra letters!