Have you heard the news about Estee Lauder phasing out the Prescriptives line? If any of your favorite beauty products happen to be made by Prescriptives, I'm betting you've heard about this!

I'm really BUMMED because I've been using Prescriptives Traceless foundation for YEARS now and I've never found a foundation that I love as much as this one.

Prior to discovering Traceless, I used the Prescriptives Virtual Skin foundation, which I also loved, but Traceless is a little more sheer, goes on a little smoother, and looks more natural on me.

BigSis & I have both talked about our essential beauty products this week so I thought this would be a good time to mention this news from Estee Lauder. When I talked about the Top Three products I can't live without, it was hard for me to choose between the MAC powder and the Prescriptives Traceless foundation.  I can hang at the house with just mascara on, but anytime I go out, I always have on the Traceless Foundation and the MAC Loose Powder.

Since I'm trying to prepare for our trip to Blog World in Vegas next week, I ran into Macys to grab a new Traceless so I don't run out while out of town.  When I asked if they still had any Level Three Traceless left, the salesperson told me that she had three containers. For some stupid reason, I only bought two of them instead of all three. I'm probably going to order more online before they're all gone! One container lasts me a few months so I won't need to make a change any time soon if I stock up now.

By January, 2010, the Prescriptives line will have been phased out of the department stores. There is a slight chance that you will be able to order some products online even after they are discontinued, but if it's a popular item and you LOVE it like I LOVE the Traceless, you better stock up NOW!

The sales person at the Prescriptives counter told me that Estee Lauder was holding a training class today at our local Macys to teach all the employees how to transition Prescriptive customers into other products, obviously others brands under the Estee Lauder ownership. I hope I can eventually find something that I love as much as Traceless!

If anyone has a favorite foundation that's light and sheer and goes on nice and smooth, PLEASE let me know about it!

~LilSis

Posted under Beauty and Skin Care

When I was in Californie last week, LilSis and I were wandering around SuperTarget in search of the Garnier Nutrioniste Anti-Puff Eye Roller.  We found that, plus this other intriguing product that neither of us had heard of.  It's made by University Medical and is called Face Lift WrinkleFree Eyes.  The package screams that it's a “20 Minute Botox” treatment!  Of course, we bought into the marketing strategy…hook, line and wrinkle.  Yep, we forked over our $30 and bought it.

Adios to Wrinkles??

Here's what you get in the 2-week starter kit, according to the manufacturer's web site:

~BigSis

Posted under Beauty and Skin Care

Aldi stores have finally come to Texas!  We've been looking forward to their arrival for a while, partly because we heard Trader Joe's stores are owned by one of the Aldi brothers.  We hoped that TJ's would follow Aldi here, but we're hearing now that is only wishful thinking.  Boo!!  For now, we'll have to settle with exploring Aldi stores.

Aldi stores are marketed as being basic, no-frills, and low-priced grocers.  I visited a new North Dallas store, and found those claims to be true.  The store was very small, with concrete floors, and products stacked in their shipping cartons instead of arranged prettily on shelves.  These are not warehouse club stores, but that is the feeling you get: bare and stark.  Prices are clearly marked on tags above the product.

No frills also means you bring your own bags and bag your own groceries.  You must deposit 25 cents to get a grocery cart, refundable when you return the cart to its home.  You should know too that Aldi brands eliminate the use of coupons, and Aldi only takes cash and debit cards – no credit cards or checks.

Another important note is that you'll see very few familiar brands at Aldi.  During my initial 15 minute breeze-through, I only saw 2 or 3 identifiable brands.  That means you're going to need to spend some time looking at products and reading labels to figure out what you're buying.  You can't just grab your favorite granola bar and know exactly what you're getting.  You'll have to do some research in the aisles when you first shop at Aldi.

On my first trip, I spent $14.59 on 7 items, an average of just over $2 per item.  That's already a good sign, right?  It seems like everything I buy at the Wallymart or SuperTarzhay is $3-something or $4-something.  When's the last time you bought something that was $2?

Here's what I got (I know it's an odd random list!) and how it worked out:

• Tuscan Garden Large Black Olives $1.19 – Perhaps on the medium-ish side, but good flavor as far as canned black olives go.

• Fit & Active Instant Brown Rice $1.35 – I've always made regular brown rice so this was  my first taste of an instant version.  It wasn't quite done after 5 minutes of simmering and 5 minutes of steaming, as the directions stated.  After another 3 minutes of simmering and steaming, it was fine. Not fabulous, but ok.

• Benita Guacamole $2.99 – Wow!  Great!  Just like the Wholly Guacamole two-packs; it tastes like it might have come out of the same kitchen.

• Fit & Active Dried Cherries $3.49 – The best dried fruit I've ever had.  Really!  These cherries were plump and full of tart sweet flavor; not dried to leathery death.  Next time I'm grabbing a bag of the dried blueberries too.

• Grandessa Garlic Vinaigrette $1.99 – Slightly sweet for me, but a high quality dressing.

• Millville Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bars (10 pk) $1.69 – That's not a typo…you get 10 bars for $1.69.  Granted, they are small bars.  Very small.  But they're tasty little guys that my coworker says are a dead-ringer for Quaker's chewy granola bars.  They weigh in at 100 calories-3 grams fat-2 grams protein-7 grams sugar.  These are too candy bar-ish for me, so even though they were yummy, that's not what I want from a granola/energy/protein bar.

• Fit & Active Mixed Berry Fruit & Grain Cereal Bars (8 pk) $1.89 – These tasted exactly like Nutri-Grain bars to me, but may be a touch smaller. A great value for an 8-pack of bars.  They have 130 calories-3 grams fat-2 grams protein-13 grams sugar.  Delicious, but I don't want this much sugar in a bar so I wouldn't buy them again.

Overall, I thought these products were a fabulous value for the money.  The quality was consistently excellent, even though the prices were sometimes unbelievably low.  Will Aldi be a weekly stop for me?  Probably not.  I don't buy a lot of processed foods, and the majority of Aldi's offerings are not what I routinely buy.  I do see Aldi as an occasional stop for a few items from time to time, like that amazing guacamole and the scrumptious cherries!

~BigSis

Posted under Shopping

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been back home from my extended weekend trip to California, and I'm still thinking about Beach Break Cafe! On our way to take me to the airport, we stopped in for a late breakfast/early lunch and we can't believe it took us so long to eat there!

We happened to be at Beach Break Cafe on the last day of school, and this was apparently THE go-to spot for happy high schoolers who were eager to celebrate their freedom with an awesome California-style meal. HayHay saw oodles of kids he knew. We had to wait for a table for 15 or 20 minutes, but it was well worth the wait.

Even before our food came, we were loving the cafe. All of the staff were so friendly and our server told us that they were experimenting with new restaurant POS systems to try and make their service even more efficient. The decor and vibe was very beachy-cool, and fun. We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the fresh air and people watching. This is our kind of place! You can keep your fancy fah-fah-fah restaurants. Give us a laid back hole in the wall cafe and we're happy girls!

Being vegan 99% of the time, my food choices were somewhat limited as usual, but I did have options. Take a look at the menu. I was dying to try the legendary crispy hashbrowns, so that's what I had, along with sliced tomatoes, biscuits and coffee. There was no way I was going to be virtuous with oatmeal or fresh fruit on this trip! I wish I'd gotten the fresh-squeezed tangerine juice that LilSis tried. It was pure California gold in a glass! Beach Break also offers fresh-squeezed grapefruit and orange juice.

Here's LilSis' meal before she tore into it. Check out those crispy golden hashbrowns!

LilSis' plate at Beach Break Cafe

Check out HayHay's plate. You can't even see the 2 ginormous slabs of sourdough toast on the side!

Beach Break Chicken Fried Steak

You see that hand on the right of the photo? It belongs to a 17 year old surfer and it's holding a fork. You know what that means? It means in 10 minutes flat you have this situation:

Beach Break plate after HayHay attack!

I guess he was too full or the garnish would have been history too!

We'll definitely make breakfast at the Beach Break Cafe a regular stop when I'm visiting. The whole fam damily is hearding out to Californie later this summer after my new great nephew is born, so Beach Break better get ready! We'll need lots of those delicious hashbrowns!

 

~BigSis

Posted under Food

In our last post, you were able to catch a little glimpse of us sisters playing around in the Zumanity gift shop. Well, after a lot of thought and many discussions on the subject, plus some expert advice, BigSis and I have decided to bust out from behind the caricatures and expose our real faces!

LilSis and BigSis at Elton's Red Piano

What better time to reveal ourselves than when we're talking about Zumanity!  You can't get much any more revealing than that!

This photo was taken at the Elton John Red Piano Concert a few years ago. This was a very special occasion for us as SisMama treated us to the concert and then it ended up being the last trip with were able to take with our Dad.  This is the actual photo we sent to the awesome artist, India Kalff, who designed our header and spent oodles of time helping us with the design of BigSisLilSis.

So, now that you know what we really look like, we thought we'd just go for it and make our very first EVER videos. Why the heck not!  We're brave girls, huh?  Be kind!  😀  We're just winging it and having fun!

In this first video, we were on our way to see Zumanity and were really, really excited, and a little nervous/worried, so we forgot to introduce ourselves. In case you hadn't figured it out, BigSis is brunette and LilSis is blonde.  (No makin' fun of the accents, okay??  You already know we're from Texas!)

If we were asked to sum up our thoughts about the Zumanity show in one word, it would be WOW!  In all reality, we were a little stunned after the show and could barely even get one word out. Check it out! (Oh, and notice the creepy lurking guy peaking through the show poster behind us.)  🙂

When we finally snapped out of our Zumanity-induced trances, we did a second “after the show” video with a few more words!

We both really enjoyed and appreciated some aspects of the show.  It is unlike anything either one of us has ever seen, or will see again. The production was incredible and beyond stunning; including the costumes (designed by Thierry Mugler), choreography, contortionism, acrobatics, music, and staging.  It was all truly superb.

One of our favorite performances was the Waterbowl. These two young women swam around in that bowl and performed out of it like they were dolphins.  It was absolutely mesmerizing.  (We added the red heart to the photo so you wouldn't have to see everything that we saw.  BTW, they do have on itty-bitty undies.)

Zumanity Waterbowl

In all seriousness, to say that Zumanity took this show as far as they could possibly push the envelope – even for Vegas – is an understatement. It's definitely NOT for everyone. There is a LOT of nudity, plus a drag diva emcee, a kiss between two men, suggestions of lesbianism, and simulations of sex acts that will pretty much curl your hair.  Plus other stuff that we won't even mention!  We're still not sure what the scary little horned goat/man creature was about; maybe we don't want to know!

While Zumanity features incredibly talented people and unbelievable performances, make no mistake about it – this is a very sexually-explicit show. If you choose to see it, be prepared to be shocked at the sexuality and amazed at the performances at the same time.

One last word of advice. Do. Not. Sit. On. The. Front. Row. And don't make eye contact with any of the characters that roam around. Unless of course, you would enjoy being dragged on stage to have strange men and/or women take your clothes off and perform very suggestive things on you (or to you).

All in all…we guess the final question should be, “would we see it again?”  LilSis says “yes”. BigSis says “nope, once is more than plenty”.  If you're thinking about seeing this show, we suggest you go to YouTube and investigate some of the videos there so you can make an informed decision.  As for us, we'd really like to see some other Cirque shows since we have a huge appreciation for the athleticism and talent we saw in Zumanity.

*Disclosure: BigSis and LilSis received free press tickets from Cirque du Soleil, with the understanding that we would tweet or post about the show. As you can see, we were very honest about our opinions!

Posted under Travel

Origami Paper Mache Open 1

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Origami Paper Mache Open 3

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Origami Paper Mache Open 4

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Origami Paper Mache Open 5

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Origami Paper Mache Open 6

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