Weekly Wrap Up: First Edition

My Weekly Wrap Up

Favorite Recipe of the Week: Valentine's Day Chex Mix!  This week I was looking for a simple and festive recipe for V-Day and came across this one on the Betty Crocker website.  I'm putting it in little baggies and packing it in my lunch for a little treat when I substitute.

#1 Beauty Purchase of the Week:  Maybelline's Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser  I didn't even know Maybelline had such a product until I read a review on it over on Chelsee's blog.  Until recently, I had been using Estee Lauder's Idealist Pore Minimizing Skin Refinisher, but 1 oz. of that costs $54 and I'm almost all out.  A .67 oz tube of Baby Skin costs only about $6.00, so I thought trying it would be worth a shot since it is priced so reasonably.  Also, Baby Lips products by Maybelline are some of my favorite lip balms out there!  I have to say that after using Baby Skin for a couple of days now, I am really pleased with the product especially considering how little I paid for it.  It did not "erase" my pores (if only!), but it did make them appear a lot smaller and worked well with the other makeup I regularly use.  I can see myself repurchasing this many times in the future.

Book Started This Week: The 8th Confession by James Patterson Since I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I started looking around the house for some new reading material when I remembered that there was a James Patterson book that I had never read sitting on our bookshelf.  Hahaha...my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend was a part of a reader's club and they sent her all of these books in the mail.  I guess she forgot to cancel it and two books came to my boyfriend's house, but his ex never came and got them.  It has been years now, so I figure that it's okay to read them since she obviously isn't going to come claim them.  Is it weird that I'm reading my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's book?  She never read it and I don't want to let a good book go to waste!  I have never actually read anything by James Patterson, but have seen a couple of his movies like Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider.  I don't usually read many mystery books, as it isn't necessarily my favorite genre, but I have to admit that I'm really into this book.  I like that most of the main characters are female (can relate more, haha) and the chapters are only a few pages long, so that helps my short attention span!  I'm almost done and since this is a book in a series called The Women's Murder Club, I might go ahead and read some of the other ones.

Current Drink Obsession: Sparkling Flavored Water in Black Cherry I first started drinking sparkling flavored water last spring when my professor gave us some at her house when she had us over for South African food.  She said that it was very common to drink flavored water in South Africa, and when I went there last May, I did find that to be true.  While I had a lot of it when I was over in Cape Town, I never really picked up any for myself here in the U.S.  At the grocery store this week, I happened to see some and picked up a few bottles and have become obsessed with it all over again!  I know that regular water is way better for you, but I drink the flavored sparkling water instead of drinking a soda.  It just tastes so good and there are lots of flavors to choose from if Black Cherry isn't your thing.

 
Other Tidbits From This Week:  I also met up with my pal Amanda and her husband so that we could go out to eat at Rooster's.  Rooster's opened up in my town not too long ago, and it can be compared to a Buffalo Wild Wing's.  It was nice to just be able to relax and chat with them in a casual setting and of course to try out the wings.  Afterwards, Amanda and I went to Bingo, hahaha...I swear it's fun, even though some of the people there are pretty scary/hardcore into Bingo.  I really wanted to take a picture of some of the bingo tote bags that people carry around with them--it's crazy!!  There will be like 40 different colored dabbers in a bag along with all of these good luck charms.  A woman had all of these trolls lined up at her table, and Amanda made fun of her and told me to take a picture to put on here, but I was way too chicken.  Sadly, I didn't win...Amanda won, but had to split it 8 ways so she only got $16, but her aunt won $900!!  On the month of your birthday you get in for free, so we will be going back next month for Amanda's birthday and then again in April for mine. 

Speaking of winning things, although I did not win at Bingo, I did win a copy of The Forever Girl by Alexander McCall Smith from Goodreads.com (thanks, Kate!!) and won The Royal Giveaway @ Keep Calm and Blog On.  Wahoo!!

Finally, I did do a tiny bit of shopping in celebration of my spending ban being over!  I bought my V-Day swap buddy Lola her gifts and picked up a few mini candles at BBW for myself, even though did NOT need them.  I shouldn't have even sniffed the Raspberry Peach Macaron candle OR the Watermelon Lemonade candle, because I got hooked on both.  #addiction 

Anyway, that was my week in a nutshell!  Don't to keep track of what you're doing this coming week so that you can participate in our next link up on Monday, February 10th.

Weekly Wrap Up Rules 

1) Follow your hosts Rachael @ The Rachael Way and Lisa @ Ameliorer la Vie.
2) Share what you have been up to this past week and link your post up with us every Monday.
3) Hop around and comment on at least two other people's posts.
4) Link your post back to us in some way. We have a cute button for you to grab. :)
5) Have fun reading about how other bloggers spent their week!

** If you would like to tweet about the link up, feel free to use #weeklywrapup.

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