Stop & Chat - October

I was a big baby. So big, in fact, I earned a lovely nickname from my parents: Buddha belly. LOL The story of my big belly has been told several times through my life, and holds a special place in my heart. M even calls me that after a particularly hearty meal. You know, the one where pant belts and zippers need to be undone and you feel like you're about to burst.

In Itaewon, there's a restaurant named Buddha's Belly. Of course I've taken several pictures and sent them to my parents, declaring that I have to eat there at some point.

In our excursions to Myeongdong and Itaewon at the beginning of the month, I picked up a miniature Buddha. He sits with the UO-esque home on M's desk.

Sassy Girl Aroma - Candy Apple Sleigh Ride

Scent Description: No scent description available.

Date Received: February 26, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.7 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 This reminds me of an old time cinnamon gum I would always get around Christmas.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No surprises once melted, just awesome cinnamon goodness. The cinnamon isn't normal in your face cinnamon. I think it's whatever makes this smell like candy to me.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the living room, bedroom, office, kitchen... the whole house, okay? It filled the whole house. LOL

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6.5 hours of scent from this sample cup.

Repurchase: Yes! M picked this scent out for me when I had trouble choosing, and I'm glad he did. 

L3 Waxy Wonders - Apple Butterscotch Cake

Scent Description: Sweet apples, sticky caramel, golden butterscotch and yellow cake.

Date Poured: November 18, 2015

Weight Melted: 1.5 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Caramel and crunchy apples with a hint of cakey goodness.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises once melted.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, and office.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours from half of this tart cup.

Repurchase: Yes! This was a perfect melt to set the mood for hayrides and mazes and pumpkin carving. Not that I got to do any of that, but I've been living vicariously through YouTube vloggers' videos. :)

Stop & Chat: October 7-15

A miniature house M picked up in Itaewon

Last weekend I spent more time working on my Korean and had a very lazy weekend. Friday we weren't able to go to the international fireworks festival we wanted to attend, and Sunday ended up making up for that excitement in a way I did not ask for.

L3 Waxy Wonders - This is Halloween

Scent Description: Dreamsicle (creamy orange ice cream wrapped around vanilla ice cream), Fresh Picked Strawberries, berry tea.

Date Received: January 4, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Office, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 A surprising mix of something orange and creamy with a hint of tea and berries.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 I wouldn't call this a typical fall/Halloween scent, which is exactly what I've been craving. I feel like every fall, halloween, and winter themed scent has to have some cinnamon in it, and my nose is getting a bit tired of the same old scent. Anyway, once melted this had a very very slight fizz to it that melds with sweet strawberries and tea in a way that pleases my nose. I've already melted the rest of this clamshell and loved every minute of it!

Scent Strength: 1.5/3
  
Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire office, kitchen/dining area, and hallway.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about seven and a half hours of strong scent from two cubes.

Repurchase: Definitely! This scent also works for any time of year, so that's a double bonus for me.

L3 Waxy Wonders - Sleepy Hollow

Scent Description: Vanilla pound cake with pumpkin cream filling and cream cheese frosting.

Date Received: January 4, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 Creamy pumpkin cream cheese cakey goodness. Just a hint of cinnamon.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 The only difference once melted was the cinnamon's prevalence. It went from a hint of cinnamon to "okay, there is definitely a healthy helping here."

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 7 hours of scent from 2 cubes.

Repurchase: Yes! I quite enjoyed this blend and its performance!

An Ameri-Fili-Rean Hodgepodge: Bastardized Pancit

Okay, I admit the finished product isn't that photogenic, but it tastes delicious as all get out!

I've grown up with two Filipino dishes taking a prevalent place in my life: chicken adobo and pancit. Those are my dad's favorite "home" meals, so whenever we visit my grandparents they are always on the menu. For my freshman year of college, I visited my grandparents for Thanksgiving and came back with a Filipino-sized helping of both meals. Between both foods, I was fully fed for the rest of the semester.

My mom learned how to make these meals from Grandma, but there is always a different taste to her versions versus Grandma's versions. I love both equally, but I usually refer to Mom's as the American version and Grandma's as the Filipino version. I've only ever made pancit, and my version is vastly different from Mom's or Grandma's. M and I lovingly refer to my abominations as "bastardized pancit."

Enter my most recent attempt at pancit, which morphed into the hodgepodge of cultures above. It's delicious, though, so that's all that matters! So delicious, M and I are incorporating it into our normal meals we make.

*Disclaimer: I am not an official chef and I also don't write tutorials often so excuse my inability to write coherent cooking step-by-steps. I also have a bit of a snarky personality so excuse my horrible humor.

Anyway, let's get to the actual meat of the post!

Fall Fun Series - Pumpkin Theme!

Welcome back to our Fall Fun Series! I thought I'd share my meager bit of pumpkin themed decor with you guys today. :)

Read: Peony in Love

Peony in Love
by Lisa See
2007

Fiction

In seventeenth-century China, in an elaborate villa on the shores of Hangzhou's West Lake, Peony lives a sheltered life. One night, during a theatrical performance in her family's garden, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately overcome with emotion. So begins Peony's unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow, the living world and the afterworld. Eventually expelled from all she's known, Peony is thrust into a realm where hungry ghosts wander the earth,  written words have the power to hurt and kill, and dreams are as vivid as waking life. Lisa See's novel, based on actual historical events, evokes vividly another time and place - where three generations of women become enmeshed in a dramatic story, uncover past secrets and tragedies, and learn that love can transcend death. Peony in Love will make you ache in heart and mind for young Peony and all the women of the world who want to be heard.

(Above summary is on the back of the book and not my words.)

Spoilers below!

Fall Fun Series - Seoul International Fireworks Festival

Image credit seoul.go.kr's 2015 Fireworks Festival page.

Greetings, everyone! I hope this post finds you well, and if you happen to be reading this from any of the areas in the path of Hurricane Matthew, I hope your reading this means the danger has passed and you are safe. For my Fall event I'd like to showcase the Seoul International Fireworks Festival. 

Band of Bloggers - Vol. 10/October 2016

Aahhh, October.  We're full steam into fall now.  Leaves are reaching full color change.  Sweaters have been hauled out of storage.  Hot chocolates are being sipped again.  Pumpkins are out.  Halloween costumes need to be picked.  Christmas trees are showing up in stores.  Wait . . . what?! 

Let's get back to the spooky task at hand.  The Band of Bloggers ghoulishly fun question for October is:

What do ghosts smell like?

If I had to pick something that ghosts smell like, I would have to go with smoke. The smoky breath of a campfire on a crisp fall night. There is no warmth, but the smell hints at it before stealing your breath away in icy despair.

Sorry, I couldn't resist turning that into a little bit of a writing prompt. :)

--------------------------------------------

Please visit these Band of Bloggers blogs

and help support the blogger community!

Deb, at It's Always Something.

Julie, at The Redolent Mermaid.

Lauren, at Lolo Loves Scents.

Liz, at Furianne. 

Michelle, at Waxing About.

Sunnee, at Fragrance Obsessed.

Thank you, and have a spooky day!

Stop & Chat: October 1-6

This is one of M's friends that he let live on the porch all summer. I did not find him until I started cleaning the porch and noticed him and three others similar to him just hanging out. Unfortunately, these are poisonous and I had to evict them. I'm finally prepping the porch for a deep clean that it's needed since yellow dust season, so I doubt even these mild-mannered guests would allow me to clean without a little bitey-bitey.

L3 Waxy Wonders - Pumpkin Apple Pie Crust

Scent Description: No description available.

Date Poured: September 15, 2015

Weight Melted: 1.3 oz, and I wish I had melted less now. *insert sobs of despair*

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 3/5 A pleasant enough apple pie scent, with just a hint of pumpkins.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 What's this? What's this? There's [something] in the air!

Creamy pie goodness that's loaded with just enough pumpkins and apples to leave you wanting more. Just a teeny tiny hint of cinnamon.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entire house. Even closed doors were no match. The windows were open, too, which can sometimes help throw but more often than not steal away all of the waxy goodness to the outdoors.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got 12 hours, or about 2 tealight candles, from half of a leaf. I wish I had cut the leaf into smaller chunks, but I did not expect this kind of performance when I prepared the wax to melt.

Repurchase: Definitely! The only thing keeping me from ordering is my ever growing list of other vendors I want to try. As part of my attempts to try new things in Korea, I'm trying to extend that philosophy to other areas of my life. Don't get too comfortable with what I have and let that comfort zone dictate my life and all that jazz.

Beezy Tarts - Marshmallow Pumpkin Bread

Scent Description: Sticky Marshmallow, Pumpkin Puree, Pumpkin Spice, Brown Sugar, and Bread.

Date Received: May 17, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Sweet, cinnamon-ey pumpkin bread with creamy marshmallows.

Warm Sniff: 3/5 Holy cow, that cinnamon went up a notch. The creamy marshmallow pumpkin bread was still there, but this very much became a cinnamon-centric scent. I'm not quite sure that's what I was going for when I melted this.

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, office, part of the living room, and all of the entryway. Basically, this puppy threw.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours of scent from half a tart cup.

Repurchase: Probably not, just because there was so much cinnamon in this melt. I'm all for cinnamon scents, but that wasn't what I was going for here.

The Elephant In My Head

I don't know when the flame went out. It was something that happened gradually. So gradually I didn't notice until it was too late. So gradually, I didn't notice the increase in nothingness that had become my life until I realized I was staring blankly at my computer screen, feeling none of the passion, the happiness, the creativity that used to envelope my mind with bursts of color and sound. Reading became a gray scale movie stuck on mute, a ghost of the effervescent dreams that would swim 'round and 'round my brain, bursting at the edges and flooding beyond the pages. The notes on my music sheets no longer danced around with glee, no longer enticed me to translate the black and white to vibrant sound that pierced the soul. Instead I watched from my mind's cage as the world around me withered into a fuzzy shadow of what used to be. It taunted me with small bursts of color, but they were always too fleeting to grasp. After a while I stopped acknowledging even those small bits of color, succumbing instead to the darkness.