MarsG’s blog

I was meaning to post this last week but I got lazy and partly also because the new bathroom isn´t completed. It would have been completed just in time for Christmas but something just had to go wrong. The tile shop gave us floor tiles from 2 different production batches so they weren´t the same thickness. The shop and all the other branches were sold out so they had to order more from Italy. We´ll get them next week hopefully but I´m slightly worried they won´t be the same thickness as the ones we have on our floor now. Daniel, the guy that did absolutely everything traveled back to his home country Poland for the holidays but will be back 1st week of Jan to finish the rest. That means he´ll be back 2nd week of Jan. He´s really good with his hands and did a terrific job with the bathroom so far but he sucks big time when it comes to punctuality. We were warned before we hired him so we were prepared and didn´t get upset. The quality of his work makes up for his tardiness.

Here are pics of the bathroom before the remodeling. I´m quite embarrassed to show these pictures but even more shocked now after the transformation that I actually lived with it for 3 years. I mean, it was pink. And floral. How this style could actually be "in" in the ´70s is beyond me.

This was where all the MU application took place. Just a single light at the top of the mirror, not the best I know. Nor was there much natural light. 
A doorknob came loose, we super-glued it back on but it came off again. We just never bothered with it anymore.

Ahh...the shower cabinet that was a royal PITA when it came to cleaning. It shall NOT be missed. I didn´t dare show what was behind the doors. Chest of drawers was crap from Ikea. Broke apart like it was made of cardboard. Ok, I may have shoved one towel too many in the drawer but still! Middle drawer was broken so we only made use of top and bottom drawers. Was close to replacing it many times but we came to our senses and waited until we got new matching furniture for the whole bathroom.

Our old potty! Daniel took it apart and left it outside by our front door. So for a while we had a toilet outside our door, lol. Even our neighbour commented on our new décor. Well a lot of trash accumulated so we hired a container and got rid of all the crap and made our front yard look a bit more presentable. When we first moved in, I bought the bright pink rug with matching toilet brush (behind the trashcan) to brighten up the bathroom without clashing with the pink walls ;P .
In the middle photo, the brown spot you see under the window was a burn mark. Don´t know how it got there but it was there when we moved in. Same goes for the curtain. I searched and searched but was unable to find a suitable replacement. I know the easiest would be to buy cloth and sew my own curtains but I´m too lazy :/ The curtain is actually see-through, we have white wooden blinds behind. Third pic is a close up of the dreadful, awful, horrendous, ugly, hideous and not forgetting, cold floor. Boy I´m so glad I don´t have to step on it any longer.

And so began the transformation...

Daniel took apart everything including the old walls as they were not aligned and he put up new walls.

                     The corner where the toilet will be                                                    The vanity area

    



Next, he covered each wall with waterproof latex paddings, laid down my favourite part of the whole bathroom - heating cables "MMmmmMMMmm" and installed the toilet cistern.

Daniel did a terrific job with the tiles. The white tiles on the walls are actually subtly patterned with lines. Gives it a textured look.                       
    

voila. . . 

Lights on both sides of the mirror give much better light for MU application. Downside is I see all the faults meaning I take a longer time getting ready trying to fix and cover every damn spot.
We are going to install another light in the ceiling. A high cabinet in the same style and colour as the vanity will be mounted on the wall in the corner where the silver vase is. It´s not mounted on yet because the cabinet will jut out and cover part of the window. Daniel suggested we change to a smaller window and get more wall space. It´s more work of course but I think it will look much better, we were intending to replace the window anyways since the current one is punctured. Also we´re thinking of a frosted window so we don´t have to think about curtains :P

                New potty minus some tiles.

I love the shower. It´s a bit high for me but I can get used to it, close my eyes and imagine rain is falling on my head. What´s missing are more tiles on the floor and the glass doors. Those will be mounted on after the floor tiles are completed.



Almost complete yet still a lot of patching up here and there and of course window to be changed. Changing to a smaller window means changing of wooden boards on outer wall too. I´m wondering how Daniel is going to do that when there is about 2 feet of snow outside, not to mention we´re expecting very very cold days ahead of us. I won´t be surprised if we have to wait till spring to get the window done.

to be continued . . .

Last year my team leader came up with the idea to bake a pepperkake (gingerbread) house and share with everybody in our department. I don´t know how it all actually started but I challenged her to make it in the shape of Malaysia´s famous Petronas Twin Towers. This talk first started summer of last year so I had many months of taunting her about it and insisted it to be in 3D. Come December and one day she appeared at work carrying the much anticipated Pepperkake Twin Towers! Despite it not being in 3D, I must admit that she did a pretty good job. She was so proud of herself and was practically gloating. Of course I didn´t admit to her face that I thought it was good, lol. She then challenged me to bake this year´s pepperkake house and she picked Hamar Vikingskipet (The Hamar Viking ship), which is a stadium in her home town, Hamar. I had the whole year to prepare myself for this and I really didn´t know how I was going to accomplish this until the very moment I was going to bake it. Dough was easy-peasy - Ikea sells readymade pepperkake dough which is actually quite good, just a tad too sweet for my liking though. I thought I did a pretty decent job with the shape however it melted in the oven :/ My husband said it looked like several things - a whale, a giant turd, a garden snail...anything but what it actually is supposed to look like, LOL.  (All I wish for Christmas is a new husband who is more supportive!) I personally think it looks like a peanut. What do you think?

 
BEFORE BAKING

BAKED AND PRETTY-FIED

THE ACTUAL THING

Last Friday, I received my second order from Verbena Custom Blends consisting of a body scrub, a hair conditioner and a leave-in hair conditioner. I had already tried their conditioner and liked it enough to go and get more. The scent I chose before was Lemon Verbena. I love this scent so much, it is so refreshing and zesty. I recently found out that my husband has been using the shampoo in the same scent cos he too loves it. He didn´t know it was a shampoo though so he had been using it on his body as a normal shower soap, lol. Thankfully I had used up the conditioner else he might have mistaken it for a body cream. I did try their body butter creams but they weren´t rich enough for my ultra dry skin. 

Orange Cranberry Sugar Scrub

The Deluxe Detangler Body and Shine hair conditioner, Coconut-Lime scented comes in 5.6 oz jar. I wish these come in a larger size, preferably in a pump bottle so I don´t get water in it in the shower. I used up the previous conditioner in about 3 weeks. I wash my hair everyday/every other day. Besides, who knows if my husband was using it without me knowing. Yikes, I can´t imagine him using hair conditioner! This is the man that used to wash his face with just water and no cleanser whatsoever. 

Coconut-Lime Hair Conditioner

Next is the Leave In Hair Conditioner and Detangler Spray also in Coconut-Lime scent. I figured if I was going to spray this after washing and conditioning my hair, I wouldn´t want to have clashing scents. I have yet to try this so I´m not sure how strong the scent would be nor how long it would last on my hair. The product itself looks like a smoothie. I´m not sure why it is a different colour than the other conditioner, the list of ingredients on both are pretty much the same and I didn´t request for a specific colour. Perhaps Tina (the seller) had decided to add colour to it. It doesn´t really matter to me. I´m excited to try this one out. I have, or used to have before I cut my hair 3 days ago, very dry and tangled hair.

Coconut-Lime Leave In Hair Conditioner & Detangler Spray

Tina was kind enough to include some freebies, a cute little jar of Whipped Yogurt Body Cream in Cinnamon Sugared Banana Marshmallow. Quite generous freebie size if you ask me. Too bad, I simply DESPISE the scent of Cinnamon. To my surprise though the smell of this combo is not that revolting. I was ready to gag the moment I took a whiff but it was not that bad. However, I am not going to use this one partly (a large part) because of the cinnamon and also because their body cream doesn´t do anything for my skin. So this one I will be giving away. 

Cinnamon Sugared Banana Marshmallow Body Cream

... and then there were these 3 little piggies, a Whipped Cream Soap in Pink Sugar Buttercream scent and two Whipped Yoghurt Body Cream in Pineapple Jasmine scent. 

Whipped Yogurt Body Cream & Whipped Cream Soap

Here are two of the items I have left from my previous order. 

Cream Soap in Gardenia fragrance. I really like this scent. Very mild and pleasant. As its name suggests, the texture is creamy.  It lathers up nicely when used with a mesh shower sponge. Left the skin feeling soft and smooth to the touch. I´m not quite sure if it is the most moisturizing soap I´ve used however.

Gardenia Cream Soap

The shampoo in the very popular scent (at least in my household), Lemon Verbena. This came in a 4 oz. bottle, less product than the conditioner in the jar. Shampoos tend to last longer for me as I have a few that I alternate between - a couple of anti-dandruff ones & Trichomania from Lush that seems to last forever. Anyways, I find that the VCB shampoo works pretty good. It is SLS  free. Not too drying on the hair. It´s not the most foamy shampoos so if you like a thick lather this one may not be for you.

Lemon Verbena SLS-free Shampoo

Oh, in case you were wondering (which I highly doubt), we are remodeling our bathroom and the gray mosaic tile "featured" on this post is most likely going to be on our bathroom floor soon. It´s made of quarry stone so I think with heated cables underneath, this will feel so nice and warm to step on. I can´t wait! No more shivering in the bathroom in the wee morning hours for me!

I´m so excited about this brand. I first learned about Illamasqua from What Style is to Nickel´s videos. I am hooked on this dude´s videos. I just find something intriguing about watching a guy wearing make-up talk about make-up. I dunno what it is but I think he´s cute, lol.

The package

The contents

Solstice Liquid Metal

Solstice

Lover Powder Blusher

Lover up-close

Rouse sheer lipgloss

Illamswatch01

Illamswatch03

BCBaptiste

Baptiste

1 comment

Baptiste

Just a brief post about the last part of my vacation last month...

Angkor Wat

Another side trip hubby and I took was to Siem Reap, Cambodia mainly to visit the Angkor Wat (12th century). I was not aware that there were many other temples to visit and not just the one. We were there for like two and a half days so we did not get the chance to see everything. I think we visited a total of 5-6 different temples. They were absolutely stunning. Walls, corridors, doorways, were covered in beautiful carvings. 

Bayon Temple wall

Reliefs stretched along the outer walls of the Bayon temple (late 12th/early 13th century) depicting tales of the king and the Khmer people in war and daily life. The main theme for the inner walls is Hindu mythology. I found it very interesting to look at, it was so detailed and learning what the reliefs were depicting (we had a guide) made it even more fun.  

The Cambodian people are so very polite and friendly. But children begging is a huge problem, they wait at every entrance and exit of every tourist attraction. The children sell different things – guide books, fridge magnets, bead bracelets, scarves. They are a pushy bunch of little salespeople, trying different tactics but most often putting on a pitiful face and in small voices,  "Lady, you buy from me lady, 3 for 1 dollaah lady." One girl asked where my husband was from and upon hearing that he was from Norway, she quoted the price in Swedish (Swedish/Norwegian almost identical language). Some beg for money flat out without selling anything. We did not give them anything cos we read that this is all syndicated.  

All in all, a splendid trip and well worth the long walks, climbing up steep stairs (it was worse getting down) and being harassed by kids. Going about in town by tuk-tuk is both cheap and efficient. Most drivers are willing to wait for you to take you back to your hotel or to your next destination. We hired a driver to take us to the temples by car but I´m guessing that the tuk-tuk is a much cheaper alternative if you don´t mind the dust and bumpy ride. 

Happy Hour

And for the thirsty traveller ....

Air-conditioned multi-storey malls were not the only places I did my shopping at during my vacation. I got to

River

experience “jungle shopping” in the rainforest of Borneo too. Hubby and I know a Norwegian/Malaysian couple that built and run their own business in the form of a homestay right smack in the jungle of Sarawak, East Malaysia.   It´s called KuraKura Homestay. Access to their homestay is by river so you are really cut off from civilization once there. They didn´t even have electricity when we were staying there but they should have already installed solar panels on the rooftops by now.  The homestay is built on my friend Liza´s land, given to her by her father. This was where she grew up. She is of the Bidayuh people, one of the indigenous tribes found in East Malaysia, some of which were head hunters!

What I meant by jungle shopping was that Liza would take us around her vegetable/fruit/herb plantation and into the jungle to “shop” for ingredients. She is so knowledgable about vegetation in the jungle - she can tell what a plant is and if it is edible or not by its scent. To me they´re all green and all look the same. Liza is a cook by profession and an excellent one at that. On our first night, she prepared the most excellent chicken soup ever. She stuffed chicken meat, vegetables and i dunno what spices in bamboo that was chopped down from the jungle (by her husband Lars) and cooked over an open fire. The bamboo really added amazing flavour to the soup. 

My favourite moment has to be when we were resting and having our lunch at a nice little spot by a stream after a 2 hour trek in the thick jungle and through a dark (and smelly) bat cave. It was so serene, the air was so fresh, birds were singing and nobody else in sight. I also helped out picking snails in the stream for our dinner....yes you read right, SNAILS. I love these particular type of snails. They´re usually prepared in a coconut milk curry like dish but Liza fried them with chili and pineapple from her plantation. You have to suck those buggers out of their shell - part of the fun of eating it. You can´t get ém any fresher than the ones we got from the river!

We didn´t encounter any scary animals, just a green tree frog, a snake in the bat cave and Monster **, Liza & Lars´ cat who actually tagged along jungle trekking. No leech encounters *phew*. Returning from the trek, all hot and sweaty, we cooled off by bathing in the river. There were surprisingly no mosquitos, perhaps cos it was not raining. But down by the river, there were tons of sand flies and I got bitten pretty badly. That was no fun at all. :(

Hmm...I was intending to continue writing about my trip to Cambodia but this post is long enough i think. To be continued yet again! 

** I found out earlier this week that dear Monster passed away. Liza & Lars don´t really know what happened but they suspect he died of poisoning. He was a friendly cat full of personality. I´m glad to have met him. 

RIP Monster