My heart with pleasures fills, and dances with daffodils

[wanderlustlover]

I. Happy Birthday, lunamystic!

II. I went in for my third doctor's appointment today. Yeah, I know I skipped telling you guys about number two on Friday. I was a little overly irate at my doctor who before putting a needle twice into excruciatingly painful locations on my leg told me "you won't feel anything at all" over "brace yourself and remember to breathe." My first needle puncture spot is still a little purple bruise. I miss my home phlebotomists.

So right, today's appointment. Still painful in the top and back, but she thinks I'm vastly improved. Especially since the first shot sight hasn't had any pain recurrence. I've been prescribed my third set of medications and the high hand of Korean medicine has deemed me fit to be allowed to walk for an hour a day now. I cheerfully do not point out I walk more than an hour a day already when it’s all added up. I also don't have a follow up appointment set for anytime. Just to return if it gets any worse.

I think I'm going to continue to take it very easy the rest of the weekend though, as --

III. I've signed up for two new Adventure Korea tours, the first of which is this weekend. I think a good deal of my despondency lately also has to do with restlessness and being shut in. Even though all the rest of this stuff has always been with me, this was the first month of doing absolutely nothing. Yes. I know it was because I physically couldn't at the time, but I decided to go for the Ullengdo/Dokdo trip regardless...to take my Kindle and just sit out whatever really huge hike they do on day three. Generally, to go, enjoy the sightseeing, but still take it very easy on my knees.

The second trip is for late October, when there will be caving and a ferry boat.

IV. Yesterday or the day before, I've forgotten which now, I came back from working to discover that my Garden Bath autumn box had arrived. I'm always wowed at just how tiny the box is when I've epically blown it up in my head. Yet this box had so much amazing autumn stuffed into it. Donna tossed me in an extra velvet in Maple Pecan, since I had discussed with her being so torn on whether it should be Maple Pecan or Cider.

And because it's really hard to toss me imps when I've bought out everything. Struggle for what to toss in extra on custom tins for LE sets. This time I bought extras of my favorites to give as gifts to friends. I took an immediate break from Bpal autumn scents, of course. My wrist has been all the heaven of late summers and fall's.

My favorite three of this fall are Mulled Cider, Gingerbread Cookies, and Maple Pecan in that order. I'm ordering a roller of the first, had one of the second in this box (since I had an imp of two the falls in mid-summer, pre-update), have sampler velvets of all of them, too. Thus

Super Secret Summer LE Reviews; Fresh Pear (Garden Bath): Perfectly ripened soft pear, so fresh & realistic you can almost taste the juice.

• In the tube it’s a little more sparkly (sparky? something that almost s, but isn't quite, spicy?) than it is. On my skin it's the scent of an Anjou before you've bitten into it for the first ten-twenty minutes then it mellows abruptly into an incense perfume without even the faintest pear in it. Which in and of itself saddens me deeply

Melon, Melon, Melon (Garden Bath): A delicious summer combo of watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe melons - light & refreshing.

• This one is intensely melon all the way through. In the imp, on my skin, and lingering after. It sadly does not last much longer than an hour or half or so on my skin. But it was really, really, lovely summer melon, dripping with moisture. If I was a melon girl, I would all, all, all over this.

Pomegranate Strawberry (Garden Bath): A great blend of sweet red ripe strawberries and tart juicy pomegranate.

• I'm not sure what this scent is in the tube. There's something sickly sweet to it. Oh. Oh, on my skin? It smells kind of like really fruity bubblegum. Maybe that’s what it is. I can't really pull out any specific strawberry or pomegranate yet, just this combination syrup-bubble gum. It's edging into headache inducindly sweet, too, which is not boding well. About an hour and half in it mellows to something rather beautiful, fruity and soft. I rather wish it had been this scent all the way through.

The (Rest of The) Fall Update LE Reviews; Carrot Cake (Garden Bath): This scent is a classic favorite - rich, buttery, lightly spiced carrot cake topped with a thick layer of scrumptious cream cheese frosting. Pure heaven

• I'm not sure if it's that I'm not a cake person or that it just hasn't captured the cream cheese icing perfectly, that has me holding myself back on this one. The carrot cake part is perfect. It's buttery, thick and heavy with spices. I can picture it when I close my eyes. But the icing, which is my favorite part of the way carrot cake both smells and tastes, doesn't pull across the way I want it to.

Maple Pecan (Garden Bath): This scent is an absolutely mouthwatering blend of pure maple syrup drizzled over warm toasted pecans. Rich, nutty goodness!

• I dance back and forth the whole time over whether this one needs to be a roller order as well. In the tube it smells just like a bag of maple pecans, which has never been a favorite scent, but it's so so so so evocative of home, of San Antonio, and autumn in the south, that I've had my wrist to my nose since I put it on. The rich, earth, subtly sweet pecan is the foundation, holding and never swaying, while the maple on top is a sweet drizzle of sinful, nearly amber bright, syrup. It's just the way it should be.

Mulled Cider (Garden Bath): Like breathing in the aroma of a deliciously warm mug of mulled apple cider, with nutmeg and cinnamon and a hint of orange peel

• Perfection, both in the tube and on my skin (and in the velvet cream!). I was literally trying to breath my wrist into my nose for whole chunks of time. This is soft and buttery, warm and caramely almost with the spices warming up everything. It's light and gorgeous and I want to have a roller of it already on hand. There is no way in any world anywhere that anything could stop me from owning this in larger amounts of all assortments