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Italy - Images by Flaneuse X

The perfect breakfast

...to me is a vanilla cappuccino and a trader joe's maple vanilla cookie. Must get out to TJ's today before the snow!

Eve Lom update

I have to say, I am hooked on the Eve Lom cleanser. It really has made a positive difference in my skin. The biggest difference I've noticed is that all the fine lines around my right eye are gone. That's enough improvement to sell me. I think overall my skin looks more even in tone, more glowy, and smoother. I've streamlined my night routine too--the past couple weeks I've only been using Ponds cold cream+a swissper square to remove my makeup and then the Eve Lom cleanser to remove everything else. I haven't used my clarisonic in a few weeks--this routine seems to exfoliate enough. I've been using La Mer cream as a night moisturizer but I do find I can skip this step occasionally. My morning skin routine is still the same--cleanse with shu umera cleansing oil, exfoliate with either clinic 7 day scrub or aveeno scrub, and moisturize with either the original oil of olay or my travel size Eve Lom day moisturizer. I'm not too impressed with the Eve Lom day moisturizer, the TLC moisturizer or the emergency masque.

Eve Lom

I'm so thrilled to finally be testing out Eve Lom's skincare line. I ordered the Eve Lom travel kit from beauty.com. It contains the fabled cleansing cream, a muslin cloth, the TLC cream, a masque, the daily SPF 15 moisturizer, and a hand cream with SPF 10, plus a handy case that holds everything! Right now I am working the cleansing cream into my routine as a last step. My evening routine is as follows--Bear in mind I have very dry skin and I wear makeup just about every day. I like to make sure I get it all off! 1) apply Pond's cold cream 2) remove with a Swisspers cotton square 3) spray face with avene water and apply cetaphil gel cleanser 4) clarisonic with sensitive brush 5) spray face with avene water and apply avene micellar lotion with swisspers cooton square 6) Eve Lom cleansing cream 7) apply retin-A & cream de la mer We'll see how it goes. The cleanser seems v moisturizing so far. I also am enjoying the face lotion with SPF. It skins right in and feels very hydrating.

Chanel particuliere

My new favorite neutral polish.

Tea time

Tea: teavana's blend of strawberry lemonade, jasimine pearl, and peachberry in my 2 carat cup.

Farewell 2009

and hello 2010! I sincerely hope 2010 brings my friends much joy, knitting and peace!

Backing up files in iphoto '08

Yesterday I realized that since moving to my Mac Air and upgrading to iPhoto '08, I've been backing up my iPhoto library ALL WRONG. Since 2008! UGH! I had been copying the iPhoto library icon, which I thought was allowing me to copy all the original and modified photo files. NOPE! I was only copying the thumbnails that iPhoto uses to display, which are worthless for printing. 

Anyway after lots of googling and sleuthing on my Mac, I finally found where the ORIGINAL/MODIFIED folders are hiding. I did some screen caps to hopefully prevent anyone else from making this mistake, as it's really unclear on Apple's iphoto support page how to go about doing this.


First: Do NOT copy the iPhoto Library. 


This will only get you copies of thumbnails. 

Instead, locate the iPhoto Library file (usually in your home folder) and do a CONTROL CLICK on this file:

 

Highlight the SHOW PACKAGE CONTENTS et voila:

all the original and modified files that you can safely copy. 

Apologies!

I have so much to share with you, but simply not enough time! I am in the process of relocating to the USA from Italy, in less than two weeks time! So as you can imagine, we have been consumed with getting the autos squared away and shipped, emptying the cupboards of food, packing and shipping items, and simply trying to enjoy our last couple weeks here. 

Posting and twittering will resume after the 19th. In the meanwhile, I hope November is treating you all well!

xoxo

Flan

Goodbye Summer

We are finally into Autumn now at the Villa Flaneuse. Cold winds and rains whipped through this weekend, leaving us with a cool, blustery Monday. The refreshing change of weather and the lack of biting insects brought us outdoors to throughly inspect the yard and garden area. We ended up harvesting the rest of the tomatoes and peppers from the garden, then pulling nearly all of it up, save the carrots. More apples (hopefully the last batch) from our three apple trees were collected, and the persimmon tree was dully cut back, taking most of its fruit off. You'll see we had over a gallon of apples, some carrots, quite a few cherry tomatoes and green peppers, and four pomegranates from my vicini.

I took the buckets of apples and turned them into apple pie filling, which I froze. I made enough for 2 pies. The filling is quite easy to make, the difficulty lies in peeling, coring and slicing the apples. Particularly if the apples are of the home-grown varieties, where the shapes and sizes are not uniform. It makes it a little more time consuming to prepare them. And if you have recently had a surgery to your hand and you think it's suddenly a great idea to peel acidic apples and to constantly be washing your hands of apple goo all day, well then I really must advise you against it. Because after you have finished, two hours later, you'll suddenly notice that your hand really kind of hurts. And that your carefully stitched incision, done just over a week ago, might be looking rather angry. 

But anyways, to make the apple pie filling I use a mixture of red and green apples doused with lemon juice while peeling/chopping, enough flour to fully coat all the apple pieces, about half a cup of sugar, and whatever spices you like. I usually add in a large teaspoon of cinnamon, some cardamon and maybe half a teaspoon of ginger. Then I put the mixture in a gallon size ziplock bag, label and freeze! To cook I just transfer the frozen filling to an unbaked pie crust, dot with butter and top with another crust, cut vents, and then bake it at about 350F. Super easy!

We also had a ton of green peppers from the garden. I chopped them up and transfered them to ziplock bags for freezing as well. 

Things I learnt from 2009's garden:

• don't plant 6 cherry tomato plants unless you have about half a football field of garden space. Just for them.
• don't plant the carrots so close together, unless you really want baby carrots for 3 months.
• marigolds do work to keep bugs out of the garden and they look nice. 

What is the logic, J. Crew?

I received this in the mail today from J. Crew:

I have not a clue as to how I could be considered one of J. Crew's "best" customers—the last item I ordered was in July or August and it was the Hunter Wellies in Slate. 

And I only ordered them because I had a minimal rewards card and had no clue what else to get, as nearly most everything they carry is now covered with ruffles. Who do they think they are, Anthropologie?

The earrings though are the very pretty Heirloom Flora ones, in butterscotch. They came with a VIP card, a "special" 1-800 number printed on it that I am to call if I desire any personal shopping assistance, need to locate an item, or simply want to place an order. And I am to "keep this card in my wallet." Um, okay. Well thanks J.Crew! Maybe I'll consider ordering from you once you take the ruffles off everything.