My fifth Birchbox came in the mail yesterday, so today I’m going to blog about it for the first time! In case you’ve never heard of Birchbox, it’s a $10/month subscription box that includes five sample sized products based on your preferences (makeup, skin care, hair care, fragrance, etc.). It’s so fun to get a box filled with surprise treats each month!
The Birchbox folks are packaging geniuses; I think this month has my favorite box design thus far—it’s so very appropriately springy.
1. I’ve been really into BBC crime dramas lately—the type of show that Vulture has dubbed “Slow Crime.” So far I’ve binge-watched seasons series 1 and 2 of The Fall, series 1 of Broadchurch, and Top of the Lake (which I hear will be getting a second series). I’ll be moving on to Happy Valley and Hinterland soon. There’s seriously no need to go see Fifty Shades of Grey if you want to see Jamie Dornan nearly naked and acting creepy—just queue up The Fall on Netflix. Extra super bonus (aka, the Real Reason To Watch): GILLIAN ANDERSON.
A couple weeks ago, my husband and I took a kombucha brewing class at Kombucha Brooklyn—we were gifted tickets to the class over the holidays. And we loved the class! So much so that we bought a Home Brew Super Kit to try out for ourselves.
What is kombucha? The simplest definition is that it is fermented tea. Kombucha contains probiotics, which we all know from watching yogurt commercials are good for the gut. According to Kombucha Brooklyn’s website, the drink “nourishes your body with compounds that detoxify, energize, support your immune system, streamline your digestive system, clarify your skin, prevent disease and elevate your mood.” Sounds pretty promising, right? I don’t believe that it’s the cure for all that ails us, but I would think that drinking kombucha in moderation on a regular basis might indeed have health benefits.* I have not been a regular kombucha consumer in the slightest so this is all pretty new to me, but I’m excited to get started with this unique beverage.
You may or may not have noticed my new tagline here: Adventures of Herman. Who the hell is Herman?
I am Herman. Herman is me.
Where did this nickname come from? Back in high school when I first started driving, my parents signed me up for an AAA account. AAA sent me a membership card in the mail, and it said “Sarah Herman” on it; someone had mistaken the “i” in my last name for an “r.” My friends and I giggled over the error and they started calling me Herman…and the name stuck. Hard. So much so that a friend’s dad has forgotten that my name is actually Sarah, not Herman. Every time I would call her her house, even throughout college and beyond, her dad would put the phone down and yell “Herman’s on the phone for you!” Twenty years later, I still sign off my emails to my high school friends with “Herman.”
When I sent a high school friend a link to my blog this morning, she said that it was Adventures of Herman—which I loved, so I decided to make it my tagline. So thanks, Megan, for that idea! XOXO
I am Herman, and these are my adventures. 🙂
I’ve always been really good with face recognition. I’m that person who, while watching movie trailers, pokes my moviegoing companion and whispers “that’s the guy from [insert movie or tv title here]!” Like, all the time. Sometimes an actor will just look familiar, so I’ll look him or her up on IMDB (as I tend to do while I watch shows) and realize they played a surprisingly different character on another show. I love it when I make these connections, whether I make them on my own or with the assistance of IMDB or a friend.
Some of my recent favorite examples of “wait…he/she played THAT guy/gal?!” are below (spoilers for some shows…consider yourself warned).
**SPOILERS FOR TRUE DETECTIVE, THE LEFTOVERS AHEAD**Continue Reading…
Apparently there’s this thing that some bloggers do called the Friday Five, where they post five of their favorite things from the past week. I’ll go ahead and jump on the bandwagon—I figure it’s a good a reason as any to get me to post here regularly. 🙂
Here goes nothing…
1. Spicy Coconut Rice Noodles with Kale and Basil—my first ever dish from Plated, and my favorite of the three dishes we made from our delivery this week. (Though I totally burned the coconut flakes that were supposed to garnish the noodles…#cookingfail.)
Okay, people. In the interest of documenting my life, here’s something funny (to my husband and I, at least): The List. Or should I say #thelist and make it happen just as successfully as Gretchen Weiners made fetch happen…
Anyway. Recently, my husband found this old list written on the back of an ATM receipt dated January 19, 2011, so it’s more than four years old now (look at me, doing first grade math!). Without further comment, here is #thelist:
A few days ago I did a Skin Deep audit of the beauty products in my medicine cabinet, and now I’m going to do the same with the products in the shower.
I do like having a variety of products to choose from in the shower; I feel like it makes the experience feel more spa-like and luxurious on a daily basis. I usually have two to four shampoos and conditioners on hand, and at the moment I have a couple different face wash and body wash products in the rotation.
I’ve recently become a tad obsessed with the idea of cleaning up all the products I use on a daily and semi-daily basis. I’ve always been a beauty product geek, and today I’m going to give you a peek at my medicine cabinet so that you can get a better sense of the extent of this geekiness (the photo to the right is just the top shelf in my medicine cabinet). Because I like to try out so many different types of products, I’ve decided to start phasing out the heavily chemical-laden products in my life and work on introducing more natural goodies. When I think about all the chemicals I’ve been slathering all over myself for so many years, it makes me feel a little green—and not in the good way.Continue Reading…
I am writing this post with chafed lips, because I just tried on 17 (!!!) different lip products. Back in November, I treated myself to the Give Me More Lip sampler from Sephora, which set me back $59. The kit includes the aforementioned 17 lip goodies—from balms to long lasting lipsticks—courtesy of 14 different brands:
