Climbing, Daily

Climb for FREE at Wallnuts!

2 Comments

Newfoundlanders, this post is for you b’ys.

In my twenty years of climbing history, first of all that makes me sound super old, Wallnuts has been the best climbing gym I have been to. Not just for the climbing. But the warm, friendly atmosphere from the staff, the climbers, the regulars. Back in the day, it was our high school hang out spot, our Halloween party gym. Anyone remember Rock The Power with my tee’s included? Hah. So many memories associated with Wallnuts I simply can’t sum it up into one tiny blog post.

Sure there have been enormous crazy cool looking gyms I’ve climbed at. But it doesn’t come remotely close to how I get all the warm feels from Wallnuts. Wallnuts is not only “just a climbing gym”. It’s a community. Perhaps it’s the fact I climbed since the beginning and it has and always will be my home-gym. Meeting friends while I’m in Newfoundland for a visit? Hit up Wallnuts for a climb to catch up. Mind you, when I return to the climbing gym in St. John’s now after living away for 10 years, I don’t know a soul. But that doesn’t mean they’re not welcoming. It’s just a younger generation, with new-to-me faces and everyone is still loving life and enjoying the gym. It’s fantastic. I’m glad they’re doing well and keeping the business running.

Enough about the reminiscing. Today I wanted to bring to your attention that if you’re in the St. John’s Newfoundland and surrounding areas, that you can climb for free at the gym on Saturday. This Saturday!

If I was home, I’d offer ya a drive even, just to check it out.

camp_artemis

greglockephotos02Now I know what you’re thinking. Get those fears out of your head that it’s a scary thing to do, because truthfully after 20 years of climbing, I’m still terrified of heights, even if I free fall for fun, or jump down off the bouldering wall. I think fear is a good thing to have. Keeps me safe at least.

Climbing definitely a whole body workout and you will be having so much fun you won’t even consider it exercise. Don’t have strong arms or finger strength? Not to worry, it’s all in the balance and leg strength for the most part anyway. You don’t need to be strong, a pro, and I promise you that no one will make fun of you. In fact, believe me when I state that people will recognize that you may be a beginner, and will come over, introduce themselves and perhaps give you a bit of beta (tips on how to do a climb/route differently and more efficiently).

greglockephotos01I love climbers man. So please, if you’re free and have always wanted to try it out, print and sign the waiver and pop by the gym. You’ll have to sign up for the Saturday free climbing online or over the phone, and all that information will be in the bottom of the blog post.

Do me a favour b’ys, go’an and check it out. Say I sent you, all the way from California!

Happy 20th Birthday Wallnuts, wish I could be there to celebrate.

Details:

  • Free climbing to the public from 1pm–5pm on July 18
  • With their most experienced and knowlegable staff on hand to manage the safety equipment, all you have to do is sign up, show up, and give it a try!
  • Zero age restrictions (my nephew climbed at the age of 3) and climbs of varying difficulties to challenge everyone.

Wallnuts Climbing Centre
57 Old Pennywell Road
St. John’s, Newfoundland
709.579.9255 (is it awesome that I know this off by heart from dialling it so much as a kid?)
facebook / twitter

photos provided by Wallnuts Climbing Centre

Continue Reading

Beauty, Daily

Buxom’s customizable eyeshadow palette

16 Comments

Buxom-headerBy now, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know I don’t stray too much from makeup brands, and I only recommend the companies I’ve tried and trusted. You’ll notice that I don’t stray off course with my skincare regime — and it’s why I don’t talk about it much because it could get boring for you to hear me repeat myself about how much I love philosophy products. Well, the same goes with my makeup. I love certain brands, and don’t stray from them.

Customizable-palette-buxomBuxom launched an Eyeshadow Bar which is a customizable eyeshadow palette. The eyeshadows launched in June with primer-infused luxury exclusively being sold at Sephora. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what primer-infused meant. I presumed correctly and it is meant to last longer on the eyelids without using primer. Lessen the load in your makeup bag!

Buxom-Customizable-paletteLeft to right: diamond darling, designer or die, star treatment, 24kt stilettos, filthy rich, and invite only.

Buxom-eyeshadowsAs you can tell from the photo, the palette has a huge mirror, and the packaging itself is quite sturdy, so great for travel if need be.

I’m excited about the variety of colours you can choose from: 40 shades for you to mix and match, whether you want to buy the eyeshadow in singles, or 6 to slide into your own personalized palette.Although creating your own palette isn’t unique — not many companies offer customizable eyeshadows that I know of. A few renowned beauty companies like Inglot and MAC have been doing similar palettes for a while, and that’s all I know of. Buxom is one of my go-to brands for mascara (fantastic for layering on top of Make Up For Ever’s Smoky Lash) and lip glosses as I’ve spoken about on the blog before. Though it’s still exciting to try out a handful of their eyeshadows and play around with simple natural looks. Considering I don’t wear eyeshadow often, and prefer to stick to a neutral look, I asked that mild colours be sent over for me to review. The eyeshadows themselves are pigmented and didn’t crease on my naturally crease-y eyelids, so that’s a plus.  The palette is wonderful for those who have probably bought a pre-made palette in the past and only used a couple of the colours out of the whole thing. Now, you can truly customize with colours that you know you’ll get your use out of. And if you’ve used up one of the colours so much, you can easily swap it out for a new one!

Buxom-lipsI filmed a “get ready with me” youtube video featuring this palette and some lip products that I showed here, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see that one! It’s both exciting and hilarious if I do say so.

Buxom-lip-foundation-swatchI also wanted to talk a bit about the lip foundations. Hooboy, those are some pigmented lip products that doesn’t easily wash off with a bit of soap (on the arm). If you want to get the true colour of your lipstick or lipgloss, or just want a long lasting natural base colour, use these. The two on the left are lip foundations, and the two on the right are lipsticks. All natural colours, perfect for an every day look.

Buxom-lip-products

Swatches-of-Buxom

I went scouring on Sephora’s website, and noticed that they’ve uploaded a PDF file in case you needed inspiration on how to create certain eye looks using the Buxom eyeshadows. ‘Lacy Things’ look is probably my favourite, and I admit – some of the wild colours look really gorgeous on the eyes! Too bad I have terrible skills with application of the eyeshadows, I must go practice.

Buxom-eyeshadowDetails of palettes and eyeshadows:

Or if you prefer to have your eyeshadow palettes pre-built for you, there are 3 that you can choose from:

Disclaimer: I was sent the Buxom products for review. All opinions are my own, it would be rude to take anyone elses ;) 

Continue Reading

Daily

4th of July recap

14 Comments

I feel like I haven’t truly sat down in ages and told you what we’ve been up to. I’d like to think the lack of blogging meant that I’ve been having the best ol’ time, with not much computer time, and that I have.

Pop on my red and white outfit for Canada Day, then a few days later add a bit of blue to the outfit and you have my Independence Day outfit. Celebrating our second Fourth of July here in America was pretty wicked, I have to admit. I ended up doing a 4th of July vlog on my YouTube channel and in case you weren’t aware I upload them every Monday and Wednesday!

Mazda-CX-5For the week I am reviewing the Mazda CX-5 crossover SUV and so we took full advantage of my husband having a four day weekend and using the review-car’s mileage to explore California a bit more, with just the two of us in tow.

So, let’s play catch-up on our weekend together. It’s been a long time since we haven’t had visitors on a holiday/vacation day for my husband, so it was really nice to be able to spend the time with him, solo.

Santa-Cruz-Mazda-CX5On Thursday, the Mazda CX-5 was delivered right before lunch and we immediately hit the road just moments after having the keys handed over to me.

Six-Flags-Vallejo

Six-Flags-USA

Six-Flags-palm-treesI drove us both up north to Vallejo to go to the Six Flags amusement park to ride roller coasters until we got ill. Seriously, I cannot handle it any more. It’s not even the fact we went on spinny rides, because we totally didn’t. I think my stomach simply can’t handle the cork screws in some of the rides. Needless to say, I definitely had to sit down for a good half hour at one point to let things settle. Call me stubborn, but I didn’t let a little nausea stop me from havin’ a good time at the amusement park! I also didn’t realize Six Flags is somewhat of a zoo (literally speaking) because we saw penguins – they are tiny little fella’s, and some stinkin’ cute too man.

As per usual, a good recovery food after a long day at the amusement park, calls for a feed at McDonalds. Hooboy! So tasty.

Vallejo-Six-FlagsFriday morning my husband had a cycling-date set up with a friend of his in Santa Cruz bright and early in the morning.

Alfie-smilingRather than him getting up at 6am to bike down there, I offered him a ride. Alfie came along with us this time, since I wanted to take some photos of the new vehicle I was in for the week, and of course stop at the Mitchell’s Cove Beach, the off leash dog beach again.

Mitchell-Cove-Beach-surfAdmittedly, Alfie is getting pretty comfortable with being on this beach as we’ve got a number of times already (see the YouTube video of us, our first time visiting), so he was prancing and marching about bossing all the humans and dogs around. I’m not sure if people were fed up with him barking, but I certainly wasn’t havin’ him bark the entire time, so I ventured off into a more quiet area of the beach and let him calm his nerves.

Alfie-getting-toes-wetSuch beautiful views! I love this place.

Santa-Clara-UniversitySince my husband was going to be in the Santa Cruz area biking for a good 6+ hours and didn’t require a ride home, I drove back up to Santa Clara area and decided to check out the Santa Clara University campus for the first time. I’ve driven past the school many times, but haven’t stepped foot on their grounds.

Mazda-at-Santa-Clara-Uni

Santa-Clara-Uni-bikesSo what better time to explore, than on a holiday weekend when school is out and there isn’t much foot traffic. You can see more photos of the campus in my last Pomeranian Friday post.

Palm

On 4th of July I then drove us to San Francisco to check out the Madame Tussauds wax museum and then watching the foggy fireworks, we popped into Boudin to warm up our bodies. Because what a chilly day you guys! Smooch-George-Clooney

Mark-Zuckerberg-wax

Looking-at-ObamaI feel like San Francisco in July can be awfully chilly if you’re not dressed for the weather. Think, Newfoundland weather forecast — you can expect any type of weather any time of day, and that’s the same with The City.

ETHave you guys ever been to a wax museum? My husband hadn’t before this trip, and I remember going to the London England one back in 1998, but the only wax figures I remember spotting was the Beatles, I suppose — it’s that long ago. But it was really fantastic checking out this one. I am going to take a while guess and presume that they rotate their wax statues to keep people coming back. Because, when I searched the #MTSFSelfie hashtag on Instagram, the beatles, and other Lady Gaga statues were there too – that I didn’t end up seeing. So I’ll definitely have to go back a second time in a year or two, to see what else they have on display!

Continue Reading