Thanks, Curlygirl! As for the weather, right now it's partly cloudy with medium tradewinds, and slightly chilly (by my standards). If it were spring, I'd say it's good weather, but since it's still winter, I wish it would rain more (we've been under drought-like conditions for a few years). The BPAL imps are really neat and I'm trying to experiment with them so I can work them into my hair care routine; perhaps mixing a little with my shea butter or something.


I agree, the lauhala basket is really cute. There're a lot of products that are made in Hawaii so they'd make nice gifts to out of state peeps. But it's too bad my relatives don't ship the baskets outside of Maui.
The basket has:
- locally made cookies (ginger snaps, chocolate chip, chocolate chip with macadamia nuts, peanut butter, and shortbread)

-there's chocolate covered oreo, ritz cracker, pretzals, arare (pretty much rice crackers made with soy sauce), and marshmallows with rice crispies. My relatives also use chocolate covered fortune cookies and waffers, but we had run out of them by that point.

-two types of macadamia nuts (one covered with sweet chili, the other with honey)

-Hawaiian Sun chocolate covered mac nuts

-Mele Macs (macadamia nuts covered with chocolate and toffee. I'm sensing a theme with the mac nuts ^^)

-a package of arare (it's hidden by other goodies)

-lemon tarts (from the continental US)

-Jordan almonds (from continental US)

-chocolate covered rasins (might be from North America)

-beans covered a red shell (might be from Hawaii)

-mini Milky Way candies

This is only a sample of the goodies I got to work with. More expensive baskets and the fruit baskets got other treats.

Okay, my break's been long enough. Back to cleaning the bathroom. 

Welcome back!  Those baskets are so cute.  Do they ship them anywhere?  I usually give gift baskets for Christmas.  It would be nice to give Hawaiian-themed ones. 

Did you see any Pearl Factory booths there?  I got lured into one when I went to San Francisco.  It's where you can pick an oyster from a bucket, which is garaunteed to have a pearl in it.  Then you do this little ritual - tap the oyster three times with the tongs, swing it over the oyster while saying "Ah-loooooo-ha", then they ring a bell and cut your oyster open.  It's all a gimick to get you to buy the gold or silver settings, but I got a kick out of it anyway.  I wonder if I could just buy cultured pearl oysters. hmmmm

Cynde

Thanks for putting up the Zippy's link!  The food looks great!  Yum yum!!!

Lisabelle and Curlygirl--You're welcome! 

Man, it's been a long time since I've posted. >_<

I tried the coconut milk soak "recipe" from the LHC a couple of days ago. It's not really a recipe because it just involves soaking dry hair with coconut milk and then rinsing it out. Anyways, the deep treatment had mixed reviews, but since there's several cans of coconut milk sitting around at home (not too sure why that is), I decided to try it.

So I used about half of a 13oz can, warmed it up in the microwave for 10 seconds and then repeatedly dipped my hair in it until the length was completely coated with the milk. After that, I squeezed out the excess, bunned with claw clips, covered my hair with a shower cap, and then left it on for a couple of hours. When it was time to rinse it off, I rinsed with plain water and then worked my Suave conditioner into the length before doing a CWC.

Much to my surprise, my hair felt really good after it dried. Some people who tried it complained of crunchy hair or a cat food smell, but I guess I was lucky because that didn't happen at all. My hair felt really soft and silky, and the coconut smell disappeared after my hair dried off. However, the next time I do this, I have to make sure I get the Suave on every section that got milk on it. I had missed a section and it was kind of greasy looking, but it was okay when I went over it with condish the next day. Oh, the brand of coconut milk I used was Chaokoh.

Other hair things--I had to hide my tape measure because I was getting too obsessive about measuring.

Yeah, coconut milk is one of my fav's!   I use a heat cap with it and my hair loves it too!  I use Tosca brand, I think I spelled it right? ???

Hair
The trend towards more organic goods seems to have impacted my local grocery store in an unexpected way. When I went to Star Market to look for Suave conditioner, I discovered that they started to carry products from Giovanni, Nature's Gate, Alba, Avalon Organics, and some other organic brands I'd never heard of. I was extremely happy and spent some time looking at the different shampoos and conditioners. Hmm, should I try a different conditioner when my Giovanni condish runs out or should I keep using that one?

Kimono
I kind of wish "Memoirs of a Geisha" hadn't come out yet because now I'm having a hard time getting a juban (it's kind of like an under-kimono) for a decent price on eBay. Before it came out, I didn't see too many auctions with multiple bidders, but this week I've been outbid on two juban auctions and refrained from bidding on some kimono because the bids were getting too expensive. Sigh. I had to rebid on one of the juban and put a bid on a new furisode juban auction because the price on the first one got too high. *fingers crossed I get both of them for a reasonable price*
ETA: While I'm glad that is seems like more people are becoming interested in kimono, it's kind of frustrating when you can't get a good deal on something because several other people are bidding on the same item (especially when that wouldn't have happened a couple of months ago).

In happier news
I've learned than an apple a day keeps acne away. Well, there's a couple, but they're small and easily treatable. Anyways, for a few months I had an acne problem that I couldn't seem to shake, but since I stopped taking biotin and started having a large apple everyday, my skin's really cleared up. Yay!

Lisabelle--Yeah, I even said that it would be harder to get kimono after the movie comes out so I should get my things early, but did I listen to myself? Obviously not. I don't really need new kimono so I'm more frustrated by the fact that juban are more difficult to get (and I'm picky about what I bid on). Oh well. It's my own fault for not getting them sooner.

Thanks for the tip about the toothpaste! I'll definately try it.