Guest Post at Now Smell This.

Oh, hey, my guest post on Baseball and Fragrance is up over at Now Smell This.  Check it out here!

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Happy Birthday Bookworm!

Happy birthday to my sweet daughter, my first baby!  I’m so proud of you, butterfly girl.  Love love love you.

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Scent Diary, May 24-30

Monday, May 24: Intermittent rain.  Thank goodness I finished raking the cut grass off the lawn yesterday.  Tested Hors la Monde Lady Shiloh this morning and found it just dreadful.  Headachy.  Hideous.  I don’t know what’s getting to me in there… the jasmine? the powdery violet?  I didn’t even make it an hour before scrubbing.  After I washed that off as best I could, I couldn’t find anything else in my purse except Keiko Mecheri Mogador, which is often too much the Romantic Naif to suit me.  Usually it seems like a mixed rose-jasmine scent, but today I’m getting more rose than usual out of it.  Also some melon, of all things, but it’s still very nice.  And although it’s not listed (the official notes include three different types of roses and jasmine, and that’s all), I smell something fresh-floral in there too.  Freesia?  LotV? I think freesia.

Tuesday, May 25:  More intermittent rain.  Gaze’s baseball game was called off – it poured down in town (four miles away) and soaked the ballfields, but we only got a sprinkle at home.  The CEO was moving cattle from one field to another when a fence post came out of the ground and dumped a 12-foot metal gate onto his shoulder, pushing him into the creek.  He’s got a bruise on his shoulder… and a dead cell phone, of course.  SOTD: Guerlain Rose Barbare, thanks to Daisy.  I had been so looking forward to this.  A rose chypre? Honeyed red roses? Rose in amber?  All those glowing descriptions encouraged me to try it, and I couldn’t wait.  It opens up with a lovely deep rose, framed in patchouli thorns, and then takes a sharp left turn into… oh dear… shaving cream.  BLAST. IT.  I mean, shaving cream smells good… on a man. 

Wednesday, May 26: Sunny and warm.  Today I’m testing the great-granddaddy of all irises, Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist.  I kind of like it.  I’m not swooning and trying to get my hot little hands on a decant ASAP the way I did with La Myrrhe, but it’s… nice.  I particularly liked the carroty opening.  And there’s no Musty Basement Accord, either.  Huh.  SOTA: Silences.  Feels like silk satin (the real thing, not polyester “satin,”), in that beautiful changeable color that shifts from periwinkle to moss green, depending on the light. 

Thursday, May 27:  Hot. Humid.  Welcome to summer in the southern US.  SOTD: Cerruti 1881,  nice tart citrus-herbal rose.  Made some updates to the Bouquet of Roses feature, since I’ve tested several rose scents since it was originally posted.   Of course it rained late this afternoon, but I headed in one direction with one baseball player, and The CEO went the other way with the other baseball player.  SOTE: Guerlain Vega, which is sort of a Guerlain-does-No.5 fragrance, no bad thing in itself.  Review of this one and vintage Coty L’Aimant, another aldehydic floral, coming soon.

Friday, May 28: A little cooler today, but still 82F.  Wearing Tocadilly again (reviewed 5/28).

Saturday, May 29:  Hot.  Humid.  Cleaned the house, made a cake, waited for Bookworm to call with results from the regional track meet.  SOTD: Vega again.  It goes sort of oddly with Windex and shorts, but hey, my Saturday mornings I clean bathrooms, and that’s the way it is. 

Bookworm finally called about three, right before her visiting aunt from Atlanta showed up to see the boys.  Her relay team had to either come in third or qualify with a fast time in order to go to the state meet – and it didn’t happen.  They’d come in fourth in the district meet, and finished fifth at regionals, which just demonstrates how good our school’s athletic district is for distance running.  When The CEO (who used to run cross country) compared times from regions across the state, he declared that according to those recorded times, our district is hands-down the toughest in the state. 

Sunday, May 30: Hot and humid again… summer, here we go.  Bookworm is 15 today.   The honeysuckle is out in full force, so I picked up my little decant of Annick Goutal Eau de Camille.  It’s a little more like traditional cologne (i.e., citrusy) than I prefer, but the brief honeysuckle note is lovely, and I like the green stuff too.  Of course, it wears off quickly, so my scent of the afternoon was Hanae Mori Haute Couture, with its smiling fizzy jasmine. 

My extended family likes to celebrate holidays by having cookouts or potluck picnics at the shelter at the Methodist church in town, so that’s where we headed after church.  As always, there was too much delicious stuff.  (No one brought corn pudding!  What’s the world coming to? I suppose everybody thought someone else was bringing it.)  We served Bookworm’s German chocolate birthday cake there instead of at our house so her grandfather (The CEO’s dad) wouldn’t have to negotiate getting in and out of the car another time – he’s 85 and uses a wheelchair these days.  And my grandmother came for the meal; she has Alzheimer’s and I don’t think she recognized anyone there except my dad and his oldest sister, but it was wonderful to see her.  She went into a care home last month, and they’re discouraging visits until she settles in.  My sister and nephew were visiting too – probably one of the last times I’ll see her before she moves to join her husband at Fort Hood next month. 

My thanks to Bob for serving our country in the military.  Thanks also to my dad, a Navy veteran.   Thanks to Terry Plunk, who gave all.  Thanks to all those who served in the past, who are serving now, who will serve in the future.  Thanks to their families.  May God bless you all.

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Happy Birthday!

 

Birthday candles by PGraphx at flickr

Happy birthday to my favorite brother (today)…

and my favorite father-in-law (tomorrow)…

and my favorite brother’s favorite wife (Tuesday)!

Love you guys!

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Happy Birthday, NST!

Today’s the fifth birthday of the Mother of All Perfume Blogs: Now Smell This.  Go over and say hi to Robin and the crew; read some of their back issues; meet someone new. I have to blame  thank the terrific posters at NST for getting me into this whole perfume deal.

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What, again? I did this, like, a YEAR ago…

Scent of the day: Guerlain Attrape-Coeur (many thanks to dear Daisy!)

Review of DSH Tubereuse to be posted later in the day.

The CEO gave me this very cool book by Alton Brown, my favorite Food Network Dude.  The kids gave me hugs.

Sara the calf is better.  We’ve taken her out to the little barn lot to hang with Davy and Beth.

It’s supposed to hit 40 degrees today.

I’m wearing my new, very soft, tomato-red sweater.

I’m making cheesecake this afternoon.  Tilapia for dinner, mmm.

I’ve made it this far – might as well go a little longer, right?  Kidding.  I’m having fun these days.

My favorite cut flowers: yellow roses, deep burgundy roses, pale pink peonies, gardenias, tiny starlike daffodils, bells of Ireland, blue delphiniums, and lily of the valley.  I’m forgetting something, I know.  Oh, yes – carnations.  Love them.  Of the florist-available, only the white ones have a scent, and it’s wonderful – spicy and floral and green all at once. 

Image is Happy Birthday! by JannaPham at flickr.

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