~ random thought – puberty~

This is something that I randomly remember and it also comes up during relevant conversations.

When I was about 10yrs schools started educating children about puberty and such. They don’t teach you anything about sex yet but more about the changes that will happen to your body. The girls and boys were taught separately and it would only be about 40mins each time. I think it happened once a year in my last 3 years of elementary which would’ve meant I would be from 10-12 yrs. Usually it’s a nurse that will come to talk about puberty but I remember in my last year there was a special speaker from an organization that talked to us about condoms and such. 

During my first lesson about puberty from the nurse, all the girls from my class got up and we settled in the library and the nurse started talking about puberty. It was all fine and dandy until she did something that irked me and it irked me bad, to the point where I thought, at 10 years old, wow this lady is really immature.

The lady was holding up a book with a picture of a penis on it. It was a scientific drawing and while she held it up she turned her head away, covered her eyes and said “Ew, let me know when it’s over”. I thought that was so immature of her. I also don’t remember any of the girls having a negative reaction to it, though they might have just been embarrassed to see a penis, even if it was a drawing of one. I guess she did that because she assumed that little girls like us would think it was gross but honestly I just thought it was silly of her. I guess I always thought that teachers would have a more mature way of handling these things, perhaps she got a positive reaction when she did this with other students but for me, it just seemed silly and not a very mature approach. Or maybe I was just mature for my age *shrugs* <– this did lead me to having problems with connecting with my peers.

Also was I the only girl that was never told that blood comes out during your period?! For some reason I never grasped that concept until I actually had my first period and that’s when it felt like mother nature kicked in and I realized that I was having my period. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized no one told me this is how it went! Yeesh! I felt like the nurses were being too formal and only used terms like your uterus is shedding etc. but I don’t remember anyone telling me there’d be blood, not that I have a problem with it but it was just a surprise LOL Or maybe I’m the only girl that didn’t know that T_T (but hey like I said, mother nature did kick in!)

Anyone else have these stories to share? =D

~ tarte’s tinted moisturizer ~

A little while ago I decided to hunt for a new tinted moisturizer because I disliked the one I had been using which was the Laura Mercier one, though I did enjoy it before. But I realized that it made me pretty oily. I was debating on trying the NARS tm or Tarte’s tm and chose Tarte in the end because I like the brand more, it’s more natural and the reviews seemed pretty good. 

~ tarte tinted moisturizer ~

I find the squeeze tube packaging pretty decent, it’s easy to control the amount of product coming out. I find this much easier to control versus the LM one.

I read that some people disliked the look of the new packaging but personally I like it better than the previous one. This one looks more lux to me.

I’m shade “agent 08” but truth be told tm’s provide such light coverage that it’s okay to go up or down a shade. I did swatch this on the back of my hand before I purchased it and also asked a sales associate at Sephora if it was the right shade for me.

How it looks straight out of the tube. I did also rub it onto my hand but it looked like there was nothing there so I won’t bother posting the photo. It  looks very natural on and gives very minimal coverage,which I prefer. I find the coverage is a teeny bit heavy than the LM one so if you’re looking for medium to high coverage this won’t cut it for you but of course everyone is different, if you’re interested you can always ask for a sample to test out at home.

The product also has a odd(?) smell that disappears as you apply it. Though I usually don’t have any problems with smells the LM smelled so bad for me, even though it went away after a while but it was something I noticed. This also gives me a nice matte look but I apply translucent powder over top to make it  even more matte lol because I’m a bit oily and prefer the matte look. Over all I’m really enjoying and loving this tm and will definitively repurchase!

Sorry there’s no photo of me wearing this but the photos of me in my last iphone  photo post I was wearing this unless I started I wasn’t wearing make up that day. I’ve been a bit lazy with real camera photos lately with the bad weather and all but I’ll try.

*note- I noticed that I couldn’t find this particular product on tarte’s website but they have something that looks similair (and pretty good) which is the BB tinted moisturizer. However I purchased mine’s at Sephora and do see it there regularly, darn now I want to try the bb one!!!

~ afternoon tea at the urban tea merchant – harvest theme ~

I received an email that the Urban Tea Merchant was having a harvest afternoon tea in celebration of the autumn season. I haven’t had a proper tea service a little while so decided to splurge and try this out. Another reason why I love this tea room is because they always have something new to try. A friend and I made a reservation at 11am and we left around 1:30pm, the staff was very accommodating, attentive, and we never felt rushed to leave.

~ harvest tea service ~

The harvest tea is priced on the higher end of afternoon teas at 48$. It came loaded with food and you’ll probably be full afterwards especially if you’re having tea and busy chatting with your friend.

The staff was really nice and helpful when it came to choosing teas. They were more than happy to bring us teas to smell and to make suggestions. For example I was going to try a new type of Earl Grey but our server informed me that it was a very smoky tea and brought it out for me to smell. Sure enough it was really really smoky and I decided to try another Earl Grey tea that had Darjeeling in it.

 ~ savories ~

This had a very asian zen feel to it. The names on the menu are sort of abstract so you don’t really know how everything looks until it comes out. Most were very tasty but I remember I didn’t like the apple crisp (the thing that the tuna is sitting in) because it was deep fried and the vegetable that held the mushroom dish was very bitter. The little crisp cup you see on the right was a pumpkin mousse cup which was very light and really refreshing and the crisp reminded me of the crust of an egg tart.

 ~ tea accompany ~

This tier had the scone, petite three cheese quiche and the vanilla pumpkin mousse. I enjoyed everything on this tier. The mousse wasn’t over powering or too sweet and would probably go nicely with a light tea, the tea I had was a bit more on the bitter end so it didn’t accompany it too well, at least this is what I thought. However I wish the scone was more interesting, like a chocolate chip one or a cinnamon scone.

 ~ sweets ~

I felt that the sweets tier was a bit of a disappointment. It doesn’t seem too different from their other afternoon tea services asides from the chocolate coated Madeline. The truffle is really nice and rich though and the fruits were all ripe and sweet.

I enjoyed my tea experience over all but think it was a bit overpriced for what it’s worth. I was also told that they changed their permanent West Coast tea service and made it a bit more Asian inspired. I have yet to try it though I did try their previous West Coast service and did enjoy it.

~ the acorn ~

The other day my friend and I decided to go try our first vegetarian restaurant, The Acorn. They also have gluten free, vegan and raw options as well. I was really excited to try it as I’ve never been to a truly vegetarian restaurant before and it also got great reviews online as well.

The location is on Main street which made it a bit hard to find parking and the restaurant also doesn’t accept reservations so make sure you get there early. We got there around 6:40pm, I put my name down and the girl informed me that it could be a 20-40min wait. My friend and I decided that we’d just walk around the area and check out the shops. Fast forward 40mins later and still no table to which the girl informed me that one of the co-owners or chef decided to take our table. Apparently he was going to eat at the bar but in the end decided to take our table. I thought this was really strange because if you were the owner/chef of a restaurant wouldn’t you put customers as first priority?  I thought it was so so strange but it wasn’t her fault and she offered us counter seats if we didn’t mind. Seeing as we’d waited an hr at that point we took the counter seats which turned out to be a better option as we had a view of the street and it was fun to people watch.

~ the menu ~

From what I understand, their menu changes seasonally, when I went it was their late summer menu but they did have a dish that offered a autumn feel which was appropriately named the harvest.

 ~ appetizers ~

My friend ordered the Apple which consisted of arancini, goat cheese, okanagon apple and baby mizuna. (8$)

We didn’t expect this to be deep fried! When it came it look so much like crab cakes hahaha the taste was alright but I think the goat cheese was a bit overwhelming and the only apple taste was derived from the sauce…

I choose the Kale caesar salad to be safe LOL. It consisted of kale, tempeh, smoked parika croutons, crispy capers, olives, caesar dressing and asaigo cheese. (9$-small)

I never had smoked parika croutons but it had a meaty texture to it and I have no idea what those lil black seeds were but I couldn’t taste them. Over the salad was nice and refreshing but if you don’t like the taste of kale then I wouldn’t recommend it. I felt that this was different enough from a typical caesar salad but familiar enough to be comfortable with it.

 ~ Aubergine ~

My friend tried this dish for her main course. It consist mainly of eggplant and braised chickpeas. Accommodating it was tallegio tan, yellow pepper romesco, and almonds. This dish is also gluten free and vegan. (18$)

I think the tastiest part of this dish was the chickpeas and the fact that the dish was hot! I often envisioned vegetarian dishes to be cold so it was really interesting that this was a hot meal and my friend really appreciated that. I felt that the taste was just alright and again, the cheese was really overwhelming. When the dish came the smell was really strong.

 ~ zucchini ~

I choose the zucchini dish for my main because I had seen a photo of it on their website and I also really enjoy zucchini. This dish is gluten free, vegan and raw. (17$)

The dish was mainly zucchini tagliatelle with a cashew rose sauce accompanied by pinenut and tomato salad. There were also candied olives and blossoms in the zucchini mixture.

I really enjoyed this dish though I found at times the sauce was overwhelming. When that happened I would simply eat a tomato to refresh my palette. The sauce went well with the zucchini but I also found some herbs in my dish that I disliked very much and the candied olives gave off a weird taste in my mouth. It’s hard to describe but I know it was very unpleasant but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this dish.

My friend and I had wanted to try dessert but we were both too stuffed from our dinner already to have room for anything else. The portions were generous and the service was attentive and friendly. The space is small and intimate though a bit loud at times, there is also virtually no waiting area so it might get cold if you’re waiting outside. I really enjoyed my experience at The Acorn and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in trying vegetarian dishes =)