With our meager little tax refund, (after I paid Citibank back a good chunk of our refund... to thank them for letting us live while unemployment took it's good ol' time to get set up- while I was furloughed from work for 2 1/2 weeks earlier this year)... I had a little extra cash to spend. This isn't all we spent it on of course! But it was nice to get a few new things

I was able to get a new shower mat for our bath/shower and a new fabric Damask shower curtain. Yay! If you've looked at my other Home Improvement posts, you'll notice Damask plays a key role. Our decor theme around our apartment is Black, White and Aqua.

I also got a new purse for myself! In... Damask... lol. I really love it. It has little metal feet on the bottom, and the handles are sturdy, yet it's light weight. Now... if it will hold up to all the crap I carry in my purse, remains to be seen... lol. I've gotten a bunch of compliments on it already. The brand is Belvah.



And as you know I'm having a Zoya Spring Giveaway! The giveaway ends March 8th, so enter while you can! I'm giving away Zoya Neely & Zoya Blu from the new Spring 2013 collection and I'm throwing in a travel sized L'Occitane Verbena lotion too!

I got to try Zoya Blu out tonight. (I bought extras for the giveaway!) Here is Zoya Blu, with Zoya Pixie Dust NYX on my ring finger. Blu only needed 2 coats and 1 top coat of Seche Vite. NYX I did 3 coats.


(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)

Everyone knows my obsession with nail polish. :-p With spring on it's way I wanted to give away two Zoya nail polishes from the new spring 2013 collection. I'm giving away Zoya Neely & Zoya Blu! (I blogged about Neely here and Blu here).



Contest Rules: 

All you have to do to enter the giveway is fill out the Rafflecopter form below! It is MANDATORY that you leave a blog comment: "What is your favorite thing about Spring?". You can earn extra entries by following me on Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. You can also Tweet about this giveaway or share this blog entry publicly on your Facebook page.
NOTE: If you don't follow the mandatory rule above- ALL your contest entries will be deleted. a Rafflecopter giveawayRules For Extra Entries:

If you share this blog post on Facebook- you must set the shared status to public and then leave a link below in the comments to your Facebook Page.

If you follow me on Instagram, please leave your Instagram username below in the comments.

If you follow me on Pinterest, please leave a link to your Pinterest page below in the comments.

This contest will run from February 18th to March 8th, March 1st 2013. 12am EST. It is only open to USA & Canada residents. My Family & Friends in USA or Canada are allowed to enter!

*Prizes were purchased with my own money and not provided by Zoya.

My L'Occitane obsession started on my honeymoon in the Philippines in 2009. We stayed at the Manila Hotel and they had the verbena L'Occitane toiletries.... I was hooked. (Philippine residents, there's a L'Occitane in Greenbelt 5).

I don't get to shop from L'Occitane too often. Once a year, or twice a year at the most. Infact the last time I had purchased anything was back in April of 2011, the year my husband arrived in the USA and we had visited the King of Prussia Mall. I stocked up on Verbena lotion then! L'Occitane is not cheap, so it's something I get to splurge on once in awhile. My favorite scents are Verbena, Almond, Rose for Reines.

During our little weekend getaway in January, I got to check out the L'Occitane shop on Walnut Street in Philadelphia... and rekindle my obsession with L'Occitane!


Here are some L'Occitane products I've been using lately:




Other posts about L'Occitane:

L'Occitane Verbena Lotion

More L’Occitane Products! 

Weekend Getaway! 

If you haven't already, check out my post of my complete nail polish collection! I will be keeping that post updated, whenever I get a new nail polish.

I finally caved and decided to get on the bandwagon and try one of these new sandy texture nail polishes. I bought Zoya Pixie Dust in NYX.


I used 3 coats and since I'm a loyal Seche Vite top coat user, it was nice that this polish dries pretty quickly on it's own, since you can't use a topcoat if you want the sandy effect. At first the texture bothered me, but after a day I didn't notice it anymore. I love the color of this blue polish and the shimmery sparkles, really do make it look like sand art in person.

I wore this one week and did not have any chipping, only tip wear which you can see in the photo below. Removal however... you should use the foil method to remove this polish because it's removes like a pain in the butt glitter polish!

Since Valentines Day fell on a week day and after a lonngggg work day, we stayed in and had Chinese takeout. My husband got me roses and my new favorite L'Occitane almond lotion. And I got him a few Playstation 2 games. :-)

Here are some photos (mainly Instagram) from our Valentines 2013.

My coworker of 11 years gave out pink/red carnations to all the ladies at work.

Hearts on the card I got my husband.

Roses & L'Occitane!

Close up

My new favorite scent.

We bought this a few days before Valentines haha. Couldn't wait!

Right before Valentines, I won a giveaway from the Bama+Ry Shop on Facebook! Jasmine makes gorgeous custom stamped copper & nickel jewelry. I love the jewelry she makes. Like these cute bird earrings and this beautiful inspire pendant. I also love this home is where the heart is necklace.
 
I was so lucky to win one of her pieces! I love the heart & key design, because when my husband & I were dating & so far apart from each other, we had heart & key key chains. (Kind of like these). The necklace arrived just in time for Valentine's Day. And it came in such cute packaging too! Thank you Jasmine! I love it! :-)


 

My three free Zoya promo polishes arrived a few weeks ago. I didn't want to blog until I had tried all 3 colors. I ordered Faye, Crystal & Daul. They are so pretty in person.

The formula is thin on all of them, but dries quickly. I did 3 coats for all. It's also very easy to remove, it looks like glitter, but it must be micro glitter, it removes just like a normal polish. (With 1 coat of Seche Vite topcoat I can get a week or even 2 if I don't feel like changing my polish without much chipping).

I wore Daul for our weekend getaway trip. It's hard to get pictures of. Sometimes it looks purple, gold or even bronze. It's super sparkly even in low light. (The 1st two pictures are cell phone photos).

Daul: No Flash

Daul: No Flash

Daul: Flash

Faye: No Flash

Faye: Flash

Crystal: No Flash

Crystal: Flash

These gray polishes I'm posting for one of my blogger friends. She was looking for a nice gray nail polish. These are the 3 gray polishes I own. I'd like another color like the Rimmel one, but with less blue eventually.

Rimmel London: Grey Matter, China Glaze: Immortal, Pure Ice: Kiss Me Here.

 

F.B. & I decided to have a little "staycation" getaway. Saturday into Sunday we checked into the Hyatt at the Bellevue in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square section. The hotel was just two blocks down from the Academy of Music. I found a nice rate on our room on Agoda.com

Check in was at 3pm on Saturday. We took the train down to Suburban Station. We got downtown around 2pm, so we decided to walk around a little bit. We checked out The Shops at Liberty Place. It's a small mall right near City Hall.

Glass dome roof inside Liberty Place

City Hall

Our Hotel

There was a Starbucks downstairs inside the hotel! They also had a Tiffany & Co, Williams & Sonoma and some other shops downstairs.

Our room!

We headed to dinner after checking in. We ate at Ruby Tuesday at Liberty Place. Then walked around a little after dinner. And I got some Starbucks when we got back to the hotel, hehe.

Sirloin steak, broccoli & mashed cauliflower

Top shelf long island iced tea

Mojito

F.B. with our chocolate lava cake for dessert.

Art school across the street from the hotel. We could see ballerina's practicing in the studio from the sidewalk. :)

Academy of Music was 2 blocks from the hotel.

Light outside the Academy of Music.

Starbucks & Chocolate back at the hotel!

Courtyard out our hotel window

 Check out was at 12pm. I forgot to take pictures of us when we came back to the hotel after dinner, I was tired. lol. So that's why my hair is wet here.


We checked out shops on Chestnut Street & Walnut Street after checking out. Walnut Street has a bunch of high end shops. The one I really wanted to stop at was L'Occitane!

My loot from L'Occitane! Almond soap, Verbena soap, Almond oil body wash, Verbena hand lotion, Almond lotion, Rose solid perfume.

We decided to head to 30th Street Station to take the train back home. It was sunny, but very cold and windy out! We walked from Broad St all the way to 30th Street Station.

Comcast Center

Church on 17th Street, I liked the red door.

Bridge near Schuylkill Ave.

Oh hi work... see you Tuesday...

30th Street Station, Amtrack building in the back.

Bridge near Schuylkill Ave.

30th Street Station

I got a cute Philadelphia tote bag for work and a metal city souvenir from the book shop inside 30th Street Station. Yeah... playing tourist in my own city again, lol. Ever since my office moved downtown back in December 2010 and I've been riding the trains. I've definitely been checking out more of downtown Philadelphia than ever before.

F.B. tired on the train home.

Me waiting in the car, while F.B. get Wendy's for dinner!

We had a really nice weekend. But boy with all that walking, we are exhausted!

P.S. This was the note F.B. left on my coffee cup and I found when I got to work Thursday morning. (I make my coffee at home in the morning and my travel tumbler goes into my work bag until I get to work).


Other Philadelphia Adventures:

• September 2011:  Philadelphia Trip: 8/31-9/1/2011  
• July 2011: Philadelphia Zoo
• May 2011: Hot Day in the City! 
• December 2010: The Nutcracker  
• April 2009: Playing tourist in my own city