Thursday, April 6, 2017

Band of Bloggers: April 2017 - Volume 15


It's that time of year again! As the warmer weather soothes stiff joints and brushes off the last vestiges of winter, homes beg for the same fresh start everyone promised themselves at the beginning of the year. Clothes are donated, rooms are scrubbed, and yards are tended. While the fauna leave their winter dens or return from long migrations, the world blooms with new growth in vibrant splashes of color.

For April's Band of Bloggers post, we will answer a few questions about Spring and the ever-loved Spring Cleaning. Feel free to join in and answer these questions in the comments below!

Do you decorate for Spring? 
I don't normally, but it's not because I don't want to. I'm a frugal person, and up until Korea I had about 0% interest in my home decor. Give me the cheapest thing that has a function and I'm good.
I probably won't decorate for this Spring season, but when all the themed decor goes on sale I hope to stock up for future seasons.

Are there any products you find yourself reaching for as the weather warms? This can be anything; food, clothing, bath and body, wax, you name it!
Bath and Body Works Country Chic is synonymous with Spring to me. My freshman year of college I had a roommate who liberally applied this fragrance every morning come Spring semester. The scent eventually grew on me and now I can't go through the season without lightly using the scent.
I reach for lavender scented products more. I know, lavender is pretty much an all-the-time kind of scent for me, but it's possible I can reach for it more! Herbal lavender heavily reminds me of M's time at basic, and even though I had a lot of hard times there it's a pleasant reminder of all the growth I went through while he was gone.

Do you participate in the Spring Cleaning craze?
Yup. Whether I want to or not I tend to clean more around this time of year. The communities I live in help encourage spring cleaning by offering community yard sales, swaps, and all other "get rid of your stuff" gatherings.
In Korea, yellow dust season starts around spring and it becomes exceptionally important to keep our home as clean as possible. I find it's easier to maintenance clean every day instead of waiting for dirt to pile up and mass clean every other week. The cleanliness helps us sleep better and the constant movement in order to sweep and mop helps keep an active lifestyle on days where the air quality makes physical activity less than ideal.

Don't forget to visit these fellow participants in the Band of Bloggers and help support the blogging community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished
Liz at Furianne
Sandra at Finger Candy 

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us. 

8 comments:

  1. Like I was telling Sandra, I don't think I have many if any spring decorations. Fall galore but no spring to my knowledge as of now. Not that I don't like spring it just isn't one that I usually decorate for as much. If I could decorate with real flowers in the house and me and the hubs allergies not go haywire I would!

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    1. Does opening the shades and letting in the sun count as decorating for Spring? LOL. I think that's the best I've done so far. Every flower we've tried to keep while here has died. It's always after a particularly bad air day or when we try and air out the house by keeping the windows open. If the air is killing off our plants, who knows what it's doing to our lungs >_<
      That's the awesome thing about wax! You can melt and get all of the lovely floral scents without any of those pesky allergies!

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  2. Great idea, Liz. Maybe I will get lucky and find a few Easter things at the stores after the fact to put back for next year.

    Sorry this yellow dust season is so brutal. Hoping it ends quickly for you guys so y'all can get back on the bikes and outdoors. How long is your tour over there? My friend Ashley tends to do her stints in two year increments. Didn't know if your branch worked the same way.

    Lavender. Yes. All the time and more and more please.

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    1. We'll be done in Korea before 2018. Our tours are the same length as your friends.

      If I could have a constant supply of lavender scents I doubt I would ever melt anything else. It's a conscious effort to NOT immediately pull from my lavender drawer whenever I go to melt something.

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  3. I don't decorate much for spring either. Yellow dust season sounds awful! Is it pollen or what?

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    1. Yellow dust season is a combination of the pollen, Korea's own industrial pollution, and a large portion is China's pollution being wafted over to us. The weather patterns around this time of year bring almost all of our air from north and west, which is China's lovely air... That combined with this country's own major pollutants make for very icky air.

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  4. I'm shuddering at the thought of yellow dust season. What's the temp range in your area? Is spring in Korea as volatile weather-wise as the states?

    I think it's cool that melting lavender has significance for you. Love a scent connected to memory. I'm into really herbally lavender, but like the sweet kind too.

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    1. For April the temps tend to stay right around 60. It's pretty rainy, but the really horrid weather comes during monsoon season, which is smack dab in the middle of summer. While the temps aren't that bad at around 90-100F (I've lived in Texas for most of my life), it gets incredibly humid. The cost of electricity is HIGH in Korea, so we can't just keep the AC running to stay comfortable unless we want bills in excess of $1000. The high humidity means we can't leave the window open for a nice breeze. Basically summer is a pretty miserable time indoors.

      I have a lot of perfumes that I only wear for special occasions because I don't want to taint the memories I have associated with that scent. Elizabeth Arden's Provocative Interlude is the first "luxury" perfume I bought in 8th grade and I still have my first bottle of it. Every time I wear that scent I'm taken back to my innocent excitement at having my first nicer perfume and how sophisticated I felt whenever I wore it.

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