Vanity

One of my main hobbies besides navel-gazing and talking about myself is vanity.  I devote a lot of time to all 3.

I swear to Glob if any of you are actually nodding your head and thinking 'yes... she is indeed very vain and self-involved'... well I'll just... i'll just... write about you in my diary.  HOW DARE YOU?

Seriously, though,  I spend an unsettling amount of time thinking about very shallow things.  I have a lot of flaws, and this is the most minor of them... so I haven't spent a lot of time correcting it.

What I have spent a lot of time doing is watching make up and hairstyling tutorials on YouTube!!

I thought I would share some of my absolute favorites.

My #1 A+ Gold Star Go-To for make up tutorials is world famous make up genius Lisa Eldridge.  I treat the video section of her website as my own personal face closet.  I browse it before getting ready for a social event the same way I do my actual closet to find an outfit. (Also I find her voice incredibly relaxing)

 Here are my absolute favorites:

1. Grown-up Girly - This is the perfectperfectperfect going out/date make up.  This is my absolute favorite out of all of her tutorials and the one I duplicate the most frequently.

2. Gold, Sparkly, Glittery, Glossy - This is the simplest, most awesome party make up.  Super terrific for holiday parties!  I love this one so hard... I wish I had a party to go to right now so I could wear this again.

3. Chocolate Berry - I love this one for fall.  So warm and slightly dramatic without looking overdone.

And now for hair tutorials!  My favorite hair tutorials are by the gals at Luxy Hair.  Unfortunately because this is a company that sells clip-in hair extensions, you kind of need somewhat long hair in order to make these tutorials useful.  I chose my curling wand because of their recommendation and I love it (it's the Cortex 4 in 1 Pro).  These ladies basically taught this clueless hair-haver how to curl and style my hair.  For going out I rotate one of these two looks.

1. Perfect Curls

2. Easy Everyday Waves

And that is the sum total of my hair styling abilities.


This morning I felt motivated so I decided to try out a tutorial for my Urban Decay Naked Palette.  I tried this one because it looked the least drag queen-y.  I have to say... it's a lot more eye shadow than I'm used to wearing to work, but I like it!  Maybe I should get all gussied up for work more often.

This is the tutorial I used:

Do you have any favorite tutorials you can recommend?

What's Right?

Mondays, for the most part, tend to be underwhelming.

So I think it's a good day to practice a little thankfulness.  What could it possibly hurt to identify a few things that are going pretty okay for you?

Here are some things I think are pretty cool today:

1. Rainstorms!
2. Beautiful full moon on my morning walk with Henry
3. Super nice co-workers that give you brownies for no reason at all
4. This recipe for slow-cooker "refried" beans... I make it about once a week.  So good. So cheap. Fat free!
5. The book The Energy of Prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh
6. This lush tuft of grass I saw growing on a pile of trash in the middle of the river. Perseverance and determination, you guys.

7. Cake
8. Still listening to 'Must Land Running' by Stepdad like a mental patient.

9. Knitting projects... Fall is so close! I can't wait to huddle around wood fires and eat pumpkin flavored everything.
10. Good people... just so many good people on this planet.  And I get to know so few of them, but they kill me with their love and kindness every single day.

Riotous Joy In Our Hearts

It's Monday and I'm thinking about all of the things I have to be thankful for in this batshit insane life of mine. Everyday I see things that make me excited about pushing forward.  I hope you do too.

I think we should all tell the naysayers of the Universe to stay pressed and go write about it in their diaries.

Now let's listen to happy music and dance like maniacs!!

1. Must Land Running by Stepdad

2. Bright Whites by Kishi Bashi

3. Tongue Tied by Grouplove

Also this gif set illustrates exactly what I'm like in real life:

Never Apologize For Being Human

Antilamentation by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Imaginary Boyfriend Thursday... Another One Bites the Dust Edition

My longtime soccer boyf is going off the market this weekend.

That's right.  Little Xavi Shortpants is getting married to his girlfriend Nuria this weekend.

You guys, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, throw glitter in the air, or curl up in the fetal position.

I'm super happy for him, BUT I never thought I'd live to see the day.  I had him down in my book as a foreversingle just like me and now he's getting married and I just... I just... I just don't know about this.  I hate changes. I hate people growing up and being adults and doing adult things while I'm still back here living like a perpetual 13 year old.

It's the shits.

I bet he's going to look super hot in his wedding outfit.  I hope it looks something like this:

If I were a guest at the wedding, I would probably show up in something like this get-up:

In deep mourning, you guys.

Bits and Bats and Progress On a Major Life Goal

Have you guys seen the thing where adorable Brazilian children are politely correcting the grammar of celebrities' tweets in order to improve their own English?

Something about it makes me feel good about humanity.


I had a weird dream last night that I learned how to rock climb by climbing Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

And I was totally fine the entire time I was climbing.  Fearless.  Just slow strutting up the shear face of this thing.

And then I got to the top and looked down at what I had accomplished... the heights I had risen to... and that's when the paralyzing fear kicked in hard.  I was overwhelmed. I remember making a conscious decision to sit down and give myself some time to really come to terms with the accomplishment.  Something about not being able to undo what I had done (even though it was an amazing, powerful thing) was really difficult to process.  I could never again in my life say that I hadn't climbed a 1,300 foot extinct volcano.

I think there is something in that feeling.  Sometimes success and moving forward are scary just because it means a fundamental change in yourself.  Even if that change is good and even if your life looks more than ever like what you always dreamed it would look like, it's still a thing you have to fucking process and take time trying to get your claws around.  And that's okay.


This song is fucking killing me it's so awesome.  Just bury me in the ground with a boom box playing this on an infinite loop.

Major Lazer - You're No Good (featuring Santigold, Vybz Kartel, Danielle Haim, and Yasmin)

Seriously, you guys... SO GOOD.

And now for some veryveryvery serious business.

I'm sure you guys are aware of my lifelong quest for the mirror-like shine and gloss of Kyle Richards' hair.

I'm not saying I'm there yet, but some major progress has been made because of this product:

I used this for the first time last night and you guys... no seriously YOU GUYS... my hair is so shiny and soft today!  My little vain heart is singing with riotous joy... go buy it!

Let's Rave!

I think I need to designate a day of the week to really give a big shout out to everything awesome in my life.

I think it is so important in the midst of the daily negativity parade of life to stop and ask yourself 'What's right?'

So here are some things that are right in my world today:

1. A family that rallies around me in tough times.
2. A dog that cuddles me within an inch of my life.
3. A pretty cool cat named Walter.
4. Big, grand dreams that make me excited about my life.
5. An ability to stop and pull back and really care for myself.
6. Frustrating obstacles... because I know they exist for a reason.  Probably to teach me about patience.
7. Friends that make me laugh.
8. Waffles for dinner.
9. Making new friends.
10. Seeing evidence of answered prayers all around me.

I'm coming off a 4 day Fourth of July food bender of barbecued ribs, chicken, and homemade ice cream.  I saw nary a single firework.  It was a weird one this year, kids.