Well, hello, there!  Today, I thought I'd share with you some things I love and some that I rather don't!

I absolutely love reading lists like these about other people - little quirks that make each person a little unique!  A little silly list is sometimes perfect to start a day of laughter!

Here we go!

1. Cucumbers with salt! Note: these are not pickles, but cucumbers with salt sprinkled over.

2. Peeling garlic... it's therapeutic, somehow!

3. Cleaning dirty dishes, particularly by hand.

4. PJ dresses - as cute as a dress, but as comfy as a blanket? Yes, please!

5. Candles! Particularly: in our reading room! Yes, we have a reading, and I am awfully proud!

6. Giving surprise present to special people!

7. Chocolate glazed donuts!

8. Rain, and anything that can be done when it's raining: whether it's reading, cooking, napping, cuddling, watching a movie...

9. Dancing like a fool. :)

10. Stationery of all shapes, textures, colors, and decorations; also: pens! Not even pretty pens, just having lots of them.

11. Doing something different in a small way, like having breakfast for dinner!

12. Flowers!  Flowers on clothes, in hair, as decorations, on jewelry... anything, really!

13. Letters - writing them, receiving them, decorating them!

14. TV shows and how we get attached to characters and stories :) It's like having a weekly gathering of friends (er... I promise, I have real friends, too ;) )

15. Directness.  I can read between the lines, but like a little kid, I'd much prefer the truth straight out. No surprises, just tell me everything that's on your mind: the good, the bad, the ugly.

16. I totally think tea can fix nearly everything. And chocolate can help make any situation better.

17. Jim Croce's music! I love a lot of music, but his lyrics and melodies are beautifully moving and full of stories. "I've got a song. And I carry it with me and I sing it loud. If it gets me nowhere I'll go there proud." "Every time the time was right, the words just came out wrong."

18. The smell of coffee, especially the smell of french vanilla coffee.

19. Sunshine - sunshine on faces in photographs, sunshine peeking through clouds, sunshine on an overwhelmingly warm day, sunshine that is so bright sunglasses aren't enough, sunshine that is bouncing off the snow....

20. Great tall water glasses, with or without a straw! I can't just drink a little bit of water, and having a big glass of water makes me cool off and feel good!

21. Petting other people's dogs!

22. Hot chocolate - even when it's not cold outside!

23. Scarves!  Infinity scarves, long drapy ones, or warm knits

24. Baking for friends or neighbors or coworkers  - because the day ends up with a warm, yummy-smelling kitchen, a cup of tea and some extra treats to dip into it!

25. Popcorn 3 ways: *with chocolate chips * with parmesan cheese * with cinnamon and melted white chocolate *

1. Construction noises! Ugh! Of any kind, they just drive me nuts!

2. Unloading the dishwasher!

3. The kind of summer weather when the sun is blinding one moment and hidden the next.

4. The way foundation is so nearly impossible to match!

5. How every woman I talk to hates shopping for jeans. It is like a game of memory out there! Can you match the jean structure to your body type?

6. Overly perfumed women in enclosed spaces. Er... just how many spritzes can a theater hold?

7. Boats. Nearly all of them make me nervous!

8. Growing up - who started this idea swirling that being an adult is challenging?  Being a kid is challenging, too!  There are great and tough aspects to any age.

9. The fact that us girls have visible symptoms to "that time of the month" - it's almost adding insult to injury when those zits come up!

10. The fact that I love hats but generally don't look good in them!

Makeup Questionnaire

Hi y'all!  How's your day?  Mine has been spectacularly calm - ya know what I mean?  We just got back from a big, annual family trip with one side of my husband's family.  After a week of enormous non-stop family fun, filled to the brim with sunshine, sunscreen, bikes, dresses, wet swimsuits, stories from the day, games upon board games, and seafood dinners out..... today has been a calm day full of fresh food, simply ordinary activities, peaceful chores, dancing, and enjoyment of our home.

One of my favorite bloggers does a weekly questionnaire which looked really interesting this week!  This is all the idea of Karen from the Makeup and Beauty Blog!

Here we go!

1. What’s the weirdest thing in your refrigerator right now?
Diet Cokes!  It's only weird because my husband doesn't drink soda and I'm allergic to artificial sweeteners.  Why then, you ask, do we have cans of Diet Coke in our fridge? Our friends and family loves them, so we're ready for any visits! :)
2. Some of the best moments are [FILL IN THE BLANK].
Spontaneous! For example, a spur of the moment trip to the movie theater late at night or a day trip just because.  One of the best moments for me was when we went on a rescue mission when our friends got stuck two hours away during a cross-country move.
3. [FILL IN THE BLANK] brings me major makeup joy.
Eye liners! or a bright lip! Sometimes when I'm wearing no other makeup, one of those will make me feel fierce!
4. [FILL IN THE BLANK] is overrated.
Cheerfulness! Don't get me wrong.... I don't mean that it's not important to be happy.  I mean that it's more important to feel what you feel.  Happy today? Awesome! Angry at the moment? It's still part of a beautiful life! It's alright to feel what you feel, a concept us grown ups often forget about.
5. Shimmer or matte?

Shimmer!  Cause unlike a student who once said she doesn't want to be a sparkly purply unicorn, I totally would love to be!  Sparkly nails and lips, sparkly skirts and sparkly jewels... some might say tacky, but I think it is beautiful!

In other news... with 6 of us at the beach for a week, we ran through 3 bottles of sunscreen, only one of which ended up in a river. ;)

What is it with palettes?

They just draw me in!

"I could be the multi-tasker you have been searching for...," they say. "I am small and feign low maintenance with my sleek packaging, but you and I both know you just need a lot of choices. I can be your perfect make up companion."

Girls, I found a face palette that is absolutely perfect for natural, girly, soft looks!  It's this tiny Sephora palette:

And I mean tiny!  It's about the size of a cell phone!

The bronzer is a light colored matte brown, perfect for pale girls to contour with!  It adds a nice color without looking overwhelming.  There are also two powder blushes.  The lightest is a bubble gum pink that adds a sunny flush to the cheeks.  The darkest is a deep mix between coral and berry, and looks fabulous when you need a little extra umph!  I am so excited to take this palette on a trip and see how it holds up!  The packaging is seriously sturdy, something to be grateful for, as any girl that's dropped a powder will know.

Happy Summer, Y'all!

My new foundation routine, or: how a brush changed my life

Well, hello there!

If you love light makeup, are oily or sweaty, and are looking for a flawless looking and a "quick to apply" makeup, girl, let's sit down and talk!

First off, I put on concealer under my eyes (Pixi's Correction Concentrate in Brightening Peach is ah-mazing if you naturally look like the zombie of death) and liquid highlighter on the tops of my cheeks and down my nose.

Next, apply a light layer of a primer - I love the Laura Geller line and the Almay CC!

Then, (and here's the amazing part!), take your e.l.f. powder brush (it looks like a giant stippling brush) and pack on the Physician's Formula Air-Brushing Pressed Powder (from the Mineral Wear line).  This is my winning combination!  First off, the powder has SPF 30 in it!  And second, the amazing brush is SO ridiculously easy to use and makes the powder look amazing now and for a good bit of the day!  It's the kind of thing where I look in the mirror and at the same time notice how smooth my skin looks and wonder where the makeup is (cause I cannot see it!)

You can also use the amazing brush for applying blush and bronzer - oh, please do!  It looks flawless!  You can't tell where the blush and bronzer start and end on your face, it just looks beautiful.

So there you go, ladies, my secret formula for summer.  Turns out it is super easy!  And I have to say, my husband does not mind one bit that I can get ready in 5 minutes (as opposed to 15, 20, 30...) with this winning combo. ;)  Not that, you know, I get ready in 5 minutes most days.  Makeup is about fun, right?

Stay happy!

Sparkly Twirls

Would You Rather? Beauty Tag

Well, hey there!

I love this idea of tags - a set of questions people answer by youtube or blog and then "tag" others to do the same.  It reminds me of friendship books my friends and I carried when we were students.  Full of questions, the books would be passed around to different friends to learn about each other.

So, here's a page from the electronic friendship book!  I'm not sure who started this tag, but I've seen it up and about swimming on youtube.  Grab a cuppa and sit a while!

1. Would you rather go out with messy hair and nice makeup or nice hair and no make-up?
Hmm, probably nice hair and no make-up simply because my hair tends to be naturally unpredictable.  However (and this is a big however) makeup and hair really depends on what I feel like, so some days I want no makeup and crazy hair.

2. Would you rather shave your eyebrows or have your eyelashes fall out?
Oh my gosh! Both sound awful!  If I had to pick, I would rather have to shave my eyebrows, for two reasons.  1. eyelashes are biologically more necessary as they keep muck out of the eyes, so I would feel more susceptible without them and 2. if people are filling in their eyebrows, surely we can also draw them on?  Or try a new bang haircut :)

3.  Would you rather be forced to shop at only MAC or Sephora for the rest of your life?
I'm not a big MAC girl (<-ha! See what I did there? Big Mac?), but I adore Sephora and Ulta.  So Sephora - twist my arm, twist my arm!

4. Would you rather wear the ligloss/lipliner look or 80's perm?
80's perm, please? Anyone else but me think all kinds of curls are awesome?  Also, straight lines and me don't get along!

5. Would you rather leave the house with an obvious foundation line or overdone blush?
Well, I think every girl has done both in her lifetime!  It gives us something to laugh at!  Probably... leave with an overdone blush because, hey, maybe you just saw the guy you liked and are all flushed!

6. Would you rather wear MC Hammer pants or biker shorts in public?
Hm, I know these genie pants are sometimes considered fashionable, but I would still choose biker shorts.  THe MC Hammer pants seem to me to be in an identity crisis: am I a bubble skirt?  am I pants? am I for boys or girls? if I am so stretchy, do I have to a split or other forms of gymnastics?

7. Would you rather have a bad orange-y spray tan or really weird tan lines that can't be covered?
Alright, I'm torn on this one!  Being orange would be worse for me in terms of appearance, but tan lines mean that I got too much sun and may run an increased risk of skin cancer.  Maybe I can cover up the orange with something else?  Else wear light and breezy skirts and scarves all summer.

8. Would you rather have a bad haircut or bad hair color?
Hair cut, for sure!  Hair will grow out and you can dress it up.  But a bad hair color?  There's nothing to do about it but wear a headwrap or hat.  Plus, if it clashes with your skin tone, what clothes and makeup will you wear??

9. Would you rather have youtube or twitter taken away forever?
Easy!  Twitter cause I don't tweet - I'm a cat not a bird.

10. Would you rather give up using makeup brushes or mascara?
Likely makeup brushes because I loooove mascara and you can always use cream products without brushes.

Anyone else fancy doing this tag?  I tag you!

Moving Day!

We are moving!  And packing up everything but carry-able necessities, I started to think: what makeup items are "essential"?

Some girls adore mascara, some lipsticks, some eyeliners....

Perhaps I am boring, but as much as I love color (ah! sparkles and purple...girl, that is a beautiful combination!), my favorite essential is SUNSCREEN!

Now I wouldn't say I'm super pale, but let's just say that more than once it has happened that I have bought the lightest shade in foundation and concealer and found that it looked more like a bronzer!

And there are many things I will do for beauty, but messing up my skin for the future is not one of them.  Getting spots of any sort removed from your face is no fun matter and the scars are difficult to get rid of.  So my philosophy is to wear sunscreen now so that I don't have to wear foundation to cover up damage in the future.

Now, if I had to pick more than one item (like a genie?  You get three makeup items?), I would add concealer and a lip stain.

I love the idea of wearing just a bright lip or strong eye makeup with little other makeup on.  The reason I love it is that it's a fun illusion!  Cause all you're really wearing is a lot of confidence, and that looks fantastic!  The lipstick or eyeshadow is just a little sign that you decided to be extra confident today!

Girl, where have I been?

Two words for you: BEACH SPRAY

Also known as: "shake that sassy hair like a goddess" spray

Cause, wow, this spray makes you feel like one!

I tried a couple of hair recipes today: one for a detangler (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Spray-Detangler) and one for a beach spray.  The detangler looked awesome!  But when I made it, it ended up so thick that I couldn't get it out of the spray bottle!

But, wow, did the beach spray do wonders!  And, best of all, it's just a concoction of products that already work on my hair!  I used my favorite products to mix it up in a little spray bottle.  Check it out!

Here are the products that I used!  

My favorite wax, hair spray, oil, and leave-in conditioner.

Want to make your own?  Follow these proportions using your favorite hair products!