Monday, December 31, 2018

Musings - December 2018

Here's the round up of the December. And I wish you a lovely turn of the year!
Books: There were several business trips but somehow I got a bit of reading in. (Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia.) 
- The Art of Social Media: Power Tips by Power Users by Guy Kawasaski and Peg Fitzgerald   - which held up pretty well to the current social media landscape but was obviously made to be a digital book as it had constant references to links that don't work off paper.
- Crimson Death by Laurell Hamilton which was about 300 pages too long. (It doubles as arm weights.) She really really needs an editor to help her get to the point. Less than 200 pages of it were in the location which was the point of the book.
- Your First 100: How to Get Your First 100 Repeat Customers by Meera Kothand was a quick digital read. (Go Kindle Unlimited!)

Gratitude: Travel. Communication. Gorgeous scented candles. The 4 non-whiny children. Pictionary. Time off. Perspective. Creating pretty things. 

Listening: Holiday music via Pandora. All the podcasts. Dave Ramsey podcasts. Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Susan Hyatt's Rich Coaches podcast.
Perfume:  I've been wearing the Carolina Herrerra body cream and Les Perfumes de Rosine Majalis while traveling. I love the cinnamon rose/honey scent of it. Most weekdays continue to be Dirtyque's Ofresia, which I have decided is entirely too light for winter. I may finish out the Majalis and then come back to it. 

Recipes: We made a ton of things for Thanksgiving! So, for Christmas, I bought food. Seriously. Local restaurant had a holiday catering menu. Since we were just back from Philadelphia and I was tired from the trip/driving, it was the perfect solution! I highly recommend delegating things that could stress you out of the season, and for me, this was one.

 Alright, full disclosure, I did make the Freezer Cobbler for dessert! This continues to be a big hit in our household - even beating out the fancy chocolate eclair pie that came with our Christmas dinner.


Self-Care: The soap love continues. Seriously, Cellar Door Bath Supply is just phenonmenal. I ordered them for small gifts (a clean start in 2019) for an event I hosted. AND... one of my friends gave me soap from a new area soap place!

I continued to try face oils on a schedule. Yes, specific oils for evening and morning. Every day. And... I'm pleased to announce that we have achieved a change! Someone I've known professionally for several years thought I was a full 10 years younger than I am. Go oils!

 Here's the day and night routine:
- Day -I'm sampling Juice Beauty's Stem Cellular  Anti-Wrinkle Booster Serum around the eyes. And I've gone back to being totally Juice Beuaty for the day. Serum, oil, eye cream, CC cream. While I like to experiment - that pretty much is my standard and it serves me very well. 
- Night - I've kept using  the layer of Predire Eye Care Ant-Aging Night Serum. (And NO, I did not pay retail for it! I picked it up for about 1/10th that price on a Vegas business trip last fall.) I'm still using Little Barn Apothecary oil  plus 100% Pure Multi-Vitamin serum. It's very active but not super moisturizing, so the night oil helps with that.

And... I've been trying out different bone-colored shadows and highlighters for the last 8 or 9 months trying to figure out what I like best in combination of what I have and wear regularly and in different seasons The trio included: a swipe shadow (technically a 5-in-1 BB Advanced Performance Cream Eyeshadow) from Bare Minerals and a powder shadow (Soul) from Bare Minerals as well as an Ilia illuminator called Moombeams and Polka Dots. The last two are my favorites for looking close to natural and still giving a little gleam. I am absolutely sold on the Ilia Beauty highlighter. It's amazing!
Things 12 said: We pass a place with animal statues on the way to Petsmart. (Yes, that's it.) We often joke about the statues we'd like to put in yard to challenge the dog's sense of rightness with the world. It has cows. She said she'd like to put them in our yard to ride. 

 When 18 and I tried to point out the cows are stationary since they are statues, she mentioned a tornado would allow her to ride the statue cows. And then she said she'd like to move to Florida so with the hurricanes the possiblity of her riding them happens more often. We (18 and I) saluted her intrepid rodeo spirit.


Watching: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which is awesome but quite reminiscent of Amy Sheridan-Palladin's Gilmore Girls. (Plucky, pretty, blue-eyed heroine who comes from money and everyone's mysteriously amazed by her. Seriously make Lorelai a Jewish girl form the 1950's NYC and yes.) The Magicians is back and was a great holiday binge. Also, Travelers is back with Season 3! I'd thought it cancelled, so that was happy. 

 Holiday flash - We did a mini-movie marathon of the Pirates of the Caribbean. 


Random: 1) Guy and I know how to do a date day! (Envy us.) December the 22nd, we toured a closed factory to look for salvagable parts for his business, had a perfectly lovely lunch at The Belgian Cafe, then did a historical tour of an abandoned penitentary, and then to a science/history museum with dinner at a pub. Top that!
2) They might all be crazy. You may be the sane one. Or they might all be stuck in an old pattern that you are part of. You leaving may be the only way to change that. And, in the end, people who don't value you aren't your family anyway.


Take-away - Take a moment. Think about what brought you joy in 2018. Something that you can do more of. Make a plan, right now, on how to do that. Because, in the end, you are responsible for your joy.



Original musings posts you may enjoy:


All photos by moi! And you can tell...

Juice Beauty is a staple in my beauty cabinet. I stray, I try other things - but it's my favorite "foundation" (I used the CC Cream) and great skin care. If you like Juice Beaty too, here is a link. I do get a small commission (at no cost to you) when you use these links which helps support this blog.

- Skin Care by Juice Beauty
Follow my blog with Bloglovin  - A new way to follow!
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Sunday, December 2, 2018

Musings - November 2018

Hello! November is always my favorite month with Thanksgiving near the end. I hope yours was good!

 Ours was fantastic. I made all the things (pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, yeast rolls, corn muffins, yellow cake with blueberries and a lemon glaze, corn casserole, vegetarian dressing aka stuffing)! And then 12 made her famous deviled eggs and pigs-in-a-blanket. Guy took care of the roasted potatoes, ham, and turkey plus made something called "spicy tomato fritters". We also put out a bag salad which was fairly well-received- mostly because I felt like we needed more food without butter and bread as the main components.

 Books: It was a fantastic month for reading! I finished 10 books over the month, thanks to the holiday and catching "plague":

- The Colony by John Tayman   - this was the book I picked up from the Puerto Rican book exchange at the hotel last month. It was dense reading, as many good non-fiction books are! It was filled with personal accounts of the leper colony on Hawaii.
- The Divine Secrets of the YA-YA Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells  - which I'm late the party on and have never seen the movie. It was a very enjoyable read from my local Little Free Library and made me want to hunt down the other 2 books! (Which are sadly not on Kindle Unlimited.)
- Lynchpin by Shannon Mayer via my Kindle Unlimited which was not super exciting or illuminating but I'm a finisher.
- While I had plague, I ran through the whole Blood singer series by CT Adams after finding Book 5 at the local Little Free Library the week before. Thanks to the awesome digital option - I was able to download the others to my Kindle for instant gratification. (Blood Song, Siren Song, Demon Song, The Isis Collar, The Eldritch Conspiracy, To Dance with The Devil, and All Your Wishes.) 

With these books, I've clocked in 54 books for the year! And there is a month - with business travel and a week off - of the year to go! One of my friends suggested counting how much I read a year to see if I read one book per week, a common goal; I'd never done that before and my reading tends to ebb and flow as I have time. These results are surprising to me. If asked, I'd have said I didn't have time to read that much! 

Gratitude: Time with family and friends. New ventures. Guy's ingenuity. Family adventures. Remembering self-care. 

Listening: All the podcasts. Dave Ramsey podcasts. Chalene Johnson's podcast. Bacon Marketing podcast (yes, by the guy from last month's book.). Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Susan Hyatt's Rich Coaches podcast. Hirsh Marketing (which I ended up unsbscribing to due to lack of meaningful content).

Perfume:  Diptyque's Ofresia. It's  reminiscent of a garden but I'm not sure I like it for "winter" . And I've been using that Carolina Herrara lotion, Good Girl, for quick days. (I'm so stuffed up I can't smell. So, I've been careful about using fragrance sparingly.)

Recipes: We made a ton of things for Thanksgiving! (See above for the list - here's a quick shot of the stove the day of as I baked.) I didn't create anything new but we tried vegetarian stuffing (dressing but not in the bird) and yeast rolls - those were new and well received.

Earlier in the month, we made Day of the Dead bread due to 13's interest in his Spanish class. I had not worked with yeast in a while. He did not realize how patient he would have to be. It was good exercise for him. (And why we had yeast rolls for Thanksgiving - I had left-over yeast packets to use up.)

 And I made up "bottom of the refrigerator salad": shredded broccoli stem, cut up raw brussel sprouts, shredded carrots. Topped with chickpea crumbles, red pepper and tomato. Dressing: orange juice, ranch dressing and a bit of horseradish. Super nutritous and filling!


Self-Care: Last month I mentioned my slight soap obsession (hello, Villainess Soaps). Well, I opened up the full sizes with Pearl Diver in September and Krakatoa in October. This month I popped over to a different brand, Michigan-based, Cellar Door Bath Supply Company. Let's start with awesome ingedients, beautifully packaged, and the hands-down BEST confirmation email I've ever seen. (I loved them so much - and they are such a great price point - I gave a number of them away as gifts.) 


And this month I finished out my favorite  (sale) mask and the Lumene cream while I continued to try face oils on a schedule. Yes, specific oils for evening and morning. Every day. It's a continuation of last month with just a few additions and a switch out. For the month. I grouped them in the top photo by day and night:
- Day -I'm sampling Juice Beauty's Stem Cellular  Anti-Wrinkle Booster Serum around the eyes. And I've gone back to being totally Juice Beuaty for the day. Serum, oil, eye cream, CC cream. While I like to experiment - that pretty much is my standard and it serves me very well. 
- Night -Same as last month until I ran out of  Lumene Vitamin C night cream mid-month. I've kept using  thelayer of Predire Eye Care Ant-Aging Night Serum. (And NO, I did not pay retail for it! I picked it up for about 1/10th that price on a Vegas business trip last fall.) And I'm still using Little Barn Apothecary oil. The  substitution is the 100% Pure Multi-Vitamin serum. It's very active but not super moisturizing, so the night oil helps with that.

And I'm loving Kismet's Country Roads lipstick for color!


Things 12 said: Well she didn't say much funny because she was sick for a bit - but she kindly passed it on! And it took me O-U-T for better than a week. 


Watching: 007 is back on Hulu. (Hello.) And I hadn't caught up with this year's Criminal Minds. But now I have! I also found the perfect "plague" binge - Schitt's Creek is light and funny. I'm 2 seasons in!

Random: 12 and I were supposed to go to a glass class but she had basketball (she's trying out for 7th grade basketball, even though she's only in 6th grade) so, I took 13 to the glass class. After he got over being the only male in the class, we had fun. We made some awesome ornaments!

Take-away - Let it go. Because whatever happened, it wasn't about you. It was about them. When you hold it, you allow them to anchor you down. (See post from my book on the left.) 



Original musings posts you may enjoy:


All photos by moi! And you can tell...

Juice Beauty is a staple in my beauty cabinet. I stray, I try other things - but it's my favorite "foundation" (I used the CC Cream) and great skin care. If you like Juice Beaty too, here is a link. I do get a small commission (at no cost to you) when you use these links which helps support this blog.

- Skin Care by Juice Beauty
Follow my blog with Bloglovin  - A new way to follow!
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Sunday, November 4, 2018

Musings - October 2018

Hello! This month included the most beautiful skies - whether over Michigan or Puerto Rico. I'm always in love with October blue.
Books: It was a decent month for reading, due in part to the business trip to Puerto Rico. Sit down! I avoided the airport bookstore!!! (Mostly because my bags were already super heavy on the way there with business stuff.) But since we took a few days extra vacation, the resort allowed me to "little free library" a book from their collection - which is dense reading and I'm still working on. (It's amusing that I borrowed a harder book than those I brought!) Check out the On The Shelf area of the blog for good quotes. Enjoy!

I did manage to finish 3 books a week (keeping up the streak) over the month:

- Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas  - this was a good self-improvement read. Perfect for a beach! (I took a picture with it off the beach from a cabana at Rio Mar in Puerto Rico)
- It's Not About You, It's About Bacon: Relationship Marketing in a Social Media World by Brian Basilico by Laura Shapiro - has held up to the test of time
- The Greensmith Girls: A Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery by Raven Snow (Kindle Unlimited)  which is about the most perfect cosy mystery ever. 

With these three, I've clocked in 47 books for the year.

Gratitude: Tropical rainforests. Vacations. Apps that are fun to use. Bacardi Mixology training and certification. Being treated as though I matter by people I love. Corn mazes - and I still want to know why they aren't Maize Mazes. Purring kittens. Gorgeous full moons.

Listening: All the podcasts. Dave Ramsey podcasts. Chalene Johnson's podcast. Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Marketing Over Coffee podcast. Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Susan Hyatt's Rich Coaches podcast. NPR's Money Planet podcast.

Perfume: Two things -  Diptyque's Ofresia. It's  reminiscent of a garden.  I do like French perfume. And a simple Caroline Herrera body cream called Good Girl which I got as a free gift from Ulta. I find hot places with multiple showers a day (Puerto Rico tourist adventures) not good for perfume but a bit of scent with lotion works well.

Recipes: The Freezer Cobbler was made about 3 times this month at the kidlets' request. It is our go-to quick dessert.

 I also dreamed up a casserole. (It might be a Midwestern thing.) I'm not sure it qualifies as a "recipe". I basically lined a glass pan with overlapping rows of Mrs. T's Pierogies and then added chopped peppers and onions.Then covered it in Garlic Cream of Mushroom soup (a la Green Bean Casserole) and baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. In the last 5 minutes, I covered the top in bacon. This is not a healthy recipe nor vegetarian. But, it's warm and filling for the fall months and super easy.


Self-Care: Last month I mentioned my slight soap obsession (hello, Villainess Soaps). Well, I opened up the full sizes last month with Pearl Diver. This month it was Krakatoa. (I have a tropical theme happening - the book I borrowed is about Hawaii.) The scent is GORGEOUS. And the soap lasts a surprisingly long time - like a MONTH per bar!

And this month I continued to try face oils on a schedule. (I tend to just try whatever I feel like that day.) Specific oils for evening and morning. Every day. It's a continuation of last month with just a few additions and a switch out.  For the month. I grouped them in the photo but the Facial Mist goes with both:
- Day -I'm sampling Juice Beauty's Stem Cellular  Anti-Wrinkle Booster Serum around the eyes. The rest of the face was like last month:  Physician's Formula oil + TonyMoly Green Tea Lotion (both grocery store bargains) until the Green Tea ran out mid-month. Then I switched out to H2O+ Beauty's Infinity Youth Serum with the oil and Juice beauty product. (I got the H2O+ on clearance with a coupon for $21 - which I don't mind spending to try something new!) It's all okay. None of it is a miracle in a bottle, so far, just nice to use. 
- Night - Little Barn Apothecary oil + a bargain bought Lumene Vitamin C night cream over a layer of Predire Eye Care Ant-Aging Night Serum. (And NO, I did not pay retail for it! I picked it up for about 1/10th that price on a Vegas business trip last fall.)


Things 12 said: Make more cobbler.


Watching: Bull. Blackish. Fresh Off the Boat. American Housewife. Orange is the New Black. (Best quote from Kate Mulgrew, formerly of Star Trek - "We are living in the future.")

Random: Dog is re-trained. It took a few days at the vet and a food switch! Boom! He also got a great new haircut.

 Fun fact: Neck wrinkles on women used to be called Venus lines. 

Take-away - Life is largely what you allow. If you don't like something, you need to change it. (Small changes count.)



Original musings posts you may enjoy:


All photos by moi! And you can tell...
Juice Beauty is a staple in my beauty cabinet. I stray, I try other things - but it's my favorite "foundation" (I used the CC Cream) and great skin care. If you like Juice Beaty too, here is a link. I do get a small commission (at no cost to you) when you use these links which helps support this blog.

- Skin Care by Juice Beauty
Follow my blog with Bloglovin  - A new way to follow!
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Saturday, September 29, 2018

Musings - September 2018


Good-bye September! You were a pretty good month.

 Books: It was a good month for reading, due in part to a business trip to Nashville. (Which also means an airport bookstore. We know this is my Kryptonite. I used moderation. Only 3 new books. Amazing!) It is also the month my Quotle app died, so I'll start including any quotes I like in On The Shelf area of the blog. Enjoy!

 I did manage to finish handful of books over the month:
- The Mermaid by Christina Henry - this was a good read. Nice for a beach!
- What She Ate by Laura Shapiro - this was a lovely series of short stories. Recommend! (And already passed to a friend to share.)
- The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett which was a bit boring for a grown up. I read it to check if 11 might like - I suspect she would not. 

 Gratitude: Machines, specifically dish and wash. (Seriously.) Love notes left on doors. Guy and what appears to be his never-ending patience. Kittens, purr-monsters who like to cuddle at night. (And fight with each other). Breakfast with friends.

 Listening: Dave Ramsey podcasts. All the podcasts. Chalene Johnson's podcast. And I've finally trained Pandora to only play things I love - Halsey, Carly, Sting, etc. To keep this from being a rut, I've created a new Pandora channel with only music with the word BLUE in it - song title, band name, etc. Results are ...interesting.

 Perfume: Sing a small sad song. Finally managed to finish off that rather large bottle Paper Flowers from Love + Toast. Happy dance as I opened something new - Diptyque's Ofresia. It's supposed to reminiscent of a garden, so it's a nice transition into fall (for me) because I miss the dwindling flowers in fall. And apparently, based on this and Les Perfumes de Rosine Majalis, I like French perfume.

 Recipes: Nothing adventurously new this month for creation. I made a bit of this, a bit of that and a few cakes. It was kind of like a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade kind of month:
- Due to being bored, I finally created a cake the boy (13) would eat! 1 box King Arthur's gluten free yellow cake (plus a touch of vanilla), into which I threw about 1.5 cups of frozen blueberries before baking as directed. I didn't have frosting - that was the turning point for the boy, who does not like frosting (too sweet, he says, like that is really a thing). I used the juice of 1 lemon and 2 cups of confectioners sugar to create a lemon glaze. The kidlets said it was like a cake donut. Delicious!
- Due to a birthday, I made what I like to call a "boxes and cans" cake. Box of Betty Crocker pound cake, can of raspberry pastry filling (cut the cake and put in layers), can of vanilla frosting, and a box of fresh raspberries on top. It's 11's favorite, and she requested it for her special occasion.
- Due to the garden being crazy abundant, I made zucchini patties. Which were surprisingly delicious! Equal parts zucchini and King Arthur's gluten free flour - about 2 cups of each in this case.(Grate the zucchini and let it sit on paper towels for 5 minutes with salt to get moisture out.) A bit of salt, pepper, grated onion, a pinch of baking powder and  double pinch of baking soda. I used 3 eggs to keep make it mix. Fry in a bit of oil (olive) flipping often. I served them with spicy ketchup and with curried Indian sauce. Both delicious!
Self-Care: Last month I mentioned my slight soap obsession (hello, Villainess Soaps). Well, I opened up the full sizes - starting with Pearl Diver (pictured). It was a lovely, creamy lather and I loved the bits of Irish Moss + Kelp. While the generous sample packet they sent made me feel pretty happy in my purchase, now I feel very much justified in the extravagant soap purchase!

 And this month I decided to try face oils on a schedule. (I tend to just try whatever I feel like that day.) Specific oils for evening and morning. Every day. For the month. I grouped them in the photo above:
- Physician's Formula oil + TonyMoly Green Tea Lotion (both grocery store bargains)
- Little Barn Apothecary oil + a bargain bought Lumene Vitamin C night cream

 I think my skin looks better - eye crinkles a bit less, the couple of dark spots on my forehead and darker skin around the mouth lighter.  But no one raved about seeing a big difference. (No one who knows me. I did have a dermatologist that I just met in a social setting be shocked at my age.) So as I keep trying things, that will be the "yard stick" - if people who know me notice the skin in a positive way. (Yes, I'm still a serial sharer.)

 Apparently September is National Self Care month - so don't forget to take care of you. And if you need a kick- start your self-care, click here to check out my ebook on doing just that.
Things 11 said:
Me - You can't count on being cute to get what you want. Someday you won't be cute.
11 - But that day is NOT today.

 One Sunday, she also make an Kitten Inn. Please note, it has a 5 star rating - probably due to the grooming salon. 

 This month is her birthday. Henceforth, she will be known as 12!

 Watching: Agent Carter. Yep, I do themes. I rolled on from last month's Agent X to Agent Carter. Then onto the next season of The Blacklist. And now on to The 100, at 11's request. 

 Random: I need to get the dog re-trained. He has taken to pottying on the floor, specific location.  At first in protest of kittens. Then they got ginormous (both 7 lbs now!) and stopped being in that space. But now, he seems to think that is okay. It is so not....

 I was almost famous in Nashville. I stayed where Reba McEntire lunched a few months ago and where - apparently - Drake was staying.  I danced at Blake Sheldon's bar - and just missed seeing him leave his car (rest of my group noticed him, I spaced.) 

 As we head into the holidays, I'm going to take some time to talk with someone because "family" time like that can be stressful for those of us with less than loving families of origin. (As I've written, I do that to help keep my perspective.) This month, I've had a few family run-ins that mean the next few months will be trying. 

 Take-away - Never forget to count your blessings. Remembering them will keep you from falling into the trap of thinking your life has "lack".

Original musings posts you may enjoy:


All photos by moi! And you can tell...
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Thursday, September 20, 2018

To My Girls - Part 1

I wasn't blessed with a daughter. Instead, I got something else. I got beautiful nieces; amazing cousins young enough to be my daughters; and then in mid-adulthood when I'd stopped dreaming of a daughter, three wonderful #NotMyDaughters. Most of "my girls" are grown or close to it.  (Except the youngest, not pictured due to age.) 


My girls, it wasn't always possible for me to be a daily part of your lives, but I did what I could from wherever I was (picking you up at school, having you  overnight  - 529 accounts for some, helping some get into and succeed at higher education, and the care and feeding of all of you whenever possible.) I promise I was always there with my heart open, whether you realized it or not. As you blossom into amazing women, I know you have less even need to me. But, I am here at Bunny Haven Manor when you do need me. You have my number, and my home is open to you, as it has always been. I'm here when you need me. That's what #NotTheMommas are for.

When you go out in the world, I always want you to remember to be 3 things above everything else:
- Be smart
- Be kind
- Be brave
However important those 3 things are, they are not everything you might need to be or know in this world. Sometimes I worry that time or distance may mean that you will need something and I won't be there to help or you won't think to turn to me. The best thing I can think to do is to "arm" you with knowledge to succeed on your own terms. So, I'm going to do a few posts on what I consider basic life knowledge you should have. You spent enough time with me that you were not raised by wolves - however, there may be subtleties of life knowledge still to explore.


We'll start with 11 rules for being and staying pretty. Not because it's the most important, but, because in many ways it is the easiest. There will be other parts where we'll tackle finances, cooking, and cleaning - possibly more. (And you all know I have my own life rules. ) But we will start here, with being and staying pretty.

Some of what I'll tell you is common sense. Some of it science will prove wrong. It's okay, later science will prove it right again. 
1) Pretty is as pretty does. In the end, how people will remember you has less to do with how you look than how you treat them. And ugly shows through. Practice being gracious. 




2) Sunscreen. Every burn and tan ages your skin. Especially areas that don't have much natural protection - like your neck and chest and the top of your hands. Every day. Hats when you can. Sunglasses. The sun is changing. It will not be kind to us at any time soon.


3) Don't contaminate your skin. What you put on your skin is absorbed into your body. Synthetic fragrances can disrupt your hormones (and more importantly, potentially your children's). Have care in what you buy with fragrance - perfume, make-up, skin care.



There are so many options for natural perfumes! Sometimes I wear them and you tell me you like that scent. Lucy B, Margot Elena (Library of Flowers, Toykomilk, Love + Toast, Lollia, The Cottage Greenhouse), Tsi-La, In Fiore, Strange Invisible Perfumes, and many more every day.


From point 2, look at natural options for lotions, soaps, and sunscreens as well. Zum, Mrs Meyers, Jason, Alba, Kiss My Face are fantastic options. 



Many of the colors in cheap make-up have toxic elements. No reason to use those when you live in what is the golden era of natural makeup! Au Natural Cosmetics, IT Cosmetics, Iila, Bare Minerals, Tarte, Laura Mercier, 100% Pure, Juice Beauty, French Girl - and those are just a few I've tried! (You can order a good number direct and others via Ulta. Some, like Burt's Bees are mostly natural and available from the drug store.) There will be more. The world is awakening to how to use the gifts we've been given on this planet. (Yes, darlings, I know about Vapour Beauty. Their customer service is rude and the product has issues with tubes. Nope.)


You can buy expensive Lush masks or wasteful single use sheets. Or you can buy good quality clay + matcha dry and add a few things.... honey for moisture and anti-bacterial; strawberries for moisture, antioxidant and mildly astringent; yogurt (plain) for moisturizing and skin brightening; egg white for skin tightening; maple syrup (organic) for anti-aging; a simple addition of rose water to add scent to a dry mask.  Dry masks (a mix of clay, etc.) are economical and last a good bit. Then you just mix them up when you want them.



4) Wash your face. Coco Chanel once said something to the effect of "A woman without perfume is a woman without a future." She didn't just mean scent. She meant self-care. Even if you didn't wear make up, wash your face at the end of every day to take the day off (sweat, dead skin, dirt, etc.) This small act of self-care means something. (And you don't have to wash your face 2x a day, especially if your skin is dry - just a simple splash of water and a swipe of witch hazel prep your skin for moisturizer.)



Keep point 3 in mind when you pick what to wash with. And make sure you have something to delicately remove your eye makeup because of point 5.



5) Your skin is not infinitely elastic. You will find that out in your 40s that you should've done, so start doing them now:

     - Use your ring finger to pat creams and lotions into your eye area. 
      - Remove your eye makeup gently. Without rubbing and pulling.
     - Whatever cream or lotion you put on your face, put on your neck as well.
     - Use an upward motion to put on creams, lotions, oils or make-up.
     - Frownies are a fairly awesome way to help keep between brow lines down
   - Sleep on your back. Side sleepers will get wrinkles on that side first (uneven wrinkling, weird - and let's not talk about what it does to the chest area.) Stomach sleepers will age/wrinkle even faster.

6) Your hair needs good care. Quality shampoo and conditioner is required. Cheap hair care can give you issues with color and breakage. (Reminder - dry shampoo only goes on the roots for oil, unless you need texture.) Have a light hand with the amount of extra heat (drying, curling, straightening) and chemicals you use.



7) Lasers and tweezers are your friend. (Also good light and a strong mirror. Make sure you have those.) Threading is also good. Wax can be weird, especially if you have wavy hair. (But NADS are good in an upper lip emergency.) Shaving - and don't be fooled by micro-dermabrasion facials, it's a razor - is a last resort. And never the chemical options - see point 3 if you have forgotten. (I'm not telling you this to make you attractive to men - or women - I'm telling you this because some of us just don't like dark hair on light skin. And I've tried nearly every option on the planet.) The faster you get it permanently handled, the faster you can get to quick showers and faster prep time. Life enhancing!




8) Drink water. Preferably without fake crap in it like flavors and artificial sugar. (Also stop with the diet soda! Gallstones. Gout. Cancer. Use sugar or stevia or honey.) And if you drink tea - drink organic, as it doesn't get rinsed off of pesticides before being made into tea. (You don't want to drink hot pesticide water.) Eat fruit, but not too much, and plenty of veggies. Yes, this is a beauty tip. You can eat crap in your teens and twenties. But by your thirties, they start to show up as extra weight and wrinkles. The easiest beauty tip is to eat better things and better quality younger.


9) You are prettier than you realize. Stop using filters. Just take your picture. Someday you will realize you are beautiful. 



10) Don't spend too much time on trends like those strange overdone, painted in eyebrows. They aren't flattering and don't look natural. And my glory - the upkeep! There are better ways to spend your time.



11) Always do something you love. If you can't make a living with it, then give yourself time to do it. That happiness will show on the outside!




Please remember 3 things, my darlings: I believe in you. I love you. And, I am proud of you. Always.
Pictures are via Instagram, Gingertown photography


And for 100% transparency, I think I'm supposed to mention that:
1) I do own stock in Hain Celestial - which creates the Jason and Alba lines. I own that stock because I like the products. That's how I invest and also why I share.
2) I do get an affiliate link benefit from this link - Skin Care by Juice Beauty 

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