Coffee Thoughts
This morning:
There is just something ever so serene and poetic about cream powder dissolving softly in a cup of steaming coffee.
It’s like freeze frame moments. For those quick seconds, I can find myself. I can find my thoughts amongst the fragments.
One Year ago
Exactly one year ago, we were giving toasts and dancing our asses off in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
EDIT:
The craziest thing I ever did for love?
I moved across the country five months after meeting a man on MySpace.
I gave up a perfect locale for a destroyed, economically ravaged one (San Diego to Detroit). I gave up a stable home, steady income from a semi good paying job, living near all my best friends and associates, a thriving social life, for a place where the only friends I’d have were my new boyfriend and his one or two friends, and his mum, a sister, aunt and grandmother who hated me, and virtually no prospects for a job or a comforting place to live.
That was a huge deal. For someone like me, to whom best friends rival for my love and loyalty more than members of my own bloodline, moving away from everyone I loved, cherished and felt comfortable around was really, really difficult.
On top of that, being the social creature that I was back then, moving from a beautiful, warm, inviting, teeming city with a great social culture, to a city where I knew no one was a cultural shock to the system.
But I didn’t care. This man exceeded my List of Qualifications to be The One. And for him, losing everything dear to me was just a drop in the bucket compared to all the beauty I knew I had just embraced by moving 3000 miles away from everything I ever knew just to be with him.
We got married last year. Yesterday was our 1 year wedding anniversary. We’ve been going 6 years strong now.
Crazy gambles sometimes pay off and more.
—
Happy Anniversary, N, you make my world spin.
I have been out of it for the weekend due to a hectic family schedule, and then sideline Sunday-Monday with a bad lupus flare. But I’m back today with a Beauty Tuesday post! I hope you enjoy it!
This is a cross post from my style site, and comments are closed. If you’d like to share your thoughts, please do so at the original post. :)
I am a huge fan of Michelle Phan, as I have said in the past. I’ve been looking for a nice, natural but warmer, feminine look for everyday. And I have been loving Michelle’s Lancôme video: Romantic Valentine Look. It has light, natural sunset hues of dusky rose, sunset cream and rusty taupe and earth. My eyes are larger, but with a smaller lid than Michelle’s so lining the bottom isn’t as flattering on me as it is her (as you’ll be able to see in the pictures below), but I like experimenting.
I apologize for the picture quality. It was taken on my iPhone.
{ What I Used }
- Primer: L’Oreal Secret #1 Perfecting Base (let me tell you, it’s not the best primer).
- Foundation: Revlon ColorStay Mineral Mousse in Light/Medium Medium.
- Concealer/Concealer primer: Benefit Stay Don’t Stray Concealer Primer under my eyes. Amazing Cosmetics Amazing Concealer in Medium Beige. Waterproof, opaque, and salmon with a hint of yellow undertone, which then covers my undereye circles perfectly, yet still matches the rest of my face. I am so content with this concealer.
- Setting Powder: Pür Minerals pressed powder foundation in Medium Golden. Dusted all over to set the foundation and concealer.
- Cheeks: Laura Mercier Lipstain in Mulberry. Dipped fingers in and blended it into my cheeks for a subtle, natural flush.
- Eyes: L’Oreal Eyeshadow Quad in Desert Sunrise. Michelle uses a better pink hue from Lancôme called Haute Sunset quad. I can’t spring for the $42 it costs on Lancome-usa.com, so I tried my best with drugstore brands. It doesn’t come exactly close, but oh well.
- Liner: L’Oreal Eyeshadow Quad again, and using an angled brush, I brushed the darkest brown from the quad onto my upper lashes and then winged it out a bit. I also used the excess on the bottom lashes, but I think it makes my eyes look smaller.
- Eyebrows: Another, but different L’Oreal Eyeshadow smokey brown quad darkest brown, I used with my Anastasia Brow Stencil (petite arch) to fill in my brows. Let me tell you, this works better if you apply a wax over your brows FIRST. Otherwise, it’ll be really, really thin. You could also use an eyebrow pencil, but I’m not very good with those.
- Lashes: Shu Uemura Lash Curler and Clinique High Lengths Mascara.
- Lips: Maybelline Lipstick in Warm Me Up.
Half of all my makeup I got at the drugstore. Honestly, ALL of my makeup could be gotten at a drugstore if you’re not my specific skintone (hard to match). Revlon, L’Oreal and Neutrogena all do mineral powder lines. Revlon has an OK eyelash curler. For blush you could use Maybelline’s Dream Matte Mousse blush, but you could also use your lipstick. Rimmel and Covergirl both make alright primers as well. I don’t recommend using L’Oreal for their primer. They have glitter in them, which will settle into fine lines. Also, if you’re not a complete idiot like me, you don’t need stencils to fill in your eyebrows.
This entire look could cost you less than $60 and last you for ages.
Who Am I, What Do I Want?
Someone said lately that she feels lost. Acts strong and confident, but often isn’t.
I often feel the same way. I question myself: Who am I? What do I want out of life? Out of myself? And lots of the time, I can’t find those answers. But I act like I can, because faking it sometimes does help me cope and move forward.
In response to her own same questions I said:
I think being lost and trying to find yourself and find your way–in addition to being a soul injured and a heart frayed–that’s all just a part of being human, and the growing process of becoming who you must become. Flowers don’t bloom without going through lots and lots of dirt and past choking weeds. It takes a lot of sunlight and care to continue to thrive, but some hardy ones make it.
I think, to some degree, we are all lost. Humanity and meaning are always in flux, so finding meaning is a constant pursuit. And you’re right, behavior can condition attitude. “Fake it till you make it” is a cliché mantra, but it does work to a great extent as you said.
A lot of my twenties were lost in the pursuit of happiness and love… Then I realized that happiness is a vain pursuit, because different things will make us happy, and trying to pin down what we think will fulfill that need is only an endless chase that may result in nothing. A pursuit of contentment is better (not to be confused with complacency). I also realized that a pursuit of love had nothing to do with men, but it took awhile before I figured that out, and by then, I was already tethered to the man I’d eventually marry.
You’ll get there. You portray yourself as strong, but you do possess enough strength and know that you have, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to fake it so well.
We’re always changing and flowing. Don’t fight it. You are where you are meant to be at this moment, so that you can find what you are meant to be and do in the next.
And with that said, I feel like this is good advice to myself…
Vlog – In need of a vacay.
In case you didn’t see this…
I did my first “REAL” edited vlog about how I need a vacation and how I’m doing a giveaway at my style site to ASOS.com worth almost $40 so that one of my readers can get that Holiday/Summer style.
Watch the video and then enter the giveaway at my style blog!
The URL to my giveaway is linked above. There are a few “rules” as you know. But, hey, do your worst!
:)
