I'm turning into Medusa!

Sometimes a girl's just gotta treat herself and then sometimes those treats backfire. So with it having been such a cruddy week and me getting a serious attack of cabin fever post self inflicting home-bound-ness because of the so called Crud that just won't go away but finally did go away. Very Slowly. Today I got an attack of the Crud after going all day with no jacket then getting stuck outside after the warm sun went down and waiting to get my Goose back from the Valet. The Crud went away after I warmed back up. WOOP! WOOP!

Anyway ~ I wanted to treat myself this week, so first off I set myself an appointment for a chemical peel. Thought that would be a good idea since winter is almost over, might as well spring clean my pores right? Everything went well, it was awesome as usual. No side effects of redness, no nightmare stories of burning under the skin. No funky smells wondering just how organic their stuff is. Afterwards my esthetitian gave me all the usual suggestions: drink lots of water, don't exfoliate tonight, use moisturizer, stay away from too hot water. etc., then sent me on my merry way. Now that I think about it, I probably woulda been ok if I spaced things out a bit, but why would I do that? I'm TurboSpaz!

The next day I decided to go and have my entire face threaded. Nothing unusual. It's something I do every few weeks, I love it. I love my threader, she's awesome but I shoulda known better when I woke up in the morning and my face felt kinda tight. Duh.

No I don't go to those kiosk's in the mall where you sit out in the open while everyone that walks by can watch me get this done. It's in a real salon with a private room and it's soooooo much better than getting waxed. I've been doing this for over a year now. In fact I'll never ever ever get my face waxed again, even if I am going to school to learn how to do it. As soon as I can learn this "ancient technique" I'm signing up. There are pretty much zero side effects of threading, no missing patches of skin, no oily patches, no heavy aftwerwards residue. Nada. Threading takes up the same amount of time and it's way way way less messy. The comfort level is about on the same level as waxing and for the most part it costs less. For some people the only drawback can be the amount of interaction you have to participate with your threader. To me I'm not bothered by this ~ it gives me time to ask questions in between breaths. LOL

Anyway. I shoulda known when I felt my face in the morning that going to see my threader wasn't my wisest choice. I left the house without applying ANY moisturizer much less makeup on a typical cold North Dallas winter day. The smart me woulda at least took some moisturizer or at least asked for some before leaving the salon.

Again as I leave, she tells me drink lots of water, not to exfoliate tonight, stay away from hot water and put on some moisturizer in about an hour. I thank her and let her know I'll see her in a few weeks.

After I eat lunch and by the time I get home to get ready for work I notice I'm burning up!!! I'm praying that I'm not getting yet another round of The Crud. When I look in the mirror at home I see my face is splotched up!! OH NO!. I slather on moisturizer and my skin absorbs it like nothing was ever applied, so i put more on and I feel that my skin is taking on a reptilian quality.

Gross. 

I try to prep it up for some light makeup. I can't possibly go out in public looking like I do. I look like I'm breaking out in hives so I tell myself it's all in my head. Possibly another fever coming on? I put on some eyeliner, powder and a dark lip. The powder just seemed to make me look like I was Anne Hathaway's orange double from Bride Wars.  Not looking good for me. I don't think I looked nearly as miserable and angry as she did though!

When I get to work, seemed there was a mistake in my favor. My boss just happened to touch my face when we hugged and for some reason and our faces touched. She was like "You are burning up!!!" Then of course everyone else has to come over and pet me too. They all agreed: I was hot, and not in a good way. 

About this time is when I notice that my face is really starting to feel like my grannies snake skin wallets.

It gets worse over the next few days. No matter how much I lightly exfoliated my face over the next two days when anyone were to have looked up close that's what you'd see: My peeling scaley face! I over moisturized. My skin absorbed it like nothing was ever applied. I used everything I had, Oil of Olay, MAC, Burts Bees, Origins, Aveda. Even body butter and bath and body's body lotion. Nothing worked.

Yuckiliy attractive scaley flaky peeling skin! It seriously felt like I had a sun burn in the middle of winter. The cold wind felt especially brutal these days.

So when I wandered around Needless Markup (Neiman Marcus) today and saw the Shu Uemura counter, I HAD to go up to play with their goodies. I mean if the rest of their stuff is as magical as their eyelash curler, then what else can their shiny's do? I saw their moisturizer and knew I struck gold! I stuck my fingers into their magical fountain of endless moisture and like slow motion dabbed it on my face...

Instant relief!! I mean INSTANT!! Since Wednesday morning I keep putting my fingers over my face and people ask if everything's ok. Earlier that day I even asked Becks & Aidy if my skin was noticeable and both said "Not until you point it out." I had to have Becks touch my face too just so she could feel just how awesomely good this magical moisture was. She was amazed. You could see it in her eyes.

Lucky for me I got a sample, so I'm gonna compare it with my MAC moisture on one side and the SHU on the other for the next few days. I know I really like it, so it will be mine in a few days. :)

Never again will I get a peel on one day then thread on another. That was just dumb! The blue lining here is the Shu.

Miracle bra's big sister: Miraculous

I was chilling out at work the other day waiting for my shift to start when my co-worker Gabby walks in, she takes off her jacket; I couldn't help but notice she upgraded her firmwear! I had no shame in going up and saying that her boobies are looking nice and firm today. She laughs and says she got them at Victoria's Secret and that it was one of the new bra's, but she didn't know the name of it. All thru the night, she kept laughing that she was getting extra attention cause of her new bra.

I made it my mission to check this bra out before the weekend was over.

I've never been a huge fan of Victoria's Secret undergarmets for daily use ~ in my opinion they're overly pricey for the quality and tend to fall apart in some fashion around the 4 month mark. Machine washing is almost out of the question, unless you happen to use those lingerie bags and have a super gentle setting ~ I'm way too busy and impatient to hand wash anything. However for special occasions items such as low-cut t-shirt day, I think I can make an exception. I doubt this bra would ever be anything I'd rock for just hanging out in, but it's def something I'd wear to show off my girls on certain work days.

When it comes to bra shopping, I have no problem trying on about 20+ bras. I don't have any loyalty to any specific brand, style or size. What matters to me most importantly is how it fits, second is how it looks with my outfit and how practical it will be for wearing.

So I walk into VS, head straight to their fitting specialist who confirms my size and she hands me a black Miraculous and leaves me to wreck havoc. First off not only can I see a difference in how this bra is designed right off, I mean this bra is totally for the power user!! It has it's own built in foundation, basically what your momma gave you gets to relax on a nice pillow of support while wearing this Miraculous upgrade. The pro's of this bra is the transition between my flesh and the bra's padding was visually seamless, it wasn't seamless to the touch though ~ but nobody's gonna get that close to tell a difference :) My only issue was that my biceps kept rubbing up against this firm foundation, plus it felt like my chin was gonna get bruises from the upgraded pushup rack.

It seems VS's prices have come down a bit as well. The last bra I bought there was a few years back and it was in the $65+ range. The Miraculous starts at $49.50 and ranges up to $58. Only time will tell regarding the quality as every bra of theirs I've ever owned has fallen apart in some crap-tacular way or another. (Either the underwire becoming exposed, the stitching coming undone, or the lace ripping.) I can see myself investing in one of these  ~ every girl I know just loves to turn heads and stop traffic.

♫ ♪ Why you have to go and make things so complicated? ♪ ♫

So here I am totally excited about the whole going back to school thing, I mean I am so excited that I'm actually awake super early filling out all these federal forms! Mostly cause I'm under the idealic impression I'll more than likely qualify for something ( I can dream ) even if it's just paying for the fuel to get to class.

So I fill out a PIN request like they ask, then spend an hour answering all their questions. At the end I'm asked to put in the PIN. I do. 

#1FAIL!

Bring up the LIVE tech support person, she asks for my SSN and all this other stuff. I don't care how secure those pages are, Gimme a phone number. So I call it. 35 Minutes later I find out that not only did it not take my PIN, but it made one up in addition to telling FAFSA that I was still a Cali resident. 

#2FAIL!!

Update it as much as I can, but it still won't accept my app. FAFSA support solution of the day was to use a computer that actually USES IE (hell no I like FireFox) and has a printer.

Hopefully this little setback isn't a preview of the road ahead.

And with that ~ I'm going to bed!!!

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