Why I really want to go to school.

I've had one of the best days I've had in a really long time. I've had a string of awesome days for the past year or so but today had to be one of the best.

One of those days that goes down in the memory books that's never forgotten, that's reminisced over when I'm chillin' out in my old lady bed with my old lady blanket and telling stories of "when I was your age..."

Started it off waking up before my alarm went off.
By an hour or more.

Surprised I didn't have a hangover from my cocktail diet of Tank & Tonics, Hot wings and Grama sippers. Nothing brings in Spring like that fresh mix.

Made my usual morning phone calls, got my bizness done. Did some Yoga. Took my shower and got ready for my heavily anticipated facial/makeover.

Today's the day I was officially induced into the Shu Uemora family of products. I am officially hooked. They have me for life.

After my makeover, I headed down to an old bar where I used to work to pick up some documents when I ran into one of my customers. She was as excited to see me as I was to see her. We hugged and shared some time together catching up on all the people we knew and all the changes that have happened to the bar in such a short period of time. It was great to see her, it's incentive to start dropping in on the crowd more often. She told me how much she missed me, which meant alot. She gave me her card and told me she was happy to see how happy I looked.

Unfortunately I had to cut our conversation short, I was running into less than an hour to get ready for work and I still had to go home and put on some real shoes. I hugged her again. She felt so good because she always gave me the impression that she was one whose hug you had to EARN. I hope to see her again sooner than the last time I saw her and made my exit.

Seeing her was like that unexpected rainbow. It's that tiny little tweak that makes your day extra special.

When I got home I dumped my shopping bags all over my bed and saw just how amazing I made out from my makeover. They stuffed my bag FULL of samples. Some of them even seemed full size.

I can't wait to dip my fingers in those honey pots!

Once I got to work people left and right were commenting on how I was GLOWING. Which then made me glow even more. Which in turn made me see more $green$. The girls and I had fun joking around all night. It seemed we never stopped laughing.

After my shift was over, five of us sat around and talked and talked and talked about girl stuff:: Birth control, nachos, fashion, we shared pictures of our Precious'es, talked about stripper poles, going shopping and then we started talking about makeup.

The redhead made her exit about this time leaving us down to four.

We talked about blending, about meeting up and my place and me doing and showing them makeup tricks. One of the ladies brings up her eyebrows, saying she had none.

I had never noticed, but when she did, I noticed. Her brow hair is so light that until she pointed it out ~ it never occoured to me because I never saw her that way. I've always seen her as someone who's respect I've worked very hard to earn and who I admire greatly. She's a breast cancer survivor and everything she does amazes me. I love her smile and when she says "Uh HELLO!!" and rolls her eyes up to the sky and wiggles her head. I love that about her!

So we all talked and teased about how easy it is to paint in a brow, but the brunette asked that she please not paint them in blue. All of us laughed. Ms. Survivor walked off briefly while the blond excused herself to go get her "closest to Mary Kay blond" pencil.

We all agreed that Ms. Survivor would soon be taking home a new pencil despite her saying her makeup routine is almost non-existant

Once we all regrouped we asked Ms.Survivor to pump up the lights so we could paint in her brows. I told her that her face was officially my first ever "make up" application and not to hold it against me too much if she wasn't too happy with the results.

As I painted on her browns, Blondie and Brunette looked on and started ooohing and awwwing. Brunette gave her a compact mirror and Ms. Survivor was impressed. I could tell she liked it because she got her sassy wiggle, even thougth she was tired. Even thougth her back hurt. Even thougth it's close to the end of a long day.

It's something as simple as that which is WHY I want to go to school and what really topped off the end to an awesome day.

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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Fuck off America, with all your weight obsession issues.

Now that I have that out of my system.. .

Over a year ago I really had no issues with swearing. I used to do it all the time and not even think about what I was saying. Then one man, my uncle Manuel said something indirectly to me, which for him was very subtle since he’s not really known for that. He said “Don’t you worry about what people think of you?” I had been told all my adult life “that girl has a mouth, watch out.” After his statement I stopped. Well that, and about two days later I was over at another uncle’s house with his grandchild and not even two year old Holden said “Shit!”. This coming from a child that didn’t speak much, if any words at all at that time.

It might have been cause of my swearing or his grandpas. Who knows. I pretty much cut back significantly after that. Today, if you talk to my new friends, they don’t know me as someone that would swear, much less say something negative about another person. It's nice to know they think of me that way.

Now I find it more satisfying to eviscerate someone without them knowing it. But back to the weight issues.

This morning, I went to check my flickr account. I saw some pix from one of my close buddies. She brought up some of her health issues and how she’s lost a few pounds. Sometime in August she came over and we both doodled all over me for a photo-shoot. I said something about my weight since essentially I was pretty close to nude, she retorted that she wished she had my curves. I said I wished I was as toned as she was.

Even though we are both considered healthy, as women we struggle with the same thing every other American woman has that inner conflict with: Body Image. No matter how great we look, it’s never good enough. She wants a little more weight, I want a little less. All of this because Britney Spears is Fat. . . All this because the glossy magazines plaster their covers with models that don’t even tip the scales at 90lbs. Never mind that they are over 5’10”. Nevermind that they claim to be putting real women on the covers… but not the super glossy ones. Yea it’s a step. But it’s not big enough. I know at in 10 years times will change and hopefully todays generation of little women may not have the issues we have today. Only time will tell.

I felt so sad reading her words because I feel that pain myself when I see my scale numbers rise. She’s gotta feel the same when her numbers go down.

On my way to work today, it seems that Eminem is back in the news again. We havn’t heard from him in a while. Speaking of people that swear too much. He also happens to be one of my heros, my inspiration, my role-model. What have you. I love his way with words, I love how he projects his anger and some of the more creative ways I tend to articulate come from him. So I was thinking that maybe he has some new music coming out.

Wrong.

No, they were bashing him for tipping the 200lb mark on the scales. They’re parodying his music Weird-Al style. Talk about me instantly seeing red. Here’s a man that about 8 years ago had some of the hottest abs out there, not to mention some incredible biceps and shoulders. Geez people he was in his mid twenties AND he was a struggling artist, of course he’s gonna be hot and fit.

I cant’ believe that after earning multiple Grammies, launching multiple new talented artists, these DeeJays focused on his WEIGHT!!!! What I find ironic is that DeeJay’s also are not known for their healthy lifestyles. Pot / Kettle anyone?

Get off his case America. Leave him, leave Britney, leave them all alone. Weight does not make a person talented.