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.

Seriously. Get over it.

So I'm driving home today and the radio is again pissing me off. I get so desperate I start scanning stations. I hit the local reggaetón station and they were playing a song I could totally relate to. Now, if only I could live it.

"So, do you wanna get a hotel room and some beers?"

Seriously.

This was a pickup line relayed to me from a girlfriend of mine. I jokinly said back to her "Only if I can mix my own drinks" and the only reason I said that to her, was because in the ladies room plasted all over my stall were fliers for anti-roofies. . .

I'm in the middle of nowhere small town Texas, USA. So WHY are there flyers about the date rape drug in the toilet stalls? I NEVER saw anti-roofie flyers in any stall in San Diego. Just the sink lady(s) offering candy, gum, condoms, shooters, soap, towels, cat toys and other goodies in her magic bottomless basket. Oh wait, its cause San Angelo is THE Meth/Ice capitol of the Bible Belt, they just don't say that in their tour guides. Maybe it's because it's the drug capitol that I found these three potential hunking 'quality' manz that I just HAVE to share with you so you can laugh as much I have been in telling this story all day to my cousins, aunts, other men, friends.... (and anybody else that will listen)

Let me just start this by saying that I had a GREAT time with my friend. I'm really glad she asked me to come along with her and all the margarita type drinks we shared :) The 'men' I ran into on the other hand . . . really made me thankful to know there are quality men out there like my brother or my cousin and even her brother out there. So I know all men are not as bad as these three. . .

Man 1. Pushy, but take charge kinda guy. Dragged me to the dance floor, offering to 'teach me how to dance'. I will give this to him, he was a good dancer (I think, I only say this because I myself can't dance so anybody is a better dancer than me that point in time last night). He twirled me this way and that way, but he kept his beer in one hand while twirling me in the other. I thought he was pretty good with the switching the beer bottle trick.

(oh yea, in TX you can SMOKE inside ..... so I couldn't exactally SMELL how drunk this fine speciman of man was, until....)

The song was over and we started to walk off the dance floor, he was holding my waist and guiding me to the exit, very nice very romantic very gentleman-ly (and really made me miss that 'sense of touch' heheh) the he leans into my ear and shouts "I GOTTA GO TAKE A PISS"

Did you HEAR the record scrape? Cause I swear that boom boom in the room got all quiet.

and if I was starting to get a girly boner, he really killed it with that statement..... /chop

About five minutes later...

He finds me again, takes my hand and pulls me to the dance floor. I was SOOOO glad his hands were not wet, but still couldnt resist the urge to shout at him "I hope you washed your hands". I can't say that he understood what I had said much less heard it, so when he said this next line after the dance I wasn't sad that I didnt' run into him the rest of the night.

He said something about some honey in his life... then mentioned he had a 9 month old daugher at home, and something about her bud smoking mother. Just great. All I need is some pot smoking latina coming after me thinking I want her manz. Sorry lady, you can have yo manz. I dun wan him. /oh snap!!!

Man 2. When I started talking to him, I didn't notice the OTHER side of his face and the tear shaped tattoo under his eye. Hmmm according to urban legand, that means he killed somebody, right? Just checking. So this fine hunka man leans in and shouts to me "I JUST BOUGHT A NEW CAR" If I had any fuzzy dice, trust me I woulda given them to him as a parting gift for the second place runner up in most 'useless information given to Lynda tonight'. He then proceeds to tell me that the reason he bought a new car was because he wrecked his other car.

I just looked at him. I mean really, what was I supposed to say in any normal situation? Cause they never taught me that in all those fancy dating websites I've looked at. Just looking at him and grinning or smiling wasn't gonna cut it.

He continued to speak. He wrecked his car because he was too drunk to drive. He wrecked it IN FRONT of the PO PO house!!!! He tells me this like he is PROUD of his accomplishment!!!! I had not even known the guy for five minutes and he's giving me these details. . . What kind of woman is attracted to this man? Who did he go home with? and why do I care?

He asked for my number. I didn't give it to him. What I shoulda told him was I wrecked my phone.

Man 3. The icing on the cake. I'm standing next to my friend and she leans over to me, laughing "So, do you wanna get a hotel room and some beers?" WHAT, and really WHAT kind of man thinks he can even TRY to get away with asking this kind of question, or more like... DOES that line REALLY work?? and hello, I am 31, THIRTY ONE years old!!!! I'm thinking that MAYBE this man is at LEAST within five years of my age. DON'T you HAVE a house? an apartment? or are you ashamed of your roomate 'Ms. Manzmom'

Maybe its the material girl in me, cause we all know I am one ~ and I'm sure you've all figured out that it's not something I try to hide, but if you want a piece of me, you BETTER have your own place that doesn't involve living with your parents under the same roof (yea did I tell you I'm also a hiprocrite /grin, since I am now among the ranks of those that 'live with mom') (too bad she doesnt' have a basement cause then I'd be pimpin)

Anyway, after those three menz. My feet really started hurting, and I came to the conclusion that I was a loser magnet for the night so we went to chill @ whattaburger and laugh about the nightly events.

Just so you know, these are my standards, some of them can be negotiated, but there's not much room for it.

-no smokers. period. I will NOT date you if you smoke.

-no alcoholics, drinks are ok, but if you *need* to drink *alot* everyday.... then I'm never gonna make you happy, and neither are your drinks

-no more menz with kids, sorry I don't want to be second place in *anybody's* life. yes I am a selfish bitch.

-must have vehicle. I will not drive you around, unless you need to get your oil changed or your flat fixed.

-must have 'space of your own'. I don't really want to date a man with a roomate, but hey. I can appreciate that you might be saving for something more.

Notice my song? tee hee hee

so yea,

It's been a week and I still have all these emotions going thru my head. My trip was uneventful and smooth. I spent 21ish hours driving from the wild wild west to wild wild west texas.

The cats did pretty good after I got out of San Diego so I let them out of the carriers and Fatty pretty much just found one place and didn't move from his location the entire trip. No pooping no drinking no eating, just sleeping. Good boy!!! Cinders on the other hand decided to run away twice in Yuma..... Where she was going only she knows but she gave it a good try, twice. After that I stuck her ass back in her kitty carrier and wrapped it in a blanket so she wouldn't get anymore crazy ideas.

In El Paso the wind decided to kick up and I'm not exaggerating here, seriously the wind was blowing about 60+ MPH. At the time I only estimated it to be around 40MPH.... But when I got knocked over just walking from my car to the cashier I knew something was up. Didn't matter, since the wind seemed to be pushing my car along.

Let's see, Fatty went back to his original mommy, I'm gonna miss his pretty eyes... His name reverted to Prince, but to me he's always gonna be Fatty. >^..^< Cinders is still with me. I feel bad for her since she's been stuck in one room or another for a little over two weeks now and she's used to having like 20+ hiding places. About the only place she has to hide now is under the bed and as soon as I walk in the room she gives up her hiding spot.

My feelings are still everywhere... One minute I'll be really happy and two minutes later I have tears welling up in my eyes. I'm thinking it's cause I've got way too much time on my hands here in San Angelo. You have no idea how boring it really is here..... My parents are internet-less, but they do have cable TV. I have no video games aside from my GBA and both of those games I've beaten...>< I did finally find an internet cafe so I no longer have to drive all the way to my aunts ranch just to use her DSL line.

Basically, I have no interest in going to a bar just to find some tobacco chewing cowboy. If you want to eat anywhere "nice" here they have like an hour wait... Hello!!! it's OLIVE GARDEN!!! The mall..... Dillards was nice. Movies... nah, not til I get some sort of income anyway, for now it's just frivolous spending. Basically I'm doing alot of sleeping and let me tell you I am WELL rested. I can't even take pictures cause everything out here is dead, plus I only have my film camera... not exactly 'free' like them nice shiny digitals.

Heh, so here I am whining about it.

Somebody slap me!!

In the meantime on Thursday I'm going to DFW finally. I'll be staying with family for a little while. Hopefully I'll find work quickly, hopefully something permanent.... and I can move out and give Cinders more than one room to roam in. Unless I get a studio / loft or as they're called out here... efficiency apartments lol. Then Cinders is still in one room, but at least she doesn't have to hide from the doggies or allergic people.

Anyway, I'm safe. I'm healthy, I am happier. I'm smiling a hell of a lot more than I was a month ago.

Which popped in my head.. I've been getting strange phone calls (2 of them) One was last week when I was driving @ 6am TX time.. from 'private caller'. Nobody answered. I got another call from the 858 area code... but they hung up before I even answered. I got a few IM's from random people too. But don't worry, I'm not gonna fall for it or respond to them. I just wanted to bitch about it.

I'm guilty of wanting too much too fast. It's my own fault I am where I am and it took me six years to get here. I hope it doesn't take six years to get out of this hole. I have a very long road ahead of me and from here it looks like it's all going to be uphill. It's funny though because I am setting small goals for myself, and while right now some of these goals seems trivial and simple they are very hard to accomplish.

Example? Well on my laptop when I moved here last time, I kept my time set on Pacific Time. As soon as I got here last week, the first time I turned on my laptop I changed the time and then I called my cousin and shared this information with him. This is what I mean by trivial goal. It was REALLY HARD for me to do this, I actually got emotional when changing my time zone and clock. Even when I told him about this I felt my voice crack, but I shook it off!!! :) He then proceeded to share with me some of his accomplishments with his moving on stages.

I still need to change my address. I hate pumping gas here, since my zip code is not local, I keep having to go inside to pay... /grumble

I'm lazy about changing it though since all of it is paperless. So I don't have to worry about my bills showing up at creepo's house. I should change them anyway for piece of mind....

Speaking of which, I just did it all online. Go Me!!

And another thing. I can't call any of the convenient Verizon phone numbers from here.... UGH!! So I paid my bill a few days late. Hopefully no late charge will pop up.

I wanna get my new license and transfer my car plates / insurance over here. That's gonna have to wait a little while though. Like prob a long while since the insurance was just paid in full this past July, and my license is good until 2009. But still having new shineys will be nice.

Blargh... these damn emotions. I want to get off this roller coaster!!!! See what I mean about these feelings?

Photoshop Fun!

Yea, this was fun making! Anyway, there's my hair, all chopped off. Too bad I took it with my motophonecam and it takes crappy pix.

Heather and her team are going to Midland TX!!! Woo hoo! I can't wait to smell the oil and steers. . . Luckily I'll get to see my parents and my neice(s) too.

another exciting and long day. . .

So I woke up today with pretty much a full day planned.

Sam and Heather had to travel up to Lancaster for her State qualifier in softball this weekend in order to get a placement in the nationals games that will happen later in July-August. Basically, if they place in the top four for the state of California then we'll all be headed to Midland TX to hopefully get (yet another) National Championship. So while they are up doing their softball thing, I'm staying home cat-sitting! I'm gonna have to find somebody to babysit 3 kittys (hopefully) soon for the week that we (might) be in Texas.

As for my day, it started off with me going to the Salon to get my hair colored and chopped off! I'll prob post pix later. Too bad I didn't take any before pix, you'll just have to look at my old ones to see what I looked like before. I'm really happy with the colored highlights that I got as they are a nice darker brown color. It just irritates me to see people with dark hair with blond highlights. I mean, excuse me, WE HAVE DARK HAIR, our hair will NEVER have blond highlights. EVER.

Don't get me wrong, when people have highlights that are say, pink or green, even some crazy reds, or even those funky weird blond enormous streaks ~ that's cool cause those are obviously fake, but to have HIGHLIGHTS and then say, "oh my hair is naturally this way (every spring and summer, magically, one day) Psssssht, yea right! Anyway, getting off track, and back my what I had done. I'm, really happy with the color, and style and I hope they don't turn brassy later, and hey, if it does, I hope it at least looks "normal".

After my salon thingie, I went to the mall!!!! (OMG, YES, the MALL) and I enjoyed IT!!! I got to go to one of my favorite stores: Ruehl, basically A&F for old peeps. Ann Taylor was there too and her buddys in New York had some shinys. Don't forget the hotties at A|X! I ran out of time before I could look around at other stores :(

I had the most AWESOME salad at San Sai JP Grill. Then it was off to my buddies for our bi-monthy game / hangout time. We ended up playing uh.... something . . . . & BanG! Obviously the "something" was not an eventful enough card game for me to recall, as I can't even remember the details of the game itself other than the directions were in German, there were six ~ six sided di, we rolled alot, got to play tournaments, collect castles, won knights to guard our castles, and tryed to obtain ONE king (which I got lucky and won/obtained) yet, I *STIlL* can't remember the name of the game. On the otherhand in the card game of BanG! I finally got to be the Sherrif, and it was about a 45 minute game with Pearl and myself trying to kill each other off. In the end, Pearl fought the law, and the law (me) won :)

I was supposed to go to the gym, but ended up staying at my buddies until around midnight. The way I see it, I got a light workout walking all over Little Italy, Mission/Fashion Valley and laughing among friends. I WILL be going tomorrow (read: today, which is a few hours from now, like when I wake up.)

ta ta!