Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. - Wordsworth

taking flight...

Well! Merry Christmas y'all! I hope everyone had a great holiday. I was positively spoiled, I know that. Bobby got me lots of bath and bodywork goodies, some lush (yay!), my highly lusted after too faced "in your dreams" palette, among many other things. His parents got me some clothes and things like that. I really loved everything.

My man also got me this hat:

I love it! It's the first hat I've ever worn really. It's amazing how much warmer you stay (go figure, right).

I just wish I could get some paid time off for the holidays, that would be nice haha. Bobby is off the next two days. It sucks because we never have days off together. He literally works every weekend when he is in school.

Can't wait for our romantic April getaway!

My MaryKay journey is about to begin. I am very excited to be able to offer these products to everyone that wants them.  I already have two sales and I haven't even been fully processed yet. NO idea how long I will be involved in this, but I am very excited to try the makeup items in my starter kit. I know I love the skincare that I've tried... and  have a good list of items ready to be ordered. I'm just very curious if I will like their foundations/colors.

I used the microderm set last night and my skin looked awesome today. I can't wait to try the Even Complexion line, the blemish control toner, eye cream, satin lips set, the perfumes and some select makeup! Most excited about the foundation and nourishine lip gloss in pink parfait. One thing is for sure, I need to develop a more sophisticated skincare rouine. The timewise cleanser, night/day formulas and moisturizer are a great start, but I am very excited to expand it with some of the other products.

Gonna give my Eco-Emi update next!

going pink?

First let me just say to the one gal who actually occasionally reads my blog (thank you Christina!) I don't get comment notifications because I just discovered that I have my old e-mail address linked to this account. Got to change that STAT.

So, to address the title of the post... let me start by saying that in my recent nailscapades...( i post the results of my expermenting to facebook, but for other curious minds who are not on FB, i have a tumblr dedicated soley to my nail art: Wet Paint) ... that also needs updated... but... I digress...

I've watched a lot of youtube videos. This is how I learned about nail stamping. But I also found a "Beauty Guru" on there who happened one day to be talking about how her sensitive skin ALWAYS broke out ... until she went back to her Mary Kay Timewise line. After  few cycles of this in the past several years, she stopped experimenting (as women SO like to do) and realized every time she had clear skin was when she was using this line.

I myself have been using Proactiv since I was a teenager. To be honest, I've never really had terrible acne, but in those days any zit felt like your face was OOC. So all this time I have continued using it because I am AFRAID what will happen if I stop. I'm 25 years old... it's time to get over it. All this time in my twenties, I've only been using it once a day, at night. In the morning I use Aveeno Calming Cleanser. I have a nice red angry complexion.

So once I learned about this Mary Kay Timewise line... I decided that at some point I was going to have to go ahead and try it out. So a facebook friend of mine sells Mary Kay. I went ahead and ordered the trial Miracle set. Comes with a 3-in-one cleanser, moisturizer, a day formula and a night formula.

I decided I would try the cleanser and moisturizer first, then add in the night serum and finally the day formula. This way it would be easier to see what, if anything, was causing  a potential problem. Who knows what skin will react to.

Well, I had a feeling that the proactiv was just too harsh for my sensitive skin. The first night I tried the Mary Kay, I thought maybe my face feeling so nice and looking so smooth and nice was maybe just a fluke. In the mornnig, my skin STILL looked awesome... It makes my pores a LOT less noticable without giving my face that weird, tight feeling. It just feels very soft and supple and looks GREAT. A huge difference than what it would look like after the Proactiv.

And that was WITHOUT the night forumla! So I did the cleanser and moisturizer again in the morning. Makeup went on flawlessly over top. This morning in particular I had to stop over my moms and she actually commented on how nice my skin looked.  Needless to say... I am very pleased. Tonight I will be using the night formula for the first time.

BUT THE POINT IS..... that I am going to start selling this stuff!

I'm both excited and scared... but I am comfortable with the way I am going to approach this business. I am not going to push parties. I will certainly hold one if a friend wants, but If it's not against regulations, I may just start a blog that will feature a couple products a week with how -to's and product info and all that goodness and possibly post a link back to my MK website.

I start selling in January... and I will be ordering every first and second monday of the month. I EVEN HAVE an e-mail address dedicated soley to the business. So if anyone is interested... I'm your girl. I plan on doing a LOT of special things in the year to come with MK :)

Birthday Discounts, Free Gift-Wrapping, Credit to your name for referrals, etc.  I just absolutey LOVE my miracle set and I can't believe in one day it made such a difference for my skin!!

I also LOVE the nourishine lip gloss that came as a sample. I also received a sample of the microderm system... very excited to try that!  I am just so glad I decided to give it a try! And now here I am taking the leap to begin selling it!

I have the time to invest at this point in my life, and it's a win-win situation. I hope I don't annoy people with what touting I DO end up doing, but it will be minimal. I am NOT the pushy type. Definitely the opposite of my personality.

ALRIGHT that's all for now... Up next I will post this month's ECO EMI box! It was fabulous!!!

fly me to the moon

I can't believe it's already December and we've had barely ANY snow... at least none that has stuck around for long! I am thankful for this, since driving 30 minutes to my Fiance's house and 30 minutes back via a bobsled-like interstate is verrryy stressful in dreadful winter weather!

Not much has really happened since I last left off. I colored my hair! "Swift Chocolate" or... medium ash brown from Perfect 10. This is the same color I dyed it a few years ago. I'm glad I took the plunge and did it again, because Bobby seems to prefer it darker! I really like it this way. I just hope it doesn't become a pain to maintain!

Here is a photo I took directly after:

The first time I did this, someone did it for me. This time I did it all on my own, and boy was that a mistake! It probably just takes some getting used to... but I had a hard time. I got panicky a few minutes into the application so that didn't help the matter! Staining the white bathroom cabinet with your hair dye is never a good idea... I still have not remembered to pick up a magic eraser to try and get that out!

I also delved into the world of magnetic nailpolish wth Nails Inc. in Whitehall Teal. SO GLAD I DID! I freakin' love it. Also, I recently bought my first bottle of Seche Vite. This one happens to be the fast dry one, and let me tell you... it dries instantly. It's a miracle! This is the same top coat that was used the first time I ever got a salon manicure, but I don't think it was the fast dry one.

Here it is on my nail with the top coat I mentioned

It's sloppy because I still have some cleaning up to do around my cuticles! Sorry!

I finished my Christmas shopping today for the most part! I have lots of crocheting to do for gifts but the yarn is bought, and all of Bobby's gifts are bought - unless I find something else at the last minute! We still have concert tickets to purchase for his parents as well. Apart from that the holidays are set. I even have my wrapping paper! I do need to find a good way to wrap scarves though. I want the packaging to be as beautiful as the scarf itself!

I can't believe how fast this year has gone by... coming up in 2012, another one of my best friends is getting married, and soon I will be getting fitted for that dress! Ahh! And since Bobby and I decided to wait to move out, I took it upon myself to decide to plan a getaway for my birthday in April. Not far! We'll be staying in Cleveland, but I booked us the romance package ;). Still thinking of fun things to do while we are there. I'm hoping the comedy club that is popular there has some good acts coming that weekend.

That's really all I know about in the near future at this point. Everything else is just mellow. I need to lose weight and work on paying off our credit cards :) So I guess 2012 will be the year of DIMINISHING! hahaha....

This month will be my last of my consolidated debt payment. In three years I paid off just over 9,000 in debt. That is a huge accomplishment and having an extra $334 dollars a month will help us get the rest of our current debt down to zero within the next year, and that way we can really save hardcore for our wedding. Even though I was not proud to have the debt in the first place, I am proud that I didn't file bankruptcy or anything else like that because I know people younger than myself who have done that! I'm very excited about being completely debt free soon, with the exception of school loans.

Okay I have to go blow my nose for the 100th time today... happy festive holiday season my friends!