Product Review: Lorac TANtilizer Highlighter & Matte Bronzer Duo

Buy it right now

This has been close to life changing for me. I'm about as white of a white girl as they come. And summer barely rectifies that whole situation. Recently, I've been reading a lot about bronzer and how it's pretty much an instant face lifter and instantly makes your face look more alive. So, for my Birthday I asked for a gift card to Sephora so that I could find bronzer that I liked and that suited my ever growing list of requirements:

1. Sensitive skin friendly
2. No parabens
3. No fragrance
4. Won't look unnatural
5. Not a self-tanner
6. For the face

When the amazing Sephora sales lady showed me the Lorac bronzer I was already ready to say YES! I am a huge of fan of Lorac and use the Lorac foundation and love it here's the link if you're in the market for a sensitive skin friendly foundation: http://www.loraccosmetics.com/best-sellers_natural-performance-foundation.html. Keep in mind, this covers so well that you don't need much at all ... read: it's lasted me 2 years. 

The bronzer on one side and highlighter on the other is perfect. With the bronzer, depending on your skin color, you can add as little or as much as you like. The sales lady who sold it to me used it and she was a very dark black woman. She said, "It's one of the few bronzer's that looks good on all skin colors." I LOVE it. It gives my pasty white self juuuust enough color to look refreshed and awake and slightly sun kissed. Typically you put on bronzer after foundation and/or concealer and powder but before you put on blush. The highlighter is fun to play around with. It has a hint of shimmer and is a great finishing, defining touch after you put on all your makeup. It goes on the brow bone, top of the cheek bone and then down the top of your nose. 

The other day I went out of the house with some bronzer, blush and a swipe of mascara and some highlighter on my brow bone and looked effortlessly natural. Maybe that's what I love most about this dynamic duo. That above all, it looks natural.

Stress

So, you'll remember the post last month about being sad? Since then I've been to a therapist to talk my way through various Angela Agenda items and it's been a huge help. Two sessions ago, on my Birthday to be exact, she left me with a packet on stress and my objective before the next session was to read through it. Read through it I did and boy do we have one stressed lady on our hands. 

The first page in the packet was on Signs of Stress including bodily signs (tense muscles, headaches, frequent colds, breathing difficulties), feeling signs (uneasy, nervous, helpless, dissatisfied, frustrated, apathetic), behavioral signs (act irritable, negativistic; verbal mistakes, timid/withdrawn) and thinking signs (self doubt, racing thoughts, think you need help, difficulty concentrating). The second page is titled You and Stress and is a test of sorts to see just how stressed you are. There is a column on the left with various situations/life events and a numerical score attached to them. The exercise is to go through the column of life events/situations and see how many have happened/apply to you in the past year. Tally up the score and then see the chart below to determine how stressed you really are. Well, my score was 487. Apparently, any score over 300 states the following:

You now have a 9 in 10 chance of a serious health change in the next two years.

Hooray!!

I voiced my concern to my therapist about how that score was alarming/scary. As with most things, the first step is recognizing the stress. And the next is to recognize when stressful events are about to occur and planning/manage them accordingly. Example:

Pregnancy:
Recognize that it's going to be stressful
Realize that things that were previously able to be accomplished in a day may not be ever?
Cut yourself some slack and give yourself credit

Ha. Or don't have a baby less than a year after you get married. 

As for ways to effectively manage stress, the packet suggests healthy diet and exercise. Which seems to be the answer for pretty much anything these days. And another key factor that my therapist told me to do was to get some human interaction during the day. Of which currently I have little to none of. And to give myself a break. Those are things I can start doing NOW to solve the immediate need of A 31 year old should not have that much stress in her life and how can we reduce it.

Here's my immediate action plan:
while Lovie is at school go to the gym and take an exercise class (there is free babysitting for Baby Sister), look into working at Nordstrom a few evenings during the week and one weekend day or look into going back to work part time and start accomplishing some of my dreams.

One dream I've had for probably the past five to six years is to be a personal shopper. I've always loved shopping for others, shopping in general and love to run errands. Most hate errands and grocery shopping in particular, but it's something I've always enjoyed. Why not give it a go? What do I have to lose?

In the packet, and through talking to my therapist, it's mentioned often that once stress is recognized it can be used in a positive way. To solve a problem, to push us to do something that we may not have thought we could or to learn. While I'm stressed that I'm stressed, I'm also excited to put some of these tools to use and for what the future holds. Stay tuned!!

10K

No matter the distance, when your 60 year old Dad asks if you want to run a race with him you do it. No if's, and's or but's. My Dad is one of my greatest motivators - in life and in running. He knows at exactly the right moment to be encouraging, when to be empathetic and when to really push. We have the same pace and both love to book it when are we are about .2 to .4 miles away from the finish line. Something about seeing the finish, and picking off people as we approach that sends the adrenaline soaring. 

I don't know how many more of these opportunities I'll have so I want to jump on each one. Love you, Dad! Thanks for a great race!

At his surprise 60th Birthday Party 

One of my all time favorites and sums up perfectly how I feel about my Dad

Survivor

Two years ago yesterday my Grandmother, Nanny, survived a stroke. Actually, if we're going to get right down to it, she survived a lot of mini strokes from the afternoon the first one happened until late into the night. I will always remember that day, like 9/11, and the emotions I had surrounding that day. A day that started happy and joyful became sad and traumatic and horrible and, miraculously, ended on a high note.

If it were not for our family friend, who happens to be a doctor, who stayed at the hospital with us and made the lifesaving recommendation to her doctor about performing a very dangerous procedure on her - she wouldn't be alive today. So dangerous that a waiver had to be signed to even do it because of the mortality associated with it. A true fighter, the procedure worked and she spent no more than a few days in the hospital. And best of all - she has no lasting effects from the strokes. 

Now, two years later she has not only been able to see me get married, but my younger brother as well, and the birth of Baby Sister and many, many more celebrations to come. A true miracle.

I love you, Nanny!!

I thank God every day for her survival.

Grey/Gray

While yes, this does describe my mood as of late; no, that's not what this post is about. It's about appropriate work out/running errands pants. Here's a little experiment to get my point across ...

1. Put on a pair of gray pants
2. Pee your pants
3. You're not going anywhere without changing your pants are you?

Case and point. So, if you want to wear your grey pants to run errands and it's not nine billiondy degrees read: no threat of swamp ass go ahead. But if you want to wear your gray pants to go work out or, better yet, work out and then run errands well, don't say I didn't warn you. 

Gray has a way of showing EVERYTHING. It's not as forgiving as black or white or dark green or navy ... which hide most everything. A very select, few, group of people can get away with "working out" in grey pants cause their definition of "working out" is just that ... exercise that deserves quotation marks around it. Cause it's more about reading US Weekly than it is about actually, working out. 

You want me to tell you when you have something in your teeth, right? Well. I'd certainly hope that if you looked like you peed your pants when you didn't you'd want me to tell you that too.

Book Review: Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins, like she would ever read my blog but will you be my friend? Tell me stories? Describe pretty much anything to me? Because oh my gosh, this woman can tell a story with the most description, color, and intensity that I have ever read. If I were blind, I'd want her to describe everything to me because it would essentially be like I'm able to see. She's that good. 

She makes you feel as if you are IN this book. As if you ARE Katniss Everdeen for the entirety of the book. The world she transplants you into is like none other that our America - Home of the Free minds can wrap our heads around. It's hard to fathom what Katniss' world is like, especially since it's in the future. Which generally, when we think of America in the future sense we think of a world similar to the Jetsons not Jurassic Park meets Pangea meets Rocky Horror Picture Show meets video games come to life. Their future is almost like post-apocalyptic regression. 

Throughout The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins does a great job of describing how the Hunger Games themselves are pretty much the only hope for Katniss and her family to have anything to live for ... literally and figuratively. I won't give away what the Hunger Games means in case anyone reading this has not yet read the books because I appreciated that those who had read the book didn't tell me. It just added to the surreal quality of the book and the shock and surprise. 

The movie comes out this week, on Friday, and while part of me CAN. NOT. WAIT. to see it. The other part is petrified. Because of how visual, descriptive and overall amazing this book is, it'd be so tragic if they don't get it right. Part in parcel because the book is like nothing else out there. So signing up to transform this book into a movie is going to be such a big challenge. It has the potential to not live up to the superiority of the book as most book to movie books do and on the other hand I can't wait to see this book come to life. 

Five out of five stars. 

Update: Mental Health

So, things have been going. Not good, not bad, just going. 

Do I feel as though I'm settling into more of a routine? Yes. But do I enjoy that routine? Not always. I feel as though a majority of our time during the day is spent in the car. This is fine for Lovie since he's at preschool running around for three hours but since it's a 25 minute drive to and from his preschool that doesn't leave Baby Sister a lot of time for eating/napping/tummy time. Yes, there is plenty of time for tummy time in the afternoon/evening but you know. It's just not ideal. But, I guess you do the best you can with what you've got. 

Do I like being a stay at home Mom? Yes and no. I love the fact that I'm able to be with them - morning, noon and night. And they are such happy kids. They are totally thriving. But I'm not. I miss working. I miss the drive to get something done by a deadline. I miss consistent adult interaction. I miss having tangible metrics for achieving success. I'd say the latter is the hardest thing about being a stay at home Mom - you have no idea whether you're successful or not, until they grow up to be either a priest or Eminem.

Currently, I'm pursuing part-time opportunities as well as full-time ones that have the flexibility to work from home some days. I think it'll be best for everyone. And I'm really looking forward to it. Also, being a stay at home Mom has been hard financially. We've had to cut back on some things and, selfishly, I don't want to cut back on certain things.

I've found that while I love being with my children I hate HATE housework. Hate it. I'm fine with it if that's not my only goal throughout the day. But it is. And I'm going insane.  I just can't find joy in laundry or dishes or cleaning. And my admiration for those who do/have done it read: my amazing Mom grows exponentially every day.

I've learned I'd be a great housewife if I could also have the wealth of those of the Real Housewives of ... series. I'd enjoy being a stay at home Mom if my biggest worry was with whom I was going brunch that day or what color I wanted to paint my nails at my weekly mani/pedi. Yes. That I could get behind. At the very least I could totally get behind having a maid. *swoon*

And I'm finally able to talk to a therapist next week. It was the soonest appointment I could get. I know the grass isn't always greener, and that working will present itself with a new set of challenges to adapt to. I know that eventually I may be a stay at home Mom again - but it'll more likely than not be when I'm ready. I just don't think now is my time.

Regardless, I do know there is a happier patch of grass out there and I can't wait to find my happy patch!