"You have some under eye circles, so you need a hydrating concealer to help with that," the Macy's makeup employee at the Benefit counter said. I feign a smile while staring at the pound of makeup caked on this girl's face. A moment later she follows it up with, "I think you should go with shade #2, because you're supposed to go with your forehead color. Your forehead is darker than the rest of your face, but that should work." I look in the mirror in the overly bright department store I'm standing in, then give my husband, who I dragged with me to the makeup counter before a movie, a, "What the hell is this chick talking about?" face. I walk away muttering that I suppose this girl was just doing her job, although it was totally unsolicited advice, as I was just stopping in to ... [Read More]
self love
{Review} Cameron Diaz’s The Body Book
"The more consistent you are with [your] choices, the closer you come to being the happy, healthy, beautiful, glowing woman that you want to be. Being healthy and well is a lifelong endeavor. It's important to establish a relationship with your body, to understand what its needs are and how to fulfill those needs. To connect to how your choices affect you physically, mentally, and emotionally." I love a good book, but between work, blogging, and school, I find myself with not much time to read. Or when I do have time to give myself a few hours of relaxation at night, I just want to do something that requires little brainpower, like watch trashy TV. But at any given time, I'm in the middle of reading multiple interesting books. Sometime it takes me months upon months to finish them, but ... [Read More]
Love Yourself First
Happy Valentine's Day loves!! What better way to start my day than by eating heart-shaped chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries? :) While many people frown upon this holiday, I am a romantic person at heart, so I love a day devoted to love by nature. Sure, it's a Hallmark holiday where many people very stereotypically buy flowers and chocolate and go out to dinner, but I want to talk about what Valentine's Day is really and truly about: celebrating love and relationships. So let me ask you, what's the most important relationship in your life? If you thought of your partner, child, or mother, yes, I'm sure they mean the world to you. But what I'm getting at here is that the most important relationship you'll ever have in your life is the one you have with yourself. No matter ... [Read More]
A Snow Storm, BluePrint Juices & Self-Love Talk
Happy weekend! Do you like the randomness of this post's title?! It's a Winter Wonderland I was supposed to fly back to San Diego later on today, but I just heard that Newark airport is closed this morning. Craziness! I actually switched my flight yesterday already. I was thinking about rescheduling it anyways because I want to stick around longer for my grandma to get better, and the snow storm gave me an easy out. My grandmother is fighting through having pneumonia and scheduled for her surgery to remove the cancer next week, so I'm sticking around longer to be with her more. At my parents house, we got around 6 inches or so of snow last night, but I'm hearing that up north got a ton of more snow. I hope that everyone in the northeast stays safe and warm during this winter ... [Read More]
Do You Date Yourself?
Today's post is a topic I've wanted to write about for awhile -- dating yourself. Out of all the important relationships in your life, the one you have with yourself is the most significant of them all. This idea is central to healthy living, because if you don't have a good relationship with yourself, it makes it difficult to have meaningful, strong bonds with others. Having positive friendships and connections is pivotal to being your best self. A few months back, my friend and I were talking about her recent therapy session. They had talked about whether my friend makes an effort to do enjoyable things on her own to help strengthen her mental, physical, and emotional health - what her therapist deemed as ''dating yourself." I had never heard it coined that way before, but when I ... [Read More]
Show Yourself Some Love
Happy Valentine's Day! Although I do agree that today is a Hallmark holiday, I can't lie... I just love love. And how could I not be happy for a day when I find these on my doorstep? My hubby obviously put a smile on my face with those! I was thinking about it, and out of the years we've been together, we've been with each other for 3 Valentine's Days and apart for 3 Valentine's Days... Hmm, 50/50 isn't too bad, right?! Though my hot date tonight was volunteering with the doggies at the Humane Society, I did have a theme of chocolate going on today in celebration of the holiday. First, I made pancakes for lunch. Not just plain pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes.. with pumpkin! I even attempted to make them in heart shapes, because I'm cool like that. They came out ... [Read More]