Editions of Me

This post is labeled "television," but this is not a tv show. Source: http://sociallyawkwarddarcy.tumblr.com Hi, I'm OBSESSED with The Lizzie Bennet Diaries , and am currently annoying everyone I know on Facebook by posting GIFs and links to LBD fangirly stuff that I've been finding on the internet. Like this adorable clip of the actor and actress who play Darcy and Lizzie on some random internet -a-thon thingy. Um, getting ahead of myself here. LBD is a modernized version of Pride and Prejudice , told vlog-style through videos on Youtube, as well as through other social media outlets like Twitter and Tumblr. The story has been updated and Americanized, and the characters feel very real and authentic - SO real and authentic, that each one has his/her own Twitter account , and the show is done in real time, so it's no surprise that there are people out there who were shocked when they found out that this is a scripted show with actors and stuff, and not ...

How else would I kick off my two-week winter break than by staying up late to reorganize my makeup? It all started when I went on a trip to Ulta (because I had a major coupon to use before Monday), and as I was standing around in the Urban Decay aisle, I started swatching their random shadows on my hand to create my own palette. (I wasn't actually going to buy shadows to create my own palette, because you know how I feel about their palette system , but I figured since I had all these shades at home, I could just use a Z-Palette.) This inspired me to go home and depot my Vice palette and my Naked Basics palette. I like to have my makeup organized a certain way, and since I already have all my other UD shadows organized into Z-Palettes by color family, it kinda kills me to still have two separate palettes all by themselves, not arranged how I want them to be.  So, I used my boxcutter to pry out the plastic tray where all the pans were, and then I popped them onto a cooki...

I've only recently started looking into this BB cream craze . So far I've only used the Garnier one (which by all accounts isn't that good), and as far as I can tell, if I want the good stuff, I've got to go Asian. Now, I know nothing about Asian brands and wouldn't even begin to know where to find them. There are TONS of Asian stores in my town, of course, but where do I even start? This is a whole new frontier of beauty for me, since I'm about foray into a product I'm not familiar with as well as brands I'm not familiar with. Checking out eye shadows from Asian brands is one thing, since I know how to shop for eye shadows already; how do I know what's a good BB cream? Thankfully, in today's age of the internet, there are reviews EVERYWHERE, and the major perk of being late to the party is that there have already been tons of other people who've spent their time and money exploring different BB creams so I don't really have to. And t...

Usually when I post products on my blog, they're makeup and beauty products, but not today! (Tomorrow, probably =P) Today, I received my Christmas present early. (Because of course  I picked it out myself. Who would think to buy this for me?) It's a fancy schmancy interchangeable needle set from ChiaoGoo : ChiaoGoo makes some pretty awesome needles - I have a couple of their Red Lace fixed circulars, and they are quite lovely to knit with. Yes, I have LOTS of circulars, and I even have an interchangeable set (Boye Needlemasters, which I got from Michaels with a 40% off coupon, which made it super cheap), so why ask for this one? Well, when you knit as much as I do, you can tell the difference. So, I like ChiaoGoo, and I like the fact that they sell a COMPLETE needle set with sizes 2-15. Other than the Boye set, this is the only other set to carry that range of sizes. They come with accessories and stuff all packed into a sleek little pouch that will fit perfectly into m...

I follow a couple different feminist pages on FB as well as a feminist group on Ravelry, and one thing that always comes up is the issue of weight and body types. And recently there was a Kickstarter making the rounds on the internet where a young woman was hoping to publish a book of thin, "healthy" women because she feels that thin, healthy women are being persecuted in favor of slobby fat women. (I'm serious! " if it just makes it into the hands of ONE little girl who feels like she has to be overweight to fit in with the current 70% of the overweight population of America, and it gives her the strength to know that being healthy isnt a bad thing. "   Gurrrl, I don't know what world YOU live in where overweight women are the ideal, but it's definitely not MY world.) She's right about one thing (ONE thing!): women who are thin should not be shamed for their bodies. But that's the extent to which I agree with her. Thin women should not be s...

This morning I decided to use ALL THE NAKEDS! Eyes: - UDPP - Chopper all over the lid (from Naked 2) - Faint in the crease (from Naked Basics) - Naked to blend out the crease (from Naked 1) - Virgin on the browbone (from Naked 1) - Crave along the upper lash line to define (from Naked Basics) - Eye pencil in Stray Dog along the lower lash line - UD Supercurl mascara Lips: - Lip pencil in Wallflower (no, I don't own the pencil in Naked =P) - Lipstick in Naked (now discontinued - but you could use the Super Saturated Gloss pencil in Naked?) - Lip Junkie gloss in Naked Face: - UD Naked Skin BB cream (not yet released!) - BeneFit Boi-ing concealer - UD Naked Skin foundation - UD Razor HD powder - Tarte Amazonian Clay blush in Blushing Bride - UD De-Slick setting spray You can find Urban Decay's current selection of Naked products here .

Twelve awesome things about my 2012: MARATHON. YEAH BABY. I PRed both my 5k and my half-marathon times. I ran the most races I've ever run in a single year. (I swear these aren't all about running.) The Psychopathogens go UNDEFEATED in their first season. Rollercon 2012 Paleo The Hunger Games movie My Little Birds cardigan The Lizzie Bennet Diaries Sugarpill's Heartbreaker palette I took a picture with Demanda Riot I TURNED 30, BEEZIES!!

I know I've covered this before in this post , but I feel like this bears rehashing. The holidays = I am knitting a TON right now = I hear stuff like this more often because I am seen knitting more often right now than at other points during the year.Also, the holidays = I'm more grumpy than usual. "I wish I could knit. It's hard." I'm going to borrow from Whole30 and say that knitting is NOT hard. Advanced calculus? Hard. Kicking heroin addiction? Hard. Disciplining 37 high school sophomores? Hard. Knitting is NOT hard. It takes time and practice though. "I don't have the time or patience to knit." If you have the time or the patience to sit around waiting for your doctor's appointment or to watch tv, then you can knit. I actually have a hard time sitting around and NOT knitting. Like right NOW. If I weren't typing this blog post right now, I'd be knitting, since my students are watching a movie right now. "You should ...

Okay, so, considering how I only gave myself 2 years to do it, I think it's pretty good that I got 24 of my 30 things done. The list has changed a lot from its first incarnation (which I don't even have a copy of, apparently!), but I think it's okay for one's goals and priorities to change, right? Things were added or removed because that was just the path my life took - for example, I had hoped to have a second child by now (or at least be pregnant), but I honestly couldn't imagine that now. I figure, it's okay to change your goals, as long as you keep having them. So, here are the ones that have not gotten accomplished: 2. Read  Sense & Sensibility ,  Mansfield Park , and  Emma 7. Watch three Hitchcock movies I haven't seen before 8. Watch three Kurosawa movies I haven't seen before 15.  Get a Jolie-inspired tattoo 16.  Get a derby-related tattoo  26.  Get a tattoo to commemorate completing a marathon  The tattoo ones were put off ...

I knew it was going to be hard, but I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be THIS hard. Good lord, it took us an hour and a half to get through the first 5k! BRUTAL. To put things in perspective, our finish time for this half marathon (which isn't official, by the way, because we finished so late) is only an hour and a half less than our finish time for our FULL marathon. THAT'S how hard it was. It's the hardest half-marathon I've ever done. Also, I am just not made for trail races. I tripped over a gazillion roots and rocks; I rolled my ankle; I even FELL because my shoes were totally caked in mud; and I have a big fat blister forming on the inside of my heel. (I had to tighten my shoes extra to deal with the terrain, and my skin did not love that friction.) But we pushed on, and we finished it. Even if we finished half an hour after the course was supposed to close. (Bless their hearts, there were still tons of volunteers around, and they still gave us me...

Celebrating the end of another decade... Photography: JAM Photos MUAH: Designs by Sandra Wardrobe/Accessories: Natasha's Attic

Sooo. This past weekend I ordered the new Naked Basics palette from Urban Decay. I know it's generating a ton of buzz all over the blogosphere right now, but what I really want to talk about today is  the "Exclusive Early Release" sample I received with my order... Urban Decay is releasing its own beauty balm, and included deluxe-size samples with its orders. I'm super excited about this (even though I totally also bought the tinted moisturizer). I will be glad to be able to try this before it comes out. It does indeed come out of the tube looking kinda orangey, but it ends up being translucent. Which means it doesn't really give you any coverage. (I don't know a whole lot about BBs, but the one I do have - the Garnier one, which I know is not nearly one of the best - covers like a tinted moisturizer.) But it's supposed to be awesome for your skin. Can't wait to try it! I wish they would tell us when the release date is!

So I've just finished my first Thanksgiving on Paleo, and well... it wasn't really ON Paleo. But I didn't go completely off the rails either. I pretty much stuck to eating turkey and sweet potatoes (though, they were probably not prepared with Paleo ingredients), and while I did indulge in some pie and ice cream, I did not eat any stuffing or bread. Which I am fully capable of eating in HEAPS, so I forced myself to stay away. (We will not speak of an ill-advised break a couple weeks ago when I ate about 8 Roti Buns in a period of 24 hours. I spent the next 24 hours COMPLETELY miserable.) So now I'm back. I gave myself yesterday and the day before to stretch out my goodbye to dairy, and today I'm back to the straight and narrow. Well, kind of. At the moment, I'm out of some Paleo staples (clarified butter, coconut flour, coconut aminos), but I'm substituting the best I can (organic grass-fed butter, tamari) until I get a chance to hit up Whole Foods again. ...

I finally finished both socks! (You can see the photos of the first one here - obviously, I'm not going to bother taking special photos of the second sock alone.) I decided that I wanted to give these socks as a birthday gift to one of my good friends from work, Kaila. She has been my friend and mentor since I started teaching, and she is one of the most hard-working and inspirational teachers I know. (In fact, I have future-dated this blog post in case she reads my blog, so even though I'm typing it on 11/18/12, it won't be published for another week.) I decided to make the gift look a little extra special by printing out a "label" to package the socks, and I made a card to go along with them: Here's a close-up of the label, below. I purchased a pdf collection of knitting-themed printables from Laylock.org , and it includes a bunch of cool things like care tags, note cards, book marks, bookplates, etc. For the notecard, I pulled out a quote from ...

There are UBER spoilers for this movie, so if you want to be surprised, do NOT read on.

Before I start, let me just say this: I am NOT built for San Francisco. I have about five heart attacks just trying to drive through the city. Driving up steep hills makes me fear for my life. While we still made it to the race on time and in one piece, it was still a little panic-inducing when we missed some turns and ended up having to drive all the way across the Golden Gate Bridge and then back. (Oh well, I've really only been across it a couple of times, and it was a beautiful morning to be there.) I was joined by Becca and my friend/leaguemate Amanda for a fun, easy 5k. I've done a Mermaid Series race before - they are totally chill, all-female, and very empowering. They have AWESOME, unique participant shirts and cute finisher necklaces. It would be like if the Nike Women's Marathon offered shorter distances and didn't charge you a week and a half's worth of grocery money. I figured this would be a great way to get myself re-motivated after taking it ea...

I've never tried Illamasqua before, but I've always wanted to - their products seem to lean more "artistic" than "beauty" (and that always gets my attention), and they consistently get good reviews from Temptalia. But I've never known where to start. The Illamasqua Alter Ego Mystery Selection seemed like either a good place to start or a bad one, depending on how much you like to gamble. It's a box of 10 full-sized  products - two of which you know about ahead of time and the rest of which are a grab bag of mystery shades. Now... I'm a bit of a gambler. I used to love buying mystery grab bags from toy stores (especially the Sanrio store, when I was a little kid), so this box seemed like fun, and since I had no idea where to start with this new-to-me brand anyway, I like the idea of them making "suggestions" for me. (It's a great way for me to sample their line, and it's a great way for them to get rid of random stock, ...