Editions of Me

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is more than just a show to me. I will never forget when I FIRST heard about LBD - suddenly, there it was on my Facebook feed. One of my friends from middle school had posted a link and said, "You had me at Bing Lee." What? What IS this? All I could glean was that it was a modernization of my favorite book EVER, Pride and Prejudice , and that it was vlog-style. I knew what the word "vlog" meant, but I had know idea that it was such a THING. Vlogs, to me, were videos posted by rather narcissistic people who were too lazy to actually write blogs or who just didn't have good writing skills. (Yeah, look at me go, Judgey McJudgerson.) I didn't know that it was practically an industry and a genre all on its own, and that web video in general was its own subcategory of entertainment with its own "celebrities" and such. LBD opened my eyes to this whole new world, just when I was needing it most, because regular network tv...

Disclaimer: This product was self-purchased. (Whaaaaatever, FCC. NO company is giving ME anything for free.) What? UD has new eye pencil shades in a new eye pencil set? I am ALL over this. (I am sadly NOT all over this .) Urban Decay's Foxy Four-Way set comes with four double-ended pencils for a total of eight shades - four of which are permanent (Zero, Perversion, Demolition, and Stash), three of which are braaaaand new (Deep End, Delinquent, and Muse), and one limited-availability shade ( Sabbath , which I'm super happy to have a backup of, now, because I LOVE IT). You've seen all the other ones on my blog before, so let's get to the three new colors: Delinquent  is a blackened purple with a lighter purple sparkle. As you'll see in my comparison photo below, it is quite different from the UD shadow pencil of the same name, which is a lighter purple. Both share the same purple sparkle though (which my poor photo-taking skills could not convey) - th...

HM #5 on the year: Badger Cove in Livermore, CA. Accompanying me on this race was my fellow runner friend and NDSJ alum, Sonia, as we slowly made our way through this picturesque and hilly scene. Wisely, I decided we'd take the early hiker start, since I had no idea exactly how hilly it would be, and I thought I might not want to have to push myself when I've just lately been getting back into the groove of things, health-wise. I've had a nagging pain in my leg this past week, and I just didn't want to risk injuring myself on a hilly race and prevent myself from doing well on future races that I actually can run. The beginning of the course looked like the Shire from Lord of the Rings  - beautiful green hills, trees, packed dirt paths (albeit narrow). Eventually the rolling hills turned into something like this: Photo by Sonia ALL the hills were hard, but there were a few that were especially cliff-like, like the one above. And we had to do it TWICE, sinc...

There are new FTC guidelines for bloggers who review products that are provided to them by companies. (Click here for an overview.) Basically anytime bloggers review products that they have received for free, they need to state it upfront and early on. I don't know if you can call what I do reviewing (I guess it is? I mostly do comparisons and swatches), but you should know that I almost never receive stuff for free. (The only time I receive products to review are when I'm writing for Painted Ladies - and I always disclose that in my post, and I only share those reviews on my own blog as a link.) Um, yeah, the (sad) truth is that I buy all my stuff myself, or I receive them as gifts (PERSONAL gifts, like for Christmas) or I review free samples that get tossed into my Sephora bag. No one pays me to do anything, makeup-wise. I'm small potatoes, my friends :) I try to be as objective as I can, although if you know anything about me, you know that I am inclined to love anyt...

I've been officially back on Paleo a week, but I think the more noteworthy point is that I wasn't perfect. And it DIDN'T derail me. I was really good last week from Tuesday through Friday, and then on Saturday and Sunday I had the one-two punch of lunch at a favorite restaurant with one of my favorite friends, followed by a trip to Satura Cakes: The awesomest mom-friendly restaurant ever At least I ordered gluten-free desserts for myself (the mango pudding and the honey praline chocolate cake). And then on Sunday we went to Marin for the day, and when I got home, I was like, MEH and ate Texas Cheese fries and Jolie's leftover cake. And gained back, like, five pounds. Yeah. So far, this isn't unusual. I fall off the wagon often. What IS different is that I got right back on the wagon on Monday. Usually, it'd take me another... oh... couple of months before I get my s*** together again, but I am ON A MISSION right now, and that mission is to...

Every time I look at/read about/see this eye shadow, I immediately get the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' song of the same name stuck in my head. Which is totally cool by me. - UDPP - Sugarpill Chromalust Loose e/s in Hysteric all over the lid - Urban Decay e/s in Naked  to blend out the edges - UD eye pencil in Psychedelic Sister  along the lower lash line, with Hysteric patted on top; a touch of NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Cottage Cheese  on the inner corner - Maybelline The Rocket mascara

So, having recently gone to Florida, I decided that would be a great time to really try out UD's BB cream. I had brought my Missha BB with me as well, but it's actually really thick, and in the Florida heat and humidity, I wanted something thinner, with less coverage. I had a couple deluxe sample tubes of UD's so I used those instead. And you know what? I ended up LOVING it. It definitely didn't provide as much coverage, but sometimes the Missha cream goes on like a foundation and I just don't want that much. The UD cream smooths over my complexion just enough. So, my normal beauty routine with this BB cream has been to moisturize, apply the cream, and then apply some light concealer. (I recently purchased UD's now-discontinued Surreal Skin creamy concealer, and while I still love BeneFit's Boi-ing for heavier coverage, most days, I just want to look a little more... normal. It's too bad that Surreal Skin has been discontinued because it turns out...

I have done back-to-back long races only one other time, and that was back in July when I was in much better shape from marathon training. Also, there was a full week in between (Saturday to Sunday). Today? Second half marathon in LESS than a week. (Ran on Sunday, and today is Saturday.) Oi. Ouch. Owie. ALL THE HURTS. All things considered though, I still finished with my second fastest HM time ever (2:59:04 - hey, I wanted to go under three!). What a difference the climate makes, right? It was still kind of warm for my liking, and I spent a good portion of the race course in direct sunlight, but Florida was just frickin' brutal. I bet if I hadn't run this past Sunday, I'd have done even better today. (I <3 Bay Area running.) The first two miles were probably the worst. It's like every possible thing that could hurt was hurting - my ankle, my knee, my shins, my calves, my quads. "NOOOO STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" screamed my legs. I had to stop br...

- UDPP - All over the lid: Deep End  ( now available as a single! ) - Outer corner: Crave (from Naked Basics ) - Crease: Faint (also now available as a single, but also from Naked Basics) - Browbone: Walk of Shame (from Naked Basics) - Eye pencil in Uzi  along lower lash line - Maybelline The Rocket mascara