Editions of Me

I chaperoned. I wanted to dress up, but didn't want to look like a student. I don't know, did I succeed? Eyes - UDPP - Sugarpill Chromalust loose shadow in Tiara  all over the lid - Urban Decay e/s  Gunmetal  in the crease and a little in the outer corner - Urban Decay e/s  Venus  (from Naked Basics) to blend out/highlight - NYX Roll-On Eye Shimmer in Platinum  dabbed onto the center of the lid (p - Stila Stay All Day liquid liner in black along the upper lash line - Urban Decay eye pencil in Mushroom  along the lower lash line, topped with Mushroom  e/s - Maybelline The Rocket mascara Lips Funny thing - I had initially put on OCC Lip Tar in Super NSFW  and then changed my mind, but of course, if you know OCC Lip Tar, you know that one does not simply wipe off OCC Lip Tar with a tissue . So I had some bright red residue still on my lips, and then I put on Urban Decay lipstick in Buzzkill , which resulted in the lip look yo...

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I've been selected as a  See Jane Run  Ambassador for 2013-2014. I'm a particular fan of their race series, and now I officially get to represent them! Keep an eye out for my SJR blog posts, which will be tagged "See Jane Run," as well as my tweets , which will be tagged #seejanerun.  I am stoked to help support a brand that does so much to empower female runners. See you on the starting line, Janes!

Checking in: - Down two pounds, for a total of eleven pounds down. It was weird, I weighed myself every day this week, and it was exactly the same for five days. Then I didn't weigh myself Saturday or Sunday, and weighed myself this morning, and was down two pounds all of a sudden. The moral of this story is that I lose more weight when I'm not weighing myself? Bodies are funny things. - I didn't really plan out my meals this week, as compared to last week, and luckily, I managed okay. I didn't like not having a plan (just didn't get around to making one), but I'm now glad to know that I can get by without one as well. I will go back to meal planning this week. - Workouts were hard this week, but I can feel some improvement. I was able to keep a slightly faster pace on my weekday runs than the week before, but Saturday's long run was torturous - I think because I went to CrossFit the night before, and didn't get enough rest. (Normally I run on Sund...

Okay - I got a chance to swatch the new UD pencils I got against ones I already have (current and discontinued), and some of the results were surprising! UD has other greens, of course, but I didn't even bother swatching them because they were nowhere near the same sort of green as Freak. Graffiti is the closest one and it's not even close. Goldmine is really similar to Eldorado, but Goldmine is more yellow with a hint of sparkle, while Eldorado is more metallic. None of the other ones come close. (Honey is still my favorite though.) I thought Invasion would look like Mainline, but it's definitely blacker and greener. It looks like the base for LSD, but again, greener. I thought Scorch would be the easiest to match. Baked is pretty similar, but Scorch is more brown than Baked is. It's probably similar enough that you don't need both. All the other browns are definite browns, and you saw all the other golds above. I decided to put Vice and Ether i...

Just some preliminary swatching. This isn't all of them - there are 13 new colors and I've managed to procure 7: Vice, Ether, Invasion, Freak, Goldmine, Scorch, and Roach. (A bunch of us split a Vault.) First thoughts: - Invasion looks like Mainline, but darker? - Freak looks FABULOUS. OMG. - Goldmine reminds me of Belle from Beauty and the Beast :) - Scorch looks like other colors they have already - Ether looks really, really interesting. I had to really build it up to get it that dark. A couple passes of it was still a pretty pale gray (but really interesting with the purple sparkle!) Comparison swatches forthcoming.

So, I've just completed one full week of my second Whole30. Here's what I can report: - I'm down 9 pounds - I'm waking up less during the night - I have more energy, especially at the end of the day - no more afternoon DEAD feeling - Didn't really have any stomach aches this week - Muscles are recovering more quickly from difficult workouts (and believe me, I had some really hard ones last week) - My complexion is improving - not that I had a lot of skin issues to begin with, but my skin looks and feels better, probably because... - ... I'm drinking more water. Since soda is no longer an option, and I'm not drinking juice either, AND I recently got a new Contigo water bottle (that keeps my water cold all day), I am much better hydrated than before when I was chugging down Coke like no one's business. - I never feel like I'm not eating enough. You could argue that these are anecdotal, sure. Maybe a person who eats healthy on the Standard...

Despite my face, I actually had a great workout. I've been doing a lot of reading lately, about working out and diets and weight loss. Some good , and some aggravating as f*** . (Here are some   more things .) Look, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a trainer, or a coach, or an elite athlete, or a doctor or anyone whose opinion is really worth anything, so you can feel free to take it with a grain of salt. BUT... I've been on this road a fairly long time. I was forced onto this "BE LESS FAT" road as a little girl, I've been conditioned by society that this is a goal that I should have, and I've tried almost everything possible that isn't life-threatening or requires surgery. (Which is not to say that everything I've tried has been healthy or safe.) And I've learned a few things about this process. - Eat clean . If you think of your body as a complex machine with many functioning parts (which it basically is, right?) then you need to mak...

I know I should not be reading comments, but seriously: http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/2013/04/17/steady-state-cardio-thyroid-killer/ (Note: I am not taking issue with the blog post itself, but rather, a couple comments that some people left on the blog post.) You do NOT get into distance training and distance events TO LOSE WEIGHT. Training for a triathlon or a marathon requires serious amounts of calories to fuel you properly. Working out more (and more intensely) demands proper nutrition to support it. 1200 calories a day is not going to get you through a 20-miler, sweetheart. You will either fail at losing weight or fail at achieving your training goal, so pick one or the other to focus on for now. There will always be time for the other one later. I thought this was common knowledge? I am in general agreement that slogging in endless hours on the treadmill really doesn't help you lose weight. I am down with that theory. I am not disagreeing with what Melissa Joulwa...

I feel like I must say this all the time on my blog, but I am going back on Paleo, after weeks of eating junk. But this time, I'm doing a full Whole30 reset - going back to super strict guidelines. I know it will kind of suck, because my Paleo normally includes dark chocolate and agave, but what I really need is to do a full clean-up of my diet. When I did Whole30 the first time, I kept it up for 8 weeks before I had a gallstone attack and was then too sick/tired to deal with it. So right now, I'm gearing up for my reset - I am combing through all the recipes I've amassed, I plan to make actual meal plans, etc, etc. One of the big reasons why I fall off the wagon is that I will be really tired when I get home at the end of the day, and maybe my fridge will happen to be on the empty side, and instead of making a trip to the store and cooking a full meal, it is just so much easier to go pick up some pho or something. I need to plan ahead, keeping in mind that I have a bu...

The lesson of the day is "mental toughness." So, I've never driven to Santa Cruz by myself. I think someone must have told me a long time ago, when I was first learning how to drive and venturing outside of my little corner of the South Bay, that the drive to Santa Cruz was winding and tricky, and accidents happen easily because 17 is winding and people take the turns too fast, etc. So ever since then, I've avoided driving myself down there. Which hasn't been a big deal - I rarely have cause to visit, and the couple of times I've gone, other people have driven. Over time, it got built up in my head to be this huge THING. Like traveling to Mordor or something. (Yes, I am more than a little ridiculous.) But I really wanted to do this race. My grand plan was to have Jimmy drive me, because he is an excellent driver, but at the last minute, I changed my mind, because I didn't want to drag him out to the race and make him wait three hours for me all by ...

She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.  - The Great Gatsby I've decided that I want to be someone who carries my surplus flesh sensuously. I'm going to work on that.