Friday, June 29, 2012

New Shoes!!

I am literally standing up while typing as I am running out the door, but I just couldn't hold it in:

New shoes, new shoes, new shoes!!!

Look! SO cute!!




More later. Loveyoubye!!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

New Toys!!

Awhile ago, I read an article about environmentally friendly nail polish and came across Julep.

Emma, Taylor, Sandra, January, Maggie
Julep is a company based out of Seattle, so it stuck out to me as Seattle is very close to my heart. Julep Nail Color is “4-free” and does not contain formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, toluene, or DBP. Their website is chock full of fun fashiony things and have lots of tutorials on fun things to do with nail polish. I absolutely love their website.

I also follow them on Pinterest.

The only issue I have is that it’s $14.00 for a 0.27oz bottle of nail polish. I usually spend $8 -8.50 on a bottle of O.P.I. (0.5oz) or Essie (0.46oz) at the grocery store or beauty supply, so $14.00 seems a little steep to me.

If you join their mailing list, you can be a Julep Maven. I got an email last week that I could order a mystery box and get between $60.00 and $120.00 worth of product for $20.00. That seemed like a pretty awesome deal (like, DUH), and I hadn’t used any of their products and I wanted to support a North American company so I took advantage of the deal and ordered a mystery box.

I.Could. Not. Wait. I was so excited to see what I would get. It’s so fun getting presents in the mail!

I got my box this week and eagerly opened it.

Looks like I got my money’s worth, eh?

The five bottles of nail colour alone are worth $98.00. Not bad for 20 bucks.

I haven’t tried everything yet, but I did my nails yesterday – colour only – no base coat or topcoat or anything and I am in love. The periwinkle colour is my favourite and it’s not something that I would have thought to buy on my own. The red is the perfect classic red, and I don’t have one of those. The consistency of the paint is thick enough that you could almost get away with one coat on all of the colours – even the grape purple colour. The polish is shiny enough that a topcoat is not necessary, but I suspect that it will look even better with the topcoat. The brush in the bottle is wide and the polish spreads evenly when you paint it on.

Maggie, January, Sandra, Taylor, Emma

As mentioned earlier, my only concern is the cost - $14.00 plus shipping = not my cup of tea – but I will definitely take advantage of all future deals and I totally recommend this product.

I give this a 9 out of 10 fingers score.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Weight - under 160!

White jeans - Canadian tuxedo
Yesterday I weighed in at 159.6 and today was 159.4. I am completely wowed.

Here's what I've been doing:


  • Last week I vowed to stay away from fast food. Since last Friday, I have had no fast food.
  • I am on vacation, and therefore am not making my daily 7-11 run for 34 oz of soda.
  • Dewey has had me jumping with him on the trampoline.
  • I have not been sitting at a desk all day, but running up and down the stairs cleaning various areas, doing laundry and ironing.
  • My period is ending.
  • I have been eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner thus not bingeing on a burger in the middle of the day and then feeling so gross about myself that I don't eat anything for dinner. I have also been eating at home, so I'm sure that my sodium intake is at least half of what it normally is.
  • It's summer, it's so hot. I normally lose weight in the summer because it's so hot all I want to do is drink water and eat fruit and vegetables, which is what I've been doing the last few days.
Here is my Canadian tuxedo. I've also heard it called a Texas tuxedo, but I'm Canadian, so I'm going with that. A Canadian tuxedo is denim with denim. Normally, I abhor such behaviour, but I thought I could get away with it by wearing different types of denim - like the above white jeans with a jean jacket. Not so, according to canadiantuxedo.com, but whatever. You will not catch me DEAD wearing blue jeans with a blue jean jacket or denim shirt.

Stone Necklace
This necklace was bought for me by my DH and my son Huey at the Pioneer Day weekend in Emery, UT. I very much like it, it's kind of rock star, yet I will wear it with a blouse in place of pearls. It's another one of my favourite accessories. 


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Nana's ring

Nana's Ring
I'm not much of an accessory person. I don't have accessories for every outfit, I mostly have accessories that I wear every day. I have some favourites that I change around when the mood suits me.

This may seem weird for a girl from the eighties who had coordinating plastic earrings, rubber bracelets, slouchy socks and headbands for every occassion, but thankfully those days are gone. I dress by 'feel' more than anything else.

This is my Nana's ring. I wear it just about every day.

In the first year of my marriage, my dad brought my Nana for a visit here in Salt Lake City. When she first arrived, she was wearing this oval shaped tribal looking silver ring. I loved it. "Nana, I LOVE your ring!" I exclaimed. She told me how she and my baby sister were shopping in Steveston and she had convinced my Nana to buy it.

Later that week, we were at the Scottish festival. We were sitting up on a hill looking down where the Tatoo was being performed. The weather was beautiful. A storm was rolling in, but there was a soft breeze and the temperature was perfectly mild. As the pipes were playing and the men in kilts were bringing in the flags (the Canadian flag was one of them), she took her ring off her finger, pressed it into my hand, looked up into my eyes, and said, "I want you to have this."

I have always felt like that ring held a piece of my Nana. Every time I would put it on, I would think of the moment that she gave it to me. Now she is gone, I wear it every day not only as a reminder of her, but also to remind me the things she taught me about being a lady. I use the word 'taught' loosely - drilled into my brain is a more accurate description, but to this day I am grateful for the things she taught me about what is proper and how to be a lady with class.

Monday, June 4, 2012

A brief history of short hair

I have had my hair uber short three times in my life:

When I was in Grade Eight I had a tail. Over the summer, I decided to have the back shaved in steps and keep the tail. The front was long and bleached out from the sun, and my mum had let me use some of the leftover bleach from her “Frost ‘n’ Tips” to bleach out my tail.

The summer going into Grade Nine was the first time I had super short hair. I remember my mum telling me “your dad’s gonna hate it”. She was right. He wanted me to “look more feminine”. I didn’t care. It was the first time my hair ever looked edgy and cool.

In 1995, after my mission, but before I got married, I had a horrible self-inflicted experience with hair dye. I may or may not have blogged about it recently. A haircut actually fixed the dye issue, but once the re-growth had become long enough, I decided on a little-boy haircut and had it all cut off. What freedom! It took me less than 10 minutes to get ready for work in the morning (from jammies to shutting the front door). I loved it.

I met my husband via email shortly after cutting my hair all off. Because we met through writing, when we were planning on meeting face-to-face, we had to describe ourselves to each other. This is what I said in regards to my hair: “I have short hair, like, REALLY short. Like a missionary hair-cut – the Elder kind.” *the boy missionaries that have really short conservative haircuts are called Elder Lastname or referred to as “the Elders”. The girl missionaries are Sister Lastname, or “the Sisters”.

Now just recently, I have cut my hair all off. The reasons being 1) too look more edgy and cool, and 2) to cut off my old colour.

Each time I have had short hair I have love, love, loved it, but I always end up growing it back out. The fun of growing your hair out from a short cut is that you get to have a new and different hairstyle every two months. While I am looking forward to that adventure, I am actually thinking that I might keep it short short for a while as everyone in my family HATES it.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Weigh In for June


Still the same. No change. Not surprising as I have continued to do nothing to encourage my weight loss with the exception of ridding myself of my hair.

Having seen a teeny tiny result in giving up fast food for Lent, I have vowed to give up fast food for the summer. Hopefully with having it be a longer period of time, I will see more results.

I still haven’t walked the treadmill while I watch TV. “Dancing with the Stars” is done; “The Good Wife” and “The New Girl” is on hiatus; I have to pay attention during “Mad Men”, so I can’t walk the treadmill with that show on; and “Pretty Little Liars” and “Parenthood” haven’t started yet. Can I moan “there’s nothing goooooood onnnnnnn!” Please?

I could walk the dog, you know. He would be SO thankful.

I am going to be on vacation next week and I’m not going anywhere. (sigh, I had planned on a trip to Vancouver, but I’m not going – unless I decide to run away tonight, it's still up in the air)

I am going to use the time off to regroup, clean the house, read something, watch a movie, walk the dog, focus on my goals, and maybe paint a bathroom or two.

We’ll see, the last two times I was on vacation, I had all these delusions of grandeur and by the time my vacation was over I felt like all I had done was dishes and laundry, and that’s all I get done on a regular day. I also had the added lovely bonus of breaking my husband’s hand on my last vacation. Good, good times.