I ♥ Makeup

I have a problem. It's a relatively minor problem.in the grand scheme of things. Easily curable.  One of my favorite things to do when I have time AND money is to go to my favorite stores that carry makeup. They ONLY carry makeup. Sometimes, nothing beats getting a new lip gloss or eye shadow color. I've even bought them from my favorite home shopping channel. Sometimes you can't beat the Today's Special Value, ya know! But, it may be out of hand now.....

Hello! I only have TWO eyes. It's all pretty much in the same color scheme. It's like it draws me to it. What's even sadder is that I don't even wear makeup that often. I'm a stay at home mom who survives on t-shirts and jeans with some shorts thrown in for Spring and Summer. The makeup pretty much doesn't come out til around Friday and gets put back up around Sunday night. Some of the powders are fun to dip my lip balm in and I just put a little color on the lips and go. 

Lip gloss is my next favorite thing. Swipe some lip gloss and put on a little mascara and I could pass off as if I care a little about how I look. My lipsticks and lip glosses are also in the same color scheme. I don't venture into uncharted territory when it comes to my lip gloss. I know what looks good and stick with it.  Of course, there is the obligatory lip balm. I hate chapped lips. 

Blushes are the bane of my makeup world. I don't do them very well. I just stick with the same color variation  and hope it turns out okay. I don't have a spending problem when it comes to blush. 

Nail polish is also a sweet spot for me. I love the pinks and  reds all the way to the glittery blues and black. Yes. I said black. During the month of October, what's the harm in a little black nail polish? There's even a glittery green thrown in for fun. Even when my face doesn't have any makeup on, I at least know that my toe nails are the best dressed toe nails around. 

I am not particular to one brand. I take that back. I am partial to one brand, with a few others thrown in. Everything has a place to store it in. Some of the containers are about to overflow. This doesn't even include the finishing powders, acne soap, moisturizers, primers and highlighters. Not to mention the retinol creams, brushes and eye pencils. Concealers and potions all promising to do something that probably won't. 

So, here's to 2011 and derailing my trips to my favorite makeup stores. Here's to using up everything I have, or throwing it away. Whichever comes first.

Leonardo, I Really Want to Like Your Movies...

Recently, Hubby and I saw Inception. It was interesting at first. The whole concept of entering other people's dreams and all was a little fascinating, if not George Orwellian. It jumped around so much it made my head spin. Then came the ending. Are you kidding me? Apparently it took Christopher Nolan* nine years to write this movie and that's the ending I get?

After that movie was over I started thinking about all of the movies that we had seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in them. Granted, we haven't seen all of them, but we've seen a few. 

The last one we saw before Inception was Shutter Island. DiCaprio plays a detective who is investigating the disappearance of a patient. It's set back in the 1950's when psych hospitals were performing lobotomies and doing electro-shock therapy. It's a crazy turn of events and another movie where it's not what you think. A complete and total twist at the end. 

Then we go back ten years to The Beach. A young American goes traveling to Thailand** and he comes across a map that will lead him to a tropical paradise. This was what the trailer portrayed anyway. To get to the tropical paradise you have to cross paths with marijuana farmers who are in possession of AK-47's. They shoot first and ask questions later. Once another "beacher" is attacked by a shark and the colony refuses to get a doctor's help they take him out to the wooded part of this island to die alone so he won't disturb the "happy paradise" they have. Their fear is that if more people find out about it, their paradise will be no more. Paradise is lost when the leader is forced to make a decision that would horrify the entire colony. The paradise seekers are brought back down to earth and decide it's not all its cracked up to be and head home. You think? 

Then, there's Titanic. Seriously, haven't we all broken out in, "I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go."? I felt bad for the guy freezing to death in the water and all, but seriously? Also, I'm a sap. I like for my guy and girl to get together at the end. Tie a pretty bow around it and call it done.

These are all very clever movies in their own right, but sometimes - and every time in Leonardo's case - it is possible to be too clever by half. M. Night Shyamalan shares this same fate with his movies. They both seem to be seeking to make a point, but in the end, the only point they have made is one that leaves a sharp pain in my   arse.

*The Dark Knight

**No thank you!

Christmas Past

Merry Christmas to the ones who have meant the most to me. To the ones who are not here to share in the joy of the coming Christmas. To the ones who are celebrating in new bodies. Free of pain. Free of addiction.

You are missed. You are loved. You touched my life in a way that has never been forgotten. It made me stronger. You helped shape my future and helped me decide what I wanted and what I didn't want. 

Your faith and fortitude is something I can only hope to aspire to. You fought the good fight and made it through some ugly trials. Losing your boys before their time is a parents worst nightmare. You were an amazing woman. 

Your love for this family kept us strong. Your love for the Lord kept you strong. You were faith and love personified. You were an angel walking among us. There are not enough expressions of love to show you. 

Merry Christmas to my dad, my Uncle Ronnie, my Mammaw Sack and Mammaw Porter. You are loved. You are missed. I was lucky to have had you in my life. 

An Expensive Lesson

Hubby learned an expensive lesson recently. He was checking our bank account online and noticed that there was a pending charge on our account. It was almost $200 worth. He asked me if I had bought anything and I told him, "No". We were baffled. We've had our debit cards hacked before and thought it had happened again. 

Of course all of this happened on the weekend so there wasn't much we could do. Hubby did get a hold of the bank before they closed on Saturday, but we couldn't do anything about it until Monday anyway. We could tell that the pending charge was being made by iTunes, so we thought someone was having a hayday and buying all sorts of music on Hubby's card. 

Thank God that iTunes sends an itemized receipt by email listing everything purchased. It wasn't fraud after all. It was our youngest! Hubby's head just about exploded. She had had some fun on Hubby's iPad playing a game online and then purchased a buttload of stuff for her Smurf village. I had no idea that there was that much in Smurf stuff you could buy for a village. 

Hubby used to let the kids play on his iPad and/or iPhone all the time. Especially when he would be working from home on the laptop. Letting the kids play on the iPad would assure that Hubby would be able to get the work done from home. Me, I'm selfish. I don't let anybody that doesn't have a job play with my iPhone or iPad. My kids have American Girl dolls, games, and a  DOG that they can play with. They even have cable. I didn't have cable growing up. The younger kid had even started to recognize the word, "FREE" when it came to downloading new (and stupid) iPad game apps. So, if it didn't say "FREE" it wasn't allowed. 

Now, Hubby doesn't let the girls play on his iPhone or iPad any longer. He no longer has his iTunes set up with his password. He's paying back savings with part of his blow money and the little one's allowance. The older kid did tell us that she tried to tell younger sister that that stuff wasn't free, but younger sister wouldn't listen. She also didn't tell us what the younger was doing. Don't get me wrong, we know it's not older sister's responsibility to take care of the younger. It is our job to know what she is doing on the computer. 

They won't be doing it much in the near future. They have been banned. 

Is Basketball The Only Thing Tall People Are Good For?

Yesterday at church it happened again. On two occasions someone came up to Hubby and asked him how tall he is*. You can almost time how soon it will be when the next question is, "Do you play basketball?" He doesn't like basketball. He tried it. That was good enough.  

Whenever the basketball question comes up I think to myself, if it's good to ask if all tall people play basketball can I start to ask if short people like working for Willy Wonka?

Just sayin....

*6 foot 6 inches for the record. 

My Dark Chocolate Layer Cake

I had let a neighbor borrow my Southern Living cookbook and now it's back in my possession. WOOHOO!! We received an invite to another neighbors house and I offered to make dessert. This time around I chose the Dark Chocolate Layer Cake with White Chocolate frosting. 

The cake mix was from scratch. Some of the ingredients were brown sugar, melted chocolate chips, cocoa powder and buttermilk. I like to throw in sour cream in all of my cakes. It makes it so moist and wonderful. 

All was good and the went into the oven. I had enough batter for two 9 inch pans with a little left over for my mini pan. It took longer for the cakes to bake than the cookbook said, but it was worth it! My oven is only a few years old so I'm not sure where the discrepancy is in the temperature settings. When the toothpicks finally came out clean I had two perfect 9 inch cakes cooling. On to the White Chocolate Frosting. 

The frosting called for cream cheese, butter, melted white chocolate and powdered sugar, with some other items thrown in. The cookbook said this recipe makes three cups. I noticed after I was finished making the frosting that the recipe only makes three cups. I didn't think about that before. I need to forever remember always double their recipes for frosting. You can never have enough frosting!!! 

It came time to stack it and - no problems!! I am on cloud nine. The icing was actually a piece of cake. Pardon the pun. It went on smooth as silk. The only thing different that I did on top was add some shredded milk chocolate. I made this cake two days ahead of time, so I was anxious for our dinner date to try it. 

The neighbors had to cancel because of illness. We had to bare the burden of trying the cake all by ourselves. It was a burden we took on full throttle and relished in it. I gave my girls the first piece and finally got my own. My kids thought it was wonderful. I have to agree with them. It turned out great. The cake was moist. The icing was white chocolate goodness. 

Christmas Home Tour

A few weeks ago some friends of ours mentioned they were going to Waxahachie for the Candlelight Christmas Home Tour. I thought to myself that that would be a fun outing to take my mother in law on for her birthday. No, it's not something that I can wrap in a box, it's not a gift card that requires no thought. It's an experience. Sure enough they liked the idea and we planned to start the day with lunch and then a short road trip. My assumption of these Christmas Home Tours was that a florist or interior decorator came into each home and decorated and put their cards everywhere to take the credit, and the money we paid to visit each home would go to some charity.

We started off the tour by visiting the DeMont/Molitor Home. It's a beautiful home overlooking Lake Waxahachie. It's a massive 5837 square feet. The pool in the backyard was really a lazy river. Let's just put it this way, the outside didn't disappoint but the inside sure did. I was sort of distracted by all of the contemporary furniture and art work from the 80's. Contemporary makes me break out into hives.

DeMont/Molitor Home

The next house on the list was the Patrick Home. This home was built in 1899 and has stayed in the Patrick family ever since. It's a beautiful three story Queen Ann style home. It had a wrap around porch that I wanted to rip off and bring home with me. In the front parlor they had portraits of the original builders. My oldest said it reminded her of the portraits in the movies where the eyes follow you around the room. One of the other people taking the tour asked the twenty something year old granddaughter if she was in line to get the home. She told her, "I'm not sure I want it because there's so much that needs modernizing". I have to admit I was a little paranoid going up the stairs in this home. They were crooked and leaning. A lot. The Christmas decorations were still leaving a little to be desired and I was wondering if we had wasted our time and money. 

Patrick Home

So, we headed to the third home, the Robinson home. The Robinson home was a traditional brick home on a sweet piece of property. It's 3900 square feet of domestic heaven. From the butler's pantry to the cubbies in the mud room, perfect. From the hardwood floors to the brick and stone archways in the kitchen, perfect. It was decked out in Christmas everywhere. It wasn't ostentatious, it was first class the whole way. By far, this was my favorite of the day. 

Robinson Home

Then, last but not least, the Reisner home. This home for me was my second favorite. It was a ranch style home, built by the Gibson family. In each room they had different nativities from all around the world. The homeowners made this one for the kids. There was a certain number of the same nativities they had to find throughout the house and that made it fun for the kids.  

Reisner Home

It chalked up to a fun day trip. Seeing other peoples homes and how they decorate for Christmas. Some of those ideas were even worth stealing!!!

Meet Tucker

We took the plunge! This time with a grown up. He's the sweetest and cuddliest thing I've ever met. He doesn't chew on anything that isn't his. He's a little underweight, but we're trying to remedy that with all of the good stuff we're feeding him. He's a beautiful Golden Retriever. He came from the Golden rescue here in my area. He's two years old and heartworm negative. For some reason he doesn't bark. I think we've only heard him bark maybe 4 times since we've had him. He takes up about half the floor space in our kitchen. 

We named him Tucker. I wanted to put a bow tie around his neck and call him Tucker Carlson. Hubby calls him Tucker McPhearson. What can I say? We're goobers. 

She Insists On Dressing Herself

The teachers at my kids school must think I'm either crazy or dirt poor. I'm not sure which. On most days I'm not sure I care. My youngest has gotten into a phase where she insists on choosing her own clothes every day. On most mornings when we need to be out the door by 7:10am I am not about to go to battle over clothes. 

Today when we left the house it was 45 degrees outside. By the outfit my youngest is wearing you would think it's 85 degrees. Granted it will get up to the 60's today, but it will be a while until then. I at least made sure she had her puffy coat on. She liked it at the time she tried it on, but of course, she doesn't like it anymore*. 

So, dear sweet teachers: trust me. I keep hoping that she will learn a lesson and dress a little more warmly. She is a very opinionated little blessing from God. I'm not going to die on the battlefield of dress code until she tries to leave my house looking like a two bit tramp. 

* I think I liked her a little better before she could express so many opinions. She changes her mind constantly and it drives me batsh*t crazy. 

American Girl

American Girls aren't cheap! Wait a minute, some might be, but not the dolls for heavens sake. The dolls are about as high maintenance as a real, live girl! There's clothes, furniture, books and even a doll hair salon at the American Girl store. 

I thought it would be fun to kick off the Thanksgiving break by taking my girls to the American Girl store and letting them choose a new hairstyle for their doll. I gave them a budget of $15 per doll. I think I was possibly even more excited about this little outing that my girls were. 

We went walking around the Galleria while waiting for the dolls to get done. I wanted to get back to the salon in time to actually see the dolls getting their hair done. We were late getting back so we missed the actual hair styling. They were just waiting for us in a special little cubby that they use to hold the dolls in. My girls loved the hairstyles they had chosen. 

It was my hope that this new hairstyle would last at least a month. I made that clear to my girls as well. I thought that was very reasonable. Apparently, it wasn't. My oldest came to me the NEXT DAY and asked if she could take her dolls hair down. I thought if either of them would have done this it was surely going to be my youngest. 

After I picked my jaw up off of the ground I told her, "If that's what you really want to do." I did add that I wasn't about to pay for another hairstyle. I explained that she would have to save up the money for the next one*. So down came the hair and pretty ribbons. I was crushed, but tried to hide it as much as I could. 

Chalk another lesson up to motherhood. 

*Ha! That won't be happening anytime soon. 

All I Wanted

I was REALLY looking forward to the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was going to be a great day of family pictures. We haven't done any in a couple of years and I was excited. The kids had grown and changed so much since the last pictures that I wanted to document it. I had booked the appointment and we were set to go! 

Until the Tuesday before. I had first decided we would wear jeans with red tops. My Hubby already has a couple of red shirts that he looks great in. It's really his color! I would go out and conquer the children's apparel world and find a red top for each of them. Then it would come down to me. But, then I figured I'd have to go and buy a pair of shoes, just in case there's a picture that captures a full length me with the family.

. If you look at my closet you would think that only athletic shoes or flip flops exist. With my personal budget the way it was, I changed the color of the tops to blue. I couldn't buy shoes AND a new top. Just wasn't happening. I have an awesomely fun top that's navy blue that I could belt and just have to worry about finding a pair of shoes. 

With the girls at school I dragged my Hubby out for a day of shoe shopping*. We attempted Nordstrom first. I found a couple of pairs, but the insane price tag made it impossible. I'm sure it was a fabulous shoe, but the $200 price tag made it a little bit out of reach. I wasn't crushed just yet. 

We headed to Marmi. It's a great little shoe store that I can find something in my size and my budget. I have two pairs of boots that I bought from there about eight years ago. I still have them and they look great with skirts.  My search there was hindered because the pairs that they had in my size were just not screaming out my name. Discouragement was about to set in. 

Next place to hit up, Macy's. I had three pairs of shoes in my hand that I wanted to try. The salesman had his trusty little scanner in hand to see if they were in my size. Hell no. It was too much to hope that he would have offered to see what he DID have in my size. We walked out. Looking at my watch to see how we were doing on time I figured we had enough time to hit up Dillards. 

We got to Dillards and found a few pairs. They were those types of shoes that have European sizing. One was a little on the small size in the toes, the next one up too big in the heel. It doesn't help that I have an orthotic insert for my heel spur**. It was just one of those days that hopes were getting dashed right and left. 

Feeling defeated, we headed home. It was just about time to get the kids from school anyway. With no new shoes in hand, I did the only thing I could do. I cancelled the photo session. Over lack of shoes. 

I guess there's always the Spring when I can try and choose between which flip flops to wear. 

*He loves me, what can I say?

**Imagine someone stabbing you with a very sharp knife in your heel constantly.