The Calm Before The Storm

I have a few different things to share with you about my weekend, but before I do I wanted to show you a quick hair re-do I did at work. On my break, I sent this picture to Denise to show her that I had one of those really thick eyeliner days, where you plan to do a thin line but it just keeps getting thicker and thicker? I also was having a bad hair day and so we laughed about bringing the bump back. Before I ended my break, I realized how bad my hair really looked when I hit up the ladies' room. I took my hair down (and made sure to use take a funny picture for Denise, cause, duh, and then used my monitor to fix it. I think it came out alright, don't you?  

I'm about to spend five nights away from my son and to say I'm freaking out about it is an absolute understatement. It's going to be very difficult for me. While in LA, I'll be really busy so I'm hoping the days just fly by. The nights will be the hardest. :(

Saturday we had some special Momma/Shepherd time at the park. We had a great time exploring and we didn't have any accidents with ducks - so that was great! There was one moment where Shepherd tried to grab duck poop but I caught him in time. Boys are so gross.

(You can't see it but he raised his hand at the end. :)

Yesterday, we had a low key morning, where I focused mostly on playing with Shepherd and reading a book for school. Denise was in town, so we got together for a few hours. We ran a few errands and then picked up the boys to go over to my Mom and Larry's house to swim! Denise had to leave early but we stayed for dinner. It was a great time just hanging out with Larry in the backyard. My Mom is in the Azores right now she missed out on the fun. :)

Although I'll be gone this weekend, I have some posts lined up so you won't miss me too bad. Also, I'm going to be tweeting, so make sure to follow me on Twitter, @meganlauriana. I'll be tweeting about what I'm dealing with at school and also all the many times I make a fool out of myself. You can enjoy my awkward from afar. 

Hope you have a great week!

Ipsy Glam Bag: July 2014 - First Impression, Value and Swatches!

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I received my July Ipsy Glam Bag! The theme this month is Sensationally Sunkissed! Let's review the items and the value!

The color of this bag is very cute, but the overall style and feel isn't my jam. The inside is felt which, to me, isn't great for cleaning. Oh well!

It was a very cyclical bag! The variety was great, a little skin care, a little beauty. All in all, great range. Let's get into the actual product.

What: Hang Ten Dark Tanning Oil with Natural Sunscreen SPF 08 (Sample, 1 fl oz)

Value: $1.50

Verdict: I liked the feeling of this. It left you slightly tacky - not exactly slimy or sticky, just slightly tacky, which I think is great for a natural oil. I used a dry oil at my Mom's house on the fourth of July and I REALLY liked it, but it definitely wasn't all natural. I cannot wait to give this stuff a try!

What: Nailtini Straight Up Color in Mango Rita (Full Size, .05oz)
Value: $13.00
Verdict: This is such a pretty color! I love it! It claims to be opaque in two coats and it is. My nails are painted at the moment but Bryan let me swatch it on his nail (what a guy!) and it's beautiful. I'm refreshing my mani this weekend and will be using this color. I love it!

What: Elizabeth Mott Tints & Sass Lip + Cheek Stain in Cherry (Full Size, .35oz)

Value: $22.99

Verdict: I don't know why but I was not expecting this to come out so..... jelly-ish? Not jelly. But... Watery but with a glossy finish? It's so strange. But the color is really pretty. I'm not sure I would pick cherry to put on my cheeks, but it blends out fairly well and maybe it would be a good base to ensure a powder blush stays all day. It's definitely a pretty color on the lips, although again the consistency throws me off. It is slightly sticky and my lips have been a bit chapped from being sick and it kind of burned when I put it on, which hasn't been the case with other lip glosses I've used on aggravated lips. It says a bit tacky on the cheeks as well, which I don't necessarily like, it can make powder a tad clumpy. I'm going to keep playing around with this and see. I expect much more for the price, for sure.

What: Clear Clinic Laboratories Vanished Clear Spot Treatment (Sample, 2mL)

Value: $9.32

Verdict: I am stressed TO THE MAX. So, I have the spots...you know? And I've used this and while it didn't make them go away, it sped up the process of the spot. Spots that were under the skin and didn't have a head all of a sudden did. I'm going to keep using it and see what happens but color me intrigued. 

Let's not forget this little guy!

What: BareMinerals 5n1 BB Cream Eyeshadow in Divine Wine (Sample, .03oz)
Value: $5.40
Verdict: I swatched this and I liked the consistency. I let it set, rubbed it and it stayed put. I let it on my hand and there was minimal fade over time. I haven't worn it on my eyes yet because I've been sick and I tend not to do my make-up when I'm ill. I can't speak for the anti-aging or brightening claims but I will say that this color isn't something I would wear on a normal basis, but will be a good base for other looks. I would definitely consider this to be great for a one shadow make-up look...if it was in a more wearable color!

Below is a swatch of the BareMinerals eyeshadow and the Elizabeth Mott lip and cheek stain. The stain had two swipes then was blended out.

Paid: $10
Overall Value: $52.21

Overall, this was a great bag! I'm happy with the items and I think Ipsy did a great job!

Lunch Life Hack: Taylor Farms Salad Kits

I'm blogging on my lunch hour because I was sick all weekend and I didn't feel up to doing anything, not even being on the computer.

I am still sick and toughing it out a work. I just don't have anything creative to say, but I do have something to share with you that you may or may not care about.

I'm back on that crazy train of weight-loss and I find myself constantly wondering what to eat. I have simple criteria.

It must:
1. Taste delicious.
2. Be easy.
3. Be healthy.

The hardest criteria to satisfy on this list is taste delicious. We all know that healthy food tends to taste.... boring. I get really, really bored of the same ol' healthy meals because it's a lot of the same thing; salad, a few ounces of chicken, a tiny bit of dressing. BO-RING.

While I was in Hawaii, our family friend Tammy turned me on to the Taylor Farms salads. They have a bunch of different products, but specifically, she said that their salad kits were so good and she especially loved the Asian and the Southwest versions.

If you know anything about me you know that my TWO FAVORITE SALADS IN THE WHOLE WORLD (for the past two and a half years) have been these two varieties. I made sure to buy both at the closest Walmart in Hawaii and I loved them both.

I ran to get a few items from our local IGA grocery store which is more expensive that Walmart but is closer to our house and I definitely have a much smaller chance of getting accosted by a weird drug-peddling homeless person there than Walmart. Sooo... yeah. As I was perusing the veggie aisle, HARK! I see the Taylor Farms logo and my beloved salads.

HOW STOKED WAS I? SO STOKED.

They were listed at $3.99 which I thought was a steal from having purchased them previously only at Walmart...IN HAWAII. Where everything is ridiculously expensive.

Saturday night, I had the Southwest version for dinner with about 2 ounces of chicken cut up really small and then finished it last night for dinner with another 2 ounces. I didn't think to look at the nutritional value of the Southwest version last night because I didn't know I would be blogging this today.

I just had the Asian version for lunch (no chicken) and will scarf the rest tomorrow for lunch. I didn't make any chicken so I just had a string cheese for protein. The nutritional facts on the back said that without dressing one and a half cups is about 100 calories and with dressing it's about 160 calories. When I eat the salad as a full meal, I usually just half the bag. However, these (with a 3ish ounce chicken breast and a bit of pasta salad) fed my father in law Rick, Bryan and I in Hawaii comfortably, so you could probably get three meals out of it, especially if you have a good protein.

For me, $3.99 for two meals is great. $3.99 for three meals is even better! (That's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving you one day to meet friends for lunch and splurge on a hamburger from Mike's Grill [a local joint that is amazing] or wherever you choose and one day to bring leftovers from home. Uh, no brainer.)

I love these salads. They taste so fresh and the dressings are delicious. If you are looking for an easy, cheap, "prepared" lunch for work I recommend these. They are the bees knees.

Also, two or three of the same variety of these packs would make a decent sized potluck side dish!

Happy Monday!



*Pssst - Taylor Farms doesn't know me and no one paid me a dime to write this. Just sharing a yummy salad with you. Pinky promise.

Enjoy Your Life

One thing that I have been trying to do more of is enjoying my life even though there are circumstances in my life that aren't ideal or are faaaaaar from perfect.

One of those things is being in pictures, taking pictures, being in video - even though I am fat. Even though on most days I hate the way I look.

I know that I am on a journey to change it. I'm slowly making progress to be healthier and get this extra baggage off of me, but in the meantime, I don't want to miss out on memories because I am shying away from the camera or hiding behind it.

I regularly take pictures but never post them because I don't like the way I look. Here is one I sent to Denise last week because I loved my natural make-up, my matte lipstick and my super tan skin.

This one of Bryan and I in Hawaii:

Before Hawaii, went I went blonde:

A crazy face I sent to Denise to brighten her day:

Yet another picture I sent to Denise because I felt bold enough to give orange eye-shadow a try!

Again, another picture to Denise, because I loved I felt beautiful and wanted someone to see it.

(Denise, I send you waaaay too many pictures of my make-up!) I loved my eye look this day, so I sent this over to Denise to brag about my skillz. ;)

These are pictures I never posted, never shared because I'm self-conscious. Even though those days I felt good enough to show Denise my make-up I didn't want to post them because they are bad angles or because I look fat.

Oh-freaking-well. This is me. A work in progress.

Feel good about yourself today. Share a picture you never shared before. Send a selfie to a best friend just because you feel good and you want someone to know it! Heck, send it to me!

Enjoy your life and live it well, in all stages, at all weights. This is the only one we have!

xoxo.

Freedom Rings

We celebrated the Fourth over at my Mom and Larry's house this year. We just BBQ, swim and hangout. Alison made a strawberry pizza and I helped her out:

Don't mind that I look like crap and am slightly blurry. My mom took the photo without her glasses on and also, I looked like crap. I was still jacked up from locking Shepherd in the car. It was a rough night for me and generally a restless night. As soon as I walked in Alison handed me some tequila and limeade and said "drink." It was needed. 

Before Shepherd's second nap of the day, we played in the pool. He loves the water. 

Larry BBQ'd a bunch of food and we ate chips and seven layer dip, it was perfect. 

Then, Alison and I had a handstand contest, with my mom, my niece, Alison's husband Mark being the judges. We had such a great time trying to do the handstands that we would do all summer long when we were kids. We also used to flip our hair over our head to make George Washington wigs - so we taught my niece to do the same! Such a nostalgic moment. 

Later on that evening, we did the fireworks! 

Shepherd LOVED the fireworks, even though he had a low fever he was still so into it. As soon as the show was over he was out. Poor guy. 

The whole day was just so much fun. I enjoyed every moment of it! 

June Brain Dump

I know I've posted really sporadically the past month. I've been really kind of busy. There is a reason that many of my profile descriptions say "inconsistent blogger". Cause that's the truth, yo. From all of my "how to make millions off your blog" web searches, I've realized that inconsistent blogging is not congruent with any type of money making. Go figure. Guess I'll have to find another way to make that money. Oh well.

I just looked and I ssw that I blogged a whole two times in June! Sporadically is not the word I should have used.

Anyways, I wanted to updated you on where I am in life.

Most of you know that for most of the month of June, I was in Hawaii.

That is not a bad place to have a cup o' joe in the morning, amiright? Man. It was beautiful. 

The trip itself was kind of all over the place and I wasn't able to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do which is a bummer. However, we have some family that was stationed in Japan for the past few years and now they are in Hawaii. We plan to visit them as soon as possible because we've missed them like crazy! Hopefully I'll get to do some of the things we weren't able to when we go back. 

While in Hawaii, I paid for the first half of my schooling! I am so, immensely terrified and really excited. Mostly terrified though. Now comes the hard part - homework! I haven't been in school in almost 10 years. It's really scary to step into that role again. I keep thinking, what if I fail? What if I'm no where near smart enough to do this job? I have to keep reminding myself that the whole point of going through this program is to learn how to be a CBO. They don't expect me to know everything, yet. Duh. 

I received my first homework assignment and that is to read the book by Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership. I didn't even need to read the description to get excited! I also have to write a one page paper in the next few weeks and plan for CBO boot camp later this month. Whew. Things are about to get real! 

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On the mommyhood side, Shepherd is in such an amazing phase! He signs all done, more/again and please. He says up, hi, mama, dada, papa, nana (banana), kiss, hat, ball and blows kisses and waves to everyone he meets! He loves people, so much so that he reaches out and grabs them any time he can. Shepherd loves to dance, loves when I dance and/or sing, eats pretty well most of the time and is generally the cutest kid ever.

He has a bit of a cold right now and we were fighting a fever, which was not fun, but yesterday he was laughing, playing and generally just driving us nuts which was great! 

We had taken a bit of a break from cloth diapering, mostly because Bryan is the SAHP and I thought it would be easier on him to keep that off his plate but we are back on the grind. On Sunday, Bryan installed a sprayer on the toilet to easily deal with the "number twos" and I taught him how to wash everything.

I'm excited to get back into it because it is SUCH a money saver. We are working on setting up our office which will include putting together my sewing machine table and finally taking the actual machine out of the box... I've had it for almost two years and the box is still sealed. Bad. I told Bryan the first project I'm doing is some flannel wipes. I am just a strong believer that if you do cloth dipes, you have to do cloth wipes.

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My sister Alison and her family came into town for the weekend and we had a blast together. I always keep my schedule really loose when she's here so that I can get as much time as possible with her. We ended up spending a grip of time together and I was stoked. We get a long so well, it's great.

On Thursday, she invited us over to witness my nieces baptism; it was a very special moment. Bryan was in Bakersfield for work, so it was just me and Shepherd. When it was time to leave, I put Shepherd in his car seat and turned on the remote start. I was having trouble with the strap so I called my brother in law, Adam over. When he fixed it, he shut the door which happened to be locked. The keys also happened to be inside. As well as my purse and my cell phone.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So my sisters and I start touching every door in hopes that we can get in. Alison's sister-in-law's husband tried to call his AAA to get roadside assistance and I asked my sister to call my step mom to see about my insurances roadside assistance. Then, I asked for Alison's father in law to get something heavy to break the window. Alison's sister-in-law called a friend of theirs who is a firefighter. About 5 minutes before he got there to open the car, the remote start shut off. The clock was now ticking as to how long Shepherd could be in there. It was after eight o'clock, so luckily it was cooler in the day, but it was still much too hot for him to be in there long.

The firefighter, Logan got there and tried to use a wedge to unlock the doors, once on the driver side and once on the passenger side, but because of the remote start and the anti-theft system, the buttons wouldn't unlock the doors from the inside. Logan ended up breaking the window (which I did not care about in the least, obviously) and I got Shepherd out of the car.

This is the condensed, less emotional, less f-bomby version of events, but everything ended well. Shepherd is fine. I am fine, although I have some more gray hair, for sure.

My point in relaying my story is not only to remind myself of my own stupidity, but to acknowledge that parents make mistake. This is the second time that I and the remote start function on my car worked together to lock my son in the car. It is my fault, through and through. I got lucky both times that I was surrounded my family to help me. But if I had been somewhere alone, I would have had to run to the nearest place to call the police to get my son out of the car. It could have taken a very, very long time.

Be careful. Be aware. If you don't have pockets, throw your keys into your bra instead of setting them down. Hell, drop the on the floor. Be vigilant. Most importantly, don't be like me. Have a key hidden somewhere on your car. Who cares if your car gets stolen. That is what insurance is for. For me, it's more important for me to be able to get into my car than to keep others out of my car. Also, give a key to a neighbor or friend, someone reliable that can get to you fast more often than not.

If you've locked a child in the car, you know how it feels. You are right there, unable to get in. It's literally the worst thing, being so close and not able to do anything about it. You're not a bad parent. It happens to a lot of people. Just do better the next time. Get your kid out as fast as possible by any means necessary.

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In Hawaii, I took off my Fitbit. I was on vacation and didn't want to worry about ruining it in the ocean. As I type, it's charging and I'll be back on my Fitbit + Jillian Michaels game as of tomorrow. My new goal is to lose 15 pounds by August 30! That means lots of movement, structured meals and thoughtful snacking.

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I went really blonde before Hawaii and I love it! My hair is definitely damaged though so I've been trying to take it really easy this summer. Deep hair conditioning masks, letting it air dry as often as possible, leaving it straight instead of curling it. Bleached hair is delicate hair so you've gotta be really diligent about taking care of it, but overall, I love it. 

That's all folks! It's good to be back. I hope you are having an amazing summer and as always, thanks for sticking around.

Books: Is Gone Girl Worth Reading?

I had the pleasure of reading four different books on my vacation, which I call a win. However, I read all of those books within the first week because we literally did nothing but wait for the rest of our people to arrive so that we didn't experience anything without them. 

In hindsight this was a bad plan.

However, much reading ensued. 

I picked up Gone Girl because I read a quick review by The Hollywood Housewife about it and was intrigued enough to give it a go.

I will follow her lead and tell you absolutely nothing about the book itself because it truly is best to not know one single thing about it before you go into reading it.

What I will talk about is how it made me feel.

I got into the book very quickly. I couldn't put it down. I was reading it everywhere. Any time I could sneak in a few clicks of my Nook it was on. I was obsessed. I had to know what. happened. next. 

Outside of that, I was pissed about it. About it all. The characters were so good that I didn't like any of them. Not a one. They were all so flawed. There was no hero. It was painful and uncomfortable at times in the best way. I'd get SO MAD at the characters that I would stomp away from my Nook and then be back minutes later, because I couldn't stop.

Then, once I got to the end, I was just.......in awe. I sat back and told Bryan that I hated the book. I did. I hated how the book ended but there was absolutely no way for it to end any differently. A different ending would have ruined the entire thing.

If you've read it.. what did you think? If you haven't, pick it up. It's good.



Do you have a Nook? Let's lend each other books. Email me at crazyembrace at gmail dot com.