Fall Outfits

Hey There Dolls,

Fall is upon us and that means a quick wardrobe change to everything cozy, comfy, and cute.

I'm not a very formal person outside of an office, even when I go out with friends or out to dinner it's always very casual and comfortable.  My biggest annoyance is when I'm wearing something that rides up, or is too tight, and all I do is think about my clothes, and miss having a good time.

Fall by carmor-1 on polyvore.com

Now, none of these things are things I own (Insert hundreds of sad faces), but all things I want to own, or I want to own things like these.  You will also notice how most of the pants are flared.  Those are the only type of pants I wear, unless it's too cold and I need to break out my Syracuse boots. 

What are some fall staples for your closet?

Enjoy! 

Blush Mystery Beauty Box November 2013

Hey There Lovelies,

As you all know I subscribe to some beauty boxes, and this month has been my favorite so far.  I've already received two boxes and both have amazing products in them that I am so excited to try out.

I subscribe to the Blush Mystery Beauty box, which is $25 a month with a monthly subscription and is always valued over $130.  This month the value was over $250 so I was thrilled to be a part of the subscription list.

Without further ado, here are the contents of the Blush Mystery Box for November 2013

 

The featured product of the month was the Cargo Eye Pencil in Brown.  Now I'm not a huge fan of brown eye pencils, and am a firm jet black liquid eyeliner lover, but this pencil can really soften any look.  I think this would be great with any eye color, and if I can't make it work for me then my mom will be getting this when she comes down for a visit. 

The smart lash eye enhancer promises fuller longer lashes, and the applicator is like a lip brush which makes application a breeze.  I'm still iffy on using things that are supposed to "enhance" your eyelashes, especially because I wear contacts so if there is any irritation in my eyes that makes contacts a no go.  I am definitely going to do more research, just like with the other lash enhancer sample I received, but I think I may just be a big girl and try this stuff out.

I have never owned anything from Elizabeth Arden, and I associate the brand with perfume and older women.  That being said, older more established brands are trying to reach out to a younger audience, and this mascara is something I am excited to try out.  It's a black volumizing mascara  with a "normal" brush, so I'm hopeful that I'll like it.  

The Anastasia Lip Gloss is in the color sorbet, and it is a bright coral orange color.  It is also the tiniest little thing I've ever seen, and the applicator looks like a doe foot applicator with the fuzzy stuff ripped off.  When my boyfriend opened the gloss he asked me "What sort of witch craft is this?" because it is the thickest stickiest lip gloss I have ever come across.  I'm gonna say out of everything I got in the box this is the least exciting thing, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. 

See!

 

The Pur-Lisse moisturizer is another thing I was excited to see in the box.  I have a problem finding moisturizers that don't feel sticky and greasy.  This says it's for normal-dry skin, and with combination oily skin so this product isn't something that will work with my current skin, but this is something I know my mom will love. My one disappointment is that it smells like sunscreen, but in the summer months when she's out and about on the boat this will be great.  

The Resist antioxidant serum is very very exciting for me.  I love serums, and my skin is definitely in need of some TLC, and with it being for my exact skin type I'm so excited to try this.  When my skin calms down a little I will be giving a full review on this product.

 Volume is not something I necessarily need in my hair, but I'm hoping this Root Lifting Spray by Nick Chavez will make my second day hair behave a little better.  Lately my hair has been huge, but the longer it gets the more the weight drags it down, so even if this isn't working this month, in the next few it should come more into play.  Now, I don't know what horsetail is exactly, but hey, they must know things I don't right?  I trust you Nick Chavez.  Don't lead me astray.

 

These two little samples were the bonus items in this months box.  The NeoStrata is supposed to smooth out your face and plump it.  Even with my chipmunk cheeks my face is lacking in the smooth pretty plumpness, so I have high hopes for this little number.

NHEB-05 is an odd name for a brand, but it stands for Natural Herb Extract Blended, and there are five herbs involved, hence the name.  This is mainly for babies, as it it all natural and meant for delicate skin, but it can also be used by adults with sensitive skin.  I'm not sure if I'll use this or give it away, but I think the concept and ideas behind the brand are something to be excited about.  With my brother and sister in law having a baby in July I think this brand will definitely be on my list of things to buy.  

Overall I love this months box and strongly  recommend everyone picking up a subscription.  

What boxes do you subscribe to / what products from the box do you want a full review from?

Happy Saturday Loves!

Follow Up Post: What Not To Do When You Leave Your Job/ Get Fired

Hey There Lovelies,

As a follow up post to What to do when you leave your job/ get fired, I decided to write a list of what not to do in that scenario.  This one will be a little more fun, because I may or may not have done all most of these things, so this post may just get a little comical.

Do Not:

1. Do not drink yourself to sleep for the first few weeks.  You wake up hungover on your couch, or in your bed, fully clothed, at four in the afternoon.  Drinking away your problems does not help.  It makes them worse, and you usually end up looking like the living dead.  Not pretty.  Not helpful in getting a new job either.  If your own spouse, boyfriend, room mate, etc, looks at you with pity and offers you water and tylenol, your potential new employer will most definitely feel like they want to do the same.  Then they will never call you back. 

2. Do not lock yourself up in your house for a month.  It does not help.  You need to be out, seeing people, seeing the sun, trying to get yourself back on track.  You do not need to be hungover (see number 1), pale, full of anxiety and depressed feelings, alone in your own home.  It's not good for you.  Take some vitamin D if your country/home lacks sunlight this time of the year, and go outside to breathe.  Make a lunch date with a friend every week, or go out and visit a shelter and pet some kittens.  Just get out of your house.

3. Do not feel that because you don't have a job you get to live in your sweatpants and sweatshirts, let your hair fade, and generally be lazy.  Yes this works well for the first few days, but then the house becomes a mess, you start to smell, and your bed and couch get divets from your butt in them.  Get up, get moving, and wear some real clothes, and a bra, especially if it's chilly out.  Impose a no sweatpants after 10 AM rule.  It not only will make you feel better, but it will keep you from sleeping all day and eating take out.  Trust me.

4. Do not live off take out and junk food.  Eat a salad, drink a smoothie, try and be healthy.  This rule goes along with the no sweatpants after 10 AM rule.  Your sweatpants won't tell you if you're gaining weight unnecessarily, but your jeans sure will.  So will your friends when they see you three months later... Yep.

5. Do not alienate your friends or your former co workers.  They don't think less of you, and they don't want to make you feel any worse about your situation, they just want to be your friends and support you, so let them.  Don't feel like a burden, or like you should be ashamed of yourself and cut out everyone from your former life.  Right now you need support and connections if you ever hope to pull yourself out of this funk, so cutting everyone out is not gonna help you feel any better.  Also, your friends are a huge source of self esteem.  They will come over and tell you how pretty you are and help you apply for new jobs and pick out clothes. 

6. Do not think that retail therapy will help you overcome your sad feelings.  Same goes for late night Ebay shopping after a half a bottle of wine.  Don't do it.  You end up broke, crying over your dwindling bank account, and your lack of current employment to fix the gaping hole you just put into your savings.  Instead window shop, or make wishlists on your favorite sites, and come back to them in a day or so.  If you still desperately need seven things of eyelashes, and four different color shirts that all look exactly the same, so be it, but chances are you won't.  (I ended up with seven different sets of eyelashes, a headband with cat ears, and a comb shaped like a gun in my basket that I almost bought.  Always hide your credit cards at night.  )

7. Do not do a massive life/look overhaul.  It is not a good idea to decide that because you are currently unemployed that if you change how you look/dress/decorate your living space your life will dramatically improve overnight.  This is how you end up internet shopping your savings away to become "hip" and "interesting".  Cutting off all your hair and dying it a drastic color (ahem dark brown, which is what happens to my red hair when I get sad) will not make you feel better.  It will make you feel like a stranger to yourself and cut down your confidence and make you resentful and prone to drinking/eating binges.  You are lovely just the way you are. 

8.Do not procrastinate on getting a new job.  If you need the income, don't wait months to put yourself back out there because you're scared.  The longer you go without looking for a new job, the harder it is to put yourself back out there.  The worst any company can say to you is no, and eventually that no will turn into a yes with some other company and you will have another job.  Don't get discouraged.  Everyone starts at the bottom to work their way up, so even if it isn't your dream position now, some day you can work yourself up into the big office and the nice assistant. 

9. Do not get desperate in your search of a new job and undersell yourself when an opportunity comes along.  AKA do not offer to follow your boyfriend around and work for him when he is a construction worker and you are a weak little girl.  Yes I offered to do that, yes his boss said I could because my boyfriend is amazing and everyone always loves him.  No I did not go to work with my boyfriend because he never woke me up and left for work without me.  I guess me working on roofs didn't appeal to him.  The lesson still stands though.  Don't undersell yourself in a big way JUST to have a job.  As I said in number 8, it may not be your dream job, but it should also be something you want to be doing.  Do what you're good at.  Don't be desperate.  You won't work up to your potential and you will just be wasting peoples time if you don't actually want to be at work.

10.  Last but not least, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT fall into a pit of despair and sadness and bad feelings.  People love you, that situation wasn't for you, and you WILL find something else.  The last thing I want anyone to take away from this post is that while losing a job is hard, and while being jobless is not ideal or fun or enjoyable, it is not the end of the world.  You will find something else, and you don't need to be destructive or self loathing if you find yourself in my position, or the position many young people now find themselves in.  We put a lot of our self worth into our positions in society and the jobs we hold, but that should not mean that if we fall down we should give up. 

Good Luck Everyone!

Navy Blue : Pinterest Edition

Hey There Dolls,

I've been sitting here for hours trying to find a motivational quote, or an idea of what to post today.  My skin is flaring up, my hair is acting like it wants to belong to a lion, I woke up way too late to wear real clothes and put on any makeup, and I found nothing in my pinterest archive as far as quotes go.  

What I did find however is inspiration for a new series I want to do on the blog.  I want to put up little snippets of my pinterest account pertaining to a theme I'm currently loving in my life.  At the moment that theme is Navy Blue.  Most days all I wear is Navy Blue, I want my wedding colors to be navy and yellow, and it's the exact color I want as my bedroom walls in the apartment.

 

 

 I'm absolutely obsessed with Pinterest. It's more addictive to me than Tumblr and Instagram and Facebook combined.  Go check out my Pinterest, and if you follow me I'll follow you!

What's your favorite color this fall?

Young Adults: What To Do After Leaving Your Job/Getting Fired

Hey There Dolls,

This post is something I've been wanting to write for a few months now, and especially at this point in my healing process I think it will give me the extra push I need.

In April of this year I was given a promotion at the company I had been working for for three years.  It was a huge step for me, and one I was more than willing to accept.  I went from being a regular Joe to someone with some influence, and a lot of responsibilities.  At the time I was bright, chipper, and so enthusiastic about adding to the new chapter of my life, which started when I moved to Virginia.

Around the same time as I got my new position, I also started to have some very personal problems.  After about four months of working in my new position, the stress and my insistence on being perfect added to the problems I was having, and I left my dream position to work out some kinks and get myself back on track.  On my birthday I put in my two weeks notice, and cried for days.  

My anxiety kicked itself up a few more notches in the next two months, and finally after some soul searching, books, tea, and a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally decided I needed to pick myself back up and put myself back out there.  This leads me to the real part of my post: What to do after you leave a job/get fired. (AKA what my next month will look like)

First things first: 
 Breathe.  It will be okay.  You will get another job, you are not alone, and you are not a failure.  If you need a few days/weeks/months to pull yourself together, then do so.  As long as you can afford your hiatus it may not be a terrible thing to get your mind in the right state before you start looking for a new job.  Take this window to figure out what interests you, how much money you want to be making, are you a full time job person or a part time job person, are you willing to travel, do you want an office 9-5 job or a fluctuating schedule.  Figure out the kind of work environment you want to be in and what you liked/didn't about the job you had before.
Then follow these few little steps to get you started on the next part of your life.

1. Write your resume.  I can not stress this enough.  I had my resume written a full month before I left my position, and kept tweaking it until it was something I felt proud to put out there.  Even if you have minimal work experience don't let that stop you from creating a resume.  Your resume is a reflection of you.  It should be thoughtful and direct, and a representation of how you want the working world to see you.  It is the first and sometimes only thing a potential employer will see before they schedule an interview with you.  Don't lie on your resume, but don't sell yourself short either.  It's also never a bad thing to have a few people look over your resume before you put it out there.  They may be more eloquent than you, or if they are managers themselves, they may know what companies like them are looking for in a resume.

2. Put that resume everywhere, and get involved in social media sites.  Put your resume on Monster.com, jobs.com, theladders.com, careerbuilder.com, etc.  Join linkedin.com and even search Facebook to find potential employers in your area.  It is a great way for you to see all of the jobs open in your area, and for employers to see you. 

3. Take a risk.  Apply for jobs that interest you.  You're more likely to get a job in the field you are looking to pursue if it is something you like doing.  If you want to work in fashion, apply for internships, temp agencies, newspapers, magazines.  If you have no idea what you want to do apply for big businesses you have always desired to work for, and small home grown projects to fill your soul. 

4. Always always call the companies you are really interested in working for and have applied to.  Companies want to know you are interested in working there.  You need to be invested enough in the positions you are applying for to make the effort.  From working in an HR position I know that the candidates that kept calling me and asking for an interview were the first on my call list when a position came up.  Yes it was annoying, but I knew they wanted to interview enough to keep calling me, and that meant something.

The key thing to remember is to not get discouraged and to keep at it.  Don't think losing your job, or leaving a job, is the end of the world.  It is a new beginning.  A difficult, time consuming, scary, expensive beginning.  If you treat it as a chance to start over, to make yourself into the person you want to become as an adult, it can be a positive experience.

Keep an eye out for more job related posts coming up soon.  Like what not to do after you lose your job, how to dress for an interview, some tips for interviewing, and more. 

Happy Hunting Everyone!



 

Lush Bath Haul

Hey There Lovelies,

With all the new posts about autumn/winter releases at Lush, my curiosity got the best of me and I made a trip down to the Lush store to take a peek.

As usual I went overboard with the amount of stuff I purchased, but in my defense it all smells so damn good I couldn't resist.

 

 

 

  

From Top:

Pumpkin Mumpkin : I love now only how cute it is, but the promise of bubbles in my bath.  

Luxury Bath Bomb: Smells just like the Twilight bath bomb I fell in love with the last time I went to Lush.  All the little spots along the side make your bath into a rainbow.

Golden Slumbers: Golden glitter, sleepytime smells, I'm sold.

Lord Of Misrule: To me it smells a lot like the Twilight bath bomb, so I'm excited to see what happens when I put it into a bath.

Star Light Star Bright: This is a bath melt, covered in a fine silver glitter which gets absolutely everywhere (Warning: Put it in a bag and leave it there until you're ready to use it or you WILL end up with glitter on everything you own.  Fine glitter does not come out of clothing well.) Apparently this turns blue in your bath, which along with the glitter sold me instantly, and it smells like citrus.

Hauling makes me wish I had a camera and could film haul videos for you guys.  Christmas is right around the corner though, so fingers crossed!

Happy Sunday

Friday Face

Hey There Dolls,

Disclaimer: This is not a skincare post. 

I've been a bad girl and totally strayed away from any sort of face/skin care routine.  Now I haven't really worn makeup in the past few weeks, and when I do I always make sure to clean my face properly.  On days I don't wear makeup (try 5 out of seven days a week), I've been staying up late, sleeping in late, not washing my face, washing it with harsh products and not following up with a good moisturizer, and dealing with hormones and anxiety on top of all that badness.  After about two weeks of a mishmoshed skin care routine I finally decided to get my act together.  That's when my skin had a huge flare up and punished me for forgetting about taking care of it properly. 

Today was going to be the day I got my car looked at and fixed, so I looked in the mirror and thought "oh gosh I can't leave the house looking like this... Something must be done."  I pulled out my concealer and foundation and got to work on a look that covered up my spots and looked befitting of Fall.

Like the disclaimer at the top of the page says, this is not a skincare post.  When I figure out the right combination of products to help clear up my skin and put it back in a happy place, I will definitely share that with you guys.  Until then wish me luck!