DIY Beauty

If you're like most women, you've read a magazine or two. It probably had beauty tips in it. They probably made you feel like you were too fat/too frumpy/too lazy/too uninspired ... I can keep going here, but you don't want me to. I feel like that every time I read most women's magazines, so yeah. I know how much they make you think you suck. Wildly backtracking a minute, when I was 5, I took a lot of baths. Lining the bathtub edge were rows of shampoos and conditioners. In my exuberant, ... Continue Reading

Good lord! Blogging is so complicated these days. I feel like an old man who's never seen one of them new-fangled computerizer thingies. I'm heartsick and nostalgic for the Diaryland days of yore, where you wrote, maybe uploaded a picture, and 800 people LOVED EVERY WORD. Now there's Twitter and RSS feeds and gobblediwhatsit social network plug-ins for letting everyone know every time you pick your toes. Never would I have thought I fell so far behind in taking a few years off from ... Continue Reading

I am very lucky to have a fiance who is thoughtful ... and quiet. He chooses his words carefully, he artfully stays out of drama, and he would rather not speak when things get heated, as to avoid unnecessary confrontation. He's the silent type on a regular basis. Not me. No. I blurt. I vomit words. Somewhere in the line between being a very keen observer and a thoughtless word-vomiter is where I reside. What's worse is that I have a deep love for difficult things. I adore delving. I like ... Continue Reading

Thirteen and a half years ago, in no way, shape, or form could you have convinced me that I would some day write about the wonder that is castor oil. You see, thirteen and a half years ago, I took a teaspoon of it and then gave birth to my son, rapidly, without painkillers, while he was turned around facing my back. It hurt. A lot. And I've always blamed it on castor oil. I'd like to say that taking that tiny teaspoon full of contraction-inducing slime was brave, but it wasn't. It ... Continue Reading

You can’t change everything. You can only change one, small thing. And that’s all it takes. - mnmlist.com Completely unaware of how many people are as crazy as I am, I'm just going to assume you all are. Like, for instance, you'll go to bed one night and obsess for hours about how, the next day, you're going to start exercising three hours a day and, within the month, you'll be a carbon copy of Eva Longoria. Or maybe you get tired of your job, and you think that you're going to quit ... Continue Reading

This is me as I sit and write. Not a pretty picture now, admittedly. But soon, my skin will be tight and clean and amazingly smooth. Beauty by gunk. As I was applying this mask, a mental calculation of all the money I've spent on beauty products over the years started running in my head. Then, I calculated how much this mask cost: Approximately 10 cents. That's right. Ten pennies. Three years ago, if you'd have told me real, healthy skincare would have been as easy as a trip to a natural ... Continue Reading