I Mustache You Some Questions

I scheduled this to post as of Tuesday night. Some time sensitive answers may have changed by the time this goes up on Friday.

A zillion years ago - and by that I mean a few weeks ago - my friend Hilary, who writes at Embrace the Neon, tagged me to answer some kinda fun questions. Hilary is quite possibly my very oldest friend - as in, we became friends when it was still socially acceptable to befriend someone by saying "do you want to be my friend?"

Read on if you share my interest in random tidbits about other folks lives...

Four names that people call me (other than my real name):

Ryssa, Lyss, Sissee, Lyssa-face

Four jobs I have held: 

Barista, Speech & Debate Coach, Intimate Apparel Production Coordinator, Yoga Instructor

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:

Scrooged (JUST watched this the other day), The Princess Bride, Pride & Prejudice (the Kira Knightly version), Dirty Dancing

Four books I’d recommend: 

I read like a child. Consider yourself warned. These books would be considered "fun" or "light" or even (some of them) "trash". The Princess Bride, The Hunger Games, One for the Money, some of the books in the middle of the Sookie Stackhouse series. Stop before you get to the end though, for Pete's sake, save yourself.

Four places I’ve lived:

Tuscaloosa, AL, Stockton, CA , Florence, Italy (for a month, but it counts), Playa Del Rey, CA

Four places I’ve been:

I've decided to choose the most random places I've been: Columbus, OH, Peachtree, GA, Russelville, AR, Tucumcari, NM

Those last two were courtesy of this road trip of awesomeness and Interstate 40

Four places I’d rather be right now:

Is it weird to say I'd rather be at the hospital? Yes, but I think I have a great reason for wanting to go there.
Bed, surrounded by cozy pillows
Laying on the couch
Basically laying down anywhere. Sitting in this chair is uncomfortable.

Four things I don’t eat:

Capers, and along that same line - lox, banana peppers aaaaaand ripe tomatoes (have to be underripe)

Four TV Shows that I watch(ed):

Orphan Black, Walking Dead, Parks & Recreation, Sherlock

Four things I am looking forward to this year:

This is going to be a little one-note #sorrynotsorry: Meeting my son, no longer carrying him around in my body, low key Christmas at home, taking adorable pictures of the little dude.

Four things I’m saying:

"He's good"
"Ouch"
"Good girl, Panda. You scared the bad guys"
"Still no baby"

Four people I’m tagging to do this next:

Claire, Amy, Alyssa, Rachel

And then I turned 30...

Here's where I stand with my 30 goals to accomplish by the time I turned 30. I fell short on a couple, but I think I did really great overall. The thing I didn't get to will just become life goals - who needs a timeline anyway, right?

1.    Clean out and reorganize the garage (5/26-5/27/2013)

2.    Redo the master bedroom & bath (Repainted 11/9-11/10/13), Bathroom scheduled to be done before yoga baby arrives in December. 

3.    Run a 1/2 marathon (registered 3/27/13, run on 9/8/13)

4.    Get paid to teach yoga (completed 2/21/13) 

5.    Meditate (at least once if I can't make it a regular thing) (Began 3/11/13)

6.    Buy a new car (completed 12/29/12)

7.    Try (at least) one new recipe every month (October 2012, November 2012 , December 2012, January 2013, February 2013, March 2013, April 2013, May 2013, June 2013, July 2013, August 2013, September 2013, October 2013, November 2013, December 2013, January 2014, February 2014, March 2014, April 2014, May 2014, June 2014, July 2014) You can probably see I ended up missing a few months, but I like this goal in general. I've loved trying new things in the kitchen at least once a month. Even when I'm busy, I can usually get in at least one new recipe. :)

Summer Fun Checklist

My cousin shared this on facebook last week. I just fell in love with this list and want to (or probably will) do so much of what's on it that I had to save it on my blog so I could keep tabs on what I can check off.

It's pretty unlikely that I'll get into a silly string fight, but I will definitely go swimming, go on a hike, ride my bike, go to a museum...and many others.

My goal is just going to be to take a picture and instagram each item I do as I complete it, and maybe I'll post them up there so I have a place to refer to for everything.

Want to get in on this with me? If you're on instagram, use the hashtag #2014summerfunchecklist so we can all check in on each other's fun summer activities!

Let me know if you think you'll join in! :)

My Beauty Arsenal

1. Boscia B.B. Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 27 - I just started using BB cream - after hearing about it for ages, I finally started selecting the BB cream samples with my semi-regular Sephora orders. This was the first one I really liked. It goes on smooth and really makes me feel like my skin is damn near flawless.

2. Sephora Classic Brow Brush - I pair this with #6 to fill in my uber-light brows. It's the perfect size and shape.

3. Diorshow Iconic Mascara - I am a stickler for mascaras that are high quality and come in brown as well as the usual black. This was I can go brown for the every day and black when I go out in the evenings. I haven't been using this mascara very long, but I am already loving the brush. It goes on even and doesn't clump. I just wish it weren't quite SO waterproof. It's great for sweaty yoga classes, but kind of a pain to take off every night.

4. Sephora Microsmooth Baked Foundation - I like to just do a light dusting all over my face after I put on my BB cream and it stays all day.

5. First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream - Possibly my favorite thing on the planet. It doesn't have sunscreen, so it's part of my evening regime - but I can't even begin to tell you how amazingly refreshing it is to put this stuff on every night. It's like my face can breathe. It's only just now occurred to me that I can use it during the day as long as I pair it with my BB cream, which has SPF 27. Win.

6. Benefit Cosmetics Brow Zings - I decided to try this when my former go-to brow color was out of stock. It's worked out fantastic. No regrets whatsoever.

7. bareMinerals All-Over Face Color - I use this in place of a full on bronzer - just applying lightly under my cheekbones and under my chin to slim out my naturally soft looking face a bit. I like that it comes in a variety of shades so you can determine how dark you want to go.

8. Stila Smudge Pot Gel Eyeliner - I only wear this when I'm dressing up, but it's awesome. I originally bought it for my wedding makeup, and I still use it pretty regularly. Though I don't dress up all that often. I pair it with an offset eyeliner brush, like this one and get a perfect black line as thin or thick as I want, all the way across my upper lid.

9. mark Eyeshadow Brush - I like the way this eyeshadow brush tapers to a subtle point. It allows me to get more color in the crease without getting color everywhere. It's also a really soft brush and it holds color really well, so you don't need to keep going back for more shadow.

10. bareMinerals Broad Spectrum Multitasking Face - I really only use this on days when I feel like my skin does not look awesome - if I broke out or am feeling splotchy or puffy. It's a fantastic concealer and it will stay in place all day as long as you're not messing with it.

11. mark All Over Eyeshadow Brush - This is the best eyeshadow brush I have ever owned. I probably should get a new one, but I am attached to this one and it still works fine, so I keep putting it off. It just looks a little worse for wear. I just swipe it across the shade I want to use all over my lids, the swoosh swoosh and done. It's magic. I also like to go back over lightly with this brush for a little subtle blending.

12. Clinique All About Shadow Duo - My current go-to eyeshadows. I use the light all over the lid, and then I do like a half moon shape catching at the my upper liner and curving around into the crease. I love these nuetral colors for every day. The dark is just the right amount of dark that it can be taken to either extreme for a super nuetral look, or a night out look.

That pretty much covers it for my current makeup regime. Do you have any favorites you're obsessed with? I'd love to hear about them.
My favorites are changing all the time. There are so many great products out there!

Valentine's Loves

1. Chloe + Isabel Stud Earrings

2. Miss Dior Eau De Parfum 

3. Hershey Chocolate Raspberry Hugs

4. Formula X in Mastermind 

5. Cora Cardigan

6.  Seychelles All Smiles Pump

I don't usually do posts like this, but I was inspired. Happy Love Day, y'all!

Currently; November 2013

Currently, I'm...

Reading...
Umm... this is embarrassing... I haven't been reading much. Recipes count, right?. I've been reading a ton of recipes for gluten free cookies. My grandma was just diagnosed with Celiac's, so I told her I would make her some gluten free cookies for Thanksgiving. I put a call out on facebook requesting favorite GF cookie recipes and got some great responses. So far I've tried two and one is definitely in the lead. I'm excited to try more, which means more recipe reading instead of book reading. 

Watching...
Walking Dead (and Talking Dead). 
We also just marathon-ed the first two seasons of Hell on Wheels. Probably should have waited on doing that since season 3 JUST aired and now we have to wait (we don't even know how long) before it's up on Netflix. 
And I'm still watching all the old episodes of Bones when I have free time. 

Listening to...
Everything I can get my hands on, but I am kind of over a lot of my running songs, so I need a major revamp on my ipod shuffle playlist. I put some Fitz and the Tantrums on there, some Arctic Monkeys, and OF COURSE some Katy Perry. It's better, but I need to keep cycling in new music. 

Struggling with...
Motivation. It's just barely cold enough outside that I don't want to leave my house. I want to snuggle up under a blanket and stay there all day every day. 

Eating...
This weekend hubs made pulled pork shoulder while I made slaw and cornbread and we had a solid Southern meal for College Football Saturday. I also made two mini batches of gluten free cookies (see above)  and we ate all of them. So... technically still gluten free... except for the corn bread. 

Planning...
Ways to spice up our now bland looking walls. I tell ya, when your bedroom walls are bright red, the last thing you think about is how bare they look and how badly they need some wall decor. Now that they're beige, all I see is empty space on the walls! So, I've got some ideas - a nice bed frame, a painting, some photos. I've also got a ton of pictures of the painting process from this weekend, so I'll have a post about that soon! :)

Excited for...
OUR NEW BED IS COMING ON SATURDAY! We just repainted the bedroom this weekend and we specifically scheduled the new bed to be delivered with enough time to paint, SO this week is our last week in the queen. Cray.  

Teaching...
Twice a week - beginner flow and mommy & baby. I'm subbing a lot more and I even booked my first class at Spectrum Club. It'll be on Thanksgiving at 830am, so if you're a Spectrum CP member and want to come hang out and take my class, now is the tiiiime! 

Inspired by...
Freaking elephants, man. My parents just got back from Africa. I was looking through their pictures the other night and was absolutely floored. I could have stared at the elephant pictures forever. 

What are you up to lately?

Kitchen Adventures; Coconut Maple Bourbon Granola

A little while back, I went a little nutso at Trader Joe's and bought a ton of nuts. Too many nuts. More nuts than I or we were eating.
I somehow managed to finish the cashews, but the almonds and sunflower seeds were taunting me... and on a separate note, I needed something to liven up my goat milk yogurt in the morning. Then I had an epiphany. I WOULD MAKE GRANOLA!

I would say I'm never buying granola again, but that would be a lie. I will probably still buy granola, but I am super happy that I can make it myself. I'm excited to try some new varieties!
It's so stinking easy.

Little Letters

Dear #behappylinkup friends, I feel so strange that I missed the linkup yesterday, but I promise I'll be back next week.
Dear upcoming vacation, I am so excited to finally have a weekend away. I know you won't disappoint.
Dear instagram, Thank you for giving me approval in the form of "likes" when I post pictures of myself making silly faces.
Dear curling iron, How did I never think to use you before this week? Especially in dry weather, you are my curling savior.
Dear blueberry plant, How long does it take for berries to turn blue?  Seriously, y'all have been green for months (I think)!
Dear car, I bought you some cool bling on amazon this week. You're going to look like "my car" soon enough. Sorry it took so long.
Dear law office across the hall, Sometimes I am so appreciative of the chocolate you keep stashed at the front desk, but most days I am frustrated that there is so much chocolate in such close proximity and I have to practice self control.
Dear wine fridge, I thought maybe I needed to replace you with a bigger one, but then I realized I just need to drink more wine. 
Dear yoga studio, Thank you for finally giving me my certificate. 
Dear Roomba, Thank you...just, Thank you. 

This week I am joining the Little Letters Linkup with Freckled Fox.

Get Your Kubotan On

Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in a self defense workshop at the studio. We were eight women led by a former fire captain and anti-terrorism expert. He lectured for a while. We learned where we should and should not park, that it is not okay to let your guard down once you're in your car, and a little bit about the mentality of a rapist - which apparently is more about utter hatred than it is about control.

Here are some things you should know about rape and sexual assault:

• Three out of four women attacked, knew their attacker. Please don't misinterpret this to think that you will not be attacked by a stranger.

• Attackers look for women who are distracted. Get out your keys before you go outside and walk directly to your car. No playing on your phone.

• Parking structures are actually safer than outdoor parking. Parking structures typically have cameras everywhere. You may think outdoors, it's easier for you to get away, but it's also easier for your attacker to flee, or worse, grab you and flee

• You are not safe until you drive away. Ok, you've gotten into your car. The doors are locked. The windows are up and you pull out your phone to text some friends. Attackers carry ceramic tools that, when slammed into a car window, cause the glass to break and fall away - leaving you vulnerable.

• If you are home alone and someone knocks on the door. Don't open it - unless you are expecting that person. 

• The first choice should always be to run. 

Then he passed out these 6" plastic rods to keep on our key chains for self defense called kubotans. In case you're not familiar, even if you're not trained how to use these things, if you get out your keys and you've got a kubotan on there, they're a huge deterrent to any potential attacker.

We lined up and took turns practicing how to use it, how hard to strike and in what way, and  - at the end of three and a half hours - he attacked each of us.

One at a time, we stood up in the middle of room, eyes closed, armed with a kubotan - and we had from the moment he touched us to open are eyes, and try and get away using any means necessary until we got the heck out of the room. We actually used our kubotans to injure him so that we could escape. This guy was bruised and bleeding by the time we were done. 

I highly suggest that all women get themselves a kubotan. Despite having learned some majorly scary stuff, I left with a rush of adrenalin and feeling of empowerment. In the event that I am ever attacked, I feel that I will be prepared. 

Cool things I'm looking forward to this year...

1. Finishing the house - the dining room is getting painted soon. We'd do it ourselves, but the damn high ceilings require scaffolding.

2. Celebrating 1st anniversary

3. Trip to Lake Como - day trip to Switzerland for Tim's Swiss adventure.

4. Taking voiceover classes (Starting next week! Hooray!)

5. Making a wedding cake

6. Lots of weddings!

7. Buying a new car

Happy 2012!

I don't do New Years Resolutions. It's not that I'm totally anti-resolution. I completely support them. If you have something about your life that you feel needs to change so that you can lead a happier life, GET ON THAT! I just don't feel that New Years is the only time that you can resolve to make a change - and sometimes changing your life takes a while, so why limit yourself to a year?

Way back in the day, I used ring in the new year by writing stupid long blog posts summarizing the events of the year. Usually I had a lot to write about because there was a lot of drama, but now my life is happily boring, so lets see how many monumental events I had in 2011...

January - New living room.

February - Returned my wedding dress and found a new one, got a practice run at voiceover.

March - Small home improvement projects

April - Tornado in Tuscaloosa

May - Started selling mark. again

June - Tim's mom had hip replacement surgery. Was supposed to stay at a physical therapy place which was more like an old folks home - all hell broke loose.

July - Golden Birthday!

August - Bridal Shower, Bachelorette Party

September - GOT MARRIED!!! and went on fantastic honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies

October - Boring

November - Got too sick to enjoy Thanksgiving

December - First Christmas without my parents and sisters, puppy health problems.


Every day we are closer to having a project done at our house. I'm trying to get a second painter to come out and give us a quote to paint the ridiculous high ceiling'd dining room. We're gonna get a lot done this year...and then the world's going to end.

11 months and 11 days to go. ;)

Happy New Year!

Deliciously Delicious Cupcake

For Memorial Day, I made these:

In case you were wondering, they're basically the most joyous little cakes ever. I filled them with strawberry mash and I have been eating at least 2 per day without fail since Monday. Tuesday I ate four. I will miss them when they're gone (we have one left), but I will be glad to have a break from temptation for a while.

I'm placing a mark. order today. Anyone want me to order something?
FYI, sales is so discouraging sometimes. I mean really, praise Jeebus that I have a full time job to pay the bills.

In honor of the apocalypse

Lately I've been keeping myself pretty busy. I'm trying to get more involved in Mark. again and I'm really happy about it because a) I feel like Mark. is really stepping up their game. I've seen a huge quality improvement and they're really trying to appeal to a broader demographic instead of just teens and college students, b) I get awesome discounts on all this new higher quality stuff catered to my demographic, and c) it gives me an opportunity to get in touch with a really good friend of mine who I haven't spent much time with lately.
So, if anyone who reads this is interested in checking out some totally awesome makeup, clothing and accessories, let me know. I can get you a magalog and some free samples. :)

I've also been trying to dedicate myself more to my at home cake business. The last two weekends, I have had some wonderful opportunities to challenge myself and create cakes using at least one method I'd never used before.
Last weekend I made fresh whipped cream and iced the entire cake with it. It tasted like a giant strawberry shortcake and was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. (Tim and I share the cake tops when I even out the tops of the cakes)
This weekend I was asked to make a cake that was half red and half white with red filling. The red filling was easy peasy, but I had a much harder time with making half the cake red than I thought I would. Plus I challenged myself into doing this with fondant, so I had to dye half of it red. It turned out pretty nicely, if I may say so.

And finally, today we finally had our hopefully last meeting with the woman who is doing our wedding invitations. We just had a 20 minute meeting today to go over exactly what we wanted on what kind of paper since at the end of our last meeting, we weren't sure what the company would actually be able to do. She's going to email my mom and I the proof sometime during the coming week so that I we can approve it and order the invitations. Tomorrow Tim and I have to go bug my parents to get the actual number of people we will be inviting so we can see how many invitations we'll need.
Not excited about that. There's too much drama in guest list making.

Supposedly The Rapture has happened. I guess not a lot of people were worthy or going straight to heaven since I haven't noticed anyone missing yet - nor have I noticed any fire and brimstone lurking about. I hope everyone has a pleasant post-apocalyptic weekend?

Yay! Productivity!

So, it would seem that in order to have a day of "getting sh*t done", I need to take a day off work.

I stayed at my parents' last night to dog sit, so today I am taking care of some things that are easier to do from their house as well as a few things at home!

1: Wash my car.

Didn't take any before pictures of this because it was gross...and I didn't think of it.
Yesterday my big sister told me that when she saw my car outside, she was tempted to write "wash me" on it. While my car was dirty, it didn't exactly have the layer of grossness required to legibly write "wash me", unless you somehow managed to write in the dog saliva on the inside of the back windows.
I scrubbed (and even Windexed parts of) my car to near perfect cleanliness. The paint needs some touch ups and wax, but those are not in the cards anytime soon. Well, maybe the wax.

I hoped to get back outside and vacuum out all the dog hair in the back seat, but since it got pretty hot today and I didn't want to stay at my parents well into the evening, this will have to wait until another day.

2: Paint my grandma's old mirror

I don't remember how long ago, my grandma gave me this awesome old mirror to put up in my bedroom. It's gold and doesn't really go with anything, but I like to have a kind of funky design aesthetic, so I put it up.
Almost 2 years ago, I officially moved out of my parent's house, so it was time to get pretty much everything out of there. I didn't have a place for the mirror at the time, so it stayed (I still have a lot of stuff in my old closet still too).
Last October, Tim and I bought our own place and we've been in a pretty constant state of mild renovation ever since. The living room was the biggest project since it took over a month and forced us to use the dining room for all things "living". 
It's still a work in progress, but we're onto minor details now, like the mirror. ;)
We were talking about putting a mirror up on the wall facing the front doors, and maybe adding some hooks to the wall there in case we needed to hang something. After a few trips to Target, Home Goods and Tuesday Morning with no luck, my mom proposed that we use the old gold mirror from my room and just paint it white.
She gave us the idea probably about a month ago, and today around 11am, I finally go to it.
Taping newspaper down to protect the glass was a paint in the arse. It's harder than taping for regular painting, because how are you gonna go back in with spray paint and touch it up? So I spent a good half hour to 45 mins just taping the damn thing.
After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. I discovered that you should give detailed pieces a good once-over for large chunks of fuzz and dust before you start painting, but that took about 10 minutes to remedy and I was back on track. Then over the next hour, I'd go back out and do another coat or some touch ups here and there, and then (like magic) it was done.
After I took off the newspaper, I noticed that I hadn't done a perfect job projecting the glass from the spray paint, so I had to go in with an exacto knife and carefully scrape the white off the mirror.
And then I packed it in the car and took it home to hang. :)


Taping down the newspaper.

 

Panda helped

First coat of paint

White paint on the mirror :(

Happily in place

3: Put up the tie-back knobs

A couple weeks ago, I found these cute butterfly knobs for $2.99 each at Anthropologie. I've been meaning to put them up this whole time, but we didn't have the right screws and we didn't have tie-backs yet anyway.
Last weekend we finally got around to picking up some tie-backs and the right screws, so I decided now was the time to get these things up! It took a whole 15 minutes to do all three of them...and they're all the same, so you don't need the whole process.
Here are some pictures:

And - because I realized I'd forgotten most of what happened in the seventh installment of Harry Potter as I walked in to the movie theatre for 7; part 1, I also read a handful of pages from HP7 while laying out by the pool. It was lovely.

Happy Weekend!

"A" vs. "An"; a mini rant

There are two things that seem to annoy me more and more lately. The first is when celebrity chefs - or really anyone on TV - have a completely American accent, but choose to pronounce certain words in their original accents. Some of the very best examples of this are "ricotta" and "prosciutto".
Dear Bobby Flay,
You are not Italian. You do not have a remotely Italian accent. You do not need to pronounce every Italian word like you are Vinny Guanagnino's uncle. Please stop. Thanks.

The second is the (apparently) grammatically correct use of "an historic". Every time I hear it, its like nails on a chalkboard. Why? Because I think it's wrong. *GASP*
The letter H is a consonant. If I wanted to say "an 'istoric" and pretend I have a cockney English accent, then by all means, I would use "an", but as long as the H is present, I maintain that we English-speaking-folk should just say "a".  The rule is to use "an" where there is no consonant present, so why add an extra one? The H is there and that should be enough.

Happy April! The Sun is Shining and I'm as White as Can Be!

Holy Beejezus! I am loving this weather!

So far 3 out of 4 days in April have been sunny and beautiful. Too bad this weather reminds me how desperately I am in need of a tan.
When I was in Alabama I got into a the pretty bad habit of regularly visiting the tanning booth. My first apartment complex offered complimentary tanning, so when summer weather rolled around and I was white as a sheet, I figured I'd give it a shot. I told myself I would only do it for one month to get ready for beach days in sunny SoCal.
The next year, I found a place that for $25/month, you could have unlimited tanning. So, my plan was to repeat the previous year and tan for one month prior to going home to CA for the summer. No problem.

Right around that time, I asked now fiancé to please not smoke right before he came to see me because I didn't like the way it smelled on him. Plus it's believed to cause cancer and I rather liked him alive.
I told him I wouldn't ask him to quit. He quit anyway.

Long story short, he quit his cancer causing habit for me and asked that I quit my cancer causing habit for him.
So, since approximately May 2008, I have not been near a cancer causing tanning bed.

But I am white white white and looking for an alternative. Truthfully, I don't know that much about it.
I know you can spray tan and I even know someone who has her own private tanning business. So, I'm considering asking her for guidance.
I'm also uncomfortable laying out by the pool in my community because most of our neighbors are over the age of 70 and it's not a common practice for the 20-somethings to lounge about by the pool.
I'd lay out on our patio, but it is conveniently completely tree canopied, which is lovely if you're looking for a nice shady spot outside to read and enjoy the breeze, but not ideal for getting sun.

I guess I'll figure it out as I go along.
For now, I'm signing off as pale and tan-less as I was when I started.

Sharing the Gross

Yesterday there was a very large spider on my desk. I noticed it, made a comment, and then decided I would go get some tissue to kill it or throw it out the window. When I got back he was gone, so I thought the better of it.

Unbeknownst to me at that time, it appears as though Mr. Spider was on the hunt - and when I wasn't looking - attacked my left hand. It's kind of hard to see because it looks like an elevated bruise, but the red arrows are pointing to [what I believe is] the spider bite.

It's also possible that I thwacked my hand on something really hard and just don't remember, but when I discovered this while washing my hands last night, I was a little confused and freaked out.

Who knows though, I'll keep you posted if I start developing super powers.