I’ve been feeling so crappy lately so I’m taking a little detour from the beauty content to do some things I’ve been wanting to do but putting off in the name of saving time. Some of the things I’ve been putting off were general cleaning, putting things away, and rearranging my furniture in a way I thought might work better. I very briefly talked about how decluttering has been going and showed two drawers I have of stuff I spent a day deciding I didn’t want to keep as much as the rest of the stuff I have. 

All summer I’ve just been doing looks mostly with makeup I already had. I kept doing this week after week because I could see how slow I was at the process and I wanted to develop some sort of system and get faster at it. At the same time I have not really seen much traction for this stuff and it’s disappointing and makes me feel like I’m wasting my time and failing.

In spending most of my free time doing these looks, I’ve put off any kind of focus on improving my living space. If you’re new, I’m currently living with my parents in a bedroom in their basement. I used to live in a larger house and had a separate office so I’ve had to fit what I could into this room. This is what it looked like earlier this year:

At the time there was a king size bed and a large and awkward corner desk in here. I’ve since swapped out the bed for a smaller one and switched to a different type of desk.

Here is what my room was looking like about a week ago before cleaning up.

The dresser on the right was one of the things I had been meaning to remove from the room for a long time and because that was in the way, I also hadn’t tweaked my desk layout to be more comfortable. I wanted to add a second tabletop on the right side to make it more of a corner setup. The idea was to have a place to rest my right arm and create more table space.

This is how it turned out and I’m pretty happy with it.

Another kind of minor thing I’ve wanted to do is add another shelf to my bookcase. On the very bottom, I stacked many of my books vertically and that made it very hard to remove ones from the bottom of the stack. It also just looked half done and that annoyed me. This was a pretty quick and simple thing to do. The longest part was driving to Ikea to buy the extra shelf.

Moving the desk over opened up some more space on that wall and I wanted to try putting the bed there and moving my Alex drawers to the other side of the room.

The screengrabs don’t really show a whole lot of improvement but doing these things did help. In looking at them, I can see more things I want to do later on like removing the headboard that’s on the wall, painting, maybe changing the flooring and lighting. But right now I’m still trying to find an arrangement that allows for enough storage space without feeling like the room is too crowded.

Places I Went

I went to Forest Park twice and explored two areas. First was a portion of the Wildwood Trail (by the Witch’s Castle) and a portion of the Holman trail. When I got there, there was a sign saying how the trail was one-way (because of Covid), though I saw people walking both ways and couldn’t tell which was the direction I was supposed to be walking in. The parking lot was a decent size and at 10am on a weekday there were still plenty of parking spaces left. It very quickly leads downhill to a smallish river/creek. To me this was the most unique part. I kept walking past the Witch’s Castle (forking to the left) and went uphill again along the Holman trail until I reached NW 53rd.

Second was the Ridge Trail. Not exactly sure where it goes on Google Maps. Alltrails shows it. I guess there is parking at the top but I didn’t go that way. I parked at the bottom near St. Johns Bridge. If you haven’t been here before, the parking lot is pretty tiny, right off the road, and you have to walk on the very edge of the road for about 10 mins toward the bridge to actually get to the trail. Right away, you can see the view of the bridge and across the city. From there it’s mostly a steady uphill walk. Decent cardio if you keep a good pace. There were just a few spots with exposed tree roots early on that require careful stepping.

I also checked out the Iron Mountain Trail in Lake Oswego. This turned out to be a lot shorter than I expected. For some reason, I thought it would be longer and the incline would be steeper. It’s an easy walk on a well-maintained path. I parked in a small, somewhat hidden, lot by some horse stables. You get into the lot off a neighborhood street and drive on a narrow dirt/gravel road to get to it. There is only enough space for 4-5 cars. You can also park in the neighborhood and walk in if you can’t find a spot in the parking lot… it’s not very far.

I walked on the main path without forking off onto any of the other branches at first and made it all the way to the end near the Oswego Lake Country Club. The trail just ends onto a neighborhood street. At that point I turned around and, about halfway back, I took a right turn just past a bench and went uphill. I enjoyed that part of the trail more. You can get a bit of a view of the hills the higher you go up and at the top there are some signs with info about the mining history in Lake Oswego, a seating area, and a lookout.

The weather has been warming up so I wanted to find a place to walk where I could get some more sun. I had always driven past Luscher Farm City Park and the Stafford Rosemont Trail and decided to finally actually get out of the car to see this area closer up. I parked at Hazelia Field Dog Park and took the trail past the roundabout for just a short time until I reached a small loop. At this point, I ended up wandering into an open, grassy area. It wasn’t super clear to me if you could do this but I saw a few other people doing it so I went for it. I love me some forest trails but this is a nice change of scenery if you are looking for peace, quiet, space, openness, light. It’s a good place to clear your head.

Recipes/Food I Tried

These are all things I found on Pinterest. When I say I tried these recipes, what I mean is that I used them as inspiration. I’m not somebody that typically follows recipes exactly. So don’t take this as me saying these are great as they are.

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad – I made this with beans instead of chickpeas because I have several cans I need to use up and I didn’t really follow the recipe quantities. I just used it for the ingredients list to get the general flavors from it. It came out good and held up well for maybe 3 days. I still kept eating it after 5 days but the texture and flavors started to go downhill by then.

Thai Quinoa Salad – I followed the recipe for this one pretty closely. Glad I did. Good balance for the amount of each ingredient. Nice texture. Flavors were interesting. 

Cabbage Roll Soup – This was pretty good but I think I should have cooked the beef up in a pan and seasoned it first instead of throwing it straight into the slow cooker the way I did. 

Quinoa Vegetable Soup – I liked this but would use half the quinoa next time. It soaked up too much of the broth.

Slow Cooker Thai Basil Chicken Curry – This didn’t come out the best but I think it was my fault for leaving out too many of the ingredients. Would try it again.

Egg Salad – This took me a lot longer to make than I would have liked and it was missing something. I think it’s a good place to start and then you can add in whatever else you want.

Pasta with Chickpeas – Would use less pasta, more chickpeas and double the spinach next time.

Chicken Burrito Bowls – I did not follow this recipe at all but this is the one that inspired me to try doing this in the first place. I used chicken thighs seasoned with your standard garlic/onion/salt/pepper and threw it together with some leftover rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes, red onion and cilantro. Would absolutely make something like this again.

Things That Happened

There really isn’t much going on in my life so the only interesting thing that happened in the past two months was having an ice storm roll in, staying in a hotel near work for a week, and coming home to no power for another week.

I was just starting my second week at my job when a winter storm settled over my area. At first, I thought we were only going to get some snow so I didn’t worry too much about it. I figured I’d deal with the sketchy roads and hopefully it wouldn’t be that bad. But the morning it started snowing, what was mostly falling was freezing rain. Being new, I didn’t have the hours accumulated to be able to miss work without some sort of penalty. I could do it, but I’d pay for it. My options were miss work and take the attendance hit or figure out a way to make it in. 

My dad ended up driving me and the plan was for him to pick me up later that day. During that time, I guess he was seeing on the weather forecast that conditions were only going to get more dangerous through the week so he basically gave me an ultimatum: stay in a hotel nearby for the week or just don’t go to work. For a second, neither seemed like an option. I reluctantly agreed to the hotel idea and it turned out to be kind of a blessing because my parents lost power within a day or two of that.

I needed a few things, like boots and a rain jacket, and my parents brought them to me later that day. Without them, I don’t know how I would have managed the hour total of walking to and from work each day, especially when the ice started to melt into some pretty deep slush. That week my expenses nearly cancelled out my income, I wore the same clothes all week long, ate out of the lunch room (luckily they have decent food options and free coffee).

This was all fine, actually. It was when I got back home that it got harder.

Before I got home, I was aware that my dog had been sick with diarrhea while I was away. Losing power meant no hot water unless we heated some up in a kettle while the generator was running. So, she could not be bathed, the floor could not be properly washed, laundry could not get done. But it was cold so I let this stinky/dirty dog sleep in my bed like this. Fun times.

We didn’t get power back for around 6-7 days. The worst part of this wasn’t so much the inconvenience, it was that it was yet another obstacle in the way of getting my life on track. What I mean by this is getting to a point where I am making enough money to support myself financially without having to live with my parents and actually enjoying what I’m doing to make that money.

After moving in with my parents about 6 weeks before that, pretty much everything in my life was different than what I was used to and I had only just started to rebuild some sort of routine. Being in the dark for that time and losing my routine set my mental health back. I was already struggling with internal obstacles. That I would not be able to improve. That I am just incapable of creating good content. The external obstacles compounded the lack of hope that I’d ever be able to make this blogging thing work.

That feeling started to lift a few weeks after we finally got power back. Currently, I’m feeling slightly better and am just kind of going through the motions while trying not to get stuck in a rut.

Can’t believe January is already behind me, considering how slow each day felt individually. I spent the first third of the month lost in a mix of seasonal depression and the fallout of my breakup, and I didn’t do much of anything that I would normally think of as productive. Around January 10th, I decided that I needed to find a “real” job ASAP and spent the next couple of weeks entirely focused on that. I found one and I start in a few days. It’s temporary but at least it’s something.

Best and worst things about this month:

Best -> Finding the job.

Worst -> My emotional state in general. My mood has been all over the place. I only see this because I’ve kept a very crude mood tracker along with a daily log/journal of whatever random thoughts I’m having.

A few other things that happened:

Got most of my beauty, lighting, and camera stuff setup. The makeup still needs a massive decluttering and reorganization and I may eventually rearrange the layout. The camera setup… eh…  it’s compact. I’ll give it that. 

Tried doing a few odd jobs while searching for a “real” job. For one of them I shoveled and wheelbarrowed wood chips throughout someone’s backyard. Also moved some gravel. The highlight of this day were the chickens in this person’s yard trying to be escape artists every time I’d open the gate. 

Another one involved shoveling mud into a trench where some pipes had been replaced. My boots were already getting old but the thick mud managed to pull apart the rubber sole from the upper part of the boots. Haven’t washed them off yet because of this. Also left my back stiff for a couple days. I oddly enjoy this kind of dirty work but it does take a toll on my body.

Had two interviews. Honestly didn’t do that great with either one of them. Both were for customer service related jobs and I’m sure I didn’t give them the sense I have the personality for that type of role. Also applied to several other places and spoke to somebody over the phone or in person. The one question they ALL asked is “why do you want to work for us?” I couldn’t tell you how to answer that question, other than the typical advice you get from job search websites. I will say, it makes me think twice about applying anywhere I’m not already highly familiar with and enjoy as a company. 

I started journaling and it turned out to be kind of addicting. This was something I was already doing on occasion but I never made it a regular activity and what I would write never had a direction or goal. This process has been eye opening and I’ve found it interesting to go back and read what I wrote weeks earlier. Curious to see what I think, say, a year from now.

Things I cooked:

Because I am sharing a kitchen with my parents, but not always eating the same things they are eating, I’ve resorted to making nearly the same foods week after week with some slight variation of ingredients. It’s always a soup and a breakfast dish.

The soup is roughly based on this recipe, but I really don’t follow measurements or add every single ingredient in. I just use whatever I have on hand. Sometimes I’ll swap out the beans for potatoes or spinach for kale.

For breakfast I’ve made this egg bake thingy, like a frittata. This one has a crust, only because I have pie crusts that I’m trying to use up. I nearly always use 12 eggs no matter what else I put in it and bake for 30-40 mins at 350 degrees. 

Best resources I came across:

• Leon Angus – I found this YouTuber while doing some SEO research. He’s a rare “real” person in the online marketing world. His content is obviously created primarily to share with people, not necessarily to rank in search results.
• PHLEARN – A YouTube channel (and website) by Aaron Nace dedicated to Photoshop and other digital imaging tutorials. He has a series called “30 Days of Photoshop” which is how I found him. The tutorials are from early 2020, so most of it is still relevant, except for some of the features that have been updated in Photoshop since this series came out. This is a great resource for somebody that isn’t already super familiar with the software because he explains everything is plenty of detail
• 58 Supportive Journal Prompts For Self Discovery – This is a blog post from She Dreams All Day that contains a few specific journal questions I’ve found helpful when trying to process emotions. If you are like me and tend to not really understand your own emotions, check this out.
•  Kelly Collins is a writer for Paleohacks. She has some really helpful yoga posts that are quick, easy to follow, and actually effective. Her recommendations for shoulder tension are some of my faves.
• A core workout I don’t hate.

These are a few of the quotes that always stand out to me whenever I’m scrolling through Pinterest.

“You have been assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved.”

I saved this quote back when I was going through a hard time dealing with major house issues. It was relevant to that time in my life but also to a death in the family a few years before that. It reminds me that the difficulties I face are not there just for the sake of making life harder. And if they are, at least if I can help someone out by sharing my experience, then it wasn’t for nothing. I like the way this quote is worded, as if your problems are not just a random accident and there IS a solution if you are willing to look for it.

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

This is a reminder that you can handle a lot more than you think if you can find the right way to do it. Or at least a good way. I’m still figuring this out myself but I believe it has a lot to do with organization, prioritizing, discipline, focus, and mental clarity. I like to read this when I’m feeling overwhelmed by too many things to remind me that it’s not as bad as I might think it is.

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.”

I’ve known of this quote the longest out of all of these. I found it inside the lid of an iced tea bottle and held onto that lid as a reminder. I am someone that likes the idea of trying new things but can become anxious when actually attempting to do them. Adding in terms like “professional” and “amateur” only make it worse. But this reminds me that things are not black and white. Pros fail. Amateurs sometimes make amazing things. You won’t know if you don’t try.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

If you are struggling with something why stop and sit around in whatever your hell is? Whatever is ahead has got to be better (hopefully). And if you find another version of hell ahead, again, keep going. Eventually you’re gonna find something good, or you’ll die, and if that’s the case, then you’ve still escaped hell.

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

This speaks to that part of me that is passionate and has waaay too many interests but realizes life is short. I won’t be able to do everything because a human lifetime is just too short to contain all the imagined possibilities. This is where I can get stuck trying to decide what to focus on. Maybe just taking a taste of each thing I’m interested in and figuring out what I like best is the answer. I dunno. Or just accepting it for the truth that it is.

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.”

This is newer to me but the idea is what I needed in order to understand why my life has been stagnant. I have to stop getting stuck in a rut, continuing on with the same patterns. It’s knowing that there is a current me and a potential me and the path between them is a matter of change. 

“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.”

Like the first quote I listed here, this is a reminder that your struggles have a purpose. Someone out there might need to know what you went through and how you managed it in order to get through their own shit. When I first saved this, it was with the idea of writing a book, but really it can be done in any medium. Even just talking to people. The important part is connecting with whoever is in need of what your experience has to offer.

You may see that I haven’t updated the blog in a while. My life is a mess right now. Messier than it has ever been. I just got out of a 15 year relationship and moved into my parents basement. I don’t have any of the stuff I normally do to create beauty content so I’m trying to think of other things I can post in the meantime. 

1. I’m at a place where I’m trying to regain my sense of self.
2. I don’t have kids.
3. I’m an only child.
4. Winter used to be my favorite season until I moved to Portland.
5. I love color but I don’t have a favorite one.
6. Don’t have a favorite food either.
7. When I was growing up I had a bunch of different and random interests for my future: alternative medicine, military, linguistics, singing, interior design, veterinarian.
8. I had other interests that I deemed not to be real job/career options too: makeup artistry, web design.
9. I’m still just as indecisive.
10. I went to catholic school for first and second grade and then moved to public school until senior year.
11. I am not religious.
12. I have spent many years in college but never got a degree.
13. I studied computer science (which I had no talent for or interest in) and web design.
14. I am an anxious person.
15. I stopped wearing makeup for “beauty purposes” a while ago. I mainly use it as a creative outlet now.
16. Music is my sanity when life is beating me up.
17. I’m kind of a tomboy but I also like girly things. I dunno lol.
18. Some things I discovered I say a lot are: “alrighty then” and “it is what it is”.
19. I’ve been a blogger for 8 years and I’m not good at writing lol.
20. My zodiac sign is Capricorn. I feel it sort of fits me but also is more representative of an “ideal” version of me.
21. One of my weird habits is that I sometimes brush my teeth twice.
22. This is probably obvious but my biggest inspiration to start a beauty blog was Temptalia.
23. I’ve since realized that I have a tendency to “copy” things that inspire me and now I can’t stand that about myself.
24. I’m not really into TikTok.
25. It irritates me when my cuticles get too rough or my nails get too long.
26. I’m not great with hairstyling or fashion.
27. I don’t like rules but if there are rules I have a hard time not following them.
28. I’m not a picky eater.
29. I’m not picky with my coffee either. I’ll drink it however.
30. My clothes are usually covered in dog fur.

Hi Everyone! I’m finally back after a very long hiatus. Before I start doing my regular posts again I wanted to do a personal update and summarize my year.

I started going to school again to study web design/development. It’s a two-year program that I am mostly doing for my own personal growth. Somehow I am managing to get all A’s – this is not typical of me if you look at my track record. I’m learning a ton of new stuff that I can’t wait to put into real practice. Most of my classes are online which is my favorite format. I enjoy the flexibility of working online because life still happens even if you are going to school. Sometimes I have a bad day, bad week, or even a bad month and I have to work at odd hours or pull all-nighters to get stuff done. Online is perfect for me.

As was recommended a few years ago by a home inspector, we finally put in a french drain on the side of the house and tied it in with our rain gutter runoff. With the intent of doing it ourselves, we started digging the ditch and almost got to the end, or so we thought. Then we discovered that there was already an existing french drain dug down 8 feet that wasn’t done correctly so it was trapping water against our house instead of allowing it to flow away. So we had to hire someone to dig that out with an excavator because we just don’t have that kind of time or energy to do by hand. By this time, the rainy season had already started so the excavator pretty much tore up our whole yard. In the spring, we are going to have to work on putting in some new landscaping – some plants and mulch at the very least. Right now, it’s nothing but mud and gravel.

We also got a new heating and cooling system put in because the temperature was so unbalanced in this house. We got quotes from over 10 companies before we finally found one we felt comfortable with. Unfortunately, when we started taking apart the ductwork in the utility room, we found that there was mold in the crawlspace. Our house is odd. We have a big main crawlspace which is clean and mold-free. But we learned that we also have a small, narrow crawlspace right next to it and the gas line goes through it. It really had no access other than by removing the ductwork. I wonder whose brilliant idea that was. So we had the mold remediated and had a contractor create an entrance to this crawlspace for future access.

Now, I have a little story to top off the house stuff. We had a wind storm last week and we have lots of trees around our house. Typically, I get kind of anxious when it’s windy and I try to avoid being upstairs in case a tree falls on the house. My fiancé always thinks I am overreacting but this time I was right! I went downstairs and I heard a loud crash at the front of our house – it turned out to be a big branch that had fallen and taken out our cable line but nothing too bad. While I was looking outside with the front door open I started hearing something.

crack
Crack
CRACKKKKK

I knew a tree was falling but I couldn’t see where and I didn’t know what to do so I just stayed where I was. A moment later my fiance was yelling at me from upstairs to come up and look at the garage. I looked outside the window and there is this cedar tree perched on the corner of our garage!

!!!!!!

I was in utter shock and I think I made this out to be a much bigger emergency in my head than it really was. We got incredibly lucky that the tree hit the corner and not the middle of the garage or the siding. I think if it had fallen a foot to either side it would have done much more damage. From what is visible at the moment, all I can see is damage to the roof, some plywood and a bit of cracking in the cement. It doesn’t look too horrendous and I hope that as we get people out to inspect that it won’t require too much repair. This is what we are going to be busy with in early 2015… ugh. Oh well, it needs to be done.

The Good of 2014

• My friend Erica and her boyfriend came to visit
• French drain is done!
• New heating and cooling system is done!
• Getting good grades!
• Scored some great deals on new beauty stuff to review in 2015.

The Not So Good of 2014

• All the stress.
• Lack of healthy eating and exercise.
• Not back to working yet.
• The Tree Incident.
• Some decluttering is needed.

Even with the garage needing some fixing, I am looking forward to a fresh start in 2015. I’m hoping I can be more productive and work on myself. Between going to school and working on my house, I’ve neglected my diet and fitness and my work.

New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t usually like doing resolutions because they almost invite failure. These resolutions are mostly just things that I want to remain conscious of and make a greater effort to do in the coming year.

• Take a lighter load of classes to free up some more time.
• Make more of an effort to maintain a normal sleep schedule.
• Cook more healthy meals and track what I eat.
• Exercise more and track my activity.
• Get out of my beauty rut and try more new products.
• Put more time and effort into work related stuff.

How has your year been? Do you have any new year’s resolutions? I’m wishing all of you a happy, healthy, prosperous 2015!

I spent all day trying to focus and work on some posts but this is what has been pulling me away from it. While Portland does get the occasional snow day, it’s pretty rare and almost never sticks for very long. I used to live in Southern California and only moved here a few years ago but according to the locals it hasn’t snowed this much in at least 8 years. I kept going outside every hour or so because the snow just kept building up and I couldn’t believe it. I finally came inside after spending the last hour outside and I am now freezing, my face is numb, and it’s hard to type LOL.

Here’s what our street looked like earlier today:

And here’s that same street a little while later (notice all the cars on the right side – they are stuck):

We live at the bottom of a hill and people were trying to drive up that hill to get home. Several cars made part of the way up before losing momentum and sliding backwards into the curb. I saw a few people walking home who had left their cars behind.

We avoided that hill and instead took a short jaunt the other way on our street:

Finally, back in the warm house and tracking in snow, of course:

Our two pugs, Treasure and Sugar, having fun in the snow: