If You're Blogging and You Know It

Hello, dear readers,

Welcome to the future. 

I mean...hello in 2019! It's been a whopping four—nearly five—years since I last published anything on this blog, and I recently discovered that I miss it. I miss writing about fun and perhaps frivolous subjects that make me happy. I miss spending time sharing makeup opinions, reviews, and tips with my lovely readers. I miss sharing tidbits of what's going on in my life, if for no other reason than pure catharsis.

The last time I wrote, I was finished with college but had not yet walked across the stage. Cut to today, and I'm living in a big city and working as an editor and production coordinator at a publishing house. Time is sneaky, isn't it? It slips past while you're not looking, so it's good to appreciate each moment. That's something I've learned in recent years, through all the roller-coaster days and the smooth sailing.

One thing that hasn't changed? My love for lipstick (and laughter!). Two of my absolute favorite lipstick brands now are Bésame Cosmetics and Colourpop, with Bésame coming out on top. Bésame has really gained momentum over the past few years as a brand based on recreating classic colors, centered primarily around reds. Oh, how I love red lipstick. Both brands have come out with Disney collaborations, which I haven't been able to resist. 

I really do hope to get more posts out, and something I've noticed is that it has to feel fun and not like an obligation. I make no guarantees, but I really do enjoy this space. 

For now, I'd like to know: How are you doing? Take a moment to reflect, or let me know in the comments!

I also found a fun gem sitting in my drafts from 2016. The set in question is not available, but Clinique has since done many others. For the record,  I still own and use these lipsticks. The formula is indeed a soft matte, and the lasting power is decent but not the best. (Colors are gorgeous, and I especially love the red and bright pink.)

Please follow me into the Tardis while I take you back a few years, and enjoy this never fully finished, previously unseen post:

Hello, dear readers,

I remembered I had a blog. In all honesty, I never forgot; I just had other things preoccupying my time. It's life, and I have no excuses to give you. What I can provide, however, is information on one of my recent favorite beauty items. 

I hope my blog writing skills aren't too rusty.

The Clinique Kisses set of five Long Last Soft Matte Lipsticks from Clinique was a Hanukkah gift from my mom (I, in turn, bought her one of the same. It's that good.). This set was exclusive to Macy's and limited edition around the holidays last year. I don't believe you can still get it, but these colors fortunately remain in the Long Last Soft Matte lineup.

xEsther

Hey There, Summer! Didn't See You Coming!

Hello, dear readers,

Where, oh where, have I been this time? I know; I know. The mystery of the incredible disappearing blogger is becoming less of a mystery the more often I neglect this blog. Am I planning on quitting? Absolutely not. Am I organized at the moment [have I been or throughout the past few months]? Absolutely not.

Hence, a complete lack of posts. Soon I'll have more update posts than anything else, and I'll have to wonder what sort of category this blog fits under. Once again, I shall attempt to give you a rundown of significant events that have occurred since last I wrote.

I finished my junior year of college in early May was extremely relieved to go home, free from essays and pages upon pages of reading assignments. [Note to self: Never, under any circumstances, wait until the morning a 15-20 page paper is due to write said paper. It was not pleasant.] However, as soon as I arrived home, I had to start thinking about what I would do this summer.

I say start, because my original plan of study abroad was derailed by a not-so-helpful Director of Off Campus Studies. Just my luck, she retired shortly after causing me a great deal of stress. Ok, so now I needed something else to do, and as soon as possible. I began searching for internships, and I was once again given misleading information. 

Checking every available source for someone who might possibly need me, I stumbled upon an ad from last September, and I now intern for a woman who is co-authoring and self-publishing a book. Instead of getting paid for the internship, the school charges for it so I can get a credit. Communications majors need internships to graduate, so I get to do homework as well! That's besides editing another book for a very small, local publishing company.

And now for the information that allows me to sprinkle in photographs. Might as well give you something to look at in between the blocks of text. I attended my best friend's sorority formal as her "date," which was quite fun despite the fact that I barely knew anyone there. Everyone I met was welcoming. Since Beth has been on this blog before, I can show you a picture:

My sister came in at the end of May for her bridal shower, which was lovely. It was organized by my aunts, and my cousin and I, as bridesmaids, helped record presents and handle the gifts. My mom played unofficial photographer. I'm inserting a picture of my sister and I, and you'll notice I'm wearing the same dress [different belt]. It's a good dress. I give my mom credit for finding it at Target. She has remarkable luck with getting me clothing that fits, and that I like, but only when I'm not with her. I'll leave my sister's name out, in case she'd rather it not be on here. If I find out it's ok, maybe I'll update this. Updating my update post. How ironic would that be? Here we are:

Many of my friends are out of state this summer or don't live conveniently close to me, so I haven't had much in the way of a social life, but what I have had has been great. July should be a blast, because I'll be visiting friends from home who are staying in Wisconsin for the summer. In the meantime, I was extraordinarily excited to get to see The Lonely Island in a live question and answer session for free. I shan't go into detail, because the people with whom I went most likely don't want me putting information out. The performed their song "Diaper Money" at the end. It was weird but wonderful to see that.

In any case, it was great fun to see Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone being interviewed by Seth Meyers before he had to leave for his own live show. Ironically, we ended up walking past the theater he was performing in later that night. Here's a picture of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers:

I also received this fun box of goodies from Influenster, a website you can sign up for and take surveys in order to get products and other such paraphernalia to test and review:

I must write a separate post on all that, especially since you can't see any of the contents in this particular photo. I know we all get excited about cardboard boxes.

To sum up, I left behind a great deal of stress when I came home for the summer, and I'm now working a part time internship and a freelance internship. Most importantly, I think, is the fact that I am trying to enjoy valuable time with friends and family and to squeeze as many happy fun times out of this summer  as is humanly possible. And, yes, I did indeed say "happy fun times" in a non-ironic way. I also want to make to stay active.

This summer needs to take it easy on the flying and float by instead, so I, and all of you, my dear readers, can savor it.

Hope everyone has been doing well.

Happy Summer!

xEsther

P.S. I've also become addicted to Doctor Who, the recent seasons. I can't say I'm a fanatic, but I am quite adept at clicking "Next Episode" on Netflix. It's pretty entertaining.

Lately I've Been Loving

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• OPI Mermaid's Tears. As I mentioned in this post, this particular nail polish was rather difficult to procure, and it's all I've lately been wanting to wear. I wore it for about two weeks and planned to reapply, but, alas, my nails are still bare. It's in the same family as China Glaze For Audrey, but it reads slightly more teal with a hint of gray. The best part: It's from the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Collection. [Side note: I don't understand why so many people hated the movie. I just took it for what it was: A silly pirate movie, starring the fabulous Johnny Depp, that had nothing to do with the first three in the series. If you don't like Jack Sparrow, don't watch it!]

• Beauty blogs. You can check out my blog roll on my Complete Profile page. Those are just some of the blogs I read. I enjoy looking at the blog rolls of other people whose pages I regularly read, but I don't want eight million blogs on my subscription list, so I just tend to browse tons of blogs outside my own regular reading list.

• Glamour magazine. My friend subscribes to this magazine and, since we basically share each other's collections, I've been really loving it. It's a super quick read, but it doesn't feel ridiculous like magazines geared toward teens. There are plenty of pictures with articles interspersed throughout the pages, but there's nothing too dense. It's ideal light reading material for when my brain doesn't want to work too hard.

• Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in Sweet Tart. I got this on a major sale, with a gift card and a coupon, so it was a little under $2 when I purchased it. I find it to be super easy to apply quickly before class, especially since I constantly think I'm running late. [This doesn't explain why I always get to class 15 to 20 minutes early.] The shine isn't too drastic, and the color shows up a vibrant pink on my lips. I love how it looks against my complexion and hair. I can't leave my dorm room without some sort of lip color on, or I feel way too washed out. With one or two reapplications, it wears down to a bit of a stain, so there's always a hint of color on my lips.

• Parks and Recreation. I literally just started watching this show yesterday, but my friends showed me some clips of the character Tom Haverford over the past weekend and now I can't get enough of it! I watched this clip on repeat before actually starting from the first season.

• New Girl. I'm so happy this show is back! The cast of characters is as ridiculous and lovable as ever, and I can't wait to see where this year's plot goes.

• Living close to home. Even though sometimes I consider whether I would have preferred living at home, I don't think I'd like commuting to school at all. That's why I love the fact that my college is close to home. I'm about an hour away from my house, which is just far enough for me to feel like I can have my own life but still have a safety net and a place to visit more often than I could at my previous university.

• "Uncharted" by Sara Bareilles, "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain, and "Us" by Regina Spektor. The first is one of my favorites by Bareilles, though I do love all of her songs. She's a pretty brilliant lyricist and has a fantastic, sassy voice. "I'll Be" got stuck in my head after watching the finale of The Glee Project: Season 2. Despite the fact that I don't watch Glee, I really enjoy that show. The winner, Blake, sang the song as his final performance, and I've been listening to it pretty often ever since. I also enjoy harmonizing to that song. [I enjoy harmonizing to any song, actually] "Us" is a song that I wouldn't normally like at all, because I don't particularly adore Regina Spektor's music or voice. However, because it's the opening song of 500 Days of Summer, one of my many favorite movies, I've recently been hooked on it. I still have no idea what it means. I do realize that not one of these songs is new.

• Family and friends. This one's a given, but particularly since I've started school, I'm very aware of how lucky I am to always have someone to call when I'm feeling unsure of myself or just need to talk. It's a great feeling.

[Aside: I currently have midterm exams and papers to write, and my reading assignments never end, but I'm certainly not going to stop posting.]

I hope your September has been great!

What have you been loving lately?

xEsther

Dug Up from the Drafts: Accepting Who We Are...and Aren't

Hello, dear readers,

I don't know about you, but I hate having drafts floating around my "Posts" box. Until just now, I had five of them polluting my Blogger profile, so I knew I had to take action.

Three of these blogs were promptly deleted, as they were incomplete and irrelevant or merely contained a title and no content. This is the first of the two that survived. Apparently, in one of my first few posts, I promised you that I'd be writing a self-esteem series. I now believe the reason for that was because the creation of this blog coincided with the beginning of a very difficult time in my life. I was doing this for myself more than anything, to reinforce what I knew was true but didn't fully believe. Not that there's anything wrong with self-esteem posts! I just don't actually plan to do a series on the subject unless I feel particularly inspired. In any case, here is the first in my previously planned self-esteem series posts. This is very brief and unfinished, but I think the last sentence is conclusive enough for what it's worth. I changed the font just now to make the separation between past and present painfully obvious. Enjoy this snippet from January 23, 2011:



For those of you who read my very first posts, you may remember that I promised a self-esteem series. Well, I'm finally getting to it! I hope you enjoy.




Let's all take a deep breath and admit it: We've all been guilty of looking at celebrities in magazines, the girl a few seats away on the train, or even our best friend and wondering, Why can't I look like that? Why am I not as skinny, fashionable, pretty? Why does everything always seem to work out for her and not me?


I'm bringing this up because I think it's important to recognize that part of building a healthy self-esteem and self-image is realizing who we aren't in order to focus on who we are.


Who we aren't? you ask. Why would we need to dwell on that? Well, we don't, and that's exactly the point. Let me explain: Focusing on someone else and wishing you could be like them actually prevents you from improving yourself. Becoming the best "you" possible is what you should be striving for.


It's absolutely fine to be inspired by other people, but it's important to recognize that we can each only be one person and no one else.



That's all I wrote. It's short, simple, and to the point, I suppose. Granted, I planned to finish this at some point but was apparently never motivated enough to do so.

I hope you liked this little blast from the past. I'll be posting the second of my drafts sometime this week. I did actually update and complete that one a few days ago. This one remains unchanged.

Wishing you a great week,

xEsther

Bits and Bobs

Hello, dear readers,

This post is just a little bit of this and a tad bit of that. Creative, huh? I apologize for not covering Golden Globes fashion, and I promise I will do Oscars fashion once more. I'm so excited for the Oscar nominations that will come out on January 24th. In any case, I've been rather busy lately, hence the lack of Golden Globes fashion. I haven't even read about it yet in the newspapers.

What am I up to? I'm just starting two classes at community college, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I'm also applying for colleges. If you're in the U.S., you know that the Common Application requires a short statement and an essay. As a transfer student, however, there are separate supplements and different essays for each school. I have four schools to write for, and a completely separate application for another university.

I will be testing out some makeup products soon, so I'll have at least one post on those. I also recently rediscovered a product in my own collection, and I think I'll be talking about that in the coming week. Besides classes, college applications, and college visits, I was lucky enough to get a fashion features internship on CHAOS Magazine's blog. I'll be a beauty writer for the blog, and my posts will come out twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you're interested in ever checking it out, the link is here, and the magazine's main page is here. My first post comes out tomorrow.

CHAOS is an indie magazine, predominantly focused on current news in fashion, music, and art, but I believe you have to register [it's free] to actually read the editorials. The blog, however, is open to everyone, and there is quite a lot of fashion coverage. It seems to focus on higher-end fashion, with not as much coverage on the latest beauty news, so I'm excited to inject some more beauty articles into the blog!

Ramble, ramble, ramble...I know I've gone on for quite awhile here, but I'm pretty excited to be in such a good place at the moment. I just had to share it with all of you.

I hope your week is going well. Let me know if you have any exciting things going on in your life right now.

xEsther

One Year Blog Birthday!

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Hello, dear readers,

I'm thrilled to say that today happens to not only be the last day of the year, but the one-year anniversary of the first day I started this blog!

When I started out, I had no idea where this blog would go; I seem to have planned on talking more about self-esteem/wellness, but decided that in order to keep personal matters personal, that topic wouldn't be doable for me. I've had so much fun coming up with categories of posts to write, responding to comments, and creating post titles.

Some of the categories that came out of this year's blogging are:

• Let's Do...A Book Review
• Mini Review
• Late Night Lit
• Lately I've Been Loving...

I also absolutely love writing posts on fashion at the plethora of awards shows, as looking at the newspaper for the best-dressed actresses at the Oscars has been a favorite tradition since I was a wee child. I'm so glad I've been able to transition from avid blog reader to blog writer. Clearly, tags have also been favorite posts of mine to write.

I'm so grateful for all of my followers, and, quite honestly, anyone who has accidentally stumbled upon my blog and read a post. My blog is a baby within the world of blogging, and I'm perfectly content with that. Considering I started out as my only follower [until I realized I could unfollow myself], I'm pretty impressed. I'm glad people deign to read my rambles, because it makes a hobby of mine into something even more special and fun.

My next post will probably be a combination of "Best of 2011" tags. My goal is to take more of my own pictures in the coming year, and to post more often. There are also several promised posts mentioned in one of my many updates, so I have to go back and make good on those. I also need to get into the habit of previewing my posts before publishing, instead of publishing and then going back to edit a million more times!

This year has been extremely rough for me, but I'm glad I had this blog to keep me entertained and occupied! I'm hoping 2012 gets much better.

Thanks for sticking with me, or thanks for reading this if you're a random reader today!

I hope you all have tons of fun on New Year's Eve and a fabulous New Year!

xEsther