Another Periodic Update

Hello, dear readers,

I'm sorry I'm so inconsistent with my blogging this summer. I promise I have no intention of stopping this blog; I'm just enjoying my summer as much as possible and have been too lazy to actually create a worthwhile post. So far I've been catching up with friends, shopping, reading, and getting back into regular fitness routines. I like the Exercise TV videos on YouTube, and I also search for random workouts so I can switch up my routine. I still hula hoop, but I also like interval workouts, Pilates, and Zumba and other dance workouts.  I do have reviews that will be coming up, some of which are quite overdue. I received a box of products for the summer Influenster VoxBox, which I will explain once I'm ready to review those. I have to actually use the products in order to review them! I also haven't been wearing face makeup, as it's been over 100 degrees [F] here. Don't worry, though; I still wear lipstick every day!

I hope all of my American readers had a fabulous July 4th! I went to my local parade with my friend, and one of our friends was actually driving in it. We hassled her until she got out of the car and came over to us. It was quite nice as I haven't been to the parade in a few years. I had to hop right in the shower after due to the fact that it hit 102 F [I don't know how to do the degree symbol; sorry!]. I then went to a barbecue with friends, including the two from the morning, and saw the local fireworks. Afterwards, we all went to see the opening night of the Katy Perry movie. Yes; you read that right. It was a great deal of fun singing loudly and dancing in the back row. I know, I know; it's definitely Oscar-worthy material.

I promise you will see a post from me before the summer's end; I just can't promise you when that will be! Have a wonderful weekend!

xEsther

Dug Up from the Drafts: "There's More to Me than Makeup" Tag

Totally random and unrelated photo. View from my bedroom window, taken in January. The window has a screen, 

hence the blurriness. I played with editing, but eventually decided on the original. I hate making posts without pictures!

Hello, dear readers,

I know this is another tag, and an old one at that, but I actually have a fairly decent reason for it. This is the second of the drafts that I promised to post. At last, my "Posts" box will be empty of anything but published blogs. I'm not changing the font on this one, because I rewrote the answers to suit my current situation. 


1. Do you go to school? If yes...what is your favourite subject/ what is your major?
Yes, I go to school. My major is Communications, with a minor in Spanish. Within Communications, I love film classes. However, I'm not going into the film industry; I just find those courses extremely interesting and fun. 

2. Do you work? If yes...what is your job?
I don't work at the moment, but I am looking for a summer job. I hope to find one, but, if not, I may end up taking a class instead. I do have an unpaid blogging internship online for CHAOS Magazine, and I'm applying for a copy editor internship at another website. It's also unpaid, and I'll tell you what it is if I get the position.


3. Do you read? If yes...name a few of your favourite books and/or magazines.
Yes.  Some of my favorite books are the Harry Potter series [in English and Spanish]; Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; American Gods and Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman;  The Princess Bride, by William Goldman; The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory; Bookends by Jane Green; The Looking Glass Wars trilogy, by Frank Beddor....Honestly the list could go on and on and on.
As for magazines, my favorite is probably Marie Claire. 


4. Can you cook?
I can't properly answer that, because it's not that I can't cook; I just don't cook. I'd like to learn, but I lack motivation.


5. Do you have any siblings?
Yes. I have a sister, aged 24, and a brother, 27.


6. Do you speak any other languages?
If I were to be immersed in a Spanish-speaking environment, I think I would be able to quickly improve my spoken Spanish. I am fairly fluent as far as reading, writing, and understanding, but I could use more practice speaking. I've studied for a little over eight years, so I should hope I would pick it up! 


7. If you could holiday anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
I'd love to travel all over Europe and the UK, just to experience the culture and the sights [The shopping wouldn't hurt either!]. Specifically, I'd like to visit Spain or another Spanish-speaking country for the reasons mentioned above. 


8. What is your idea of the perfect date?
I don't have anything specific in mind. Honestly, I think the most important thing is that it goes well!


9. What is your dream career?
I'm not 100 percent sure, but I would like to explore the world of publishing/publications. I'm also fascinated by the idea of translating books for a career.


10. Are you athletic...do you play sports/work out..or are you a couch bunny?
I'm athletic in the sense that I love working out and keeping fit. I absolutely do not play sports. My hand-eye coordination doesn't exist, and I don't have the patience for team sports.


11. What are your three favourite things (that have nothing to do with makeup/beauty)?
I'm going to skip friends and family, because they're people, not things. As far as tangible "things," I would say film, books, and music. How much more generic can I get here? More intangible things would be singing, traveling, and working out. 


12. What is the BEST thing about you? 
I love the fact that I'm easily amused by pretty much everything, which makes other people laugh as well. That probably isn't the BEST thing about me, but it's one of my personal favorite qualities.


Ahhhh, the sound of complete silence from the "Drafts" area of my profile. How I adore it. I'm not entirely sure when I initially wrote this, but it was probably before or during last fall. Like I said, the answers are up-to-date, having rewritten them yesterday. I didn't think it would be necessary to show you the old one because things have changed, and it no longer contained inaccurate information.


Have you done this tag? I think it's fun to read about the lives, loves, and dreams of other fashion/beauty/lifestyle bloggers. We all have a certain amount of "girliness" in common, but it's nice to see what else is going on with everyone. Maybe we have more in common than we thought [or even less]! 


In any case, enjoy your day, whatever you happen to be doing!


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

My Favorite Posts and Series of 2011

Hello, dear readers,

For fear of appearing to self-promote, I initially decided against writing this post. As you can tell from the title, this is a list of my favorite posts. Emphasis on the word "my." Don't get me wrong; I subscribe to a zillion blogs with better picture quality, writing, and/or post ideas. The reason I'm rattling off the names of the posts I wrote is for no other reason than how proud of them I am. During one of my personal worst years, I was able to get this blog going. Hence, I feel no shame in naming the posts or series that I consider my personal best, found the most fun to write, etc. I know we're well into January now, but if you don't mind, I don't mind. You don't have to click the links to any of them; they're just there so that if you do want to have a look, you don't spend time searching for them.

In no particular order, here we go:

Top 3 Posts

1. Pop Culture Favorites of 2011

This was one of the most fun posts for me to write. Anyone who knows me is aware that I love pop culture. Movies, books, music, websites: You name it; I can name a current favorite. I'm especially fond of movies and books, so it was a great deal of fun to write the most concise summaries I've ever written about all of my favorites. This post also took quite some time to come up with, write, and find pictures for. I'm very happy with the way it turned out, and I think it's also fairly original, as compared to other favorites posts that I've done.

2. Skincare Tips Parts 1 and 2

Skincare is somewhat of a scientific hobby for me. What I mean by that is that I research ingredients to the best of my ability, compare articles, and go with science in the end. There may be conflicting ideas on different beauty blogs or magazines, but it's ultimately down to chemistry as far as products go, and science as far as following skincare rules goes. Technically, these are two posts, but they were really meant to be written as one. That post was far too long, so I split it in two. These were quite labor intensive in the most entertaining of ways. I loved writing everything I know about skincare, and I do believe that at least most of it is correct!

3. Best 11 of 2011

Ah, finally a post in which I use my own pictures, shot in pretty decent daylight. I'm pretty happy about the way these pictures came out, and how short the descriptions were on each product. This took a long time, too, but mostly because I needed to decide which products to choose. The picture-taking and editing didn't actually take too long. I got lucky with the lighting.

Top 3 Series

1. Let's Do...A Book Review 

It all started after I read Water for Elephants. The movie had either just come out or was about to come out, so I frantically rushed to read the book, and I fell in love with the story. That review started the series. I also realize that after this series I began to use the ellipses a lot more. I really enjoy reading, and this series encourages me to keep reading books so I can find more to review. The most rewarding part is when the reviews make people want to read the books afterwards.

2. Awards Show Fashion Series

I have always been an Oscars fanatic, far before my friends found out about it, but I never fail to watch the red carpet interviews for the half hour before the show. I absolutely love hearing stars answer the "Who are you wearing?" question with the names of famous designers casually slipping off their lips. Half the fun of awards shows is seeing the fashion, and reading about it in the paper the next day. So I thought: I'm watching the Oscars; why not do a review myself? That started my series of awards show fashion favorites posts.

3. Lately I've Been Loving... Series

This is just something I started to remind myself of the good things going on at the time. I know beauty bloggers tend to write about favorite makeup and hair products, and I figured it would be nice to write about all the other wonderful things I happened to appreciate at the time. The series has helped me focus on the positive, even if just for a short time after each post.


Those are all my favorite posts and series. What posts did you write that you liked the best this year?

Have a wonderful weekend.

xEsther