What did I get at Sephora tonight….

Well, let’s see…I started off with Laura Mercier’s Tinted Oil-Free Moisturizer

Then I continued on the LM bandwagon with their Mineral Pressed Powder

And because I have been feeling like I have neglected my curls lately, I bought a mini-travel pack of Ouidad products because they come in perfect sample sizes. I’ve never used Ouidad products but have been very curious about their efficiency. So I will test them out and let you know. (All my curly-haired girls can sympathize with the unpredictable nature of curls and the endless desire to find the “perfect” product.)

One curly-haired girl who rocks the curls is Keri Russell (although, ever since her Felicity days, she seems to be going the loose curl route). I have to admit that I thought she was one of the best dressed at this weekend’s Emmy’s and her makeup was absolutely flawless! I love the light pink hues with a very natural look.

I’m attending a wedding this weekend (even though Hurricane Earl is threatening to ruin all the fun…and the hair!) and haven’t decided if I am going to go straight or curly, so I will be testing out these products between now and Friday. I also picked up some pretty eye shadows in grey tones and I’m going to be experimenting with them as well.

And I was really, really tempted to buy the Clarisonic MIA

It’s about $145…kind of expensive…which is why I didn’t buy it and instead bought this for around $6:

I know that later on I am going to use this same exact image when posting about “life giving you lemons” or something similarly inspirational like that, but for now I am actually talking about LEMONS. Real lemons!

I just watched a great youtube video by a makeup artist (and skincare expert!) who demonstrates a natural way to reveal smooth, beautiful, healthy skin. Her name is Kandee Johnson and she is A-MAZING! She’s absolutely gorgeous and has some great how-to videos covering everything from creating dramatic eye-makeup looks to how to keep your skin glowing. She offers tips and techniques and gives product suggestions. I’ve never met her and have absolutely no affiliation with Kandee, I just think she rocks and know you will too! (But beware, you will lose HOURS of your day watching her videos…they are kind of addictive).

Have a BEAUTIFUL day!

Today on a walk with my mother, she gave me some powerful advice. As we walked in a rhythmic balance through the tree-lined streets, I complained about a number of issues I was dealing with on a daily basis. I was venting my way through a laundry list of stressors  that were clogging my brain and inhibiting my ability to just enjoy what was going on in the here and now.  Then my mother said they exact right words at the exact right time.

“You can’t change your entire life in one day, but you can change one thing,” she said. And then she continued, “You can do one thing differently every single day of your life and it can be as small as you want. It can be as simple as going somewhere different for lunch or emailing someone you haven’t spoken to in awhile. The key is to do one thing, just one thing, differently. Change your routine in the tiniest way and it will change your entire life.” Do I need to tell you that my mom is a really smart woman or are you already getting the picture?

What she said made complete sense! I realized that I do what most people do, I get stuck in a rut. I keep doing the same exact things hoping for different results (isn’t this also the definition of crazy?) and wonder why I am repeatedly disappointed.

So I took my mother’s advice! Instead of spending my Saturday reading on my back deck (which, don’t get me wrong, is a FANTASTIC way to spend a Saturday but it has become a bit of a routine for me), I took a day trip to a gorgeous seaside town. I shopped, I walked, I ate a delicious dinner and I enjoyed every single minute of this beautiful, beautiful Saturday in August.

So I am going to open this up to you, dear readers.

-Do you ever find yourself doing the same thing, making the same mistakes, and optimistically hoping for a different reaction or result?

-Have you ever tried switching things up? Changing your routine? Has it worked?

-What is the best way to get yourself out of a funk?

I made the mistake of thinking too much. Does that ever happen to you? You start analyzing where you are in this crazy, mixed up ride we call life. I started thinking about where I thought I would be, and compared it with where I am. Yes, they are very different places but one can’t really be compared to the other, it’s like apples and oranges. BUT this is also a SUNDAY and don’t we all know how Sunday’s can play with our minds a bit.

It’s cold outside, even though it’s AUGUST and New England weather is supposed to be kind to us in AUGUST because it beats the cr-p out of us all year long (Blizzards in April? Oh yeah, we’ve got those).  So it’s freezing cold, it’s the weekend, the time for playing and having fun…ideally on beaches and in pools… and I am sort of trapped inside because I am a wimp and don’t feel like braving the cold.

So instead I’m surfing the internet. Then I start beating myself up (because I do that so well!) for spending a perfectly good, if slightly cold, day on the internet. It’s as gluttonous as watching TV! I yell to myself. I want to be productive and accomplish so many good things that will allow me to look back on the weekend and say, “Good job, Jocelyn! Look at how much you got done!” But instead I will say, “Did you really spend your day on your computer? The exact thing you spend Monday through Friday doing and cursing at!?”

So yes, I am feeling like a bit of waster of time. And I’m sure I will look back on this blog post and say, “Did you really write that? For all the world (one person?) to read?”

And because it is SUNDAY and I am in an emotional and sad state I will feel bad about it…for about a minute until I realize that Big Brother is on tonight and I love me some bad reality television.

So that’s my day, folks. Let me know how you spent YOUR weekend…but if you did a lot of great, exciting stuff, don’t bother leaving a comment…I don’t want to know.

Here are just a few things I’m loving today:

This kitten makes me happy.

This is a really funny visual description of what an overnight flight feels like.

You will want to send a thank you note after going here.

I want to read this book.

They are feeding into my guilty pleasure!

{Photo by The Cherry Blossom Girl}

There is a series of HBO documentaries called Masterclass. Recently they featured the playwright Edward Albee. He made an interesting (and uplifting) point about failure and mistakes.

“I think people should be adventuresome,” Albee said. “I think people should make mistakes. Make the interesting mistakes. The trick is making more interesting mistakes and doing stuff that you may regret, but what’s wrong with that? There’s more regret in what you don’t do than what you do.”

{Thank you to The Dating Optimist for bringing this fantastic and inspiring quote to my attention. I am now addicted to her blog.}

So start looking for that silver lining, because it’s always there!

Today I was up early and outside immediately, enjoying the dry air and warm sunshine that hasn’t been present much this summer. We have been plagued with deep humidity for the past month and the cool air today felt like heaven. I took a long walk with my mom, dropped off a baby gift for my neighbor and stopped by the beach to take in the awe-inspiring site of large waves and smell the salty air that was filled with the Sunday night scent of hot dogs and hamburgers and the grills they sizzled on.  A perfect Sunday!

Coincidentally, on a day when I was feeling particularly stressed, I opened my email box and found a message buried within the many random emails I get from mailing lists I don’t remember signing up for but often look forward to reading.

You must let the stress go – it is the only way you can bring what you want. The emotion of stress is saying strongly that you do NOT have what you want. Stress or tension is the absence of faith, and so to remove it all you have to do is increase your faith!

Sometimes it is easy to fall into a “woe is me” approach to life, allowing the stress and unhappiness to weigh you down. We forget the importance of counting our blessings and how doing that can actually relieve us of our stress.

I need to learn how to manage my stress because I am finding that it is taking over my life in negative, unproductive ways.

In happy, productive and inspiring news, I cleaned my desk and worked really hard today on prioritizing my tasks. I made a to-do list that was no more than 6 things. (Typically, my to-do lists will number in the 20’s) But today I wanted to be as effective and productive as possible and in order to do that you need to be efficient in deciding what needs to be done and what can be put at the end of the list. In other words, you put the items at the end of the list if they are the ones that are less pressing and don’t need to be finished immediately. And do you want to know what happened? I got everything done AND had time to spare. I stayed conscious of all of my actions throughout the day and would periodically ask myself if what I was doing was contributing to the greater cause (i.e., was it helping me lessen my work load). If it wasn’t, then I stopped doing it immediately. My stress level decreased and my accomplishments for the day were at an all time high. And I stayed on top of the clutter on my desk and threw things away!

{photo above is not my closet…but it is what I plan to someday provide for my future daughters. Clean, organized…and PINK!}

Ironically, the quote I am about to post could have been used for yesterday’s post, as well.

“Attention is the most basic form of love.”- John Tarrant Roshi

I am reading a book on organization and it is giving me some great insight into the time vacuums that suck up our most valuable assets: the hours and minutes that make up a day. These distractions fight for our attention on a moment-by-moment basis. Email is one of the top culprits. Organization guru Julie Morgenstern has even written a book titled, NEVER CHECK EMAIL IN THE MORNING. I am a compulsive email checker. Admittedly, I have even been tempted to switch over to my email twice while composing this blog post. Being organized and effective with our time allows us to have the time to enjoy and pay attention to what is important to us. Every organizational expert says things along the same line, clean up the clutter, designate, minimize and be decisive. Never multi-task. As someone who does a million things at once and is always “connected” in some way to the electronic world and the instantaneous messages that bombard us all, this is going to be my own personal resolution. I am going to get ORGANIZED! I will do whatever it takes and see how it affects my life.  I hope you, dear readers, will join me on this journey.

Tomorrow’s Task: Clean off my desk. Pictures to come. (Be fair warned!)

Today I went for a walk through my hometown. The sun was shining, the air was cool and there was a beautiful, heavy breeze blowing. I have spent the past 31 years of my life in this town and yet I think I really saw it for the first time today. Absolutely beautiful. Breathtaking. Stunning. These are the same streets I stumbled through as a giggling teenager. I went for grade school walks with my classmates down these cobblestone streets. I drove these historical streets as a newly minted driver, sixteen and tightly clutching the steering wheel. But today, it was the first time I really saw and appreciated the beauty right outside my back door. I believe that experiences enrich our souls and enliven our spirits. They inspire and teach. They allow us to appreciate the beauty in the every day and help us not take things for granted.

I could have spent the day hunched over a keyboard, staring blankly into a computer screen. I could have numbed my senses with a television show of the reality variety (a personal favorite of mine). But instead I chose to explore, to listen, to talk and to appreciate. Last year at this time I lost someone very special to me. I’m glad that this year was spent enjoying the beauty that is all around us. I sometimes think the secret to happiness is the ability to pay attention to and appreciate the little joys in life. They really are all around us, we just have to look for them.