My Happiness Project: Week Five

**Breaking News - This week's Happiness Project includes working on my blog, so if you have any issues with my site, please bear with me! It will be even prettier and more functional soon!**

This last week was so fun because I just got to be girly! How many beauty-related pins have I pinned over the years?! I got to choose a few and try them out. Why not? They don't take an inordinate amount of time and it was fun to shake things up. My beauty resolutions will probably be the easiest for me to continue in my regular life.

Beauty

- Try new hairstyles
--I  tried my favorite milkmaid braids again (welcome back, bangs), a new technique for hot rollers (start rolling at the top, leaving the ends out, the same way I do with curling iron, except I don't have to hold it!) and a braided bun. Still working on a couple of hair ideas for the wedding - I'll keep you posted.

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- Try an organic hair mask for my lifeless locks
-- Did it! I mashed up half an avocado, one egg and a hearty splash of olive oil. It looked like a weird guacamole and I smeared it all up in my hair - check out the gross chunks - and tied it up for 20-30 minutes before washing it out with COLD water (you don't want to cook the egg!). I saw the biggest difference! It's hard to tell in the second picture, but by dinner that night my hair was softer and shiner. Definitely worth a try if you feel like your hair is basically straw.

 - Try new makeup techniques and wear lip color every day.
- I spent a few hours on my Makeup Pinboard, reading Lauren Conrad and Bobbi Brown beauty & style books, and watching YouTube videos and tried several new techniques. I tried eyeliner into the corner of my upper lid (loved it!), blended bronze creme shadow instead of black eyeliner (very summery), and a better technique for covering my biological dark circles that make me look like a zombie (forming a triangle of cover from the inner corner of the eye, down the side of the nose and then up to meet the outer corner of the eye).

You absolutely HAVE to check out this girl's blog - her tips are so great

- Wear lip color every day.
-- I tried. I really did. I just suck. I never think it looks good, my lips are always too dry and chapped for good color deposits, and it's always bleeding regardless of liner.

- Take a luxurious bath to recharge
-- I was super sore and tense from sleeping poorly and doing intense crossfit every day, so these bathsalts were particularly needed. I've done milk baths, bubble baths and scented salt baths, but these epsom salt baths are just the top of the line. This little package costs like a dollar at the grocery store and it's amazing. This one has a soothing menthol smell and it loosened up all of my tense muscles and soreness. Highly recommended.

Personal Improvement

- Quit picking my split ends!
-- If you've ever seen me in real life, you've probably seen me picking at my split ends. I've been doing it since like 9th grade. It's an absent-minded thing, as well as a mental escape for me. I do it when I'm bored, nervous, thinking, worrying, all the time really. It's a bad habit and my car and clothes are covered in little blonde broken hairs. It's preventing longer growth and makes my ends look so unhealthy. I still did it from time to time, but curling my hair, wearing it up and looking at Cara Loren's gorgeous locks helped me to leave my split ends alone. Work in progress, but I tried!

- Stop complaining.
-- Easier said than done, right? They also say that your goals shouldn't be a "Don't..." or "Stop...." but that you should rephrase them to be positive and action-based. So I tried to replace complaining with gratitude! It is so easy to forget and start complaining about stupid things, but when I consciously tried to think more positively about my life and eliminate complaining I saw a real difference. Seriously, why do we complain? What do we hope to accomplish by that? Has it ever made you feel better? No! We should all just stop.

- Finally master the French Macaron!
-- Epic fail. I am literally the WORST at macarons. I don't get it. I don't understand.  Look at this. It's not a camera trick. They are actually flat.

 

 - Continue my other Happiness Projects.
-- I'm still moving in and cleaning up my new apartment, still working on my BOM study,  supporting The Beard in our new life pursuits, checking out lots of books from the library on various topics, couponing and even trying to practice mindfulness. Even just working on them for one week helped to make them more habitual and more conscious.

Why I'm Basically Lizzie McGuire

It started when I retweeted a Buzzfeed list about what we can learn from Lizzie McGuire and Aaron Carter favorited it and followed me. Sure, maybe it's a semi-bot account and he follows everyone. But I'm still starstruck by the guy who beat Shaq.

How this video only has one million views beats me.

So when I saw a pin on Pinterest linking to the full episodes, naturally I spent several afternoons watching them and reliving my preteen summers. The Beard was not impressed.

My favorite part? Her hairstyles. I was REALLY into hairstyles - when you have a fully stocked salon in your house it makes Lizzie McGuire hair actually possible. I kid you not, I had a notebook with sketches of different hairstyles in case I ever ran out of a "new" do for school. Don't believe me? Get excited because Patti Budge was a scrapbooker so I have evidence.

 

Classy Twists 'n' Buns for the Christmas Dance

 

 Check out those stylish twin messy buns, Santa! Lookin' fresh with buns & braces

 

Crimped my hair 2/5 school days per week, minimum

My first crush, stud of our school Michael Bate once turned to me in the middle of science, those brown eyes and freckles making me forget the phases of the moon we were memorizing, and asked "Do you have a different hairstyle for every day?"

Yes I do Mike Bate. Gotta keep those Springville Middle School kids impressed.  P.S. you're gonna be my boyfriend and we're gonna be the IT couple until our dramatic breakup in junior high. Get ready.

Thanks, Lizzie.

To Bangs or Not To Bangs

Every year since 2008 I've gone through this. I love bangs. I have wanted the chic, mod fringe ever since I was 14 or so. I have a super weird cowlick, though, so it wasn't until 2008 after a traumatic breakup that I worked up the courage to snip them.

(Dramatic hair changes and cookie dough are the best ways to get over a breakup in my opinion.)

Every spring I decide I'm sick of them. The cowlick gets out of hand, they won't fall straight, they won't cooperate, kill me now I'd rather be dead than deal with these FREAKING BANGS.

I'm paraphrasing and censoring, obviously.

Let the record show that I have no beef with the maintenance of bangs. I don't mind doing them every day. I DO mind the few occasions where they REFUSE to lie flat and instead create a gap on my forehead. See below. Ew. 

But then I start the dreaded process of growing them out. I feel like my face looks fatter. The cowlick is still my worst enemy. I hate the Lauren Conrad braiding back my bangs because it feel so 2007 to me. Headbands and bobby pins are a daily necessity, and I can't just blow my hair out because it looks flat - resulting in messy buns often (see below). I look ok about 30% of the time, I think.

So I'm asking for some help. My most trusted parties (The Beard and my mom) are split for bangs and no bangs, respectively.

What do you guys think? I'm sure I'll go back and forth a few hundred more times. But still - your opinion is valued here at Black with a Chance of Cheetah.

To Bangs?                                                             Or Not to Bangs?


                                    

As Dry as the Books to Which I so Desperately Cling

Bonus points to anyone who can name that movie/book.

My skin is dry. Incidentally, I also love books so it was kind of perfect.

As it is warming up and I'm kind of sick of boots and leggings (I'll never REALLY be sick of leggings. Come on.), I decided it's time to take care of this wrinkled, fading, scaly skin/nails/hair of mine.

This week at the grocery store I impulsively bought the Garnier-Fructis Moroccan Oil because it was tiny and on sale and I'd spent every in-between moment at school picking at my dreadfully straw-like split ends. I'm the Tiger Woods of impulse buys - really good and no listening to my conscience. (zing!)

I'm sold. Seriously. I shampooed and conditioned my hair normally, then wrung it out and applied about 2 teaspoons into my damp locks, combing it through with my fingers and then wrapping it up in a towel for a few minutes.

Effects: My hair is pretty straight, so I can't speak to it's relaxing powers, but my hair dried silky soft and there is noticeably less damage on the lower third of my strands. I accidentally deposited too much on one part of my scalp (I was trying to concentrate on the bottom half, but failed) so it was slightly greasy - but one blast of my brand new Paul Mitchell Dry Shampoo solved that it under 5 seconds. Yahtzee.

The week before, I was wearing a tee shirt and looked down at my normally dry/scaly forearms to see DANDRUFF. Well, not dandruff. But my skin was literally flaking off. It was disgusting.

Enter Skin Milk. Purchased at our fancy local Smith's (super cheap), this body cream is thick, creamy and plain. With a slight vanilla smell and the real milk proteins, it made my skin feel (and smell) heavenly pretty much instantly. I  spread it on generously while my skin is still damp from the shower to lock in moisture. My skin has much more life and feels less like an alligator. The Beard approves. Glen wants to lick it because he thinks it's frosting.

As for my peeling, dry, hangnail prone fingertips - it's all about the cuticle oil and cutting down on harsh nail polish removers. I try to only use nail polish remover about every 2 weeks, giving my nail beds a few days to chill before very carefully polishing them so the color will last and not chip. Every couple of days I dot a drop of Orly cuticle oil or cuticle lotion on my beds and trim off any dead skin.

If you get peeling nails or lots of dead skin hang nails along your nail beds this is a necessity.

On a semi-related note:

Do not get L'Oreal Sublime Bronze self-tanner. Don't do it. It might be on sale. You might think "Wow. L'Oreal is a pretty good brand. This is probably a step up from my Jergens standby. I'll give it a try. Only $4, so it can't hurt, right?"

Wrong. It can. It can make you look like you have hickies and also got attacked by an army of cinnamon-sugar toast. I really was trying to be careful too. (It looked worse in person. Trust me.)

The Jamba Juice girl made me realize what my students were whispering about. It wasn't Justin Bieber. It was my "hickies." Yikes.

Don't forget to enter the Giveaway!!!

A Real Hippie Wouldn't Hurt Bambi

I hope you're intrigued by that title. It's hard to believe, but it is actually relevant to my Saturday night.

On Friday one of my besties from high school - Mckensie crashed with me, and Gabi came over to hang with us. We stayed up late braiding our hair and watching puppy videos on YouTube like any other 14 year olds at a sleepover. We even played M.A.S.H. (no, we didn't.)

I slept in and read in bed until 1 pm like a really responsible adult. After breakfast and several Office episodes in my sweats The Beard talked me into showering and getting ready. (He bribed me with Target and the Library.)

Now comes the Hippie part. My bangs were not particularly cooperative. Plus Gabi had shown me a more effective way to fishtail braid my hair. The only option was this turban/bandana/wrap/headband that I originally bought to wear to Seven Peaks.

If you know me at all, you know I'm pretty much as far from a hippie as you can get. No one has and no one will ever describe my style as "Boho" or "Hippie Chic" because all of my clothes are fitted, black and not out of place at a funeral.

So it was kind of fun to wear an outfit my dad would call "hipster" and caused the Beard to look questioningly at my head. Gotta mix it up, you know?

After outfit photos and picking up my 6 items on hold at the awesome Draper Library, we were off to my second favorite weakness - Target. Those dollar bins are ALWAYS my kryptonite, but especially when they feature Star Wars items. Yahtzee.

Great day right? Going really well. Star Wars. Libraries. Outfit photos. Even a Sonic run.

Soon to be nearly ruined when I hit a deer on the way home. Now, I grew up in Mapleton so I've had my fair share of close shaves with deer. But I've never hit one. For once in my life I was not speeding, so we didn't hit him very hard. He got up and pranced away, and there was minimal damage to the plastic fender flare on my Jeep.

Traumatic damage to my emotional state, however. We're talking bawling and hyperventilating. I just felt so BAD. I didn't mean to hit you, little guy! I promise! I'm really sorry if you are bruised and sore! I hope your family took care of you and you warned all of them to stay off that winding, poorly lit road.

I'm sure the Beard was equal parts embarrassed and concerned about my reaction, but he was so good at remaining calm and reassuring. I'd have probably run into the woods to apologize to Bambi if he hadn't been there. He even took his crazy wife to the movies later to cheer her up.

Lesson Learned: if you dress like a hippie/gypsy while driving a gas guzzling SUV the universe will put you right back in your place.

Sometimes, Always, Never - Headbands

Headbands are an ingenious fashion accessory, beloved by the bad hair day, awkward-growing-hair-out-phasers, and athletes alike. However, headbands can quickly indicate your lack of style if misused.

Sometimes

Athletic headbands (labeled with soccer balls, ADIDAS, etc.) or Pre-wrap should only be worn by athletes immediately before, during or after an athletic event. If you played JV Volleyball it's time to lose that stretched out circle of sadness.

Hippie wraps or turban headbands. I only like to see these at the pool, on vacation, an event like a concert, or any outside activity. In the appropriate venue these look chic and effortless.

Always

The classic headband. Tease your hair at the crown a little to keep it from looking flat. Sweep it up into an updo for a romantic look.Throw some hot rollers in your hair for big volume and slide in a shiny headband for some serious polish. I love it.

Never

Headbands with giant flowers, poofs, feathers, etc. Also, for some unknowable reason, the girls who wear these wear them with completely straight, flat hair in a pony. Really? You're going to make the focal point of your look the giant accessory atop your head? You look like a Teletubbies character.

Bandanas. I'm never going to say these are ok. If you don't work on a construction site, lose the bandana. Simple as that.

Headbands that are braided synthetic hair meant to look like it's yours. Claire's called. They're apologizing for selling you something that is so clearly a 90's joke. Do this instead. Way cuter and easy.

The zig-zag headbands that dominated 2000-2004. I thought these were extinct but then I saw this ancient artifact on a lady at Walmart.