The (B)Right Side of 25

Hello Interwebs once again.

Are we ready for another somber blog post? No? You may want to click away, 'cause I've been thinking about this for a while. It's impregnated my brain, has gestated and is finally ready to pop out all pink and perfect with all the right things in all the right place.

I've been thinking about friendships. Or rather... the changing nature of friendships. Some change and evolve into wonderful things that bring your friendships to new heights, new places. Others fade peacefully, and still others come in fast and furious into your life only to leave just as abruptly. I'm familiar with all these. And I, like many others, am at peace with them. When a friendship changes in one of these ways, I accept it, perhaps with some sadness, depending on the circumstances, and move on.

But there are others that have a bigger impact. The Lifers. For the majority, I'm not one of those people that has a million best friends, crushed when each leaves. Instead, I have many acquaintances, and establish a few significant relationships that haveand I expect will last for years, if not life. I have a small selection of very close friend, a handful at best. It is the changes in these kinds of relationships that can be pretty big. Changes that happen for the better are fabulous. It's so incredibley cool when you suddenly have all these new things that you can talk about, or you know you can talk about all the things that you think are cool, and your friend just lets you and accepts it.

But there are bound to be those friendhips that you lose. You grow apart, you no longer have similar interests. Sometimes you can see it happen, giving you some time to prepare for it. Other times, it happens and makes your head spin.

Maybe it's after a separation or some big life changes, but that friend you knew and loved  is no longer the same person. They've changed and grown to follow a completely different path. You've changed and probably barely realize it. Someimes it's a disliked action where you suddenly realize the changes between you and your friend, or worse that they've been doing this all along, and it's only now you realize it. You struggle to speak with them, to understand them, to re-establish a new connection with this new incarnation of your friend. When that doesn't work, you try to reconnect on that age-old friendship you had. But talking to them is harder than that first class in calculus after a year of doing nothing but English courses. It hits you like a ton of bricks. Regardless of the reason, your close, bonded friendship gone.

It pulls at your heart. You feel like crushed and depressed. You yearn for those younger years when you knew you could count on your friendship to last forever. Movies, coffee dates, walks, talks, games. You miss it all. It seems that it should be simple to get back, but you might as well try to climb up a sheer rock wall. How do you come to terms with a friendship that's ended? When you've been bumped to acquaintence and don't know how to get back? Do you let it go? Fight to get it back?

Enough of that from yesterday! Today is a day to talk about something I'm doing with that inspiration I found. Last week I started the a workout/healthy eating program. There's 3 days of cardio, 2 of strength training, one day of the two blended and a rest day. I'm also starting to bike to work on occaision, and hoping to start running in a running club.

It's tough sticking to it, and after that first week, I'm sore and desparately missing my favorite foods (I've been dreaming about homemade Mac 'n Cheese..... *drool*). To keep me on track, I took down my measurements on the first day, with the intent of recording it every week, on my rest day. I hmmd and hahhhd about posting it. In the end, I thought it would be a good way of keeping mysefl accountable (and another step in addressing those concerns from prior posts). Here's the score from last Sunday:

Bust: 37.75
Waist: 31.5
Hips: 41
Right Leg: 24.5
Left Leg: 24.5
Right Arm: 12.5
Left Arm: 12.7

Weight: Est. 148 lbs. (I forgot to actually weigh myself, so I estimated :S )

7 days later, after sweat and pain and effort, along with some much needed diet changes (it really isn't healthy to have a diet that consists of 50% carbs 15% Tea.... and yes, I think tea should be considered a food group. It is a delicious cure-all) and there HAVE been changes!! As of this Sunday:

B: 37.5     
W: 30.5              
H: 40                  
RL: 24                
LL: 24.2             
RA: 12.9            
LL: 12.6             

Weight: 148.2

So, in total: 3.05 inches lost in a week! Weight wise... a bit more discouraging, but I'm not going to get down about it. Either I underestimated the weight in the beginning, or I gained some muscle.

I'm pretty pumped so far. In order to keep myself motivated, I bought myself a new swimsuit as something to look forward to (while also thinking that since I paid money for this, I better stick to it! :D)

I'm so excited about this. I am going to get fit and be healthy, which will also result in looking better and feeling better about my shape. I want to be able to run the Tely Ten ( a local marathon) and, having tried it while away, I'd like to get back into rock-climbing. And I will. :) 

So happy to be off to a good start!

-B

Hello Interwebs!

I seem to have fallen behind on the blogging a little bit, but that blog topics list I mentioned last time is ever-growing. This means that, eventually, you'll have some wonderful, fabulous interesting things to read. Perhaps. It could just be wonderful, fabulous and interesting to me. Either way, it's gettin' posted!

My very next thing I wanted to share was my nail polish collection. I was inspired by a recent little trip to my local Sally's. Initially, I had just gone in to pick up some nail decorating tools (which I didn't find) but instead picked up a different, but still great, little tool - the nail colour wheel! As an extra bonus, I spotted a shade of nail polish that was on sale! Extra extra bonus, it was a shade of my new favourite colour, teal.

Now, I know at this point you are just DYING to see my little collection. Don't worry, I won't keep you waiting :)

1) Finger Paints: Art Dealer Teal-er
- This was the new shade I found. And I. Am. In. Love. I haven't used it yet, but sooooon, so very very soon. Aside from my utter love, perhaps I should give you a little review. I found this polish went on very well. It did take 3-4 coats for it to get a good opaque colour, but it was smooth and shiny.

2) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Ivy League
- This is also a favourite, as it is a bright and sparkly shade. It made me think of a neon green, but I think it's shine in it. It's just a healthy, bright colour. It looks lovely with accents.

3) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Blizzard Blue
- This colour is beautiful. Once you get enough coats on, that is. This colour goes on SUPER light, so it takes about 3 before it good solid color, unlike the Ivy League. But it is really pretty and can be wonderful for water marbling

4) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Hot Magenta
- What can I say? This brand has cool colours and really good prices. This colour has a huge pop and very hot pink. I love it. Also works wonderfully as an accent colour. It applies really well and, at most, I'll apply 2 coats.

5) Del Sol Colour-Changing Nail Polish: Peek-a-boo
- This is a tricky one. In the bottle, it's an unpleasant yellow, it goes on clear, and if you go out in the sun, it'll turn hot pink. Not as pink as the Hot Magenta, but still a very pretty colour. As soon as I can, I will grab a picture and post it for you to see. This goes on pretty well... but you can't really tell if it's streaky until it's dry and you go out in the sun.

6) Del Sol Colour-Changing Nail Polish: Superhero
- At first glance, this looks very similar to the Blizzard Blue. I find it's much gentler though. Out of the two Del Sol shades, this is my favourite. I love both the colour in the shade, and the colour in the sun - a lovely lilac. Although I like the colour, it still doesn't go on as well as some other shades. But I'm willing to keep it still.

7) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Virtual Violet
- This is very similar to the Blizzard Blue. Beautiful light colour, but needs a number of coats to get the solid colour.

8) China Glaze: Senorita Bonita
- One of my absolute favourites, this polish goes on lovely with just 2 coats. The sparkle adds a pop to the deep and vibrant colour.

9) Unknown Brand: Alexander the Grape
- A couple of polishes I've had for... well... pretty much for as long as I can remember. This is one of those. The brand name has rubbed off the bottle. This colour is pretty vampy. I'm not certain if I want to keep it. I can only think that I will use it for Halloween or possibly for accent. We'll see how it goes.

10) Show Colours: Couldn't read the name
- As stated... I couldn't read the name on this one. It's in the teeniest, tiniest writing I've ever seen, and I'm going to need a magnifying glass to read it. Might be a problem since I haven't had one of those on hand since high school.... but again, this colour went on surprisingly well for a polish that is so old and I liked it much more than I expected! I plan on using this one.

11) Oil of Olay: Terra
- I'm not even certain how this colour made its way into my collection. It's not something that I immediately like, and when I see it on the colour wheel, I start to like it. Then I hold it up against my own nail. It just seems like such an older colour for me. This is pretty well going.

12) Unnamed bottle and unnamed shade
- Does anyone remember getting those giant boxes of make up and nail polish kits as pre-teen/teen? The ones from places like Walmart? This shade came from that. I don't know if this picture does it justice, but this red goes on really really well. It's like a bright, fresh cranberry red. I'm really enjoying it.

13) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Gunmetal
- This is such a cool shade. Much love for this one, though I haven't worn it often. It's just so rocker chic. Happy Nail Bliss for me.

14) Sally Hansen Extreme Wear: Celeb City
- I always see this as a much brighter, much more FABULOUS, version of Gunmetal. It goes on really well. And if I don't want something too strong, a single coat is fine.

15) Maybelline Color Show: Bold Gold
- I have a love-hate relationship with this color. On one hand, it usually only needs one coat to get a good, solid, rich color. It is actually like liquid gold. And although that picture doesn't show it well, it does have a nice shimmer. Not strong, but again, like there's liquid gold on your fingers. That being said.

It's the goopiest, most quick drying crap I've ever used. It's unlikely I'll use another colour from this brand. They have beautiful shades, but it just clumps so easily, leaves lines and so many brush strokes. It does have it's uses, and I won't toss it.... I just probably wouldn't buy it again if I can find a similar one in another brand.

16) Sally Hansen Insta-Dri: Whirlwind White
- This is a nice crisp white, takes about 2 coast, and is really really good for doing french tips. Love it. :)

17) O.P.I: Black Shatter
- You'll notice I skipped one almost black nail. This was an attempt at a double coat of the black shatter. Clearly it failed. I'll clear it off and paint an actual black polish with it. In the mean time, I'm thoroughly enjoying the Black Shatter. I haven't used it on the white as shown here, but used it plenty on the Hot Magenta, the Blue, the Ivy League. It's a go-to favourite.

So there you have it, my polish collection! Most of these are under 3 dollars (Cdn), with the exception of the Teal-er (4.99) and the O.P.I. (9.99 to buy, but I won it for free).

And as much as I complained about the gold, I actually used it this week past!



Yes, I'm holding on the phone. Holding a bottle of polish just ... wouldn't work. So phone it is. You'll notice I'm wearing the red (number 12) as a base. I'm also a big fan of the accent nail lately. So I water marbled the gold and red together (many, many, many tries. Many. It dried ridiculously fast. I was not happy). I loved the accent nail the best. I think that, the next time I do this, I'll do the gold on red on all the nails with red on gold as an accent nail. I think it would look just fantastic. I also tried to keep the polish clean, using a q-tip to clean up the cuticle and as close to the nail as possible. I also try to make sure to put down a base coat (Pro-FX Protein Enriched Base Coat and Revitalizer) as well as Sally Hansen Hard as Nails topcoat. Helps it last quit a long time. :)

That's all I have for now folks. I'm hoping to use the rest of the wheels that I have for practice for nail art. Once those are done, be sure I'll be posting them here as well.

Enjoy all things everyone!

Hello again Interwebs.

I recently read something of interest. A writer was explaining the utter difficulty of writing. I was surprised and intrigued by this. I had always had the impression that professional authors simply sat down and wrote out their genius with relative ease. Ok, maybe they had a block or two, but the rigid all consuming block of “I saw this all so clearly earlier today, and now I just want to do anything but this”? Never. I thought this seeming inability to write was one of those things that simply defined me as a non-writer, and I resigned, deciding it was better to stick to reading books instead of writing books.

But then I found this article. Here it was, about an accomplished writer who struggled with sitting down and putting words to paper. Or to computer. Whatever. The point being that I could relate to the writer. I could understand. She spoke of setting a time and timeframe to get her work done – 2 hours a day, where work entailed sitting in front of the computer with no internet, no phone calls, and no distractions. It didn’t matter if she wrote a book in that time, a sentence, two words or nothing at all, just so long as she was there. Once the time was up, you stopped. No matter where you were in the process. This made complete sense. It was a small revelation.

I have a whole filing structure full of writings and crafts and art to do or in various stages of being done. I love doing those things. But my most productive time, when I have complete works of paintings and drawings, are when I’m attending those 6 or 8 week free-lance art classes. Yes, I go to learn and to improve. It was the only thought I had when signing up. Go. Be exposed to other artists, learn from them, and get better at doing something you love.

What I later realized was that I valued those 2 solid, dedicated hours of doing nothing, talking about nothing, and seeing nothing but art. And it was up to me what I did with that. I didn’t have to finish a masterpiece; I had bought myself a time block solely for the purpose of arting. This was pretty much what this author in the article was talking about. The only thing I didn’t get right away was why stop? Why stop the creative juices from flowing? The more I thought about my classes, the more I started to see. It was the same. I had to stop because I had run out of time. And until I was back at it again, I had the thought of how I might tinker with it again in the back of my mind. If anything, creative juices were steeping, like an unending pot of tea.

It was like a more substantial “Stars! They’re just like us!” moment. A professional writer, dealing with the same issues I did. She may not be Stephen King, Tolkein, Hardy, Rowling or any of the Biggies I pretend I might be one day in my most content fantasies, but she is PUBLISHED and WORKING as a writer, which has always been a dream.

I’m hoping to be able to work something like this out. She had also explained that she had done up a mock contract with a friend about committing to this 2 hours a day plan… I’m just not certain any of my friends would be able to commit to that!

None the less, though it seems like an immense task (even now, my mind is telling me “You can’t put away a block of time like that! What about house chores? What about other plans? What about making meals? What about when you’re just too tired?”) But it all boils down to simply being able to make yourself stick to it, and managing your time outside of work. Before you know it, it’ll be habit. I think I’ll start tomorrow.

If I’m not mistaken, this article was out of an O Magazine I found at my mothers camper this weekend. If I can find it again, I’ll link it.

Surprising, the tidbits of insight you can find when you least expect it.