Make Up Monday... and a confession....

Happy Monday everyone :) I hope it was a good start to the week for ya!

Make Up Monday will be short and sweet :)

First... here are a few fun pics that my sister, Brittney sent me! She's great with playing with bright colors!! I so wish I could do that!

Thanks Britt! :)

I thought instead of posting my mug all over the page , I thought I would share with you one of my can't-live-without products!

My favorite mascara - L'Oreal Voluminous!

I have tried many expensive and inexpensive mascaras and ALWAYS go back to this! In my opinion, mascara is one of those things you can save your money on when buying make up. I think there are some that really stand up and even pass the quality of the high end make up lines!

Why this mascara ROCKS:

• It's cheap! It's around $7... I can usually find coupons for any L'Oreal eye products, too... and if you watch Walgreens or CVS, they have lots of buy one, get one free sales. When I find this, I buy one, get one for free and use my coupon... and usually end up only paying $3 for two tubes! Bonus!
• The volume and thickening is amazing! I only need a couple coats... makes my lashes feel so luscious!
• I put it on in the morning and no need to worry about touching it up throughout the day! It has great staying power!

I absolutely recommend this mascara!!

One great tip that every lady should follow before you put on your mascara is to curl your lashes! It will make your eyes look ten times bigger!

What about you? What is your favorite mascara? Please share! :)

Confession time....

I have mentioned before in the past few posts that my eating hasn't been so great as of lately. I don't know what has kicked me off my normal healthy routine! I am not going to go into how badly my eating has been... but will say that it's consisted mainly of sweets (big cookies, ice cream) at least twice a day, and not a ton of veggies or fruits at all... lots of junk food that I don't normally eat or want! And lots of it!

That being said... I was already up about 7 pounds from my "happy weight" that I had been at for over a year... and now just from the past two weeks, I'm up 13 pounds.

I even had to go out and buy new jeans and a couple of new shirts! I don't have the money to be doing that right now!

Ugh...

I wasn't having an issue with my workouts... until Brittney came.. .then our schedule was CRAZY! We were out of town and I was up much later every night than I normally am and it threw me way out of whack. I didn't work out for about two weeks! I finally started up again on Saturday... thank goodness!

It's been a constant hate battle with my self confidence. I have been avoiding mirrors and tight clothes at all cost because I'm so mad at myself! I've kept off over 100 pounds for almost 10 years now... and at my "happy weight" for quite some time after having Maddie (and in better shape than I was BEFORE having Maddie) and that weight seemed to come naturally and I had no issues feeling satisfied with food! But now that I've gained so much weight and so quickly... I am ashamed to let family, friends, co-workers see me! Most people who know me as "the weight loss girl"... the girl they come to for some advice when trying to lose weight... I feel like such a failure right now!

I'm trying to take a step back... and look at things in the long run - I haven't gained back all of my weight - just 13 pounds. Yes, it's a good amount... but not 100 pounds!

I need to stop yelling at myself! The guilt does NOT help!

I can either choose to continue to eat this way and make things worse... or I can keep my eats simple for now to help me "detox" a bit and get back on track...

This is all about my health... not JUST losing weight!

Now, I don't have a HUGE plan to change things...but wanted to be open and talk about all of this here... since I wanted to be honest and share what's REALLY going on with me!

I will talk more tomorrow about my small "plan"... it's nothing outrageous or a crazy, intelligent plan... but what I think will work for me!

I'm sorry for all of that... but thank you to whoever listened!!

The batteries in our camera are dead.... and we are out of batteries! I keep forgetting to snap pics of my food today because I'm not used to using my cell phone for it!!

So for breakfast, just imagine a whole wheat bagel, with cheese, eggs and a slice of turkey bacon...

For a snack, a banana/pb sandwich... half with PB&Co's Might Maple PB and the other with PB&Co's Bee's Knee's PB :)

Lunch was leftovers of my pizza from Saturday night... and a big side salad with four small strawberries, onion, tomato, carrots, and a sprinkle of feta cheese... I got some pics with my cell phone of this...

Afternoon snack was a big ol juicy braeburn apple... YUMMM... and a small serving of Trader Joe's Trail Mix... good stuff!

For dinner, I just threw together a bunch of things that needed to be used up.... I sauteed some onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and asparagus.... threw them in with some quinoa and some leftover chicken sprinkled with some parmesan cheese... simple but yummy!This morning, JR and I got up and did our Day 3 of Level 1 of Jillian's 30 Day Shred... then we added on 20 extra minutes of cardio... I burned a total of 446 calories!

Now I am off to do some more work... and then going to bed. I have a horrible headache!!

How did your Monday shape up? I hope it went by quickly!

A star in the making...and adventures with Brittney!

So my daughter... who is only 3... is already obsessed with Taylor Swift and has recently found Hannah Montana, too. How is this happening already?? I swear I was like 10 before I was obsessed with the New Kids On The Block (oy... is that aging myself or what???!!!)!

The two songs she always requests are Taylor's "Love Story" and also her newest single, "You Belong With Me". Taylor's new video was on TV tonight and we happened to pass by it... Maddie got her microphone and started singing away... and I thought I'd share :) Something to smile about today since my sister flew back home this evening (MISS YOU BRITTNEY!).


What do you think?? Is she ready for American Idol?

So as I said, Brittney went home today... I have had such a blast with her this past week! Maddie was so sad to see Aunt Brittney go! Thankfully, we don't have long until we see her again. We will be heading down a month from tomorrow for my brother's wedding (which I can't believe my "little" brother is getting married! Now I'm REALLY aging myself!).

Brittney told me she has never had a pedicure before... WHAT? We HAD to change that right away! Sunday, we headed out to do what we do best together - make up shopping! We hit up Sephora and MAC! It just so happened that the place I love to go for pedicures is right across the street from the mall... so I did what any big sister would do and treated her to her very first pedicure! She loved it! I think she's hooked :) We already have plans to go together when I visit Florida next month before the wedding!

Our all done up toes...mine are the french tips... she went with this awesome OPI color that I need to find out the name of! It was a deep purple color but when in the sun, had awesome blue undertones to it!We cleaned up to get ready to head out to dinner... but first posed for a quick picture...
Britt always requests Mellow Mushroom as one of her "must do list" when she visits us. No complaints from her big sister on that one! It was AMAZING as always! I am very much a big, doughy type girl... I just am not a full fan of thin crust. It will do in a pinch but I am very picky about my pizza crust! :) JR lets me pick my pieces first so he doesn't have to hear me complain later :) This pizza had chicken, roma tomatoes and fresh basil on it.

I ate the crust (of course), most of my toppings... but left the bottom part of both pieces to save room for this....

That is a yummy cup of TCBY chocolate/vanilla swirl with Reese's pieces (another thing I LOVE... ANYTHING Reese's!)

Maddie got her usual Rainbow Swirl... which is actually vanilla ice cream in a butt load of food coloring (nice and healthy, huh?)...

I think she liked it. :)

And this concludes our monster post of the day! :) I hope you enjoyed hanging out with my family! I'll be posting random trip recaps this week when I can!

Last... I leave you with my favorite picture of this week with Britt...

Make Up Monday!! Guest look :)

Monday, Monday!!!

I am going to try to keep up with doing "Make Up Monday"! It's a fun way to start the week off!

Going a bit off topic here for a second - I don't think I have mentioned as of yet that I am the oldest of four kiddos....

We have me (29 years old), my brother Justin (25 years old), my sister Brittney (21 years old) and the baby - Ashley (19 years old)...

We can be quite the goof-balls :)

Unfortunately, we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. They live in Florida while I'm here in Tennessee. It's SO hard sometimes! I miss them like crazy! But... good news is that you'll be seeing LOTS of this kiddo on my blog this week!

Meet Brittney...

Adorable, isn't she?!?

She is flying in on WEDNESDAY to stay with us for 6 days!!!!!! I can't wait! I haven't seen her since March :(

Britt is one of the sweetest, most down to earth people you will ever meet! She can sing her butt off... and she and I share a huge love.... make up!

We seem to like the same products and both have so much fun playing with make up... whether it's for ourselves... or doing someone else's make up!

The one difference is... Brittney is a heck of a lot more brave than I am when it comes to eyeshadow colors! This girl can rock out the bright colors... and make them look HOT! Me... not so much! I tend to stick more with the smokey eyes... I use some color... but have no idea how to do it where it looks like I don't have pink eye!

So I thought it would be fun to have her create a look for us today :) Check it out!


And now for the classic Brittney pose... haha :) Love ya kiddo!
Thank you Britt! I love you! You make your big sister proud :)

Would anyone else be interested in sending me your favorite look for Make Up Monday? I'd love to feature some guest looks!

I will be back later with today's food!