Cupcakes & Handbags

To Die For: Eminence Organic Pear & Poppy Seed Polisher.

My most favorite aesthetician, Danielle, has been making my face as soft as a baby’s butt for several years now. Her spa uses only SkinCeuticals and Eminence Organics, and while I’ve been using SkinCeuticals’ serums and creams for as long as I can remember, I am relatively new to Eminence. Danielle has used the Yam & Pumpkin Enzyme Peel Mask before — which smells so good I could eat it — and she recently gave me a sample of the Pear & Poppy Seed Microderm Polisher to use weekly in-between visits. As a girl who tends to be red-toned already, I always fear trying a new product. I’m incredibly sensitive (my skin and my emotions; be gentle) and if my skin doesn’t agree with something, the redness that lasts for days lets me know my face is royally pissed.

After now having used the P&PSP for two months, I can say, I cannot live without it! Amazing. I love how it feels and smells. But mostly, I love the results. Keeps my face as smooth as silk when I’m not able to schedule time with the “sandblaster” microderm machine. I use a nickle-size amount applied to my face and rinse with lukewarm water. (Recommended use below says you can mix it with juice, tea or a masque and apply steam. Never thought about doing that since the product works so well on it’s own. Anyone try this? Report back with results!)

A 2.0 ounce jar retails for $46 but Amazon has it listed for $38 with free shipping. SCORE!

Description: Polish and tone your skin naturally with an organically based polish from Eminence. The Pear & Poppy Seed Microderm Polisher is a natural approach to microdermabrasion that utilizes the exfoliating capabilities of poppy seeds and fine walnut to eliminate dull, dead skin cells. While enriching skin with nourishing natural extracts and vitamins, this refreshing formula moisturizes and smoothes, leaving skin soft and supple.

Skin Type: All skin types including dry, uneven and congested.

Recommended Use: Mix the polisher with an equal amount of water, tea or juice. For sensitive skin, mix with an equal amount of the Pear & Green Apple Masque. Gently apply to the skin with a circular motion for one to two minutes. (It is recommended to place a wet gauze or cotton strip over top). Steaming is possible while the masque is on. Remove with a warm wash cloth.

Ingredients: Pear Pulp, Apple Pulp, Pear Juice, Apple Juice, Poppy Seeds, Fine Walnut (Exfoliant), Silica, Glycerine (Plant Derived), Guar Gum, Plantain Extract, Green Tea, Apricot Kernel Oil, Alfalfa, Mica, Glycolic Acid, Biocomplex (Vitamins A, C, E, Coenzyme Q10, Alpha Lipoic Acid), Glycine Derivative.

Key Ingredients Benefits:
• Pear: bioflavonoids, hydroxycinnamic acids (antioxidant)
• Green Apple: Vitamin C, fruit flavonoids, quercetin (anti-inflammatory)
• Poppy Seed: gentle exfoliation
• Fine Walnut: Vitamin E, gentle exfoliation
• Green Tea: antioxidant, phenol and Vitamin C rich
• Apricot Kernel Oil: softening and soothing
• Alfalfa: vitamin rich nutrition

Yeah. yeah. I haven’t updated in a bazillion years. It’s impossible for me to understand why I don’t make blogging a priority. Clearly, I have an opinion about everything. I don’t understand. So, in an effort to (once again) post on this bloggityblogblog more often, I’m making a focused effort to follow the original format: more lifestyle, less whine.

Yesterday, I came across thee most “ah-door-ah-bluh” duvet ever to cross my path on the internet. Confession: I have a thing about duvets. I refuse to have a solid color duvet. They are just so boring. I feel like life needs a little more *oomph* than that.  Couple that with the fact that a certain someone has a very strict design aesthetic (”Um, no. Too girly.”) and a sometimes dirty, rather shedy (that’s a word; it stays) 12-pound dog insist he sleep with us, trying to find a duvet covet that makes all three of us happy is nearly impossible. Needless to say, the solid color duvet embargo in my house has caused it’s fair share of stress since 99% of the duvets in the world fall in to the following categories: White, Beige and Hideous.

Sure, I can add a few patterned pillows but what woman wants to be the chick who has 50 pillows on her bed just to get a little color and texture? Or better yet, what woman wants to watch her man toss several hundred dollar silk accent pillows on the floor. Don’t go to bed angry? Yeah, good luck with that.

Back to this duvet.

West Elm sent out an email for a sale on bath towels, which I’m due to update, so I clicked on the link and ended up wandering into the bedding section. When I came across this duvet, I let out an exhausted “yes!” as in “yes, I finally found you. After all these years of searching, I…have…found…you!” A perfect blend of cornflower, slate and royal blues. Clean design. Sateen. And two adorable little love birds to finish it off.

I also have a hang up about shower curtains, but we’ll get to that another time…

November was sailing along like a duckling on a serene lake but then I got a little cocky.

Whoops.

I had just completed a half-marathon in Monterey, California, two weeks earlier with a time of 2:05. Feeling pretty good about my health and fitness level. 2:05 is not my best time ever but only 6 minutes behind my PR. Side note: It’s torturous how I beat myself up mentally for weeks after a race for not training hard enough yet I continue do things half-ass without changing my process. (That should be my life’s tag line: Everything at half-ass effort. Oh, anyway, I’m getting off topic.)

So, Thanksgiving weekend -  my birthday – we went snowboarding. Returning to the one place on earth I’ve missed so much in the last three years I cry just stepping foot into the town’s limits. OK wait, that would be Paris and Parisians are too chic to sweat or bundle up in layers that could potentially deter those beautiful women from flaunting their perfect figures. So, OK fine, we returned to my second favorite place on earth - Vail. I was so happy to be back when on the THIRD run of the trip the universe decided to teach me a lesson about my confidence on the mountain and how it doesn’t mix well with my now decrepit, aging body.

This was the end result.

Le Cankle

Yeah.

Happy birthday to me.

2+ weeks on crutches with additional 2 weeks limping around. And months of training shot to shit b/c I got cocky. We booked the next flight home, approximately 48 hours after we arrived in Vail. Fortunately, no fracture – only endless amounts of cash spent in order to get home and get X-rays.

Yeah, so that kinda sucked. I’ve been sitting around eating cupcakes for a friggin’ month now because well, there wasn’t much else I could do. I’m full weight baring (finally) but my ankle is definitely swollen still preventing any physical activity. Mentally, this is doing nothing for my negative self-image. Though, binging on cupcakes helps in the moment.

I’m going to try to hit up a yoga class today to see how it goes.  Just as soon as I finish off this dozen box of Red Velvets….

November is here and you know what that means! Birthday month, what what!?

Yes, it is true. Soon, I will be another year closer to death. Shit is gettin’ hard to deal up in this place, y’all.

THIRTY FIVE.

Thirty-fucking-five.

Oy.

That is a number, if I dwell on it long enough, could leave me quivering in the fetal position on the floor of a Stuckey’s bathroom. Cuz, shit just has not turned out according to plan. The never-ending series of roadblocks I’ve had to navigate this last decade have been fucking monumental. To recap: a career so unfulfilling I had to pop numerous anti-depressants just to get out of bed every day only to drink 3-4 nights a week until I blacked out. (Ah, to be so young and so resilient to hangovers…) A trail of dead-end boyfriends. Watching the long, slow decline and untimely loss of my father – who FYI was the only person on the face of this earth ever to love me unconditionally. Constant confusion about exactly who I was, how to cope and what I wanted out of this life. The end result being 10 years of living in paralyzed fear and numerous bad decisions about what I thought was “best” for me — moving to the mountains, moving back home, disappearing to Europe, never-ending false starts and blowing through a shit-ton of cash. Cash,  not credit, was the only saving grace of this mess.

And yet.

Despite all this, life IS looking up. I refuse to think otherwise anymore. I’m not exactly sure where the source of all this happiness is coming from – I just don’t want it to go away. The skeptic in me is always waiting for shit to take a turn for the worse but I’ve decided this year, I’m not allowing the universe to piss on my Cheerios. Nope. Not gonna happen. I don’t give a shit what you throw at me.

This year is gonna be BIG.

I’ve got some things to check off life’s To Do List.

So, go ahead. Bring it.

Recently, I’ve become obsessed with Whoopie Pies – the traditional chocolate ones and these ridiculous Sweet Potato ones from a local bakery here in town. So when I had to be at two parties (at the same time, mind you) this past Thursday, I knew I wanted to bring this sweet treat. Since I already made the chocolate ones recently and I couldn’t find a recipe for the Sweet Potato ones, I managed to find an equally delicious substitute. Sweet mother of mercy, these things were heavenly. Everyone loved them and I even got one comment that there were BETTER than the Sweet Potato Whoopie Pies! Yes, you heard it here first – I kick major pastry ass.

Credit: Bon Appetit Magazine (I forgot to take one!)

As a heads up, Maple Extract is not the easiest thing to find. I went to two gourmet grocers here in town and a specialty bake shop. No one had non-imitatation crap so I swaped out the required two teaspoons for a teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract. None the wiser. Also, whoopie pies tend to rather large. This recipe yielded about 12 whole pies, not the 23 it claims. Next time, I’ll use my 1-oz scooper and make minis because cutting them gets messy.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Now that the heat has finally broken – and my subsequent “Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder” (self-diagnosed) and general hating of any temperatures over 72-degrees has lifted, I’m feeling pretty damn fabulous. Optimistic, even.
I KNOW, right?

So, with all this positivity and shit, I’ve become overwhelmingly busy. This girl’s social calendar has kicked into high gear – a nice reminder of what it’s like not to be a slave to A/C. Had I actually taken a breath, this is what October has looked like:

• Fostering the world’s cutest calico kitten, helping her find her forever family and then crying for a week. Dear god, I don’t even really like cats. But Bella was awesome. So, saying goodbye was just a wee bit harder than expected.
• Seeing !!! at Emo’s. Oh, how I love that band – best booty shaking music; and I’m not ashamed to admit my dancing resembles Nic’s after a few too many Goose & Sodas.
• AIA Homes Tour - which was fucking awesome BTW. Modern home design inspires me to be a better person. Is that weird?
• Running. A lot. My next race is in less than three weeks. I ran 14.5 miles this past Saturday – which if you know anything about math, is 1.4 miles longer than my actual race. Are my coaches trying to kill me? (Yes. They are.)
• Lunching with my lady friends. Wine nights with my lady friends. Brunching with my lady friends. Bitch sessions with my lady friends. Baby showers with my lady friends. Fundraising with my lady friends. (Rinse & Repeat.)
• Pumpkin road trip.
• Chopping four inches of my hair off. THANK GOD. I love my hair right now. Sassy!
• Fighting with our apartment management company. What a giant bunch of assholes up in this place! Wait, I’m sorry, I should love the fact that, in addition to the endless piddly maintenance shit that happens on a weekly basis, we just had our second major roof leak since we moved in. Did I mention this place is BRAND-FUCKING-NEW?
• Having numerous conversations with my lawyer. (See Above.)
• Starting a business and helping another friend launch her craft business — Totally exciting stuff so keep your fingers crossed. A meeting with the city tomorrow will determine next steps. Exciting!

And just think, we still have five more days to go! Yes, life. It’s (finally) looking up!

Just a note to let y’all know, I’m not dead – just juggling multiple major life changes recently. All very good and exciting things but metamorphosis takes time people!

More updates to come to this site, more often.

I promise.

Though I dumped Ben when I found out he was cheating on me with that “no-talent-hack” Zoey, my heart will always have a soft spot for him. And Feist – well – there isn’t anything she can possibly do wrong. Her voice is cupcakes and puppies and flowers all rolled in to one. She has so much talent, it’s almost painful to absorb.

In all seriousness, this song makes me speechless. I love it.

Vashti Bunyan’s “Train Song” lyrics for those who care to sing along (ahem, Me.)

Traveling north, traveling north to find you
Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
Called your name love, don’t be surprised

It’s so many miles and so long since I left you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles but it won’t be long

Nothing at all in my head to say to you
Only the beat of the train I’m on
Nothing I’ve learned all my life on the way to you
One day our love was over and gone

It’s so many miles and so long since I met you
Don’t even know what I’ll say when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles but it won’t be long

What will I do if there’s someone there with you
Maybe someone you’ve always known
How do I know I can come and give to you
Love with no warning and find you alone

It’s so many miles and so long since I’ve met you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles and it won’t be long

I was sitting in a yoga studio recently waiting for a class to begin when I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. We chatted about how much we love yoga and how there was a period in our lives we were obsessed about making it to practice every day. “And then, I kinda stopped. Life just happened,” I said. She grinned a knowing smile and shook her head sympathetically. Things happen, stuff gets in the way and things fall to the wayside – whether we like it or not.

I can’t continue to try and make excuses as to why I only manage to post once every three months. Really, there is no excuse. Life just happens.

I have been traveling recently – which only furthers my posting hiatus. Pretty much every month since last November, I’ve been on the go. I’m not complaining – if I had a choice, I’d live out of suitcase. Paris in November. Chicago in December. Utah in February. Whistler and San Fran in March. Canada (the other coast) in April. I’m not doing much to save the environment burning through that much jet fuel but I am keeping myself sane. Travel is my catharsis.

I have no excuse as to why I find it so hard to keep up this blog. Clearly, my goal of being internet-famous really isn’t that important. I mean, it’s only been FIVE months since I posted anything. I’m sure a lot has happened during that time but right now, it feels like a blur. Holidays, job interviews, birthdays, snowboarding, filing unemployment. Rinse, repeat. It all kinda runs together after a while.

Last night, we got back from a great five day snowboarding trip to Mr. Smith’s motherland. The conditions at Whistler Blackcomb weren’t awesome but I cannot even begin to describe how much I love Vancouver and the mountains of British Columbia. Sure, I love the snow of Utah and I will always feel at home in Colorado, but neither of those places have POUTINE.

Canada FTW!