Bloggers Do Collections Better!

Sorry for the lack of Bloggers Do It Better posts! Haven’t really had any ideas for the other prompts until I read about this one. I do collections a little bit different. Oh, who am I kidding? I do everything differently from the rest! For some it could be nail polishes and/or other beauty products. For me, it’s all about music. I am sucker for the real CDs than just downloading it off of Amazon or iTunes. The only advantage of downloading it online is not having any hassle with looking for a rap or metal albums without wondering if the swear words will be cut out or not. Because online they usually give you two options for that, but you go looking for an album of those two genres at Wal-Mart, you’re basically screwed. Trust me, I learned that the hard way. Want to know something a little bit more embarrassing. As kids we used to go to the library and a few times they’d have sales and they were actually saling CDs. I was shocked because I didn’t know they were saling those too. Well, at that time I was big into rap and she found 50 Cent’s first album and I bought it and took it home. I was so excited until I went and put it into my stereo to find that the bad words were cut out. So the majority of the record was disappointing for me but then we realized the library was owned by a church and put two and two together. I was screwed from the get-go I think.

When I was in the fourth grade, I remember taking out all of my CDs from their cases because before I didn’t know they made cases like the one I use to store of them now. I think I had over 40 CDs and I was pretty proud of myself for having so much. My first ever CD was the Backstreet Boys album and I only got that because my nana had bought me my first ever boombox. I was probably seven years old when I got them and that was like a big accomplishment back then because we didn’t have iPods, iPads, laptops, and cell phones that you store and listen to your favorite artists/bands. I grew an appreciation for them and did my best to make sure to be careful with how I handled them from day-to-day. When you do everything with your feet, putting up things like CDs can get pretty tricky. Sometimes if my dad gives me a CD he holds it the right way. He gets his fingers all around the edges and lifts it up and carries it that way. If he does it that way I have to grab it by the side and I hate doing that. I have my own special way of carrying and holding a CD. I put my pinky toe in between the hole in the middle and put my other toes around the sides and grip it that way. You should see how I drive with one in my foot! Especially coming around a tight corner. It’s not a pretty sight!

It is very difficult for me to like an entire album. I’ve always that problem, but since I’ve been getting into all kinds of genres the process isn’t as harsh as what it once was. It’s been pretty easy whether or not, an album is amazing or not. I have a pretty wide variety on all three of my music outlets (iPod, CDs, and Spotify) I used to say I wouldn’t get into rap, folk, metal, country and rock but yet I have. Surprisingly, in just this picture here I don’t have them categorized like I had my nana do with her case. You can see a Carrie Underwood, Lil Jon & The Eastside Boys (my first uncensored CD and it took me a year to open it up!), Pussycat Dolls, three Britney Spears albums (that gray one is hers!), and Natasha Bedingfield album. Some CDs were bought only by chance. That Natasha Bedingfield album being one of like three out of the whole thing! I mainly got the CDs from birthdays and Christmases. Once I got like seven CDs for my 13th birthday, it was a GOOD day! Because nowadays if you want that many songs you need a $100 iTunes gift card and even then do you have to figure out what all you want. Everytime I go to download songs out of a $15 gift card I usually get about 12 songs. I don’t see how that’s really fair of that much money.  Maybe I’m being greedy I don’t know, but nobody messes with me about my music and nobody will either.

Blogs That I Love #5

I think I should probably do something that I should have done a long time ago. I have a page called “Writing Challenges” up in the top right corner of my blog. It’s a place where you can find what kind of writing challenges I do on a weekly/monthly basis. It’s a thing to do to keep a variety! The more I find, the more I want to do. However, having too many can lead to a mini burnout for a few weeks at a time. I love all of these challenges with my heart. However, I think it’s time to recognize the writers behind each of these challenges I do every week and month. I know there are more than my normal routine of five bloggers but they all deserve special notice since they are apart of the challenges. So let’s get on it.

1. Ketchup With Us – Mel runs a blog of  According To Mags, it’s about her life as a teacher, wife, and mother to her kids. Michele is also a mother, wife, and goes with life with a lot of humor. They literally have these ketchup costumes and wear them for their posts. Both ladies are so sweet and fun to talk to on Twitter.
2. Bloggers Do It Better – Gemma has created BDIB challenge recently and I really love her blog, it’s very girly and simple! She’s also very helpful when you don’t have anything for that challenge, she’ll help you out and she loves fashion and beauty, so if you’re into beauty she does a LOT of product reviews.
3. Picture It & Write – Ermisenda and Eliabeth own the blog, and it is everything about books kind of blog. They have their own book that they wrote called The Blind Side and it’s on there and they are the owners of one of my favorite writing challenges, it’s probably one of the easiest challenges to do. The girls are so sweet and I think every book lover would love their blog!
4. Five Sentence Fiction – Lillie owns Lillie McFerrin Writes and I love her because she’s so nice and thanks to this writing challenge, before I started on this I wasn’t willing to do anything to do with writing and shrinking things down. I was always asking teachers in school to go more on assignments and with this, it really was a challenge to start for the first few weeks. Every word that is selected can be difficult for me, but I still love it. I like only writing a tiny, five sentence story each week.
5. Free Write Friday – Kellie owns FWF and it’s another one of my favorites to do. My favorite ones she does are the word banks, time and scenario, and image prompt. Kellie’s very nice and something that she does is that there is no deadline with any of her prompts and you have the freedom to go where you want to with each prompt and you can have mistakes. I’m pretty sure that’s every writer’s dream right there!

Going All Neutral!

It’s another Monday here and surprisingly after all the storms last night, it looks like the sun is trying to make its escape from the clouds right now. On Monday’s, I am apart of the new challenge called #BloggersDoItBetter and the topic for today is bright and neutral. At first, I didn’t have a clue what to write about, especially since I had written about nails last night! The only idea I actually got just now is going all neutral with absolutely no make up at all! We’ve all seen the different challenges and celebrities take their makeup off and then post a “selfie.” Some odd reason, that ends up front and center on a magazine website. Well, my question for you is, well I have two questions for you actually.

Have you ever went without make up on your face and chest?

How many days have you went without makeup before?

What I’m about to tell you right now will be kind of shock for those of you who can’t leave the house without some sort of makeup on. I never have makeup on. Literally! When I was younger, I was like every other girl in school looking at other women and girls and loving the bright blue eye shadow and lipstick that my nana always used when we’d go out to eat. I remember her letting my sister and I wear this very light shade of pink lipstick into Red Lobster, Blondie looked very good with the pink that it actually became a thing with her later on in life. When I hit middle school and high school, I was in the middle of liking makeup and hating it at the same time. It was something I couldn’t do myself because of the fact that I can’t reach up that far. So my mom and sister would have to do it for me in the mornings.

There were very few days in my senior year that I actually wore makeup because that’s when I just got so tired with it, that I just gave up on it. My sister would have nights were she was bored so she gave me makeovers and I always cherished those because they were so rare. Afterwards, we’d basically have a little photo shoot in my room. For my senior year prom I actually didn’t wear any makeup at all. I only had that fake tanning stuff that you put on your body and after so many times of using it, the skin gets tanner. My dress had no sleeves and the chest area was open and we only used it twice in the two weeks we had to get ready for it. My chest was white as snow but my arms and shoulders were somewhat tan. It was a disaster!

It’s kind of funny for the weird days of actually wanting to put on makeup, but thankfully I have none so those thoughts go away as fast as they came! One essential that my sister always has is her eyeliner and mascara. She never really uses lipstick/lip gloss anymore, but she uses a natural blush on her cheeks. Something else that’s interesting that I don’t allow very many things around my eyes (you should see how I am at the eye doctor!) but I am fine with Blondie putting the eye makeup on me. I trust her a lot more than anyone else in that area. In September, I am going to a wedding and I’m trying to decide if I want her to put eyeliner/mascara on me or not. My problem is that I don’t know if I can get my mom to do it if she’s at school that day. I do know that I have to wear bold red lipstick as my friend knows that it’s on my bucket list. It’s only on special occasions that I want to wear makeup, but on other days I want nothing to do with it. So, do you think you could go a day or two without a shed of makeup on your face?

#BloggersDoItBetter – Bloggers Do Bargain!

All right, recently I’ve jumped on the #BloggersDoItBetter challenge! It is hosted by Gemma of Touch Of Belle. I finally saw what the topic was after I went and accidentally deleted the emails, thank god when they’re in “Trash” it doesn’t delete them fully or I’d be screwed. Anyways, the topic is “Bloggers Do Bargains Better.” I’m not a stranger to doing DIY projects, I have quite a few I want to do this summer, but I think two bargains I’ve done is two that I loved doing and they are doing nails and decorating pumpkins.

Last year, my nana and I started doing little things to pass the time in the week when I was going to physical therapy. I was constantly on Pinterest finding all sorts of things, one of these were DIY nail art. I love doing new things with my feet and nail art is something can be a challenge in itself and even though it was somewhat difficult to do, I still did it and was more calm while doing it then drawing some of my artwork. It was such a difference of how I wasn’t rushing myself or putting too much pressure on myself for things to look perfect because artist can be perfectionists. I am one of them in my other art projects. I did two different designs on my nana’s fingers in two months. I gave her bumblebee nails and golden nails.

Bumblebee Nails:

1.  For the bumblebee nails, you need both bright yellow polish and black polish.
2. I painted the nails with the two coats of yellow polish.
3. Let them dry for a bit.
4. Then while they were drying (this was our first mistake) cut small strips of tape to cover each nail.
5. After they were on the spot where I wanted them, which wasn’t an easy process when you’re working with big toes.
6. Apply a coat or two of black polish and them dry, once they’re dried gently pull off the tape.
7. Then apply a clear coat.

 

The Golden Thumbs:

1. For the golden thumbs, you basically any pastel polish that will look good with gold glitter.
2. I painted all five nails in a very light pink polish.
3. I think it was like three or four coats so you could actually see the color good enough.
4. I left the thumbs to last as we didn’t want glitter to be in the other nails.
5. After they’ve dried, I painted the thumbs with two coats to make sure they were wet enough for the glitter to stick.
6. My nana has these glitter sticks she’s never used before and we used a paper plate to catch the glitter, she held the plate in her lap and I poured the glitter onto both thumbs.
7. She scrapped the edges to get the excess off.
8. She also applied a clear coat of polish that night as the glitter was peeling off the nail.