The Desperate Librarian

Click to View Larger!

2010-07-16T17:57:00.000-04:00

Toga party in 28 hours! I finally finished the convertible dress I decided on making for it.

I blacked out my face because it looked gross, obviously.

I'm trying to find a toga-y way of styling it but so far it just looks kind of stupid. I'm not sure if I'm going to actually wear it or if I'm going to just buy some fabric and drape it over a bodysuit or something. I made the dress out of a cotton/poly blend which is awesome, but since I have to wrap the straps so many times it's a bit too thick and kinda hot in this Florida weather.

This time next week I'll be on my way to NC with my boyfriend's family!

This is the Sound of Settling

2010-07-08T14:03:00.000-04:00

Not surprisingly, I feel like crap today. All I ever do is complain on this blog. The difference is that today life decided to take an emotional shit on me instead of just the usual physical pain.

Progress on the toga project? Nada. I found some sandals at Target that I think will work.

I don't care if anyone else likes them. For $10, they're perfect! Obviously my toenails will probably not be lime green for the party. Probably more like electric blue.

I've been thinking that I really want an underwater camera. I live in Florida. I have a pool. I haven't been swimming much in the past year (physical issues, obv), but I think it would get enough use if I had one. I'm thinking about the Canon PowerShot D10. It's not too expensive and I really like what I'm seeing in this Flickr group. I'm staying on a lake in North Carolina with my boyfriend and his family at the end of the month, so we shall seeee.

I cannot get enough of Francis and the Lights lately. Even this cover.

Good afternoon, world.

Toga Ooh La La wantyourbadromance?

2010-07-02T20:23:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a whole lotta nothing. I'm still struggling with some health issues, but I think things are looking up. I'm going to a toga party in two weeks and I'm determined to make a kick ass toga to wear.

Today's inspiration:

(click thumbnails for larger versions)



Rachel Pally	AngellofFyre	The Sartorialist	AllThoseWhoWander

Also, this album on Flickr is awesome.

I really like Vogue 1047, but I haven't been able to find it near me and I don't want to have to wait for it to ship here. Bleh.

This summer is shaping up to be alright.

If I Had a Million Dollazzzzz

2010-06-09T01:26:00.001-04:00

It's after midnight but you know how I roll.

NaBloPoMo prompt for Tuesday, June 8:
You've just been given a million dollars. You are not allowed to keep it or give it to anyone you know personally. What do you do with it and why?

I'm not allowed to keep it or give it to anyone I know? So I have to give it to someone I don't know? I'd either found a cat rescue shelter or give it to one already established. I volunteer at an animal shelter around my area and it seems like they (and the other two I looked into) mainly focus on adopting out dogs. I feel hopeless when I'm sitting in the cat room for 6 hours showing the abandoned kitties to family after family and at the end of the day not one of the cats gets adopted. I want to build a ranch somewhere and adopt all of the cats I can find.

Future Crazy Old Cat Lady '50. 2050, that is.

If I could keep it, I'd buy everything. At this point, take care of all my health issues first and foremost. I'd buy a house. I probably wouldn't buy a car since, although it once tried to kill me, I love my ghetto ass 2003 Ford Focus. I'd hire a gardener for my grandma since she's always outside doing ridiculous things 78 year old women shouldn't be doing. I don't know. I'd take care of everyone.

I wishhh.

Wiggity Wack

2010-06-07T22:03:00.001-04:00

I forgot to post yesterday! We had my grandmother's birthday party so I headed over early in the morning to help set up and was busy most of the day. I made her a chocolate fudge cake and drove to the party in record breaking time. I wish I'd had time to make the frosting from scratch, but I couldn't even let it cool properly before I iced it. Luckily it's easy to cover up the fact that you accidentally ripped the top layer off a cake with a little extra icing and some sprinkles.

NaBloPoMo prompt for Monday, June 7:
Do you owe an apology to anyone? Why?

I'm sure there are many people I owe an apology to. I have a problem realizing that not everyone has the same sarcastic, bitchy sense of humor as me. I'm not the most honest person, either. I'd have a lot more people to apologize to if I were a worse liar. I probably owe myself an apology, too. I hold myself back too much. I'm having some pretty serious health problems lately that have helped me realize that I'm not going to be around forever. It's weird because my grandma turns 78 this week and my great-grandma just turned 100 in March. I'm not even 20 yet. Both of them smoked for a lifetime before stopping and aren't the healthiest people so I guess I always just assumed I'd live to be relatively old too since I'm not a generally unhealthy person. It's scary to think that I could be wrong about that. I want to start doing more of the things I've always put off because I always thought I'd have decades to get them done. Nothing is certain.

Wish I Knew

2010-06-06T01:16:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot to post today! I mean, I guess technically I'm already cheating since it's after midnight here, but let's pretend a day starts when I get up and ends when I go to sleep, mmkay? Imagine my chagrin when I realized NaBloPoMo only posts prompts on weekdays. I have no idea what to write about today!

Ok, so that's not really a "chagrin" kinda face. It's more of an "I just stepped in something upsettingly squishy" face. Is upsettingly really not a word? Why is it underlined in my browser? Google is telling me that it's correct. Ugh.

All of these NaBloPoMo posts are going to be tagged with "ramblings," I can tell.

My grandmother's 79th birthday is on the 9th. We're having a party for her tomorrow at noon and I have to be up at like 9 to help get everything ready. It's 1:14 and I'm about to go hang out with my friend. ~Rebellious, I know. I'll be up on time. I'd brave a thousand two-hours-of-sleep nights for that woman. She's my favorite person in the world.

Happy almost birthday, Grandma!

IDCTI Friday

2010-06-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

NaBloPoMo prompt for Friday, June 4:
What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of your father?

I've actually been thinking about him a lot lately. My dad died when I was only 6 months old. Obviously I never knew him. I'll be 20 in a little over two weeks and I've officially had my mind blown thinking about the fact that by the time my mom was my age she was already a widow with a one year old kid. I can't imagine taking care of a baby at my age - let alone by myself. My mom remarried when I was still really young, but she was always honest with me about my biological father. When I was 5ish I asked her why I had so many grandparents and she explained the whole thing to me. I think that's probably the best way to do it if you have something really hard to tell your kid - if they're old enough to ask they're probably old enough for at least a delicate explanation.

I've always kind of resented my mom for the fact that I've had to raise myself most of my life. She drank a lot when I was younger and has never really put me first - before her boyfriends or herself. We have a pretty good relationship now that I don't really live with her anymore, but it's still hard to forget all of our past sometimes. I see a lot of the negative qualities I hated about her in myself more and more. While it's easier for me to understand why she would turn to drinking after everything that happened in her life, I'm also kind of grateful because what I experienced in my childhood will ensure that I will never do something like that to my own kids. I've mainly learned to how treat other people (and one day, my own children) from her examples of what not to do.

That's not to say that I'm not 100% thankful for everything that she's given me. We've never been able to afford really expensive things or anything, but up until I received government grants for college (effective in Fall 2010, yay!) she paid for my tuition and books. When I was buying a car, she helped me out. I've been going through a lot of difficult things emotionally and physically in the past couple of months and, for the first time in my life, she's been there for me in every way that she can be. My mom will turn 39 this year and I'm finally starting to feel like she's actually the mom in our relationship. I've thought about how different things would be if my dad were still alive. I probably wouldn't even be living in the same area. I wouldn't know any of the people (other than family, of course) in my life. So as much as things have sucked in the past, I don't think I would give up all of the good things to change what has happened. I wish I could have met my father. We don't even have any home videos or anything, so I only know of him from other peoples' descriptions and old pictures. My mom cries anytime I bring him up so most of what I know I've learned from my grandma. It's weird how much you can miss someone you never even knew in the first place.

Strangely, Father's Day is actually on my birthday this year.

This is probably the most serious entry you'll ever get out of me, Blogspot. I kind of appreciate it.

Day Three

2010-06-03T19:29:00.000-04:00

NaBloPoMo prompt for Thursday, June 3:
Define "freedom."

Freedom is being able to do what you want to do, within reason. I'm a very "live and let live" kind of person. As long as what someone is doing doesn't infringe on someone else's basic rights I don't have a problem with pretty much anything. For example, I can't wait for homosexuals to get the freedom to be able to marry the people they love. It's something that doesn't affect anyone outside of their relationship and yet they're not allowed to legally enter into marriage. I know we've come so far in the way of tolerance, but we still have a long way to go.

In other news, I can't even fathom that Rue McClanahan is dead.

RIP, Blanche Devereaux.

2010-06-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

NaBloPoMo prompt for Wednesday, June 2:
What's your favorite poem? (And if you don't have one, why?)

Hmm. I know this might seem like an ignorant thing to say, but poems are useless to me. I've had to sit here and think for a while to come up with one that I actually like. It's just ... either they're too short or they're too long. If a poem has meaning, to me, I'd rather have it just be a story. Poems are too structured. I don't generally like poems that rhyme. Even free verse just seems like ... why a poem? I guess they just don't speak to me.

Anyway, here's one I actually enjoy. It's probably trite to say that I love Poe, but he's such a bad ass.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

So that's my contribution to the literary world for the day. I'm just proud that I remembered to update.

Yes I make mistakes that I don't ever make excuses for

2010-06-01T16:36:00.001-04:00

Alright, so a lot of things are happening this summer. Most importantly, I'm turning 20 on June 20th! I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo as motivation to actually update this. You're supposed to update your blog every day for a month and there's a prompt every day in case you can't think of anything ... which I never can.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A ballerina, an author, a teacher, a nutritionist and, most recently, a wedding planner. There are thousands more things I wanted to be that I don't remember anymore, I'm sure. I was as indecisive as a kid as I am now.

I can't even decide on a coloring for a picture I'm editing. Sad.

Bonjour!

2010-03-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

I just got home from a few days in Savannah. Expect a picture post soon!

The VD you don't need to see a doctor about

2010-02-13T00:10:00.000-05:00

I have a hard time thinking of gifts for any occasion. There's not a lot of pressure on me to have an OMGAWESOME Valentine's Day because my boyfriend and I are both pretty low key when it comes to things like this. We're cool with just spending time together doing nothing. Plus, this is our third V Day together so he knows what (not) to expect.

Buuuuut, since I've been getting more into crafting these past few months, I wanted to make something special for him. That's where thirty minutes and a bottle of red fabric paint come in.

One for him and one for me. I actually got a 2-pack of tees in his size so mine is kind of big on me, but I wanted the hearts to match up. Mine is the one with two hearts. The littler one is covering up an accidental fabric paint spill, of course. Each shirt has a complete heart on the side, but since they're half on the front and half on the back they look like one heart when they're put together. I originally saw this (two people with half a heart each on their shirts) on a design website a long time ago and it's always stuck with me. If anyone knows where I might have seen it, please let me know. I've been searching for that site for a while now.

I made a quick trip to our local big box store and this entire project ended up costing less than $10. I've been wanting to try freezer paper stenciling for a while now so after looking at about eighty tutorials (which really wasn't necessary - it's totally easy) I finally realized this was the perfect excuse.

Although you could easily look this up yourself (or click on one of the five links I provided above), here's how I did it.

Reynolds Freezer Paper
Tulip slick fabric paint (in Deep Red)
Wide foam brush
Hair dryer
Scissors (although most people recommend an X-Acto knife, my design wasn't too complicated)
Iron

Gather.

Wash the shirt beforehand. Do not use fabric softener. Iron.
Freehand a heart onto the paper side of the freezer paper and cut it out.
Iron the freezer paper (wax side down) onto the shirt. I had my iron on medium heat and I only needed to hold it on the stencil for maybe four seconds for it to adhere. Don't swipe back and forth, just rest the iron on the stencil.
With my fabric paint, it came out of a small tip. Since I wanted to cover a large area I squirted some onto a paper plate and used a foam brush to dab it onto the shirt. At first I tried brushing it on like I would with normal paint on paper and that resulted in disaster.
Let it dry according to fabric paint instructions. Kinda. Mine said 45 minutes but since I'm impatient I just stood there with my dryer on full blast for about three minutes and everything was dry.
Iron over the design so that the heat sets it. I turned the shirt inside-out and ironed it and then also ironed it right-side-out. No paint got on my iron and all seems well.

According to my fabric paint, you shouldn't wash anything you've painted for at least 72 hours. We'll see how these shirts hold up.

I foresee many freezer paper stencil adventures in my future.

Red Velvet and Goals

2010-01-10T20:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't forgotten about you, little blog! I have, however, started another blog on the side. This one chronicles my 101 goals in 1001 days project (read about it here if you're unfamiliar), so it shouldn't interfere with my main blog. Not that my updates are ever very substantial anyway. If you're interested in checking it out, you can find it here. I'll throw up a link in the sidebar soon, too.

My best friend's birthday is tomorrow. Since I'm trying out this new not-catching-things-on-fire approach to baking, I made him a red velvet cake. He asked specifically for me to frost one half with chocolate fudge icing and the other half with German chocolate icing. My internet research revealed that German chocolate icing is the coconut pecan crap that normally goes on top of German chocolate cake. Basically it looks like puke.

But apparently it tastes good, so that's all that matters. The dark chocolate fudge frosting is delicious. I ate basically all of the leftover.

I forgot to take any pictures, but I'll try to remember to take a quick one with my phone and put it up later.

ETA: Picture!

I only tried the side with dark chocolate fudge icing, but it was pretty good. Mission accomplished.

Ribbit?

2009-12-31T14:58:00.001-05:00

I've been in a crafty mood lately. These random bursts of boredom/creativity couldn't come at a better time. My boyfriend's brother and his girlfriend are having a baby (Liam) in late January. So basically, I've just been making a lot of crap only a baby would accept.

You'll have to excuse my three-week-old nail polish and the fact that I had to take these pictures with my phone.

This is (obviously) my first attempt at sewing anything in my life. My grandma is always making quilts and tree skirts and a bunch of random other stuff on her sewing machine. When I was in first grade I refused to wear anything other than the dresses she made me to school all year. You'd think maybe some of her talent would have rubbed off on me after nineteen years. Not at all.

I've smoothed out the stuffing so it doesn't look as weird as it does in the pictures but it's still pretty pathetic. Now that I've been through the whole process I'll probably try to make another, more presentable one.

Powdered sugar everywhere!

2009-12-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

I've been on a huge baking kick lately. This month it's all about cupcakes. Dozens and dozens of them. Tonight's menu? Molten chocolate.

The verdict? Delicious. There's melted chocolate inside each tiny cupcake and powdered sugar on top. I love it. I'll be honest and say I thought they were going to turn out horribly at first. Self-rising flour can be deceptive, apparently. I thought about breaking one open and taking a picture of the amazing dark chocolate inside but this particular batch is a belated birthday present so I only stole one and that was before I had gotten my camera out.

I love run-on sentences.

Peace.

Are You There, Editor?

2009-12-02T14:33:00.000-05:00

I love Chelsea Handler. I'm reading her book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea right now. It's hilarious. I'm reading a chapter in Chemistry when I should be worrying about the fact that my final is next week and I still don't know what those weird little lines on the inside of an atom are.

I'm loving this book, but her editor should be fired. Really. I'm not going to act like I'm some English goddess or anything, but ... really? At one point a whole sentence is just in quotes. You know, kind of like if someone were saying it? Well, no one is.

"I turned to Sloane and asked her if she wanted to see a movie."

I stared at that for a minute wondering who was saying it before I realized it was a mistake. Then, on another page, she refers to a car console as a "consul."

"We stared at each other for a full minute before I reluctantly took a dollar out of the consul and shoved it through the window."

Really? You pulled a dollar out of an ancient Roman head of government? I'm not even a third of the way through the book yet.

It's really not that big of a deal to me (or anyone, probably), but I always notice these kinds of things in books. This whole post is just me procrastinating. Finals week is upon us.

Rambleramble.

So So Lame

2009-11-12T19:14:00.002-05:00

I bought these ridiculously cool birds to go on my walls at Target the other day. They're these cool plastic material and really simple to put up. You just push the provided tacks into your wall and then snap the birds over top of them. They're also currently the only decoration I have on my walls. To fully appreciate that, you have to appreciate this:

All my life, I was not allowed to paint my room. I abhor white walls. I can appreciate them in moderation (or when the decor is right), but I always hated how they looked in my room. Five or six years ago I got the bright idea to cover my walls with anything and everything just so that they wouldn't look so plain. The result was a horrifically tacky room that was totally mine. Everything on my walls reflected some part of me. I had movie and concert posters, flyers from shows I did at my high school, notes from friends ... everything I could possibly tape or tack to my wall went up. This past summer I finally got the OK to paint. Picking the paint color was easy enough. It was between a specific blue and a green. In the end, Jamaican Sea won out and I reluctantly took down Every. Single. Thing. from my walls. I stashed all of it in a box with the intention of putting a few things back up once I got my room sorted out.

Before -- I never took any formal pictures of my walls, but here they are viewable at various stages in the backgrounds of these photos:

After -- Brighter, but so boring. Also, I somehow managed to put a strange hole in the middle of the flock when I was putting the birds up. I'll eventually fix it.

Well that was in June. It's now halfway through November and I still haven't gotten around to hanging anything up. Part of me misses the personalized chaos of my old room, but a larger part loves seeing my bare, blue walls.

When I painted my room I opted to actually have a real color scheme for once. All furniture in my room is black and white. I like the effect, but none of the old stuff I had on my walls really fits in anymore. So I'm moving on. I'm planning to frame some of my old posters and photography prints in black frames and put them up whenever I get the time.

Until then, it's just us birds.

New Layout!

2009-10-31T17:49:00.000-04:00

Well, I made myself a layout. Featuring myself. It's my first attempt ever so I'm not going to pretend it's a great masterpiece or anything, but it'll do for now.

School is ... school.Event Industry is driving me nuts. My event is coming up soon (November 11th!) and I'm getting antsy. I have a project to film and edit for another HFT class before next Monday. I have an online test due tomorrow for that same class. You would think that an online test would be easy because you've got the book right in front of you, but it covers a lot of information and is timed. Fifty questions in thirty minutes. I don't have time to look everything up. I'm not really worried about that, though. Chemistry is going to kill me, and by that I mean I am probably going to get a B. If I can't get a 91% on my cumulative final in December, I'm going to lose my straight A GPA. I know, I know. No one cares about GPAs in the real world ... but I am a Good Student. This is all I have! If any of you are amazing chemists, come visit me. I live near Disney World. Think of what an awesome time you'll have tutoring me while we wait in a two hour line to ride the Haunted Mansion!

Pointless paragraph is pointless.

I have a confession. I have this section on my sidebar for my favorite links. One of the categories is personal blogs ... and it's empty. This is a lie. I love reading about other peoples' lives. I rarely comment on blogs, though, so I would feel like a creep if I listed the websites of people who don't even know I exist. Recommend some good personal blogs I can start reading, guys.

One day I will have interesting things to write here. Maybe.

Online Offers & Pedestrianism

2009-10-07T12:25:00.003-04:00

As some of you already know, I'm a KGB Special Agent. Basically, when I'm bored I get online and answer the (usually ridiculous) questions people text to KGB. It doesn't pay very well (usually people will tell you that you'll make about $2 an hour, but I usually make $4-5), but it's interesting and I usually do it while I'm multitasking on the computer. I'm a master procrastinator, and nothing takes my mind off of writing a big paper like Googling something along the lines of average penis size (you'd be surprised how common this question is) and getting paid $0.10 for doing so. Over the summer, when I had more free time, I was making $30 a month for a few hours of work. Since the fall semester started I'm down to about $10 a month. Luckily they lowered the required hours to 8 a month so I'm still able to keep the position for when my downtime picks back up again.

Anyway, lately I've been exploring other online offers. As I mentioned before, I'm a huge supporter of RueLaLa. It's a site where you get exclusive access to very limited time sales. You have to be invited to get in, which is where my referral link comes in. You get a $10 credit for signing up with my link and I get a $10 credit the first time you buy something through them. Win win for everyone. This website has been verified (by me) as legit.

But what about other sites? I've recently signed up with Clicksia, which is a website where you are paid to click on links. I saw that it had good reviews from other people online, so I joined up today. In one day I've already accrued $0.90. This website pays out when you get to $1.00, so I'll let you know if/when I can verify that it's the real deal. This website's legitimacy has been categorized as pending (by me).

I also joined SwagBucks a while back. In all honesty, I forgot about it until today when I was browsing online offer forums. All you have to do to earn swag bucks is use their search engine. It's not invasive and I've made 9 SB today just by substituting their site for Google. I like this site because you can either get your SB converted to money and sent to your PayPal or you can trade them in for gift cards. I'm saving up for Amazon gift cards! This website's legitimacy has been categorized as pending (by me).

The final website I'm trying out today is Lockerz. They don't have referral links so I'll need your email to invite you if you're interested. All you have to do on this site to earn points is log in and answer the daily question. Today's question was what blog site do you visit most? They're usually more fun than that, but that's really all you have to do. You can redeem your points for prizes like electronics and concert tickets. It seems pretty awesome, but I don't have enough points for anything good yet. This website's legitimacy has been categorized as pending (by me).

And what about you guys? Let me know about the websites you've successfully tried out. If you can prove they're legit I'll use your referral links to sign up.

In other news, my car is in the shop again. I had this big long rant about it but I think I'll save it for a few days. This post has gotten much longer than I intended.

The Rambly One

2009-09-26T13:54:00.005-04:00

First and foremost I want to thank those of you who are checking my blog everyday. Even though none of you comment ( ;) ), I really appreciate the fact that you're interested in what's going on here.

Anyway, I promised an update about my card but I somehow forgot to take a picture of the inside before I gave it to my mom. You'll just have to use your imaginations.

I know it's not very impressive - especially to those of you who make your own cards - but I'm pretty proud of myself. I learned a lot about how horribly wrong things can go when you don't plan properly.

So, as you may remember I recently mentioned that I was going to dye my hair magenta. Well, not all of it, but the same bit that used to be bright red. I ended up doing it a couple of weeks ago and - I've gotta say - it wasn't as vibrant as I would have liked. It's now faded to a burgundy sort of color that I'm really fond of. I'll get some pictures up soon enough.

In other news, I'm overwhelmed with school work lately. I'm an Event Management major and I've been swamped with deadlines. It's preparing me for my future as a wedding planner, I know, but I wish I had some free time! I'm volunteering at a certain famous golf event in November and I can't wait.

And, as always, some materialistic updates.

I just ordered this dress from Buckle and I'm dying for it to get here.

I promise I'll have a real update soon. Peace and love.

DIY Monday

2009-09-14T13:10:00.003-04:00

I MADE MY FIRST CARD EVER, GUYS! I finally got a Cricut Expression a couple of days ago and I've been messing around with the features and testing out different kinds of paper. My mom's birthday is in two days so I decided to jump right in and make her a card. I'll post the whole project after her birthday - I don't wanna risk her stumbling on this and seeing her card in advance.

:)

L'Oreal HiColor

2009-09-04T15:08:00.007-04:00

Alright. I'll be the first to admit I'm not very adventurous when it comes to hair. Mine has been long and layered most of my life (save for the god awful razored cut I got when I was 15) with the occasional bang thrown in. The last time I dyed my hair, I used L'Oreal HiColor HiLight and I liked the results.

About three years ago, this is what it looked like:

underside

side by side with my natural color

everyone kept asking I got extensions ... even though the length of my hair didn't change at all :/

I love this dye because it's made specially for dark hair. I didn't have to bleach my hair before dying it and the color was vibrant, long lasting, and faded to a pretty pink and then a subtle blonde. All I had to do was mix the dye with a developer (30 is recommended on the tube, so that's what I used) and slather it on for thirty minutes.

Anyway, I'm considering doing something similar now that I'm unemployed. I mean, if I can't do it while I'm a sophomore in college when else will it be appropriate? So I went out and bought L'Oreal HiColor HiLights in Magenta! We'll see how it turns out.

Wish me luck.

The One Where I Make an Ass of Myself

2009-08-25T15:24:00.005-04:00

I just realized that my first post could basically be considered an advertisement - although I like to think of it as more of an endorsement. So you wanna know a little about me? I can't imagine that you would (yet) but here it goes anyway.

The quick, not-real-sentences version?

I'm Brandy, but you can call me Bee. 19 years old. College student. Slacker trying to pass off as the hard-working over-achiever some people still hope/think I am. Chronic procrastinator. Work in progress.

The long version?

I'm a sophomore Event Management student with a minor in Legal Studies because I haven't decided if my passion is planning weddings or law. At this point, I could go either way. I love cats. I cannot stress that enough. I would be perfectly satisfied with becoming a crazy old cat lady one day. Between my boyfriend and myself, we have 4 cats and 2 dogs. The boyfriend. We've been together for 2 1/2 years and lived together for a year. I had an eating disoder most of my life and I still struggle with weight/food issues. I love anything crafty - sewing, scrapbooking, knitting - you name it, I've either tried it or it's on my list. I tend to ramble.

Why have I started this blog?

Honestly, I have a lot of free time right now. I have a lot of thoughts and I tend to let them slip away before I get around to doing anything about them. I don't want to look back in five years and realize I have no idea who I was when I was a teenager. Most importantly, I'm nosy. We all are, to some extent. I love reading about other peoples' lives so I figure someone out there might be bored enough to read about mine.

And that's about all there is to know.

RueLaLa, anyone?

2009-08-25T14:46:00.008-04:00

I realize this is maybe a little bit early in my blogging career to start pimping out my favorite things, but I love Rue La La. I cannot even stress enough how great it is. If you've never heard of it, RLL is a sample sale site that basically offers designer products at a discount. I've seen up to 90% off before. Every few days a new deisgner 'boutique' opens up and they offer the clothes untill they sell out. You need an invite code to join. If you're interested, you can use mine here. Please leave me a comment if you do.

Anyway, back to the point, I've been searching around for a laptop bag that's not horrifically lame and will fit everything I lug back and forth to classes and the boyfriend's on weekends. I've been lusting over this Vera Bradley laptop portfolio (Pinwheel Pink, naturally) for the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, at $78, it wasn't exactly a practcal purchase for a poor college student. Today I bought it on sale from RueLaLa for $39. That's 50% off! It gets here September 3 and I couldn't be more excited.

For those of you who are unaware (which would be all of you, at this point), my laptop is a crappy but adorable Dell that gets the job done. How cute is this combo?

Happy shopping, everyone!

One

2009-08-23T16:39:00.000-04:00

This is a test entry. A bold, italicized test entry!