Just For Fun

Happy Friday, ya’ll! We made it! At this very moment I’m heading out the door for a short trip into San Francisco. I’m bound for Union Square to have lunch with a friend and to do some much-needed shopping. My need for new pants has reached code red status; if I don’t get a new pair of khakis and some lightweight jeans ASAP, my bum will riot! I’ve been falling out of every pair of pants I own, and that is NOT CUTE.

I need your help! I plan to swing by a few makeup counters today. If you have any urgent makeup recommendations for me, lemme know in the comments. With my trusty Crackberry/Blackberry, I’ll get your suggestions in milliseconds. Dang, don’t you love living in the digital age? I sure do, most of the time. Pony Express would so not cut it.

Check in later today for a review of Shu Uemura’s UV Under Base and whatever other gems I discover in the city.

Hope you’re having a great day so far!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Bust out your Manolos, ladies, because the countdown is on! As of today, there are only 49 days until the May 30 release of the Sex and the City movie. I am a die-hard fan of the show, and when the last season aired a few years ago I almost felt like I’d lost a fabulous group of girlfriends.

I know that many of you love the show as much as I do. It’s fun to think about which character you identify with the most. My friends C-Lo and J-Money identify with Miranda. While I’ll always have a beef with her choices concerning Mr. Big, Carrie cracks me up. I like to think of myself as a Carrie. I, too, am a shoe geek and writer … and I dig her quirky taste in clothes.

How about you? Which character from the show do you most identify with?

The movie opens on a Friday, so I’m planning to hit the first show. Fridays are my days off! You best believe I intend to wear my four-inch heels to the theater at 11am![Continue reading…]

Driving home from the gym tonight I heard the song Baby Got Back on the radio, the 1992 smash hit by celebrated lyricist Sir Mix-a-Lot (LOL). I cannot stand that song, but for reasons unknown I am able to recite every single word of it. As soon as that intro starts I am compelled to sing: “I like big butts and I cannot lie! Those other brothers can’t deny!”

After subjecting El Hub to my questionable rapping skillz in the car I thought to myself, “Dang, I wish I didn’t know the words to Baby Got Back.” And so this list was born…

9 Things I Wish I Didn’t Know

1. How hurtful people can be.
2. The crunchy sound that a brand new Honda Civic makes when it hits a Brady Bunch-esque station wagon at an intersection in Vallejo, California.
3. Writer’s block.
4. How heartbreak feels.
5. The names of all the characters in Family Guy. Both El Hub and my brother love the show and subject me to it often and against my will.
6. The previous winners of Flavor of Love: Hoopz (Season 1) and Deelishish (Season 2). Give it up, Flav! You’re never going to find love on VH1, and all those hours spent watching your show take up valuable space in my brain that I could’ve filled with useful knowledge about rocket science and sea turtles.
7. How it feels to doubt myself.
8. The nausea that occurs while one is eating an apple and suddenly realizes there’s a live, green, wiggly worm inside it.
9. How mortifying it is for a little sixth grade girl (we’ll call her Karen) to pass gas in a room full of sixth graders. Three words, ladies: scarred for life.

How about you? Do you have a list of things you wish you didn’t know? Leave them in the comments, or send them to me in an email if they’re too personal for the blog.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Every once in a while a fellow beauty blogger will invite me to play a game of blog tag. In blog tag, a blogger is asked a series of fun questions or asked to write something like I Love the 80s!.

When you’re done, you tag another blogger, and it spreads from there (like wildfire!). I don’t always have time to play, but today when my homegirl Christine of Temptalia.com tagged me to play Getting to Know You, I couldn’t resist! Ya’ll know I love to write lists.

Here are my answers, in no particular order…

Things I’m passionate about

Dancing
Surfing
El Hub 🙂
Blogging
Kindness
Cultivating a unique point of view to share with the world
Not being stagnant, and challenging myself to evolve mentally, physically and artistically
Flossing and dental hygiene in general
Bringing out the best in others
Laughter, humor and having fun
Details
Adventure!
Audrey Hepburn’s fashion style in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Music

Things I’d like to do before I die

Be a mum
Interview Madonna
Write a teen fiction book
Skydive one last time (this ought to happen before the becoming a mum thing, I reckon)
Go on a worldwide surf vacation
Drink a pina colada and get caught in the rain
Live in Paris
Be able to bench press with one 45-pound plate on each side of the bar (!)
Grow a watermelon
Eat that watermelon
Send my parents on an awesome vacation
Own a pony

Things I say often

I love you.
What’s up?
I’m feeling all shades of crazy!
Did you brush?
Oh my god, what’s that smell?
Where’s Tabs? (This is in reference to the neighbor’s tabby, whom I’ve named Tabs — alternate spelling: Tabz. He’s also referred to as Tab-money, Tabula rasa and Taboo.)

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There’s no shortage of reality TV reruns on the boob tube, and I’m a lil’ ashamed to admit the multi-show marathons always send me into a state of five-hour couch paralysis. The other day, I sat down to watch cycle 8 of America’s Next Top Model for like the fourth time (team Natasha, yo!) when it hit me: Jay Manuel bears a striking resemblance to America’s Best Dance Crew host Mario Lopez (of Saved by the Bell fame).

You know you can’t deny the resemblance.

This got me thinking: which half of this dynamic, separated-at-birth duo would I rather share a cup of coffee with? Jay or Mario?
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When I’m feeling a little sad or down, one thing I do to cheer myself up is make lists. Yesterday, I had a craptacularly rough afternoon and cried, oh, about six times. There are just some days when you feel like you can’t get anything right, ya know? After the sixth round of tears, I made a list to remind myself of the things I’m pretty darn good at.

9 Things I’m pretty darn good at…

1. Blueberry and peach cobbler. I make it from scratch, and some say it’s truly fierce. One bite can make your eyes roll back into your head. It’s cobbler crack! Holla at me and I’ll send you the recipe.
2. Running hills. I can run up all the hills in my neighborhood. El Hub can smoke me on a level surface, but he eats my dust on the hills. The steeper, the better!
3. Folding clothes. Years ago I did time working as a sales clerk for The Limited, Miller’s Outpost and Emporium-Capwells (a now defunct department store). I can fold a mean pocket-t.
4. Bullsh*t detection. Don’t even try to pull the wool over my eyes, ’cause I can smell it coming from a mile away.
5. Swimming. In a past life, I think I might’ve been an aquatic animal.
6. Making music playlists. My gym playlists are guaranteed to get your booty shaking.
7. Shoe shopping. 🙂
8. Falling asleep on public transportation. Cars, planes, trains, pony express (kidding!)… if it moves and I’m on it for any length of time, I can cat nap, even while standing up!
9. Befriending strays (both animals and people).

How about you? What are some things you do well? Toot your horn! *toot toot!*

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen