Growing Up.

Figured I haven't done a personal post in a while. I've been going through an emotional rollercoaster lately with a lot of family drama, stress around my Step 1 exam, and just struggles of daily life. By no means do I have a miserable life. I'm grateful for everything I have and all the experiences I've gone through. But I do wish I could fix some parts of my life.

I know my weight has been the one thing I've struggled with constantly. But even that's starting to come under control now. I'm happy to say that I haven't gained any weight and have acquired a lot of great new habits recently.

I do wish that I was better at forming relationships, though. Ever since I was little, I never really had a constant group of friends. My family moved around a lot during my elementary-middle school years and I never really had the chance to develop blooming relationships. I kind of almost regret that now because I'm having such a hard time forming true relationships now. Not only have I never had a real relationship or a real boyfriend, I've never really had true friends either. Everyone seems to be so great at making friends, but it's really challenging for me. I'm a really nice person, everyone always says that, but when it comes to being a good friend, I'm really shitty. I'm not very disclosing about the personal issues in my life to anyone, which makes other people hesitant to divulge their issues to me. I think about everyone I know who has amazing, lasting friendships and all of them are such good listeners who always know what to say and are so empathetic. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to be like that. I'll always be the awkward, quiet girl who says the wrong thing at the wrong time. And as I grow up, I realize that I can't change that about myself. I just have to learn how to accept it. I'm seen as this quirky, quiet girl who says funny stuff occasionally but has a ton of acquaintances. Yet, if I had to list people in my life who I think would be great bridesmaids or would stick their neck out for me, I hesitate. My best friend from grade school, who coincidentally happens to be one of my oldest friends, doesn't really keep up with me anymore. Sure she has a crazy busy life, but our dinner date last year kinda made me realize how far we'd drifted. Most of our dinner was full of awkward silences and no real chit chat. Just talk about our old school friends, a topic we had nothing much to discuss. And it hit me. We no longer have inside jokes, share similar hobbies, hell we don't even share similar friends anymore. I can't really call her a best friend anymore. She's always going to hold a special place in my heart and will always be my oldest and kindest friend who I know I can turn to for anything, but I know she's found other, better friends and doesn't really think of me the same way I think of her.

And I guess thats part of growing up. I need to realize that everyone changes and moves forward and I wish I could do the same. I'm still stuck on wishing she was my best friend and that we were more like sisters than friends. But it's too little too late for that now. We're friends at best. Nothing more. It really hurts me that I'm the only one who wants to even initiate a hangout. I knew that if I stopped texting her periodically, we would have a total fallout. We would probably never talk again. And that really really hurts me. I've tried to tell myself that she's busy and probably doesn't have time to talk to anyone, but no that's not really true at all. I can't really call her out on that because I have found other friends too and hangout with them way more, but at the same time, I wish our friendship meant something more than just a periodic awkward dinner date and more than a one-sided relationship.

So I think this time I'm done for good with her. If she realizes she misses me or wants to hangout with me, she can say something. As for now, I think we've lost any hopes of resurrecting our relationship. I'm very happy for her and I'm glad she has real friends who genuinely care about her. I wish she saw me as one of those, but I can't force anyone to change their minds. I wish I could tell her about all the shit I'm going through right now with my family issues, but I can't. How can I spill those intimate details to someone who doesn't even care to listen or care about even texting me once in a blue moon to talk? Whatever, I guess I'll always be the pathetic high school loser in her eyes and her cool new friends are better. But I need to grow up. It's so sad to see she has to be another friend I eject from my life, but so be it. Maybe we can catch up sometime in 5 years, if she even realizes I exist.

NOTW: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Nail Color in Lacey Lilac

Ahh late update on the nail color for this week, but it's a pretty one! This week is Sally Hansen's Xtreme Nail Wear in Lacey Lilac. It's a really gorgeous pastel purple. I picked this one up last fall when it was on sale at my local grocery store. I must say, it's beautiful and a great choice this week since spring has been in full bloom. It has been a little chilly here, but super sunny skies. I put this on Tuesday but haven't gotten a chance to write about it until now.

It's so funny, this nailpolish is only $3 or $4 and has an amazingly good formula but yet I keep forgetting about it! This is one of Sally Hansen's not so popular polish lines, but it is so stinkin' good! First off, I love the brush and how evenly and precisely the nailpolish goes on. It's a small flat brush (unlike the larger brush in their Insta-Dri line) that applies the polish perfectly and I barely have to wipe off any nailpolish lines around my fingertips. Second, the color is so shiny and glossy even without a topcoat. Also, the color lasts a crazy long time. Like I said, I don't wear a topcoat usualy and this nailpolish lasts a full week. I put this on about 4 days ago and there are absolutely no chips except a few on my index finger. Definitely less than other formulas like Revlon, L'Oreal, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, etc. I would even say it compares if not surpasses some of my Essie and OPI shades. So, this has definitely become my favorite nailpolish line! I have a few other colors in the Xtreme Wear line, but not that many. Hoping to pick up a few more this year!

Pink Glosses for Springtime ♥

Spring has definitely been in the air here recently and so I thought I'd share my favorite lipglosses for the season. As you guys probably know by now, I'm obsessed with lip products, especially lipglosses. And since pink happens to be my favorite color, it makes sense why I have a bajillion pink lipsticks, glosses, balms, etc etc. In this post, I've just singled out some of my favorite pink glosses that I have been reaching for the most recently. There are a ton of other pink-colored products I love (hello Naked 3 Palette, Revlon lip butters) but those are maybe for another post. 

I've definitely been reaching for a pink gloss nearly everyday for the last month or so because they look so natural on the lips and can be worn with any eye or face look. When I'm in a rush or don't know what to wear, I reach for a pink warm-toned color. Of course, some pink lipglosses are brighter than others and can't be worn on a daily basis, but I still love those glosses in my collection and wear them when I want to feel extra fancy or pink :)

Here are my favorite pink glosses swatched below:

Lancome Lip Lover in Framboise Etoile, Urban Decay Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss in Lovechild, BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Rebel, Revlon ColorBurst Lip Gloss in Strawberry, NYX Butter Gloss in Peaches & Cream, NYX Butter Gloss in Apple Strudel

Lancome Lip Lover In Framboise Etoile -- a really pretty berry-pink color bordering on magenta. Definitely reserved for sunny days with very little eye makeup :) I just have a (quite large) sample of it, but it's definitely one of the best lipgloss formulas I've tried in a while. 

Urban Decay Naked Nourishing Lipgloss in Lovechild -- cool-toned pink with hints of purple. I don't look all that good in cool-toned colors, but this lipgloss in an exception. It's a very sheer gloss so the cool tones don't overpower and make me look vampy like they usually do. Again, love the formula of these glosses! They hydrate my lips and surprisingly last quite a while.

BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Rebel -- subdued medium pink-mauve. Hands down, my FAVE lipgloss this season (and probably for every season!) Again, this is one of those colors that are listed as being cooler in tone, but it looks SO beautiful on my lips! The purple doesn't show up much on my lips so it looks more of a dusty rose on me. This has definitely become my favorite natural colored lipgloss and it's probably going to be one of those "take and apply whenever" shades in my collection. I can probably run out the door with this gloss and apply it whenever, even without a mirror. And I can't say that for a lot of glosses! However, I will say that it's a very dupable color and probably not worth $18 since I can guarantee that nearly every lipgloss line has a similar color. Butttt, I will definitely keep repurchasing this particular brand because the formulation is so moisturizing, lasts quite a while for being a gloss (~1 hour I'd say), the smell and taste is amazing but not overpowering (like a white chocolate peppermint, mmm), and the color is a dead on perfect MLBB for me. Oh and as another bonus, absolutely no sparkle or shimmer at all, which makes this gloss a total winner for me. 

Revlon ColorBurst Lipgloss in Strawberry -- a warm-toned hot pink. This is one of those shades I would never have considered buying because it is so bright, pigmented, and sparkly. However, I actually really really like it! It reminds me of a perfect sunny summer afternoon. Definitely going to be wearing it a lot more this summer!

NYX Butter Gloss in Peaches & Cream -- a very bright bluish-pink. I use this shade mainly when I want to switch things up and wear more of a Barbie-pink kind of gloss. This is a super pigmented gloss, so I only apply one coat and then sheer it out as much as possible so I don't look cray.

NYX Butter Gloss in Apple Strudel -- a light peachy-pink. I finally got a baby pink gloss! This is probably the lightest pink in my collection, but I've really grown to love it! Again, it's one of those glosses I can grab when I'm in a rush and apply it later without a mirror. I reach for this quite a lot mainly because it feels so incredibly comfortable on my lips and it contains no sparkle at all, which makes it perfect for every occasion. It's so hydrating and literally melts onto my lips (just like the name suggests). And it's sheer enough so I don't look crazy wearing a light gloss with my dark skintone.

New Ulta & Sephora Goodies!

So I ordered some stuff from Sephora & Ulta that I needed to buy and I ended up getting wayyyy more stuff than I needed. Part of the reason is because I was ordering online and ended up adding more stuff to my cart to meet the $50 minimum...hence all the stuff! But, a lot of the stuff I really did need, especially the hair and face stuff. So let's get to it!

Daily Routine Stuff

*Neutrogena Deep Clean Cream Cleanser -- my favorite face wash recently! I ended up buying two bottles since I go through about one a month now that this is my daily and nightly face wash.

*Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Tri-Wheat Leave-In Conditioner -- oh my gosh I have been wanting to try this stuff for literally forever now! My old Organix leave-in treatment ran out and I saw this was half off at Ulta and so I haddd to buy it. I absolutely love it so far!

*Not Your Mother's Kinky Moves Curl Defining Hair Cream -- a little curl-defining cream to make my hair frizz free after showers. Planning on using this after spraying on the leave-in conditioner

*Not Your Mother's Knotty to Nice Conditioning Detangler -- I got this as a detangling spray for dry hair on days my hair is feeling tangled

*Simple Sensitive Skin Solutions Cleansing Facial Wipes -- These babies are my favorite makeup-removing wipes! They're so wet and excellent at leaving my skin fresh and clean at night. I sometimes don't even wash my face after and I have yet to breakout

Makeup

*Coach Poppy Flower Perfume -- I got this perfume because it was recently discontinued and Sephora had it for 50% off. I've tried samples of the regular Coach Poppy and fell in love at first spritz! I've been looking for a new perfume and couldn't bear to shell out $95 for the Roses de Chloe, so I felt this would be a great replacement for it since they're both florals. I do love a good rose perfume but for now this will do. It smells soooo divine, kinda like a bouquet of flowers and it's perfect for springtime. It's much lighter than the Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb (my go-to perfume for the past 2 years), but I think it's going to have great lasting power despite its light fragrance. Definitely excited to try this!

*BareMinerals Try Believe Love Kit in Golden Tan -- I did it! I FINALLY BOUGHT MY FIRST FOUNDATION! After debating about it for over a year, I caved in and bought a foundation -- of course, mineral one. I was in between the new Tarte airbrush foundation thing and BM but I decided to go with BM since they have some amazing foundation sample kits for a good price. I might do another blogpost about my first impressions, but so far I really like this foundation although I do have some quarrels with it. Overall though, I love it and I'm glad I went with a mineral foundation over a liquid one. It is a little tricky to apply but I think with a couple more tries, I'll be golden.

*Sephora The Event Entry Palette -- yes, it's the beautiful glittery envelope-like thing in the picture above! So beautiful! I wanted to actually buy this last winter for my mom as a Christmas present, but I ended up choosing another palette since this one has 4 cool gray-black shades which I knew she wouldn't use. It was on sale at Sephora for $5 and I could not pass it up. It comes with those 4 gray shades and also 4 warm brown shades (a cream, light brown, medium brown, and dark brown - all with shimmer). I think it's such a pretty little eyeshadow compact for everyday travel and pretty good quality too!

*Revlon PhotoReady 3D Volume Mascara -- I needed a new mascara for the springtime and since Revlon was BOGO1/2 I decided to get this one again. I have tried it before and it does a really good job of volumizing and separating my lashes. Not a cult fave, but still a goodie!

*Revlon ColorBurst Laquer Balm in Ingenue -- a really pretty, creamy nude lip balm. Really excited to try this new formula out! 

*NYX Mega Shine Lip Gloss in Smokey Look -- a gorgeous tea-rose lipgloss. I've fallen in love with their Butter Glosses, so decided to try this formula too!

*Sephora Lip Gloss in Red Jelly -- I got this for $5 on Sephora and oh my goodness it is so yummy! Super shiny and great for a natural lip color. Smells great and goes on very juicy on the lips.

*Urban Decay Naked Lipgloss in Lovechild -- got this for a 100 points on Sephora just because I wanted to try it out and see if they live up to the hype or not. Haven't tried it yet but definitely excited to! 

*Lancome Lip Lover Gloss in Framboise Etoille -- VIB sample in a beautiful raspberry color. I actually don't have many lip products in this color because it's not really my favorite, but it is really beautiful!



Whew! That's about this for my makeup and beauty haul, but I did pick up some fashion/accessory goodies for the spring that I'll be posting in another blog. My wallet must definitely hate me, but you only live once, right? ;)

Recipes To Try! -- Week of March 17th

Recently, I've been inspired to cook and prepare meals/snacks by all of the great recipes on Pinterest as well as the huge hole in my wallet and my expanding waistline from all the eating out I've been doing. I've actually prepared some great meals for the week and got ingredients to make some fun snacks for a weekly movie night with my friends.

Egg Salad Sandwich -- a delicious way to amp up my weekday lunches instead of boring old turkey & cheese

Creamy Spinach Parmesan Pasta with Chicken -- creamy pasta dinner this week! 

Buffalo Bean Dip -- Saturday move night snack

Decorated Cupcakes -- I recently purchased an open star tip for decorating. Can't wait to try it this weekend!

Thai Curry Chicken with Potatoes -- I have some potatoes that need to be used up soon and just repurchased my favorite curry sauce, so I think this would be a great way to use my chicken, curry sauce, veggies, and potatoes! Yummy and hearty dinner idea for next week.

Weekend Decor & Monday Night Baking

Happy Tuesday! So, despite doing barely any work the past few days, I have managed to get a few "projects" done, which in retrospect have actually helped my mental health since I feel a lot more relaxed, calm, and fulfilled now. 

First off, I FINALLY put up Christmas lights on my headboard like I have been meaning to do for like three months now. I just found a box of white lights from Christmas and decided to loop them around my headboard. Note: the picture does not do these lights justice at all!

They look a little bit gnarly as they are right now, so I may re-arrange them around the posts or straighten them out a bit, but I really like how these are looking so far! My bed is right in the center of my room, and I would definitely say that it's "the focal piece" of my room. The camera didn't capture just how beautiful these look when my lights are off, and they would make a great reading light or a soft light for when I'm trying to relax a bit before bedtime. Super excited I finally put these up! I may try to find some heart-shaped lights or colored lights this summer to maybe jazz things up a little bit, but for now, these plain white lights are definitely staying.

Next, I did some cooking this weekend (my weekly Sunday night baking was a Monday night baking this week). Let me just start off by saying that I have found my new pasta sauce love. Ohhhhhhh my, I picked up the Classico Seasonal Selections Creamy Spinach & Parmesan pasta sauce over the weekend from Walmart and I am IN LOVE.

It tastes so fricken amazing, it's not loaded with too much fat, and it doesn't have a crazy high amount of salt. That being said, it isn't the healthiest pasta sauce in the world, but for how it tastes, it's not bad either. I've grown tired of my monotonous regular marinara sauce and thought this would help jazz up my dinners this week while keeping things somewhat healthy. It's so creamy and delicious, but what I love is the spices in this sauce. It has a bunch of Italian spices I don't even dare try guessing, but they really hit the nail on the head with not going overboard like a lot of other pasta sauces do. This is definitely my new favorite pasta sauce brand. In fact, I went out the next day after using this to purchase another Classico Sauce. My grocery store didn't have this sauce, so I ended up getting the Classico Vodka Sauce, which I'm sure tastes just as amazing.

As for what I made with this sauce....ehh that was kind of boring. I basically tossed some red onions, chicken, and whole wheat penne into the sauce and topped it off with mozzerella cheese. Nothing too fancy, but the pasta sauce was definitely the star of the dish.

As far as the nutritional value of this dish, each serving has roughly 430 calories, 13g total fat, 4g saturated fat, 49g carbs, 29g protein, 430mg sodium and a pot of this dish makes 7 servings and takes roughly 30-45 mins to make (boiling the pasta and all). Not bad at all considering this dish tastes like heaven! A little more carb-heavy and fat-heavy than I would like, but it's much better than eating a plain-jane pasta&marinara sauce dish, feeling discontent, and trekking up to the hospital cafeteria to get a burger and fries. So yeah, this dish may just become a dinner staple. And even my mom liked it, who usually hates Italian food! Big kudos right there.

NOTW: Revlon Parfumerie Apricot Nectar

My apologies I didn't clean the unclean lines around my nails before photographing! 

So this week,  I thought I would get a little spring-y and put on a bright coral-peachy polish. I decided to try my new Revlon Parfumerie Nailpolish in Apricot Nectar, which is a really pretty light peach shade. These are some of the newest nailpolishes in the drugstore market and I believe they are part of the Revlon permanent collection of polishes. I gotta say I like the formula overall, but there are some things that could have been better. For one, the polish initially applied streaky and uneven. After 2 more coats, it did even out and gave a shiny, opaque finish. Also, it took about 3 coats to get it to the opacity I like and the polish was a little runny and not as creamy as some of the other nailpolish brands I've tried. The standout feature of these polishes, however, is the light fragrance it has once dried (hence the name Parfumerie). I actually think it makes these polishes kinda unique! I'm not sure if all of them have a different scent, but this one smells like bubblegum/fruity candy once it's dry. Not really like an apricot, but close! And really delish! I was a little afraid because I didn't want to have a heavy scent on my nails or have an acetone+fruit fragrance on my nails, but I think Revlon did a really good job with the scents! It's light enough that you have to pretty much hold your nails up to your nose in order to smell any fragrance. Also, the packaging of these polishes deserves a mention. It has a black knob-shaped top which makes it looks rich, elegant, and sophisticated. Definitely prettier and more elegant than the normal plastic polish tops. Looks beautiful on my vanity and makes these polishes standout in my nailpolish box.

So overall, although I don't love the formulation completely, I love the innovative idea of the lightly fragranced polishes. The fragrances are light enough and don't interfere or make you smell overpowering in any way. The packaging of these polishes is beautiful. It would look so pretty on my dresser as a decoration. Plus, the color selection in this collection is amazing, so I may pick up a few more shades! Love love love this polish. May become my new obsession.