Words

Hi! I am so sorry to worry anyone about the unexpected blog break. Every day I would sit down to try to put thoughts to everything I was feeling. But the words never came. I wanted my explanation to be perfect. My words to be perfect. And yet, I rewrote many drafts with nary a perfect word in sight. How do you put emotions into words without pulling them from your soul in the process?

The truth is that I am just having a wee bit of a hard time right now. I cannot really explain it without getting into too personal of a detail.

I do plan on blogging again soon. I am feeling better. Truly. I am not a person who does well with any sort of change and a few things occurred all at once during the new year that threw me into a period of sadness that felt all consuming. But I am feeling more and more like myself with each day.

Thank you for all of your sweet words! They meant the world to me!

Jenni

The Old Van

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When I was growing up, my dad had a van. A really old van. And not old in the classic-vintage-any-kind-of-cool-way van.

Just old.

And dirty.

Not dirty old man.

But dirty old van.

Although, I hope to one day be called both.

Wha-?!

I have spent my adult life searching for a van with the insides that could match that one. The one from my memories. With the interior so covered in dog hair and dust that when you slid the door open, it appeared as though my father was throwing magic confetti into the air.

If magic confetti was made out of dog hair.

Which I am quite positive it is.

I am thinking I will never find a van quite like it.

My dad’s favorite color is blue. Every year he would paint his van a different shade of blue. Inevitably, it would chip or fade, so the van always had patches of different shades of blue peeking through it. It was like a blueberry jelly bean. Before they made blueberry jelly beans. It actually looked quite pretty paired with the rust. It had a special ombre effect decades before ombre would become fashionable.

When we were little we loved riding in the van. It had no unnecessary items. Such as seatbelts.

My sister and I would argue over who would get to ride in the front.

Looking back, I cannot quite figure out why this was. The front seat sat precariously balanced. Another unnecessary item in this van was the bolt that would have held the front seat in place. This meant that if you leaned back in the chair, it would topple over backwards.

We were a no frills family.

Seatbelts? Pfffft.

A seat that would stay in place? What are we? The Rockefellers?

Doors that stayed shut? Please. Those are for amateurs. Just don’t lean on the door and you’ll be fine. As in, you won’t tumble out onto the moving road. Or rather onto the road from the moving vehicle. I use the word “vehicle” loosely. It was more like the blue ride of terror.

I will never forget when my little sister was two.

I was pouting in the back of the van. Sitting as close to the console as I could get, away from the back. I was scared of the depths of the van. In fact, I never went back there. It was where all of the magic confetti was made. Too much of that stuff and I was sure I would drift into the dust motes that clung to the carpet as they unsuccessfully avoided being made into illustrious scraps of crap.

I was glowering at my sister who had once again scored the fun seat. The seat up front. She was busy spinning and trying as hard as she could to keep her balance so the seat would not topple into the back where I would surely hold her for ransom in an attempt to claim her throne.

It happened so quickly.

One moment we were being jostled down the dirt road that led to our house from my grandparent’s home. And the next moment, the front door had swung open.

And my little sister. My two year old little sister was holding on to the open door by the window frame. Dangling there like an unfortunate mountain climber in an action movie.

Or an unfortunate child of the eighties before there were laws concerning the safety of automobiles.

I will admit to laughing. I had no idea how dangerous the situation was. I thought she was just up to her old tricks. She was the dare devil. I seriously thought she was purposefully hanging onto an open door.

It was awesome.

And then she let go.

And my mom freaked the freak out.

She stopped the van.

She was terrified that she had run my sister over.

But she had merely fallen out. There was not a scratch on her.

It had to be all of that magical confetti.

We were always covered in the stuff.

You would think it was at this point that something in or on the van would change. Such as, I don’t know, adding a little fancy somethin’ like a bolt to a seat or a screw to the door.

Or a seatbelt for a toddler.

Nonsense!

The only thing changing on that van was which color blue it would be from one day to the next.

If you got black and blue from riding in the van. Well, you just matched it better.

We are going to fast forward this story to when I was thirteen. Seven years had passed since my sister’s little incident. The van had not changed. Or rather, I am sure it was still being painted yearly and the magical confetti had now had seven years to grow bigger. Thicker. Fuller. As we acquired more and more dogs to ride in the van (a story for another day).

We had a bus lane at our school. For buses. Let me repeat. For BUSES!

But my dad, well, my dad would pull up in the bus lane whenever he would pick me up. From Junior High School. It would go yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Blue. Yellow.

No one ever told him to move. They were much too in awe of his van.

I would, as quickly as I could manage, run up to the van. Yank it open, pause to admire the magic confetti as it swarmed into the sunlight intent on infecting delighting anyone who passed by, and then jump into the back as fast I could. Why the back? You ask.

I think maybe I was humbled by how amazing my ride was and maybe I did not want anyone seeing who was in the blue van. I did not want to be hounded with autographs. Did I mention the back seat had no windows? Yea. I was incognito in my coolness.

Years later I would learn that my little sister would make my dad park a block away from that junior high school so that she would not have to be bombarded by fans. You know. The fans that would swarm that awesome van.

Or at least, that is what I assumed.

My dad always fondly tells the story of how I was not embarrassed of his method of transportation. Of how my sister was so mean to make him park so far away. Of how I was the good daughter that allowed the van to truly shine. Where it did not belonged.

In the bus lane.

Of course.

I did not have the heart to tell him it just never occurred to me to ask him to park elsewhere.

The thought just never came.

You can blame it on my immaturity. My true love for the van. My desire for fame.

But we all know the truth.

The real culprit was the magic confetti.

I snorted too much of it.

I became an addict.

And then it was taken away. Sold. Never to be seen again. It went to a dealer. And I’m not talking cars.

I’m speaking of nostalgic shrapnel. Flakes of time. Decades. Of. Laughter. And screams.

That must be the reason that whenever I see a van the color of the sky, I grin widely and rush forward to peer inside.

To get a whiff.

Of blue painted dust mote magical memories.

Finally, The Best Mascara

If you remember, and why wouldn’t you, it was a monumental declaration, over a year ago I declared that I would go through a giant box of sample mascaras and do an experiment on which one I thought was the best.

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And as with all of my best intentions, I managed to document only three of them before I simply resorted to trying them on and then declining most of them forever. Mascara is no joke.

The mascara needs to look natural. It needs to separate the lashes, lift my short spindly genetic shortfalls, from the hovels of my face and mold the shacks of my eyelashes into skyscrapers. I want the structure to last all day but easily tear down at night.

I tried all of the mascaras in Sephora’s 2013 Lash Stash box listed here:

Benefit They’re Real Mascara (which I all ready loved previously)
Blinc Mascara
Buxom Lash Mascara
Clinique High Impact Mascara
Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara
Lancome Hypnose Drama Mascara
Sephora Outrageous Mascara
Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant
Tarte Lights, Camera, Flashes Mascara
Yves Saint Laurent Volume Effect Mascara

I also tried MAC’s Zoom Fast Mascara, Clinique’s Lash Doubling Mascara, Maybelline’s Great Lash, Lancome’s Hypnose Doll Lashes, Benefit Bad Gal, and Bobbi Brown’s Everything Mascara through various samples and purchases.

It was quite a task, which is why it took me over a year to complete.

And at the end of it, I had narrowed my choices down to Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara (my old favorite) and Bobbi Brown’s Everything Mascara.

But then something unexpected happened.

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I tried one of my last mascaras, Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant Mascara.

AND I LOVED IT.

It was everything I liked about Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara without the residual clumping that is hard to remove at the end of the day.

I could not wait to order a full size of it.

That is when I ran into a problem. I was not the only one who adored their trial of Make Up Forever Mascara from Sephora (I believe Sephora gave out samples in their birthday gifts last year). And I was not the only one who had decided to jump and order the full size version. However, before I did, I read the reviews. Many of them declared that for whatever the reason, the full size version did not live up to the smaller size.

Thankfully, you can order a travel size version. And that is what I have been doing for the last six months.

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So, oddly, the travel sized Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant Mascara is the winner of my mascara trials. It lengthens lashes dramatically without being too stiff. It removes easily. It stays on all day without any flaking. It separates well. It is the mascara I will and have been exclusively buying for myself. Although, my daughter received the same kit. Her heart still belongs to Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara. So, that is the brand I buy for her.

Have you tried any of these mascaras? What is your favorite mascara? Have you done eyelash extensions? Or that eyelash growth serum? Or do you ever use fake eyelashes? I have tried the fake eyelashes once. But I have not perfected it. Maybe one day I will try again.

*This post is based on my own use of the different mascaras. Your experience may vary from my own. All photos here are unfiltered to truly show the way the product looks when I first apply it and the lighting I apply it in.

Winner Of The Blog Giveaway And Musings

Congratulations to Lyn for winning the Urban Outfitters e-gift card! Thank you to all who participated! I very much appreciate it.

This month is flying by! I cannot tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I would say, “only time will tell,” but that seems redundant and also wrong. February is a mystery that I am still trying to catch up with.

Here are some things I am craving to wear, do or just share:

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One of my goals this month is to make a dutch baby in the oven. I am going to try this recipe from Food Network. Wish me luck! The very scary part of this is that neither myself nor my husband like dutch babies. But they look so impressive that I am hoping one made at home will be better than any others we have tried. I make sense that way.

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Speaking of food, this is more of a warning than anything else. We use our microwave a lot. I always thought of it as a relatively safe appliance. So I never really gave much safety advice to my children in regards to it. The oven and the stovetop were the appliances that I taught caution towards. That ended up being a mistake. We have had many mishaps with the appliance. Yesterday was definitely the scariest one. My son microwaved himself some sort of meal and about five minutes later there was a giant explosion. He had left the glass pyrex pan that I keep in the microwave (I have too many cooking vessels) in there when he microwaved his food. Apparently it could not handle being empty with the heat. I am so grateful he was not standing near it at the time. Glass reached the middle of the living room. Now both my kids know to never ever microwave an empty glass container. About two years ago my daughter accidentally hit the power button instead of the timer on the microwave and microwaved the oven with nothing inside of it for fifteen minutes. I cannot believe it did not fry it. It did not work for one day as it cooled down but then it was fine again. I have heard that you cannot microwave water in glass and obviously no metal in the device. Two weeks ago, my daughter microwaved a rice krispie treat on a plastic plate and created a giant burn hole in the plate. We threw it away but it could have caused a fire. And also, don’t microwave rice krispie treats! There is so much more to teaching kids about the machine than I had originally thought. Just an FYI for those of you with kiddos.

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Of all of the things that I like in stores, this Free People Summer Winds Dress tops the list. I love it for summer. I would love to buy it in the coming months. It just seems easy and breezy and can be worn an infinite amount of ways. I also like that it does not appear to be too short. Who doesn’t love a white dress?

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I had written earlier that I wanted a new couch this year, but then I put on our old white slipcover for this couch after having a dark grey velvet on it for months and my heart was happy again. And I ended up liking the other one in the other room equally. The couch is fifteen years old. But I still love it. It has been vomited on, had food spills, drink spills, crayon mishaps and it keeps on ticking. So, for now, it stays. Of course, right after I put the slipcover on, Ollie went and wiped his jowls on it. The couch is a glutton for punishment.

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I asked my daughter if what she was wearing was clean and she replied, “Yes. I got it from the laundry chair.”

The laundry chair!

Oi! The stories my kids will tell their children…

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Finally, this was my OOTD yesterday. I decided it was a black outfit and orange lipstick kind of day.

When my daughter got home, I said, “Hey! Look! I went emo today.”

She scoffed. “That is not emo.”

“Yes. It is.”

“No. It’s girly goth.”

I liked that description better any way, but I dare not tell her that.

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This photo was taken during dinner last night. Ollie knows he can’t be near the dinner table so he plants his butt on the edge of the carpet so he is still considered in the living room and stares at us. He is not amused by me taking pictures of him and not feeding him. I think he will go wipe his face on the white couch some more.

How’s your February going? If you have dogs, do they try to push the rules like Ollie? Today I am off to get my first pedicure since last May. I guess it’s about time. I just never expected to be wearing sandals in February.