Everyday Should be Considered a Blessing

    In lieu of my last post, I've decided it's best I look at the blessings God has given me.  I mean really if we look at all the bad or rough spells, we could never see or appreciate the good there is. Life will constantly throw us a curve ball or knock us back 5 steps after taking just one forward. But even during all that, there are still blessings to be thankful for, small and big.
    To keep myself in perspective in this rough time & during the upcoming holidays I am going to do a daily post about something I'm thankful for. They won't always be long or huge in depth but I will daily let everyone know something I feel blessed with.

   Today I must say I feel blessed to have my kids. I think they have opened my eyes to so many things. I have gained a new appreciation of patience, tolerance & unconditional love that I don't think we can truly get any other way. They have helped me grow so much as a person. Life truly would not be close to the same without them.

   It's easy to appreciate life if we just take the time. If we give ourselves a second to be thankful for all we have, then we worry less with what we don't.

   What can you say you are thankful for today? What blessing has made you a better person today? Opened your eyes?

Deep Slow Breaths

   Do you ever feel like the world is swallowing you whole? All 10 months of this year I've been swimming in that sensation. To be honest I guess I should say I have felt like this for the last 34 months.  Nothing before Feburary of 2011 really compares though. Not even close to an ounce of comparison to the months from Feburary until this very day. Feburary is when my mom was diagnosed with Stage IIII lung cancer. And my whole life changed.

    I'm setting here, in our local emergency room, watching the most admirable, strong man I've ever been blessed to know. My dad.  Due to many factors that, at this moment, I'm too angry to discuss, I'm watching him smother & suffer needlessly. This is our second ER visit in 3 weeks. In between those he has been hospitalized for 8 days. He's going to be admitted once again today.
    He is enduring all of this while grieving the loss of his wife-best friend-confidante of 42 blessed years, my mom, in April of this year.  He is fighting to live, fighting to get better. And I'm angry. Angry at what has him to this point. Angry that carelessness & disregard for others runs so rampant in todays world.  Angry that I have to see my dad suffer so & even more angry because I'm doing so after seeing my mom suffer the last month of her life. Selfish? Yes! I'm human & I am going to have this moment to be selfish. I'm going to be angry at the world. I'm going to be angry at all the controllable & uncontrollable factors.
    I'm going to take this moment to be selfish before the world swallows me up.  I'm going to cry because I love my parents so & don't want life to not have them in it. I'm going to scream because there's too much emotion & not enough time or patience in the world to let it out. I'm going to rejoice because God is holding my moms hand now & she's not in pain. Rejoice because I know He has His arms wrapped around my dad. And I'm going to sit in the silence of my fear & take comfort in knowing God will always be by my side. I'm going to hold my head up & make it through anger & all because I have four beautiful boys that look to me to make sure how to deal with things. I'm going to do my best to show them the best way. I'm going to take in every moment of everyday & cherish the good & bad because I've been blessed beyond measure. And when my selfish moments over, I'm going to take deep, slow breaths and go forward.

Let's Spread a Little Influence

   I love trying new things, don't y'all?  I've always been the one who goes for the odd or least known; often times discovering fantastic things before most or figuring out the duds before they become a trend.
   Last July I was perusing one of my fave magazines, Woman's World & came across a spiffy little site.  It was all about testing products & giving feedback to the brands & consumer's through lots of different channels. Ha needless to tell y'all, I jumped on the site!  It is Influenster.com.  When I signed up in August last year, it was still very new.  They still had quite a large number in their community to be so fresh. At that time it was open to the public & sort of in beta stages. 
     Influenster offers what's called a voxbox.  In a nutshell, if you actively interacted with Influenster.com, twitter, facebook & had a blog you could pre-qualify for a themed voxbox chalk full of goodies.  You aren't ever guaranteed getting one. Often times brands are targeting specific demographics which plays a huge part in getting picked. You also have badges to unlock which represent your life & interests.  They're no fees or subscriptions. You're required to answer a post experience survey to stay active. 
     You have the option to complete brand specific challenges for an opportunity to win rewards & unlock the brand badge.  Usually these challenges consist of talking about the product & your experience through twitter, facebook, blogging about it, sharing pictures etc.  Thus the birth of my first blog.      Since I've been a member I have participated in 4 voxboxes, & a demographic specific product reviewing.  I have been very pleased with all the things I've got to try.  They recently did a relaunch of the site (its lots of fun & great improvements), made it invite only, and broaden your opportunites for giving your thoughts about a product.
    They also recently reached a milestone number of members & are officially going public with their company.  Everyone should check out this spiffy little article about Influenster reaching 200K users.
   So when I get some great Influenster products, y'all will be the first to hear about it!! Let me know what you think after you check out the site!!
  

Sinful Mani

So I found 2 lovely deep colors from the Sinful Colors line; Exotic Green a rich olive tone green and Kissy a deep sparkly teal polish. 

I used Exotic Green on all my nails & topped my middle finger with Kissy.  This is the first accent mani I have done. They just don't appeal to me. But I like this one well enough. 

I liked the formula on both polishes.  Exotic Green was more sheer than I normally like but it was easy to build to a good opaqueness.  Its a beautiful color on its own but I can see a gold going gorgeous with this.

I LOVE Kissy! Its super hard to photograph though. It kept coming out w/ less green than you see in person.  Its a deep sparkly beauty :-).  It matched really well with Exotic Green & only took one coat to cover.

I topped the mani with Sally Hansen Diamond top coat. I like th super glassy finish it has.

All in all, I am happy with my colors as well as the manicure. What do y'all think?  What's your fave green tone?