Where lipgloss goes to die

So I emptied out my purse today and I realized something about myself, I have serious issues with lipgloss.
This was all in my purse along with my abreva. You never know when you might have a herpes outbreak on your face.
There are a total of 11 lipgloss/lipstick/chapsticks in my purse, and I usually just put it on once then forget about it during the day.

 I just bought this doozy here and I really wanted to love it, but it makes me look like I have third degree burns on my lips and it doesn't stay on at all. It's supposed to be a lipstain and lipbalm but it doesn't look nice. The color is "instinct" by Revlon Just Bitten. 

The rest of the stuff is boring: hair ties, glasses and a tape measure because I always need one; deodorant and a nail polish that doesn't even belong to me.

This is my wallet that I always carry with me rather than that big ole flap wallet with all the insurance cards, baby pictures and receipts to stuff I don't even remember buying. My friend made this about 2 years ago and I love it.  But I hate sushi, go figure.
Because I am doing the 40 bags challenge, I am going to throw away almost all the crap in my purse and go down to maybe 3 lip items.
That just means I will buy new ones that probably look exactly the same.

40 bags Basement part 1

I was busy yesterday with crafting and the weather here is so beautiful that I had to go outside a lot so I didn't do much cleaning but one little sore spot in my basement did get taken care of and I am very happy with it. I didn't have to do much in this in one room but put the shelf in there that I took out of the kids bedroom but not having everything on the floor made a big difference and yes I do have a ton of booze.

 

 

 Tomorrow I won't wimp out and pick a bigger project, I promise.

The Room of Doom

I have been dreading doing the "Sandwich Kid" room because it is the worst room in the house and I knew it would take me the longest. It took me all day, and it was 9:00pm when I was finally done.  I didn't even do her closet yet because it was too late.

This is basically what her room looks like all the time because, unfortunately, she is a hoarder.  She also likes to hide things like 7 Tupperware dishes full of school food; I threw them out because I was not about to touch the stuff that was in it.
I threw away about 4 bags full of stuff, including erasers, pencils, pens, trash, stuffed animals and papers for a class she isn't in anymore, puzzle pieces, barbie shoes and the list goes on.
It's unbelievable how bad it was! I go through her room every couple of months so I don't know how this happened.

I made her help me and while she didn't do much except play and fight me on what could go in the trash, we talked about a bunch of different stuff like how much she dislikes Justin Bieber now (I'm glad I didn't buy her tickets to see him) because he does drugs and he is in jail. She also told me about school and how it's going and just plain small talk, but we laughed a lot and listened to mix cds that I made her 2 years ago.  now tonight I will finish her closet and then move on.

I'm just glad that I got that out of the way.

Starting 40 bags challenge again

I have been wanting to do this "40 bags in 40 days" challenge for the last 3 years, and every time I start, something happens and I quit. Well this year shall be different, I promise! I started in the upstairs bathroom that is also my closet, so I had a lot to sort out and give away, throw away.

Yes, these are before pictures but it doesn't mean that my bathroom usually looks like this. I didn't take a picture till after I had pulled a bunch of stuff out and thrown it on the floor.
I got rid of a lot of clothes that I have held onto forever, even though I was never going to wear them again. I definitely filled at least two bags full of clothes and about 4 little trash bags full of odds and ends.

Even though it doesn't look like it, I did get rid of about 5 bottles of perfume (which is ridiculous)!  I should be ashamed for having so much crap.

 

See me trying to hide my picture taking?

It took me about 4 hours because I washed all my makeup brushes,  refolded all my clothes, and posted a bunch of stuff to give away on Whatsapp while I was cleaning it out, so I was taking pictures and sending messages a lot of the time. But I did get rid of it so it was worth it.
I feel so much better in there now, and I found stuff that I had been missing for a while, including earrings.
Tomorrow I am starting somewhere else in the house, but I don't quite know where yet because that's how I roll.

Little Bit of Rainbow

I love rainbows and I always have. There is just something fun and cheerful about them and they are also an absolute miracle, and even though you can explain them with science, I still stick with the miracle.
I have a whole pinterest board with just rainbows because they make me happy just looking at them

 Pinterest

I decided to make a mobile with just little rainbow hearts, and of course, because I have vision sometimes the logistics get in the way and I have to start, scrap and restart 90%  of my projects. Crafting & sewing with ADD is hard.

Here you see how I started with a huge craftpunch that was waaay to big for those rinky dink little rings. Plus, there weren't enough hearts but that didn't stop me from plugging along.
So in the end I got more paper and cut a total of 183 hearts and made a wreath form out of a hanger. The hearts were just too big for the little rings that cost me about 4 euros.

 

It's huge! I only had one size punch and I wasn't about to cut the hearts out by hand, but I still love it. My husband looked at me like I was a hippie when I told them I wanted it hung in the bedroom, but he did it anyway and it brightens up the room. 

I might make another one with different size hearts, from big to small, but for now this is my rainbow fix. 

Crafting fails and successes

You know how, when you see an idea on the internet and you think, "That doesn't look so hard",
then you start to do it and realize that maybe it isn't so easy?
Like so many craft endeavors, this one also starts with the words "I saw this on pinterest."

Desperate Craftwives 

These are little starfish made with saltdough and then poked with toothpicks. The crafter shows you every step so the only thing you can do wrong is to do what I did and make your fish too fat. My first mistake was to send my husband to shop for supplies; he bought wheat flour so they would be pretty and not white.  That was my fault so I can't blame him. I guess they turned out ok, but, like I said, they weren't slim and pretty, rather short and fat. I got 9 starfish out of this batch and I think the example was for a dozen.

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt 

3/4 cup of water

I baked them for 2 hours on 120F

 

After they were dry I had to spraypaint them gold because the color was just weird, but the gold made them ok. I hanged them in the bathroom, high up so you couldn't look at them too close. 

 

I'm going to try them again but next time use white flour and make them skinnier; this was fun to do and they're cute hanging in the guest bathroom.

Stop eating like a garbage can

For a long time I have been having problems when I eat, mostly issues with being bloated like an elephant every time I ate:

 Noodles

Bread

Pizza

Cake

or anything that had a bunch of starch, like potatoes. I tried to reduce it but that is just not possible when you like to eat a lot. At first I thought I would just ignore it and eat whatever I want because 'no stupid food' was going to tell me what I could eat and not eat, but eventually, it started to really mess with me. I would have to go home early because I had to run to the bathroom (I know TMI) or I had to wear my pants unbuttoned.

It became really annoying because I knew that if I didn't want my evening to end early or to be miserable, I couldn't eat certain things. To top it all off, my hair started to fall out and my skin was a disaster, and I do think that had a lot to do with what I ate. Of course, there was also the stress, but eating like a garbage can

did not help.

 Source

Like with everything else I do, I went big and quit sugar, starch, and a whole lot of other stuff cold turkey, and the first week was really hard and made me not so nice, but after day 5 it started to get better. 

I researched the living daylights out of paleo and eating clean and found a lot of recipes to try and some I liked while some were just gross.

Another side effect of clean eating that I had read about was the weight loss that every person who stopped eating junk had.  So of course, I was really excited about that but when, at first nothing happened, I was really bummed. It took about 2 weeks to realize that the scale was not going down but that I was burning fat like crazy.  Now, after two months, my belly is about gone and my arms and legs are looking pretty good again -- all that without the exercise that I was doing with no results. 

I have lost 8 pounds since I started and I don't know how many inches, and I am hoping that when I start to exercise more then it will really start to change. 

I am now eating about 80% clean and 20% whatever I want. 

Breakfast 

Eggs

Sausage

Bacon

Crushed tomatoes with spices

Banana and an apple

Mushroom omelet

Lunch

Chicken

Mango/cucumber salad

Zucchini spaghetti in all kinds of sauces mostly Tomato or Balsamic

Steak 

Salad

Soups

Steamed Vegetables

Dinner 

whatever is left over from lunch

Snacks

Blueberries

Cashew and almonds

Banana

Apple

Cucumber and tomatoes cut up with spices

Source

I cook everything in coconut oil and sometimes butter depending on what it is (like eggs). I still drink two cups of coffee a day with sweetener because, without it, I was a total witch.

The reason I say I only eat 80% clean is because sometimes I cheat and that makes it so much better. I was not about to deprive myself and be miserable, so if I am somewhere, whether at a restaurant or a party, then I am going to eat even if it's not clean. I hate being the person who sits there unhappy because she is hungry while everyone else is having a good time and stuffing their face. Oh, and  I still drink wine because I don't want to give it up. 

There are 5 of us in this house so I do what I have to and cook two separate meals, unless it's something I know the kids will eat.  Most of the time we eat separate things but that doesn't keep my teenager from eating his stuff and my stuff too. 

I did download one cookbook app which is nom nom paleo.  Her stuff is pretty easy to make and I like that she doesn't make you feel nasty when you cheat, which even she does.

So, if you are considering changing your eating habits because you want to feel better and fit better in your, clothes then I would definitely recommend eating Paleo or Primal for a while and seeing how you feel. I can guarantee you will feel so much better.