Hi! I swear, these past few weeks have felt like a nonstop grind for Lil Red. I don’t know if it’s so much that I’m working more as much as I’m exhausted both emotionally and physically. First it was a break up that I’m not happy about, then the passing of one of our sweet family dogs, on top of my normal work week, concluded with ninety degree weather here in Ohio. So, needless to say, I am worn out.
Although a break can’t happen this month because my schedule for my clients is already in effect, I definitely plan on taking a few days off come August. I just feel like I haven’t even had a moment to myself to process everything that’s going on in my life without the stress of work, writing, housework, and the fact that I feel like I am light years beyond in the relationship game. But, that’s neither here nor there.
Despite things all around sucking in my life, I am happy to be able to go skating every week now. It’s a nice change of pace from every other week and it gives me something to look forward to to help take my mind off of things. It feels good to clear my head when I’m on the ice. Now, if only it would stay like that post skating sesh! -__-
How do you help yourself shake off the blues? What cheers you up when you’re feeling down? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Hiii everyone! Today, we are going to be discussing Ruth Ware’s debut novel entitled In A Dark, Dark Wood. Miss Reese Witherspoon actually just bought the rights to this book to be made into a movie so be on the lookout for a Gone Girl-esque, twist and turny murder mystery flick on the horizon. And, *without spoilers* let’s discuss:
In A Dark, Dark Wood tells the back and forth tale of an adorably British term “hen do” AKA bachelorette party gone horribly wrong. Our story is told from the point of view of Leonora, Lee, Nora, or Leo depending on who she’s talking to and saying she’s not the most reliable narrator is an understatement. Especially considering that she found herself waking up in a hospital after a murder that she can’t quite remember the details to.
The hen do gathering is for Leonora’s high school best friend, Clare, but – the trick is that she hasn’t spoken to her in ten years. So why did she receive an email from Clare’s extremely passionate bridesmaid, Flo, in the first place? Reluctant at best to go, Leonora and another high school friend, Nina, make a pact to go together but leave if they see fit.
Surrounded by strangers at the bachelorette bash in a house made of all glass in the middle of the forest, Leonora finds herself trapped for a long weekend. Tensions build, secrets are spilled, and someone gets shot with a gun that was supposed to be filled with blanks. And, the question now is, whodoneit?
This is actually my second time reading In A Dark, Dark Wood because my mom thought it might be something that I would like. By the time I was about twenty pages in, I had realized that I read it before so that kind of shows you how memorable the book was to me, despite it’s grand reveal at the end.
Was this book entertaining? Quite. Was it just like Every. Other. Gone. Girl. Style. Book.? Abso-freaking-lutely. I won’t say I hated it, because that’s not true. I wouldn’t have reread it if I didn’t. However, it wasn’t the best thing that I’ve ever read and none of the characters were particularly likeable, which made it hard to get really into it.
Overall, I’d give this book a 5.5 out of ten. It was readable and a nice page turner to spend an afternoon with. But, I think you will find the superficial characters over the top and the narrator to be a bit of a bore. Read it, maybe. Or, better yet, just wait for the movie to come out, instead.
Has anyone else read In A Dark, Dark Wood? What were your thoughts on it? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Hi! Today, we are going to take a look at the swatch for Jouer’s Lip Creme Liquid Lipstick in Rose Gold. I have not tried this product on yet and, frankly, I am a bit nervous to because the reviews for it on Sephora’s website were abysmal at best. However, I think that the color is gorgeous and I’m hoping that I won’t hate it as much as everyone else does when I get around to using it, lol. Take a look:
The main complaint with this lippie among the reviews is that it is dry as the Sahara Desert and, even just from having it on my hand, I agree. It dried in the ten seconds it took me to take the pictures and it was about a bitch to take off. I had to scrub fairly roughly with water and then micellar water to get it completely removed. So, imagine having to do that on the sensitive skin on your lips. No thanks.
It’s too bad, because I like the color a lot and it’s disappointing to get something that might suck. But, at the end of the day, I got the sample size FO FREE so it’s not like any harm was done. I just wish those product reviews were up before I chose this as a freebie!
Has anyone tried this lippie by Jouer before? What are your thoughts on it? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Helloooo everyone and welcome to a new post where we will be swatching Clinique’s “Almost Lipstick” in Black Honey. I got this lippie FO FREE with my Beauty Insider points from Sephora and I like it well enough but I do feel like the name is super misleading. My dumbass, who didn’t read what the product was like, assumed that it would be more of a cream based lippie judging by the pictures. However, it feels and looks very glossy. Take a look at some pics and let’s discuss:
So, I guess the buzz on this product is that it fuses with your natural lip color to create a shade that is unique just for you. Did I really notice anything that special about it? No. But, that’s not to say that I didn’t like the color because I did. I was surprised at how light such a dark shade appeared on me and I thought the glossy, plum shade looked nice.
Do I think that a large sized tube of the Almost Lipstick is worth twenty dollars for what’s basically a lip gloss? Not at all and if I didn’t get it for free with my points, I would never consider purchasing it. I’m a little disappointed with this product. I don’t know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t the results I had. Maybe I just feel that way a bit more because I normally really like all of the Clinique goodies that I have tried so this one feels very lackluster.
But, in conclusion, save your money for something more worth it because a tinted lip balm is not worth twenty dolla holla. #notimpressed
What are your thoughts on the Clinique Almost Lipstick? What is your favorite Clinique product? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Some people are very conscious about hair care. They make sure that their hair is shiny, fragrant, and clean. However, some of these people are not too keen on taking care of their scalp. They think that scalp is just skin under the hair. While it is true, you must realize that the scalp is very sensitive skin. And dealing with sensitive skin should be handled with utmost care. You might not have realized it, but you have taken your scalp for granted. You think that it takes care of itself. It still needs your help, though. And that help should not just be another attempt to remove the flakes or your refusal to shampoo.
It is a tricky thing to do, especially if it is your first time to focus on scalp care. There are a lot of ways that will make it simple though and you’d be surprised by how easy some of these measures are. If you are looking for such methods, you are reading the right article! Here are some of the pointers that you should keep in mind:
Keep it moist:
You do not want your facial skin to dry out and you should have the same goal for your scalp. When your scalp gets dry, that’s the time when dandruff will appear. Instead of blow-drying your hair regularly, you may want to skip it and let your wet hair dry naturally. When your scalp gets in contact with heat, it will get dry. Love hot showers? You may want to rinse your scalp with lukewarm or cold water and don’t forget to use a natural anti-dandruff shampoo.
Exfoliate your scalp:
Exfoliate? You may find it quite ludicrous, as you know that exfoliation is often done for legs and arms. However, you can exfoliate your scalp to remove impurities and dead skin cells (namely dandruff). Your scalp, just like the skin in other parts of your body, has pores. And these pores also get clogged, a dilemma that you should address ASAP. You may choose to shampoo your scalp problems away, but you can always go for home remedies by using mixtures of baking soda, tea tree oil, and in some cases, brown sugar.
Reduce the use of chemical products:
You are very expressive of yourself when you use hair dyes to color your hair. You go to the salon to get a perm. Or you are fond of using hair-styling products, such as gels and waxes. But you may want to limit your use. These hair products contain chemicals that can irritate your scalp. They may cause your scalp to dry, resulting in dandruff. Items, such as waxes and gels, actually trap dust and grime, thus making your scalp dirty – yuck.
Maintain a balanced diet:
Food may be the last thing that you will consider as far as scalp care is concerned. But remember, the scalp is a type of skin. And you need to keep it healthy by giving it proper nourishment. Eat food that is rich in protein, zinc, iron, and Vitamin B for a healthier scalp.
Your scalp is a sensitive type of skin. And it needs proper care. Leaving it bare and unprotected exposes it to certain agents and fungi that may cause it harm. You may even experience excessive dandruff, which is something that you definitely do not want. If symptoms persist, make sure you seek the help of a dermatologist.
It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing in life, leadership is a skill you should have. Whether you run a business, manage a team, or are just looking for your first job; you need to develop your leadership skills. Why? Because leading means you can take control and inspire others. This is a trait that will only help you improve your life and find better things in the future. From a job perspective, you open up so many new doors when you can lead.
So, how do you become a good leader? It’s not as difficult as you think, there are just a few things you need to know:
Think from different perspectives:
The ability to look at life from different perspectives is surprisingly hard. Not many people will have flexible views on certain things. Usually, we’ve all got our own ideas, and we stick by them. Without trying to get too political, this is probably why the country is in the state it’s in right now! Too many of us are stuck on one side or the other – with the inability to view the other sides perspective.
When you see things from new perspectives, it opens your mind to new ideas. Not only that, but you understand why people do what they do – and why they have specific thoughts. This is extremely important for a good leader. If someone comes to you with a problem, you need to see things from their point of view. Or, if there’s a disagreement between people, the best way to solve it is to view both perspectives. Even when you’re trying to secure sales, you’ll benefit from seeing things from the side of your lead.
How do you develop this particular skill? It’s something you should gradually start doing whenever you’re in different situations. Stop thinking about things in your own way, and think about what others may have to say. Also, education helps too. Places like Rutgers University have online degree courses that help you study new things and learn about new perspectives. Even something as simple as talking to people with different views or experiences to you will help. Fresh perspectives make you a more adaptable and successful leader.
You’ve all heard the saying, but what does it mean in terms of leadership? Effectively, it relates to a different saying; lead by example. The most inspiring leaders are people who do instead of just talk. Yes, you need to have a good grasp of your words and be able to speak to different people persuasively. But, all that talk is good for nothing if you don’t act upon it.
Think about it; what’s more annoying than someone giving orders that they don’t follow? If your boss tells you to keep working hard – but you see them with their feet up taking a two hour lunch break, then it’s hardly inspiring. You should start saying things, then using your actions to demonstrate that you do them, as well. If you tell someone to work hard, you have to visibly show that you’re working harder than them. Clock into work before everyone else, then leave when the room is empty. Set an example that people can follow.
You get a better response from people when they see that you act rather than speak. In turn, this helps you learn another valuable leadership lesson; don’t ask people to do more than you’re willing to do yourself. Too many ‘leaders’ give unreasonable commands. An excellent way to know if you’re stepping over the line is to see if you can do what you’re commanding. If it seems unreasonable to you, then it will be absurd to others as well. Don’t sit back and let your words do all the talking; show people that you act upon what you say.
Learn sympathy and empathy:
It’s crucial that you know how to show sympathy and empathy for other people. Both of these traits are simple ways to show human emotions. If you’re not capable of either, then it says a lot about your emotional state. People will come to you with personal problems all the time. You may get a call from an employee who can’t come to work because a family member died. Or, your best friend may tell you they broke up with their partner of ten years. In these situations, you need to respond accordingly.
Sympathy and empathy often get mixed up as the same thing. Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone because of what they’re going through. Empathy is when you put yourself in their shoes to try and understand what they’re feeling. I’ll link a video below that explains the difference in more detail, so give it a watch if you’re interested.
Being flexible is, more accurately, being able to adapt to specific circumstances. All leaders will have an idea of how to do certain things. But what happens when a problem arises? What if the power goes out in your office and all the computers are down? The best leaders can adapt to this scenario because they’re flexible! They know what to do and how to alter the standard way of things to get better results.
Yes, it’s good to be meticulous and follow a rigid structure now and then. But don’t be too stiff. As a leader, you’ll be faced with various things that make you bend all the time. What happens if you bend something that’s too rigid? It snaps. Instead, you need to be more flexible and willing to change the way you do things if the circumstances dictate that a change is required. Think about leaders as rulers. Bad ones are the hard straight plastic rulers that snap with ease. Good ones are those flexible rubber ones that never break.
That’s all there is to it. So, go away and develop all of these skills, so you inspire those around you!
Helloooo everyone! I promise you I’m done shopping for a while, just kidding I will never be done shopping so I have a Sephora Haul to share with all of you! This needed to happen, though, because I can’t live without my leave in conditioner by IGK and I was almost out. So, I stocked up by getting two bottles of that and a bunch of free goodies. Make sure to check in tomorrow and the following day for swatches of the lip colors by Clinique and Jouer!
The Haul:
Two IGK Mistress hydrating hair balms
Jouer lip creme in Rose Gold (FREE!)
Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey (FREE!)
Belif The true cream aqua bomb sample (FREE!)
AmorePacific enzyme peel sample (FREE!)
When it comes to shopping Sephora, I always try and get the most bang for my buck. And, although the IGK product I got is expensive, I got all kinds of free goodies and free shipping to make up for it. I can’t wait to show you guys swatches of the new lip colors because they are GORGEOUS. I am especially obsessed with the metallic Jouer lip creme in Rose Gold – you guys are going to love it!
I am also always up for aqua bomb style moisturizers so I will be looking forward to giving the sample by Belif a go. But, I am most curious about the enzyme peel by AmorePacific. So, be on the lookout for my post on giving that a try and we’ll figure out just what the heck it is together. 😀
How do you score the best deals at Sephora? Which stores offer the best online deals? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
It is incredibly easy to be confused by the tides of life, and by our impression of ourselves. Having a secure and firm knowledge of yourself and your surroundings often means you’re not taking an open-minded enough approach. After all, if we were only ever 100% sure of ourselves, we would have no need to grow, evolve, and move forward in our lives. The same goes for the circumstances in our life.
Wishing to become a more authentic person can be hard to do. But we know it’s something we would like to achieve. We know it would help us live according to our truth, to defend ourselves more readily, to be more open to those we admire, and more tolerant of those we don’t. However, it can be hard to define ‘authenticity.’ Surely even in our struggles to be authentic, we are being our authentic selves in that moment? You see how confusion can build.
What matters is your feeling, and how you chase it, provided you understand the essential elements of self-care in your quest for actualization. Let us explore personal authenticity together, and what changes you might make to encourage a more wholesome sense of you:
Help Others:
It can be extremely easy to fall into a sense of solipsism. Only concerned with our own issues, we develop a pervasive sense of tunnel-vision. It can make us much less thoughtful of others and less receptive to their ideas. Sometimes, to overcome this, taking a positive step by helping others can be worthwhile. But it’s important you don’t do this simply to ‘improve yourself’. Help others because you want to. Because there might be a cause that you think is worthy, or there’s a person you’d like to assist.
It doesn’t have to be a monetary form of help, either. Simply helping your grandmother attend that theater show she might love to see, helping someone cross the road, or even standing up for someone in a heated debate can all be forms of helping someone. When we do that, and do it genuinely, we can feel a sense of connection. Just ensure the help is consented to first of all, and you won’t make any accidental mistakes.
Like What You Like:
It can be very easy to dissuade ourselves of our interests. For example, it could be that we absolutely adore playing tabletop games with a community of our peers. But because of our highly-entrepreneurial and motivated workplace, we are surrounded by those who live and breathe work. We can feel pressure to fall in line with them, especially because we are often socially comprised to the five closest people to us. But should you worry about that? We’re not entirely convinced.
Feeling more authentic in your skin is often tantamount to simply accepting yourself, and accepting what you like. If you wish to start gardening, clay animation, painting, dancing, or anything that you would consider out of your ‘identity norms’, then go for it! Life is about trying new things and anyone who turns their nose down to your new hobbies clearly doesn’t have your best intentions in mind.
Stop Worrying About It:
Telling anyone to ‘stop worrying’ when they are worrying is often a somewhat shallow strategy. But in this case, as long as you go to bed knowing that you’ve done your best that day, then it is more than enough. To become authentic does not mean being the best-dressed, the most handsome, performing the highest standing jump, or doing the best cartwheel. It simply means being you, whatever that means, right now.
With these tips – we hope you can find yourself fondly and enjoy all life has to offer!
Howdy! When it comes to my hair, we all know that Lil Red doesn’t mess around. I dye my hair every month on the dot and I follow a strict no wash policy to keep the red fresh to death until the next hair dye sesh. Now, I used to have no problem purchasing my hair dye (Vidal Sassoon’s Runway Red from the London Luxe collection) in stores, however, as the years have gone on it is a rarity for me to see it available for purchase in person. And, because of this, the prices for the dye online skyrocketed – they are at least thirty bucks a pop on Amazon and that is so not okay with me.
I check on the Walgreens website fairly frequently to see if they ever reup their supply because sometimes I get lucky. And, a week or so ago, I hit the jackpot. My beloved dye was available, I had a twenty percent off promo code, and free shipping so I was just like “let me get a year’s supply” lol and what you are about to see is nothing short of a miracle:
It’s… it’s just beautiful.
I am SO happy to have gotten a year’s worth of my hair dye because now I literally don’t have to worry about it until August of 2020. Once I saw that Walgreens had my Vidal Sassoon available, I jumped at the opportunity and a year’s worth of my box color costed about what I would have paid for one month of getting it done at the salon. You just can’t beat that. And, because I dye my hair at home, it saves me money for treats like getting my nails done and buying ALL THE SHOES!
So, muchos gracias to Walgreens for pulling through in the clutch and providing Lil Red with the tools to keep her namesake going strong for another year. I LOVE YOU. ❤
Which beauty products do you like to stock up on? How do you save money when it comes to your beauty routine? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Howdy! This past week, I took one of my clients to see a new creature horror movie called Crawl. Normally, I am not big on the flicks with giant animals terrorizing people, but this one was highly entertaining, super suspenseful, short and sweet, and the actors weren’t half bad, either. Take a look at the trailer and then read on to find out my rating for this new release:
^^^ And, as always, I have no rights to this video.
Long story short, a hella hurricane is happening in Florida and when swim star, Hayley, has heard nothing from her dad, she ventures to their old home to investigate. He is nowhere to be found inside of the house but the family dog, Sugar, leads her to the crawl space beneath, which she begrudgingly goes into.
After some searching in the claustrophobic bottom layer of the house, Hayley finds her dad severely injured with an alligator bite to the shoulder and leg compliments of the one that entered the premises through a flooded drain pipe. And, to make matters worse, there’s not one but two of them. And, to make matters worse AGAIN, the crawl space is beginning to fill with water thanks to the major hurricane happening. So, their options are to drown or figure a way out despite the massive gators making home there…
And save the dog, of course.
Like I said earlier, these types of movies are normally not my cup of tea. But, I thought that Crawl was an absolute HOOT. It was a really fun watch and the suspense was nonstop thanks to a combination of things like the close quarters of the crawl space, the flood waters steadily rising, and oh yeah – the big ass alligators. I also liked how this movie was relatively short at an hour and a half because it moved quickly and made the anticipation of the flood waters rising feel even more desperate.
Hayley and her dad were also both very likeable and I found myself rooting for them and their safety the entire movie. So, whenever a setback would happen or a plan didn’t work, it definitely felt like a major blow. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie and I would give it a seven out of ten. It was a great summer flick to see in theaters and I would for sure recommend it!
Who else has seen Crawl? What were your thoughts on it? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
lifewithlilred 