Tag Archives: lilred

Look For The Rainbows

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Look For The Rainbows

Hello! This past week was a bit of a doozy with a busy work schedule and lots of bad news. I was so ready for the weekend on Monday lol. Thankfully, I had the perfect little pick me up on Thursday morning that made everything a smidge better. And, oddly enough, it was on the rug at my mom and dad’s house:

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^^^ Never mind the dog hair! 😀

When I walked into the living room at chez parents, I almost didn’t believe my eyes when I saw the oval rainbow prism on the rug. I thought that I was really losing it lol but, alas, it was there and it was glorious! I had never seen a prism with that shape before and it blew me away. It truly is the small things, isn’t it?

Rainbows, of course, always remind me of better things ahead but they also make me think of my lil niece who lives for a good rainbow. It was just what I needed to see during the final few days of the working week when everything felt so difficult. I had accepted before my day even began that it was probably going to be a bad one and this prism turned that whole outlook on its head – I ended up having a great day!

Even if you don’t have a literal rainbow in front of you, whether it be an actual one or a prism, this is your Lil Red Reminder to always look for them anyways. The rainbow could be a text from a friend, feeling sunshine on your face, or a smile from a stranger. No matter your situation, there are always going to be rainbows for you to find as long as you know where to look. ❤

What or who encourages you? What is something that makes you happy? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Happy Birthday To Me!!

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Happy Birthday To Me!!

Hello everyone!! Today is your favorite Lil Red blogger’s 28th birthday and, I’ve got to say, I can’t believe I used to think that I was old when I was turning 21 lol. This past year has been an amazing one filled with lots of big life events – getting married, moving into a bigger apartment, and lots of come ups at work just to name a few. I am so thankful for the GREAT SUCCESS of last year and I can only hope for lots of the same this time around. 😀

As always, another thing that I am thankful for is being able to share all of these events, musings, and any and everything with all of you! Sitting down to write every morning on lifewithlilred is one of my greatest joys and I love my little internet niche that I have created. I love my dear readers even more, though, and it is so special to me to be able to connect with so many wonderful people all around the world.

My birthday wish is for all of my friends across the blogosphere to have the best year ever full of GREAT SUCCESSES, happiness, and laughter. You mean the world to me and thank you all for being with me for my past eight birthdays. ❤

Happy Birthday To Me!!!!

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New Hair, Who Dis?

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New Hair, Who Dis?

Hello! This past Friday, I spent some much needed time at The Shear Shop getting pampered by my amazing stylist, Anna. She is the absolute best and almost six hours of hair magic and wonderful company just didn’t seem long enough. This time around, Anna used a new Pulp Riot dye called Ghostblood to help achieve my goals of red and white hair and I am obsessed with the results:

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^^^ The red is Pulp Riot’s Fireball.

As I mentioned before, this new do took a lot of time to make happen and we are SO close to perfect results that I can almost taste it. After some trial and error, Anna decided that the Icy toner by Pulp Riot wasn’t the way to go and opted for the Ghostblood dye instead and I am so glad that she did. All we need is to ice out the white just a little bit more during my next appointment and it will be exactly what I had pictured in my head.

To achieve this look, Anna bleached my hair for about forty minutes to lift the beige out. Then, after washing and drying, she meticulously brushed on the dye and placed each section in foil so the red and white wouldn’t mix. After the color sat and was washed, we saw that the roots of my hair still had a yellow tint to it so Anna applied a little more Ghostblood to solve that problem and it worked like a charm.

The first time the color was washed out, we were pleased with the results. But, the second application of Ghostblood is what really did the trick and I am always so appreciative to Anna for spending extra time so that we both leave the salon completely thrilled. We are both loving this look so much and, now that we know what must be done at my next appointment, I am already ready to go back. 😀

For almost two decades, Anna has gifted me with amazing hair and the best friendship a gal could ask for. I would not be Lil Red without her hair wizardry and I am still riding the high of how much fun we had at my last appointment! ❤

How long has your hair stylist been doing your hair? How do you like to pamper yourself? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Be On The Lookout!

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Be On The Lookout!

Hey! Lots of fun stuff is coming out on lifewithlilred including new OOTDs (I’m taking pictures today, I hope!), book club reviews, and I’ll be teaming up with Elite Sports and Born Tough to give some of their products a try. I can’t wait! 😀

Keep it posted with yours truly so you can take a look at all of my essentials in my skate bag when I hit the rink. But, if you can’t wait until then, here is some awesome gear by Elite Sports to check out in the meantime:

I love you all!!! ❤

Here I Am!

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Here I Am!

Hello everyone! It has been a minute since a new OOTD post because your girl needs her hair done! Thankfully, that problem will be solved soon and I can’t wait to show you all some perfectly spring OOTDs ASAP. In the meantime, here are some pics of yours truly and some of my favorite people to tide you over until then:

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^^^ Can you spy one of my new tattoos?! 🙂

This past Sunday, we celebrated our darling niece’s third birthday a bit late because the weather has been wet and cold here. What was originally a party at a park turned into a get together at my sister and her partner’s house and, of course, Johnny and I had to step out in our best. This also meant all of the car selfies as well as pictures of me and Johnny when he refuses to just smile for the camera! *Massive eye roll* lol.

Our Val Gal’s party was a great success and it was so nice to see old friends and meet new ones. Johnny also finally got to meet some of my extended family who I haven’t seen in forever, which was awesome. We were surrounded by good company, good food, and lots of love and it’s safe to say that three year old Val knows how to throw a rager! 😀

Be sure to keep it posted on lifewithlilred for brand new OOTDs, book club reviews, Johnny’s unsmiling face, and all of the usual shenanigans this month. ❤

What do you like to do when your family gets together? Are you a smiling or silly face making selfie taker? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Be My Friend!

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Be My Friend!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to put a friendly reminder out there that I would love it if you guys were following me on my social media. 🙂 You can get at me at: Sarah Mushenheim on Facebook. And, after literal years of dragging my feet, I am on THE GRAM at: @lifewithlilred94 . On both of these pages, you will see content that didn’t quite make it onto the blog. And, on Insta you can see previews of content to come on lifewithlilred especially when it comes to OOTDs.

You can also reach out to me via email at: sarah.mush6794@gmail.com . I am always looking for guest bloggers on my page so if you would like your work to be featured, shoot me an email with your pitch. Spring has officially sprung so I would really like some super fun spring themed guest posts! 😀

If you choose to give me a follow, make sure you leave me a comment so I know to give you a follow right back. You can never have too many friends! ❤

What is your favorite social media platform? Which social media do you refuse to get (Mine is Twitter!)? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

PS: Make sure you tune in tomorrow for a look at some of my new tattoos now that they’re not all scabby!

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The Best Ships Are Blogships

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The Best Ships Are Blogships

Hello! Come September, lifewithlilred will be on its eighth year in the blogosphere and I, honestly, can’t believe it. If you would have told me when I first started my page close to a decade ago that I would still be going strong and read in over two hundred countries, I would have said “no way”! But here we are now, a half a year away from my eight year mark and it’s crazy.

For those of you who don’t remember, it wasn’t even my idea to start lifewithlilred in the first place. I just had So. Many. People. telling me that I should make a blog because I’m funny and have good fashion sense. Eventually, I rolled my eyes, said “fine”, and created lifewithlilred. I was hooked after publishing just one post and I still love sitting down to write all of these years later.

I have always been an avid reader and writer but what most attracted me to blogging was the possibility of making friends all around the world. This was exciting to me because, even now, my “real life” friends are limited to not even a handful but on my blog, I have tons! In fact, one of my best friends in the whole world, Kate of Live In The Nautical, was met through lifewithlilred and it’s weird to go just one day without talking to her!

When I woke up this morning, I had a plethora of comments on Facebook from another friend who I met through my page, Claudia. This reminded me of just how lucky I am for the connections that I have formed because of the blogging world. In my neck of the woods, people know who I am but I feel like my readers know the real me because all of my thoughts, struggles, and life events are here for the world to see. It just feels good to be seen for who I really am because I think my page encompasses it perfectly.

I have always been a strong believer in the power of words and all of the beautiful friends that I have made on lifewithlilred is a true testament to that. Thank you so much for tuning in and, most importantly, being my friend. I love you all!

What is your favorite thing about blogging? How long have you been writing for? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

What Have I Been Up To?

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What Have I Been Up To?

Hi! It has been a while since I’ve filled you all in on the comings and goings of my day to day life and, honestly there’s not been too much! The weather in good ol’ Akron, Ohio has been total crap with heavy snow and rain making outdoor activities few and far between. We actually had a close to sixty degree day earlier this week and then the temperature plummeted again, which was such a cruel tease of spring weather!

With both mine and Johnny’s busy work schedules, we spend a majority of the time during the week at home. However, we do try to have an outing every weekend, which is a nice change of pace from a year ago when we legit weren’t doing anything because of the pandemic. We’ll usually go have a drink at a bar or lunch at a restaurant but our best outing was definitely our evening in Cleveland seeing Jesus Christ Superstar. Other than getting married, this was seriously one of the most exciting things that we have done since the start of the pandemic lol.

The time at home is just fine, though, because Johnny and I have a lot of work to do! As I’ve mentioned before, we are trying to move into a three bedroom apartment soon and need to get our place in tip top shape for a walk through. I am so looking forward to the additional space and it will be great when we are watching our little niece. I can’t wait to have her over for sleepovers filled with our favorite Disney movies and dancing while Johnny plays guitar!

When we’re not cleaning and organizing our space, I have spent a lot of time both cooking and reading. Thanks to Pinterest, I have been able to shake up my dinner menu and it has been a lot of fun! I forgot how much I enjoyed cooking until I began trying new recipes instead of the same old favorites time and again. I have also been trying to finish a book per week and am currently working on Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Keep it posted for a Lil Red’s Book Club review soon. 😀

Obviously, we don’t lead the most thrilling lives at the moment but I love our happy little bubble no matter what. When the weather changes to more moderate temperatures, our activities will pick up once more. Including going ice skating at least twice a month for me. This January, I stopped attending my lessons because the Omnicron variant was skyrocketing in Ohio. I can’t wait to go back once my evenings aren’t filled with cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.

That’s about it in Lil Red’s world right now and, as always, keep it posted for all of the latest and greatest! ❤

What have you been up to? Have you done anything exciting recently? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

My Writing Routine

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My Writing Routine

Hello! I am currently on a 1,150 day writing streak of daily blogging on lifewithlilred and I am so proud! I get asked a lot how I keep up with this and I guess it boils down to the fact that I am a very routine and schedule oriented person. I thrive when I can check things off of my To Do List, which keeps me sitting down at my laptop every morning to continue delivering the latest and greatest.

Everyone has a writing routine and mine looks like this:

Forming Content Ideas:

I am always on the lookout for ideas for my next blog post and am constantly keeping my eyes peeled for things that inspire me. Whether it’s snapping pics of the winter weather outside or a new pair of shoes, I am already pre-writing the post in my head for the most efficient content creation. To keep all of my ideas straight and also to not forget them, I text myself possible posts all of the time that I can refer to when I feel writer’s block sinking in.

Taking Pictures:

If pictures are needed for my post, I typically take them the night before and then email them to myself so that they are ready to go in the morning. I consider my writing process to be somewhat of an assembly line so the completed post can’t be ready to write without the proper prep work done beforehand. Anything that can make my morning blogging go smoother is well worth it because I still have to get myself to work on time!

My Mornings:

My mornings have followed a strict routine for as long as I can remember and it honestly stresses me out to stray from it. As soon as I wake up, I practice five different languages on Duolingo, I do a short work out, and then I shower. After all of this is complete, I turn on my diffuser by Organic Aromas and start my blogging process. Not only does this include my daily writing but I also have to complete other online jobs before I head to work.

Needless to say, my mornings have to run like a fine tuned machine to accomplish all of the above. This is why my prep work is so important as well as having a pretty strict sleep schedule. Johnny has to get up really early for work and I try to get up at least two and a half hours before I need to leave. We are usually asleep by eight thirty!!

No one ever said a blogger’s life was easy but it is so rewarding. I can’t even imagine a day without writing and it makes it even better to share it with all of you! ❤

What is your writing routine like? How often do you blog? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Lil Red’s In Store & Online Shopping Tips

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Lil Red’s In Store & Online Shopping Tips

Hello everyone! I consider myself to be an excellent shopper both in store and online. After a wildly successful winter haul with TJMaxx, I thought that today would be perfect for sharing my pro tips to make the most of your in store or online shopping sessions. These helpful hints have been curated as my personal style developed to turn each shopping trip into a GREAT SUCCESS! Now, let’s get to it:

Online – Know Your Measurements:

Prior to getting married, I had absolutely no idea what my measurements were. That, of course, had to change when I was ordering my dress online so my mom and I visited our local tailor shop to get that taken care of. I keep my measurement cards by my computer so that I can always have them available when online shopping.

Knowing your true measurements will eliminate the need to buy multiple sizes of one item because you can compare and contrast to the brand’s size chart. This used to be the norm for me when online shopping because I am in between a small and a medium and it’s so nice to now be able to get my size right the first time around!

Online – Do Your Research:

If you enjoy shopping with websites that offer multiple brands like TJMaxx or Poshmark, it is so crucial to do your research. We all know that women’s sizes vary drastically. For example, in my closet I have clothing in extra smalls and larges alike. A universal size chart, unfortunately, doesn’t exist so you will have to go to the original brand’s website to find out their sizing for yourself.

When shopping with TJMaxx, this has become my standard practice and is why knowing your measurements is so handy. Remember, take note about the features of the item you wish to purchase too. Does it provide room for stretch? Do the reviews say to order a size up? These are all things that should also be taken into consideration.

Online & In Store – Promotions, Please:

Apps, rewards cards, store credit cards, and special deals like a percentage off or free shipping plays an important rule in the shopping process. Although the constant emails from my favorite stores are annoying, saving money on your shopping is always worth it. If you have a particularly large order, you might want to consider applying for the store credit card. Typically, the store will offer you a percentage off of that purchase, which is awesome!

In Store – Dress For Success:

With the pandemic, I rarely do in store shopping anymore. However, when I do, I make sure that I am dressed and made up for success. Wear clothes and shoes that are comfortable and easy to slip on and off for dressing room efficiency. And, depending on what it is you need, it might not hurt to do your makeup accordingly. It’s hard to get the full picture of a dress you are trying on for a special event if your makeup doesn’t reflect it.

In Store – Try & Try Again:

Shopping in store gives you the luxury of trying on whatever you want and it should not be taken lightly. Expanding your horizons with styles, shapes, and colors that you might not normally wear will give you brand new possibilities. And, so what if it doesn’t work? Trying on a variety of different things will also help with your online shopping because you won’t be limiting yourself to “safe” options that you already know will work.

In Store – Have A Game Plan:

Hitting the mall or multiple different shops in the area can feel a bit overwhelming because of the endless options you’re seeing all at once. I recommend browsing for the items that you know you need first before beginning your window shopping. I don’t go to the mall too often but when I do, I always go to Victoria’s Secret for new undies and a bra and American Eagle for new skinnies first to get it out of the way. Then, when the “fun” shopping begins, I already know what I have spent for necessities and can budget my additional purchases accordingly.

Online & In Store – Shopping For Others:

I know some people who begin their holiday shopping for the next year as soon as their celebrated holiday is over to get the best seasonal deals. While you don’t have to go that extreme, it never hurts to get a little prep work done for holidays and birthdays when making your rounds. And, if you score a great deal on it, then it’s even better. We all have had that one gift that we were going to buy a little later only to find that it was sold out when we were ready to make the purchase!

With these tips, I hope that you have the best online or in store shopping session yet! They are my tried and true methods to the success behind all of my hauls and I’m sure that they will work for you too. ❤

What are some of your shopping tricks and tips? Do you prefer in store or online shopping? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah