Urban Decay Eye Primer

So I bought my first bottle of eye primer and I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed.  I have nice eyeshadow but with the eye primer it lasts all day.  Usually when I would come home from work it has rubbed off some but with the primer it looks as good as it did when I left the house in the morning.  If you have problems with eyeshadow going into the crease, rubbing off, long lasting color or intense color I would recommend using a primer.  With a good primer you could get away with using a cheapie eyeshadow.  I bought the Urban Decay Eye Primer for $19 at Sephora.  If you want to find out more about the purpose of eye primer, I have included a link:  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-eyeshadow-primer.htm

Jamberry Nails

I have signed up to be a Jamberry Nail consultant.  Sometimes I think “Really a direct marketing company?” “Again?”  But this time around it really does make sense.  I have always been into nails more so when I was younger.  I can remember for a very long time through middle school and high school my toe nails were never bare for years on end.  I always had polish on them even in the dead of winter buried in my wool socks and snow boots.  I guess it was an obsession now that I look back.

I actually love to get my nails done but affordability is another issue.  Occasionally I would get french tip nails but maintenance for fills was so time consuming and basically I was way to stingy to fork out that kind of money consistently.  I’ve done stickers and making my own designs with nail polish.  My sister-in-law has introduced me to glitter toes and such.  For some reason having my fingernails and toes done makes me feel prettier somehow.  It is weird but if I am having a rough day just getting some down time to paint my own nails is relaxing.  And no matter how chubby or pregnant I get I can always have a good nail day.

I have tried the Sally Hansen Salon Essentials and they worked out ok.  But being real nail polish does have its downsides.  And the designs are minimal in my opinion.  I like Jamberry because there is a huge variety in designs (150+) and they always have seasonally designs so anyone should be able to find something they like.  I was reluctant at first to buy any because I wasn’t ready to drop $15 dollars but as advertised a person can get 2-3 applications per sheet.  And since I keep my nails super short I bet I can stretch it even more which appeases my frugal side.  While it does cost more than buying regular nail polish in my mind I justify the cost difference that there is no chipping and it stays glossy always and if applied correctly I would only need to replace them due to nail growth.  Plus there is no nail damage.

If anyone is interested please check out my website at:  http://mango.jamberrynails.net.  If anyone is interested in hosting a party and receiving a free item and getting a discount, please let me know.  You can even do a virtual party where everything takes place online but you still reap the benefits.  I’ll post a link dedicated to jamberry nails on my blog and I will post more pictures as I try out different designs on Olivia and I and possible Hazel because they look so cute on chubby hands.

Commuting

This could possible be me.

I grew up in Logan, Utah.  Some of my followers have been there and know what I am talking about when I say you can get anywhere in Logan in about 10 minutes.  Maybe 15 if you hit every red light and there was major traffic.  I grew up there.  I went to college there.  Then I got married and I was such a snob I refused to live west of main street so I wouldn’t have to deal with crossing it everyday when I went to work.  That is how much I dislike commuting.  I lived in various places in Logan that allowed me to walk, ride my bike, take the school shuttle or drive less than 2 miles to get to school/work.

Then we moved to Boise, Idaho.  Mike would have loved to live  in Meridian which is the next bordering city which had a more family-oriented LDS population.  I was stubborn and didn’t want to commute to work so Mike compromised and we rented a great place that was about 5 miles from my work and it was so close to downtown, the mall and the freeway.  We traveled to Meridian quite a bit and it wasn’t that bad of a drive.  If we had stayed in the Boise area and bought a house I would have considered living in Meridian.

We moved back and we are just renting right now so we can familiarize ourselves with the area before we buy anything.  I live off of 3300 South in Salt Lake and I have to travel to 9000 South in West Jordan.  The commute is driving me quite nuts.  It takes me about 25 minutes and I haven’t even gotten on the freeway which might be the shortest option but I haven’t tried that yet.  I have tried 3 different routes and it is always madness.  Even without commuter traffic the lights are killer.  To give you an idea of the difference in commuting traffic I have experienced in the past month, the state of Idaho has approximately 1.6 million people and Salt Lake County alone has approximately 1 million people based on the 2010 US Census.  That doesn’t include commuters from Davis and Utah County.

I know quite a few people who commute from Davis County and really like it.  I would say if I didn’t have to drive so far south that could be a realistic option for me.  While we were staying with Mike’s family I made the hour commute and it wasn’t so bad except when I think about the two hours I just wasted in the car.  Anyone I talk to tells me the commute from Utah County to Salt Lake is brutal so we haven’t even looked at that as an option.

I like to think I am in general a really nice person.  Then I get into the car and have to drive and I turn into a whole new person.  I am a lot better than I use to be.  I don’t get quite as angry and worked up as I use to but there have been several occasions I have yelled at other drivers when they can’t even drive the speed limit especially in the fast lane.  Insert my sigh of frustration.  I imagine there might be others who suffer from road rage as well.  It would be fun to hear their worst experience or how they deal with the commute or any words of wisdom about the commute to SLC.

My time is valuable to me especially now that I have an infant who goes to bed at 6:30 for the night so the hours I can spend with her are very limited.  I don’t count the multiple times she wakes up in the middle of the night as bonding time.  So there is quite a bit of working mom guilt that goes into wasting almost an hour of my day commuting which leads to me to considering where should we buy a house.  As close as reasonably possible to my work?  Great!  Another decision to make. 

Dropbox

If you don’t have this you have to get it.  I use this program almost on a daily basis.  Here is the official description of dropbox:  Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!

My summary of the program:  It replaces a memory stick and eliminates emailing yourself a copy of anything.  You install dropbox onto your mac, pc, tablet or smartphone.  It creates a folder on your local machine and you can save anything and everything there.  If you are plugged into the internet it will automatically upload the file to the server and push it down to any other dropbox folders you have installed on any machine.  If you aren’t plugged in it will wait until you have access to the internet and it always keeps the latest version.  You can also share it with other people so they have access to the same files.

How do I use it:  When I am at work and I know I need to work on a document at home, I put it in my dropbox and when I go home it has downloaded to both my laptop and pc ready for me to make my changes.  Mike and I share a folder for our home business so he can save documents and I can save documents and both of us have access from our computer, the laptop, our iphones or iPad.  If we go anywhere and we don’t have any of our devices we can log onto any computer as long as it has internet and get to our files.  With my family we have a photo folder where we upload pictures and can share jpgs without having to shrink the file size.   Other folders I have is my resume folder so I can work on it anywhere anytime.  I also have a craft folder so if I download or find a pattern I save it there and when I have free time which is usually on a vacation I can work on it on a whim.  No preplanning.

Things to note:  It is free up to 2 GB which is sufficient for most people.  For every person you refer to dropbox you get an addition 250 MB up to a maximum of 8 GB.  Anything larger than that, you have to pay for the service.  You can give someone access to a file or a folder and then take it away.  I can access documents and pdfs on my phone.

What Moms Choose: Stay at Home or Work?

I subscribe to a magazine called Working Mother and I really enjoy reading the articles.  Here is what working mom is about and they have an excellent website that features more than just the magazine. Working Mother Media is a company focused on culture change for working moms, women and diversity in the workplace.  There is an article from November’s issue that I would like to share.

What Moms Choose: Stay at Home or Work?

There isn’t a mom around who hasn’t looked at someone else’s work life choices and questioned her own decisions. “What Moms Choose,” a major new study from the Working Mother Research Institute, sheds light on how moms feel—and the paths they pick—today.

via What Moms Choose: Stay at Home or Work? | workingmother.com.