Fun Facts Friday: Top Five Favorite Make up Products

So I am a make up junkie.  I use a mix of high end and low end brands because I have super sensitive skin and prefer the way my face looks when it isn't breaking out in huge zits or flaking off or covered in blotchy red patches.  So I'll link you to my favorites...

1.  Smashbox Photo Finish Face Primer Adjust

Available through ULTA

I have been using this for a week to help fight the great make-up migration and correct some of my redness.  Between this and my foundation, my skin looks GORGEOUS.  The green color is off-putting at first but it fades as soon as you apply it, it disappears along with redness and also helps fill in the gaping pores of my nose.

2.  Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation in I'm pure 4 sure

Available through ULTA

I try not to think about how much money I spend on this product but seriously it is the best thing ever.  I love the pump bottle.  My skin looks fantastic and one pump does my entire face.  It doesn't break me out and it includes sunscreen with UVA protection.  Awesome stuff.

3.  Bare Minerals Brush in Beauty

Available through ULTA

I am a fan of bright, pigmented blushes.  I've had this container FOREVER.  Sanitary issues from keeping it for so long aside, I love this stuff.  It has a lot of pigment so I only use a small amount on a big fluffy brush.  Blends super well.  Awesome.

4. E.L.F. Eyelid primer and eye liner sealer

Available through E.L.F. which is carried at walmart and kmart

This is the best $3 I have ever spent on a make up product.  Full stop.  the primer keeps my eye shadow from moving and the sealer takes my liquid eye liner from a source of frustration to something that won't budge at all.  I would not recommend letting the sealer drip in your eye though.  It burns line nobody's business.

5.  Maybelline Volume Express "The Falsies" Mascara- Black Drama

Available at most drugstores or at ULTA

I go through a tube of mascara in a month.  There are high end mascaras that I have LOVED but I just cannot justify spending $17 a month on mascara and this tube of $7 wonderful stuff that works just as well as most of the super expensive brands.

And there you have it.  My top five make up products.  I used black liquid eyeliner but I haven't been able to find one that I really and truly like since I stopped selling mark cosmetics so if you have a suggestion, let me know.  :)  my eye shadow changes on a daily basis, basically, in case you were thinking "that's weird.  she wears primer with no eye shadow."  I'm sure you desperately wanted to know all of this but whatevs.  Maybe you'e learned something about fun make up products.

Return of the Invisible Woman

So I apologize for falling off the planet.  Trust me, it was unintentional.  Life just got crazy for the last week and a half.  Well, crazier than normal.  So let me recap.

So backing up to Wednesday the 8th, I was made aware of a potential job for the summer.  I had band that evening so I did not have time to call the person who had contacted me so between getting off work on the 9th and heading off to the Seussical Jr. cast party, I called my potential new boss.  I was invited to submit my resume, which I did promptly.  Next day, I worked again and right after I got off work, I listened to a voice mail asking me to fulfill the next application and assessment steps which I did immediately upon returning home.  Boom.  Five minutes later, I get a call from potential boss's boss offering me the job as I have passed the assessment.  Boom boom.

...And informing me that I need to get a drug test and be fingerprinted within 3 business days.

What is this job, you may ask?  I am working as a bank teller for the summer at a branch near the beach.  Because it is a bank, drug screening and fingerprints are required.  However, I did not want to have to jam both events into my already jam packed week.  I went to schedule my drug screening and prints, intending to go do my drug screening on Saturday morning.  So I went to the lab on Saturday morning... only to discover that they stop drug testing an hour before they close.  ...Crap.  New plan.

So I head home to make some calls, begging people to host students from the Eastern University Choir who was doing a concert on Wednesday evening then headed down to Sams Club to buy paper products and food for said event.  Can I just say that the hot dog, diet coke, and frozen yogurt sundae was the cheapest/best lunch I had all week?  I think I paid $3.50.  Returned home, more calls, more begging, more pleading.

Sunday, I went to church for the early service to beg people from the service I don't normally go to.  Thankfully, after some confusion, I got enough people to volunteer so by that evening I had placed everyone on my little list with someone.  Deep breaths.

I had booked some teaching gigs for Monday through Wednesday a long time ago and there was no getting out of it so it was mandatory chaos.  Monday wasn't all that bad but Tuesday and Wednesday... whoa boy.  I had a very early appointment to go pee in a cup on Tuesday morning, worked all day, was fingerprinted, and then went to the church to go do set up for the choir dinner.  Problem:  there was an event at church that evening I hadn't previously known about so I could not set up tables and do table cloths and all of that fun stuff.  I mixed up the drinks and prayed for sanity.  Upon returning home, I worked on getting house ready for guests by making beds, blowing up air mattresses, and vacuuming.  More prayers for sanity.

Wednesday was when the real chaos began.  I headed off to work like a cray person who bites off more than she can chew, praying that i hadn't forgotten anything important.  Car cleaned out?  Check.  Computer with me in case I need to access my lists?  check.  Sanity intact?  well...

I left school literally the first second I could... only to learn that the choir had arrived early.  Ahhhh!!!!  So I went off to the church just as fast as I could (which was not very fast because of utility work en route).  After showing the director around the church, we had less than two hours to have dinner ready to go.. Thankfully, many people had already dropped off their dishes.  I don't know how we did it but we did.  The cinner was good, the concert was amazing, and it was offer surprisingly quickly.  then there people at my house and we stayed up talking until 2 AM  (some of them were my best friends from my choir days).  Next morning, it took several trips to get the choir members back to the church, saw the choir off and then my real day began...

I had to make myself look like a real person (not a bum) because I had to head down to Princess Anne for training for my new job.  I made it, after getting lost on the way due to my GPS being confused.  It's kind of sad that my hour each way commute plus a full day of training was my easy day--other than the rehearsal I had that afternoon afterwards of course.

In my Friday training, I learned that essentially my entire wardrobe was not going to work.  Those 35 pounds I have lost mean my clothes don't fit.  And most of the clothes that do fit are not appropriate.  So I had to shop.  Which I did Friday after training and also all day Saturday, until the afternoon when I had a rehearsal. Because I had a concert Sunday afternoon.

This week hasn't been as chaotic but I have had training every day, with an hour commute each way.  So by the time I'm ready to relax, I don't feel like blogging.

So there you go.  I'll try to be more regular.  I'm working on a post on taking in a top/adjusting the proportions for short people like me.  In the mean time, this will have to do.

Fun Facts Friday: Top Ten Favorite TV shows

I watch a very strange variety of TV shows.  Crime dramas, home improvement, cartoons, comedies... I watch an odd assortment of things.  So here are the rankings:

1.  Holmes on Homes/Holmes Inspection
I put them together because they are essentially the same show.  Mike Holmes helps out home owners who either had a bad renovation or a home inspection that didn't reveal major issues.  He rips out walls, gets rid of mold, and gets extremely indignant.  It's fantastic

2.  Doctor Who
A hot time travelling alien speeds through time and space in his blue box with a pretty woman as his companion.  He's saved the world about a million times.  I am waiting for the Doctor to come take me away in the Tardis, preferably David Tenant as the Doctor.  He's my favorite.

3.  Law and Order: SVU
SVU=Special Victims Unit.  Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson track down the criminals behind sex crimes and atrocities against children.  Always a lot of drama and sexual tension between the pair practically oozes out.  I'm still annoyed that Elliot left the show before the two of them got it together.

4.  My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic
I know it's a kids show.  I don't care.  It's awesome and fulfills my childhood fantasies about horses and magic.  I am a brony for sure.

5.  Bones
A forensic anthropologist and her team of brainiacs fight crime by looking for evidence present on the bones.  Also, David Boreanez is a hot FBI agent who eventually gets together with Brennan, the forensic anthropologist.  It appeals to my brainy side with the science and also my romantic side with all of the little romantic sub plots.

6.  Gilmore Girls
I know it's a defunct show but Rory and Lorelei are my BFFs.  Mother and daughter live together, almost like sisters, as they struggle through all of life's challenges.  They go through their rough patches but at the end of the day, they will always support one another.

7.  Sabrina the Teenage Witch
On her sixteenth birthday, Sabrina Spellman discovers that she is a witch.  She lives with her aunts and talking cat and learns about magic and all of life's lessons.  Melissa Joan Hart is wonderful.  I cannot believe she is married and has children now.  Crazy.

8.  ER
Doctors working in a Chicago emergency room.  The crazy medical stuff they encounter is nothing compared to the insane personal drama that the young hot doctors go through.  Includes Alex Kingston and her British fabulousness and also Noah Wyle who is one handsome, handsome man.

9.  Private Practice
More medical drama where the medical stuff pales in comparison to what goes on behind the scenes  Romance, drama, and plenty of laughs.

10.  Make it or Break it
This is my most shameful entry.  Truly.  It's about gymnastics and girls trying to make it onto the 2012 Olympic team.  It's an ABC original drama so the convoluted plot is, well, convoluted.  What can I say?  I enjoy watching the gymnastics and imagining that I would be able to things like that.

I thought it would be really really hard to come up with ten shoes... and then I realized just how much TV I watch.  I could list more which is kind of crazy.  Ah well.  I read a lot of books too so I'll just pretend that makes up for it. What are your favorite TV shows?

Fun Facts Friday: Top 10 Favorite Foods

So I am trying out this whole "regular posts thing."  I decided to try out my own 'Fun Facts Friday' where I will share top 10 lists of facts about me you may or may not have wanted to know.  So today I'm going to tell you all about the food that I love.  Let me preface that by saying that this girl LOVES food.  I mean, how else do I explain my ridiculous size 18 butt?  I have eaten every blessed pound and I will admit it.  Working on eating less.  That being said... my 10 favorite foods...

1.  Ice Cream
I have a huge sweet tooth and something about the sweet, cold, creamy meltiness of ice cream makes it my ultimate favorite food.

2.  Macaroni and Cheese
Specifically, the good stuff made with real cheese and baked in the oven, often with bacon or vegetables mixed in.  I could write a sonnet on cheese and how much I love it.  Mozzarella, brie, gorgonzola, provolone, amish butter cheese... oh my giddy goodness.  Home girl likes some cheese.

3.  Bread
When I was younger, I joined the Atkins craze and actually lost a lot of weight in the process.  I gained it all back very quickly because there was not a snowball's chance that I was going to do without bread for the rest of my life.  Me and bread are bffs.  I think that's probably why it hangs out right around my thighs whenever I consume it...

4.  Maryland Blue Crabs
I have lived in Southern Delaware for the entirety of my life.  For those of you who are not from the midatlantic, Delaware is part of the Delmarva penninsula with the Chesapeake Bay to the West and the Delaware Bay to the east.  Water=seafood.  I have fond memories of going crabbing as a child... and also fond memories of eating seamed crabs, covered in Old Bay and dipped into cider vinegar.  Mmmm... I like crabs in a multitude of ways:  cakes, balls, crab imperial, steamed, etc etc.  Maryland crab has now become a thing that gourmet restaurants are serving and charging an arm and a leg for but the hipster in me is screaming I LIKED MARYLAND CRAB BEFORE IT WAS COOL!!!!

5.  Scrapple
A number of people are probably confused by this.  "what is scrapple?" some of you are asking?  Well, I'll tell you.  It is the stuff the sausage factory rejected, mixed with cornmeal, and grilled up nice and crispy.  Yes.  Sounds awful, tastes delicious.  Just like hot dogs.

6.  Scallops
I know.  My second seafood entry but I can't help it.  Seafood, especially shellfish, are just so gosh darn delicious.

7.  Cheese cake
I love cheesecake.  It's also my signature creation.  I make a truly magnificent white chocolare raspberry cheesecake.  Truly.

8.  Lemon
This is kind of vague...  I don't eat raw lemons or anything like that but I love consuming lemon IN things.  Lemon squeezed on fish, lemon muffins, lemon curd, lemon bars, lemon lemon lemon lemon.

9.  Caramel
I enjoy chocolate like almost all women but what I really love is caramel.  Sweet, buttery, sometimes salty.  It's so deliciously wonderful.  The Ice Cream Store in Rehoboth has a "Buttery Salted Caramel" flavor that is my absolute favorite kind of ice cream ever.

10.  Butter
I love butter so much that I wrote an ode to it for a previous entry.  Yes.  Delicious, delicious butter...  preferable on a warm crusty slice of #3.

It was surprisingly hard to come up with this list for two reasons:  1.  I like a lot of foods but 2.  I'm not passionate about every single things that passes my lips.  Oh well.

Happy Monday!

So I did nothing this weekend.  And it was amazing.  I scraped myself off the couch to go to church on Sunday and accompanied my parents to Lowes for an hour or so... and that was it.  It was glorious.  So what's in store for this week?

Well, today I worked.  It was supposed to be a morning only half day and it turned into all day in a completely different position.  Tomorrow I work in a different school district and have rehearsal in the evening.  Wednesday... half day afternoon and evening rehearsal... I am waiting to hear about a potential job for Thursday/Friday so I've been turning down other offers.  I would only do this for this particular teacher so here is hoping the job comes through.

My mom's birthday is Friday and I have to come up with something to give her.  I keep going back and forth between about five different ideas... and I still cannot make a decision.  Ah well.  I'll decide eventually.  If not, well, gift cards work I guess?

My iPod is dying so I will be portioning off part of my next paycheck to buy a new one.  I don't particularly want to shell out the cash but my ipod died for two days and I almost cried.  Seriously.  Especially since it died the weekend I had to drive to Rehoboth three times.  Since said iPod touch was given to me at no cost at all, I can't complain over much about its death.  The up side of getting a new one is that the new iPod touch is fancier.  Mine is older without a camera and that fancy stuff.  The new one will be able to shoot video.  in HD.  I'm excited to get this new toy, though I am not excited about the money I will have to part with to purchase it.

Blargh.  Hope everyone has a great week.  I need to run off to go pack my lunch so that I don't get stuck eating cafeteria food again.

Love, peace, and chicken grease,

Ten Things I Can't Live Without

So I thought, in an effort to come up with some content for my blog, that I would try doing some top ten posts.  So here you go.  Ten things I cannot live without.

1.  Jesus
Seriously, y'all.  I am a very screwed up person on about 1,000 levels.  It is wonderful to know that no matter how many times I screw up in a thousand different ways that he loves me enough that he died for me. That is a powerful, powerful thing to know.

2.  Coffee
Coffee is my drug of choice.  I drink far too much of it but I don't care.  I LOVE coffee.  Good coffee, fancy coffee, plain coffee, even bad coffee is better than no coffee

3.  My Mama
Aside from the literal "I wouldn't be alive with my mother having given birth to me" thing, my mom is one of my favorite people on earth.  She has made me who I am today and I look an awful lot like her as well.  I have no idea what I will do with myself when she dies.  My mama is a brave, strong, faithful woman of God who is living with terminal lung cancer but that doesn't mean she has given up on her life.

4.  My Kindle
That little device is almost constantly by my side.  I have a regular kindle, not the fire or anything fancy like that because honestly?  I just wanted it to be able to read, not play angry birds.  I scour the "Top 100 Free" list on amazon almost every day so that I can download free books of varying genres and qualities.

5.  Dairy Products
If I ever turn out to be lactose intolerant, I will cry endlessly until I die from dehydration.  My two favorite foods are ice cream and cheese.  I eat too much of both.  As a singer, I'm supposed to avoid dairy like it is satan incarnate and I just can't do it.  I now use almond milk on my cereal because it has fewer calories and more calcium for this calcium deficient girl but some how I don't think I want to try almond milk cheese.  That sounds DISGUSTING.

6.  Flip Flops
I have always been a bare foot kind of a girl, traipsing about in the grass without shoes early in march and on into October.  Alas, now that I am 23, this is much less acceptable and I am expected to protect my tender soles and thus wear shoes.  This is one of the reasons I am frequently mistaken for a teenager; when I am not working I tend to wear jeans, flip flops, and a tee shirt.  Usually without make up unless I'm trying to impress someone because I'm lazy like that (and also because my skin/eyes hate make up in most forms).

7.  Netflix
So the reason I subscribed to Netflix in the first place is kind of embarrassing:  I wanted premium currency in mob wars and they had an offer for said cash with a Netflix trial.  I signed up and never looked back.  It fuels my addiction to SVU and Bones and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (yes, I watch My Little Pony like a small child).

8.  Liquid eyeliner
Like most women, I have gone through some seriously questionable make up phases.  I also just got done telling you that I don't wear make up when I don't have to.  Still true but when I do, I have an addiction to black liquid eye liner.  I've been trying out various brands, hoping that I can find one of the "marker" varieties that will actually adhere over my eye shadow but alas, not so much.  I think I have four different tubes in my make up bag right now.

9.  My pillow
I have a memory foam pillow that I love.  It's kind of funny when people pick it up for the first time.  Reaction 1 is usually "ooh! squishy!"  Reaction 2 is usually "OMG heavy!"  It weighs about 50 pounds... and by 50 I mean about 10 but still that is one beast of a pillow.  I think it would win in any pillow fight.  For serious.

10.  Music
I know that is far to general but this is my list not yours.  I need my ipod and also my own ability to hum/sing whenever I so desire.  Seriously.  I will sing and walk around the house.  Music is my friend and I think part of me would die if I didn't have music.

So there you have it.  Ten things I can't live without.

Impatience, my life, and why teachers are really cool

So I am not a particularly patient person.  I hate to wait on things, especially important things, like for example, waiting to hear back after submitting a 1 million page job application.  Or waiting for the latest ana white momplex update (I'm an addict.  It's pretty ridiculous).  Some say anticipation is a good thing.  I say anticipation is for people who have more time on their hands than I do.  Even in the mornings, I am not good at waiting for it to be time to go to work.  Yes, I am a nut case.  What else is new?

So what is new in the life of Caitlin?  Whelp, I had Wednesday off and basically slept it away, Thursday I worked half day AM teaching middle school and today I taught half day PM for chorus.  At least it was a music class though it was admittedly challenging.  Adolescence is challenging time in one's life, especially in high school, I think.  At this point, these children's physical maturity exceeds their mental and emotional maturity.  They look and often feel like adults but their heads haven't quite caught up with their bodies.  Case in point?  Teenagers storming out of class because they didn't like me.  Yeah.  It happens.  I have to remind myself to not take it personally; very rarely is it specifically me (though admittedly I have had some  times where a student and I just didn't mesh).

The more I work as a sub, the more I admire the teachers who do this full time.  I've had classes that I loved and wanted to see every dingle day and I've had classes that I've been ready to abandon by lunch time.  Some times, there is just a bad mix of kids.  In addition to the day to day process of teaching and managing behavior within the classroom, there are 900 other things to do.  Meetings, committees, training, continuing education.  It's a lot.  I spend a lot of time filling in for these teachers while they are doing training and such.  Teachers must constantly be monitoring their students to make sure they are learning as they are supposed to and make sure they are exhibiting normal social development and bear no markers of abuse.  It is a lot of responsibility.

I really enjoy the actual teaching aspect of teaching and participating in a learning environment  The look in a student's eyes when he or she finally understands something is fantastic.  It's the other crap I dislike  I want to teach higher ed music and voice lessons.  That's not to say there isn't any administrative bull crap that goes along with it but it is a completely different environment inside the classroom.  It's different when students have to decide to take your class, not be thrown into it by a guidance counselor.

So... if my goal is to be a college music professor/voice teacher I should maybe do something about it.  I'm trying to get my ducks in a row for graduate school applications but often times that is easier said than done. Wish me luck?