Finger waves

I figured out how to make finger waves (look it up, it's a hairstyle) with my curling iron. They look beautiful! I'll take a picture one of these days. 

While I was home this weekend, I bought the most beautiful dress in the world. It fits me perfectly and I wish I could wear it every day. It's very 1940s-1950s. I can't wait to wear it with my new wavy hair and a jaunty little cap. Add a pair of black kid gloves and I will look just like I stepped out of a 1950s magazine. I may have to brave the world with my red lipstick to complete this look.

I don't feel as grown up as I am. but there are times when I put a perfect outfit together and I realize I am a woman now.

I can't wait to see what this next stage of my life, womanhood, has in store for me. I know it's going to be great. 

Imagine.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

I believe in seeing the best in people. I believe in romantic, movie-type love. I believe that life is what we make it. I believe that being nice is a lot easier than being mean, whatever the situation. I believe salt makes anything taste better. I believe in God. I believe in the bible being the best place to get self-help information. I believe in journal writing. I believe in everlasting friendships. I believe in listening to your heart. I believe in trying to find the best thing about any situation. I believe that country music is amazing. I believe in modesty. I believe that there is a reason for everything that happens in my life. I believe that I am loved. I believe that one day, I will get married and have a family, despite how much I worry about being alone. I believe in exercising, even if I don't do it enough. I believe that people can change. I believe that freckles are the most beautiful feature a person can be blessed with, men and women. I believe that life has a purpose. I believe that pomegranate juice has healing properties. I believe I was meant to be a mother. I believe in doing what is best for you. I believe in love at first sight. I believe in song lyrics. I believe that happiness is something you have to find in yourself. I believe that the bad times are necessary so that you can appreciate the good times more. 

I believe in me.

Lace veils

I've been thinking a lot about my wedding lately, for no particular reason.

(Then again, I always think about my wedding.)

But lately I've been thinking about my veil. I want one like this: 

I think the mantilla lace is so beautiful and classic. It reminds me of old weddings. I have a firm belief that I was born in the wrong decade. I was cut out for the cute hats and dresses of the 1940s or 1950s.

My grandparents got married in 1947. I am simply dying to ask how they fell in love and what their wedding was like. I like to believe that there is something deeply romantic about my young grandmother waiting for her sweetheart to come back from the war. I can't imagine sending someone you love off to war where there's a good chance they aren't going to come back alive. I don't even know if they were dating during the war.

I should ask.

(Also, thank god I didn't have to live through that. As romantic as it sounds, I can't even fathom the sheer terror for those on the home front waiting for their loved ones during the big wars.)

I simply love love. I think about it all the time. I also think I should incorporate styles like this veil into my daily life, because sitting around waiting for the one day when I can wear something that beautiful is a little silly.

Giving thanks

My rough patch ended today (!)

I couldn't be happier. I really couldn't. In a strange way, I'm thankful for the rough patch, because it made me want to fight that much harder for the good times. I never want to fall apart to the girl I was before.

And like I said in the previous post, I know I won't. Because I have a strong will, and I have a reason to fight. These good days, where everything seems perfect and I can't stop smiling, are worth the pain of the bad days.

Awesome. 

rough patch, day twenty-nine thousand three hundred and six...

...and I say that with a smile. I will get through this rough patch. I will. I am stronger than this.

new make-up, just in time for the holidays.

Today I went to the mall, to buy new makeup because what I have is too dark. This is a combination of my skin losing all summer color and the fact I've been stubborn towards accepting the fact my skin is very, very light and buying a darker makeup will not do anything to make me look pretty and tan, it just makes me look...like I don't know how to do my makeup.

Nevertheless, off to Sephora I trekked. After I'd collected the palest of pale mineral makeup, I looked around for some new tinted moisturizer, because that's also too dark. This led to one of the Sephora workers offering to do my makeup. I said sure, partially because every time I get my makeup done I feel so doggone pretty and I have not felt pretty in a while.

This woman clearly knew what she was doing. Ten minutes later, I looked like a supermodel. My eyes popped, my face was aglow. It looked so awesome that I was tempted to buy every product she'd put on my face, but that would have been well over 200 dollars. So I did what any self-respecting college kid would do: I went and bought the colors at Target.

check out my loot (bare minerals not from target, of course)

I re-did my makeup tonight, and it looks okay. I mean, obviously they are not the high end products, but they do the job. Naturally, the biggest change was the mineral powder. Hoo boy, wearing the wrong color is just...wrong.

Shortly thereafter, I did one of my favorite things, which was to put on my favorite red lipstick that I'm too shy to wear in public.

red lipstick makes those blue eyes pop

I can't decide if it's grown up and sassy or just clown lipstick. So for now, I just wear it around my apartment. I also can't decide if I want photos of me on my blog. I don't even think I have any readers, and I don't even know if my family members can some how google and find me, but all of that is shadowed by the fact I started blogging because I fell in love with bloggers that happen to post a lot of pictures. So I'll throw caution to the wind, especially since this blog isn't going to be a place for juicy details. Just light and airy information, designed to make me happier.

I'm still in the throes of a rough phase, but new makeup makes it easier. So does my ever-present desire to focus on the positive side of things, even if it's hard sometimes.

I've longed for you, and I have desired to see your face, your smile

A little while ago I read a comment on a blog, or maybe it was a blog entry. Either way, a woman mentioned that every night she prayed for her future husband to have a good day. When they ultimately met, she asked him if he'd had a lot of good days, because she'd prayed for them.

I like that idea. Partially because I believe that what we believe in, that our future spouses are out there somewhere, that it shows a steady confidence that marriage will happen. I have spent many years believing that marriage just was not in the cards for me, because of a number of issues. But I really do believe that if I just have faith that a husband will come along, and that he is out there somewhere but the right time has not come for us to meet each other, than the universe will allow that to happen. If I think negative thoughts, and believe that I will never get married, then I won't. Self-fulfilling prophesy, I suppose.

This comes from seeing Twilight tonight. What Bella and Edward have - on screen, and in the books - even if it's not a true representation of love, or even if it doesn't happen to most people, I still want it. I want to be excited about someone again, to get excited just to see their face and smell their smell and watch them smile.

I have faith, or at least I try to, that I will someday have an amazing love. Tucked somewhere deep inside of me is the belief that I will one day meet him, the one, my future husband, and I will know exactly why God put me through years of heartache. I know I'm a very, very lucky person, and I know that I am lucky enough to one day have a good love.

The hardest part, though, is believing I can love. I haven't loved well in the past, but I need to have faith that those years are behind me, and that I will improve, and that I am capable of giving a husband and children the love they deserve.

For now, though, I will just work on believing in myself and strengthening my ability to give love. And I hope that my future husband, wherever he is, had a good day today.

the lovely years

I just discovered a new song, lovely years by fisher.

It's about parenthood, about how lovely it is. While I have never had any children, I can relate to the lovely years. Because they happen all the time. If you tinker with a few verses, it could explain my college career.

It's been lovely. Not without pain and heartache and stress, but still so lovely and beautiful and perfect in it's imperfection. I wouldn't trade a moment of my life, not for the world.

I mean, we all wish for better things. Better grades, better hair, better skin, better boyfriends, everything. But I have a belief that life is progressing how it's meant to, and that while this moment may not be perfect in the traditional way, but it's lovely. Because, right now, this moment, is beautiful, and a gift. And because I know my life is headed somewhere amazing. And whatever path I happen down will be the right one, because it's my path, and it's God's path, and it's amazing.

And I hope, and I wish, and I wonder, that it will head down an aisle toward a blue-eyed man, so we can have some fun and then get down to the nitty-gritty of what this song is really written for. 

Because I believe that if we wish hard enough, and put in a little effort, we will get what we want, and what we need.

And what we want, and what we need, are the lovely years. Children, no children, Spouse, no Spouse, College, no college...all lovely years, because they are our years.

The day I was waiting for

Today was good. Really, really good.

Every class was good, every moment was good. It was so bitter cold, but there were flurries. It was as if God was sending them down to say, I know the cold is awful but with cold comes snow, which is so beautiful. I feel like it was my own little sign that there are good things even in the midst of the bad.

Because you can think about the cold, or the ice, or the whipping wind. Or you can just appreciate the magic that is a first snowfall.

The Good Things

I thought about writing a diatribe about the things going wrong in my life. Then I realized, that's not why I started this blog. This blog is meant for me to remember the good in life even when I'm in the thick of the bad. 

And so, without further adieu, I present the good things about my day and life:

-I have a warm bed to sleep in tonight. And a stomach full of a hot dinner. 

-I had the most delicious cinnamon raisin bagel with walnut raisin cream cheese today. I'm pretty sure God sent those down from heaven just for me.

-I filled my gas tank for 20 dollars today. So! Exciting!

-I'm pretty sure I annoyed everyone in my class today with my incessant talking. Why is this a good thing? Because I spent many, many, many years of my life too scared to speak up in class for fear of looking stupid. I'm so happy to have gotten past that. It gives me faith that I can get through other things.

-I worked out today.

-I watched a sad TV show that reminded me of the death. This a good thing because I remembered all the good that came out of the death, like realizing how precious my life is.

-I got everything done that I set out to do today.

It was a good day. It really was.

T-minus 39 days.

I've been listening to Christmas music like it's going out of style.

One of my new favorites is Believe by Josh Groban. 

My favorite line is "there's no time to waste, there's so much to celebrate"

I know it's about Christmas, but I like to apply it to my whole life. There really is no time to waste when it comes to celebrating how beautiful life is. It's tempting to wait for the perfect moment, or a fresh start, or the future. But the celebration needs to begin now. Because there really is so much to celebrate about life. Even in the boring moments, even in the sad moments, even in the hard moments. 

Despite my love of celebration, I'm afraid of this Christmas. It's going to be different, because of a death in the family. We lost my uncle, the guy who always lit up the room (only the good die young). No matter who it was that died, we lost a piece of our family puzzle. It'll hurt, knowing he isn't there to celebrate with us, to laugh, to joke, to enjoy the food and music. But pain is a part of life. All we can do is respect the dead and make the best of what we've got while we're here.

And you know what? I have a feeling that Christmas in heaven is so much better than here on earth. 

It Happens

Today was one of those days. 

Those days where you don't understand why things are happening the way they are.

I got stuck in the rain. It was raining, sideways, in sheets. I was lost. 

I tried to understand why it was happening, if there was a silver lining, but I could not find one.

Perhaps it's yet to be seen. 

Tomorrow's another day. 

The "I Love" List

From Jennie at shelikespurple.com: I challenge you to make your own list. The only catch? You can't include a single person you know on your list. No "I love the way my husband laughs" or "I love hearing my little girl call for me." It'll be tough, I know. But this particular little exercise is about stripping away everyone who defines you and figuring out what you (not his partner; not their mother/daughter/sister/friend) love.

I love turkey sandwiches, on a sub roll, with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and provolone cheese. I love it with a side of salty chips. I love my bed. I love sleeping in late. I love spontaneous trips to target, or a restaurant, or nowhere. I love thanksgivings and christmases. I love making pies, and then seeing how happy they are that I made it. I love God. I love all the beautiful things God has blessed me with. I love greasy sausage pizza with lots of parmesan cheese on top. I love my shower curtain. I love googling bible quotes. I love LOLcats. I love PostSecret on Sunday morning. I love the framed four-leaf clover on my desk, there to remind me of how lucky I am. I love good-smelling shampoos and conditioners. I love Christmas decorations. I love Christmas music, which I'm already listening to, even though it's only November 14. I love music in general. I love steak and potatoes, with fried onion strings on top. I like raisin nut bread, with real butter spread on top. I love the excitement of seeing someone I haven't seen in a while. I love history. I love that Obama is our president-elect. I love the two pictures of the Virgin Mary that are right over my bed. I love cute dresses. I love cute aprons. I love cute flats, even if I am 5 feet and should be wearing heels more often. I love my heart ring. I love taking pictures. I love my computer. I love my eyes. I love football games, and tailgates. I love music of all kinds. I love music that moves me, to tears, to dance, to work toward getting better. I love men. I love the smell of cologne and sweat mixed together under a dress shirt. I love boy's smiles, and their hair, and the way they are. I love that I can find the good in people. I love baking bread. I love throwing parties. I love me.