November 14, 2014
Our week was cut in half on account of the Veteran’s Holiday and being in Scottsdale Saturday-Tuesday. We were visiting my bestie and her family, and had a great visit but I miss her and wish we lived in the same state. That drive across the 10 from LA to PHX is crap. I found out that another good friend is moving, at least in the same state still but definitely several hours away. Why do all my friends suddenly hate me, or at least hate Southern California? It’s hard to not take it personally when they keep leaving like this.
Yesterday, feeling a little glum from all my friends abandoning me, I decided to go to the one place I can find comfort with a toddler in tow; the mall. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’ve always enjoyed walking the mall in the morning before it’s teeming with people and it’s fairly calm and quiet. Perhaps all those years working retail, who knows, I’m sure my time could have been better spent somewhere else, but…I’m starting to sound defensive, aren’t I? Interesting thing is, I often don’t even buy stuff, I just go to return stuff I have bought before, that either didn’t fit me or the kids right, or I had buyer’s remorse on. It’s admittedly a huge waste of time, and what’s funny is, my Grandma Tita spent a good portion of her retirement driving around returning things she had purchased. At least one day a week you’d call Grandma and she’d tell you she had just got home from “returning some things” at Penney’s or Sears. We often made fun of her and attributed it to being bored, but now I wonder if we both had/have some weird obsession with the mall? Things that make you go hmmm.
While at the mall, I discovered that Nordstrom was price matching Bloomingdale’s Friends & Family 20% off sale, and since I much prefer shopping Nordstrom than Bloomingdale’s (too many shitty hours spent working for the Federated Department stores have left me slightly bitter), I bought just a couple of things that I plan to save for Christmas gifts. Something for my sister in law’s birthday and an Alex & Ani bracelet I’ll give to my sister if I choose her as Secret Santa, and if not, I’ll save it for her birthday. So FYI, if you want to start a little Christmas shopping and are planning to purchase some items which normally don’t ever go on sale, hop on into a Nordstrom store and they’ll gladly price match any item that Bloomies also carries.
The Nordstrom thing got me side tracked. The real reason why I went to the mall was to return a swimsuit and sun hat I had bought for Taylor for Hawaii, but didn’t fit her. See, with the returns? While there, I obviously stopped by Nordstrom, and I also went into Sephora because I was out of brown eyeliner and was almost out of concealer. I visited Tarte and picked up several new things, including a brow powder and brush, eyeliner, concealer and a new lipstick which I am in LURRRVVEEE with. I’m wearing all the items above, and as you can see, I spent a good portion of my afternoon trying to get my best angle. I’m pathetic.
That lipstick though, is seriously awesome. It goes on pretty matte, and has a ton of saturated color, and the kicker was, it didn’t bleed ALL DAY! You know how red lipsticks especially tend to bleed? Not this one. It’s called Fiery by Tarte, and it has my heart.
As the beauty bag detox continues, I keep getting recommendations to try other awesome sounding brands. For now, I’m sort of loving the Sephora thing because I can cruise in and try everything on, with no obligations to buy, although who am I kidding, we always buy, right? I love supporting small brands and as I get more of the hang of this, I definitely will do more shopping with smaller natural beauty brands going forward. But for now, I still feel way too stuck on the notion of having to try everything on before I commit to buying. I’m a creature of habit. Before this, I had been using the same products from my mascara to my foundation, for over 15 years.
I didn’t spend too much time reading online this week, since I was gone for half of it and spent the other half doing kid-related things like taking them to swim meets and practices and stuff. Oh, and at the mall of course. I ran into Sarah while there, after had just meeting her for coffee the day before. She has me feeling pretty confident I can order from the Beauty Counter btw. We chatted for a few minutes before it was time to catch her plane, and then I realized I had to jam to pick up the kids.
And after all that, I never did return the damn swimsuit and hat.
Very delicious. It is already tempting me to eat it. More like to snatch it from my screen and eat it without sharing with anyone.