During the month of May, as part of the Shaklee Blogger program, we were challenged to write a post discussing what we like about ourselves. The task was inspired by the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, in which women got a glimpse into how others saw them compared to their own highly-critical look. (If you haven’t seen the video it’s a must!)
Why is it easier to see all the flaws and things you wish you could change? As women, I think we do this often. I’d change my body shape, my height, the cowlicks in my hair, my short nail beds, the size of my feet, the untimely graying of my hair, etc, etc, etc…
It’s easy to make that list. But what do I like about myself? I can think of a number of non-physical or material things. I like that I have strong personal convictions, a love for writing and a close relationship with my family.
But the physical… it’s even harder to pinpoint. What do I like about my physical self? I like my long legs (even if they are disproportionate to the rest of me), the rate with which my hair grows and how thick it is, my long eyelashes that naturally curl up, my thin wrists, my ability to run several miles without huffing and puffing, the way my skin easily bronzes in the sun without burning and my blue eyes.
What about you? What do YOU like about yourself?
Leave a comment.
This is a sponsored post as part of the Shaklee Corporation blogger program. I have received free products, online support and incentives for participating in the Shaklee Corporation blogger program. My opinions are my own.
I’m all about finding a good deal. I get a kick out of using sites like Priceline to get a good flight or cheap hotel. The new Nyopoly is like Priceline for designer accessories. Looking to upgrade your handbag collection or hoping to strap a designer watch on your wrist without paying full price? Nyopoly can help.
How it works… The site allows you to bid on any item pictured. You have three chances. Enter your price and see if it is accepted. If not, increase your price and bid again. Still no good, you can bid one final time that day. As an added bonus, you get Nyopoly bucks back the better you are at bidding an appropriate number in the beginning bids.
I spent a lot of time playing around on the site, bidding on various items to see what kind of sales I would be able to snag. Don’t expect a 50% discount on anything. You aren’t going to walk away with designer items for pennies. For the most part, I found that initial bids that are about $20 – $50 off the listed price are most likely to be accepted. Anything more and you will most likely need to bid again.
I purchased this Large Swarovski Pear Ring by Michelle Monroe. Initial price was $90 and my initial bid was $70, which was accepted!
I was given Nyopoly dollars in order to purchase something from the site and write an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Because normal nail polish NEVER lasts on my nails, I’m a huge fan of shellac manicures. For me, when normal polish lasts a day or two if I am lucky, the gel polish lasts up to two weeks when done at a salon. The trouble is, paying $35 or more every time I want my nails looking good is a serious blow to the wallet.
To get the gel benefits without the constant pinch to my bank account, I decided to try out the Sally Hansen gel nail kit. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about doing this myself. Since I don’t polish my nails too often, I don’t have the technique down. But it was actually a lot easier than I would have thought.
The procedure is simple. Apply base coat, stick fingers under the light for 30 seconds. Apply color coat and place under light for 30 seconds. Repeat color step and then add the top coat, again placing nails under the light for 30 seconds. Wipe nails with a cleansing pad to remove sticky residue and that’s it! Simple. Fast. Easy.
For me, the at-home manicures don’t last as long as the salon ones, but they also aren’t as damaging to the nails as the salon ones can be. My manicure lasts about 5-6 days, which is two to three times longer than normal polish on my nails.
The biggest bonus is the speed of these manicures. Using traditional polish is about an hour-long process. You sit around with the semi-dry polish on your nails and try not to move, to touch things, to do anything that will harm your nails. With the gel you can immediately go about your day like usual without worrying about chipping or blemishing the manicure.
Now that I’ve given myself the gel manicure a couple times and have figured out how it all works, a manicure takes me about 20 minutes total, including the set-up.
A couple things to keep in mind when giving yourself a gel manicure:
Apply only a light layer of each polish. Thick or uneven application makes the manicure peel away quicker.
Keep away from skin. The more the polish touches the skin on the side of your nails the shorter it will last. I keep a very thin layer of nail polish free. Small enough that it is not noticeable but significant enough that the polish isn’t sticking to my skin.
Removal requires 100% acetone and pushing the gel off the nail. Go gently so you don’t rip up nail layers.
Better to dip your brush more often into the bottle than try to keep a lot of polish on the brush to sweep multiple nails. It is a little more tedious but give you more control.
As I watched Les Miserables a couple weeks ago, I realized while I’d seen the play on stage I had never read the book. Since the book is usually so much better than the movie version I vowed to read Les Miserables this summer. That decision caused me to realize there are a number of classic works of literature that are missing from my repertoire. So, I decided that this summer would be one filled with reading the classic.
Shhhh… don’t tell my high school English teacher, but I rarely read the entire assigned book. I listened to a few of them on tape and relied on Cliff Notes more than I should have. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have never read anything by Charles Dickens and have only read two works by Shakespeare. I jut never understood the point of reading the book when we were going to talk about every aspect of it in class anyway.
That’s not to say that I don’t like to read. I do. I like to read a lot. I like to write. I love young adult novels. I have at least 50 books that I could happily read over and over again throughout my life. It’s just that a number of the classic somehow slipped through the cracks. One of the years I lived in New York, I decided to use the subway time to get through my first round of classics. During that time I read: The Count of Monte Cristo, Little Women, Till We Have Faces, Cry the Beloved Country, The Black Tulip and a few others that have slipped my mind at the moment.
I skimmed through a list of typical books you should read in High School and made a reading list for the summer months. Extra bonus… most classics are free to download as an ebook so I don’t have to go to the library to check them out or pay to read them on my iPad. A couple clicks on Amazon or iBooks and they are ready to be read.
The Classics I Hope to Read this Summer:
Les Miserables
Great Expectations
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Great Gatsby
A Farewell to Arms
1984
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Classics I Have Read and Loved:
Ana Karenina
Kristin Lavransdatter
Taming of the Shrew
The Count of Monte Cristo
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dark is Rising
The Chosen
Gone With the Wind
Screw Tape Letters
The Picture of Dorian Gray
What’s your favorite classic book?
Do you have one on your reading list for the months ahead?
Alexandra Shook is a publicist and ecommerce strategist by day, fashion and lifestyle blogger by night. Based in New York City, she blogs about fashion, beauty, photography, restaurants and local events at delayedmissives.com. After work she enjoys getting together with friends for dumplings or a well-made cocktail.
Confession: I’ve owned this black waterfall cardigan from Francesca’s Collections for more than five years. It’s one of those items that has grown into a major staple despite the fact that I didn’t have much of an opinion on it at the time of purchase. Now I can’t imagine my closet without it and can only hope it has several more years left before I wear it to pieces. This cardigan is pretty much my MVP: it can be worn just plain open, layers fantastically, is a lifesaver over sleeveless dresses in the winter, and can be tied around the waist in a ton of different ways. In five years it’s been worn and remixed countless times, but these outfits are my favorites.
Rebekah is an editor, wife, and mom from Wisconsin who loves to shop, eat, listen to music, and watch cheesy reality TV. The title of her blog came from the children’s novel From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler because she loved the book as a child and wanted to leave the scope wide open. Rebekah blogs about her personal style, her family, pop culture, and sometimes food.
Hi ModlyChic readers! I’m Rebekah of From the Mixed-up Files. First of all, I wanted to thank Katy for inviting me to do a guest post while she’s on vacation in Texas! Although I’m pretty jealous that she’s enjoying some warm weather while we’re still shivering up here in Wisconsin, I keep reminding myself that my own vacation is coming up – to Florida! My husband, daughter, and I are meeting my parents down there for a visit to Disney World and Universal Orlando, and I can’t wait!
I don’t even want to think about what I have to pack for my husband or my two-year-old daughter quite yet, so let’s focus on what I’m packing for myself. I’ve learned a lot from my friends, who are avid Disney-goers, and now I’d like to pass on some of our packing tips to you.
Multiple pairs of comfortable sandals. In my opinion, function is more important than fashion in this case. My favorite functional sandals are my Keens. They’re not something I would wear in my day-to-day life, but they keep my feet pain free all day. My backup pair are actually Crocs. I say actually because I made fun of my dad for wearing Crocs for years, and I know he’s going to be wearing his on this same vacation. Two things to consider with Crocs sandals is that some of them have nubbies, which may become uncomfortable if you’re sensitive to that, and they have no traction. So be careful around water rides. I’ve also tried Reebok sandals, and the fabric underside of the straps rubbed the top of my foot raw. I don’t see the kind I bought on their website, so maybe they’ve improved the design since then. Any kind of sandal that fits your foot and has lots of cushion should be good. You don’t want it sliding around too much and end up with blisters. I recommend test driving them on long walks a few times before your vacation. This is a long paragraph on a seemingly simple subject, but it’s seriously the difference between a carefree day and a day of constantly changing bandaids and sitting down as often as possible because you can’t take it anymore. Moving on.
Cheap, dark sunglasses without nose grips. You’re going to go from bright sunshine to shaded attraction lines to maybe indoor shops, and your sunglasses are going to be on your nose, then on the top of your head, then back again. To prevent messing up your hair any more than the next thrill ride is going to, I recommend plastic sunglasses without nose grips. Try to make sure they’re pretty dark, too. Last time I was in Florida, I was still squinting through my sunglasses. They don’t call it The Sunshine State for nothing. Finally, you probably want to go with cheapies so that you don’t accidentally sit on or lose your nice Ray-Bans.
Biker shorts and sundresses. This is a combination I never would’ve thought of if my friends hadn’t suggested it; but if you have any concern about chafing or shorts that don’t fit you quite right, a sundress with spandex shorts underneath is the way to go. I’ve found it’s the most comfortable option.
Cross-body bag. Of course, you want your bag to be big enough to hold everything you need but not so huge as to give you shoulder aches.
Other Things to Bring to the Parks
Spray-on sunscreen. It’s just easier to apply.
Plastic baggies to put your cell phone and other belongings in if you go on water rides. Also, you can bring a poncho that folds up smaller than a garbage bag in case you want to enjoy a water ride without getting completely soaked.
Frozen water bottle to keep you cool and hydrated. Then, you can find a drinking fountain later to fill it up again once it’s empty.
Bandaids just in case those shoes weren’t as trustworthy as you originally hoped.
Extra bobby pins because you are probably not going to want any hair touching your face on a hot day.
Now that I’ve over-thought all of this, I better get to packing!
Jill Badlotto is a Social Producer at Chicago Blogger Network, Master’s student at the University of Chicago, and co-blogger at JessandJill. She has an obsession with bright lipstick, traveling, her dog, and twitter (@JillBadlotto). Some people may like to call Chicago a “smaller version of their city” (ahem, New Yorkers) but anyone who has come [...]
Corleen Heidgerken blogs at BarelyPractical about fashion, shopping, technology, and style. Her love of fashion infused with her day job in technology inspires her to curate fun looks, showcase her local fashion community, and share how she uses technology to better shop and manage her wardrobe. I always seem to be in a hurry when [...]
Pretty Perfect Polished is my guest blogger today!! Shes’s a teacher, lover, fighter, blogger, foodie, diva, critic, stylist, artist, mother, couture lover, wifey; killing clichés one outfit at a time. Katy asked me to share a great repeat number from my personal closet, and this dress immediately came to mind: Dress: Old Navy Shirt: Madewell [...]
My favorite pair of pants is this pair of Paige denim that I picked up without trying on at a clothing swap. I had never worn Paige clothing before and I had no idea how it would fit and if they would be long enough. But the stars were aligned that night because I managed [...]
Katy Rose... Lover of animal print, high heels, lady-like dresses and big earrings. Social media enthusiast with WAY too many accounts. Personal style blogger, newbie vlogger. Author, writer, journalist.
