so it goes

So far 2009 has been okay. Tolerable at least. The Monkey is employed and that is definitely a good start. However I have vowed to make this my year to get healthy and have not gotten off my lazy ass to do a single thing. But at least I have a plan in the works. The friend at Verizon (henceforth referred to as Banana) has become a bit of an exercise nut over the past year and a half. She walks somewhere between six and 10 miles a night. I would love to walk with her but she lives 30 miles from us so she's not exactly an 'ideal' walking buddy. But she does work here in town and offered to walk with me on her lunch break for at least a half hour, Monday through Friday. I agreed. While it may seem like these are plans that are easily broken I can assure you that they are most definitely not. She simply won't let me off the hook and for some reason I feel obligated to sort of prove that I can do it. I'm not going to lie -- I don't like to exercise. I don't enjoy it. I never have. I've tried all sorts of different things from step aerobics to a complex gym regimen involving cardio and weights but never found anything that held my interest. The only reason I ever got down to 145 was thanks to an eating disorder and a very active job at Outdoor Recreation. I hope that once I get started with exercising I will stay motivated to keep going this time around. I am really quite miserable in my own skin but I cannot honestly ever remember a time when I was not miserable in my own skin. Conundrum. Even still, I have to at least try to do something to get this weight off. Maybe having allowed myself to get this far gone if when I get back to a reasonable weight I won't dog myself out so damned much. (Not likely but miracles can happen, right?)

In an attempt to make myself more receptive towards a year of change I decided to color my hair. It's very close (if not identical) to my natural hair color. I joked with my BFF and told her I dyed it and that I am an 'unnaturally natural brunette' now. I didn't take pictures today but I'll definitely get a couple tomorrow and post them. It'll definitely be easier to maintain than the reds I've been wearing for the past several years which will make it easier to grow my hair long again as I won't have to color it every few months to disguise my roots. I was looking through some old pictures of my hair and came across the pictures of when my hair was nearly to my waist. It almost made me want to cry! But it's just hair and it grows back (thankfully pretty quickly in my case). I'm sure once it is long again I'll ache for a short choppy look and wind up whacking it all off on a whim. It never fails. :P But it's change and change is good.

Speaking of change, I've been neglecting my shiny new eyeshadow palette as of late in favor of a more natural, neutral look. I've been experimenting with mostly moderate browns and champagnes instead of spending oodles of time obsessing over expertly matching my eyeshadow to my outfit. Today I used matte purples (Urban Decay Matte Eyeshadow Trio in Haze). It looked pretty but I prefer shiney shadows when it comes to colors like purple. Yesterday I experimented a bit with a look I found on Sephora.com. It was an Urban Decay look called Sharp Smokey Eyes. I've had a hard time "mastering" the smokey look because to pull it off you have to do a fair amount of blending. My sister is awesome when it comes to blending but whenever I blend it seems I don't blend enough (which leaves harsh lines) or over blend (which nearly obliterates the color completely). The Sharp Smokey Eye looked easy enough and, incidently, I had all of the components the look called for. So I gave it whirl.

eXtrEme close-ups:





Not-so-close-up:



It was, by far, the easiest smokey look I have tried to date. The only real problem I had with it was the black eyeliner. Urban Decay makes an awesome eyeliner pencil. It is remarkably creamy and very pigmented (like all of their products) so a little goes a long way. But try as I may to get a nice, thin line around my lashes I just couldn't. So my liner is quite a bit thicker than the model's. But for an amateur, I think I did pretty well. I really like the look, and though I don't find it suitable for 'everyday' wear, I will be trying it again next time I get dressed up for a special occasion or a night out.