Hauls + Reviews!

So excited to be doing this. I have seen tons of great video's on hauls and reviews and I thought I would do a blog post because I'm not sure I've built up my confidence enough to try video's and also I don't have any video equipment currently. I've been thinking of the best way to do this so that people can just get the most information possible so I'm going to break down by brand what I've been trying out, the good the bad and what I think is a great deal. Enjoy!

NYX
This is a brand I have seen for years actually but never tried. I heard about it via MakeupByAlli and also emilynoel83. It can be found at Ulta stores and also online here. It's a pretty decent brand from what I have tried so far and the prices are pretty decent. I think the most I've paid for what I've used so far from them was around $6-$8.

NYX HD Studio Foundation & Concealer: First off the bat, pretty decent product. I have issues with extremely red and patchy skin coloring sometimes so I personally will gravitate to products that will issue full coverage. This is a pretty decent product; it goes on smooth and creamy and I like the texture of the product on my face. There is no caking on my cheeks and the concealer covers really well under the eye and around any redness near the nose and cheek area.

NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat Powder: WOW! Great powder! It goes on smooth and finishes nicely over the HD Studio products mentioned above. It provides really good coverage and hides the little blemishes that I am always trying to hide. It's really great to use with different foundations I've noticed as well. It provides that matte finish that most people are looking for and I haven't noticed any of my makeup fade through the day. And as a heavy sweater this is a good product to keep my face shine free!

NYX Shine Killer: I was SO excited about this product. I used it as a replacement for Bare Minerals primer product that I have used for several years. In this whole quest for drug store finds I found this one among the NYX items and decided to give it a go. I was SO sad and disappointed in this product. It went on well but didn't provide any pore reduction and primer for my foundation/powder. When I used the product and then began to sweat or work through the day, I found that my makeup didn't last very well. Basically the primer was useless. Maybe it will work on someone else and I have weird skin and it didn't work for me; not sure. But either way, this was a dud :(

NYX Lip Liner in Dolly Pink: This is a great pencil liner to line lips or to fill in and use a clear gloss on top. Or you can pair this with any lipstick or gloss that matches the pencil liner you have. It's a great product and I think at Ulta it was $3--for a pencil this is pretty good. I know that I've at times paid about $15 for lip pencils at MAC and while they were really good, this one is pretty good as well. Doesn't have the staying power like MAC so sometimes wearing it alone may cause it to come off--if you don't mind reapplying a little bit then this is a great bargain.

NYX Mega Shine Lip Gloss in Chandelier: These mega shine lip glosses are really great. What I noticed first is that they have a lot of pigmentation and a ton of glitter. I love glitter and I love lip gloss so this is great for me. They do have other glosses in this line without glitter and they have a lot of color options. It lasts pretty much the whole day but I apply sometimes in the middle to have extra gloss and glitter on my lips. They also SMELL amazing. It's weird. But if you get it, smell it because it's fantastic!

Coming in a day or so, Elf products haul + review and other drug store brands!

#LifeWithWife at the drugstore!

Ok, here's the problem. I am obsessed with makeup. I don't just like having makeup, I J'DORE make up! I LIVE for makeup. Well not really, because I love Jesus and all and I also like having my rent paid. But if I could ever just spend all my money on one thing it would be makeup. Let's face it (hahaha, get it? ok bad joke), makeup makes women feel transformed in a way that nothing else really can. Sure you can buy new shoes or a purse (which I also happen to adore by the way and would also love to waste millions of $$ on Coach bags), but there is something about makeup that just makes me feel...goooooodddddddddddd. It's incredible. It's like legal crack. Next to caffeine and coffee.

So a few weeks ago, I was piddling around on YouTube when I stumbled across this channel and I swear to God I almost had a heartattack in the bedroom. This woman (@emilynoel83) is just making videos of makeup...and not just ANY makeup, but DRUGSTORE makeup. Now. I consider myself to be quite the makeup snob. I have all MAC brushes, lipsticks, eye shadows, mascara, the works. I do have a few bareMminerals products that made its way into my collection just because of how much glitter they had. But on the whole? I was a MAC whore. So of course, my snobbish rudeness begins to think "pfft, drug store makeup?? whatever..." Then I'm all, ok now I wanna know what she can do. So watch the video. And then another. And another. AND ANOTHER! Until I've watched her videos for almost 2.full.hours. It was insane. She was SO GOOD! Then I kept finding more and more video's until I finally decided I had had enough of this INSANITY and promptly went to Ulta, Walgreens, and Rite Aid to try this nonsense out for my own judgement. What has resulted??? A love of drugstore makeup. I will say that after wearing high-priced brands on my face as far as foundation and powder it has broken my face out a little bit but not enough to slow me down. And even if I can't wear drug store foundation, I can still wear everything else. And all under a budget! Most of these things are like $3. HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG FOR $3? Well maybe you can, if you get one of those weird Cantina Bowls from Taco Bell (I'm sorry, I'm all for Taco Bell but seriously, I saw someone eat the Cantina Bowl and just..ew..it was just....whatever). Below are some photos I've taken of my new drug store passion. And I'll be doing some more blogging I think on products that are AWESOME and some that are just eh, and some that I think are not so great. Stay posted. This may turn into a beauty channel! ;-) #YouAreBeautiful

#LifeWithWife in 50 Shades...

I so incredibly know how much this is going to annoy people and make them angry and question how in the world I could be Christian.....so of course, this is going to be fun and make writing it a HELL of a lot easier. 


{reminder: don't be pissed at me if you read and are cranky, you've definitely been aptly warned}


Sooooo........the most CRAZY/talked about/debated out book series came out and of course flew off the shelves and has had people buzzing about it left and right. When it first came out, I didn't even hear about it until I started reading about it on FB. People were on fire, either for it or against it. And there seemed to be nothing in the middle. So of course, naturally curious, I wikipedia'd this book to read about what was going on. Wikipedia told me that basically this book is about a man and a woman who meet and have this intensely INSANE relationship w/ one another and are all in this crazy bondage type relationship and they have rough sex and use whips and handcuffs and its all.just.kinky.insaneness. My first thought was "Who in the hell writes a book like this?" and THEN! I find out its a woman. How does a woman do this to another woman (regardless of the fact she's fictional...but still I mean...damn!) I didn't get it. I figure, eh, its a little too risque even for me so I'll sit that one out and take up the next great book series that pops up my way....


Bryan and I get married shortly after this and everything is a whirlwind of course. We depart for our honeymoon and I'm saddened to know that I now have nothing to read while enjoying my time in the sun (and by sun i mean under an umbrella w/ SPF 5000 on my pasty white body). Then we get to the honeymoon and we realize, we're so freaking tired it doesn't really matter AT.ALL. if we have a book or not.......we just want to nap. So nap we do all day every day. On the cruise however, I was thrust into the 50 shades debate yet again. There were 2 girls at our dining room table, 1 who just had money and never had to work and the other a librarian. Both tuned into the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon and were both incredibly in love with the book. So I asked them point blank "is it as racy as they say it is?". Both looked at me with awe because I had just admitted that I was not reading the book. To them, it seems like such a tragedy. So they tell me pointedly, "you've got to read the book because its just not what it seems". Man! How could I resist that?!?!?!?! So we get back from our scorching Bahamian vacation and I tell my new husband of 5 minutes "hey baby, I totally wanna read 50 Shades now...will you be mad?" He surprisingly tells me "no I wont be mad, read whatever you want to read and if you don't like it then don't read it anymore" and then proceeds to DOWNLOAD THE BOOK FOR ME.....pretty bitchin' husband I'd say. So armed with my new giant phablet (that's #NerdSpeak for my giant phone that mirror's a tablet) and read away. I'm instantly drawn in the story of this guy and this girl, one of whom has serious problems and go from there.


I'm not ashamed in the least to admit that I was hooked. I wasn't hooked to the fact that there was a ton of sex (because if you're not into that kind of thing, please don't pick up the book, every 5 pages they are going at it like wild monkeys).....(and seriously? a sn here: who the HELL can survive doodling like wild monkeys like that? I mean really, I'd like to know b/c its just....nuts.) But the STORY? FABULOUS. I mean really fabulous. I guess because I'm in grad school for counseling, I can spot this guys issue a mile away from the beginning of the story...he's got issues with women and has these type of relationships because something tragic and horrible happened to him as a kid. I mean, the writing was on the wall. Of course, I was now obscenely hooked on the book and thus began to tell my husband all about it. He became intrigued, constantly asking what was going on now and where I was at in the book and then we'd discuss it because he was genuinely interested in my ideas about this tortured soul whom you find out (and forgive the spoiler) that he's been tortured as a child by a crack addicted mother and her sadistic baby torturing pimp. 


One day, I came across these articlesBlog #1...Blog #2...and best of all Blog #3. So...first off I want to start by saying that I greatly appreciate all these blogs. Regardless of what they say, how they say it, etc... I think these women are great. They have kids, they have husbands, they write, they live their dream each day. I think that's amazing. They have strong convictions about what they think/feel and they have the courage to stand up for their beliefs. I think my issue with what I read was the fact that I'm SO incredibly (and annoyingly sometimes, at least to myself) comfortable in straddling the fence on so many different issues. I have a unique background and an extremely analytic mind (thanks History degree!) and I just can't ever take a "right" postion or a "left" position on any issue. Par example! Zimmerman? He's a total racist. Malcom X? People hail that guy as a freaking hero to the African American culture and he's a COMPLETE. RACIST. See what I mean? I'm a total fence straddler. tee-hee. So, when I see women writing about a book they've never read and are telling me why they won't read it, I kind of get annoyed. How can you judge a book by just what you read up on it? And how can you judge a book by what other CHRISTIANS say about it. I heard once that Christians hurt themselves the most by having too much Christian in their life; how can you teach people who are lost if all your friends are Christian? So if you are saying "oh I'm not reading this book because it's 'un-Christian'" That probably means that you heard it was "bad" from other Christians. *sigh* So, what does that mean about this book or life in general? Well, probably nothing. But I think when you don't know anything about it, you can't say anything about it. Now, I did in the beginning sort of judge the book by what I read about it online. But sadly, there were NO summaries of the book that included anything about the actual story; just that it's classified as "erotic fiction" and its about a dominant/submissive-type relationship and bla bla bla there's a lot of sex. Personally? Having read book 1 & 2 and currently on book 3, I wouldn't classify that as erotic fiction just b/c.....I wouldn't. I mean, sure there's a crap ton of sex in there but who cares? The thing about it is, this guy made bad decisions before he met the girl in the book. So he has a past. WHO DOESN'T??? Unless you're perfect, in which case I'm sure God would love to meet you as He Himself is also perfect. I mean, he doesn't continue that type of relationship with the girl character in the book. They have a MONOGAMOUS relationship with one another. And quite frankly, lets admit that sometimes people in relationships with one another do some weird crap. Some people like toys, some people like oils, some people like role-playing. Who cares? What's behind closed doors is behind closed doors. NOW! I understand that most people are all "well they aren't married and they are doodling still". Well. I mean I'd be hypocrite to say that I don't think that's a good idea because I don't frankly subscribe to that sort of lifestyle. I have a past (as most EVERYONE) does, and that means I've had sex outside my new marriage. 90% of people who are married today have. If you want to wait to have sex with your husband and remain a virgin then I certainly applaud you because it's not easy to do. It's really not. Do I wish I could have come into my marriage pure? Sometimes yes. But I can't change the past; and I choose not to dwell in it. So if you don't believe in that, then by all means don't read it. But I'll say this, it takes a strong man to download the books for his wife that he's been married to for only a month. 


I understand the Biblical principles surround the controversy. And people certainly have a right to feel that way. But why shouldn't it be ok for Christians to read what they want. It's a great book, and not just because there's sex in it. Most of the time, I get annoyed when every 5 pages I read about them having sex. A lot of times, I end up skipping it because I want to know the STORY behind what's going on. That's just me; and people who get aroused by reading it are just having a reaction; and whether its good/bad/otherwise shouldn't be judged. Christians aren't supposed to be JUDGING ONE ANOTHER. 


In other news, apparently Channing Tatum said he'd do the movie if his wife could be the lead in it with him because he didn't feel comfortable acting with another woman like that that wasn't his wife. Way to stand up for marriages Channing. Makes us love you even more!


Channing Tatum article

#LifeWithWife and Christianity

Before I start this post....I'm going to give you a warning. I'm EXTREMELY to the point and direct...blunt is a good word. I tell it like it is. If you are easily offended I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to turn away from this post and this blog and its entirety. Like ENTIRE. WEBSITE. I say what I say because frankly, I can and I have that right but its also an opinion. SouthPark of all shows said it best. "Whatever, Whatever, I do what I want." Tracey also encourages us to remember "Whate'er.......just whate'er." So here we go, doing what I want. 


{sn: you've been warned so if you get offended be mad at yourself, not me}

OK! so today I came across this article on someone else's blog who like me, is a wife and a woman and can say whatever she wants to say because she can do whate'er. The title of the article was called Magic Mike Who? and it was her take on what she thought of the movie and what it means to society and how it distorts good Christian views of good Christian men. *whew* that's a lot to tackle in a blog post but I'll admit, it was done fairly decently. The one point I would absolutely 100% agree with hands-down is the fact that if the situation was reversed and it was men who were going on "guy's night out" to watch a movie about women stripping to their panties, the wives would be LESS than thrilled about the scenario. But honestly? Women have a double standard. Whether any woman wants to ever admit it or not, we find it ok to see a movie about a man stripping and dancing but if my husband wanted to go see a movie about a woman stripping the answer would be not only "HELL naw" but "have you lost your damn mind??". I'll admit, when the preview came out, I was intrigued. I mean come on. This CHANNING.TATUM. we're talking about here. Do you see the image above? He's gorgeous. I'll admit, he's one of my movie star crushes. And my husband has admitted to me that Channing Tatum is a decent looking dude. Although he also admitted that his man crush is Robert Irvine because he's such a badass ;-)


OK! So Channing Tatum is a stripper. Clearly from the photo above, this is not hard to believe. But seriously, who cares? Ok so they made a movie about it. They also made Showgirls and Striptease too. This is the first woman focused movie about strippers. I know that women were up in arms about it b/c I remember watching it on the news as a kid. Let's face it people, there is an ENTIRE society of women and men who are strippers for a living. Is it the most honorable and glorified job to have? Certainly not. I can't imagine little girls and boys running around the playground at camp shouting "I wanna be a stripper when I grow up". What people fail to realize is that strippers do it because they have no other real option. Or if they do have other options, they feel as though they don't because they are so psychologically and physically broken inside that they can't function and are disparately seeking attention the only way they know how. People who criticize this kind of stuff have NO (read ZERO) idea what its like to be abused and hated on by someone who's supposed to love you. Yes, in the ideal world women should be cherished by amazing men. But the reality of life is that, that shit doesn't always happen. Prime Example: a young girl, from a middle class family, grows up with loving parents who support her musical talents and gifts and give her an amazing life. She hooks up with a boy in highschool who is bad news and she winds up in a horrible 9-year abusive relationship with this man who constantly cheats on her, hits her, and tells her she is no good. This girl could be the one you are now so carelessly judging. 


I've gotten concerned and frankly disgusted at the way that some people who shout the Bible from the rooftops have acted. I mean, I'm a Christian. I believe in God and that Jesus died for my sins. I follow Biblical principles in my marriage. I believe that my husband is the head of my household but I don't believe that means that he is the dictator of it. We're equal. Eve was created from Adam's rib for crying out loud. She's apart of him. Flesh from flesh and bone from bone. There are things that men do better than women and vice versa. What's wrong with a little gender equality while still being apart of a Biblical marriage. Or as my husband likes to say "a Bible-y marriage". I think its awesome to finally have a man who cares about my opinion. Does this make him LESS of a Christian husband? Nay, I say. 


I know that some people that will read this will wonder how exactly I can call myself a Christian. I guess because I'm so "bold and brassy" (two extremely judgmental words used by a Pastor of a local church during my pre-martial counseling and yet had no idea that not only was my husband adopted but that he in fact had an older brother). What scares me the most is that people are afraid of me and yet not afraid of those who use the Bible to brainwash people into thinking that what they say is the ultimate truth about God's word and his teachings. I learned the hard way, read the Bible yourself after ever sermon. Read what the pastor spoke about and the verses he/she referenced. I learned the hard way that I was taking what these people were telling me in church as factual truth. I know that they probably didn't do this on purpose. They perhaps sincerely want to educate others about God and the Bible and becoming a Christian. Which is of course a worthy cause. But berating them, not caring about them, not listening to them, and other things will get churches into trouble one day and will be a problem for those who are truly lost and need guidance. The point isn't to drive people away from God, the people who are lost need God NOW. 


I guess I have a deep seeded feeling for this because I am in fact, mercy driven. Having the spiritual gift of mercy in the church means that I have compassion for others and a deep empathy for those around me. It also means that I am easily offended because mercy in the natural world to me means "you're extra sensitive". As if being a woman isn't enough, I'm blessed with mercy talents and extra emotions. So I can cry at the drop of a dime, or I can cuss you out. Either way, its emotional and dramatic. Would I change it? Hell no. It's the way I am. And I love it.


Stay tuned......my blog post about the Fifty Shades of Grey book series is coming up next!