Ipsy Glambag - November, 2015 "Beauty Blast" - Opening

My second Ipsy Bag arrived the Friday before Thanksgiving, and needless to say, I was beyond excited for this one.  I’m getting to where receiving this small bag of makeup is a monthly highlight.  Even though I peeked online to see what I was getting, and trust me, when I saw the Smashbox item it was hard not to cheer out loud, I was still almost drooling when I received the bright metallic pink mailing envelope.  So, let’s see what’s inside!




The card this month: “Beauty Blast.”  The caption on the back:  “The stars are aligning, your November Glam Bag is a universe of brilliant beauties. Twinkle, twinkle, darling.  It’s time to light up the sky.”

A Make-up Routine

My wonderful husband has asked me to write another blog.  Of course I said yes.  (Well…after he asked me a few times….)  At first I didn’t know what to write about.  Then it hit me.  I remember last week when I took my daughter into college with us.  I sat on the front row and my daughter, C.J. sat in the seat next to me.  A lady a few seats over said, “So, you brought you’re little sister to class with you?”

Of course I smiled while my daughter looked at her like she just hit her and said, “No, she’s my mom!”

The lady’s mouth opened and she said, “Are you kidding me?”

The Ominousness of Death

The light of today is a bit dimmer this time around as a particular light switch in my life has been turned off.  My future though, still approaches at a frantic pace, so to the future my eyes will remain.  But never think for a moment that I did not notice the flicker and the diminished brightness of my life.  Goodbye, mom, and may your soul rest in peace now that it no longer has to hold up the pain that the end of your life showed you.

--

Ipsy Bag - October, 2015 "Alter Ego" - Opening

After watching many videos about a few different subscription boxes, I finally took the plunge and went with the Ipsy Glam Bag (If you sign up, be sure to tell'm LisaBonser sent you!).  And my first bag came!  I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally open my first Ipsy bag!

First off, the package is a bright pink bubble packet.  Normally I don’t like pink, but the fact that it is more metallic makes it quite pretty.

Ipsy, itself, is a $10.00 a month subscription bag that has makeup, skin care, nail polish, and tons more.  This is the October, 2015 bag.  I went with this bag because of the many YouTube videos of women unboxing theirs live.  Since I’m a writer, I chose to do it this way.  Anyways, let’s open this thing up and see what I got!

My Shame

Have you ever had one of those life events that just opens up some crazy can of worms that has to change everything?  Ever have to tell one of those stories where you don’t know where you should even start?  A story where even the beginning is a poor choice?  Let me try to start it, even though, no matter where I start it, it loses the point.  Ugh….

Recently, my mother passed away.  As with most parental passings it caused quite a bit of emotional discharge from those closest.  And with all emotional discharge comes the things that you just cannot explain.  The problem with starting the story here is that the issues started months before her passing, it started with her getting sick.

Common Core for Dummies

For my English Comp 2 class, I chose Common Core for one of the two major research papers.  This paper was actually pretty fun to research, because it was about education in Oklahoma.  I already knew, after moving here and seeing the step-daughter's school system is one of the worst school systems I have ever personally seen....

The fact is, Oklahoma ranks extremely low in its education and it shows.  If something isn't done to fix this runaway state government, we'll find that Oklahoma will be dragging the entire state down into the abyss of uneducation....  Anyways, here's the research paper, hope you enjoy it!

I've Never Said I Was a Hero

Many times on my blog, including the future, I’ve written about the villains in my life.  I’ve had many, many people do me wrong over the years, or simply be evil people.  Every time I think I see one that is the winner, someone else shows up to take the cake.  From the drugged up woman whom I used to live next to that berated her children in public, to the mother-in-law, to my own dad, I’ve seen a ton of people do truly bullshit things to people or even to me.

But I’m here to say that I’m not immune to the evils.  In fact, I’ve never claimed to be a hero, I’ve been a villain in many a person’s story.  How could I be human and not be?  But in the end, I have to live the best life I can, and sometimes that means stepping on toes.

Net Neutrality and Academia

There's no ifs-ans-or butts about it, Net Neutrality is a huge issue that changes weekly.  For my English 2 class, I wrote this paper as the first of two major Research Papers due over the Semester.  Honestly, it was probably the most fun research paper I've ever done.

Why?  Mainly because I didn't honestly know that much about Net Neutrality and I've found that most people don't.  Over the course of the research, I found many amazing websites that broke it down in amazing ways.  I found writing this paper the most informative thing I've ever done about any form of issue.  I hope you enjoy it!

My Own Search for Happiness

There’s something beautiful to me about stories where some guy goes on some kind of elaborate journey to find happiness.  I think it reminds me of my own journey.  I know at the beginning of it all I felt like it was going to be some epic thing….

My journey started with a simple concept.  Well…I say it was simple.  It all started with the search for love, who I am, what happiness was, and the escape from the madness that dwelled within me from being stuck in the dead end of dead ends.  At 21, I had already had two crazy brushes with love and one relationship where it was obvious that nothing was going to work out.  The pieces of my heart were not going to pick themselves up by themselves and nothing was ever going to be picked up within the confines of the life I was living.  So, I set off….

After a Year of College

College life, when pushing forty, is something quite amazing.  Especially going into it married while taking all your classes with your spouse.  I have to admit, my situation is quite a bit more unique than I had planned for.  There are obvious upsides, always having a study partner, getting to spend time with my wife, knowing all the same people….  But the other things, are quite amazing.

First off, my wife and I almost have a cult following at school.  From out councilor holding our relationship as a model for what she wants her future to be, to those that just think we are entirely too cute to being doing it all together.  I mean, sure, it’s one thing to be a cute couple, but we’ve even joke about starting up a Facebook page for those who are fans….  After our first year, we get noticed all over campus, and even off campus.  When we went to the Muskogee Ren Faire, we got noticed more than once out in public.  It was a bit crazy.

The Absense of Creativity in the Classroom is Killing the Future

After interviewing my teacher friend from North Carolina, I realized that most of the data I was writing my research paper on was almost null and void.  Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, there has been a new curriculum introduced, but again, it is being hamstrung by the politicians.  Only time will tell how much has actually changed, but honestly, I doubt much will.

My final paper was turned in on 12/8/14.  Its pretty long, but everyone that read it liked it, and some people who only read part of it wanted to read all of it....  As of right now (as I write this) I honestly don't know what grade I got, or the comments on it.  Hopefully I'll get it back from my teacher when I see her in the hallways.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy my final paper in English 1113.

Proposal for Research Paper

For my third and final major essay, the research paper, I had to write a proposal to write about what I wanted to write about.  The umbrella topic was education, and my first thoughts went to how education is broken in the USA.  From the concept that you cannot have imagination and grow up, to the leeching of fun out of it, to the idea that the entire high school system is based on trying to get people into an industrial plant, its all broken.

So, I thought and thought about how to write this short little thing, hoping it would end up being okay, and apparently it was.  So here it is, the proposal for my research paper:

Go See a Play at the Local Playhouse

My second major essay for English Composition I was the Community Observation paper.  which was turned in on Halloween of 2014.  In this one, we had to go around the local community of Tahlequah, OK and find something to write about.  I chose the NSU Theatre Company, which is the college's theatrical company which has a Playhouse just off campus in downtown Tahlequah.

Even if you are not living in that area, I still suggest you go check out your local theatrical company, they work very hard to put on a great show, and many times raise money for local charities.

I ended up getting a 97 on this one.  I had a few run on sentences.  I actually went back and edited this one a bit after her comments, because I gave it to the NSUTC's coordinator, Dr. Robyn Pursley, whom I interviewed for the paper.  My teacher's comment at the end was, "Good work!  You present engaging material supported with evidence."

How Reading and Writing Showed Me How to Live

As part of my time in college, I took English Composition I and had to write a few essays.  Three of them were a major part of my grade.  The first essay was the Personal Narrative Essay which was turned in on Sept. 10th. 2014.

I ended up getting a 98 out of 100 on it.  The final comment said, "Your essay provides ample everyday imagery and detail to fully address the prompt.  Your ideas are complete and engaging.  Watch out for sentence fragments and grammar."

Anyways, many people wanted to read it for themselves, so here it is, I hope you enjoy it!

Free Write 05

Now that I've gone and aced my English Composition I class I've decided to share some of the selections of writing that I had to do in it.  Every Monday morning we had to pull out a sheet of paper and free write an essay over some subject or another for part of the participation grade.  Of course I didn't put dates on any of them so I don't know in what order they are, or when some of them were, but here is the last one I'm sharing.

Not sure exactly what we were asked to write about on this one, but I obviously wrote about how high school kills the joy of reading and writing, along with a great number of other things.  It was one of the basis's of my final paper.

Free Write 04

Now that I've gone and aced my English Composition I class I've decided to share some of the selections of writing that I had to do in it.  Every Monday morning we had to pull out a sheet of paper and free write an essay over some subject or another for part of the participation grade.  Of course I didn't put dates on any of them so I don't know in what order they are, or when some of them were, but here is the fourth one I'm sharing.

Apparently this particular one was about argumentation.  Every time I think about the word argumentation, this is the gist of what I think about:

Free Write 03

Now that I've gone and aced my English Composition I class I've decided to share some of the selections of writing that I had to do in it.  Every Monday morning we had to pull out a sheet of paper and free write an essay over some subject or another for part of the participation grade.  Here is another one with a date, amazingly enough.  12/1/14.

In this third free write I'm sharing, we were to write about our Thanksgiving.  Man, thanksgiving 2014 was a rough one....  Unfortunately I didn't really have time to make it as long as I wanted to, as so much went crazy...but I did the best I could.  I hope you enjoy this one!

Free Write 02: The Best Place in the World

Now that I've gone and aced my English Composition I class I've decided to share some of the selections of writing that I had to do in it.  Every Monday morning we had to pull out a sheet of paper and free write an essay over some subject or another for part of the participation grade.  This one, I actually had a date on, which I'm surprised by.  10/1/14.  Anyways, here's the second Free Write I'm sharing.

We were asked to write an essay about the best place in the world, more or less.  So here it is, free write number 2.

(poem) - A Dark and Dreary December Day

On a dark and dreary December day
When the cold rain fell from the unseen sky.
I dreamed I wasn’t dreaming darkly
While, in the distance, I heard a crow’s deathly cry.

Veiled by the mists surrounding me
These mists that even time had forgot
I strained with my blinded eyes against it all
Yet in the end, I saw it not.

Free Write 01

Now that I've gone and aced my English Composition I class I've decided to share some of the selections of writing that I had to do in it.  Every Monday morning we had to pull out a sheet of paper and free write an essay over some subject or another for part of the participation grade.  Of course I didn't put dates on any of them so I don't know in what order they are, or when some of them were, but here is the first one I'm sharing.

If I remember correctly, the subject we were writing about was about visual rhetoric and when a picture spoke to you in a certain way...or something like that....  Anyways, the first free write.

The end of 2014, and the beginning of 2015

Another year, come and gone.  Doesn’t seem like its been so many, but I’ve almost witness forty of them.  So many ups and downs; rights, lefts, and wrongs; and everything in between.  The year of 2014 is hard to sum up in words.  It was a roller coaster to say the least.  I took a break from the blog, landed a job, and Lisa and I started working.

But the job never truly panned out.  We could never get enough hours to truly make it worth it, and when we did work, it was completely nuts.  We had a horrible boss and iffy coworkers.  There were many times we both almost quit, but we stuck through it.  Sometime towards summer though, two things changed....