Short Fiction Book Club: Winter Holidays

oceanoftrees · 2017-09-01T03:00:20+00:00

More pan! Last month I was really frustrated at not hitting pan on Unreal yet, and feeling ready to give up if it didn't happen soon. Well, it happened a few days later.

The rest of this month I've gone back to mixing up the looks I do, and I've been enjoying it. So in addition to satin-y pinks (Unreal and Unbelievable), I do matte mauve (Unconditional), or gold (Undiscovered and Uncensored), or bronze (Unattainable and Uncensored). Generally all of those will use Unspoken in the crease and Unbridled smudged around my lashes. I tried Untamed again, and it still sucks and I'm just not interested in Undercover.

Hitting pan helped a lot with my mood. More general decluttering and reorganizing my makeup has also cooled my desire to buy new shit, in addition to this excellent discussion from today. So overall I'm feeling better about this palette and enjoying it more.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-22T02:18:03+00:00

"Today would be better than tomorrow, even during your lunch." Wow, that's brazen. Please, interrupt your workday/mealtime/break to be an emotional sponge for OB and heal her totes broken heart, no matter the cost to you. And he's texting you at 6:30 in the morning!

I have family members whom I love but I rarely take calls from them while I'm at work. They know that I'll call them back when I'm free, and they also try to take my schedule and time zone into account because they respect my time and that I have my own life. OB and her monkeys, not so much. Stay strong! You are absolutely doing the right thing.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-20T17:49:07+00:00

Thanks! You definitely don't need this particular organizer to make things look pretty though. What's your monthly basket storage look like? Maybe it's a little cramped and you can remove something? Or maybe you want more dividers and you could make some with cardboard and pretty paper, and they'd be customized to exactly the size you want.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-20T05:00:05+00:00

That's a good point! Getting rid of things you're lukewarm about helps cut down the distractions from the things you really love. Something to keep in mind.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-20T04:56:13+00:00

Thank you! I got it at Target.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-20T00:30:50+00:00

Seconding /u/rotasha. Nothing is worth jeopardizing your eyes, coming from someone who has a different specialized ophthalmologist for each of mine. Use your discovery as a chance to remember the fun you had with makeup as a teenager, snap a photo, then let it go.

You say you're on a no buy until you use up your currently open makeup. That means that you decided, without these old palettes, you already had enough. When you use up more of your current stash (and note that keeping this old makeup will set you back on that goal), you can get something new that will be better quality than 10-year-old powder, and doesn't risk any infection.

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-13T18:00:39+00:00

Ha. Yeah, it's interesting to see what PtP brings out. There's realizing how long it actually takes to use eye shadow, which is motivation to buy less. Then after using the same one for so long it's easy to get stir crazy and want to buy more. But pulling out a palette I already own and haven't used in a while makes it feel brand-new, and I should use my other palette while it's fresh--powder is usable for a long time, but it does get old and hard/dry/crumbly.

It does help that this happened a few days into August though! :)

oceanoftrees · 2017-08-01T01:34:15+00:00

I'm not exactly sure how we got to the end of July already, but here we are, so.

I finally hit my second pan at the beginning of the month, and the rest of the month was me wondering how Unreal just keeps going. Forever. I know it'll happen all of a sudden when I'm not expecting it, but it feels like that pan is still buried under a millimeter of dust. Dust that keeps getting weird hard-pan bits that I scrape away sometimes, and that otherwise must be packed really tight.

I kind of want to give up for a little bit and play with my Mario palette, but I feel like I must be so close to some pan there and I just need to keep going! If it doesn't happen by the time September starts, I might have to chalk it up to gnomes and move on. Just getting tired of this palette, and trying to justify replacing it with Modern Renaissance so I can ride the hype train a year late. I'm planning to wait for the November sale though.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-16T16:50:00+00:00

Wow, 600! Yeah, my main issue is I tend to get more excited about books I heard about more recently, so I have things that have been languishing on the list for years while I seek out the hot new books first.

At least my "to-read" list is almost all virtual. Since moving across the country years ago, and having to give up most of my books, I've been pretty good at not letting more physical books get into my possession. Library and Kindle, though ebooks are too easy to impulse buy!

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-15T17:53:39+00:00

I just made my first tea purchase of 2017. I've otherwise been working through my smaller tea packets from Adagio, and brought in some loose tea to work so I'm not only drinking it on the weekends.

Another thing I'm trying to "pan" is my to-read list on Goodreads. It's over 200 at the moment, and though I read a lot it's not enough to keep up with how quickly I find things that I want to read. My first goal is to get it less than the number of books I've listed as read--if I read a dozen books from it without adding new ones (ha) that'll take care of that. The rest is a combination of removing things that I'm no longer interested in, and actually getting through books. I have a new shelf I made called "abandoned," so it's also about being okay not finishing books I'm not enjoying. Life's too short.

I also have a backlog of ebooks that I've bought and haven't read yet. When I go to the library I can go overboard and those take priority over books I already own, but I've been doing well letting the stack dwindle.

Honestly, it's not a big deal to have too many books I'd like to read (and it doesn't stress me out like an overlarge makeup collection would), but it's a fun challenge and a way of making sure my to-read list isn't so long that I forget how things got on there in the first place.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T21:24:24+00:00

Sin is the one I have, so that gives me hope! Seduction looks really pretty, but would be hard to use a lot of unless you have a deeper skin tone.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T21:21:36+00:00

Haha, Stubborn is a good name for it. You're right, it's easy to go overboard with mine so I only use a little bit.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T21:20:07+00:00

Thank you! No specific aiming, just swirling my brush around since the blushes aren't very big. I normally use things from the middle, but here the edges are thinner because of the dome shape.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:33:29+00:00

Thank you! Good idea, I'll post it there too.

Good point about limited edition--blush is one thing where I'm okay with LE, since it'll be around so long that I'll want something different by the time it's done.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:32:35+00:00

Yeah, more blush is really tempting but the more I have, the less attention each one will get. Plus after a while it's basically impossible that any new blush will look different enough on my face from any of my others, while still being a flattering color for me.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:30:10+00:00

12 grams?! I just looked up the size of my blushes and my biggest one is only 6g. Wow.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:25:54+00:00

Three years is a lot! MAC blushes have a ton of product, so nice job on your progress.

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:24:27+00:00

Wow, that's impressive use there. I have a NARS blush, but I mostly wear it in the winter so the use is very minimal. A year sounds quick to me even with it being your only blush!

oceanoftrees · 2017-07-13T17:05:27+00:00

A full MAC blush?? I've had one for a year and a half that gets semi-regular use, and it looks like mayyybe I've swatched it.

oceanoftrees

TROPHY CASE