A Show to Remember

   Our homeschool group's variety show was on Friday. We had a rehearsal on Thursday, which was less than fabulous, compared to other rehearsals we've had. I mean we practiced, but one of the main characters in the play couldn't be there until 2:30 and I had to leave at 3:00 for my drivers test. I don't feel like we practiced as much as we could've, but with the time constraints and people leaving, we did the best we could.
   On Friday, we got there early at 2:15 so I could do Sunshine's makeup. Practice started at 2:30, and we're never really prompt, so I had plenty of time to do her makeup and fix someone else's hair. It was a decently productive start to the day of practicing, rehearsing and getting our act together. We had a long day ahead of ourselves.
   We started practice and it went pretty well. Typically, we have a very solid practice were we run through the program a few times. This time, we had a what I could only call a very loose practice. I've never seen anything so informal at our homeschool group when it comes to a last minute practice. It felt rushed and unprepared, as if we were all running around tying up loose end that should've been covered months ago.
   Even without all the practice we usually have, it still went really well. The first part of the program was our variety show, where a collection of students who are inclined to perform sing, dance, and even do stand-up comedy. We can be an eclectic bunch at times, but it's a show that's worth attending.
   I sang Mary, Did You Know?. I've definitely enjoyed other performances more, but I don't feel it went as bad as it could've. I messed up the lyrics and I didn't strum the right chords at times. I was really nervous about it, and that probably contributed.
   What I really feel pushed me out of my comfort zone was the stand-up comedy act that was right before mine. One of the other students bet the comedian (if you could even call him that) a dollar that he wouldn't do a special, never-before-heard piece about my song. Something about Mary having 'annual amnesia' or something. Well, just let me say that he walked out of there with an additional dollar in his pocket.
   I was really nervous walking into my song to begin with, and that was enough to totally throw me off any sort of confidence I had. I felt like dying would be a better option that going up on stage, but due to a lack of suicide weapons, a shortage of time and my friends sitting all around me, I went up anyway.
   Aside from that event, the rest of the show went pretty well. Several of my friends and I had a kazoo choir. We performed Carol of the Bells. I'm sure it was the best rendition anyone has ever done on kazoo. That's mostly because I don't believe many people have actually performed Carol of the Bells on kazoo before.
   Two of my best friends sang It Is Well With My Soul together and it was utterly stunning. My best friend does not like to be on stage, and so for her to be singing on stage is a very brave thing for her to do, and a rare treat for the audience. Her younger sister is another great friend of mine, and her singing is fabulous as well. I have such talented friends. :) 
   The little kids sang a cute little song about patience. Some of the younger girls did an amazing dance directed by one of my friends. It was great. I kind of hate to say it, but I really think their dance topped every one we ever did when I was a kid. It was part dance, part gymnastics and part art. It was great.
   There were some other great acts, but for now I'm going to write about our drama. It went pretty well. Part of it, we had to improvise because we skipped a page. But what we lack in line memorization, we make up for in improv.
   I felt like our projection was good and it went really well. After the drama, we all went on stage and sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I was supposed to help start it off, but the other girl who was supposed to be helping started to early and too high. No one could really tell though.
   Afterwards we had snacks. They were pretty good, though I only ate brownies. After that, some of my friends had an arm wrestling (cough cough...competitive handholding...cough cough) competition. The real rankings were established. I don't arm wrestle. It's just stupid to me, but my brother and some of my friends do it like every other week. It can get pretty intense at times, believe it or not.
   After all that was over, I found a broken rubber band and one of my friends and I managed to slingshot a pencil almost the entire way across the sanctuary. After we had done that a few times, we turned it into a game were we'd race to see who would get it to whatever we shot, first. It was a very fun game.
   We eventually lost the pencil somehow. You would think you could find a pencil on the floor, but we could not. Then we found a dime. As you could probably guess, we lost that too. Then we managed to break the rubber band to top it all off.
   Fortunately, we were in luck, cause one of the younger girls had a animal balloon kit. (You just can't make some of these things up.) We took one of the balloons and used that as the slingshot. It was harder to shoot things with a balloon than a rubber band, but we made it work.
   I found another pencil and my dad gave us another dime. We played until we had pretty much lost everything and we had to leave. I totally would've won if we hadn't lost the pencil and thirty cents. It was still enjoyable though.
   Coming into the performance, I was ready for the semester to be over. Now that it's over, I really wish we were going back next week. It went surprisingly fast. At the time, it didn't seem like it was slipping by so quickly, but now it hardly feels like we ever went for more than a day or two. I'm already excited for next year. :)

As We Wait

   I'm currently watching the election coverage. Dude, this is stressful. We all have our opinion on the election, and now it's here. It's finally happening. We're here! How did we survive the last few months? Can our new president be worse than Obama? Gosh, I hope not.
   Everything these last few days has been election, election, election. Everything in the coming days is going to be the same old song and dance, just with trying to repeal the winner. But I didn't come here to rant about the election, I came here to give you something else to think about.
   I am growing addicted to matte lipsticks! I got a few tubes from work that were free (the tubes were damaged) and I was using them. I was never fond of that 'my lips are as dry and wrinkly as a old woman in the Sahara' feel, but the ones I was using weren't as bad as I remembered. I recently purchased my first tube and I love it. It's a Milani one. It's decently long lasting. It holds well to wear around, but after you eat, you need to reapply. Not too much of a hassle.
   I've gotten back into playing spider solitaire. I love that game! I used to play it frequently when I was younger, but I quickly snapped the habit after our old computer died. One of my friends plays spider solitaire, which is cool, cause I like her, and I also like spider solitaire.
   One of my favorite coworkers is moving to South Carolina, so that's a bummer. She's a super sweet lady, and I'll miss having her around. On the bright side, I'll probably get her section, which sounds like an interesting task. It'll be cool cause she has the candy/cookie section. Yum!
   I'm currently reliving my favorite VeggieTales Silly Songs. My favorite one is Pizza Angel. It's the best one ever. I want to sing it for my homeschool group variety show. We'll see. Here's a link to Pizza Angel. You're welcome. :)

Random Thoughts

• Tomorrow, I have work. I'll be in the cleaning room as backup register. After the store closes, I'm going to be learning how to work the floor scrubber. I think it will be fun (at least I'm seriously hoping).
• I did my makeup earlier today. It was really fun, and turned out well. My eyeliner had a perfect wing, which made me very happy. My foundation turned out a little cakey, unfortunately. While I love my stippling brush, I haven't really figured it out as much as I'd like.
• I'm currently rereading the Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children books again. I love those books. :)
• I am so excited for the movie adaption to come out, but at the same time I am dreading it. Just from the previews and what I've read about it, I can already tell the movie and book differ vastly. Tim Burton is a good director, but I don't think he should be making this movie. Oh well. It's coming out on Friday regardless of my opinions.
• Speaking of Tim Burton movies, I watched Edward Scissorhands recently. Quite honestly, it was not what I was expecting at all, but yet, it was pretty good as it is. I was expecting someone to lose a body part or at the very least be stabbed, but no. Hardly gory. It was a pretty good romance movie though.
• This fall, I want to try a pumpkin spice latte. Yes, I know they're toxic and whatever, but I still want one. Just to say I had one. I don't even like pumpkin, but I do like lattes.
• I'm writing this blog post instead of doing math, which is what I should be doing. Well, now that I have a decent post, I guess I should do math so I can graduate and all that fun stuff. :) Have a great evening.

7 Things I've Been Loving This Week!

I know I typically do the 7 Things on a Tuesday, but I was out of post ideas, so here we are. Tuesday's kind of a stupid day to do these things anyway. For those of you who don't know why I typically do them on Tuesdays, I did it then because 7 Things was a replacement for 20 Things Tuesday. How about that?


1: We started school on Monday, so that's been awesome.

2: I'm using Notgrass History this year (for the first time), and I really like it. It combines English (literature based), History and Bible all in one curriculum.

3: My cousin, who's seven years my junior, came over the last two days. It's been nice to see her again. We babysat her all the time when she was little, but since she started school, we see her a lot less.

4: I love makeup, as you all know, and my cousin loves it too. It's nice, to share something you love with someone else who loves it as well, especially since most of my friends aren't as big into makeup as I am.

5: Speaking of makeup, I got a new powder foundation, which blends into my skin perfectly. I am quite happy with it. My mom even liked it, which is saying something, considering most of my makeup breakthroughs are hardly interesting to her.

6: The summer reading program at our library has been great for me this year. I've already read 65 hours, and I still have one more day until it's over.

7: My grandma had a yard sale last weekend, and it was a great success. It was fun to do. I was the person who tallied everyone's total earnings in our notebook. I think I did well, considering I do a lot of my math in my head.

Makeup Advice

   I love makeup. I've been wearing it for what seems like forever (even though it's only been a few years), and I enjoy applying it. I read a ton makeup articles, and I find a decent amount of it interesting information. Some of it, I find is terrible advice.
   Makeup is a subjective art, and there's sooooo many contradicting pieces of information. Some people don't believe you should wear it, and some people wouldn't leave the house without it. It's really all in how you were raised, what's available to you, and your personal taste.
   My best friend is into wearing more natural looking makeup. She doesn't wear anything heavy, just enough to suit her personal preferences. That's great. While her definition of 'heavy' makeup is my definition of a light 'we have to leave in two minutes' look, it suits her just fine. We're complete opposites in that way (and most every other way too, but that's another topic for another post.)
   Personal taste varies incredibly. Even my mom and I have different tastes and routines. She does her makeup the same way every morning. I do mine different every day. She also does her makeup every morning, no matter what we're doing that day. I do mine whenever, without any sort of routine.
   Another thing about makeup advice, is that everyone has a different base skill level with applying makeup. Some person's idea of an 'easy mascara trick' is another's 'I just stabbed myself in the eye with a lash comb, we need to go to the emergency room' disaster. I also find it cool to observe the differences in advice, especially with popular things, like winged eyeliner and contouring.
   There's so many variables in makeup, including the time allowance people spend on makeup. Some will do a full contour and still leave time to bake their face. Others will spend five minutes on shadow, mascara and concealer and head out the door. Time's a big factor in makeup. I know I could spend hours doing my face, but I also could get away with doing 5 minutes, depending on my mood, and how much time I can spend.
   My point is, there's a crap load of bad makeup tips and advice. My advice to you, is to find what you like, and go with that. Not every makeup idea needs to come from Pinterest or an article. I'm not saying those things are bad, I'm saying that they shouldn't be the final say in what you do. Makeup should be fun, not a burden. So forget what you think you 'need' to do, and have fun with your makeup.