Embracing daily sunshine
“Optimism, by the way, is not a superficial attitude. It’s a very muscular attitude. It’s a bold attitude that says no matter what, I can find a way. I can find the resources to deal with this.”
— Dr. Ned Hallowell
Best-selling author and psychiatrist
Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just annoying or overly self-conscious or annoyingly over self-conscious. It’s very silly to think about but essentially I have a pseudo-stalker, middle school crush-esque relationship with lipstick.
If you show my picture to the cashiers at any CVS or Target and ask if they recognize me, they’d reply “Oh, you mean the girl who lives in the makeup aisle?” without even batting an eye.
It is there where I stare longingly at the gorgeous lipsticks on display, picking up the tubes one by one and fantasizing about the day I’d be cool enough to actually wear them. I’ve always been envious of girls who wear lipstick, admiring their confidence and fashion ferocity. But me? The colors are so beautiful but I’d just look stupid. It was comical to even think I could ever be allowed to graduate from my tinted lip balm training wheels. No matter how much I wished it, it was not in my cards to be a Girl Who Wears Lipstick.
TRIVIA TIME: Do you know what separates Girls Who Wear Lipstick from women who don’t?
Wearing lipstick.
This whole thing sounds positively ludicrous, I know. But when life is stressful, overwhelming and often confusing, it gets easier and easier to feel unenthusiastic about yourself. And that sucks. Top it all off with chronically chapped lips that don’t look supple and glamorous despite all the water consumed and super-strength chapstick purchased and I’ve been feeling like all sorts of nasty grossness.
A realization struck. It was time to kill two birds with one stone pet multiple dogs with one hand. I could infuse more fun into my life, make my lips pretty, and actualize my personal style/makeup aisle fantasies in one simple and cost-effective way:
Wearing lipstick.
Drugstore lipsticks are a wonderful way to boost your look, mood, and confidence without spending a whole lot (compared to fancy makeup brands, at least). A little pop of color can certainly go a long way! Here are the ones I picked up:
I researched the hell out of my options before unleashing my beast in the closest makeup aisle, ultimately deciding on the shades above. Sure, I could make my selections just based on what struck my fancy in the store, but then
a) my shopping basket would overfloweth, and
b) I’d be broke.
My lips are pretty pigmented to start with (I think that’s the terminology? Please excuse the newbie) and my Norwegian skin is not unlike a ball of fresh mozzarella. So, I thank the beauty bloggers with similar skin/lip tones whose pictures I stalked for three days straight to ensure I was making okay choices.
1. Closed mouth smiles are really hard. Like, really hard. Am I in pain? Disgusted? Uncomfortable? About to burst into tears? No, I’m just trying to smile with my mouth shut so you can actually see the lipstick. While apparently looking like a Grade A goober.
2. No lip liner was used in the making of this blog post. I’m the queen of simplicity and winging it. And I don’t have the attention span or patience yet.
3. Lipstick shades look different depending on the lighting, camera, and computer monitor. I tried to show you multiple pictures — from both my digital camera and smartphone — for the shades I felt weren’t accurately represented in my initial photos. Annoyingly, that may have been for naught because they all look different depending on what computer/phone screen you’re using. Hmph!
4. There are a lot of awkward selfie armpits. Avoiding them was a struggle. Also, please excuse my wild, frizzy hair — I took these photos #straightoutta the shower.
Let’s go!
Getting a “nude” lipstick shade was on my to-do list, and I feel surprisingly satisfied with my first pick! “Nude and the City” doesn’t appear too brown, wash me out too much, or look generally heinous — so, Continue reading “Happiness on the Cheap with Drugstore Lipstick”
No one can deny the powerful influence music has on the way you feel. One moment you can be on top of the world, and then Evanescence’s My Immortal comes on and you can forget about ever feeling happy again.
To avoid having such emotions sprung on you without warning, crafting playlists for specific moods and situations can be a very handy tool. Whether you’re trying to keep a feeling going strong or influence yourself into a productive mood change, creating collections of songs that embody your desired results can be the quickest and easiest way to success.
Since this is the How to Be Happy series, obviously it’s time to discuss making your very own happy playlist! My personal happy playlist makes me feel like I just received the greatest news over and over again, every time I listen to it. Each song is so catchy, so dance-y, and so filled with feel-good energy that I can’t help but boogie my way to cheerfulness.
So, how should you go about starting your own happy playlist? Continue reading “How To Be Happy: Forge a Feel-Good Playlist”
“I wish I could do something like that but I just don’t have the time!”
said every person ever.
Dedicating some of your time and energy to a good cause sounds so ideal to many, but it’s often dismissed–staying just an ideal and not becoming a reality. Whether we’re spending our time working, going through school, interning, running never-ending errands, or doing chores around the house, it seems like there’s no time to squeeze in something that doesn’t have a direct and immediate impact on our lives. Things we all would love to do we just don’t seem to have time for anymore, including giving back to others.
Hey! Cheer up, busy bee! Doing something that makes you feel good isn’t an added stress, it’s a stress reliever! As impossible as it may seem in your life right now, it is entirely possible to lead the giving lifestyle you’ve been yearning to lead without sacrificing a thing that you’ll miss. Do you want to know how and why?
When you’re giving your time to something you’re passionate about and that you really love, it doesn’t feel like you’re giving up anything at all.
About a year ago, I needed a life pick-me-up… I was growing increasingly tired of the “me”-driven behavior that naturally reigns supreme in my collegiate age group. The circumstances surrounding growing up lead us to act in this way, but it’s just not who I am. So, I began my personal endeavor to start donating my time and efforts to places that could use it more than, say, …Facebook.
As a busy college student, I started with a very small commitment that I actually did not complete until recently:
Since that time last year I tried my hardest to grow my hair out to straggly mermaid lengths, getting it chopped off and donated to Continue reading “How To Be Happy: Give Without Giving Up”
In my last post I introduced The Cheerful Times‘ new feature, the How to Be Happy series. I would like to kick off this new addition with a somewhat heavier first tip that holds a lot of importance to me personally: throw out the bad apples.
We meet a lot of people in life. Some of them are insanely wonderful, some of them are downright unpleasant. Some of them start out being insanely wonderful and then turn out to be downright unpleasant. And some, of course, just straight out suck. With all the good people we have in our lives, why is it that we continue to hold on to (and often give priority to) those who make us feel a certain incompleteness?
I struggled with this for a long time. Throughout high school and a few years after, I put so much energy into Continue reading “How to Be Happy: Throw Out the Bad Apples”
The Cheerful Times 