Monday Monday - almost missed posting on time due to DST!

I generally deal with DST by trashing my sleep schedule so hard that weekend that I barely tell anything is different on Monday. Works like a charm.

I got most of this written out earlier, got distracted by things, and suddenly realized it was almost midnight, oopsie!

Not much motion on the big stitching projects but I did finally start the Badass Crosstitch #yearofstitch and post the first week on Wednesday.

I have the second done as well but am not sure when I want to start posting them. I'm thinking maybe I'll post them Friday to split up the week a little bit.

The biggest thing that I did this week was finally rearrange my apartment. We moved in early July but the space never settled into a good functional flow and so many things never really seemed to find a proper place. We switched two of the rooms so that we now have the worlds tiniest great room and a separated office/craft/workout space.

Operation "be able to take a single picture in my home and not see a random cardboard storage box" is moving along nicely, but there's a lot left to do.

One of the projects I really want to tackle is a makeup and beauty product re-org. I literally have a box full of subscription boxes full of stuff that hasn't been sorted.

So of course I bought more beauty stuff on Thursday.

I stopped in at Ulta after my hair appointment to pick up the Tarte facial oil on the far right and see if I could get my brows done at the Benefit Brow bar (could and did!). I'd been stalking that particular NYX liquid Suede lip colour for a while so I grabbed that and another red. The third red was entirely accidental as I was comparing them to a color I knew I liked and simply forgot to put it down. Still haven't decided whether to keep or swap it. 

I really like a long sweeping liner brush so I'm enjoying going back to a true liquid liner but I would prefer it to be even more matte. I'm also looking forward to trying that silicone brush with a gel liner as I'm not a big fan of the usual suggested firm angle brush and I feel like I've lost the ability to do things I used to do daily on a moving train with liquid (I commuted to college and grad school).

I've gone back to dark blue hair as I grow out the white and it's like hanging out with an old friend. Note also my freshly waxed brow line! Even without filling them in (I always break out less if they don't fill them after) I haven't had brows that crisp since Halloween!

My nails were pretty trashed so I repainted them on a shade I hope will stand up to the blue hair dye. 

The more I use that gold flake polish the more I want to. Not to mention that I saw both a macro gold flake indie polish and a gold foil enhanced mani tutorial vid on instagram within the last day that I'm trying not to think too hard about. Following Sveta_Sanders is kind of a problem as it's Russian language so I can't even read her posts much less buy those polishes, and she post some AMAZING polishes.

My other main beauty related move this week is to drink lots and lots and lots of water. It's so trite but it really works and I hate that I forget that. 

I haven't used lip balm in days and I could probably apply a lip stain right now with no prep whatsoever. I was noticing my skin looking pretty grumpy lately (for example that pic collage above, eek) and this has immediately perked it right up.

Jus head

I have kind of a giant headache tonight so no big update on the Juicing.

Though perhaps that *is* the update on the juicing?

I've now had all but one juice flavor and I can say so far that it's not horrible and I can see this working pretty well for some people, but I personally won't be doing this again. 

I can say however that my skin does seem to be appreciating it and I still have not had much in the way of hunger issues.

More post when I'm not freezing and huddling with the cats in dim lighting.

I will leave you with this pic of tomorrow's spicy lemonade drink thawing on the stove. See that dark bit at the top? That's where all the solids collected before freezing. 

That warm orange tinge is from all the cayenne pepper. 

Woo!

Jus by Julie Cleanse - Three juiced up days

Trying something a little different this week and I figured I'd share. A friend of mine did a three day juice cleanse a couple of weeks ago and I decided to give it a shot, so I'm going to do a few posts here over the next few days about how I'm doing on it.

I had a roommate that would do the Master Cleanse from time to time and that is just WAAAAAYY too much cleanse for me. A) I don't tolerate spicy things very well B) All you get to ingest is spicy C) Did I mention spicy? Enough about that though, on to what I'm actually doing.

Clicky this logo for the Jus home page

I liked this cleanse because it doesn't involve any sort of *ahem* flushing - I'm going to let you research that for yourself, it's only three days long, you can have coffee or tea in moderation which is MEGA IMPORTANT for me, it's aimed at health rather than weight loss, and you're drinking different things throughout the day.

Basically you get eighteen bottles of various blended juices designed to be spread out over the three days. You drink them in the order listed on the bottles. There are a couple of change-ups, but for the most part each day is the same set of six juices. Here's their FAQ for more detailed information.

The cleanse is fairly expensive, $150.00 before discount (plus shipping) for three days. My friend had gotten a Groupon deal which was expired by the time I looked but I did find a Living Social deal for it. That is also now expired but I'm sure if you keep an eye out another will pop up.

I set up have my juices delivered this past Friday, and they came in a rather nice insulated bag which I put in the freezer to keep the juices good until today when I planned to use them (remember this bit, it will come up later).

My day got mega delayed today between getting up late and a field trip to my wedding venue for measurements, so I'm currently only on my fourth of the six blends. While I'll leave reviews of the individual juices for tomorrow I will say that it is both very filling and ENTIRELY too sweet for my tastes.

Oh, and you better like bananas (Spoiler alert: guess who doesn't like bananas).